Now Let's Go Eat Some Cake...

Today I finished number 5 out of 7 major tests. I've got two classes and two more finals to go and I will finally put this semester behind me. My life has been kinda crazy the last few weeks (one uncontrollable outburst of tears at the DMV and two trips to the ER later...) and I am ready to be settled. More on some of crazy happenings in posts to come.

On a positive note, however, I think I did really well on my test tonight. And I am thankful I am almost 1/5 of the way done with this degree. I am also another year older now. And I had a fun weekend celebrating with my family.

My family spoiled me by letting me sleep in, followed by an offer to go to the store alone to pick out whatever I wanted for breakfast. Kevin and the kids thought of some excuse why they had to stay home when I said I wouldn't mind them coming with me. I should have seen the surprise coming. But I did not. Which was so sweet and cool.

Kev and Kay and Emmie had made me a mixed CD which started out with them each singing songs to me, followed by birthday wishes for this year, and a few things they each loved about me. <3. Coolest present ever.

I chose German Pancakes with cottage cheese, sugar free blackberry jam, strawberries and bananas. I got some yummy blueberry lemonade and a bottle of aloe vera juice as well. Yum!

  

After breakfast we headed into town to window shop and to pick up a few items for a project Kev and I had discussed and planned the night before. We decided that we were either going to tackle fixing a set of new dining room chairs I picked up for $10 at our local thrift store... or we were going to refinish our entertainment center. I finally decided on the later and we decided we wanted to do a light gray with chalk paint.

But... one of my favorite furniture stores was on the way to Home Depot...so you know. I had to stop by and fall massively in love with a couch I had no money for. You know. All in a days work. Dreams are good to have.

Anywho... since I didn't want to buy chalk paint (holy.expensive.), I just bought plaster of paris and made my own. I spent $16 total on paint and plaster of paris, $10 for finishing wax and about $11 for dark wax (for that antiqued look). Altogether, my "new look" cost about $37. Not bad for a "free to me" dresser.

My husband and I painted the first coat while the kids were down for a nap. We finished with it about the time the kids woke up, so we headed off to our local pizza joint for dinner and let the dresser sit to dry.

Because I've been dying to try this drink forever (mostly because I think the can looks cool), Kev indulged me and got me one as a part of my birthday dinner/present. I kinda have a thing about trying new drinks with cool looking bottles. Some have ended up better than others. But this one was super tasty. And I was happy to add another cool bottle to my collection.

Speaking of cool, this has got to be my favorite pizza joint ever, mainly for the ambiance. It is centered in an old log cabin up against a hill, with beautiful woodwork on the inside and a really cool looking wood stove in the middle of the room. Plus, the really old video games downstairs reminds me of the arcade at the pizza parlor I grew up going to with my family. I remember being younger than Kale and being so excited to go to Rick's Pizza. It was the best ever.

Excuse my make-up-less-ness and the crazy photos. We were enjoying ourselves. And the one of me was taken by Kay. 

The drive home was beautiful and peaceful and accented by a beautiful setting sun. It's no wonder they call this time of night "golden hour". It was gorgeous.

Once home, we let the kids stay up watching the new Tinker-Bell-Pirate-Fairy-Movie-Whatever-Thing they just put up on Netflix a few months ago (Okay,so I play a little....the hubby and I are kinda closet Tinker Bell fans) while the hubs and I finished the second coat of paint, and the two coats of finishing wax and dark wax. 

I took a few photos that night of the end result. But they're night photos. So it goes without saying they didn't end up looking that great, or showing the true end result. So I decided to retake the photos in the morning so you could see the real difference this piece made to our room.

Funny how the same piece of furniture, with just a different or new color on it can change the whole look and feel! Truth be told, I hated the old brass drawer pulls before we did the project and I had fully planned on replacing them when I finally got the money to. 

However, I think I had a total change of heart. With that new light color, I love the contrast the old bronze gives...and I even like that the color of the drawer pulls aren't even. Some have dark spots and some have a lot of that gold brassy color coming through. So cool.

So! That was my fun birthday project and adventure. It was absolutely the nicest way I could have imagined spending my day. Projects with my husband are the best. We have a lot of fun working side by side together (Thanks again, babe for helping me!)

Anyways, I hope you all have a happy weekend ahead with the some fun projects and adventures planned for yourselves! Tomorrow is Saturday, and as for me and my family... we are going to go help clean up the church! ;] So...here's to hoping we wash off more little finger prints from the window panes than we add! Adios peeps!

