My friend Christen and I were working on a project at her house the other day, so Ali and the aforementioned-post-surgery-for-the-bean-up-his-nose Luke got some time to play together. They went into the other room to color together, and I rolled my eyes as I listened to the bossiness that I heard from Ali in the other room…
“No, Luke..we’re supposed to do it like this.”
“No, we’re supposed to color here.”
“No, Luke!! We’re not supposed to do that!!! WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!!!!”
Wait for it…wait for it…yup, here she comes.
A panicking Ali ran into the room, followed by a sheepishly guilty Luke. Ali ran to Christen and informed her breathlessly and aghast, “Luke colored on the floors!!!”
As I said, Ali’s just not familiar with the idea of mischief.
(But poor Luke, he’d never colored on the floors before, so obviously it was Ali’s fault. Either he felt the need to impress her with his bravery in the face of danger, or he was driven to color elsewhere because of her overbearingly bossy ways.)
(So I apologized to Christen for my child’s obvious bad influence on her son.)
But Ali’s shock at his scandalous actions was nearly more than she could handle.
So you can only imagine her awe and astonishment when I told her that Friday night, we were going to paint on the walls in Noah’s future room.
“We can do that?!?!?!”
“Yes! And no one even needs to get in trouble!”
Although she was quite ready to get started, we got her to help us get the drop cloths all in place,
And then we handed her The Weapon of Destruction.
She was excited as any Trading Spaces participant has ever been when Chris did The Big Paint Color Reveal:
And, true to form, very serious about her responsibility of putting the first paint on the wall.
We worked as a team: Chris and our friend Amanda doing the edges, and Ali and I doing the walls. Her with the paintbrush,
and me rolling over her paintbrush chaos.
She had a moment of panic when she got the first paint on her finger – a traumatic mistake, obviously:
So we tried to get her to loosen up a bit by telling her she could write her name on the wall. It worked. She even ALMOST looked mischievous at her actions.
It even made her relax enough to go ahead and add Noah’s name to the wall, too:
Despite her help, we managed to quite miraculously get two coats of paint on the walls, and, with quite a bit of our more-experienced-in-such-matters friend Amanda, managed to turn this Grandmotherly and crooked light fixture… 
Into a very nice ceiling fan that EVEN has a fancy wall-mounted remote control:
Although it did have a bit of a crazying effect on Chris.
But, Ali had a delightful time getting to experience what it would be like to do a bit of naughtiness, and Chris managed to live through the ceiling fan installation AND get the thing to actually work.
So, although we don’t have the rest of the nursery set up yet, the paint is gloriously finished.
Before:
After:
And if you have any rooms that need painting, Ali’s been begging to do it all again ever since:
:) I'm glad you guys had fun. :):) The room looks good. :) I'm so glad. Ali is precious and I loved her writing her's and Noah's name on the walls.
I don't know. You've given her a taste now, you know. Next, she'll be hittin' the hard stuff. Before you know it…playdough in the carpet.
She looks so cute painting…have you created the paint monster? Our daughter took (3) canvases and had Mabry paint them and then put them up in the toy room…here is her blog and you can scroll down and check it out. http://wrongweek.blogspot.com/
Ali looks so adorable in these pictures! And I love the color!
I love the one where she paints her name and then Noah's name! She does look mischevious. I don't think she would make it at my house with James. She might have a panic attack and hyperventilate when she sees all this boy gets into!
Come and pick you some muscadines! We've got plenty!
LOVE the colors…what a difference. and the last photo?? to die for.
Love that color! You may have created a monster who now thinks she can paint on the walls at anytime. ;)
I'm pretty sure, Luke wasn't under any bad influence, he was just showing off :)
I love that first picture of Ali with the paintbrush, very cute pose!
The room is beautiful and including Ali in the painting is such a great thing to do;let's hope she doesn't think she can paint any walls now. Ready to see the set up now.
So funny. I wish my child was that worried about right and wrong. Haha:) Cute color in the nursery!!! Can't wait to see the finished product!
If you guys make a trip to Nashville anytime soon, Ali would be WELCOME to help me paint!! Maybe I could bribe her to help me paint since it's a girl, and I know how bad she wanted one- haha! I know it needs to be done soon since my sweet baby Brooklyn is due THE WEEK OF CHRISTMAS!?! BUT I work in a school, and back-to-school is just as busy as Christmas minus all the happy and giving spirit :) Maybe it'll happen by October… Noah's room looks great!!
The week of Christmas IS a bummer time to be due – believe me, I know since I am too!!
I wouldn't have already painted either except that Chris wanted it done before football season kicked off. Otherwise, I'd probably be painting at the last minute!!
Plus you had to work around the Amazing Amanda's schedule too!
Come visit Ottawa :) We always have lots of painting…
You'll wake up one morning and the whole house will be different colors!