On This Day...

Five years ago, on this day, I was being blessed beyond measure.  I was surrounded by friends and family at a baby shower that my sweet friend Aimee hosted for me and my little girl.

This is what I looked like:

 Whoa, mama.  I was only 29 weeks!

Two years ago, on this day, we finally had a SOLD sign in our front yard!  We were officially moving on to bigger and better!

And it was a good thing, because...

Two years ago, on this day, we saw two lines!  We were expecting this guy:

We were definitely going to need a bigger house!

Today was spent at home with my hubby and kids.  My sister, niece and nephews were here for part of the day.  My step-dad came over for supper.  We didn't do anything special or exciting, but it made my heart happy to be with so many people that I love.  Family.  On this day, I am so thankful for family.  <3

Our House - Two Years

April 16, 2011:

Oh, what a happy day!  I can't believe it's been two years already!

This is what our house looked like at the time:
 

This house was and is a dream come true!  The building process was so exciting!  Here are a few pictures from those first couple weeks.

March 31, 2011, accepted purchase agreement:

April 8, 2011, framing up the foundation:

April 11, 2011, foundation:

These can be considered our official house "before" pictures.  :)  I had wanted to blog the whole building process as it happened, but life was so crazy at the time, trying to pack up our old house and get ready to move, that I just couldn't do it.  It's kinda fun to look back on now.  So glad I was that crazy lady that drove by taking pictures every other day! 

Office Rearranged

I'm sure you have all (my thousands of readers) been anxiously awaiting an update on our office, ever since this post way back in January.  I wish I had a post for you full of gorgeous, magazine worthy reveal photos, showing a beautifully decorated office, full of DIY projects and smart organization...  Maybe someday.  But the truth is, we spent a good part of a Saturday tidying up and rearranging, and another Saturday sorting through papers from our file cabinet and shredding most of it.  And then moved on to other things!  If IKEA weren't two hours away, I may have more to show, as I have lots of ideas swimming around in my head, but would need a trip to the land of Swedish meatballs to make them happen.  I'm also hoping to paint, but haven't settled on the color yet.  And if we're being completely honest, it most definitely doesn't look this way any more...  The pack n play got set back up, and the desk is a disaster, but it's better than before.  :)

So here's what we did, with before pictures on the left and after on the right....

We basically flipped the room completely around, the desk went to the opposite corner and the dresser went to the opposite wall.

We removed that old swivel rocker.  I hate that hideous thing, but it works great for rocking babies in the middle of the night!

We also removed that cheap bookshelf.  It is currently functioning as a nightstand in our bedroom, until we find something else.

 

Some of that junk pile got moved out to the garage, the rest is in a pile in the opposite corner!

 We took the pack n play down for a while, but since the little guy hasn't been sleeping the best, and he shares a room with his big brother, a lot of nights he ends up in the office at some point.

So, not the most thrilling post, but it is progress.  I have been using the office a lot more, and it feels so good to have my files in order again!  I'm hoping to add another desk or work area of some kind, as well as more storage, shelving, art...  Stay tuned!

Box of Goodness

Thanks to our tax return, I was able to order a few things that have been on my Amazon wish list for a while, and a box of goodness arrived on my doorstep yesterday!  Woohoo!

First up, a 2013 wall calendar.  It's about time, huh?!  Better than last year... I never got one at all!  So sorry if I missed your birthday!  ;-)  This year I went with a Charley Harper calendar.  I had one for 2011, and  I love the colorful artwork!  The best part of buying calendars full of amazing art is that you can frame your favorites later on for some cheap wall art!  We used three pages from a Georgia O'Keefe calendar to decorate the dining room of our first house.  And I'm considering  using some pages from our 2011 Charley Harper calendar in our current living room...

I FINALLY got my very own copy of the Young House Love book!  I was sort of hoping that I would get it for Christmas or my birthday, but nope.  So I bought it for myself.  I can't wait to spend some quality time with it.  I've been following the Young House Love blog for a few years, and John and Sherry are amazing, so I am confident that this book will not disappoint!

And now a few things to use in our home school!  Lena, our four year old, is doing preschool this year.  Her main focus is learning her letters and numbers, and it's been challenging.  The girl is just NOT detail oriented...  And she just doesn't really care!  I had heard of the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD a couple years ago while doing preschool with Eli, but he caught on so quickly with what we were doing that I never bothered to buy it.  But Lena needs all the help she can get!  Hopefully this DVD will trick her into learning something!

