It's Finally here...

After much much anticipation, it finally came...Christmas morning! We made a paper chain count-down to christmas and finally we got to take the last one off. My children basically cried everyday because we could not just take them all off and have Christmas right then...however, it was worth the wait and they had a blast!

It started at 6:30 when two very excited kids came into our room wondering if it was time...we made them cuddle with us until atleast 7... Then we let them in, they were so excited and figured out which pile of presents was theirs. Another tradition we do, is I don't label any of their gifts. Each person has a different wrapping paper and you don't get to find out whose is who until christmas morning. It is actually pretty fun, because up until Christmas they try and figure it out over and over...

Once the fun started it gets pretty crazy...and of course Miles slept through another family Christmas. He missed every one this year.

It truly is so sweet to see their little faces light up over silly little toys. We are so blessed and are so thankful for another wonderful Christmas!

A James Family Tradition

One of our Christmas traditions involves going as a family to pick out our tree for the season. According to my crazy, I mean awesome husband it is un-american to have a fake tree. So... in an effort to make him happy we go and get a tree each year. It actually is so much fun and the kids have a great time...I just curse his name each and every time I sweep up the millions of little "leaves" I sweep up on a daily basis.

Found the tree!

Off to load it up...

PlayRoom

Our playroom serves a number of purposes: school room, playroom, toy storage, game storage. It really is the center for all things kids. I really wanted a room that inspired learning and made you feel bright and welcome. I had zero storage so I used a shelf from Ikea and filled it with labeled baskets and the side pieces from our entertainment piece.

I divided the space into a sitting area to play with toys and a school area to sit and learn.

Most of the time it is one huge pile of toys and things that I should totally just throw away. But it is a fun place for the kids to just be kids and it is upstairs so I can hide it all pretty well.

That valance up there, is a raw piece of fabric push-pinned into the wall, Classy, I know, but it works and I don't have the energy right now to do much else to it...

Middle Child Syndrome

Sadly, I have to say that I have fallen short as a mom, my middle child, Fisher, was the very last person to get his room done. Not at all because I love him any less or I forgot about him, simply because I got really tired. After painting all of the other rooms in the house and not having a clear vision of what I wanted, it kept getting put off. However the end result has to be my favorite bedroom in the house... I really love it!

Before was a large mish-mosh of random things, including his sisters flower sheets from a previous room. Luckily I have a really manly husband and Fisher was not harmed by the adorable girl sheets... I knew that I wanted the pottery barn dinosaur sheets because they had a great color pattern and were not cheesy. I found it was really hard to find boy sheets that were not super childish or super dorky. This was my starting point. Here are the befores...

I, in my "all or nothing", mentality decided that I was going to attempt a chevron stripe on one of his walls. If you are not a math person, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOM!! Actually it was not that bad but getting the first stripe up there was the hardest. I used a meter stick and a pencil and a piece of cardstock that was cut at the angle I wanted each stripe. To make it easier I made each stripe the length of the meter stick and decided that I wanted the white strip 5" and the brown stripe 7". After I got the first one done I just measured down 5 or 7 inches depending on what color I was doing. Then comes the fun part...TAPE, TAPE, and more TAPE. This actually took the longest, and honestly I had a blister on my hand from rubbing the edges so hard so the colors would not bleed...

Once you tape, your are ready to paint the first color, be sure and lightly with pencil write what color stripe is what, it will definitely help you not paint the wrong color...

Once everything had dried I had my cute little helper help me get ALL of the tape off...

This is the first color, after you have completed this step go ahead and start taping again for the second color. Right about now you will ask yourself, "Self, why in the world did you start this crazy project, because you still have to paint the rest of the room too?" I can't answer that...

Here are the two colors half way done, and of course I ran out of tape so I had to wait to finish...

But after you are done, it really does look amazing. Here are the afters... and Fisher I love you so much!

I got the artwork idea from Potterybarn, of course, but for like 179 bucks...not worth it. So, I made my own version for 3 bucks! It is just 3 fence posts from Home Deopt, and then I painted my own version of a dinosaur. Much better on my budget... And the bed was from a antique store for like 40 bucks, it was black but I got out my spray paint and painted it this very pretty blue.

I got the bookshelf also at an antique store for 20 bucks, it's made out of reclaimed wood and fit perfectly with the artwork. I love the room so much, and now I am trying to figure out how to teach Fisher to keep his room clean. Boys...

New Floors!!

It truly is amazing to me how a few simple and key changes in a room can make the biggest difference. Knowing where to spend your money is KEY! To me buying expensive furniture is risky because in a few years or in my case a month or two I am over it... I chose to spend the bulk of our remodel money on key things that would add warmth and overall "charm" to our "cookie cutter home".

Not to mention that the previous owners had an enormous black dog and left behind some very long coarse hair that was impossible to get up...
So we decided to tackle the floors and the easiest change of all the walls:

Here is one before and a couple of durings:


Here are the 6 wall colors we narrowed it down to, we ended up going with the second one from the left SW Universal Khaki, sounds exciting I know, but it ended up being a very grayish tan, which was exactly what I was going for.



And yes, I did say goodbye to my hand painted burlap curtains, only because my sweet sweet husband said I could find something else... so I wasted no time finding something a little more sophisticated. I think that would be the buzz word of the remodel, "sophisticated". I tried to think about that with every decision because I feel that a sophisticated overall room is timeless and is easier to add fun accessories to.

I looked online for inspiration for wall colors for a really long time and debated back and forth between warm tans and cool grays, eventually I realized that the furniture I had worked best with warmer tones...so i went warm.

So for 3 days we lived with nothing in our downstairs and lived upstairs, which was fun, but with three kids I needed somewhere for them to sit or eat, so after 3 days we left and went and stayed with my parents until it was completed...about a week. Even though it was crazy it was so worth the wait and it truly feels like home now...

The curtains are actually a snakeskin like print but it is neutral and a nice touch of texture.
And the rug is my favorite item...it was a 600$ rug from pottery barn that I scored on clerance for 99$! My husband and I were pretty happy about that!


This tv cabinet is half painted white, I just have not had the energy or the time with the holidays to finish...
Everything on the wall here is from goodwill or I made myself. I just painted all the frames the same color to make everything flow together. The number painting is actually a pottery barn knock off that was so simple and completely free!


This is an overall view of the new room complete with children relaxing and playing together...
I am very happy with everything and very grateful for a husband who understand my need to nest!

Thaksgiving...

So I have just been so busy reading all the amazing blogs out there that I come back to mine and feel like I have nothing interesting to blog about... that's ok, Ill try anyway...

Well, here are some of our family pics from Thanksgiving.





I love my family and had a great time laughing and making wonderful memories!