Odds and ends

My wall is finally done. The one that was empty above my dining table. I had our wedding song printed on 4 12x12 pieces of card stock paper. Then mod podged them to four 12x12 canvas squares. This is what I came out with. I did mess up on 3 of the 4 squares that is why there is only one green and three white but I kinda like it better this way.

I love it....even if its not perfect

This is the end table I bought off of craigslist for my soon to be baby niece.  My sister-in-law is doing her room in grays, yellow and white....so so pretty.  So I told her I would find her a table to go next to the rocker.  This table is perfect because the legs are the same style as the crib (Jenny Lind).  Hope she likes it.  The pics do not do it justice,

Before

 Pretty beat up

After

Looks so much better in person but kinda funky right?

Its a pale yellow with a darker goldish yellow stencil.





My love for Christmas vacation.

This love affair probably began when I was in elementary school.  The thought of getting a week off from school at Christmas time....it couldn't get better than that.  The week full of family, friends, playing with new toys, sledding or making snowmen, eating great food, staying up late and so on.....  I still love Christmas vacation because of some of the same things.  Playing with my kids, waking up late, cuddling in bed with the kids, watching movies at night, spending time with our families and of course celebrating Jesus's birth.  Thanking Him for giving us life and saving us.  In this fallen world I praise my Savior.  He lived a perfect life to show us how to live.  Then died on the cross for the sins of the world only so we can be saved and have eternal life with Him in heaven.  He loves me more than I can ever love anyone and that just blows my mind.  I am so thankful for Him and his grace that he has given me freely.  Thank you Jesus.

Peace, Joy and Love fills our home this holiday season and I pray that it fills yours.
Some pictures of our weekend. 

 Diving in

Sibling love

I need to get this blog printed.  The whole reason I do it is so my children will have it when they are older.  Happy Holidays!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Layna has been so excited to celebrate Jesus's birthday.  We had a cake and sang happy birthday to him on Christmas day.  What a day we had....a day filled with family and friends....the kids had so much fun.  After the craziness of the weekend, Layna and I enjoyed our nightly walk together and she wanted to stop by the nativity scene at the church by our house.  She wanted to see baby Jesus in his manger since he had been missing from it all of the times we visited before Christmas.  When we got there Layna says "Happy Birthday Jesus, your my best friend."  This melted my heart....I responded "He's mommy's best friend too."

Childlike faith
He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."   Matthew 18:2-4

My sweet bedroom.

So in my frenzy to update my house....I decided to do a mini makeover on my bedroom. The mini makeover cost me about $100.00 but made a huge difference! We love it. Before it was light blue boring, old looking and basic. Now with a little paint, stencil, spray paint to paint accessories....here's is what I got!  Again excuse my crappy photos....saving for a new cam. 

Love the Moroccan stencil but I may never stencil anything ever again. 

Yes, I need some throw pillows and window treatments.

You can kind of see the stencil here. 

I don't know how people stencil in contrasting colors....its a pain.

Snow in October.



A week off from school the first week in November because of a snow storm.....PRICELESS. The kids loved it and we didn't mind the mini vacation.

No Santa!

That's what is happening right now in my house. Layna says she doesn't want Santa to come in the house on Christmas Eve and Hunter just doesn't like him. What a crazy thing us mothers do to our kids just to get that one photo of them with Santa. We hand over our children to a STRANGER dressed in a funny costume and expect them to be thrilled. Its a weird concept. Well every year my parents have Santa come to their house on a firetruck. Its pretty cool. The firetruck is lit up and Santa comes out to bring the kids gifts. Our friends, The Gaudets joined us this year which made it extra fun. This is what happened when Santa came

Adrianna and Ava

At least Mommy and Daddy were happy

Layna and her Belle

Layna: "I just love you so much Belle".  Too cute!



Thomas!

The girls

What an awesome tradition.  Maybe next year we will all be smiling in our Santa picture.

Happy 3.5 Birthday to Layna

Layna's school is celebrating her birthday tomorrow on her half birthday because she is a summer baby and wouldn't be able to celebrate it with her classmates.  Her request for snack time was for me to make rice krispie treats....yumo.  So I did and she thought it was so awesome.  I just love this little girl.

She is just so thankful for everything I do.  I am so thankful for her.

Fall scramble

The lovely season of Autumn brings the busiest time of year because of football season.  My husband coaches so he is not around most of the fall.  That is one reason why I haven't been able to post.  Therefore here is a picture collage of the fall scramble. 

For Halloween this year we had a pretty cute Tinkerbell and an adorable Eli Manning. 

Thanksgiving was so much fun.  The kids had a blast playing with Nolan at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Then we went to NaNa and Papas to finish off the day where Hunter played football with the big boys and Layna enjoyed making bracelets with Katlyn. 

Stud muffin

My little diva

My favorite room.

Ahhh....my beautiful table from Ballard's Design.  My very first piece of nice furniture.  I just love it.  Before I had a round pedestal table (that I still love)  with small chairs that were not comfy at all.  Very cute set up but not inviting.  The table was in the center of the room with the chairs around it.  My vision of the dining table off to the side with a bench and chairs actually looks perfect.  We swagged the light fixture and now it feels bigger, comfy and inviting.  We love to eat dinner here.  My daughter says "Its just beautiful mommy.  Thank you for doing this."  She's my biggest fan!

View from the kitchen

Art for the wall is coming.......Ill post about it when I am finished!

View from the living room

The bench is custom made from an old bed.  Cool huh?

I always wanted to paint my dining chairs a funky color and I love turquoise.  I am so happy I did it! I thought even if I didn't like it, its only paint right?



