Saturday, November 10, 2012

Well this day didn't go as planned....

Today was a promising day, our first Saturday not having to go to a soccer game or football game to cheer, we were just going to stay at home and do some laundry and organize a little. It was going to be such a great day.

So I went to the deep freezer to pull out a pork loin to throw in the crockpot, and realized that said pork loin wasn't completely frozen, and it's been in the freezer for weeks. OH NO! The freezer isn't freezing! 

So all of my plans for just organizing closets, turned into moving tons of food from the deep freezer to the other freezer, a cooler, and the kitchen sink. Then cleaning up the mess as the deep freezer defrosted (it's an upright, so it makes a mess. I'm sure there's a way to do it with out making a mess, I just don't know what it is yet) But the good news is that the freezer is working again, I've moved all the food back to where it goes, and I've straitened the house back up. Isn't it amazing how one thing being thrown off in your house effects everything else, and throws it off too?

While I had all the food out of the freezer, I decided to move it over, and rearrange the laundry room all together. I guess it's more of a "mudroom," I've never really known what to call that room out there. There's the freezer, the dogs' crate they sleep in, and the litter box (ew). I then decided it's time to start a new project: a small remodel of the laundry room area. It's just a wreck out there, no one has ever bothered doing anything with it, and I just can't stand it any longer, since I spend so much time out there. For Christ sakes, there's freaking green astro turf for the flooring! It's got to go.... SOON!

There are cabinets in the laundry room, and they're going to stay, they just need a good coat of paint to cover up the yellow (I've got to get some pictures so you can see the green astro turf and yellow cabinets), and we've got to replace the subfloor, for several different reasons, and then some new flooring. I've been pinning away ideas on Pinterest tonight.

I really think this is a project that we could tackle ourselves, but when I brought it up to Joey, he told me to call and hire someone. Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that I'm trying to plan home improvement projects in the middle of deer season and he's worried it will interfere ;)

So coming up next, to show you some of my ideas for the space, and some pictures of the actual room.

(Do you see how this went from a freezer not working to it leading me to decide to remodel the room? Yeh. That's how my mind works.)

Friday, November 9, 2012

Cleaning 101


I found this on Pinterest the other day (who'd imagine that? finding amazing things on Pinterest -- never!) and I've been using this schedule to keep my home clean, and I've got to say, it's working for me. It also helps that the kids' busy schedules have slowed down too, so I'm able to get more done. 

The every morning and every night stuff I've always done, so that's nothing different. 

I do my laundry at night, I don't know why, but it's how I do it. It's taken several years to get a good routine going for my family for our laundry, especially with a family of 5. I used to always have clean clothes piled on the couch or piled up in clothes baskets, but I've finally put a stop to all of that -- JUST STOP DOING IT! ;) Simple, right? It is! Just don't pile the clothes up on the couch or baskets. Ever. 

I never start laundry unless I can finish it, completely -- wash, dried, folded, and put away. This is why I do my laundry at night, because during the day I'm in and out, so I have a harder time having the time to do the laundry from start to finish. I also bought each of the kids their own little clothes basket. So I put a load in the washing machine, put it in the drier as soon as it finishes, and after the load is dry, I stand in the laundry room and fold the clothes as I pull them out of the drier. I separate each kids' clothes to their baskets, and I put mine and Joey's clothes on top of the drier. I usually wait until the kids' baskets are full before I take the baskets to their rooms, because... well I'm lazy ;) 

With our family of 5, I usually have to do two loads of clothes a night. How about you??

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Slowing down

Things have slowed down a good bit around around, thank goodness. Blythe Anne was on a cheer squad, and Jonah was playing soccer, so that took up our Saturdays for the past two months or so. And it took up our Mondays and Thursdays after school with practice. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy that's all over and we can slow down.



Waiting for Bubba to play soccer :)


This was Jonah's first year playing soccer, andI do believe he'll want to play again next year too.

(Some how I don't have any pictures of Blythe Anne cheering. I really don't know how this happened)

So now maybe I'll have time to do some things around this house!!

Friday, October 12, 2012

Pinterest Recipes

Lately, I've been getting all of my recipe ideas from Pinterest. I really do not know what I did before Pinterest. And for the most part, we've loved everything new I've tried (except Blythe. She doesn't like anything. But, that's a topic for a different day.) Today I want to share a few of the recipes that I've cooked lately, and our opinions of them.


