Friday's Favorite Finds #2

1. That my sweet, little Livy is a perfectly healthy and happy 4 month old. Ok so this isn't really a recent find since I already knew this, but she had her 4 month check up today so I thought I'd share some updates on her. And can I just add...I CANNOT believe Livy is already 4 months. She is hardly my little newborn anymore. It's bittersweet!

No matter how bad my day is I can always look at her with her big blue eyes and warm smile and I instantly feel better. In fact Livy was so smiley and making the cutest little sounds today at her doctors visit the doctor said he was having trouble doing his job because she was being so darn cute. I like to think that this will be one of her strengths as she grows up...to make people happy with her friendly and happy personality.

Livy for the most part is a pretty chill and easy baby. Unless she is hungry and then it's a whole other story, but that is easily fixed with a bottle. We're ever so close to getting her to sleep through the night as well. She goes to bed around 9:30 and sleeps most nights until 6am. Not bad at all, but I'm hoping to get her to sleep just a few more hours until morning. Livy also just loves her big sister and is constantly watching and smiling at Mia. Livy also has the cutest laugh which she does often. Basically I just love this little girl to pieces!

2. Dealflicks: This is in fact something I learned about this week. Dealficks is like Priceline for movies tickets! It partners with theaters to fill empty seats by selling movies tickets and concessions for up to 60% off. I'm definitely going to be trying this next time Eric and I want to go to a movie!

3. Chris Loves Julia blog. This is probably letting on how much I look at blogs. I can't remember how I found my way to this blog but I fell in love with it instantly and spent at least an hour browsing it. It's basically a blog about a couple's adventure making a house their own and all the projects that it entailed. It gave me all shorts of ideas I would love to do with our "hopefully" soon-to-be home.

4. My favorite finding of all....Eric gets to work from home next week! Originally Eric was scheduled to fly out again but because of the holiday he gets to stay home! It seems like a silly thing to be so excited about since he will still be working, but at least I get to see him and have help in the evenings! 

Lastly, I would quickly like to truly thank everyone for their comments and encouragement from my last post. It's times like these that I love blogging...to have a place to share my rants (maybe not always the best thing) and have the opportunity to be uplifted by fellow mothers, wives and friends.

Hope everyone has a fantastic, long Labor Day weekend!

One of those "Real Life" posts

I've been debating whether or not to post this since I'm embarrassed with half of the things that have happened and just frustrated at the other half, but I want to keep this blog as "real" to my life as possible and it's not always great big smiles, craft projects and fun. So here's my post; border line rant.

This week has not been the greatest to say the least and it's only Wednesday! I feel like thing after thing keeps happening to the point where I'm ready to yell at the top of my lungs "I GIVE UP!" and go hide under a blanket for a whole day at least!

It all started after a frustrating weekend of having to go down to Orem to get the contract signed for the house and coming back empty handed because the seller didn't what to commit to a deadline yet, barely getting to see Eric before he flew out for work again and not getting hardly any time to study for a test I had to take this week.

Yesterday my friend, who is truly as saint and lifesaver, watched the girls when I went to Provo to take a final I needed to take for an online class I was taking. I really didn't get many chances to study without one of the girls crying at me wanting something, but I felt like I knew enough to at least pass and it was the last week I could take the test so it was now or never. The results...I failed it! Meaning that was $500 down the drain, I have to retake the class and I am not any closer to getting my degree. I cried the whole way home and what's worse was that I lied to my friend about not knowing my score because I was too embarrassed to admit that she had to watch my kids all morning for nothing!

The rest of the day was spent sulking, cleaning up after Mia who peed her pants after going almost a month without an accident and trying to care of an unusually fussy Livy. Then I finally worked myself up to making dinner. I haven't been shopping in almost 4 weeks so I was having to get creative as it was. I settled on chicken pot pie. I didn't have pie crust so I decided to use the crescent rolls I had. After spreading out the bottom layer in a pan I realize I didn't have mixed veggies. After improvising with some other kinds of veggies I realized that the other can of crescent rolls had popped open in the fridge and was all dried out. Mia would hardly touch dinner and I wasn't feeling my up to eating myself. Dinner ended up going down the drain. By this point I was about to another breaking point.