The sofa redo

My sofa....many years old actually passed down to me from my mother-in-law.  I love the camel back style and it is super big....perfect for my husband to stretch out on.  I always dreamed of getting in reupholstered but knew it would cost me a lot of money.  So what did I do....I decided to do it myself.  I knew it was going to be a time consuming job but I was ready to tackle it.  I knew I had to take the previous fabric off and use it as a pattern for the new fabric....that's pretty much all I knew. 
Here's the before:  It was green but super worn.  I loved the color but it was getting nasty.  Blah.

So I took the fabric off.  It took awhile to get many of the staples out.  The I used the pattern from the old sofa to cut the fabric for the new sofa.  The new fabric cost me $9.00 a yard and I needed 15 yards.  (not bad).  I had some help doing the arms...they were a pain.  My good friend Bethany came over and hand stitched the roll of the arm so there wouldn't be a space between the fabric of the arm and the front of the arm.  Then my coworker helped with the cushions because I would have never been able to do that! 

Here's the final result:  Its a dark gray twill.  I would have loved a white sofa but with two little ones probably not a great idea.  I am super happy with the outcome......we need to pull the back a bit tighter and get a special staple gun that will fit into the crease in the back but otherwise its pretty awesome.  .not perfect but there is no such thing as perfect right? Of course my awesome coffee table too! 



Latest redo

Lets go back to when TJ and I first got hitched.  We were married the same year we bought our new house and started our first jobs as teachers therefore we couldn't afford to furnish the house with new furniture from those nice furniture stores.....so we went to ikea and furnished our 2 bedroom ranch for under $1400.  Fast forward 7 years later we have bought our first piece of real furniture from Ballard's design.  Our dining room table.  It so AWESOME!  I will post some pics tomorrow of the dining room before and after.  I definitely need a new camera because many of the before pictures of what I have done to the house is taken on my phone so the quality isn't up to par but you will get the picture.  So this is the recent redo and the last for awhile...maybe.  I have done a lot in the past month or so so I will be posting those things in the meantime. 

The coffee table before:  It actually was a high gloss black table that we bought for $40 off of craigslist.  A little high in price but it is a quality piece.  After I started to sand it I remembered to take the before pic....Ugh.

I sanded the table to remove some of the black paint then lightly painted it white.  After I stained the "paint"  with a charcoal stain and got these results.

The look I was going for was the old, beatup, not-so-perfect look....something from an old farmhouse.  Its country chic. 

We absolutely LOVE it.  It fits with my decor and I couldn't be happier.  

Dance party in the kitchen

This is very common in our household. Dance party happens right before dinner when everyone is cranky and hungry. Its the only way I can get them to stop screaming/ crying and have fun while they wait to eat. Its quite humorous to watch them dance. Hunter LOVES to dance. He always has. Layna on the other hand, started to dance because of her brother. She now loves it but because he was getting the attention when he danced and of course she was not having that.  Here is a little taste of their sweet moves.

Ummm.....Elaine from Seinfeld;)

Its been awhile

Wow, its been awhile since I posted.  I need to step it up a bit because a lot has gone on since school started for us.  Layna loves school.  She is learning so much and thriving....She is becoming such a sweet, loving little girl.  Layna continually tells me how much she loves me, how beautiful things are in the house, and thanks me for doing the daily things that I always do for the kiddos.  It is the sweetest thing ever.  She truly makes my day by saying these sweet words. Hunter, my crazy boy is growing so fast.  He is super active and is now talking.  He says many words just trying to keep up with his sister.  He climbs on everything and tries to get into EVERYTHING.  What a difference between boys and girls!  

Another reason why I have been gone awhile is because TJ has been coaching football and we all know high school football is the next NFL league.  He has been gone most of the time since August.  Throughout this fall Tj has told me multiple times that I need to find a hobby.  Its true....as many moms do, I have spent the past 3 1/2 years raising my babies. My focus is on them.....Well since TJ can have a hobby (football) why can't I?  Right? 

During the past 4yrs I had thought my knack for design and decorating flew out the window with the two pregnancies.  I thought I had lost it.  Well maybe not.....I have been doing many projects the past month or so.  These include reupholstering my sofa, redesigning my dining room which includes painting walls, chairs from craigslist, reupholstering the chairs and designing a bench for the table, redecorate my bedroom for under $100, designing a picture wall for the playroom and my new project is to antique this coffee table to go with the new pad.  Wow....it seems like a lot when I type it out like that.  I have done reupholstering, stenciling and antiquing all int he past 3 weeks!  Yes, I am tired because I work and raise my two kiddos and it was football season so no hubby..... So you ask when this all happens....NAPTIME.  The most wonderful time for the day!!!!!  So I think I am going to start a design/ decorating, family blog..... It will stay a simple kind of life because that it is....I take old things and make them new, cool techniques to add some flair to a room and paint....the best discovery out there PAINT....it can change a whole room's look without much expense.  I will start by posting before an after pics once I get my act together.  I am excited about this....its tons of fun and something I love to do.  Layna also loves it....she makes it a point to tell me how beautiful the things I have done are and how thankful she is that I made it beautiful....TOO CUTE!

School bells ring!

The bells are ringing for TJ and I to go back to work!  I am loving it so far.  Working part-time so I can enjoy all of the wonderful moments of my kids lives is something I will always cherish!  Today I was able to bring Layna to her first day of preschool.  I can't bleieve that she is already in school.  I knew she would love it.  She keeps talking about when she is 5 years old she gets to go on a bus to kindergarden....Really Layna....lets continue to pull at mommy's heartstrings.  Lets get through preschool first!  When I brought her to school she walked right in and could care less where I was.  Lovely...the independence already begins.  This should be an interesting year.....she is the only girl in the class.  She will continue to hold her throne even at school.  Maybe dance class will be in the near future to balance it out....Shhhhh don't tell TJ.

                   Layna walking into school                                         Layna in her classroom

Miss Independent leaving school