Mother's Day 2015

Mother's Day 2015

Monday, May 25, 2015

Surprise, surprise.
I'm two weeks late.

BUT. We had a good little Mother's Day over here. Church in the morning followed by Skyping my cutest little sister who is serving a mission in Pittsburgh (we only get to talk to her twice a year so it's pretty exciting!), some time spent at Mom Wallace's in the afternoon, then dinner with my parents' and grandma's complete with cheesecake dessert which always makes for a great day.

The best part of the day was just spending time with all my favorite people, especially my three favorite boys.

You are about to be hit with one million pictures of almost exactly the same pose but I just can't narrow it down. All the different expressions perfectly explain my everyday life.

^have to say i'm pretty excited for this baby girl to come and to get a 4-generation (all girls!) photo with my grandma and mama!

^how gorgeous are my grandma's?!

^I realize that I for some reason look like a GIANT compared to my mama but A) my heels and B) let's just blame all that extra flab on pregnancy, k? We'll try this picture again when I'm a little less belly and booty. sure love this lovely mama even if she is making me look bad!

AND let's just talk about how CUTE my little sister is for one second, okay?

^She has officially been out six (almost seven!) months which means she is 1/3 of the way done with her mission! EEK. I miss this girl like CUH-RAZY and cannot wait to see her again in another year!

These little boys keep my life busy and sometimes a little crazy but I love (almost) every moment! Ever since I was a little girl I've dreamed of being a wife and mom and I can honestly say that it's even better than I ever imagined! My days are filled with joy & love and I wouldn't want to spend my life any other way than beside the love of my life raising these littles. It seems as though life couldn't get any sweeter but I know it will when baby girl arrives and then again with each new addition to our little (or almost not so little anymore!) family!

Oh and my boys gifted me a massage PLUS chiropractor gift voucher so I was all smiles about that. Two things my 30+ week pregnant body so needed ha.

Hope all you beautiful girls out there (mama's or not!) had a wonderful Mother's Day! All women are Mother's in one way or another :)

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Jack: 2 years, 10 months

Jack: 2 years, 10 months

Sunday, May 24, 2015

I gave you a Phillip update a couple weeks ago so now for a Jack Jack update!

Lover of puzzles. He can do 24 piece jigsaw puzzles without help and he has one 48 jigsaw he can do by himself too. We're hoping to get him some more 48+ piece puzzles for his 3rd birthday so he can have more of a challenge as the 24-piece ones are getting too easy for him!

Favorite movies/shows: Cars, Planes, Toy Story of Terror, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, anything Lego.

Mama: Jack, you're not listening to me. When I tell you to get into your car seat you need to get in your car seat. Got it? You need to listen to Mommy.
Jack: No, you're the bad guy.
Where does he come up with this stuff?

Favorite foods: panda bear nuggets (panda express), corn on the cob, french fries, popsicles, grapes, cantaloupe, olives, lettuce and all desserts.

Favorite songs: Popcorn, color song (we learned this at our library and you sing about the colors you are wearing, it's a definite favorite!), The Jack Song (made up and I sort of wish I never had made it up because we sing it so much that I HATE it!), itsy bitsy spider...this list could actually go on forever. The kid loves music.

Favorite toys: Cars, Mr. Potato Head, balls/baseball bats/golf clubs, swords, crayons/markers/watercolor paints, play kitchen stuff, MegaBloks.

Jack: Phillip, say Jack Jack.

Phillip:

Jack: Say Jack Jack.

Phillip:

Jack: Phillip. Say Jack Jack.

Phillip:

Jack: Mommy, Phillip not saying Jack Jack. He not saying it. He not saying any words.

After seeing a Target cart on the side of the road...
Jack: Mom, look! It's a Target cart. But Target is really far away.
Mama: Yeah, I guess someone put it there.
Jack: Oh yeah maybe the bad guys.
Mama: The bad guys? Maybe...
Jack: Or maybe just the people.

Favorite color: orange.
Favorite number: 2 (pretty sure that's because he's two years old ha). But whenever he sees a 2 he tells me "mommy, that's my favorite number!"

Walked into Jack's bedroom to find pillows and blankets all off the bed and all over the floor. This always means they are building a castle or fort.
Me: Wow, are you guys building a fort?!
Jack: Yeah, wii fort resort!
...umm, apparently he doesn't know the real name of Wii Sports Resort? haha!

Me: Oh, crap!
Jack: What'd you say? What'd you say, Mommy?
Me: I said "oh shoot."
Jack: No. You said "oh crap!"
Me:
Jack: Mom, you said "oh crap!" That's what you said.

I made popcorn for Jack while he was watching a movie before bed. I joined him on the couch and took a handful of popcorn and...
Jack: Mommy, not take a loz of emz (this is how he always says "a lot of them" and it gets me every time haha)
I take another handful a few minutes later aaaand he took the bag and moved it to his other side out of my reach. What the?! It was a FULL BAG of popcorn and I seriously couldn't have two handfuls?! Hahah!

