Living Room... for now :)

Here is a tour of our living room, please brace yourself for way too many pictures of one room... but it serves so many functions and has a lot to see!

When you enter our 1972 house you are first greeted by this awesome floor ;) I am not even sure what it is, but I have heard you need a bulldozer to get rid of it! Then you are promptly welcomed into our living room, the most used and lived in room in our house.

 

It is one of my favorite places in the house, it is bright and cherry and cozy. With four kids there is no place in our house for a room that can't be USED! This is where dances are performed, movies are watched, picnics are had, and life really happens. so everything is jumped on, spilled on and the occasional pee on :)  Just being real...

You are greeted with one of my favorite things in our house, our mantle sign. I am in love with it. It is our family in a nutshell. Random, eclectic and fun.

 

I found the letters at a local store and Hobby Lobby. They were the exact colors I needed and when it all came together I was just giddy! I used fence posts for the back and painted and distressed them to make them look old. Then I just hot glued the letters on. Very easy!!

 

 

Our TV wall is next to the fireplace and holds this great antique door that I repainted and chalked. I change it up all the time and it a great foundation of the room. 

 

 If you are wondering if that is burlap on the walls...you would be correct! Behind it was this wall paper that was impossible to get off and since ripping out the sheet rock and redoing it was not going to happen, I came up with the next best thing...burlap! It is not hung perfectly and is not trimmed out on the edges, but it is so much better than it was! Trust me!!

 This painting is my World Market knock-off. I couldn't pay the $150 ish price tag when I knew I could make my own and with the colors that fit my room better anyway!

  

 
On the other wall is my random yellow bookshelf. It holds our books and a kitchen stuff in the drawers.  

 Our art wall holds the artwork that I get on a daily basis. It gets changed out all of the time, but I love to look at it and then move on to the next masterpiece!
Our living room serves us well and is a very fun place to be. In the very near future I want to paint all of the trim white. But for the most part, it is pretty finished.
 

 

Boys Room and Master

 So the boys room is probably my favorite room in the house right now. I am such a sucker for stripes! I really wanted a room that cold grow with them and was not too "themed". I found these comforters on sale at Target for $19.99 and I knew that I HAD to have them and I went from there.

 

 The giant star on the wall was a find from a local store here in town that I am in LOVE with. I get probably 50% of the stuff for my house from there! I had looked at for a couple of months and then when we moved, I knew that it would look great in the boys room!

 The letter are from my other favorite place Hobby Lobby. Oh and that amazing trunk is from that same local store!

I found that old bed spring and just knew exactly where and what I wanted to do with it. The lady at the store and my husband both thought I was crazy... but I LOVE IT! It adds so much character and charm to that side of the room. I plan on just continuing to add random pics of the boys as I take them. And the lights, who doesn't love big white Christmas lights. They just make me smile!

 The built ins are so great and a huge reason we bought the house, but keeping those little fingers from destroying them every five minutes is a challenge! So at some point I am sure they looked neat and clean, but not for very long!

Our master is very cozy and classic.

When you walk in you are greeted by an eclectic gallery wall and a beautiful view to our back yard. 

 That end table is from World market, and I just love it! It is a blue gray color and is just so charming.
Please excuse the cord and books, once again, little fingers are EVERYWHERE in my house!!

I am working on Grace's room and then headed towards Harper's room. I have so many fun ideas...
 

Home Tour...FInally!!

After a long journey of trying to find the right house for our family, we did! We moved in about 2 months ago and it has been 100 mph ever since. Now that Christmas is over and our house is back to normal, I am going to try and start posting some pictures of the rooms.

I saw the home for sale online and at first wrote it off. The pictures were not that great and we kept looking. One day, I decided to just drive by it, once I saw the lot and all of the trees, I did not even care what the inside looked like. I just knew this was it for us. It sits on almost 2 acres and is about 3 mile from town. It was perfect. Preston and I went to go look at it for the first time together, and I think it took both of our breaths away! The funny part, is that nothing on the inside was great. But the BONES were amazing. All of the rooms were yellows and burnt oranges and greens... luckily both of us could see the potential! The built ins are AMAZING!!! I could go on and on of all the reason we were in love. As soon as we got back in the car Preston immediately told me to take a deep breath and not to get our hopes up. But, in true me fashion, I was already redecorating and painting walls and moving our stuff in...after 4 months of negotiating and a few hiccups along the road, we finally closed at the end of October. The thing I love most about our home is that it feels like us. It is for sure the home God wanted us to be in and I am so glad I have a husband who made me wait it out. I think I tried to convince him to buy like 2o other houses. Luckily, he knew what we both really wanted and was able to put up with all of my pouting and temper-tantrums. He is a keeper for sure!   

When you walk into our house, you enter into the foyer and to the right is our home school room and dining room combo. I really wanted a bright and clean looking room. The color is Intellectual Gray by Sherwin Williams. It is the best color ever! It is a chalky gray and goes with everything.

