Happy Friday!

Well hello there Friday! You are a welcome sight. This week I washed and organized the babies clothes, set up the crib, packed my hospital bags, rearranged and re-decorated my room, organized my closet, scrubbed my molding and dusted my blinds.

 Oh wait. That was me in another life. Or what I wanted to do this week. Instead I barely had the strength to keep up with normal housecleaning and laundry. It's the end of my pregnancy and boy am I feeling it like I didn't with my other 2. My back is getting bad again, my feet are on fire by the end of the day and I can literally feel my skin stretching as the baby puts on weight in these last few weeks. I am not complaining, more just trying to justify why I haven't gotten done what I wanted to this week. ;) Thankfully I have 4 weeks left until my due date, which could translate to 2 or 3 if I go early again, so I have time...

Monday night we left the house in the pouring rain to go to Starbucks. The kids were excited and I wanted to get out of the house. Brookie opted for chocolate milk and Joe wanted apple juice.

Nate got coffee, I got water and the kids and I shared a salted caramel chocolate bar. It was divine!

Hugging her little brother--we are all getting very anxious to meet him!

Would you look at these two?! All mine, girls. All mine.

Last night the kids skyped with my sisters before bed. They loved it! Brooklynne said she wants to do it every single night. I don't think that will work out but they are excited about doing it often with them. :)

Tonight Nate had a practice for a competition coming up. It was Friday and I really wanted to go out with the kids, so we took a little trip to Chik-fil-A (otherwise known as chick-a-lay). I admit I had selfish
intentions to go out--Nate said last night that I could get a new bed set for our room since I've been wanting one for a while and ours is shot. (Apparently if you spend $30.00 6 years ago at Wal-Mart you should be prepared to get what you pay for).

 

After staying up way too late last night looking online for ideas, I settled on purple and gray with a little yellow for color pop. We have a white bed frame and dressers, so it will go really well with it! Here is the actual picture of what I found tonight at Target--I am super excited to get it set up!

We also needed a new set of sheets, so I was able to find these gray ones to match...

...and yellow throw pillows on clearance to boot! I am still going to look for gray pillows, but I just cannot justify spending $20-$45 on a pillow. Not cool. I'll keep my eyes open and hopefully find something soon that will tie it all in. We also need curtains (I AM THE WORST CURTAIN-ER IN THE WORLD!) and some lamps for our nightstands. 

I'm excited about picking stuff up as I find good deals, but really hoping to have it totally done before the baby arrives. Coming home from the hospital to a clean, organized, "new" room will be wonderful. 

This month I'm listening to 1 Corinthians 13 each day. I loved listening to PS. 119 so much last month that I decided to keep it going. What better month to keep with the "love" theme than February? I actually memorized the chapter years ago and it's coming back to me now after only a few days of listening to it! Hopefully it will be a constant reminder to be long suffering, kind and charitable to those around me on a daily basis.

Well, that's all for now. It is once again way too late and I need to get to bed. Have a great weekend readers!

Creating Beautiful Spaces: The Heart of the Home

Some of you can interior decorate in your sleep. I, on the other hand, take years to hang a simple picture on the wall. 6 months to get the picture printed, another 6 to buy a frame, and another year to hang it. I am serious--my friends can attest to this.

Well, I've had enough of my bare walls, naked windows and boring spaces. I want them to be beautiful, and I don't want to spend a lot of money while I'm doing it.

Here is my kitchen before. I didn't have much wall space to work with, so decided to do something simple above the refrigerator. 

and tada...after! Simple but lovely. A call to eat with a huge fork to emphasize it. Creative, right? I wish I could take the credit for the idea, but I can't. I still love it anyway. We bought cheap, wooden (or more like cardboard) letters and painted them red and the big fork was 50% off at Hobby Lobby.

Before: Secondly was my sad little area above my table. Does this welcome you to eat? Make you want to be there? No.

