Weekly Check In {Jan. 25, 2014}

Well it's been a crazy week, but crazy in a much different way than usual. On Sunday, I was sitting planning out my menu for the week and thinking about what we needed for groceries. I remember thinking 'oh boy, here we go with another busy week being out of the house every evening for the girls sports and activities!' ... Little did I know all that would change!

Here is my weekly catch up!

Sunday Bob headed out of town with a couple friends to ski for a few days. I know it's so good for him to do these things but I really miss him when he's gone! 

The girls and I spent Sunday afternoon cheering for our Patriot's {who sadly lost!} and watching movies and relaxing. Thankfully we had NO SCHOOL on Monday for MLK day so we took advantage by staying up late and having fun together. 

On Monday we drove about an hour from here to a HOBBY LOBBY! I had only been in one once many years ago and let me just say ... my hubby should be VERY happy it's not closer to my house! That store was AMAZING and we spent so much time {and money!} in there! I could have taken pictures for hours of all the cool stuff they had but I was so busy looking around I wasn't focused on taking pictures. I came home with a few cool things for my house, some scrapbook supplies and NEW fabric for my kitchen! {When my husband came home on Wednesday his first comment was 'wow, it looks very ... retro!'} =) 

After Hobby Lobby we went to The Olive Garden for lunch, then Savers for a little while. It was a fun girls day out! Monday night we THOUGHT Haley had bball practice, come to find out it was cancelled because of the holiday - so we enjoyed a quiet evening at home. 

{Haley is very into decorating her room lately, she picked these fabrics to make throw pillows for her bed.} 

The other thing I bought at Hobby Lobby was some denim duct tape. I have this hardcover Bible that I have had for MANY years and it's filled with notes I've written, verses I've underlined and all sorts of stuff. Well, it was falling apart and I just didn't want to get a new Bible because this one means a lot to me. So I bought the duct tape and got it all fixed up - might be a little redneck, but it's as good as new now!

Tuesday we went to school/work - but there was snow arriving mid-day so they called it a half day and everyone was sent home early. With that happening it also meant all our evening activities and sports were cancelled. 

I'm including this picture from our school, I just LOVE these pictures that have been hanging in the hall lately! I love walking down the halls and seeing all the neat artwork, it might be one of my favorite things about our school! I wanted to be sure I snapped a pic of these ones before they were taken down and sent home. 

And this is a project Haley had to do for Social Studies, I think her lady is drawn pretty well! 

It snowed most of Tuesday and Tuesday night into Wednesday morning ... so with that, school was cancelled for Wednesday - woohooo! We woke up to a winter wonderland!

Unfortunately the temps have been FREEZING this week, so other than shoveling the driveway, we really haven't been out to play in the snow. Wednesday was a pretty lazy day - did the shoveling, then worked on some of my sewing and we also just laid around being kinda lazy. And again, the evening activities got cancelled. 

Thursday morning was the most bitter cold day I've seen/felt so far this season. The moment I stepped outside to go warm up my car, my nose hairs froze! It was also the first time I'd seen the negative temps in my car this season. It was definitely a BITTER COLD day. We did have school and work that day, but we had indoor recess because it's too cold for the kids to be out. And because there was a band concert at the middle school that night the basketball game for the evening got cancelled. {How funny that I went from being busy every single night to have things cancelled every single night!!} 

Friday was another bitter cold day, we did have work and school again. AND the kids were indoors again! These poor kids really need to get outside and RUN around a little! This is probably the one thing I like least about winter, being cooped up for so many weeks on end. 

Friday night we went to the LUKE BRYAN concert with some friends. We went out to dinner at Sol Toro before the show {one of my fave Mexican restaurants!}. Our seats were great, the opening acts {Cole Swindell & Lee Brice} were great, the show was AMAZING and we had a great time ... unfortunately my hubby wasn't feeling great though {I'm certain he has what I had last week} but he toughed it out the best he could because he really wanted to see the show. 

And that's our week! Last Friday we had a half day, Monday no school, Tuesday half day, Wednesday no school, then Thursday/Friday were regular days  -this sure has been a strange week but hopefully next week will be much more back to normal! Enjoy the weekend friends! 