Today I was feeling a little better even though both the girls were up by 7am. (That is pretty early for us.) We took it pretty easy today. Mia spent the better part of the morning in time out for doing things she wasn't suppose to and I was going on my third day without a shower having not energy to care. (This is a pretty embarrassing fact as well.) By dinner time I decided to not even attempt dinner and just treat myself given the circumstances. I ordered us some Chilies to go online...some real comfort food. I ended up walking into an Applebees and asking for my order. The manger had to come out and ask if I was sure I made an order before I finally realize I wasn't in Chilies. Was it possible I was that caught up in everything that was going wrong this week that I couldn't even tell the difference between Applebees and Chilies!? SO embarrassing!

After finally getting our order, we came home and I probably ate 3 days worth of calories. It's a good thing I hardly eat anything for the most part when Eric's gone to justify this binge eating! I thought all was going good until Mia started crying and saying her tummy hurt just before she threw up all over the kitchen floor. My good feeling was gone and I was left feeling sick myself after having to clean it all up. So much to treating myself to dinner!

My plans tonight are to put Mia to bed and watch the sappiest movie I can find while I wait for Livy's bedtime so I can go to bed myself and call it another day. I am counting down the hours for Eric to be home tomorrow evening and until we leave for Vernal for the weekend to spend some time with family.

On a happier note I am redoing our dining table! Here is where I am at so far. I need to stain and seal the top, finish painting the chairs and get end chairs for the table.

House Business

Friday I let you in on the news that we are in the works of buying a house. So now I'd like to fill in on the details. This house was something that kind of just fell in our laps and seemed like the opportunity we had been waiting for as we have been on and off again house hunting for the last year. 

Here's the story...We have some really good friends that just bought a house a year ago and one day when we were visiting them and joking about how nice it would be to live closer to each other they mentioned that the people across the street were building a house and getting ready to sell theirs. Long story short, we went over and asked if we could look at the house, liked the potential that we saw, felt good about perusing it and went home and started talking to lenders to make something happen and made an offer!

The owner of the house was planning on putting it on the market through a Realtor once she was moved into her new house, but since we were interesting in buying it, to save her money and get her to come down to the price we wanted for the house we are in the process of buying it without a Realtor involved. I've been doing a lot of research on buying a house without a Realtor and in most cases it seems that people suggest having one. I'm interested to see how this whole process plays out and hope it has a positive and good ending. So far we have had a lot of help and guidance from family and a friends which has been very helpful!

Right now we are in the process of writing up a contract with the owner. It's proving to be a little bit of a drug out process right now as the owner still isn't sure when her house will be finished so she is hesitant on setting any deadlines as of now, but hopefully we hear something this week from her and get the ball rolling. If all goes as planned and the appraisal and inspection check out we should be in this house by the end of October or early November...I know, it seems FOREVER away!

Now for some pictures!

The owner is in the middle of packing everything up, but to give you an idea, here is living room you come into when entering this house. There are some really great updates on this house, one being these beautiful wood floors that you can kind of see!

From the living room you walk back into the kitchen. This kitchen has some great potential for projects that I already have brewing! (Ex. painting the cabinets, back-splash and possibly removing the cabinets on the left wall and adding open shelving)

We LOVE this backyard. It has this huge multi-level deck that have trees that hang over for shade. I can see some pretty great dinner parties happening out here :)

We also love that this yard is fully fenced so the girls will have somewhere to come outside and play. The yard also extends on both sides of the house for more lawn space with a shed and a place for a garden.

Needless to say once again Eric and I are very excited for this next step in our lives and to have a house to make our own. I'll admit that sometimes I stay up at night thinking of all the projects I could do in this house! I'm sure Eric just cringes at the ideas that are a little ambitious and not to mention that I'm getting way ahead of myself.

Anyway I'll continue posting about the updates and things learned on this whole house buying process for documentation and in hopes that it could possibly help someone else in a similar situation. 

Hope everyone has a great Monday!

Friday's Favorite Finds #1

I'm always discovering new things that I want to share with all of you so I thought I would start a regular, weekly post titled "Friday's Favorite Finds" where I share my recent finds that I'm loving. So here's the line up for this week...

1. My findings at the Allergist. That's right, I went to the Allergist the other week and after multiple tests we have concluded that I am NO longer allergic to peanuts! He said I was one of the rarest cases he had ever seen of something like this happening and that it must have definitely been the blood transfusions and weirdly it wasn't out of my system yet when I had my first testings. Yay for me!!! Although I think this experience has somewhat killed my love for peanuts and nuts.

2. This unbelievably adorable chambray shirt I found for Mia for our family pictures we're having done next month! I got it HERE from Macy's. They are having a sale on toddler clothes right now!