This is where we do school and life... we play, color and live in this room. Because it is the first room you see, I really wanted it to look organized and clean, BUT, it has so many functions (my office, school room, play room, dining room)

 

 

 
  The other half of the room is our dining room. The real challenge here was to make to rooms flow. So I tried to make the dining room feel comfortable and usable.

 When we walked into the house, I fell in love with the kitchen. It had so much charm and character, and ALL THE CABINETS WERE ALREADY PAINTED WHITE!!! Which for me was a huge plus. I did not want to have to paint cabinets again. The oven is so charming AND works better than any other oven I have had. It preheats in like 2 minutes!!! I tried to keep with the era of the kitchen and keep it clean and crisp. It really is my favorite room in the house. The only thing I want to do in the future is change the counter tops.

 This is my coffee station. It has everything, filters, sugar, coffee!! It makes it so easy in the morning to grab a cup!

 The papers on the fridge are reminders of what mothering is all about. Taking time to invest in the souls of our kids... I read them over and over...

  Connected to the kitchen is our laundry and mud room. It is HUGE and I love it!!! It has 2 closets and a wall of cabinets! When we walked into the house for the first time, I was in heaven! However, it was very hard to get passed the blue and white checkered wallpaper with a beautiful cat boarder. But leave it to me to just paint over it :) This is the only room in the house with a "crazy" paint color. I figured, if any room needed a cheery feel, it was the laundry room. The color is conch shell, by Benjamin Moore. I love it, it is a chalky coral color and just makes me smile!

 The back of the door holds all of my aprons, but at this time it has two Ironman costumes and an Optimus Prime costume... life with boys :)

 That is my one little one year old! Time flies so fast, and I am so thankful for my family and for this home that we plan to spend many years making memories in!
 

God's Faithfulness in Parenting

  Tonight was a normal night. Bath. PJ's. Read. Bed. But tonight I got to have one of the sweetest moments with Grace. I hope that I never forget it. She continues to blow me away with the way she loves and how she truly feels peoples pain.

How many times as parents do we try to impart wisdom into our sweet babies and  say things like, " God loves you so much!", "God sent his son to die for you, isn't that awesome!" and drop hints at every corner that Jesus is the way, to just be dismissed and overlooked by the next page of a book, or the sound of Dad coming into the room. I try so hard to teach my kids that they are longing deep down inside for the love that only one person can fill, and end up feeling defeated that no one hears anything that I am saying.

Well, here is just a tiny bit of encouragement, nothing mind blowing, or life altering, but for me it was just enough of an affirmation by God that they are listening and that they accept and believe far more than we think they are.

We started reading the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jerico. After singing the song and going through what it meant to walk around the entire city, and the walls coming tumbling down, we prayed. Grace opened us up with the sweetest words, " Oh Lord... you are just so amazing and powerful. We can not see you, but you see us and you love us. You created all of our hearts. My heart, Fisher's heart, Mommy's heart, Harper's heart, Daddy's heart and everyone in the whole world. You love us and you sent your son to die on the cross for our sins." She then went on to name about 25 things God created and loves and ended with, "we love you." It was so sweet and heart felt and lacked any doubts or fears or concerns. 

After we were done, Grace asked me to come to her room and bring the bible with me so I could show her the picture of Jesus on the cross. The particular bible I was reading from is a kids bible but the illustrations are not "car-toony" at all. They are very real looking. I flipped to the page and showed her the picture and she just stared and took it in. She started commenting on the nails and the rope and the tattered clothes and then she noticed the blood. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked me "Why mom?", "Why would they do this to him, they scratched him and hurt him and made fun of him?" I got to explain all of the awful things that they did to him on the cross and the blood that was shed, and then I got to remind her that he did this for her. That is was her sins he was dying for and the this was the only way that death could be conquered.

It was so tender.
It was so sweet.
It was so raw for Grace.

After that she looked at me and said. "Mom, they must of done it because they didn't know."
What truth in such a sweet child.  We then got to look at the pictures of the stone being rolled away and the empty tomb and I got to explain that now Jesus was able to be in Heaven, and that now we have a way to be in Heaven with him.

It was only a couple of minutes, but it was such a sweet moment with Grace. I told her that whenever she is ready we can talk about what it means to have Jesus live in your heart and how before she was born, Preston and I have been praying for the day that she would accept this gift. Which she told me she wasn't old enough to have yet :)

In the midst of all the crazy, they hear us. In the midst of all the fighting and tattle-telling, they hear us. It was such an encouragement to me to keep pressing on. To keep fighting for the moments to bring it all back to the cross. Ultimately, only God can save, but what a blessing to be used in this world to share the good news. Often times my heart is burdened over who I need to be sharing the gospel with and my neighbors and family that are lost, but there are 4 kids living in the same house as me that are in desperate need of a savior. I long for them to hear the truth and I am so blessed to be apart of their lives.