This was probably one of Peyton's favorites over the past few weeks for one simple ingredient -- meatballs. This kid could eat  meatballs every day, and be as happy as a clam. It was fairly easy I thought, took about an hour from start to finish, including clean up. I followed the recipe exactly, with the exception of I used extra meatballs (see above ;))


I had really high hopes for this one. But I was let down. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it missed the target completely. Maybe I wished it had more of a sauce to it, I looooove my sauce on my noodles. I followed this one exactly as  written also. Another one that Blythe totally turned her nose up to, and even the boys didn't care for it.


This was heaven.  I cooked this for the kids for the first day of school, and I love anything that I can fix the night before and just toss in the oven in the morning. I didn't change anything when I made this either.


I made this for a football party we had here at the house a few weekends ago (Go Saints!) It wasn't a big of a hit as my aunt's shrimp dip that I make (I will share that recipe next time I make it and can take pictures!!), but it was good. 


My kids LOVED this. I did too, and we will so be making this again.


I also made this for the football party, per Peyton's request. He saw the picture on pinterest and begged me to make it. So, of course, I did :) Another hit.


It's been a while since I made this one, and I said I was going to make it again, I guess I had just forgotten about it. Again, the girl didn't like it (are you seeing the trend here??) but the boys did. I ate on it for several day several different ways. I actually plan on making this again this week.

What have you been cooking from Pinterest??

Monday, September 3, 2012

Front porch project

We've been working on the exterior of the house, first was the roof, and next is the siding, which is going to happen in the next few weeks. And the exterior still has a lot of work to be done. We're keeping the original old windows, but fools over the years would get paint on the windows and just leave it. I'm sure that they thought they had a good reason, like, lets slap this paint on all ugly, but we'll come back and fix it later.....

And that day just never came, for those poor, old girls. (The Windows. They're girls)

And I believe that more people put some more messy paint on our old girls, and something must be done about this madness. 

The madness! It will end here!!

When we redo the siding, there's going to be a guy taking care the Old Girls (the windows). He's gonna give her a nice sand bath, get all the old off, fill her in where she needs it, and then... it will be painted correctly.

Somewhere in all of this mess, I decided that it would be a great idea, to strip the front porch. It was this color blue that I'm really getting sick of seeing on porches. And I was envisioning a wonderfully, beautiful, darker stained front porch.So the stripping and scrapping has started. And it's been the slowest, longest, on going project ever.





And this is as far as I've gotten. I feel like such a failure. This is what it looked like as of this morning before I worked on it a little more. 


So, let's start taking bets, of how long my little project is gonna take me.
I'm gonna say... FOREVER

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Kids and a lizard

We went to the lake a few weekends ago, and I caught Blythe Anne and Peyton, while Jonah was gone fishing with his daddy.

My daughter isn't your ordinary girl.




I love that :)


And my Peyton Rayne? He's a nut.




Kissing lizards and such.

I guess girls have frogs that turn into princes when  kissed.
Boys have lizards?




And this lil guy was happy to have a little bit of a break ;)





Lucky lizard, getting kissed by this handsome devil






"Look, Momma, he's playing dead!"





I'm sure he was wishing he was dead at this point.





Lizard-tache?




Who ever knew that one little lizard could be so entertaining??

Friday, August 24, 2012

School year 2012-2013





My youngest, on his first day of Pre-K.

*sniffle*

I don't know who gave him permission to go and grow up on me, but I know it wasn't me and I demand that he stops. Now. Immediately.

Good news though, he still say's he Momma's boy, so at least I still have that going for me.

He say's he's going to be Spiderman when he grows up.





My middle child, on his first day of 1st grade. He was so excited, no more naps this year!!

That, my friends, officially makes you a big kid. I think he grew a foot this summer, so I guess he's right, he is a big kid.

I didn't give this one permission to grow up either. I've really gotta nip this in the bud.

He wants to be a professional gamer when he grows up.




The girl. First day of 3rd grade, says summer didn't last long enough. I agree. Because another summer gone means one less summer I have with them.

I can't believe that I have a 3rd grader in the house, this in crazy.

She want to be a horse trainer when she grows up.

Friday, August 17, 2012

When life gives you lemons...

Last night I did something I've never done before... 

I don't know why I hadn't, it was so easy!

I just did what PW told me to do, and it turned out perfect!! What was that? You don't know who PW is? *gasp* we can't be friends anymore.


And this is what I did.

That's right, I cooked a whole chicken!! I'm so proud!! It was the best things I've ever cooked, I swear. The kids loved it, although I wish chicken had three legs, 'cause three kids and two chicken legs just don't add up. 