A Dresser Turned {Organized} Media Cabinet

As much as I love being a stay at home mom, sometimes I am so thankful for the peace and quiet that comes when my children are asleep. 

I love spending time with them. I love watching them grow. I adore being a mother (especially one who gets to be at home with them!). But sometimes, a girl just gets sick of being yelled at all day!

And I don't necessarily mean just the angry, out of control, upset, too tired screams. It is even the excited (yet  mind-blowingly piercing) shrieks of joy. Or the 'I just stubbed my toe' cries of pain. 

Sometimes this mommy feels like her kids do, a little over stimulated. 

So thank you for letting me blow off some of my steam! Blogging is a good way to de-stress. As is organizing and having an organized home.

Here's a  little peak of some of the reorganization that has gone on around here lately:

This is our media center. It used to be a dresser with a mirrored hutch (it belonged to my grandmommy!). But we ditched the hutch and used the dresser part in our living room instead. We tend to hang most of our clothes, anyways.

You'll have to forgive me for not getting a before picture of the messy drawers. I think I was a little too eager to attack the the insane amount of junk and clutter that had been shoved into every drawer of this entire unit for the last year or so.

And it was like Christmas. Seriously, these drawers were the gifts that would not stop giving. How did I fit so much stuff in there?

I felt like doing a touch down dance when I realized how much of it I could just donate or throw away (One less pile of crud to worry about finding a place for!)/ And maybe a little kick in the pants at the same time when I realized how much garbage we had been carrying around, move after move. 

For realz. I hate clutter.

Anyways, when I started the mudroom/command center project (which you can check out here) I suddenly had the brilliant idea to start emptying out our hall closet at the same time.

Because it is always a good idea to start a new project when you are not even a quarter of the way finished with the first. 

;P

But, I had a sudden epiphany of where I could use a previously unoccupied piece of furniture, and emptying the closet was the first step to getting things where I wanted them to go.

So, out went all the junk, which mainly ended up being lots of coats (huh, go figure.) and all of our board games, dice sets, and cards.

And there they sat, in  a pile behind my basement door for the next few months...until I did this:

Seriously, a way better use of our media cabinet than before. And a way better spot for all of our games than being stuffed in a closet (or for that matter, behind a door ;]).

The useful things that used to be in the media center found new homes. Most of our electronics made their way into more organized bins that were placed in the hall closet (which I'll share more about later next week), except for our major devices such as our laptops, i-Pad, DVD player, and Roku.

While our computers and i-Pad received their own new dedicated drawers, our Roku, DVD player, and wireless router all found themselves now living below the deck.

Which, honestly, is a change that I just love.

 It really clears off the media cabinet and makes it look so much more clean and pristine. It is getting me pumped up about giving this unit a total make over.

 It isn't in the budget right now, but it is in the plan to give this piece a major face lift. I just have to decide what color I want to paint it! Honestly, I change my mind about it...once every day.

Decluttering and reorganizing it, however, has only made me that much more excited about getting it all finished and put together!

Seriously, I could handle all the screaming and yelling if I had a pretty and perfectly organized media center, right? 

Okay, so probably not!  But it's totally worth a shot! ;p

What do you do to de-stress after a long day of Mommy Duty? Am I just crazy uptight? There are some days where I just feel like all of my brain cells are slowly but surely being obliterated, one scream at a time. What helps you break through those feelings of  being overwhelmed? 

Honestly, I really just think I need to go take a cruise to Hawaii. By myself. Like right now.

Work In Progress: An Entry Way Command Center/Mudroom

Back in July my mom and a few of my nieces came to visit me from out-of-state! My husband and the kiddos were off visiting his parents for a few weeks, which gave us girls the perfect opportunity to work on a major project that I had been scheming about for a while.

Our main entry way:

I don't think I need to comment much on the hot, bubbly mess that just so happened to be the first thing everybody saw when they walked into our home. Ejdfkjghdkjgh. It was an OCD organization aficionado's nightmare.

Plus a few cherries on top.

Thankfully, after I agreed to decrapify her spider infested barn and garage ((this would make round two, blech!)), my sweet mommy offered to sponsor a complete overhaul of this section of our home!

Best. Mother. Ever.

So I got to planning! I had already had a few ideas in mind, but it took me a while to really hash out how I wanted to set up our new entry way.

