Spring Mantle

I got a Pier One gift card for Christmas (Thanks Karen!) and I had some money left on it so I picked up some things for my spring mantle. I don’t have a lot of Easter things so I leave most of my regular things up and just added some spring touches to it.

 

 

I saw these eggs and new they would look perfect in my hurricane vase. The raffia was from the wrapping on the eggs.

I got the pink bird from Target and the little bunny is from Pier 1

The little owl is from Pier 1 too, he was just $4 and too cute to pass up.

I made this bunny a few years ago, it was a paper mache bunny and I just covered it up with some cute paper and added the ribbons and tag.

 

I decided I needed a little bunting, but didn’t want to spend much time so I cut the cute peep bunnies out with my silhouette. {Have I mentioned how much I LOVE that machine?!} I just hot glued the pom-pom yarn on and it was ready to go. It only took me about 15 minutes to make!

January…part 1

Where did January go? I can’t believe it is February! I’ve been in a blogging funk…I’ll blame it on all the cold weather we have had! Here’s some pictures of what we have done this month

We went to a bounce house place while school was out. The kids loved it! We got a Groupon for it so it was really affordable to take 4 kids (well Averi was free).

Some our our friends that we went with. The kids go free Icee’s so they were excited!

Matthew and his best Buddy Isaac…These boys have so much fun together. They are a LOT alike and can both be very intense. I’m glad that Matthew has such a good little friend here!

This is my friend Andrea. I am so glad she is here in Arkansas (for a little while). We both have 4 kids, 2 boys and 2 girls. Our kids love playing together and we love hanging out together. It is nice to have a friend who totally understands the craziness of 4 kids (well 8 when we are all together).

Thomas decided he wanted to try basketball.  It is fun to watch him play. They have this blowup that the kids run through when they are announced. It is so fun for him.

Thomas gets better with each practice and each game. He is actually a pretty good shot and good on defense. Sometimes he forgets to play offense and just keeps defending even when his team has the ball. We have to remind him to listen to his Coach and not get silly on the court.

We had some snow days that I will tell you about in another post, we took the extra time to rearrange the playroom and get it organized with all the new toys. The kids love it and so do we. They are being better about helping clean up every day-so they don’t loose all their bins again! Here’s some pictures of how it looks now.

We put the wedge back in the sectional and moved our toy bins over by the TV.

We got this table for the kids to do art on, have tea parties and do some learning time with mom.

We gave our train table away. We didn’t really need it with hardwoods everywhere. They haven’t missed it yet so I’m glad I got rid of it.

I still have lots of decorating to do in this house. I want to do an alphabet wall above the toy bins. I need to start collecting different letters. Here’s a couple examples of what I want to do.

 

I think it will look great in the playroom, we’ll see how long it takes me to collect all the letters!

Rearranging Things

I love pretty much everything about our house, except the breakfast nook. It is so small!  Our table didn't really fit in it and it was hard to keep the floor clean and just cramped.  My friend Andrea rearranged her house, switching the nook for the office and I thought why haven't I thought of that! So one Friday night after we got the kids to bed Jim and I got to work.  It was easy to move everything, even our big ole computer armorie just glided on the wood floors.  After we finished we wondered why we didn't think of making the change earlier! Thanks for the idea Andrea!!!

Here's the new dining room. It is nice to have more room at dinner! We are going to be switching tables to the "DeVaux" table. It is a beast of a table that my Great-Grandfather made, it is big and rugged and perfect for kids. We just need a free Saturday to go and get it from my parent's storage unit.  I still need a new window  treatment for this room so just ignore the tacky sheers-they came with the house!

Here's our new office. The armorie fit perfectly!

We also decided to utilize the bar. I ordered the stools from walmart.com. They super cheap and easy to put together! The kids LOVE them! They eat breakfast and lunch at the bar. They love to color and do play dough up here too.  It is so much easier to keep clean! Again...why had I not done this earlier, it has made my life so much easier!!

Enjoying pancakes with Livy

I just got my Grandma B's China hutch.  After Grandpa passed away last year, she moved into an assisted living facility She is suffering from Alzheimer's. My mom spent last weekend in Austin with her brother and sisters going through Grandma's house to get it ready to sell. My awesome cousin Amy took pictures of everything in the house and we got to say what we were interested in. I guess no one else wanted the hutch so I totally scored! I might refinish it one day, but it looks good for now. I think I will put some new hardware on it to update it a little bit.  

 When I opened it up to clean it out and get it put together it smelled like my grandma's house. I just sat there and smelled it for a minute. Isn't it funny how certain smells can trigger memories. I thought of all the fun spring breaks we spent there and Christmas with all of the family. It is such a fun and unique house I am sad I won't stay there again and have my kids explore the fun outdoors there. It made me miss my Grandma...she is an amazing lady and I am so blessed to be her granddaughter and named after her!

When we got married my Grandma B gave me my Great Grandma's-Mama Lone-crystal stemware.  It is beautiful hand blown crystal and I love it.  I've only used it a few times because I am so scared of it breaking.  Now I have a beautiful place to display it.

I don't have very many other things to put in it. I put some of my serving pieces that got with my wedding stoneware. I think I'm just going to look for cool plates and things like that at thrift stores and antique shops. It will be fun to fill it up with cool things!

Our New Home!

We moved in last Wednesday into our new house and everything is going great!  Here aer a few pictures of the house.  There are still boxes everywhere so just look beyond those and the messes. I knew people wanted to see it so I didn't want to wait till everything is perfect.

Front of the house

The backyard is awesome! It is huge and we have a great wooden deck that the kids love to play on. 

The Great room.

The Dinette

The kitchen-I have a double oven which I am really excited about, the top oven is convection

The Playroom/family room. It is right off of the great room and is great. The kids have plenty of room for their toys and they are happy because I'm not far away when I am in the kitchen. (Kaylee had to be in the pictures)

The fireplace is a double fireplace, it is open in the great room and the playroom. We took the corner wedge out of the sectional so there is more floor space.

I'll take pictures of the bedrooms when they are more put together.

Here's the kids in their bathtub. They have whirlpool jet tub in their bathroom which they love. It is huge and can fit all 4 which is great!

Playroom Clean-up & Organizing

We bought this trofast system from Ikea last fall for the playroom, we kind of organized toys but I never got pictures on all the bins so it never lasted. Saturday Jim and I tackled the upstairs and got it all cleaned and organized and it is sooo nice. The kids like playing upstairs when everything is put away. I took pictures of all the bins, then printed them out and put them on the front of the bins. They can look at the pictures and know what they are looking for and it makes clean up easier.  We also boxed up some of the toys and put them in the attic to give them a break from them. When we pull them out, in a few weeks it is like Christmas with new toys!

so nice and clean! I love it this way!

The bins with the labels. I have one blank one for assorted junk.

The "Sports Room" our media room makes a great playroom for the big sports and big tables.

Now we just have to keep it all clean!