Decisions Decisions

I need a project. I'm bored of things around here and need something to feel new without dropping a ton of money!  Right now my mind is stuck on this little space in our sunroom. Brace yourself for what you are about to see.  It's a lot to take in.

Maybe now you see why I can't seem to get this space out of my mind.  Because it's a hot mess.  The problem I'm having right now is I have a couple different ideas for this space and can't decide what to do with it.  Maybe you can help!  Here is one of my ideas.

Is it just me or would this not be the perfect space for a little breakfast nook?  I haven't really shared our "dining room" before, because we don't exactly have one.  When we took walls down in the beginning of the kitchen remodel we just kind of combined our dining room with the kitchen.  My parents got us a fabulous HUGE dining room table for Christmas right before we moved in this house, and it's just perfect.  (I'll show you a picture of it soon!)  It's just really BIG.  It's perfect for a big family dinner, but not really a cozy spot to sit and have your coffee.  I know I have my wicker furniture in the sunroom for that, but it's lacking a good table and isn't really what I'm picturing for a little breakfast spot.  So.....I'm thinking of building (read this as "getting my dad to build") some window seats all the way around the 3 walls.  Of course they would open up for extra storage.  Then I'd just HAVE to buy a cute little round table for the space.  Or should I go square?  I am NO designer people!

Idea number 2 came from a new blog I recently discovered. Have you visited The Pleated Poppy?  She did a house tour of a friend's house, and shared this picture.

She calls this space "Grand Central Station."  It's the spot we all have in our house, where everything seems to end up.  Mail, bills, loose paperwork, extra keys, batteries, notes, and the place you toss your purse when you walk in the door.  Right now we just have a little spot on our counter and a junk drawer as our "grand central station."  I really love this idea!!  I have been itching to bring some more color into our kitchen, and I think it would be really fun to paint a little desk or secretary a bright cheery color!  I also love the window as the picture frame!  So for this idea to work in our space, we would have to find new places for my daughter's art table and the bench I love so much.  The bench could probably go in our hallway, but the art table has me drawing a blank.  She sits here a lot while I'm cooking or doing dishes, and it has really been nice to keep the art mess in the kitchen like this.  Any suggestions?  If only we had a playroom.  Sigh.  One day.

Option number 3 would be just to clear out all the JUNK and leave the space as it is. This doesn't sound nearly as fun. :)  So what are your thoughts?  Do you have another idea?  Please share! 

Have a great day!!

Organizing the Day to Day

If you read my resolutions or goals for the new year, you'll remember one of them was to keep a cleaner house.  Since I'm pretty sure this is a common resolution, I thought I would share a few of my ideas on how to stay on top of things better this year.  I'm an organized person by nature, but my husband will be the first to let you know that having things organized is different from having them clean.  Take our study for example.  If you were to walk in there any given day, you would come RUNNING back out with your hands covering your eyes.  But, if you asked me to find you something-anything-I could probably walk right to it and hand it to you.  I've finally realized that just because I understand the confusion that is this house, it does not count as having a clean house.  I understand that having all these kids in my house makes it a bit harder, and I don't need it to be spotless.  I would just like things to remain "company ready."  We are at a slight disadvantage because our upstairs in not yet in use.  All our rooms are downstairs which means all the toys are downstairs.

I have also realized a pattern with my cleaning.  Or non-cleaning I suppose.  It starts with the breakfast mess.  It seems so easy to just deal with the few dishes we have from breakfast.  However, you throw in a couple extra kids who are screaming for a nap or need their diapers changed and suddenly I don't have the time to deal with breakfast messes.  So then when lunch comes and the same thing happens again, the mess is doubled.  By dinner it has tripled.  And then comes baths and bedtime and then I. AM. EXHAUSTED. :)  Had enough of my complaining?  Ok, I'll stop.  I came up with a system of how to keep up with things a little easier so that I don't have to devote an entire day to cleaning my destroyed house.  And because I love lists and I need things to be cute, here is what I came up with.

These are the things I MUST accomplish each day.  I posted it on my fridge so I can be reminded constantly.  If I do these things daily, then my house shouldn't get too out of hand.  Each day of the week, I have a different chore to do.  Mondays are bathrooms, Tuesdays is dusting, Wednesday is vacuuming, Thursday is mopping, and Friday is laundry.  Hopefully this will work for me.  I may end up switching things around.  We'll see.  Do you like our nativity scene magnets? Haha

While we're on the topic of organization, this is my household binder where I keep all our papers ad what not.  I have tabs for day to day events, food, budget, projects, Bible study, and others.  I realized one day how many papers I had randomly scattered around the house.  It makes more sense to keep them all in one place so I don't end up spending 15 minutes searching for my grocery list.

This is my beloved life planner from Erin Condren. I use this for everything and I love it.

It is full of bright colorful pages and inspirational quotes.  Just what I need! :)

This is my weekly planner that also came from Erin.  I write my meal plan and other daily events on this.  I love how big it is!