3. This house we're in the beginning process of buying! More details on this to come!

4. "The Words We Speak" by Rosemary M. Wixom. I re-read this talk give in the last General Conference last night and was reminded what an amazing gift I have been given to raise two of God's children and teach them to be confident and have faith in the Lord. She lays out some great points on how we can achieve this for our children. I loved it!


5. This cute blog I came across by Thalita called "The Learner Obverser". For those of you who like diy, decorating and reading very entertaining posts you'll love it too. She's celebrating her 1 year blogging and doing a fun giveaway on some graphic design prints. Definitely have to check it out HERE!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

A Blogging and Crafting Experience

I recently joined a team of contributors in blogging for Reasons to Skip the Housework. Its a fun blog full of anything that gives a reason to forget cleaning and get crafting, cooking, blogging, etc. I blog once a month on home decor and have so far LOVED this opportunity! Here was my first post that I did using the dresser we sold at the fair in making it into an entry way table. I'll be honest after staging this I SO wanted to just keep it and was hoping it wouldn't sell so I could, but it was gone in the first hour. I put a lot of evenings into this dresser and was glad it found a good home! I may be on the look out for a replacement :)

Today I’m revealing this vintage dresser I turned into an entryway table.

I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite home decor trends right now are dressers. Not only are they being used in just about any room and for multiple functions, but they are also being used as a way to bring a pop of color to a space as well. So when I saw this vintage gem at a local yard sell I snagged it for $20 against my husbands questioning looks wondering what in the world I was going to do with this dresser in dire need of some TLC.

After doing some stabilizing on the dresser, a good sanding and a couple coats of paint this dresser was starting to look already a million times better.  I wanted to keep a distressed look so I sanded all the edges of the dresser to bring some of the under layers through and then add some distressed looking knobs I found at Hobby Lobby.

I also added some contact paper to the inside of the drawers to brighten it up and update the look.

The final step included a trip to Target for all the accents that went on top of the dresser and the result…a welcoming entry way table with the perfect mix of rustic and modern elements to complete the space.

I hope you all enjoyed my take on the new and many uses for a dresser and look forward to bringing you more home decor inspirations!

Check out this month's post HERE on a Plate Wall Display I did and put off the housework a little longer and look around for other cute inspiration!

The Traveling Man's Wife: Survival Guide

Image Source

As many of you know, I'm the wife of a husband who flies out every week for work. When he first started I was always looking for mother's in similar situations for any advice and just someone who knew the life to relate to. Come to find out there are so many families out there in the same situation. That's just how a lot of businesses work these days. So after over a year at this job here's my two cents on how to survive with no husband for the week and 2 kids at home.

1. Just learn to expect looks of pity when people find out your husband travels each week or make. It is tough having your husband gone a lot, but there are ways of making it work and still be a close and happy family regardless of what some people may think.

2. Friends keep you sane! I don't know what I would do without friends to talk to, do things with and rely on when Eric's away. Especially since we don't have the good fortune of living super close to family.

3. The kids ALWAYS get sick when dads gone. This has rung true just about every time one of my girls have been sick. Luckily Eric is home by the time I catch it.

4. The meaning of bedtime will take on a whole new meaning! Some days its all I can do to put the girls to bed with a final push of patience and then go sit on the couch with a bowl of cereal and a guilty pleasure show and not move for a couple hours and convince myself I can make it through another day. Don't we all have those days as mother's regardless of it our husbands travel or not?!

5. Take some "ME" time! Going week after week taking care of someone else's needs 24/7 it's important to take some time and do something the rejuvenates you. The other night when Eric was home for the weekend I grabbed my stuff and headed to Barns and Noble to do some studying for some classes I'm taking. Normally studying isn't something I jump for joy in terms of doing, but being able to have some time to do something for me without Mia whining for a drink of water while Livy is crying because she is hungry was so rejuvenating!

6. It's ok to ask for help. This is something I've really had to work on as I like to be Miss Independent and would only ask for help in extreme circumstances. Like when I was 7 months pregnent with Livy and had been throwing up for 6 hours with Mia on her 3rd movie until I finally called my sister for help. She was a pure saint and drove a hour with her own baby to come take care of mine.

7. When it come to having younger kids, forget having a schedule and just go day to day. Some days I get a lot done and some days, depending on how things are going, we just chill around the house in our pj's.

8. Find different ways to keep in touch with your traveling spouse. Eric and I try really hard to keep each other involved in each other's day regardless of how far away he is. For example, we made a goal to send each other at least a picture daily, we send texts throughout the day and then video chat in the evening with the girls.

