12.30.2017

christmas!

Snippets from our Christmas morning!

Is it just me- or does it seem like each year the prep leading up to Christmas gets a little more intense and the whole month of December seems to go by faster and faster?...this is not okay. I'm still (the week after) listening to Christmas tunes. Shhhhh. It's fine.
My parents were able to be with us the week of Christmas! My Mom usually had at least one of the two grandbabies in her lap at any given time- and sometimes both of them!
 My Grammy came out as well, so we had a big family dinner with all the cousins living out here. These are just a few of her many, many great grandkids!
 The days filled up quickly with different things going on (and nights were dedicated to finishing our playroom surprise!) so we didn't get to make homemade gingerbread cookies as per usual, but the girls didn't mind one bit. Homemade or from a mix, they still rolled them out to death and decorated the snot out of 'em. (And we weren't tempted to eat any of them because of it- so maybe it was a win/win!)
Christmas morning, Olivia was the first to wake up (as usual). She ran down to my room and told me Santa brought her stocking (we put them in their bedrooms to entertain them for a bit before we have to roll out of bed!). I told her to go wake up Jillian so they could look at them, but she didn't want to- she just went back to her room for a bit and ate all the candy out of hers! A few minutes later Jillian woke up and they spent the next 30 minutes oooing and ahhing over the trinkets in their stockings before coming back down to get us.
Then we opened gifts. Olivia is still in the phase where she wants to get one out of the box and just start playing with that one instead of being bothered to open another one. And Charlotte is just happy to eat the wrapping paper! Jillian kept everyone on pace, however.

Christmas with kids is just five thousand times better, seeing the magic of it all through their eyes! It really is the most wonderful time of year.

sushi and santa

Every Christmas we go see Santa at Riverwoods (I always appreciate Santas with real beards). This is the first year since Jillian was a baby that it was actually a different person playing Santa. Fortunately she didn't notice! She was too busy having a full out panic attack. I always wonder if "this will be the year!" my kids aren't afraid of the big man in the red suit, but we're not there yet (note: Olivia's face). For some reason merely telling him the presents you'd like to receive as he hands you a candy cane is horrifying, but the thought of him creeping into your house in the middle of the night while you're sleeping to deliver said gifts is A-OK.*shrug


Jillian asked to be surprised (well, she asked me to ask him) and Olivia asked for Moana toys and a pink drum. Charlotte was thoroughly confused about it all.

This year we added to the tradition and went for sushi afterwards! Over the past year or so Jillian has come to love it and is actually pretty decent with chopsticks. Olivia? Not so much, but most sushi places have "noodles" so she's happy with that. 
 
Charlotte was just happy trying to grab at all the things on the table! I love that she's big enough to sit up on her own now- it makes grocery carts and high chairs much more applicable.
After sushi, we made room for treats from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!
 It was freezing, but always is one of my favorite traditions! 

And maybe, just maybe, next year will be the year my kids aren't freaked out by a real-live Santa!


11.08.2017

free 'together' print

Sometimes you just need to whip up a cute print for your wall and you want to share it! So, here ya go. :-)

For best results, print on white card stock.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dqjr0y8sukabajf/together-01.jpg?dl=0

 

11.06.2017

halloween

One of the best times of the year, if you ask me! 

This year we strayed from the tradition of trick-or-treating with some of our good friends in their parents' neighborhood (which is basically Halloweentown), to see what our new neighborhood was like! The girls had fun going around our neighborhood and got a ridiculous amount of candy. Towards the end, Olivia was asking to go home and go to bed!
The week of Halloween we changed our minds about costumes like three times. Every year I tell myself I won't procrastinate on costumes...I'm not sure why I keep lying to myself like that. Procrastination is just part of my DNA. But we finally settled on super heroes. I was pretty proud of my "super tired" idea, complete with sleeping mask. ;-)
^The cutest little heroines I ever did see!

There were a few houses with legitimately freaky moving/talking things on their porch. Jillian walked up to this porch and that zombie doctor thing (in the right corner) started talking and moving its arm in a stabbing motion. Then she was all "nope" and ran away- if I would have snapped this picture two seconds later you would have seen the mortified look on her face!
Though, the thing she was scared of most (and still is...) was actually MY fault! The night before Halloween we had a spooky dinner with my siblings (complete with feet loaf!) and I decided it would be a good idea to put on the Thriller music video so we could dance to it. It had been years since I'd actually watched it--and oops--it's terrifying for little kids! I think Olivia has since forgotten it, but Jillian has been requesting classical music to play while she falls asleep so she doesn't think of the "scary werewolf with yellow eyes." 
Maybe when you're 12, kid.