A Room Reno for a 10 Year Old!

My youngest daughter just turned TEN! It’s so crazy to think she’s already in the double digits! For her birthday she wanted a room renovation. She has a tiny little room and it was SO cluttered and crowded with SO much stuff so it ALWAYS felt so messy and disorganized. So along with giving her a few new things that were more her style, we had to find ways to maximize the space in her room. In case you aren’t sure how small I mean by tiny – it’s about 7 feet by 10 feet and I know people who have closets bigger than her room! Anyway, here are a LOT of photos of what we did.

 

Some before shots – keep in mind this was a crazy weekend for us and her room was EXTRA messy with junk, plus her mattress was in her sister’s room from a sleepover the night before. This is looking toward the right from the door of the room. 

 

And this is looking toward the left from the door of the room.

This is looking straight on, you can just about see the wall on both sides of the room.

 

First we emptied out EVERYTHING we possibly could with the exception of a couple pieces of furniture. I took down the window treatments and washed the super nasty, dirty windows and window sills.

 

We FILLED my dining room with all the junk from her room! I seriously thought it looked like an episode of Hoarders and could NOT believe ALL this stuff fit into that tiny little room! Seeing all that stuff motivated me that we had to get rid of some things and make the whole room more functional for her.

 

And this is the tiny closet. There was one shelf {around where the middle one is in this photo} and one bar for hanging clothes. But her closet was always a crazy mess and she never hung her clothes up properly. So we lowered the bar and added 2 extra shelves … you’ll see in the later pics how much more efficient this makes the tiny space …

Here is the ‘in progress’ photo – the walls are painted, the doors and trim are all painted and it’s just drying overnight.

 

In the morning we moved the furniture around. This bed is fabulous because it has drawers underneath, but it also had a bookcase headboard that held a lot of junk and just took up a couple extra feet of space – so we took the headboard away and it added a bit of space to the room. Every little inch of added space was helpful!! Side note, someday we will replace the rug, for now it was not in the budget and even though there is beautiful hardwood under it we feel that it warms up the room a lot to have a rug – so that will come at a later time.

 

See how the bed now butts up against the wall instead of a headboard, she really doesn’t miss the headboard at all at this point. I also painted that little dresser. It used to be in the closet and holds her PJ’s, socks and undies – but we pulled it out to use as a nightstand and I painted it to match the room. At the last minute I decided to try the Chevron look with some scotch tape and it came out pretty good! Not perfect but good enough!

 

On the other side of the room we put 2 bookshelves. We took the desk out of her room {it was just used to hold clutter and not really functional} and we purchased the cube style bookshelf {the tall one we already owned}. The black shelves you see near the ceiling are ones a friend of ours installed for us when we were pregnant with our first baby. They hold stuffed animals, trophies, etc. and have been a WONDERFUL thing to have in a little girl’s room for all these years {especially girls who like to collect lots of things!}.

 

I tried to cover her lampshade with fabric – UGH, I should have looked up a tutorial or something because it did not turn out well. But it’s there for now until I can do something better.

 

And I re-did her bulletin board since she has pretty much outgrown her Princess theme … I got some fabric that matched the room and some ribbon and buttons to match – a whole lotta hot glue later and it turned out great!

 

Here it is hanging on the wall before putting all her little mementos on it …

And with all her stuff …

 

And here is the AFTER of her room when you look into it from the doorway … it’s so light and bright and airy now!!! She got the new bedding for her birthday and we already had the curtains.

Because she’s 10 and she still needs to be allowed to ‘make it her own’ she was allowed to put up all her posters after the room re-do was all done.

The paper lanterns in the corner were something we already owned.

 

Here is her bedside area …

And the opposite wall with some things she already had. The little shelf was something she got a long time ago but we had never gotten around to painting. So I got a can of dark purple spray paint and painted it to go in the room. It turned out so cute!

Here is her tall bookshelf filled with her stuff. We got those blue bins at Five Below and they are fantastic for holding a lot of her things. She also has her American Girl doll bunks and other doll stuff over on this side of the room.