I wanted this project to be something that not only looked nice, but that also took care of some major functional problems we were having in our household as well.

Namely, a better way of organizing our family schedules, paperwork, projects, cleaning, maintenance, budgets, bills, etc.  Not to mention putting together a more aesthetically pleasing drop zone for our bags, shoes, and coats as well.

In essence, I needed to create for ourselves a command center and a mudroom, all in one!

  So I planned it all out on paper, priced out all of the items I would need (via the internet), and then took a trip with my mom and my nieces to our local handy dandy Target.

And I honestly can't think of a single time ((when shopping that is)) that I've been giddier. Like, I swear there were butterflies floating down the isles kind of giddy, people!  ((You mean I can buy anything from Target that I want?! *Starry eyes* Okay!!!))

I found a lot of great items that matched the look I was going for. The "Fresh Bulbs" chest, pictured below,  is one of my favorite finds (I'll share with you my  plans for that piece later on in the post)!

But, the mail sorter definitely comes in close second. The grey stain and the chalkboard paint? Ahh, I die!

As soon as we got home, my nieces and I began the decluttering process and started putting all of our shopping loot into place.

This is what it looked like after night one:

 Seriously? It already looked sooo much better!

It has seen a few transformations since then (we moved the file boxes to a nearby closet & added a catch spot for our library books).  After a bit more tweaking, and a DIY Chalkboard project (that still isn't finished) it currently looks like this: 

I don't know about you, but I am loving how it has turned out so far! There is definitely still more to be done, but having what I do have set up has done wonders for keeping our home clean and organized.

As far as projects left to finish, I still need to give the chalkboard another coat of spray paint and then frame and mount it to the wall. I also am going to be turning the "Fresh Bulbs" box I mentioned earlier into a charging station for all of our electronics.

Besides that, I'll probably be adding a few more decorative items. I'll update you as I go. =]

 Below are some diagrams of how we are using this new set up to organize all of our "stuff."

Something I have been leaning to, more now lately than ever before, is creating a home where our children can be capable contributors to the family. This relieves stress on the mommy and daddy and instills accomplishment in the kiddos.

Part of our effort in accomplishing this goal in our entry way was to give them a place where they could hang up their own bags and coats by themselves.

And I seriously have been loving it!

It is so cute to watch my two year old come in the door, sit down and put her shoes in her own shoe box and walk over to the coat rack to hang up her own coat.

It is amazing how able our kids can be if we make an effort to allow them to be!

So, as I mentioned just a second ago our daughter, and in fact all of us, have our own shoe 'boxes'.   Really they end up holding more than shoes, but that was their primary purpose. A place to put shoes so they don't end up strewn all over our house. 

These boxes also act, however, as catch-alls for our personal items. Aside from his shoes, my husband tends to keep his sunglasses, bike helmet, gloves, and hats in his box as well.

The dog also got one. We keep his leashes, bones, collars, etc in there.  

As far as organizing all of our schedules, budgets, etc. that I mentioned earlier, I scoured Pinterest for some of the best Family Planner printables I could find and printed them off into our binder.  I'll do a more specific post later sharing the specific links I used, the different sections I created, as well as some of the printables I created for it on my own!

The Magazine holders you see pictured above (but maybe more clearly below) was the solution I came up with for catching all of our paper clutter. Most of the time, before this, our manuals, books, coloring pages, church calendars, newsletters, etc would end up on our kitchen counter. 

And it would create one big UGLY pile. And the worst part of the pile was that at least half of the papers I didn't know what to do with, because they didn't belong to me. I didn't know where to put them, if they were important, or if I could go ahead and throw them away.

My solution was to give each person their own box. Any papers they got from school, or work, or church would go straight into their personal magazine holder and they would be responsible to clean it out, as needed.  

It may still be "clutter", but at least it is more managable clutter...and it is hidden. 

The 'hidden' part of that sentence being my favorite. ;]

As for the mail holder and sorter, it is somewhat self explantory, but just in case, I'll delve!

The mail holder is where we put our mail until which time we are able to sort it. Once we do have time,  it is divided into 4 different piles, "Trash," "Needs Action," "File Away," and "Shred."  

'Trash' is where all of our junk mail goes. 'Needs action' is where you will find the bills we need to pay or forms we need to sign. 'File Away' is where we put important notices or personal items we want to keep for the future. 'Shred' is where we put things we don't want to keep long term, but that happen to have sensitive information inside.

