The big day has finally come, we are officially empty nesters! Our two little birds flew from the nest this past weekend after a busy couple of weeks. Samantha was home for the two weeks between her Summer and Fall semesters of graduate school. Those two weeks were jam-packed with wedding planning, visiting friends, helping me in the shop and a friend’s wedding to top it all off. Jack was working full-time this summer while trying to fit in time with his friends from high school, spending time on the lake and preparing to head off to college.

See? Busy.

Then it all came to a screeching halt when we moved Jack on Friday and Sam went back up to school on Sunday. Wade and I figured out very quickly that the reality of being empty nesters is very quiet. Not that quiet is bad, but quiet is going to be an adjustment.

I don’t deal with change easily, so I decided to give myself something to look forward to…Grandbabies! This might be a little far fetched seeing as though my eldest will be in school for the next three years and my youngest… yea we are not even going to go there, but a Grandma wannabee can dream right?

Here’s what I did.

When Jack and Sam were growing up we had a little tradition. We would line them up to the basement wall every so often marking how much they had grown. Sadly, we were not able to bring that section of drywall with us when we moved to our current house.

I didn’t want this to happen to my future grandchildren, so I got creative.

I cut a 9”x77” piece of cotton canvas fabric and simply serged the edges.

Next, I made a two inch pocket at each end. These allowed me to insert a wooden dowel, which the chart would hang from.

The chart hangs six inches above the ground, and is marked again every three inches.  Every twelve inches the line was a little bit longer to signify a foot and was labeled with their corresponding number. I used a gold Testors enamel paint marker by Rustoleum to make these lines after I had initially drew them in with pencil.

Now back to the fact that I don’t have any grandbabies yet. Kind of seems like the chart would be useless right? Wrong.

I love that he will be my guinea pig.

The growth chart was hung in Jack’s old bedroom for the picture although it will not be staying there. I have some pretty big plans to make this space into our new guest bedroom.

~Wendy

PS if you would like a chart for your home, you can find on here.