Thursday, August 16, 2012

New Pretties :)

Lookie at what finally came in the mail today...




I was so excited! I've been waiting on this for a while, it was on back order, so I had to wait even longer, but it's finally here!!




Is she not the purdy-est lamp you've ever seen?! I just love her! I also just go the new white sheer curtains in the mail last week too, and with the new curtains and the new lovely lamp, it just changes the whole room! It the Eva Colored Glass Table Lamp from Pottery Barn. I knew that I wanted a glass lamp, and at first I thought $100 was pretty steep for a lamp and lamp shade. But I did some research around the internetz, and found it was actually a really good price for a lamp AND a lamp shade. A lot of glass lamps, without a shade, goes for $100 alone. And another $60 for a linen lamp shade.




Still a work in progress :)

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Yellow Paint




I stumbled across this picture of a little house that look almost just like ours, while reading over at Hooked on Houses.  My windows on either side of the fireplace are big windows though, the triple window or the part that sticks out is the dinning room. The two smaller windows is kitchen. And at the very back, where the rood slants down, is the laundry room.

Our old house has horrible vinyl siding that we plan on replacing very soon, but we plan on keeping our old, original to the house windows. I love them. I know my energy bill isn't going to love them as much, but I think that they add character to the house. When we put the new siding up, we plan on putting up fiber cement boards. They look just like the old wood siding that was used way back when, but without all of the maintenance of wood siding, but you paint it like real wood, and yellow was on my list of what color to paint the house.

I think this picture is a sign that I should ;) 

**********

And I'm supper excited! I learned last night that the lovely, organizing queen, Toni is hosting another organizing program. I rather call it an organizing PAR-TAY! I love organizing, I love every thing having a place, and I love hearing about other's ideas on organizing and getting tips that will  help me.

This round is going to last 14 weeks, and I'm ready for it NOW!
Here's what the plan looks like...

 HOME ORGANIZATION 101:

Week 1  (9/1/12)... The Kitchen
Week 2  (9/8/12)... The Garage 
Week 3  (9/15/12)... The Pantry 
Week 4 (9/22/12)... The Office
Week 5  (9/29/12)... Laundry Room
Week 6  (10/6/12)... The Master Bedroom
Week 7  (10/13/12)... The Linen Closet
Week 8  (10/20/12)... The Dining Room
Week 9  (10/27/12)... Kids Closets (or any closet)
Week 10  (11/3/12)... The Living Room
Week 11  (11/10/12)... The Play Room (bonus room)
Week 12  (11/17/12)... The Bathrooms
Week 13  (12/1/12)... Master Closet
Week 14  (12/8/12)... Mudroom (or entryway)

Please come join us, this is one of my favorite things in blogland :)

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Big Bad Cleaning Machines

I love to have a clean house, and I love new things to help me clean. And in a house full of 3 kids, 3 dogs, and a cat, there's always some cleaning going on.

I know that this will sound very dramatic, but this little thing here changed my life. Or at least how I clean. There are not enough good things to say about my Swiffer Vac, but I can say I don't know how I made it with out my Swiffer. I keep it plugged in so it's already ready to go, and it goes a lot. Rarely do I use the ole broom now days. And it picks up cat hair like you would never believe.


And after I swiffer-vac, I get out my Shark steam mark. I love him too. It has it pros and cons, and I don't walways just use him. Sometimes I go old school and use a mop and bucket, but only because I love the small of Pine Sol from time to time.



This my Hoover Max Extract Multi surface Deep Cleaner. Again, I have this because I have small children and animals that love to makes messes and make me mad. This is the Big Daddy machine. For when it needs to get serious. 

Awww, ain't The Little Green so cute?! But he does his little job pretty well. This one is just for the smaller messes. I've used in mostly on my couches for when the kids tinkle on the couch.


I think this the exact one I have, and it is the best vacuum cleaner I've ever had. I've used my mother in law's Dyson, and in my opinion, my Hoover works better.


Monday, August 13, 2012

The Bookcase Jenna Built ;)




I've never put a piece of furniture together myself before, I always leave that to Joey. But, he wasn't here to put together the book case that I finally bought, so I decided to give it a try. I've had boxes and boxes of books stacked in my closet, but no where to put them, and I wanted them put on the new book case NOW.



This guy decided to help. You know, by holding down the box.



I was a little over whelmed at this point. But I do have to say, I will not hesitate to buy another bookcase like this from Target, the pieces were put in the box in the order that you needed them, and all the hardware was numbered by steps (step 1, step 2, ect.)