In the middle of the night:
"Mommy, Mr. Bunny's hitting me!"

"Mommy, you wanna play wandy can?"
Wandy can = Candyland

"Mom, do you wanna play racers? It's cool. You run."

Me: You need to get dressed soon because we're going to Target.
Jack: Not just two stores?
Me: Not two stores. Just one.
Jack: Yeah, just only Target.
Me: right
Jack: Just Phillip and us. Not Daddy.
Me: Yeah, not Daddy.
Jack: Yeah not a loz of emz. Not a lot of guys.

As I'm standing on the tub ledge adjusting the shower head:
Jack: Be careful, Mommy! It's too dangerous!

While we were out shopping with my grandma...
(great!) grandma: I'm thirsty, I need a drink.
Jack (from the backseat): There's Starbucks. You can get Starbucks at Target.
YOU GUYS. We were not even at or near Target hahahha! And while we DO get vanilla bean fraps every once in awhile it is not like I'm there every day! We treat ourselves to a vanilla bean like twice a month, if that! I was dying that he totally suggested Starbucks the minute someone mentioned they were thirsty. HE'S TWO.

Little Jack-o-Lantern, we sure do love you to pieces! It is so fun watching you grow and learn new things every day but goodness, could time slow down just a little bit?!

xoxo

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Phillip: 15 Months

Phillip: 15 Months

Monday, May 4, 2015

Let's chat about Phillip at 15 months, shall we?

Little boy is 20lb (5%) and 31" (50%). He's such a teensy little thing! Every time I pick him up I'm amazed all over again by how light he is. Jack was 20lb by 6 months so this little baby business is all new to me!

Kid loves to color. LOVES. I don't think Jack understood how to really use a pen/crayon/marker at this age but Phillip has loved to color for a couple months now. Although we're working on only coloring on paper ;)

Current vocabulary includes: hi!, uh oh, ball, mama, dada, whoa.

He knows dogs say "woof woof!" but every other animal says "rawwwwwr!"

Favorite foods: yogurt, cheese sticks, frosted mini wheats, yogurt bites, goldfish, applesauce pouches, french fries, any & all dessert. And also my child loves soda. I know, it's so bad that he's even had it before to know to love it! If we are out and someone has soda at the table he screams and cries until he gets a sip. I always give in and it's so bad! But we never ever have soda at home so he gets a few sips a week and I figure it's not gonna kill him haha.

This baby is our little climber! I'm always surprised at the things he can climb up on/into. Jack Jack has never been a climber (still isn't!) and Phillip can climb things that Jack wouldn't dare attempt to climb. He's also far more of a daredevil than Jack ever was. Just the other day we went to Fairytale Town (which is basically a glorified park ha!) and Phillip wanted to go down all the big slides over and over again. Jack stood at the bottom and watched him come down and cheered for him hahaha! Seriously, polar opposites when it comes to things that are "dangerous!" as Jack would say.

Lover of BOOKS. He will bring a book to me and climb onto my lap and plop down to read it. It's the cutest! His favorite by far is Peek A Who? followed by Little Blue Truck.

Expert tantrum thrower. He is following in big brother's footsteps and will slam his head on the ground any time he's upset. He has also mastered dramatic flops followed by sprawling out on the floor screaming/crying. Luckily most tantrums last all of three seconds before he gives up and starts playing again.

Loves to watch cars! Anytime he is in the playroom and a car drives down our street he will run to the window and say "hi!" and "vroom!" He also never misses the sound of a car passing by somewhere outside.

He is such a sweet, happy little baby and we love having him in our family! He brings us so much joy I can't even handle it!

xoxo

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A little playroom reveal

A little playroom reveal

Friday, May 1, 2015

I've been promising a little playroom reveal ever since I showed you my playroom inspiration board before Christmas. The room still is not done as we are still hunting out a futon and I have yet to hang anything on the walls (decisions, decisions - I want it just perfect!) but I figured it may be awhile before I can safely say that it's done so I thought it was only fair to give you a little sneak peek of the current situation. 

First, a little reminder of what the room looked like before Christmas.

Better than it looked when we first moved in with our addition of bright blue (fun!) paint instead of the very dark burgundy that was more suited to a formal setting (which we were not using the space for). But still a huge work-in-progress. We had not nearly enough storage for all our (way too many!) toys, we weren't digging the cherry trim (again, too fancy-formal for a playroom!), Tom has hated those back wall curtains all along (should have listened to him because I now hate them too haha!), and overall the space just wasn't working. The boys and I spend a lot of time in this room as a) the obvious, it's where all the toys are!, b) it's the only room in the house with carpeting so it's comfy-cozy and c) it gets the best natural light in the whole house so it's totally my happy place! Oh and side note d) it looks out to the front yard so we can be the neighborhood spies ;)

To fix this space up a bit I asked for a playroom re-haul as my Christmas and birthday presents. New storage from IKEA plus a toddler sized table + chairs also from IKEA, new DIY rain gutter bookshelves and new bright white trim! The end result?

