steph's stuff

Seven on Saturday

1. Woke up this morning to the kids climbing in bed with us and after I eventually stumbled downstairs to the couch, Andrew and Sawyer sat down in front of me. And this is what my cell phone captured. LOVE. It's a good day to be a mommy.
2. The kids are on spring break this week and we're making plans - a train trip to Chicago, talking Daddy into taking a day off to play with us, going to the movies, library trips, bike rides to get frozen yogurt, and playdates with friends.
3. I'm itching to scrapbook. I haven't had much time to myself at all this week and I really want a couple of hours alone. I might have to bribe the kids one day this week. 
4. I'm also really itching to do something to the house. I mentioned here and here that I have the redecorating bug and I really do. I want to paint our sunporch. Remember it from here? That minty green color just has to go. So I'm watching the weather for this week. 
5. My husband has a lot on his mind at work and when he has to think things through, he likes to clean. He spent the morning washing down all of the kitchen cabinets and baseboards and is now currently washing walls. Swoon. Is that not the sexiest thing ever?????
6. I got talked into taking Emily to see "The Hunger Games" again tonight. I'm hoping I like it more than I did the first time. 
7. And then this picture below. Andrew and our next-door neighbor just adore each other. They play together so beautifully and have so much in common. And they love to sit quietly and read side-by-side as much as they love to play football. They both have very kind, gentle souls and will sit together for hours. I took them to the library yesterday and this is how I found them after I checked out our books. I know I've said it before but I love this neighborhood and the people in it. :)

Happy Saturday!

Where did that article go?

All supplies from Designer Digitals and a full list can be found here. 

Someone asked me yesterday how to find an article I had written and I thought it was time to update some links. Here's how you can find articles, layouts, tutorials, etc...

Scrapbook Update - you can find all the articles I've written, including layouts, links, and tutorials here.

Designer Digitals - you can find all my layouts here, all of my "All About Me" articles here, and all of the creative team's Project Life articles here.

Twitter - follow me here.

Pinterest - find my boards and follow me here.

Instagram photos - find them here.

I've also updated all of the links in my left sidebar on the blog under "Visit Me Here." The links now take you specifically to my pages, rather than just a general link to the site. 

Thanks for checking me out. :)

And, on another note, this little guy quarterbacked his team to victory last night in their first win!!!! He is just incredible and I can't wait to watch him succeed over the summer!

We were so proud of him!

Have a great day! :)

Decorating Dos & Don'ts

As I was going back through our renovations from 2009, some of the decorating tips and tricks I picked up back then jumped out at me. I had forgotten some and some are hard-fast decorating rules that I always adhere to. There is one change I made back then that still amazes me, though. One of the simplest and least expensive of the changes I made but it had a huge impact! 

Look at the drapes in this before & after sequence of our old living room. The heavy, dark drapes in the before just kill me - they make the room look smaller, they bring the ceiling down, and they close off the light. Add in the sheers layered under them and virtually no light made it into that room. 

And then look at the after photo. Drapes that blend in with the wall color and simple, not fussy fabrics really make the room look bigger. Not just by literally letting in more light but also because the drapes are no longer the focal point of the room. And by removing the valance, the ceiling looks higher as well. 

Changing the drapes made such a huge difference!

You can see more of that room in this post - Home Renovations: Part 3.5. And I'm afraid that the bug I wrote about yesterday is taking over my brain. I can't stop looking around the house and making mental lists of things I can do to freshen up the house!

 

I'm getting the bug again

Two-and-a-half years ago, we spent three months renovating our old house to get it ready to sell. And I loved every single second of it. Well, okay, those 8 days it took me to scrape wallpaper off the kitchen walls were absolute hell, but the results were worth it. 

And now, I'm getting the bug again. We had a bunch of 5th-grade girls over yesterday and one of the girls knocked a picture off the wall in our downstairs bathroom. It dented the frame and I had to take it out of the bathroom - leaving a blank wall that suddenly looked dirty and dingy. My first thought was, "Wow, what a perfect time to paint this room." And I started looking around at the baseboards and the walls and the chipped mirror and ....... my head started whirling with ideas. 

Hmmmmm............

And now I'm looking back through all of our old home renovations and I am obsessed. It really is affordable if you do it yourself. This is part of what we did in 2009 - we did a lot more that I didn't blog about, including painting the entire upstairs, renovating both upstairs bathrooms, completely cleaning out and redoing our basement and more - but these are the biggest projects. 

Home Renovations 2009: Part 1

Home Renovations 2009: Part 2

Home Renovations 2009: Part 3

Home Renovations 2009: Part 3.5

Home Renovations 2009: Part 4

Home Renovations 2009: Part 5 

Republishing

I'm working on recreating some of my posts to better archive them and provide links to them so some of these posts may show up again in your google reader or news feed. Sorry for the repeat!

How much longer?

Last week, Emily and I had a few minutes alone and ran to the mall to do an errand. We took a quick self-portrait with my cell phone and I put the phone away. Later that day, I opened up my phone and happened upon the photo. And for some reason, it took my breath away - in a panicky way. She just looks so tall, so old, and it hit me, "How much longer? How much longer will I have her at home? How much longer before I have to let her go?" And I could barely breathe.

