{heads up}

New Year = new blog header.

What do you think?

I decided to use photos this time that really represent my life and interests right now. Not that I don't love using pictures of the boys, but they aren't my WHOLE life, you know? I'm also a crafty soul and love my home, so I think this collage really represents that.

I think this one will be up for awhile.

{laundry woes}

We all have that one space in our house that we are glad has a door, right?

One we can close when company comes over and pretend like the craziness behind it doesn't exist?

If you don't, please nod your head and agree with me...it will make me feel better.

That space in our home is our laundry room. Now don't get me wrong...I'm super happy to be able to say that we have a laundry room. In our old house, our laundry was in the basement. And it was an old house, so it was more of a dungeon. Needless to say laundry was not a fun task.

In this house, our laundry room is right off of the kitchen/family room so it is a HUGE blessing and makes doing laundry so much easier.

But this doesn't.



I can't believe I just showed you that.

I also can't believe that I thought about editing it in Photoshop first. Maybe if I brighten it up a bit and increase the saturation it will look better...riiiiight.

So that's the current state of our laundry room. I'm not proud. Not one bit. It needs A LOT of work, starting with taking down the cutesy laundry themed wallpaper border and painting over the baby blue walls.

Here is a photo of the room on inspection day to give you an idea of just how big it is, and how much potential it has...

Pretty great, right?

And here is the view of the washer/dryer...

This will definitely be a budget makeover so I'm using my creativity to think of solutions that will either be free or very low cost. A few things that I know we will need to buy include and ironing board and iron holder similar to this...




And I would like to replace the cabinet over the washer and drying with an open shelf or shelves similar to this courtesy of Jen from iheartorganizing...

While we're at it, can I have the fancy front loaders too? Target thinks I need them, so I must agree.

Said shelf would also require a trip to IKEA which I'm all about. We didn't make it on New Year's Eve, so I'm itching to get there.

We'll also need another laundry sorter, because the three compartment one we have now isn't cutting it. And a drying rack would be a good idea...our shower rod is currently doing double duty.

Sooo those are the basics of my makeover plans, but how about some fun additions while I'm at it?

Just yesterday morning when I was starting this post, I received an email from BHG with great budget laundry room ideas. I know God doesn't care about my laundry room but it really felt like divine intervention.

Here is one of the projects that caught my eye...



An entertainment center, painted and re-purposed for laundry storage. Love. And definitely something that we could score for next to nothing on Craigslist or at a yard sale.

I also perused Etsy for some art that would make whitening our whites a little more enjoyable.

These prints would be so fun hanging over the w/d...



And I love the sentiment and humor of this one...



Looking at the finishing details makes the work that has to come beforehand seem much more rewarding, doesn't it?

So that's my plan for now. First step is admitting you have a problem and I think I have achieved that feat, so next is the big clean-up. It has to get worse before it gets better, right?

{one little word}

Those of you who are fans of Ali Edwards, or obsessed with scrapbooking, {of which I am BOTH}, are probably aware of her one little word yearly phenomenon. I'm not sure how long she has been doing it, but she has thousands of creative souls who play along every year.


Image courtesy of AliEdwards.com

You choose a word that has meaning to you for the new year.

One that speaks to you and what you want to accomplish in the next 365 days.

In past years I have watched from the sidelines, but this year I felt very compelled to participate.

My one little word for 2011 is....

Action.

So instead of procrastinating like I tend to do because of fear of failure or the unknown...I'm going to...


Personal goals, house projects, work to-do lists, parenting challenges.

I'm going to tackle them all.

So care to join me? What is your one little word for 2011?

{renewal}

Yesterday, I enjoyed six straight hours of doing this...

And playing with all of this...

And enjoying the process...

And eating some of this...

Oh what a slice of heaven it was.

Thanks so much to my hubby and Mom #2 for watching the boys so I could play with some of my best friends {even if they are inanimate objects} and enjoy some girl time with my sister-in-law.

It was waaaay beyond time. And there are lots more pictures to scrapbook, so I asked my friends out for another date in the near future.

And they accepted.

I'm such a lucky girl.

{Swedish New Year}

So if the hubby and I were going to a fancy NYE party tomorrow night I would wear this fun dress from Kohl's...



And maybe something like these completely out of my budget little numbers on my feet...

But in reality the hubby and I, along with Mom #2, are going to IKEA tomorrow which will require a slightly different ensemble...

OK, so I won't really be wearing an IKEA bag halter dress, but that is impressive, right?

Then we'll maybe have dinner out at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Because who needs ruffles and heels when you can have Swedish meatballs and enchiladas?!

What are your NYE plans friends?

{Someone please buy that dress for me and dance the night away in it!}

{recap}

We had a really exciting, overloaded and rather exhausting {but in a good way} holiday weekend.

This Christmas felt like it was truly the boys' first Christmas, because they are old enough to fully participate and experience the excitement and anticipation of everything. Dan and I had so much fun buying their gifts this year and seeing the twinkle in their eyes and their huge smiles as they unwrapped everything.

On Christmas Eve we put the boys in their new PJ's, read The Night Before Christmas and set cookies and milk out for Santa. I was able to quickly snag a few shots of them all ready for bed {they were just a tad excited}...