So, how do you stay organized?  What are your favorite products or organizational tips?!

Dream House

I grew up in a white house with black shutters.  Maybe that is why this house immediately felt like home to me. I think I even told my husband when we were dating that one day I wanted to live in a white house with black shutters.  That was my "dream house" I guess you could say.  Even as a little girl, I loved houses like this.  I guess now would be an appropriate time to admit that I am jealous of my daughter.  My almost 3 year old daughter.  My dad has been saying for a while that he wanted to build her a playhouse.  We decided Christmas would be the perfect time, and he got busy.  I told him many times that he didn't need to stress about it being perfect, because she would be excited with anything.

I know my dad well, so I don't know why I was so surprised when I saw what HE had in mind.  It's nicer than our HOUSE.  Audrey was SO good about not peeking.  He built it in his garage and worked for weeks.  Anytime we were over there and the garage door opened, Audrey would throw her hands over her eyes and dramatically exclaim "no want ruin my uprise!" (surprise.)  And oh what a wonderful uprise it was!

Here's my girl with my mom seeing her play house for the first time on Christmas day.

It took some serious figuring to get the playhouse from my parents' house to ours, so you can imagine the excitement around here last Saturday when she looked out the window and saw this...

Welcome to THE playhouse of all playhouses.

 
By the way, her front door was an old door from our house.  We had several doors that we removed while renovating, and we've just been saving them in the shed until we had a use for them.  My dad cut one down and now she has a little piece of history in HER house.

Complete with her own rocking chair for some front porch rockin'.

Oh what a lucky little girl.  I'm jealous.

Fresh Starts

Hello and Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did!  We were blessed beyond belief with lots of family time, a beautiful Christmas Eve church service, and of course way too many gifts!  Looks like Santa didn't forget where we live after all!


So now that the big hurrah is over, I'm left with a house that looks like it's been hit by a tornado.  Everywhere I turn, there are more bags, boxes, and just stuff.  I love to decorate for Christmas, but boy do I loathe UNDECORATING Christmas!  It's not quite as fun to put it all away!  I know that Christmas technically lasts for 12 days after the day of Christmas, but I am just incapable of keeping all the decorations out that long!!  Every year I am just hanging out and then I'm suddenly overcome with this desire to get our tree OUT.  Immediately.  So while I'm in the process of putting away Christmas, I've been thinking a lot about the new year ahead of us.
It may seem silly to some, but I have always loved starting a new year!  The natural planner in me just gets giddy making lists of my goals, plans, and hopes for the new year.  To be honest, 2011 was the most difficult and traumatic year of my entire life.  We were blessed in many ways, and adding Walker to our family was the greatest blessing of all.  However, the fear of losing my child took a hold of me in May, and has pretty much had me around the neck for the rest of the year.  I still get sick to my stomach every time he has a cardiologist appointment.  I still stand over him while he sleeps and count his breaths.  I still check to see if I can feel his pulses in his feet when he is nursing.  I wonder when this fear will go away.  It's definitely not as intense as it was over the first few days we learned of his condition, but it's not completely gone, either.  I really wonder if it will ever be completely gone.  I am so thankful he is here with us to start a fresh new year!  I am happy to say my children are both finally healthy and thriving!  So, as usual, last night I made my lists of "resolutions" for the new year.  Some of them are big things, and some are silly small things that probably only matter to me.

1.  Read the Bible daily and focus more on God.  I am attempting to follow along with WMHK's Bible Reading Guide, to see if I can read through the Bible in a year!

2. Try to be more patient.

3.  Of course the cliche resolution....lose weight and get in shape!  I have about 13-15 more pounds I would like to have gone by bathing suit season.  For us South Carolinians, that is around May.  I have made it my goal to lose the 15lbs by May 1.  That means I have to lose around a pound a week. Totally doable.  Just gotta hit the treadmill!  (after I finish this cookie...)

4.  Keep a cleaner house.  With trying to keep up with my 2 kids and the 2 I babysit, my house has taken a back burner!  I am working on giving it a good cleaning as I put away Christmas stuff, and then hopefully I can get back to just maintaining it.

5.  Cook more, eat out less.  I want to try lots of new recipes!

6.  Save money.  I have finished reading Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, and I am ready to get this ball rolling!  I'll be jumping back on the coupon train and really tackling our finances!

7.  Grow my blog.  I'm going to try to post more regularly and give this blog more focus!  I've had so much fun with it so far!

8.  Catch up on my scrapbooking.  I am so behind it's not even funny.

9. Get both children to sleep in their own bed.  This should be interesting.  It's no secret we share our bed with the kiddos.  Audrey has terrible nightmares and has made it very hard to get any sleep if she's not snuggled up against one of us.  Walker is not a sleeper either.  We shall see...

