The big 3-0

I turn 30 tomorrow and as a special surprise Kyle is taking me away for the weekend! A huge thank you to my mom who is making this possible by watching Emery for us (our first overnight away)! Hope y'all have a great weekend as well!

Hallway Gallery Wall

At one end of our upstairs hallway right outside Emery's room is a blank wall.  I had been wanting to put up frames with pictures of Emery and our home made ruler for measuring her over the years.  I finally got it up this week, so I wanted to share.  Best part of it was that I made the ruler and I mixed and matched frames that we had laying around the house already-- woo hoo pretty much free project, I love it when that happens!

In a shadow box frame I put all of Emery's special keepsakes from her birth -- first hat, wristband, footprints -- then I found that slate heart for only $1 at Michaels.  I also made and printed out the "you are my sunshine" print to go in the large frame -- might make an actual sign one of these days but for now it works.

 

So here is the before:

 

And here is the after!

  I don't think I've posted the upstairs bedrooms on our blog yet.  Can you tell the previous owners had one girl and one boy living at the end of this hallway? We'll get around to repainting those at some point haha.  Quick and easy gallery wall!

Wordless Wednesday: Mornings at Jetton Park

Fixing up our front porch!

Our front porch has been on our to-do list since we moved in, and we finally got the chance to do it a couple weekends ago!  Since we changed out our front knob (from brass to oil rubbed bronze) when we first moved in we had bare spots around the knob that weren't painted black.  So we removed our numbers and kick plate and got to painting.  

Here is a before picture of our door, also notice the brass lantern out front as well as the rusting and faded porch railing:

Another before:

And here is the after with a freshly painted front door (still trying if we are going to put numbers back on or not).  Kyle also bought and hung an American flag on our front column!

Instead of buying a new light fixture (which would have cost us around $120) Kyle opted for spray painting.  SO happy with how it turned out!  For the railing Kyle sanded it all down with a sanding block, sprayed it with rust reformer paint then sprayed it with a gloss black paint.  Looks so much better!

No more rust here!

So next on our list outside is repainting our shutters since that black paint is faded as well... but they are high up and not sure when we'll get the confidence to do those ;)  I am still looking for a wreath for our front door, too! For now we are happy with the little changes to make our front porch a little nicer!

Molly's Baby Shower

A couple weekends ago, I was able to attend Molly's baby shower!  Molly and Marshal are expecting a little girl due this September and we couldn't be more thrilled.  I had the best time catching up with her friends & family, eating delicious food and playing fun shower games with every one.

So exciting to see little Molly with such a big belly!  We CANNOT WAIT to meet their sweet girl in a couple months!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone!  We are so grateful for our freedom and all the men and women who have fought for it!  We'll be back to blogging on Monday!

Bonus Room Makeover -- Before & After

I realized the other day that I had still not blogged about our bonus room!  It's been a work in progress for a while now, and man does it so look different than when we first moved in.  When we had our two story foyer & upstairs hallway professionally painted, we also had the crew paint the bonus room and back staircase.  We went from a dark navy blue paint color that made the room & stair case feel small to and changed it to a khaki color (Sherwin Williams Wool Skein)!  It's much lighter and we love it!

So here is the BEFORE:

And here is the AFTER:

I wanted to decorate it all in primary colors and make it a fun room for Emery.  So far it's a complete success as we play in there every.single.day.  She loves it!

We have an art wall where we have a big chalkboard (used my handy chalkboard paint again to make it), a shelf holding art supplies (have to keep it up high or she would play with them non stop), and then above that a place to hang Emery's drawings (thanks Ikea).

The table & chairs are also from Ikea (only $20 total!).  The set comes unfinished so I primed and painted each one primary colors.  Emery loves having things just her size and uses this table constantly.

She loves to eat with Pooh Bear at the table:

 All the white shelving you see in the room came from my sister!  My dad had made them for her family a while ago and they didn't have room for them in their new house, so they came to us.  I found blue, yellow, red and green buckets at the dollar store (another tip from Tara!) that fit the shelf perfectly to hold some of Emery's toys.  We reused the original mirror from the downstairs bathroom and framed it in red upstairs for a "dress up" station.  The necklace & purse hooks are from Ikea as well... I love that store.


On the opposite wall we put up a magnetic wall (thanks Pinterest for giving me the idea of using an oil drip pan!). The red/orange pocket organizer is from Ikea.

I bought these magnetic numbers & letters off amazon and Emery loves them:

Em also has a little trampoline in the play room, another awesome hand-me-down from the Dew crew!

Next to the magnetic wall is her tent, a hand-me-down from my parents!  She LOVES it and camps out often with all her babies:

The bunting is actually decoration from a friend's shower that I helped host a couple years ago (Jen!).  Thought it matched perfectly!

Our bonus room shares a buddy bath with the guest bedroom, which is really convenient.  So we now officially have 3 rooms from upstairs repainted & complete, slowly but surely!

Giving back and making a difference

After being on my to do list for forever now, I finally went online and filled out the questionnaire to register as a Marrow Donor.  Unfortunately, I did not pass the health guidelines because of my history with thyroid cancer and cannot be a donor.  To say I was disappointed is a huge understatement. 

Thankfully, my hubby is as healthy as a horse and met all the health guidelines, so he's on the list for both of us.  His tissue-typing kit came in the mail a couple days later!

And we got busy swabbing his cheeks!

If this is something that's been on your list to do, go and register now!  It is a commitment, one that should not be taken lightly, so make sure you are okay with what you will have to do if you are a match to someone.  In our opinion though, it's totally worth it to help save someone's life.

On another note, we recently got an updated photo of Junior our 6 year old sponsored child through Compassion.  What a stud!

In his last letter to us he wrote that he refers to Kyle as "his father" since he doesn't have one.  Kyle and I both teared up as soon as we read that sentence in the letter... so special.  We are making a difference and it sure feels good!

Quick Garage Door Update!

I had seen this idea on Pinterest a while ago and finally got around to trying it out on our dirty old white garage door.  With every house project we do. we were constantly adding brown/black hand prints on our garage door that led inside.... so why not paint it black to help hide those!  I cut out "Welcome Home" out of vinyl with my silhouette machine and voila, a quick and easy makeover that helps make our home a little more inviting.  (Although next I need to work on those messy shelves next to the door!)

In the picture below you can see all the dents in the old door but you can't notice them in real life-- the black actually helps hide them really well!

We also painted the inside of the door a fresh white color and it looks so much better.  Glad to check this quick update off our list!