Do you love it as much as I do?! Like I said, we still have some finishing touches to do but I'm so far loving how it has turned out! Before we jump into the tour: I've been wanting to tell you about such a fun giveaway I won over on Karina's blog Mr & Mrs Powell! Around Christmastime she teamed up with some other bloggers and did a $250 Christmas Cash giveaway and I WON! I never win anything, I couldn't even believe it! We immediately knew we wanted the money to go to the playroom and we ended up using it for painting the trim bright white! It makes the HUGEST difference in the playroom and I'm SO in love. So thank you thank you one million times over, Karina! xoxo

I think one of my very favorite parts of the playroom is the DIY rain gutter bookshelves! I looked at this blog post before starting but since it's not really a tutorial we sort of just winged it. It turned out to be pretty easy!

The boys spend a lot of time here on these poufs reading books and I love that! This is actually not the permanent home of the poufs as they'll live at the foot of the futon when we get one but the boys love sitting here so much that I might have to consider some sort of seating under the shelves.

For our main storage solution we used the IKEA Kallax system shelves. These are awesome because you can buy cabinets and drawers separately and install them in whatever cubbies you want! We chose to do two cupboards and two drawers for each unit and then we used these Better Homes & Gardens bins from Walmart for storage on the bottom. I love that everything (besides the large toys on top!) is hidden!

The little table and chairs (both from IKEA) were not part of the original plan but I saw them set up in the IKEA showroom and just couldn't leave without them! I am SO glad we ended up getting them as the boys sit here ALL the time! They do puzzles here, color here, "eat" here...we love it!

We keep a little art center on one of the end walls where the boys coloring books and markers/crayons live. My original plan was to hang these right above the table for easy access but I knew that one day I wanted a little play kitchen in this playroom and the best space for it is going to be where the table currently resides. SO when we one day do get the kitchen the table will move to the middle of the room in front of the bay window and the kitchen will replace the table's current spot. Because I knew we'd be making that change sometime soon I opted to keep the art center where we wouldn't have to move it later.

^Those clear bins? The best extra storage! Not all the toys fit in the cubbies (much to my dismay! - we have GOT to purge the playroom!) so I ended up buying a pack of clear bins from Sam's Club and we store cars, Mr. Potato Head, Little People, Legos, etc each in their own bin. I love these because it's easy for the boys to find the one they want and pull it out.

A little side note here. All those toys on top of the Kallax unit? We bought ONE of them (the police SUV) and the rest are hand-me-downs from Tom's siblings. I promise, promise you we do not wildly spoil our children and buy them a new toy every time we are at the store! And they get as few toys for Christmas as I can manage ha! We are just really lucky to get a lot of hand-me-down toys.

In case you are interested in our basic storage...

Fabric storage bins in the left Kallax store trains, musical instruments, play dishes, and large cars (not pictured).

The cupboards house large floor puzzles and some baby toys. I didn't take pictures of what is in the drawers but the ones on the left hold random toys like the doctor kit, soldiers/pirates/dinosaurs and the drawers on the right hold board puzzles.

The fabric bins in the right Kallax store Little People toys (airplane, zoo train, fire truck), MegaBloks & more MegaBloks (yeah two HUGE bins full!) and little baby toys.

The cupboards hold jigsaw puzzles (so many!) and a few random toys like blocks and hammering set. The drawers all hold mostly little, random toys.

Of course one corner is a sports corner for our little sports-obsessed boys. These all get daily use! My picture is a little deceiving as we have a large bucket filled with balls that also sits in this corner but I'm on the hunt for one that fits the space better so I moved it out of the picture view haha! Which is why you can see an indent in the carpet from where the basketball hoop normally sits in front of the ball bucket. I guess I'm not the best stager!

This room gets the best light in the morning when the boys are awake and so that's when I had to take pictures and you have no idea how hard it was to get a picture of the sports corner without Phillip in it! I kept having to grab him and put him on the other side of the room then run back to snap the picture really quick. I wasn't fast enough most of the time because this kept happening:

Okay well that basically ends our tour and I'll just leave you with a few more photos! 

And just in case you are like my friend who (after I sent her a picture of the new room!) asked me how my playroom is always so clean...

...it's not! I promise! Usually it's even more of a disaster than this! We are really working on the whole "one toy at a time" thing but the boys still haven't got that down ha! It's only clean during nap time and bedtime and besides that it looks like this ^ or worse! I wish it always looked perfectly clean but then what would be the point of it being a playroom, right?!

kallax shelves // kallax cupboard inserts // kallax drawer inserts // fabric bins // mini table: IKEA (similar) // mini chairs // fabric poufs: target (similar) // rocking horse // basketball hoop // t-ball set // golf set // spice rack (holds coloring books) // bygel rail & buckets (for crayons & markers) // paint color: behr's fountain spout (520C-2)* // curtains

*Sample paint chips are no longer available for Behr's Fountain Spout in Home Depot stores but you can still request for them to mix it for you!

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