10.24.2017

olivia's room

Olivia's room started with a fresh coat of paint- one of my favorite colors of all time- Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams (also the color in our half bath and laundry room). It's such a perfect light blue/green.
When we moved in, we played musical beds- so Jillian got a new twin, Olivia got the toddler bed, and the crib went to Charlotte's room. What I love about this bed (from Ikea), is that it slides out to be adjustable! It is currently at its middle length, but expands to be a the length of a twin by extending the frame and adding two mattress inserts. Nifty, right?!
I wanted to keep a lot of the decor I used in the girls' shared room in our townhouse, so her room is pretty much a recycled version of their shared room in our townhouse (linked in the last post about this room here)!
The two brass himmeli hangers are from Etsy. They came with two living air plants, which I tossed out a few days ago because they dried up and died. Apparently air plants need to be watered? That's just way too much commitment for me at this phase of my life. I may end up sticking some faux succulents in there and calling it good. Or maybe I like them empty...I dunno. But air plants- BOO. I wanted them to thrive on just air and air alone. Like a runway model.



^Messy hair and no pants...usually the norm for her.
Color meets whimsy- just right for this vivacious little three year-old! (Who is both cracking me up and driving me to my last nerve these days...simultaneously. She's very talented.)

10.22.2017

jillian's mermaid room



I was a thousand months pregnant when we moved into our house. 
Okay, well it felt like it. (In reality it was almost 8 months). However enormous I was feeling, Jillian's room was already lavender and I didn't have it in me to paint her room in addition to Olivia's. Reasonable, logical me (...is there even such a version of me?) would have just waited until after I had Charlotte and things settled down to worry about Jillian's room, but very pregnant, slightly neurotic me wanted both of the girls rooms to be finished before I had her. I think I just wanted something to be settled. 
That was a really long explanation for- her room was lavender when we moved in, and even though it wasn't my first choice we decided to keep it that way and just go with it.
:-D

But I really love how it came together!
 I found her cute mermaid bedding at Target, along with the rug and some of the wall decor. I should really own stock in Target at this point.
 
Jillian looooooves arts and crafts. She could sit at the table for literally hours with paper, scissors, and glue. The hanging wire used to hang her artwork is from Ikea. It's not uncommon for me to also walk in and find things pinned up like dresses, socks, or food wrappers...
You do you, Jillian.


 The cubicle organizer is also from Ikea and something we had in our previous house, because they're so darn functional! The baskets and purple pom curtains are also from Target.

See that brown-headed American girl doll? That one was actually mine when I was little! I love that they've made a come back. My mom, in all her wisdom, decided to hang on to it along with many of the accessories I had. Apparently you can get a pretty penny on eBay for the originals, but at the end of the day nostalgia won.

We have a book hoarding problem at our house. #elementaryteacherprobz 
I can refuse to buy toys all day long, but show me a cute picture book and I HAVE TO HAVE IT. Oh and it also won a Caldecott? I wonder what else this author wrote...oooohhh look! -Me. Every time.

I try to only keep out about 1/3 of our collection between the girls two rooms at any given time, otherwise it just gets too messy with all of them. 

These wall bookshelves were here when we moved in and they've been so great!


Now that it's finished, I actually don't mind the lavender at all! And more importantly, Jillian loves it!



10.21.2017

mudroom before and after

My first official project in our new house, part one of the mudroom, is done! James thought it was a pretty big one to tackle right off the bat, especially with a 3 month old. Originally I planned to start redoing the laundry room, but after about a month of living here, I realized how little the mudroom space was actually functioning- I needed way more space to put crap!! So that turned into priority number one. And once I get an idea...well...you've all read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

Here are some before shots:
 

 With only that bench space, things were constantly piled on top of each other and falling off!

 The laundry door also swung inward, which limited the space to move inside the laundry room. Even though moving it from an inward to outward swing, it makes a HUGE difference when you're trying to move laundry baskets around! 


Originally I planned to get a door built for the laundry room, because trying to find a old door close to the size of your door frame is a bit tricky! But getting a custom door built like this was going to run me $500. No thank you!

 I found that yellow door at one of the coolest vintage flea markets I've ever seen in my life- Treasures Antique Mall in Springville (and for $50!). It was actually a wooden screen door, but it was the exact kind of door I was looking for, so I knew I could make it work! We just had to trim off some of the bottom so it would fit in the door frame.

I used a citrus paint stripper to remove the layers of paint, and gave it a good sanding, then a couple of coats of White Dove (Benjamin Moore). I'm still undecided if I should paint the door frame (which is currently pure white) to match the door and ship lap surrounding it--what do you think?

The glass insert was ordered from Jones Paint and Glass in American Fork. I wanted to do a cool seeded glass or something, but the glass guy said he would recommend getting it tempered so it would be stronger, and all the cool glass doesn't come tempered. Wah-wah. But I'd rather have a functional, sturdy piece! (..most of the time..I'll live with it, is what I'm saying. ;-p ) 

Putting in the glass insert was a little annoying because the door opening wasn't perfectly rectangular, but the glass was! So we kept sliding it in and would see where I needed to sand off a little more to make it fit. Even without the silicone, that glass ain't goin' nowhere- it is THAT tight of a fit. 

Right now the door doesn't "click" close into anything, it just stays mostly shut. I'm still figuring out that part, because I do want it to have some type of catch.