But I got it done, all by myself! It did take me quite a while to do it, but I think that's just because I've never put anything together before. It was pretty easy I think, I just had three kids, a cat, and two dogs helping. 

Shortly after I got it put together, we lost power for the first time that weekend, and it was out for about 18 hours, because one of our trees in the back yard fell on the power line. We had power back for about, oh, five hours, when it started surging, breakers in the house started throwing, and then the best fun of the weekend: the Directv box in Blythe Anne's room started SMOKING. I don't know why THAT breaker didn't throw, but we were freaking out. I think I handled it pretty well, I ushered all the kids into the living room, next to the front door, and then threw the main breaker to the house.

Nothing in the world smells worse than burning electronics.

I called 911, because, OMG, something in my house was smoking!!

Guy at 911 thought I was an idiot. "Uh. Take the box outside?"  I had the box situation under control, I wanted someone to come check out the rest of the house!! What if there was a fire in the walls or something??

After all that excitement, I turned the main breaker back on, and a few minutes later, we lost power. Again. At 5:30 Friday evening, my estimated time of getting power back was 7:00 PM. SATURDAY NIGHT. 

But they power company had it back on by 10:00 AM, this time it was transformer that blew. I wish you could have seen my kids when I told my Dad that the power company left a transformer in our back yard.

They thought this guy was back there:



If the power company left me a Camaro, I would not be complaining.

So after all that FUN and EXCITEMENT, I finally got all of my books out and put them on the shelf. And come to find out, half of those boxes of books -- are the kids. And I need another bookcase.


"Love is patient,
Love is kind,
It always protects,
always trusts,
always hopes...
Love never fails.
~Corinthians 13:4-8"


I guess I kinda have a Bible collection ;)


Friday, August 10, 2012

Summer Storm


We had an AWFUL storm last night, I do believe it was the worse storm I've ever been through. The kids and I ended up sitting in the hall with Marley Cat and Lucky for about an hour. There were noises I've never heard before, and honestly, I was scared. We lost power around 9 last night, so it was also a very long night, with all of us piled up in the living room.

I think I got about 4 hours of sleep total, and got up as soon as my eyes opened, to go evaluate the situation. And I quickly realized why we don't have any electricity, a tree from our back yard fell across the power line and was blocking the road too. The power company finally got the power lines fixed, so we're all soaking up the AC right now.

But, other than the downed trees and limbs, we have no other damage, thank the Lord!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Is it time for school yet?!

Ya'll. I love my kids, I really do, but three kids, ages 4,7, and 8, it's an experience that nothing compares to!! They're wearing this momma out this summer, is all I have to say! But we only have a few more weeks before school starts back, so we're trying to enjoy the last of our summer. Thinking about maybe a quick, short beach trip before they head back to the school house. My babies have never seen a 'real' beach, so it would be a new experience for them. We take them to a lake nearby that has a "beach" area, you know, with sand and brown water ;)

And with school about to start... that means all their kids' activities are about to start back up, along with a few new ones (both boys are starting karate soon, and are super excited!) And you know what that means... it's time to start getting ultra-organized to keep this house running smoothly! I've been doing lots of cleaning and purging, one of my favorite things. I know some people hate to throw things away/give them away, because of that whole "I may need this some day..." concept, but not I! I don't keep little things just because "I may need it in 10 years." If I end up needing something, I'll just go get another one.

One thing we really need to get organized are all the kids electronic toys. Nintendo DS, iPods, and then mine and Joey's phones and iPads. We really need a charging station in this house, I just have to decide where and how to make it. I do believe I hear Pinterest calling my name for this!! 

Monday, August 6, 2012

Getting the wall done


Well, hello everyone! It's been a few weeks, and I apologize! We had an unexpected, life shattering, family emergency, and we're just now all getting back on our feet. Right before that though, Joey got some of the frames on the wall, and I have to say, it went NOTHING like I planned it to.

(I hate when that happens!!)

I'm not even sure if I like the arrangement, and I'm sure that it'll help once I get our pictures in the frames, right now I only have my pictures in two of the frames. I pretty much let Joey decide the arrangement of the frames, since he was the one actually putting them up, and my plan wasn't working. 

We were supposed to have new family pictures done a few weeks ago, but we had something come up so it didn't happen, and that's what I wanted to put on the gallery wall. I guess I'll just have to print some of our old family pictures, from like, two years ago ;)

But this is what we have so far!