Eli, our six year old, is in kindergarten this year, and learning how to read!  I had heard great things about BOB books way back when, too, but never bought them.  Recently, my cousin's wife Cami suggested them as a good way to encourage Eli to read.  I'm excited to hear him read them!  I got this one, this one, and this one to start with!

Super frustrated that this picture won't post the right way!  Grrr!

One area where our homeschool has been lacking lately is in science, which is silly, because science is my faaaavorite!  We have a few Magic School Bus books, and have checked out a few DVDs from the library, so when I saw the complete series for a great price, I just had to snatch it up!  I haven't had a chance yet to look at what all 52 episodes are about, but I'm hoping to start watching them and doing activities to go along with each one.  I think all of us are going to love it!

Have you ordered yourself anything fun lately??

Mount & Float

Hey there!  I haven't been blogging much, because I'm contemplating making some changes, and I'm not sure how I'll be moving forward...  but I wanted to share this little update we did in the living room this weekend.  Nothing huge, but a step towards making things feel more finished around here.  So this is where we started...

Wow, that TV is dirty!

I always felt like our black TV on our black TV stand, just looked like a big black blob.  And I didn't like it.  So first things first, mount the TV on the wall!  This breaks up the black some, since the wall color shows in between.  And without the TV sitting on the stand, it's now an open area for me to add pretties to.  And bonus, it gets the TV farther away from all the little hands around here!  

TV break for the kiddos!

I have also gone back and forth and up and down on what to do on the wall behind and above the TV.  The clock that's there was just thrown up there one day when I got sick of not knowing what time it was when I was in the living room!  My original idea was to put a larger round clock up there, but I wasn't completely set on it.  I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I had the idea to put up a shelf first, or if I got the idea from this image I found on Pinterest...

Sorry, I don't know the original source.

Either way, I was (p)inspired!  :-)  I actually bought this floating shelf from IKEA when we were up in the cities celebrating our anniversary 7 weeks ago!  The poor thing has been hiding away in the closet, waiting for us to get around to mounting the TV, so we would know where to hang the shelf!

All done!  And clean!

Now I need to decide what, if anything, I will be doing to the wall, and how I want to decorate the shelf.  Or maybe I want to add one or two more shelves, like the inspiration photo...?  Knowing me, it will probably look just like this for a few more months...     

Silly Wet

I know, I know, I owe you an update on the office situation...  It's looking better in there, much better.  But I'll post about that another day...

If you're friends with me on Facebook, or if you follow me on Instagram, you already know about a fun little project that I did this past weekend.  I am absolutely in love with it, and I'm SO excited to share how I did it.  The best part is that it was E.A.S.Y!  If I can do it,  you can, too!  I am NOT a crafter, but I hosted some friends the other night for a craft night.  We were all just to bring whatever we might want to work on, and we'd eat, chat and craft the night away.  I was successful in all three areas.  ;-)  Unfortunately, this also means that I didn't manage to get any pictures of the process, so I'll do my best to explain!

Isn't it FABulous!?  Aaaahhh!  I love it!!  I know I am far from the first person to make DIY silhouettes, but I think mine are the best!  (Of course it could be because I absolutely adore the little people that they represent!)  Anyways...  Here it is, step by step:

1.  Take profile photos of your subjects.  This is the only part of the process that I did ahead of time.  I just snapped some photos of my kids with my iPhone while they were in the tub one day, since they were contained!  Here are the photos I used.

2. Print your photos out the size that you want your silhouettes.  I suppose there are probably a million different ways you could go about this.  I didn't think too hard about it!  The opening of my frame is about 10 inches tall, so I decided that I thought 6 inch tall silhouettes would be about right.  I simply inserted each photo to an individual Open Office Writer (basically an open source Microsoft Word) document, and enlarged it until I thought it was close to the right size.  Like I said, I was gabbing with my girlfriends while I did all this, so I didn't get too fussy with it.  I printed my photos in black and white, on fast draft mode, onto card stock.

