Keeping it Real

Good morning Friends and Happy Easter Monday!  It's a dreary day today, no sun and just clouds. But the trees are budding and the  kids have off school, so it's all good.  In fact, one of the trees that I see when I look out of our office window is at my favorite stage right now.  The colors I feel would be the perfect colors for a sweet little girl's room or nursery, not that I am planning on a nursery or anything. Just think the colors are a perfect blend of green, white, light pink and dark pink... wouldn't you agree?

Anyway...because we don't have school today, I was able to sleep in. Wahoo! We are in a bless-ed stage right now. The kids can all get up on their own, pour their own cereal, and turn on the TV all by themselves. I thought all the kids being out of diapers was wonderful. but this may be a teensy bit more wonderful than that. I didn't even hear them get up and woke up to a quiet house because they were all the way down in the basement watching TV. Bliss, I tell you, bliss! Maybe I should teach them how to make coffee so they could bring it up to me while I stay in bed... hmm...

We had a wonderful, but slightly busy weekend. We were able to spend Easter Sunday with some dear friends.  We went to church in the morning, got our stuff together for Easter lunch, spent the day at our friends house and didn't get home until late. Because of all of this, I didn't really surmise the disaster that is my kitchen. When the kiddos went down to the basement, they turned off all the kitchen lights so this is what I woke up to:

Not too bad, right? Can't really see anything that's going on in the kitchen.

Then, I turned on the lights! The theme song from Psycho came to mind!

ACK!! Just keeping it real, my friends, just keeping it real. I think I may take another day off and wait until tomorrow.

But, then I take a look at my calendar in front of me for this week and I have a feeling it's got to be today, or it may be never.

In the meantime, I think I will just turn my back on the kitchen and keep looking out my window at my pretty tree. Ahh.... much better!!

Before and After

Waaay back in 2008, when we looked at this house, one of the first things I said was "The yellow has to go."  No offense to those who have mustard yellow on all their walls.  It just wasn't my taste.  I fell in love with the rest of the house, but never fell in love with the yellow.  Despite my feelings, it only took six years to finally getting around to repainting.  I think the main reason was because there was just so. much. yellow. We knew it was going to be a big job. Also, there was a strange faux painting technique on the kitchen walls which we also knew was going to take some elbow grease.

Dan was "in between" jobs in November so we, I mean, I thought it would be a perfect time for the yellow to make it's departure once and for all.  Dan was a superstar, rolled up his sleeves, greased up those elbows, and made it all happen in 5 days.

Some during pictures:

Before we could start, Dan had to sand down and prime over all the faux painting

My super brave hubby isn't so super brave when it comes to heights,
so I had the privilege of painting the vaulted ceilings...

...and the two story foyer

Had to pull out the "extension" for the spots we just couldn't reach

Here are some before and after pictures...also known as a Picture Dump:

Entry Before

Entry After

Upstairs Hallway before

Upstairs Hallway after

Hearth Room Before

Hearth Room After

Kitchen Before

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Kitchen After

Kitchen After

It was a BIG job, and we are definitely happy it is DONE!! I am so happy with the outcome. However, because we changed out the yellow to a more brown/gray color, we had to change the living room color. :) (Yes, you just heard a groan from Dan).  A friend of mine who has much better decorating taste than I do, suggested going out of the beige/brown color wheel. GASP! I so happy she gave me that suggestion because I LOVE the new color.

Before

after

Before

After

Before

After

It's amazing what a gallon (or 7) of paint can do!!

PJs, Pancakes, and a whole morning of fun!!

This year is our "Birthday Party Year." Starting in Kindergarten, each kiddo gets a "friend party" every other year.  The "off year" you get to spend your special day celebrating with your family. :) In two years it's going to land with Simon and Taryn having their friend parties two weeks apart. Oye. Who's idea was this?  Anyway, that's nothing to worry about today... let's focus on this year!!

Taryn's birthday fell on a Saturday so it was a perfect time to do a super fun (and actually quite easy) morning birthday party.  The theme was "PJ's and Pancakes."  The main reason this party idea was perfect for Taryn was because she would love to stay in her p.j.s every hour of every day. The girl loves her comfy clothes!