And I thought it would be fun to show a picture of the dinning room from right before we bought it, so we have something to compare to. I didn't change any of the major stuff. We still have the original hard wood floors, and the paint colors that the previous owners had picked out -- I love!! So I haven't painted anything anywhere here (except for the one room she didn't do either. The Peach room.... ewwww) The chandelier is also original to the house (I LOOOOVE that), so no change there. It could probably could be stood to be dusted, but hey, you can't see it in the pictures, it doesn't count, right?? ;)

So what have I done?

She didn't have any curtains up in the dinning room, and Joey couldn't stand it, it was driving him crazy, said it was turning the room into a green house, with all those windows. The curtains are from JCPennys, and let me tell you they were not nice on the budget. But to get curtains in a long enough length for these ginormous windows, it cost. I'm happy with the ones I picked out, I'll get better pictures of them for a post tomorrow.

We got a new table for the room also. Which that was a very fun trip, going to buy the new table. It HAD to be done THAT day, because Joey had broke another chair just that morning -- it was just time for it. I could tell the long story of the shopping trip, but I wont. I got it from Pier 1, along with the two chairs and the two benches.  And it works wonderfully for our family, just as I hoped it would.

And now there's the gallery wall. I also have an antique wash stand in the room too.










**********



And about our newest family member: we finally named him!! Please meet...

Captain Gusamus!
aka
Gus!

I do believe he's going to be the worlds most spoiled dog ever. He's getting along with the other two dogs, and Marley Cat actually likes him, which is a huge shock!


Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Introducing....


Our newest family member!

We haven't named him yet, we're at odds on that matter.

Blythe and Jonah want to name him Blaze. I don't love it.

Peyton on the other hand, has a list:
*Spiderman
*Batman
*LegoMan

Um. Yeh. I don't think any of those are going to make the final cut ;)

Monday, July 16, 2012

Frames on the floor



This is what we're living with while I attempt to figure this gallery wall business. I'll probably move it around about 10 more times today. I'm liking this though.




And this is where it will go, on the wall behind the cutie-pa-tootie. This wall has been nekked for way too long, I've been saving it for my gallery wall, but I was skerd!

(How many made up words can I put in two sentences? ;)

While floating around the inter-webz looking at gallery walls, I found this post on (in)courage by the nester. The Nester's gallery wall is another one that we all know and love:

Source: thenester.com via Jenna on Pinterest


Lovely, yes?

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Shelly over at The House of Smith's mentioned the online photo editor iPiccy the other day, and I have to say, I'm in looooove! It's so easy to use, and we can all stop morning the loss of picnik. So go check it out!

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Gallery wall lovin'

Gallery walls. They're every where. Every one is doing it. I want to do it, but...

Ya'll, it's hard!!

I went and bought a bunch of frames from Target to go with the ones that I already have, and then came home and stuck them in a closet.

("I'll get to it after *fill in excuse*")

I had stuck a bunch of things in that closet that needed to be hung on the walls, but I'm so scared of putting ittle bitty holes in the walls, it's ridiculous. So one day I gathered up all my courage, and hung a bunch of stuff, finally, after living here for 6 months.

But all the frames for my gallery wall??

Well, at least I got them out of the closet, right? They all sat leaning against the wall in the hall to my bedroom for a month. Joey has gotten tired of looking at them leaning, and suggested we get them put up. (I so should have just left them in the closet ;)

I've seen plenty of beautiful gallery walls.



We've all seen The House of Smith's gallery wall. Love it! I especially love how there are other things besides photographs in it, like the subway art and the "Party of 5." So I definitely know that I want something like this. Shelly even wrote a how-to over at Home Stories A2Z that anyone wanting a gallery wall should check out.

One thing she suggest is getting lots of inspiration, which trust me I have, like I said, gallery walls are every where! And of course, again, Pinterest is your best friend!



One thing I love about this one is how their thermostat on this wall and you hardly even notice! Awesome!



I love the different frames in this.

Source: google.com via Jenna on Pinterest


Fab.u.lous.



I could do this all day ;)

I even found this:





The website isn't in English, but some things don't need words.

So where am I right now, in my gallery wall adventure?? A bunch of frames spread all over the living room floor that I rearrange every time I walk through.

I think Joey is rethinking his "lets hang the frames" idea.

About Me

My photo
I have three kids:
Blythe Anne, 8
Jonah, 7
Peyton, 4

My husband and I have been married for 6 years, and I spend my days being a stay at home mom while he's a driller on a land rig. So for six months of the year (he works a week on, a week off), I'm raising these kids by myself. I would write more, but I hear children screaming :)

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