Master bedroom makeover: part 1

I probably shouldn't start this blog yet, since there isn't a part 2 yet😁 But, here I am anyway.  When we moved in to our house the room was painted a nice dark brown color and the curtains were gold and cream. I promise they were gold and cream. It wasn't that "is it gold/white or blue/black" dress thing. It wasn't terrible, so I left it alone. I didn't love it and didn't plan on keeping it, but I also had no idea what I wanted my room to look like. I went back and forth netweeen grey and cream for almost 2 years before I finally made a decision. Cream. 

Now, one thing you must know about me is, I have to find the perfect shade of whatever color I am using. I research, research, and then I research a little more.  Some people definitely think I am a little ridiculous. I can tell by responses haha. I am ok with that. You know why? Because I love my colors. I know that I can live with these colors with no regrets. In my eyes, they are perfect. That's all that matters. 

On to my bedroom. I love Benjamin Moore paint. Love it. I chose Swiss Coffee. There are no weird undertones with our lighting. I seriously love it. 

I had not painted in awhile and wasn't sure how thick to apply the paint, so I ended up having to do 3 coats because the first coat was way too thin. Lesson learned.  This was first coat. 

2nd coat. 

3rd and final coat. 

I still have tons to do in my room.  I really want new bedding. That decision should be fun and take forever. I will do another blog on it once it's done. 

Here is a terrible before and after photo. It will at least give you an idea of what was done in the room. I remembered to take a before picture after I started painting. I think the "after" photo was after 2nd coat or while it was still wet because I see lines in the paint. The finished product is much better. 

Twenty Sixteen

Twenty sixteen. A new year. I am thankful we survived another year:) Let's see... I am hoping to pick up blogging again. It's something that felt too overwhelming in 2015. I am hoping to do more house projects this year. I didn't get as much done last year as I had hoped. 

Looking back... 2015, a stomach bug went through our house 3 horrible times. We homeschooled again and I MUST say that 1st grade is going much better than I thought it would. I am extremely pleased.  We went through a molar pregnant that ended well, as weird as that sounds. A certain kind of cancer can be a result of a molar pregnancy, I continued to test negative for that and I am thankful. I am still some what in the waiting process for that but I am hopeful:). I painted some furniture. Ave turned 3 and my boys are 6!! 

I have started Spark Joy by Marie Kondo. I read her first book and loved it. It helped me declutter tons. I hope to really get my house in order this year.  I have already started the process and already feel better about what I have done.

Hopefully I will write more frequently this year! 

We are ready for spring!!

I feel like I have the winter blues. I am so over this cold weather. I am so ready to get some projects done but can't seem to find the motivation to do some of it. I am ready for my garage to be warm enough to paint in!!
I will try give a little insight on our lives at the moment.
Ty and Micah are playing upward basketball. It. Is. Cute. They are both great defense players. Dribbling is hard to remember sometimes and shooting can be overwhelming but they are doing great. We are on week 5 (I think) and Micah has scored 1 time and Ty scored 2 times. It's a big deal to score!!! They are loving it. Life for us right now is a constant count down till the next game.
Home school is still going well. It's going slower than I would like, but it's still going:). I keep trying to remind myself that they are young for kindergarten and they are boys. At the end of the year, if they aren't ready to move on, we do kindergarten again next year. No biggie.
I am loving my boys at this age. They are so fun.
Averie is as wonderful as ever. I love that kid. She is such a sweet little helper. She loves to help me in the kitchen as much as possible. I can usually count on her to clear the table. She loves to play with the boys as much as they will let her. Which isn't as much as she would like. She loves playing babies and animals. She loves jumping off things and climbing and just being crazy.
As for myself....
I just bought paint to try out a project. I will post about it if it goes well. If it doesn't go well it will go in the trash. I am working on painting the trim in our foyer area. I hate painting trim btw. I have a few sewing projects that I want to get to. I am working to organize and get rid of stuff. I plan to have a massive yard sale as soon as it gets warm.
I guess that's all that's going on here. Will update later!

Kitchen and Living Room paint

I had hoped to keep up with my blog better since we bought a house and potentially had more to write about. I just seem to find myself so busy that I just don't have it in me to blog!!

Quick update: We are moved in, mostly unpacked, and partially painted. We still have SO much work to do!!

We have been here for 4 months and you guys. I. Love. My. Paint. The living room and foyer was originally painted a cream color. The color wasn't bad but we had tons of holes to fill. The lady before us must have taken a hammer and nail and just randomly punched holes everywhere. Ok, that is a slight exaggeration BUT she did make tons of nail holes and all pictures were hung with screws. Head. Ache. Those had to be filled and the walls were scuffed. Plus, as much as I love cream color walls, we had been renting before and the walls were cream and all I wanted to do was paint! I was determined to paint! I was determined to paint grey (even though I was told you should never paint your walls grey because it is a depressing color)!! Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore is the best grey. I love, love, love it!! I still need to buy blinds and curtains for the living room. I also need to hang pictures but I know I am going to love how it's going to look!! I will post a picture once it's done.

