Well, hello there, Stranger!

It's been awhile...a year and four months to be exact!  Reason for my blogging hiatus was simply the amount of effort (which was very little) I was willing to put in. For those of you that don't blog you may not understand, but blogging is a lot of work.  However,  I can't even tell you the number of times in the past year I've referred back to my blog to look at pictures, to recall the baby stages of both kids, or to find a recipe!  It's so nice to have things documented, which is my main reason for getting back at it.  I hope you'll continue to follow along!

Last I left you I had a three year old and a six month old and life was hard.  However, now that the kids are older life is a bit easier (sometimes) and I thought it would be beneficial to give a brief update.

The Kids:

Wyatt just turned two years old!  It's crazy to think the last time I blogged about him he was only six months old!  His favorite things in life are his lawn mower, his cars, and macaroni and cheese.  He challenges us on a daily basis, but he's an awesome little dude and we couldn't imagine life without him!

Rowen will be turning five (insert cry face here) at the end of July!  She recently finished her last year of preschool and is headed to kindergarten in the fall!  She is very excited to ride the bus and we are thrilled to have one less kid in daycare!   This past year we enrolled her in a dance class and she loves it.  I never pictured myself as a dance mom (more like a soccer mom), but i'm learning, and I'm happy she's found something she seems to love!

The House:  

Life is funny sometimes.  So funny that you decide, on a whim, to up and sell your house so that you can build another one right up the street.  Yes, it sounds crazy, but that's exactly what we did. We were faced with some decisions to make when it came to our previous house.  Decisions that meant either pouring a bunch of money into a basement so we had room to grow, or sell and find something we could call home for the next 20 years.  The market was good so we chose to sell and we couldn't be happier with where we are now!

Ryan and I:  

Not a ton has changed for us in the past year, I'm still working full time, so is Ryan.  Long story short, we are just trying to enjoy life as it comes.  I wont lie, it's challenging at times, but life would be boring if it wasn't, right?  Stay tuned...

Kitchen updates

The only decorating I've really done to the kitchen since we moved in (almost a year ago) is hang curtains.  So, for the past couple of weeks, I have slowly been checking off some of the “to-do” items on my list.  I have quite a few ideas floating around in my head for this space in our house and couldn't wait to get started!

One of the first things I wanted to do was buy a large area rug for underneath the dining table.  Since moving in, I've been paranoid about the floors getting scratched so a rug was a must!  After looking at about 100 different rugs, I finally settled on a basket weave rug I found at my local furniture store (very similar to this one).  It adds instant warmth to the room, which I love.  It’s also technically an indoor/outdoor rug, which (I hope) means it’s virtually indestructible and easy to clean!

One of my most recent obsessions is table runners.  No clue why, I just really like the way they add so much color and texture to the table!  Once I found this adorable runner on Etsy I knew I had to have it! 

One of the bigger items on my to-do list was adding hardware to the kitchen cabinets.  I was super excited for this until I discovered just how pricey hardware can be!  Luckily, our local hardware store was having a sale so we ended up getting a pretty good deal on these stainless steel pulls! I absolutely love the way the hardware gives the kitchen that modern, finished look I was going for!

I still have quite a few items left on my list to finish, one of them being a super easy DIY project from Kidecals, which I will be back with next week!  Stay tuned!

Shared with:

Family Home and Life

The swticheroo...

For the last couple of weeks, Ryan and I have been going back and forth trying to decide when is the right time for Rowen to make the transition from a crib to a “big girl” bed.  Lately, when we put her to bed at night, she almost seems “too big” for her crib.  Even though she has yet to climb out, we think it might be time.  In the next month or so we plan to crack down hard on potty training, but before we do, we want to be sure Rowen is out of her crib and can easily access the potty at night when needed.

So, for the past couple of days I have been pondering ideas for her room, and last night I spent a good two hours on Pinterest "oooh-ing and awww-ing" over adorable bedroom designs.  Here are a few of my favorites:

I am so so so IN LOVE with the Jenny Lind spindle bed from Land of Nod.  In fact, this is the bed I am leaning toward going with for her room, but I hate the price.  

I also love the idea of hanging a bunting banner on the wall above her bed and scattering adorable frames and paintings.  So cute!

Check out this bed and all of its storage space, which I think would work well as Rowen gets older, too!

Right now Rowen’s room is pink and blue, but I am about 10 seconds away from changing it after seeing the color scheme in this photo!  Gorgeous!

I am also considering doing something a bit out of my comfort zone with one of the walls in her room.  I love this chevron pattern, but can’t imagine the eye rolls I will get when I tell Ryan that he’ll have to be the one to figure out how to make it happen, haha.