I've been going back to that photo in my mind for days now and then I read Cathy's blog post yesterday about her daughter. Same emotions, same feelings. So, I decided to put my thoughts down on virtual paper with the photo. 

There are not enough words to describe how much I love this child. 

All supplies from Designer Digitals and a full supply list can be found here.

Project Life - Week 11

As the weather gets warmer and we get closer to Spring Break, the tempo of our daily life always seems to pick up. And this year, with the temperatures reaching the mid-80s two months early, the yard work and clean-up is added to the mix. As a result, and as usually happens when I get so busy, I forget to take pictures and the days seem to pass in a blur. Rather than stress about it, though, I just went with the flow for Project Life that week. I printed out the photos we had, threw a few handwritten notes on it, and called it good. 

Page one includes the weekly card, the beginning of my journaling and some photos that really captured the day-to-day life we led that week. Photos that mean nothing to anyone else, but I seem to love these photos the most. I started cooking some meals from Biggest Loser Family Cookbook and we all loved all three of them. Other photos include Libby dancing in the rain, Emily's sick bed on the couch, the hot weather and the flowers coming up, and the kids fooling around in the car.

Page two includes the rest of my journaling, Andrew as quarterback of his flag football team and hanging out with his best friend, a photo of my new computer and the kids eating frozen yogurt, as well as a photo of Andrew's iPod being saved by a bowl of rice and a quick shot of our small St. Patrick's Day party.

My journaling cards this week were simple 4 x 6 cards printed on white cardstock. I took Cathy Zielske's Tiny Text Templates No. 02 and resized them to fit. Super-easy and I'll definitely use them again. 

The templates included a "continued" card and I simply used two of those for the rest of my journaling.

I have two favorite photos this week and I can't stop looking at them. The first of these is a very blurry photo of Andrew on the football field. We have to stand behind a filthy, scarred plexiglass wall for his games (it's an indoor league) and there's simply no other way to get photos - you have to shoot through that glass. As a result, the photos are always horrid. But this photo of him falling back and getting ready to throw a pass just thrills me. He adores football - and playing quarterback is about the best thing in the world to him. 

And then this photo of Libby - I shot it quickly out the screen door as she ran out to the deck to dance in the rain. It was after her first full day of school after having migraines for over two weeks and, with this photo, I just knew that my Libby was back. :)

Have a great week! 

WEEK 11 SUPPLIES: 

InLinkz.com

Oh, that face! Part II

As I was going through my old files and pictures to move them over to the new computer, I found a ton of the cutest photos of the kids when they were younger and I just have to post them here. So forgive me - the next three posts will all just be photos of my babies. :)

The focus is on Libby today. 

I love you, Boo Boo! xoxo Momma

 

Oh, that face! Part I

As I was going through my old files and pictures to move them over to the new computer, I found a ton of the cutest photos of the kids when they were younger and I just have to post them here. So forgive me - the next three posts will all just be photos of my babies. :)

The focus is on Andrew today. 

I love you, little man.

xoxoxo Mommy

 

Friday Randoms

• This little dude is in such a good phase of life right now - happy with school, happy with life, happy with friends, easy to parent, loving, and hysterically funny. Makes me smile just to look at him. 
• I took Emily to see "The Hunger Games" midnight premiere last night with some good friends of ours. And the more I wake up today (I am wayyyyyyy too old to do that again, by the way), the more mixed my feelings about the movie become. I left there a bit disappointed but also excited to have seen it. And now I'm thinking I want to see it again to give it another chance. The theater was packed and we had to sit super-close to the screen which made my head and neck hurt throughout - at times, I just felt like I couldn't even take in the whole screen at once which led to some of the disappointment, I think. 
• Bedtime will be verrrrrrrryyyyy early for Emily and me tonight. ;) To her credit, she went to a full 8-hour day of school on 3 hours of sleep. That was our deal and she didn't back down from it. 
• Libby is at that tough inbetween age - not yet a teenager but having the same interests as her sister who is. I was the oldest so I don't know what she's going through but I understand how difficult it must be to the one who is left at home with the little brother when her big sister gets to go out and do fun things. I'm trying to come up with something fun that she and I can do together and leave the big sister at home. ;)
• I am still moving and tagging files on the new computer. It's going to take a couple more weeks to feel as though I'm back to full speed. 
• I made my first layout on the new computer last night and panicked when I realized I hadn't loaded custom drop shadows onto it yet. That was the first thing I did this morning. LOL.
• Embarrassing moment of the week: it's been so hot here that we have all the windows open all day and night. And I totally forgot a couple of nights ago when I went into the bathroom after dark, turned all the lights on, and sat down to go to the bathroom. Oh, hello open window right across from me. Dark outside, bright lights inside, and me on the toilet. All I could do was laugh and hope I didn't horrify the neighbors behind us too much. Oy. 
• And speaking of hot, it's been hot. 85 degrees and humid. In March. So totally weird. The good news is that it's cooling off and raining now and it's just beautiful in my backyard!

Happy Friday!