As for the kitchen, it was painted a horrible yellow. Maybe the yellow wasn't horrible if you like yellow, I just don't like it on my walls. I am neutral girl. I am still playing with the idea of painting my cabinets white. I think it would look fab with my new BLUE walls!!! I was looking for a perfect non country blue color and I found it!! Windy City by Benjamin Moore.

Below are a few before and after photos. They aren't the best photos but hopefully I can take better ones later!!

Oh!!! And also a special thanks to Anna Martin, Brandon Winston, and Sarah Mapes for all your help painting!!!!

 

And So It Begins....

We bought the house!! We couldn't be more excited!!! It's been a crazy 2 weeks, but things are starting to calm down. We signed papers 2 weeks ago on a Friday. We had to be out of the house we were renting by Monday. Let me tell you, it was a LONG weekend! One night included staying up till 5am and waking again at 9am.
My last blog post was about picking out paint colors. I stressed and stressed about this and then decided to stop thinking about it for a week or 2. Yes, I was actually able to stop thinking about it. The day before we signed for the house, I went to the paint store with my paint color ideas. I had completely decided on my living room color but was having trouble with the kitchen color. I bought 3 paint samples. I ended up being very hesitant about both kitchen colors. I had read enough in blogs about my living room color to know that I should just use it. The kitchen was a different story. I had a Pinterest picture as my inspiration and no idea what color to use! After painting both colors on the wall and hating both, I decided to just go a shade lighter and pray that it would be okay!!!
We headed back to the paint store and bought all supplies. Rebekah had sent me a few colors after looking at my inspiration that she thought looked like my color. I only remembered the name of one of those and went with it. The guy showed me the paper color swatch. I held it against my other paper color swatch, it was lighter. He asked if I wanted another paint sample. My answer? "Nope! I am just going to do it! And I did.
Once we started painting on the walls I hated both colors I picked. I felt slightly panicked because we had just bought like 6 gallons of paint and I wasn't going to love it. I was stuck! No returning it to the store!! Then it was done...
Guys. I LOVE it!!!! I love my living room. I love my kitchen. It makes me the happiest to sit where I can see both colors together at the same time. These colors are perfect!!!!
We have done so much work so far! We have tons more to do. I hope to keep you posted! Here are a few pictures of the process. I will post more pictures later!!

Something Blue…or is that green??

I can’t seem to be consistent on blogging.  Sometimes I love doing it. Sometimes I have nothing to say.  Sometimes I just need a place to write my thoughts.  Sometimes this is the best way for people without facebook to keep up with us.  I have made a decision at the moment to blog again.

  We have a lot going on! We are in the process of buying a house! I am just not a giddy person when it comes to buying a house.  Nothing about this has excited me so far.  I think I have a fear that things will fall through before we close.  I have heard that story a few times.  It happens.  I hope I become giddy once we close. 

I am getting to paint for the first time.  I am getting to pick the colors on my own.  I had no idea there were so many shades of blue.  I just can’t seem to find the RIGHT shade.  I still have time to look, but man, this is frustrating!  I will find one color and think it’s perfect, then I will find another shade of blue and think it must be perfect.  Then I compare the two and realize one looks grey and the other looks green.  Who knew!??!

I do hope to continue blogging through out the summer.  Hopefully I can pick the right shade of blue and share it. 

As for my littles, we are just trying to enjoy summer during all of this!! More about them later!!

Our Life Right Now- October

Hi!  Yeah, things have been a little crazy here.  We have just been taking turns being sick. NOT fun!  In between those times that we are sick? I am trying to catch up on cleaning my house.  I already said it, but I will say it again, NOT fun! Here is a little of what we are up to these days though.

Well, I have been doing from couch to 5k.  This is my 3rd time starting this program and my least favorite time.  I love the girls that I am running with, but it is so hard this time.  I keep having shin splints, which are the absolute worst.  It’s just hard.  But, I am doing it.  I “jogged” for 25 minutes the other night.  No stopping.  That is seriously a big deal for me.  I had trouble running 1 minute!! I remember thinking there was no way that I would be able to run 5 minutes!!!! So 25 minutes? Yeah, that is huge. 