Thanks to Pinterest the ideas were endless.  I asked my super-talented sister to help me out with the invites.  I think they were the cutest part of the whole party!! Don't you agree??

The setup

The lime green "poof" kept falling down... thankfully Annika is tall. :)

Even poofs off the chandelier!

Table is set...girls worked on fruit loop necklaces while waiting for the rest to arrive

The Pancake Bar

Breakfast of Champions!

I should add that the sweet little girl who made this went back for seconds!!

For the craft, the girls used fabric markers and paint to decorate white pillowcases

The girls each took home their own "breakfast" as a party favor...these were a big hit!

The Birthday Girl

Crazy girlies!

And, of course, we ended the party with singing Happy Birthday and MORE SUGAR!!! That is why the party was only 1.5 hours long... sugar 'em up and send 'em home.


Happy Birthday Taryn from Our Plain Life on Vimeo.

My goal was for her to feel loved.  I think we accomplished that.  Happy Birthday my sweet and sassy Taryn.  You light up our lives every day with your kindness, spunk and smile.  I can't image our lives without our sweet "T."

Phew! Our January Birthdays are done! Yes, Dan's birthday was on the 23rd, but, sorry, babe, it didn't make the blog. :/ Now I have until June to plan for the next one....

New Year...New Goals

This comic that I saw the other day kinda explains how I feel about setting goals. Thankfully, my hubby doesn't allow me to get too far into the New Year before I need to get my goals down on paper.  Like last year, I thought I would put it them out there for you all to see.  Hopefully, this will inspire me to get moving on these goals and finish the year with at least most, if not all, of them completed.

Here they are (in no particular order)!

Physical Goals:
*Workout 3x a week. Since I have given up my studio membership, this will be harder than last year. It will be up to me and my sheer willpower to get my workouts in. Yikes!

Spiritual Goals:
*Read flip calendar devotional with the kids each morning. I got a sweet little flip calendar that I hope to use with the kids each morning while we are chowing down on breakfast before school. So far we have done pretty good on this because the kids like to remind me of the calendar.

*Starting in May, read through the Bible before the end of Summer (May to August). So that gives me 120 days to read through the whole Bible.  There are plans out there, just need to figure out which one to use.
*Whole Family memorize our Family Verse (Hebrews 12:1-3)

Financial Goals:
*In order to be a better steward of the blessings that I have been given, I am going to try to Pay cash for these budget items: groceries, eating out, clothing.  I am a notorious impulse spender--hellooo clearance racks!!!-- but I am going to try and curb that by shelling out cash instead of swiping a card.

*"Save up" for a T.V. We have an old-fashioned tube t.v. in our upstairs hearth room. It's so bad that if we are watching a football game, we can't see the time or score because it's cut off the screen.

The poor weatherman got cut off!

We have a nice big, fancy schmancy TV down in basement that we do most of our t.v. viewing on, But, I would really like to have a fancy schmancy TV when I am folding laundry, prepping dinner, etc.  So I have made a deal with Dan to save up for my TV. This is how I am going to save for it... put off upgrading my "dumb-phone" until November 2015. The difference in that savings will go to my new TV.  Right now, my monthly cell bill is about $35, if I would upgrade to a smart phone, my bill would be about $80 a month. Do the math and I am saving $45 a month towards my new fancy schmancy TV. So me and this guy will be good friends for another 11 months. :)

House Goals:
*Organize our Master Bedroom closet. Pictures say a thousand words.

*Make our Laundry room efficient for storing backpacks and coats.

This just isn't working anymore

*GET A SCRAPBOOK DONE FOR SIMON!! (This is a rollover goal from 2014). Thanks to a 24 hour scrap-booking event at the end of this month, I hope this one is done soon!! Poor guy needs a scrapbook...

Am I in this book mom? No, sorry, buddy.

Reading Goals:
*Read about 3 Presidents (Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe). Long story short, but, I have a loooongg-term goal of reading a book about each president in consecutive order.  I have already read about George Washington and John Adams...2 down...42 to go! Obviously, this will be life long since I hope our democratic system will hold up for the rest of my life! :)

There you have it! My goals for 2015!!