So anywhooo, there you have it! Our updated entry way!

It took some work... and is currently promising me more work in the future. But woo-hoo!!! Getting all of this in order has done wonders for adding more peace to my and my family's life. =] A huge blessing, for sure.

So, what have you all been up to? Any fun updates in your homes? I'd love to hear about them! Nothing better than having a project in your mind and finally having the chance to put your plans into action!

DIY Lego (&Train) Table

At long last, I am here to share all of the nitty gritty details of how we put together Kay's Christmas present,

the DIY Lego Table. (Uhm, uh... Fah-inally!!!)

And really I have little excuse for getting this up so late. It was pretty much the simplest project ever. My living room curtains were harder to construct than this bad boy! Which... might not be saying much coming from me (admittedly)... but no, really. This project is/was easy-peasy.

And yet, here we are. Two months later and just barely getting the tutorial up. My life has been a little hectic. Oh well. Let's dive into to some Lego Table makin'!

For Kay's birthday last year we scored a deal on our local craigslist. We bought the train table above  for a whoppin' $20.00. And it was in pretty good condition. The top of the train table is painted with a landscape, but the bottom, as you can see, was nice, smooth, and boring.

Perfect for a little updating! ;]

We started out the process by measuring our train table insert. Lego.com was selling their 10" x 10" base plates for $4.99 each.  From the size of our table top, we would need about 15 base plates. Not exactly chump change, but considering the size of the Lego Table we'd be getting, plus the fact it would be dual purpose (it's a train table too, remember!), we figured it was more than worth it.

 12 of the base plates would fit on the table whole, and the last 3 would need to be cut to fit. 

To cut our base plates to size, we simply used our craft scissors. You'll need to make sure they are sharp, otherwise it will start to stress the plastic and turn it white. Sharp scissors means smooth, (in this case) blue edges.

To make sure we were cutting them to the correct size, we laid the last three lego mats down as if they would fit on the table whole. Where they overlapped with the previous laid lego mats we made a mark (using our fingernails) along that row. Now we knew which row to cut along.

Once we were finished cutting out all of the custom pieces for our table, we laid down all of the base plates to make sure they would fit. To ensure we were spacing them correctly, we used Lego pieces to connect them in the corners. This way, we could make sure that all of the Lego pieces would still fit, even in between the adjoining mats.

As you can see from above, the mats are not completely flush with each other. There is a teeny tiny space in between each of them. For this reason, you may consider spray painting your table, the color of the base plate, before you start to put it together. For us, it really wasn't a huge deal. We don't really notice the table showing underneath all that much. So we decided to skip painting the table below.

Once we had finished laying our mats down to make sure that they all fit correctly we began the gluing process, starting with a corner piece. For our adhesive, we decided on Gorilla Glue, to make sure that the mats would be stuck on there for good.

One thing to watch out for with Gorilla Glue is that it expands when it dries. You don't want to put the glue too close to the edge of the base plates, otherwise it will bubble and seep out through the spaces in between the mats. 

We were pretty careful with ours, and it still seeped up in a few places. In those areas, we just used a butter knife to scrape it off.

If you don't want to mess with it, Liquid Nails might be another good option. And from what I know of it, I don't believe that Liquid Nails expands the way that Gorilla Glue does.

Again, as we were gluing and pressing our Lego mats onto the table, we connected the corners of the mats with Lego Pieces, to keep the correct spacing while it dried.

It took us about an hour and a half total to put the whole table together, including all of the cutting. Glue, press, connect with a lego... rinse, wash, repeat.

Like I said, easy peasy!

Once we were finished gluing all of the mats down, all we had left to do was let it dry. We let it sit over night. In the morning, we flipped it back over so that the train table side was on top. And there it sat, all stealth and awesome like, until Christmas.

So, it has been two months now since we finished this, and the Lego table is still quite the hit! To be honest, at first Kay wasn't thrilled with all the Lego's he opened up on Christmas morning. I don't think he really knew what they were.

All it took, however, to change his indifference was to open them up and start playing with them. And from that point on... it's been Lego Table , rather than train table, about 9 times out of 10.

Is it silly that that makes me a bit sad? Sniff. Poor Thomas!

Oh well, the point is that the project was a success! And I've got one happy little builder on my hands. Happy DIYing to ya'll! And a Happy Valentine's Day too!