We are still doing preschool…yay! It has been hard with all of our sickness and honestly, it has been hard to do it everyday that we are sick. We are having to go slower than I expected we would, but there really  isn’t a reason that we should be rushing at this point. It is easy for me to get discouraged with how slow we are going, but they are learning.  That is what is important.  They do still get excited when I say that it is time for school.  I am really glad that they are enjoying it:)

Averie is just growing too fast.  I know I have said this 1,000 times on here, but we LOVE her!!! She makes us laugh every day.  She is saying SO many words now.  One of my favorites? bweeeese! (please!)  It is seriously almost impossible to turn her down if she says please.  Almost. I also love when she says “o-tay” (okay) or “o-tay ma-ma” (okay mama).  She is obsessed with her baby right now.  She insists on being rocked before bed time even though we do NOT rock our babies to sleep.  Where did this come from?? haha “rock” she says.  Annnnnnd we rock.  And we sing. And we sing. And we sing.  And she says “again” and we do it again:)

Ty and Micah are really into Mario stuff right now.  They still love super hero stuff as well. In fact, Ty wants to be batman for Halloween and Micah wants to be flash. I honestly don’t know how I am going to make a flash costume, but I refuse to spend $20 on one.  At this age, I am sure he will be happy with what ever I come up with.  I LOVE this age that they are at.  I love the conversations.  I love their kindness.  I just love, love, love them.

Blessed!!

Preschool Homeschool

My baby boys just turned 4. FOUR! I am really amazed at how fast this is going. It makes me a lot sad!

We have made the choice at this time to home school our kids. We don't know what our future holds, but right now, this is what we have decided. That being said, I have decided to start a preschool program with them. Being a whole 4 years old, they now need more structure to our day. I have chosen a VERY simple program online that I am going to use. It's very basic in learning animals, letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and nursery rhymes. I can't figure out how to add a link from my phone, but it's from the preschool homeschool blog. They even provide images to print for your kids to color. I have also chosen a book called My ABC Bible Verses: hiding God's Word In Little Hearts. It is a book that has a bible verse for every letter. We will go through the book as we go through the alphabet.

I was pretty pleased with how today went, it being our first day. We started with prayer. Mostly me asking for patience. We then went over our verse a few times. A soft answer turns away wrath. Proverbs 15:1. Then we colored A and talked about that a little. We discussed that Averie starts with A. It was very simple and we were done in 30 minutes. They are even excited to say their verse for daddy and show him their art work when he comes home.

Please pray for us as we do this! I am excited about it today, but I know every day won't go so smoothly. I know every lesson won't end with Ty saying "thank you mama for doing school".

Summer fun

I haven't blogged in a while, partially out of being busy and partially because I have had nothing to say. I don't want to let my blog go completely because I do enjoy writing occasionally.
We have just been enjoying summer. Nothing too exciting has happened or is happening. We are doing another tiny garden this year. This is our 2nd year. It's only tomato plants with a pepper plant. I am too excited to start getting tomatoes!!!

We also set up our kiddie pool again his year. We got a bigger one this time so I could join in the fun. It's hard to fit in to one of those tiny pools!!! Averie isn't very fond of the pool. She gets in for 2 minutes, walks around, then gets out. She prefers to just walk aimlessly around the pool.

As for crafts, I haven't done much lately. I have a huge list as always, but can't seem to find time to do anything!! I plan to do Santa's workshop this year with Rebekah so I really need to get to work!!

Here are a few pictures!

Gardening

I am so excited that it is time to plant our garden! Saturday was perfect weather to shop for our plants. We are having a very hard time deciding what to grow this year. Last year we grew things that we didn't really use. This year I don't want to be so wasteful! Our beds are tiny so we are limited to about 6 plants. So far we have settled on 2 different tomato plants. Hopefully we can decide on the rest soon!

Included are pictures from our day out!

Happy Birthday Averie

I can't believe my baby is 1. Didn't I just have her a few months ago??
We had Averie a little party on Saturday. We had family over to celebrate. It was pretty exciting to do a girly party this time! We didn't do a theme, I just wanted to keep it "soft". I decorated with pinks, creams, and browns. I did all the decorating myself (with the help of friends). Thanks to Robin for help with the banners! Thanks to Elizabeth for help baking the cakes after I sliced my finger with a knife! I love, love party planning and decorating!!
I am pretty sure Averie enjoyed her party. I know she enjoyed attention from grandparents, aunts, and uncles. It was her first official time eating dessert and she seemed to like it. She has had a few bites of cookie in the past and she swiped my brownie off my plate a few weeks ago and ate it before I realized it was missing. She didn't disappoint when it came time to smash the cake. She dug right in and rubbed it all over her face, hair, and clothes.
She got very lovely gifts. I am more excited about them at this point than she is. She was excited to get baby dolls though. She knew immediately what they were and was very excited. I have been happy to see that she has been actually playing with all of her new things. She is usually more interested in her brothers toys than her own.
This has been an exciting year. She has for sure grown faster and progressed faster than I had hoped! At 6 months she got her first tooth, sat up on her own, and started belly crawling. At 7 months she started pulling up to a standing position. At 9 months she took her first steps with out holding on. By 10 months she was walking. She has kept me busy for sure!
We have loved hearing her sweet voice try to say words. She says dada, mama, bye bye, nite nite, ball, bottle, more, all done. She has said dog, cat, bird, bat man, thank you, baby. I am pretty sure that she has tried to say Ty and Micah but it was not clear enough to count.
We thank God daily for this sweet girl. We are so thankful for this year that we have had her. We pray that God gives us many more!