I labeled the bins so it will be easy for her to know where things go when she needs to put stuff away. I love how the inside of the bins has the same polka dots and colors of her bedding!

 

And here is her other shelving unit filled with her stuff. I got rid of a lot of stuff so it wouldn’t be totally overloaded. The trash can in the bottom right corner was also from Five Below and matches perfectly!

On the upper shelves she has lots of things that she doesn’t use much {if at all}. Trophies, snowglobes, stuffed toys, etc. …

After we got all the shelves in the closet I painted the WHOLE thing to match the room. Amazing how the color in the closet can already make it look so much better! I didn’t worry about doing a perfect paint job since no one will ever see it closely.

 

And then we filled it back up with her stuff! The highest shelf has some blankets that are just for extra use. The middle shelf has her instrument, some hats and some bins to hold special things she likes to save. The bottom shelf has 3 green bins {that we already had} and even though they don’t really match her current décor I thought it would be silly not to use them so in the closet they work just fine. I filled them up with her crafts supplies and let me tell you she has A LOT! It was SO nice to have a place to store all that since before it all cluttered up her desk area.

I also put a little hook on the left side wall to hang her necklaces from…

 

These bins also got labels so she can keep her things organized and put away. Having the closet set up this way has helped a lot! She has so much more storage space and there is a place to put everything away now!

Finally here is one last BEFORE picture of the room ….

And the AFTER!!

 

Valentine's Day Breakfast & Decor

Usually every year my family and I have a fancy Valentine dinner at home. We decorate the house, dress up fancy, make a yummy dinner and celebrate! This year however our schedules are just crazy, busy this week and we knew it just wasn't going to happen. So when the blizzard hit here on Friday and Saturday and we all ended up home for several days I knew it was the perfect time to have our little celebration. Instead of dinner though we had a yummy breakfast in our jammies together.

 

While my family was busy doing other things I got everything all set up in the dining room ... I have a box of Valentine decor that I keep to use year after year. Everything was pretty cheap too. Did you know you can buy a package of 24 paper doilies for only ONE dollar?! :)

 

 

candles, confetti, hearts ...

 

We had pink milk, strawberries and delicious cinnamon rolls!

I didn't take pics of the family, no one really wanted pictures of themselves in their pajamas.

You'll have to take my word for it that everyone LOVED the breakfast!



 

So while you're here would you like to see the rest of my Valentine decor??

 

This year I was ADDICTED to making these paper heart garlands! I made 3 and kept looking around the house for more places to make more. I made myself stop at 3 but it was hard not making more!! LOL



 

This one was by far my favorite one.

Red yarn, painted/glittered clothespins, paper hearts and paper doilies ....

 

This is my mantle...

 

I made this a few years ago using scrapbook papers/supplies and a large glittered heart I bought in a package from Walmart or Target {I can't remember!}

 

My jars are the same ones I had out for January but I took out the white candles and put in red one, tied some red yarn around them with paper doilies and stuck in some small hearts. So simple!

 

The print was a free one I found on Pinterest!
The candy in the jar was from the dollar store and thankfully is NOT a temptation for me cause I don't like the taste of those candy hearts! And the paper flowers were made from cupcake liners.

 

On this shelf I just added some red tin wall hangings a cute little 'love' sign that I stamped several years ago and a framed photo of my girls when they were little that I absolutely ADORE!!

 

Is this the cutest picture or what?!

 

Another paper heart garland, this is our TV cabinet ... I painted and glittered the clothespins and cut out paper hearts - so easy and fun!

 

Another thing I made with scrapbook papers ...

 

I took down our snowflakes from January and put up paper hearts!

 

In the kitchen we have some fun, festive details. I use this cake stand to hold all my sink essentials - but now I just made sure everything was pink or red! Pink handsoap, red candle, red dish soap and scrubber...

 

And by tying some tulle around hte candle I can clip more cute paper hearts to it!

 

My coffee/tea/cocoa station also got some festive touches ...

 

And lastly this is above the sink in the kitchen.

 

So there ya go ... super simple and cheap, just use things you already have or save them from year to year in a small box.

 

Happy Decorating and Happy Valentine's Day!!