9. It gets easier and becomes a normal lifestyle over time. Confession...the first week or two are probably the roughest and is a tiring adjustment, but I learned that after getting into a routine and getting use to it, it gets a lot easier and becomes the norm.

10. Find joy in the situation. Eric loves his job and I even love some aspects about it too however as with any job there are always downside and being away from your husband is one of them. I've found that it's made Eric being gone so much better when I go about it with a good and supportive attitude. Of course, he feels bad that he has to leave a lot and it makes him feel even worse when I sit and complain about how hard it is sometimes. So for both our sakes I try to have a positive and happy attitude about it and Eric comes home ready to take care of the kids and help me when he gets that chance.

Linked To:
http://www.create-with-joy.com/2013/08/inspire-me-monday-week-85.html
http://www.keepingitsimplecrafts.com/2013/08/motivate-me-monday-187.html
http://www.sumossweetstuff.com/2013/08/market-yourself-monday_18.html
http://www.amamasstory.com/2013/08/mama-moments-mondays-link-up_19.html
http://www.thebettermom.com/
http://saynotsweetanne.com/2013/sweet-sharing-monday-66/
http://joleneengle.com/8-things-you-must-know-about-ministry/

DIY Baby Girl Onesies

It's been awhile since I've posted a project I've done besides the fair... let me rephrase...it's actually been awhile since I've even done a project that wasn't for the fair! So this was a fun and easy project that wasn't home decor.

Some good friend of ours were getting ready to have a baby girl. I just love all the cute ideas and things there are out there for baby girls and with me having 2 girls of my own I decided to gift two of my favorite things I liked having for my girls.

1. Some headbands and accessories from Ambrey's Accessories. As I mentioned before I love these headbands with interchangeable snap accessories. Mia wore one just about everyday of first year of her life and they held up perfectly to use now for Livy.

2. Cute onesies. Onesies are my absolute favorite and go to for babies. I even use them for under baby dresses or shirts because I hate constantly having their dress/shirt up to their armpits and their tummies being bare. It's a little weird and OCD I know. Anyway I thought I'd get a little creative and "embellish" some onesies on my own.

I just used scrap fabric, lace and trim I already had to put these together along with some iron-on applique paper and the final result was just so adorable! I want to remake all of these for Livy now!

I'm in love with Peter-pan collared shirts right now so of course I had to try my hand and making one in "baby form". 

Linked To:

http://thelifeofjenniferdawn.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-little-bird-told-me-link-party-55.html

http://thediydreamer.com/from-dream-to-reality/80-share-your-creativeness/

http://thenymelrosefamily.com/2013/08/whimsy-wednesdays-76.html

http://www.sew-much-ado.com/2013/08/we-did-it-wednesday_14.html
http://sparklesandastove.com/all-things-pretty-linky-party-21-features/
http://www.reasonstoskipthehousework.com/the-weekly-creative-thursday-link-party-2/

Instilling Creativity in Children

A couple weeks ago Mia went to her little friend's birthday party who had just gotten a cute Little People Disney Princess Castle. Mia's eyes grew about 2 times bigger after setting eyes on it and just loved it! It made me want to buy one for her on the spot. I'll admit I even went as far as actually looking on Amazon to see what it cost. After coming to my senses and reminding myself that buying Mia a huge toy for that price for no reason was crazy so I decided to think of some other options.

I started thinking about all the hours my sister and I spent building just about anything we could imagine out of things we found around the house when we were young. This made me realize how little I let Mia express her very creative side, especially since I am always crafting around her and how little I spend my time crafting on something she can benefit from as well.

So the next day I grabbed a cardboard box and we went to work creating a fun, little "princess" castle for Mia. As I was cutting out the castle I let Mia play with all my scrap papers and some scissors (yes, I'm a little too trusting of a mother, but luckily she did great!). It was so fun watching all the things she was imagining up. She started making houses out of some papers, a slide and even thought one looked like a car. Once the actual castle was done she had fun coloring the sides and then making a bed and a blanket for her little Cinderella to sleep with.

This experience has just helped me remember how important it is to let our children be creative and to give our time helping them to develop their creative side no matter the age. To also let them get a little messy doing it and to make a mess! Creative play is so very important to help children learn how to solve problems and come up with solutions. Not to mention it's just so stinkin' cute watching them!

Linked To:
http://www.muchadoaboutsomethin.blogspot.com/search/label/tell%20us%20tuesday
http://www.create-with-joy.com/2013/08/inspire-me-monday-week-84.html
http://www.keepingitsimplecrafts.com/2013/08/motivate-me-monday-186.html
http://carolynshomework.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-inspiration-board-creative-party-115.html

The Things I've Learn From Being Married

Today marks our four year anniversary. Four years is hardly that long at all, but I feel like in just these few years we have been through a lot and I have learned so much. Here are some of those things...