Earlier that day we did Christmas with my parents and the boys got some fun new toys including super cool light saber things...

And a tool bench...

You better believe I'll be putting them to work with those tools! ;)

On Christmas morning the boys went straight to work on their stocking and gifts...

They got lots of new cars...

And a Toy Story Train...

And other equally fun goodies.

Landon snuck in a little track time...

Then we all got dressed to head over to their Gigi's house to celebrate again!

More gift opening of course occurred...

And we all enjoyed some yummy food and cookies...



and Gigi enjoyed some cuddle time with three of her favorite boys...

Make that four :)

Yes! Got him to smile!

You are probably wondering if the adults got any presents.

Why yes, yes we did.

Are there any photos of said presents? Not really. At least not of us opening them. Once you are a parent you are rarely seen in photos again. Hence the lack of a family portrait from the day {added to the fact that Dan just loooves having his photo taken.}

I did take photos of two fun gifts I received...one from Dan that involves lots of sugar...

And one from my parents that will hopefully get lots of use soon...

And I am wearing the sweater that Mom #2 gave me today and I really love it. It is from the Vera Wang line at Kohl's and has pretty ruffles down the front...

Sooo...if you are still with me, that was our Christmas weekend in a nutshell. A really big one. :)

Of course on Monday I had to get a case of the fun stomach bug that is going around. I'm still feeling yucky today, but hoping I'll be back to 100% very soon...or at least for Friday so Dan and I can celebrate the New Year with a nice meal.

How was your holiday? I would love to hear about it!

{wishes}

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

{floored}

When we bought our house {almost two years ago now!} I was bummed about the flooring. Our old house had hardwoods that were in great shape, and our kitchen had a brand new wood parquet floor.

The new house...well...had old unfinished hardwoods in the front room and two of the bedrooms. And yucky carpet in the kitchen and family room. The entryway had old, stained linoleum.

You could say it was a flooring disaster of epic proportions.

And I never thought we would be able to afford to replace all of that flooring so quickly, but we did. And on a tight budget! I thought I would share our flooring journey to give some inspiration to others who are on a similar budget.

So let's take a look at the before and after shots, shall we?

The entryway went from this...

To this...

Much more welcoming, right? And at 99 cents per square foot, the laminate we used was very easy on the budget.

We put the same laminate in the kitchen/family room to replace the yucky - and yes, I have to say yucky again - carpet.

Here are some super before shots from the inspection day...

Oh yes, friends, the toe-kick is carpeted too. For optimum comfort.

And yes, the area in front of the door was tiled but not the kitchen. Genius.

And here is the after, although this ginormous room is still a major work in progress {I'm still hoping that Genevieve will knock on my door one day soon with a brand new kitchen}...

Love the random toys and laptop on the floor. I like to keep it real friends.

The flooring in these two spaces cost us around $1200 and that was for installation as well. Considering that was a total of around 600 square feet, it was a great deal and a good low budget solution for such a large space.

Next up is our front room which we currently use for our dining room and office/crafting area. This space had original hardwoods but they were in terrible shape.

Here is the best worst before shot I could find. It really shows the lack of finish and stains that were on the floors. Of course the cute two year old distracts your eyes just a tad...

And here is a a photo from inspection day...

And here is the after...

And for a comparison...the old and new finish...

Now that they are refinished I can't believe we lived with them for over a year. But you do what you gotta do, right?

This project cost a total of $600 because we used a local independent contractor who was able to keep the cost down for us. We also live in a low cost of living area, so I'm sure that helps us out as well.

And finally, just last week we had carpet installed in our bedroom and Landon's room. {Ben's room already had a nice shag carpet so we left his alone.}

The hardwoods in these rooms were in the same shape as our front room, and since they are bedrooms we opted for cozy carpet instead of refinishing the wood.

And boy does it really cozy up those spaces...

Disclaimer: **Ignore the random toes in this shot, and the fact that our bed is sitting on the floor. The boys love jumping on it that way so who knows how long it will take us to put it back on the frame. Plus it kind of takes me back to our just got our first place and can't afford a bed days, and that makes me smile. **

Here is Landon's carpet...

And the transition from the newly finished hardwoods in the hall to the carpet...

Call me a dork but this shot really makes me smile.

We hired Lowe's for this job, because they had a great deal on the carpet {94 cents per square foot!} and we were able to finance the project into easy payments. Including installation this project came to a total of $550. Not bad for two cozy new bedrooms!

So are you still with me?

I hope I haven't bored you with my adventures in flooring, but I'm super excited that we finally have good quality flooring in our entire house. And for less than $3,000, we were able to get over 1500 square feet of brand spanking new/re-finished floors.

I hope this gives my fellow small budget decorators some hope!

{hungry man}

Even though it is written for the mom who cooks in mind (my hubby does most of our cooking), I think this book looks like a great resource for our testosterone heavy household...



Right now it is like pulling teeth to get the boys to eat but I know there will be a day when we can't keep food in the fridge because it instantly goes into their mouths.

Any tips from moms of older boys out there? I grew up with one sister so we had rather dainty meals at our house.

Sorry Dad.