10.  Drink 8 glasses of water a day.  I've struggled with this for a while!

So that's what I have come up with!  I'm a dork, so I'm excited about it! Haha!! What are YOUR new year's resolutions???


Seeing her swingset...

Merry Christmas to all!

Just popping in to wish you all a very merry Christmas!! I won't be posting anymore until after Christmas, but have lots to share with you in the new year! I'm looking forward to it! My hubby has the next week off, so my time will be spent with my family, enjoying the magic of this time of year.  Savor it folks, it goes way too quickly!  If you drop by my house, you might find me with a flour dusted face, ribbon stuck to my pants, and sprinkles in my hair.  We'll be wrapping and baking and crafting and reading and singing and praising and waiting in anticipation!  I'm also pretty confident that I could commit a crime and get away with it if I really wanted to because I have hot glued my fingers to the point of having no finger prints left. :) Merry Christmas and God Bless! Remember the REASON for the SEASON!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

So I thought I'd show you a few of my favorite Christmas decorations in our house!  I already showed you my sunroom set up.  I LOVE my Christmas village and have fun adding to it each year!

Here's our 1 and only real tree.  We ALWAYS get a real tree for the den.  You just can't beat the smell of a fresh cut Christmas tree!

Our Christmas mantel.

How do you hang your stockings?  There are so many cute hangers out now!! I love the monograms, but I picked these little frames up at Target a couple years ago and I love them! They came in packs of 2...so I went ahead and bought 3 packs so I'd have enough for how ever many babies we may have... haha!

I use a picture of my babies on their first Christmas, and have decided I won't update the picture each year.  (Which explains why Walker's is still empty! This is his 1st Christmas and I haven't found the perfect picture yet!)  I think it will be so cute when they are 18 to look at the picture of them on their very first Christmas!  Tear...

Just look how squishy she was!!!

Every year we toy with the idea of putting the real tree in the foyer, but we always go back to this spot in the den.  It's just so COZY!  I come in early Christmas morning and turn on the fire, and we all just sit on the floor around the tree.  I LOVE IT!

Here are the steps-very simple greenery and lights.  Sorry about the pile of stuff at the bottom of the steps! haha!  Baby clothes that need to go upstairs!

 I've never been a PINK person.  I've never really worn pink and just don't consider myself to be a pink "frilly" girl.  My daughter, however, IS.

This is a little tree with just our special ornament on it.  An ornament of the church we were married in, our 1st Christmas together, both babies 1st Christmas', a picture of the house, etc.

 I love sparkly red stuff at Christmas! 

Letters covered with scrapbook paper behind my stove.  Wow...look at the fingerprints on the microwave!! :/

I love countdowns!  I have a countdown for everything! haha!

Ben got me this Christmas cactus last year for my birthday.  He had it delivered to the preschool where I taught.  Apparently he told the florist to pick something we couldn't kill...so they sent a cactus.  Haha! I LOVE it!  It requires almost NO maintenance and the little blooms start opening right around my birthday and last through the rest of the year.  

And last but not least, a key for Santa!  We no longer have chimneys, so I thought this would be an easy way of explaining how Santa can still get into our house! :)  It's just a wooden sign I painted and hung a fake key on!  I'll have Audrey put it outside on Christmas Eve for Santa.  She's already excited about it! (This picture is HORRIBLE!  I had to take it on my phone...and somehow it got very blurry through the email! But you get the idea!)

What are some of your favorite Christmas items?!

On This Day...

On this day, 26 years ago, my parents held their first baby.

On THIS day, TODAY, I will start my day at 6:30 with a wide awake little boy who somehow makes me smile even when I'm exhausted.

On this day, I will do at LEAST 2 loads of laundry, and pick up the same toys 12 different times.

On this day, I'll wipe noses, fill juice cups, and change roughly 15 diapers.

On this day, I'll yell at the dogs, get spit up on, and watch Olivia on Nick Jr. for my "down" time.

On this day, my "conversations" will be "NO!", "BE CAREFUL!", "STOP!", "ARE YOU OK?" and "BECAUSE I SAID SO."

On this day, I'll be the maid, the cook, the waitress, the busboy, the dishwasher, and the taxi driver.

On this day, I'll pretend to be a big bad wolf, Cinderella's evil stepmother, and the mama in dollhouse land.

On this day, my hair will return to it's normal messy bun, my outfit will be yoga pants and an old t-shirt, and my make up will consist of mascara alone.

On this day, I'll kiss away tears, hold itty bitty hands, and tickle tiny bellies til laughter fills my ears.

On this day, I'll try to fit a shower in somewhere.

On this day, my lunch will probably be goldfish and juice.

On this day, I'll read 4 stories, sing 6 silly songs, and rock babies on my lap til they drift off to dreamland.

On this night, I'll crawl in my bed, and thank my God for the wonderful day I've had, and the little blessings that made it so wonderfully perfect.

So thankful for my life this year on my birthday!  I wouldn't have it any other way.