Even though I am excited to have her make the switch, the Nervous Nelly in me still has a lot of questions..

1. What age is the right age to transition?
2. Do we just take the rails off her crib and convert to a toddler bed or should we just bite the bullet and move her straight to a regular bed?
3. What size bed would we get her?  Twin or Full?
4. How will the transition affect her sleeping habits?

Eeeek, I guess only time will tell!  

Shared With:

DIY: Master Bedroom

One of the first things on our “to do” list for the new house was to decorate the master bedroom.  In our last house, we never really made the master bedroom “ours”.  We had some neutral paint on the wall and a few frames with pictures in them, but other than that, there was nothing exciting about the room that made us actually want to spend time there.  So, when we moved we knew we wanted our new room to be different.  One of my goals for decorating this house is to do it in a way that is budget friendly.   I wish I could just run out to Pottery Barn and buy up everything I want {which is the entire store}, but that’s just not possible.  So instead I turned to our local hardware and craft stores for some DIY decor. 

We {and by we I really mean Ryan} started by painting all four walls in the room.  I had bought our bedding on major sale during Black Friday so we chose a paint color that was just a few shades lighter to match the gray/purple in the bedding {I apologize for the lack of color in some of these these pics, the lighting was weird}. 

Next, I needed something above the bed that would bring the whole room together, however buying large frames or pieces of art big enough to fill the space was going to be pricey so I decided to finish a decor project I had started a few years ago in our old house, that didn't turn out quite right.

My husband is my “handyman” at home.  Other than small painting projects and hammering an occasional nail into the wall, I don’t really do much handy work, in fact, sort of suck at it.  Like cooking, I buy the supplies and he makes it happen. 

Here’s a list of the materials we needed:

1. Spray paint

2. Large wooden Letters (found mine at Hobby Lobby)

3. Tape measure/ruler

4. A dozen or so nails

Ryan painted the letters and then laid them out on the floor to take measurements so he knew where to put the nails.  After that, he took the measurements to the wall and started hammering away!

 {we fixed that crooked 's'}

A few days later our room went from boring, blank canvas...

 to comfy & cozy!

I am so pleased with the way the room turned out!  We still have a few pictures to hang on the wall, but other than that, it’s done!  Simple and cheap! YES!

Special thanks to The Idea Room, for linking this up!

New House

Back in July, my husband and I decided to sell our very first home.  We’d been in the house only three years, but in those three years a lot had happened.  I had switched jobs (my commute was now 45 minutes each way, yuck), and we welcomed our daughter into the family.   Suddenly it felt like maybe our house wasn't the right house for us anymore.  There were mixed emotions when we put the sign in the yard. Besides leaving the best neighbors we could ever ask for {I still get sad when I think about them}, this was our first house, a house we had built just for us, yet at the same time, we were ready to move on to a new adventure and pass the house off to someone else who could love it just as much as we did! 

The house sold in just 10 days, something I am not sure we were prepared for.  The location of the house is what sold it. It was in one of the best school districts in the metro area and was close to every amenity you could possibly want/need!  Sure, it was great that our house had sold so quickly, but at the same time added a lot of stress to the situation.  We had just a small window of time to find our next house. 

After three or four full evenings of looking at what seemed like every house in our price range, we had finally found {what we thought was} our next house!  It was about 20 minutes north of our previous location, and much closer to my work!  The house would need a few updates, but for the most part had everything we wanted!  The next few weeks were spent packing and getting ready for the big move.  Then, three days before we were set to close on the house we got a call from our realtor telling us the waterline to the refrigerator had broken and flooded the entire main level.  NOT what what we wanted to hear!  After seeing the damage we decided to back out of the deal.  Fast forward three days and you’d find us moving everything we own into a storage unit.  We were homeless.  Thankfully, my parents lived only a few minutes away and offered us their basement until we found another house.

After more searching with our realtor {bless her} we found another home a few miles south of the first one, except there was one minor issue, it was still under construction…for another seven weeks!  Ask my husband and he’d probably tell you those seven weeks were the longest seven weeks of his life, haha, but he was a great sport about it.  For me, living with my parents wasn't bad at all.  It meant free rent (hello savings!), and a built in babysitter!

The builder was right on time with the construction and we finally became homeowners again in November! Since then, we've been working to make this new house a home.  It’s going to take awhile, but we’re slowly chipping away at our “to do” list!  So, stay tuned, I plan to share some of my favorite DIY projects and house updates with you here!