The vinyl decal is from Etsy and the barn handle is from Amazon

 Now let's talk built-ins! One of our friends built this for us. We had him take out the tiles on the floor so it could sit flush on the bottom since we'll also be replacing the tile in here anyway (because that peachy color is just all kinds of wrong). You can see the 2" on the bottom left exposed there, but once we re-tile it will go flush up to the sides. I'm thinking large rectangular slate-like pieces. That will probably happen next year some time! 

Anyway, after testing several different stains and stain combos I couldn't find what I was looking for. I happened upon a picture on Instagram and knew instantly that it was the exact color I was after! It's called "weathered" by Old Barn Milk Paint. I used two coats then followed it up with two coats of satin polyurethane by Minwax.

 The larger hooks are from Target and the smaller ones are from Amazon. The baskets on the bottom are from Walmart. (And I just realized after looking at this picture, I forgot to caulk the seams at the top of the ship lap... so just pretend that's done ;-) amazing stuff, that caulk...

This space functions a million times better now! We have lots of space for bags and coats. I usually keep our big tote bag we take to church on the top shelf. In the winter it will also house a basket with hats and gloves, and in the summer- our pool bag!

And one of the biggest changes- I Joanna Gaines-ed the snot out of it and ship lapped the whole thing. It seems like an intimidating project, but it really isn't. This is actually faux ship lap- just pieces of plywood ripped into strips (as opposed to the real tongue and groove stuff). I dedicated most of a day to working on it, so I think I had the whole thing up in a few days time. There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to do this- just give it a quick Pinterest search!

I decided to do it on the wall outside of the mudroom too to kind of draw it out a little bit and make that wall more interesting. It definitely makes the whole mudroom so much brighter! I actually didn't want to nail anything into that particular wall, because I could hear water running down that wall, but nothing was coming up on my metal detector, so I knew there were some PVC pipes. To avoid hitting one, I ended up gluing all of the boards onto this wall. That did take a bit longer, but better that than a leak in my basement!

That open door is the half bath, which got a new coat of paint somewhere in this whole process (Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams, to match the laundry room). I'll share some pictures later when I've done a couple more things in there! 

The view from across the dining area..
 
Our dining table I refinished a couple of years ago (here) and the chairs are from Amazon.
(P.S. Major life hack- just about everything you see in stores, like these chairs, can also be found on Amazon. We have an Amazon credit card with 5% cash back that has been one of the greatest things ever- we've racked up a lot of free stuff because of it!) 
Our dining light fixture is from West Elm. It doesn't look like that exact one is available anymore, but they have some similar styles.

And since I'm in this space, might as well share my bar cart that I'm beyond obsessed with! (Also from...Amazon!)

It's actually gotten a lot of use over the few months that we've had it. Not like I needed to justify my purchase...I didn't. ;-)

My clock is from Hobby Lobby- and for $70...whaaa?! It comes brown, but I just unscrewed the numbers and slapped some white paint on there.

We'll have a hot cocoa bar for the next many months (because cold weather lasts forever here). I love these Torani drink syrups- something else we've gotten a ton of use out of! Our favorites for hot chocolate are toasted marshmallow, brown sugar cinnamon, and caramel. We have other flavors in our pantry too for sodas! We may have a slight drink addiction.

And as much as you'd think my kids would be all into this and constantly getting into it- they actually don't. I know- it surprises me too.

It was fun to do, but I'm glad this part is over!
So now that phase one is complete, I'm heading into the laundry room next.
I'll be removing the current sink and putting in a farmhouse style sink (that will likely by my Christmas present!), adding some open shelving, and then a subway tile back splash. And last but not least, we'll be redoing the tile flooring. 

Since I'm really ADD when it comes to house projects, I also have a few "in-between" projects planned along the way!

10.20.2017

office/craft room reveal

It's fall break! Which means I have a little more free time than usual, so my goal is to finally blog about some rooms in our house that I've finished since we moved in 6 months ago. 

First up- my office! I actually finished this one about a month after we moved in. I picked a room in the basement so in theory I could work in there while the girls play in their playroom (which is most of the basement), which doesn't happen too much to be honest. But it is a nice place to lock myself away when needed! The rest of the time I plant myself on the couch and work next to them while they're playing. 

Most of my office I moved over from my office corner in our townhouse. I used the bookshelves we used to have in our living room for more craft storage. 

I added textured brick wallpaper on the back of my bookshelves (from Target) for a little more variety to pop against my navy accent wall (Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore). 

Oh, I'm also aware it's no longer April. It's fine.
But I'm so in love with the extra large calendars that 1canoe2 does! And April's colors just goes so nicely with the rest of the room. ;-)

The curtains are from Target and are on mega sale right now!


 My chair is from Amazon (for less than $60!), and pillow from Society6

 My desk, shelves above the desk, and wall caddy storage are all from Ikea! And the blue and white striped rug is from Hobby Lobby. Most of the storage bins on the bookshelves are from Target.


I love this room! Definitely one of my favorites in the house right now. Probably because it's the only room that stays clean all the time. :-D