3.  Cut out your heads!  Haha!  I just used the first scissors I could find.  Like I said, I'm not a crafter, so I don't have nice craft-only scissors,etc.  And I was too busy cleaning the house during the day to prepare for my craft, so the cheap scissors from the junk drawer were my tool for the evening.  My oldest son's silhouette was the easiest to cut out, since his picture was the clearest, straightest shot.  I did the face and then around the head, then just shaped the shoulder area how I thought looked best.  Seriously, no science or math here...  although this was an experiment... maybe this could be considered science.  I <3 science!  Aaaand, turning back around from that bunny trail....  Since my daughter and youngest son were both looking upward in their photos, I used their brother's silhouette as a sort of template for how to angle their necks, and to help determine where the back of sister's head should be!  I wish I had photos to show you of this step, so you could see how I sort of  faked certain parts to make things look right....

4.  Determine which way you want your silhouettes to face and trace around your photo cutouts onto black paper.  I happen to have a stash of scrapbook paper, so I grabbed a couple sheets of that.  Since I wanted my silhouettes to face to the right, I flipped my photos over and traced them so that they were facing to the left.  This way the non-traced-on side would end up the front, facing to the right.  Make sense??  Clear as mud?  Good.  :)

5.  Cut out your heads!  Again!  Do I even need to explain this step?  I had traced around my printed, cut-out photos onto black paper, so now I just needed to cut them out.  I went with a straight bottom, but you could shape them differently if you wanted.

6.  Attach to your background.  My silhouettes were going into the Norrlida frame from the best store on earth IKEA.  It has a mat inside that is black on one side and white on the other, so you can adhere whatever you want right onto whichever side you prefer.  Obviously I went with white.  I tried to do some measuring to determine where to place my silhouettes, but ended up eyeballing where I wanted them.  All I used to stick them in place was a tiny piece of double sided tape.  Then I popped the whole thing into the frame and oooohhhed and aaaahhhed!  (And Instagrammed!)

What do you think?  Are you going to try it now?  Let me know if you do!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chevron!

I changed my blog background in honor of the two of these that now reside in my living room!  <3 <3 <3 them!  More info to come!  ;-)

Something I Used To Be...

Over at These Moments, I've shared a couple of my goals for 2013.  (Am I the only one that still feels weird saying "twenty thirteen??")  I definitely have more personal goals to share, but I also have some house related goals for the year.  You see, I used to be a super organized person.  At our first house, everything had it's place.  I could put things away without a thought.  At this house, I have done very little organizing and I'm constantly wondering where in the world things go!  Which, unfortunately, results in stuff being dumped here, there, and everywhere!  And it's DRIVING ME NUTS!

Check out this bird's eye view of how my kitchen island looks as I type this...

Now picture me, hanging my head in shame...  I mean, seriously, no wonder I don't enjoy cooking these days, I can't find my kitchen counter!

SO, it's time!  Time to regain control of the clutter!  Time to tell all that stuff where to go!  (I mean that in the nicest way!)  Time!  To!  Organize!  *Cue the applause!*

2013 Home Goal #1:  Organize one room/space each month.

That's the official goal.  Sure, I'd love to organize the whole house this month.  But let's be realistic.  I have three young children.  We are all home, all the time.  And this is the sort of thing that gets worse before it gets better.  BUT, maybe if I start organizing other areas of the house, all that junk on my kitchen island will actually have a home!  Yay!

The plan is to start with what we'll call the "home office."  And get this happy coincidence:  Jen, over at IHeart Organizing, the BEST organizer around, has presented the blogosphere with a monthly organizing challenge! AND, January's challenge is to conquer the home office!  And boy do we need to!  Over the last 16 months, this room has served as the hubby's full time work office (his business now has an office, so he's no longer at home), his dressing room (his clothes live in the office closet and his dresser, which hangs out in there), the baby's sleeping area, and a dumping station...  I would love to turn the room into our home office/my craft room.  I'm not sure yet how I'm going to accomplish that, so stay tuned!  And with that, I'll leave you with some super embarrassing BEFORE pictures...

The view looking straight in the door

Turning to the left

Keep turning....

And all the way

A better view of the desk area

A better view of the junk corner...  Yikes!

SO, who's with me?!  Are you going to start with your home office?  Or some other area?  Or is your home perfectly organized already?

Light Up My Life

According to Pinterest, I pinned this lamp "39 weeks ago."  That's longer than I've ever been pregnant.  And I have three kids.  So yeah, I've had my eye on him for a while.  Annnnddd, now he's mine!  And his twin brother, too!  Yep, while shopping for clothes and groceries at my very favorite store Target yesterday, I spotted a couple of these lamps marked down to $13.98, and I couldn't resist!  My original pin was on my dining room board, but I'm thinking they'll look great flanking my sofa in the living room!  Yay turquoise!