1. To get married and then "live happily ever after" takes hard work and effort! The first year Eric and I were married was the hardest year of our marriage. We were still learning a lot about each other and how to make our marriage work. Over time we were able to get in a groove and pull together our strengthens and weaknesses to work together. However, even now our marriage is still something we are always working on to strengthen and keep strong so we can continue to live happily ever after.

2. I married my best friend and didn't even know it. When I married Eric I was totally in love with him like a silly school girl, but I don't know if at the time I considered him my best friend. After all we had only known each other for about a year and only actually dated for about 6 months of that year. Since then Eric has been there to help me through every challenge and heart ache I've had to face, helped and supported me through every accomplishment, knows what terrifies me (even if some of those things he can't help but laugh at) and what makes me happy. Basically he's the only one who knows me inside and out and will always be there for me.

3. The love just continues to grow with time and the experiences shared. As I mentioned before I thought I really loved Eric the day we got married, but it's nothing compared to the love I have for him now. I remember how much my love for Eric grew while seeing each of our girls for the first time in Eric's arms and thinking how they looked just like him. My love and appreciation grew even more after working hard and supporting each other through school and watching Eric graduate from BYU from the stands in the Marriot Center. And so on through all our moves and achievements and even after loosing our twins. It's crazy to think it will just continue to grow as our lives unfold.

Although we've had our fair share of arguments, I have never regretted my decision to marry this amazing husband of mine! It has been a wonderful and life changing 4 years and I hope it continues that way for years to come!

"We're Going To A Fair"

We just arrived home for a week packed with all things crazy and fun in Ely after doing Arts in the Park. Now I am on the recovery, sitting in my messy house, still in my pajama's and have plans to do hardly much else for the rest of the week as I watch the girls.

Here's the run down...

Last Tuesday me and the girls headed to my parent's house in Ely to finished getting ready for a fair I have been preparing for with my sister and sister-in-law. We did a booth at Arts in the Park 2 years ago and worked up the nerve to do it again this year. Both times I've really enjoyed seeing everything come together and creating a really fun booth but let me tell you...it is a WHOLE LOT of work!

Anyway, we all came out with our kids equaling 5 children at my mother's house all under the ages of 3 (talk about craziness right there) and each day we were working around the clock trying to get everything finishing in time for Saturday when the fair started.

A huge shout out goes out to everyone in my family especially my little brother, mom and super supportive husband. Both my mom and little brother basically watched our kids for the good part of the week and helped out and my husband got off a plane from a business trip Friday night and jumped in the car right after to travel out to Ely to watch the kids while I did the fair. Then we traveled home last night so he could catch a red-eye flight back to work. The rest of my family helped with set up and take down as well as with all the kids! We would have never pulled it all off without everyone! Also thanks to everyone in Ely who dropped by our booth and even bought stuff!

The fair was a HUGE success! All money aside I say success because we were able to put together an awesome booth that we had been scheming about for the past 6+ months and had a lot of people come by in admiration. It's nice after all the work we put into it to get compliments on what we did. We had a lot of people ask if we had an etsy shop and even say our booth looked like it came right out of Pinterest lol.

So for those of you who weren't able to attend here are some pictures for your view pleasure!

We scored these large shutters in a dumpster and turned it into a display wall for our booth. It was a perfect backdrop to stage some of our pieces! 

We built a pallet wall on the other side of the booth for more display room. It was quite a project trying to get these display walls up and to make them stable, but it turned out great!

I am really going to miss these two girls! Not only are they my family, but they're my crafting partners, great mother's who I look up to but friends as well! It was so fun to get to do this with them before they move away in the next couple of weeks.

Linked To:

http://www.create-with-joy.com/2013/08/inspire-me-monday-week-83.html

http://itssoverycheri.com/2013/08/04/its-party-time-8-4-2013/

http://diyshowoff.com/2013/08/04/that-diy-party-28/

http://www.madincrafts.com/2013/08/mad-skills-party-167.html

http://carolynshomework.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-inspiration-board-creative-party-114.html

http://www.cozylittlehouse.com/2013/08/tweak-it-tuesday-50.html

http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/2013/08/take-look-tuesday.html

http://thediydreamer.com/from-dream-to-reality/79-share-your-awesomeness/

http://thewinthropchronicles.blogspot.com/2013/08/share-it-link-party-75.html