The blue tree

As I was walking through the thrift store a month or so ago and saw this outdoor Christmas tree with faded blue lights I knew I had to have it. I set it up one night just after thanksgiving and loved just the way it was.

But when I pulled out the Christmas decorations I found a bunch of blue ornaments that I had gotten last year at Targets after Christmas sales. I thought they would look pretty on the blue tree and the kids really wanted to decorate it so I let them.

Joseph only pulled down like 20. smile.

Gracie put these "brothers" together. She loved pretending that they are alive.

I loved the way her hands would cup each ornament after she hung it.

We listened to Christmas music, danced to a little Mariah and had a really fun time.

Our spooks are up

I have finally got all the Halloween stuff up after having it sitting around the house for over a week. I decided this morning I just had to buckle down and do it. This is a picture of some authentic decor we have going on our windows. That is on the outside of the window and...don't judge me.

The next picture are from my phone a few weeks back. I took a dry erase marker and drew on the glass. But the marker died before I could get too carried away.

That is a witch on a broom stick flying through the sky.

Kinda hard to see, but there is a ghost behind William and I.

And now the mantle.Don't laugh at my sketches, they are supposed to look really crappy. Actually as I was putting them up I was wishing that they were sketches of owl and bat skeletons, but I didn't want to take anymore time on this. Maybe next year?

I made the banner while listening to conference.

And almost everything else came from the dollar store. 

Russ cut our the bats for me while we listened to conference cause he is a super star. The kids loved putting them up. We have more in the family room that are not pictured.

I am really glad to have this done and tomorrow I am going out to my moms so the kids can play with cousins and I can get some sewing done! Whew!

Happy Halloween!

Oh pinterest...

Look at this bed I came across on pinterest! Look at it!

source

Call me crazy but I think that looks awesome and cozy and makes me wish I didn't put so much work into getting both my kids twin beds. Especially since both of them have fallen off their beds. I just got bed frames and got bed skirts put on them, but if I hadn't I would be doing this for sure. I may just do it anyway.

Done and Done

I started this post a long time ago and I am not sure when this picture was taken, but I am pretty sure it was the beginning of October. Once I had my baby shower I was done and ready for the baby to come any time. My mom came and helped me clean my whole house and even recover a rocking chair.

I for got to take a picture of it before I took the arms off.

I kinda liked it without the arms but that would not work so good for nursing. My mom is a genius and came up with an easy way to cover this in a mater of hours.

I don't have pictures of all the finished projects, but they all got done! I can't even believe it.

Here are some pictures of me stretching before a long morning walk on 10/10/10. I had to try something to see if I could have the baby on this day, but I guess he was not ready.




It was a beautiful morning and a lovely walk though. To keep myself busy since I kept not having this baby I decided to make Gracie some flowers for her hair. Kind of random, but it kept me occupied for a couple of days.
I also have Williams birthday to get ready for next week. I can't believe I am still pregnant. It really hasn't been too bad. I just try to wait patiently and go on with life.

I am ready to be done.

The kids bathroom

Since we have had a contract for the house we are buying (okay before that:) I have been collecting pictures from the internets for inspiration for how to decorate it. I have decided to put them up on my blog so that I can view them when I am not home.

I will not be posting the links where I got these pictures mostly because I got them from places that were not the original source and I just don't know where they came from. If you want me to take anything down let me know and I will do so right away.

I am starting small with the kids bathroom. There is wall paper that needs to be taken down in there (bleh) but I found some tips to do it fairly easily and frugally. This is the main color inspiration.

This is how I want to do it. The toilet and bathtub and in a separate area with a door. I want to paint the door like this one and have the little room yellow and the sink area blueish. I am not sure about the door color. What do you think black or something else? We could do a different color. This is a (bad) picture of the shower curtain we will use there.
Oh, and these are some things I found thrift store shopping in Flagstaff. I think they will look cute with the blue-ish walls.

This is just another picture of colors together. So pretty.

And then I want these cabinets with the built in stools. I already showed my brother that works magic with wood and he is pretty sure he can do it.


Our bathroom will look nearly nothing like the pictures poster here but it should be fun to see how close I get to my "inspiration" rooms.

Sweet thrift store shopping

Last Saturday I stopped by Goodwill on my way to my sisters (I was going to crash a writing group and I got very excited about their great writing project, but not enough to start one of my own:) Anyway, it was a good thing I decided to stop by because I found a couch I love. And if we actually get this house we are trying to buy we will need more than the one couch we have.

It met the requirements that I had:

gold-ish yellowish color

old

good condition

comfy

except I really wanted something tufted, but I never see those second hand so I gave up on that one.

And as I was walking through the store I spotted these

And these

and could not leave without them, Mimi calls them my Penelope shoes.

All in all it was a fabulous shopping day and the total price tag?

$25.00
I don't think I will be able to shop at a real store again.

Mi Armoire

So before we moved to Flagstaff almost three years ago I bought this armoire from a place that sells used hotel furniture - you know those places? Anyway it was a great price for a very large and very solid piece of furniture (so large and solid that anyone who has helped move it, hates it) I like the lines and such and planned on doing something to it someday. I new I wanted some kind of texture inside the molding on the doors.When I saw this armoire at anthropologie my heart skipped a beat. So I copied it.I really love my new armoire. I changed a few things, obviously. It is just the way I wanted it. How we did it:
we did not paint it, we sanded it and stained it with blue stain. This was a lot harder that it would have been to paint it, but the look we got was great and much more lasting than paint. What I thought would take a few days took over a week of sanding here and there. If we had a belt sander it might not have been so long, but oh well. Russ' brother made a stencil for us (not exactly sure how) and then I cut the stencil out if freezer paper. Ironed the freezer paper to the doors and then spray painted it cream, then we spray painted the molding cream also. I love it and I am 100% okay with the fact that I am a born copier. Like Laurie from Little Women said - everything we create is "just mediocre copies of another mans genius." Well said.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you Russ for helping me do this.

Pitter Patter

That is what my heart is doing right now. I am in love with a room (I know that I am crazy, but I can't help it, at least I recognize it). So - my last post was about my dream house and I talked about how it was perfect, but lacking color. Well, my awesome friend Tia found it the perfect room, and I mean perfect. I don't think I would change anything. Maybe the wall color, but I may just keep it too. Here is the link to Heather Bailey's craft room.
So hopefully in 3 to 4 years from now I will be posting pictures of my gorgeous craft room. Forget Martha Stewart's bland craft room. Thanks Tia.
p.s. I promise not all post will be about craft rooms.