After: But this, on the other hand. A fat little man holding a huge plate of spaghetti and meatballs? I'll take some right now, please. 

I didn't want the focus to be on the curtains so I just bought a simple valance. The picture was also 50% off at Hobby Lobby--score!

Before: I can't stand cluttered counters one bit. But I wanted to tie in the "fat chef" theme with something simple...

After: cookie jar from a friend and a candle that I will never burn (ha) from another friend! So, this one was free for me. Thanks, friends.

Before: The cookie jar was on this counter, which was cute but I had some other stuff that would go good there...

After: A friend had also bought me the plate and little jar, but I never got a stand to set the plate on. Who knew they were $2.99? Since it was the only thing not on sale, I used my 40% off coupon on the plate stand. Hey, I love saving pennies. Looks classier now, I think ;)

I hope this wasn't too horribly boring for you. Next up is my playroom and living room and next year I'm going to work on my bedroom.

Blogging Catch Up

I've been on a roll with blogging for a while, but I fell off the wagon this week. Hopefully not for long. I love blogging. Even if I didn't have one reader, to have an online journal of our lives that I can go and look back on is so special to me! 

 So besides not blogging, here is what we've been up to. My poor bare windows finally got curtains after almost 2 years of living in this house!

 Me and my (at the time) 9.5 week belly ironed all 3 huge sets. Brookie was very intrigued by an iron and ironing board and what they do. Apparently she has never seen her Mother iron before in her life.

 The kids help was enlisted to hold everything up and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of their poor little hard working selves.

 Trust me, this did not last long.

 Annnnnd....a little peek at what my windows now look like! I'll be doing a full "Before and After" of the rooms in my house when I'm done so I didn't quite want to show the whole thing. But you get the idea.

 Also on the agenda has been trying new recipes. I recently joined pinterest and have never been more inspired in my life! Recipes, home decorating ideas, photo shoot inspiration, etc, etc, etc. This week we'll be trying Grilled Balsamic Bruschetta Chicken, Healthy Spinach Lasagna Rolls, and picture here is Chicken Enchilada soup which was SO easy (done in the crock pot) and delicious! I doused mine with a good bit of cayenne pepper. Seems that I can't get enough spice in my food these days. :)I served it with cornbread and tada, a 15 minute prep-time meal!  Click on the links and try some new recipes!  

 Of other things we've been up to--taking pictures of our son who peeled off the foil that was over the leftover cornbread, plopped himself down Indian Style in the corner of the kitchen and proceeded to help himself. He did this without a chair or assistance and I still can't figure out how he reached it.

The dog ate the crumbs.

 In our spare time we like to wrestle. Or at least daddy does. Mommy watches and smiles and feels very blessed to see such a happy family playing on the floor.

Devotions every night before bed are just about our favorite time of the night. Brookie always says, "daddy, can you read long"? Every single night. Nate normally just reads a chapter or so and then they all pray.

Sometimes certain children do not sit very well...

...and must be corrected.

Brookie loves to cuddle and listen to the Bible being read by her daddy.

And speaking of recipes, I think I might have finally perfected a delicious chicken stir fry! Served with brown rice and baked egg rolls, a delicious "take out" night without the fat, salt and msg! :)

As I said before, I'm working on creating beautiful spaces in my home. We're doing one space at a time and as money allows. We got some letters for the kitchen,

and the kids were very involved in watching and "helping". And here I was again, in the middle of cleaning up dinner but taking pictures instead!

When Nate said they could paint when he was done, someone was just a little thrilled

and someone else was not

But then he got a turn and everything was all better.

I realize I need to get on the other side of the camera more, so here's a 3 month belly shot for you. I'll be doing my 3 month post soon, but just wanted to leave you with my growing bump!

The kids love Mommy's belly and always kiss it and ask about the baby. Joe  Joe says it's a "girl boy" so we shall see! :)

I think that is all the news for now. I'm finally caught up and will see you all in a few days for a pregnancy update! Have a wonderful week, friends!