Yay for spring!!!

I am so over the cold weather! This week we have had several warm days and it has been wonderful!!! I went to several yard sales on Saturday and yesterday we went to the park.

I was so ready for yard sales! I love going! Especially now that I have kids. I only bought things for them this trip. Averie got a few larger dresses, brown shoes for later, and a bright pink pair of shorts. The boys got 2 shirts each. I also got a organizer box for Averie's shoes. I have needed something to store under her bed. I can count 8 things I bought and spent right at 10 dollars. Much better than consignment prices!

As for the park, it was so nice to get outside! Averie got to swing for the first time. She loved it and I loved watching her. It made her sleepy very fast though. She's precious! It was much easier taking the boys to the park this year too. One year really makes a difference!!

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

Superman! Our house is super hero crazy at the moment. That's all Ty and Micah talk about. It's all they play right now! I have never known so much information on super heroes in my life. I will be the first to admit, I am really enjoying it! I am constantly laughing at the things they come up with. One minute Spider-Man is at my house shooting webs, the next wolverine has his claws out fighting, the next minute someone has one of my headbands stretched over his eyes playing cyclops. Love. It.
A friend came over the other day with a cape. I had toyed with the idea before about making them a cape, but quickly decided that they would have no idea what a cape was. They knew. Immediately. I guess that knowledge comes in the little boy handbook, who knows. Anyways, I was making a trip to hobby lobby that very day and decided to pick up fabric to make capes. Superman capes as requested. I guess they knew that superman has cape. I was prepared to do a Spider-Man or venom or hulk cape if requested. *eye rolls* a cool mom would KNOW hulk, Spider-Man, or venom does not have a cape.
These were so, so easy to make. I actually just cut out around the borrowed cape (thanks Mary!) but you can do any shape. I used Velcro as the fastener. I copied Ty's superman Tshirt logo on to paper as my stencil.
My boys were excited. So excited! I was pretty pleased with how they turned out. It makes me excited to try more things for them!

Loving The Little Years

I have wanted to read this book, possibly since I had my boys. I got it as a gift from my church during my baby shower with Averie. 10 months ago. I got sick recently and wasn't able to leave bed. It kind of paid off, I was able to read this book. In 1 day! Yay for me!
Such a good book. It's 102 pages. 20 chapters of short stories. I highly recommend any mother with little ones read this. It's so encouraging!!

Snow Days and Sleds

I honestly can't even remember if this is our first snow or not but we were so excited to have enough snow to sled. Barely, but we did it. My dad bought the kids a sled and we pretty much prayed for snow so we could use it. So fun!!

Bunko, Dirty Santa, Food!

I haven't mentioned this on here before but I am part of a bunko group. We meet once a month to get our bunko on. It's a fun time! Good food, good fellowship, no kiddos! Every December we do a Christmas party and do an ornament dirty Santa. Lots of great taste when it comes to ornaments. I actually ended up leaving with the ornaments I brought!
Renee did a great job decorating for the night! Thanks for opening your house to us Renee!

He's Here!!!

It seems appropriate with the holiday season upon us to start teaching Ty and Micah what Christmas is really about. We have our tree up, gifts wrapped and under the tree, and it seems we are getting packages in the mail every day. It's easy to get caught up in all this excitement and not celebrate what this holiday is really for. It's not about the tree, the lights, the music, or the gifts. It's about THE birth. It's about HIM!
This year it seems like Ty and Micah are understanding what is going on. Today we started reading about the birth of Jesus in The Jesus Storybook Bible.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0310708257/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1354222514&sr=8-1&pi=SL75
This book is great! We have already read through several times. Its easy to read, easy to understand and every story points to Christ. It has great art work too. It's great for kids (and adults!). I highly recommend it to all of you. I even made it easy and added a link!
Today we read Luke 1-2, the nativity. It's an amazing story!

*warning, you may need a tissue!