Miles’ nursery {part 1}

I’m all about real around here.  So here ya go.  Take it all in.This is our guest/craft room after we took out the bed and started getting ready for our garage sale.  I will also say that I was emptying out all my craft boxes and going though them.  But oh yeah, it looked like for a good couple months.  During this time, Miles’ nursery plan went through a couple revisions.  Originally, I had my heart set on doing a wood or pallet wall.  Kinda like this:

 

(source)

I priced reclaimed barn wood and knew quickly that wasn’t going to happen.  Then I looked into doing it ourselves with pallets.  But the larger my stomach got, the less that large of a DIY project seemed appealing.  William was also worried about how to be sure all the pallets were treated in a way we’d want on a nursery wall.  I also looked into “wood” wallpaper.  Again, not quite in the budget range I was trying to stay in.  So I abandoned my original idea and started to fall in love with this color scheme:And these were a few of the inspiration nurseries I found on Pinterest that I liked:So remember when I was 30-something weeks pregnant with Ellie and painting her stencil on her wall swearing I would never do that again?  Hahahaha.  Never say never. I decided that to do this color scheme, the cream trim in his room and on the doors would have to go.  So William prepped and I spent a week carefully painting 2 coats of trim.  Not for the faint of heart, I tell ya.  But oh is is beautiful.  Luckily, the doors for the basement (oh yeah, I haven’t blogged about that yet have I?) were getting painted around this time, so Miles' closet doors and the back of the main door to the room were painted by someone who knew what they were doing.  Because all the outlets were beige as well, I have to give major props to William for being willing to buy all new white ones AND install them for me.

The next step was picking a color.  While I was researching nurseries, I saw this blue/aqua/sea green color coming up a lot and several bloggers mentioned using the color Iced Green from Benjamin Moore.  I got a small sample from Do It Best Hardware and it was exactly what I was picturing in my head!

After I got all the trim done, I wasn't quite sure what I had gotten myself into.  Thankfully, my mom came to the rescue to help with the rest of it.  Her and William did one coat on Friday night and knocked the other one out Saturday morning.   Owen and Ellie were great helpers (NOT).Then after the paint was done, we put together his crib and dresser.  It felt awesome to finally get some of the big stuff done so I could focus on more of the fun little details. Ta-da. Paint done and crib is assembled! And here is the adorable light I found at Target next to a sweet little owl I picked up a long time ago at Prairie Gardens.  I’ll post a few more of the individual crafts projects I did and then show you a full tour of his room!

the latest

Noticed a lack of posts lately?  Sorry faithful readers. :)  Expect a bunch coming up this weekend, and I may backdate to make them look like I posted closer to the actual event days.  But let’s see, why no posts.  Oh, you know the crap’s just been hitting the fan around here.  I mean seriously, this needs to get written down for posterity sake.  I thought I may be losing my mind.  Or may be pregnant. (let’s be clear on that one, I am NOT!)

• Our WIC was up for renewal and I realized I had lost my WIC folder.  Not the biggest of deal, but I did have good coupons that I wanted to use and all my July farmer’s market coupons were in there.  Stinky to basically lose that money.
• Then, I could not for the life of me find my kids social security cards.  They were gone.  Not something smart to lose.
• Then I lost my zip drive that holds all my information for my side job of data entry.  It was gone.
• We got a (huge) bill for Owen’s 3 year old appointment.  What?  Called his insurance to find they had dropped him.  With no letter to us of course.  Started the process of scrambling to try and re-enroll him.  Needed those lost social security cards.
• William did not get a job that he applied for (although props to him for making in to the top 2 out of 40+)
• Our van DVD player went out.  Then our portable DVD players broke.  (have I mentioned we’re driving 9 hours in a few weeks)
• The locks stopped working in the van.
• Our garbage disposal broke.

Whew.  It’s been an exhausting, not fun month.  And Owen has decided that he current reaction to everything is screaming at the top of his lungs.  Not a post to get pity, just want to document the craziness.
And I’ll be happy to note that:

• a new DVD player is on the way and the dealer fixed the locks on the van
• William is so handy that he had no problem installing a new garbage disposal
• thanks to my mom, William, and words of knowledge all my lost items have been found
• I’m working closely with Gary from All Kids to get everything right with insurance
• I’m not pregnant – I took a cheapy test and two lines came up.  I panicked and then took a “real” test.  It was negative.  I was puzzled.  Until I looked closer at the little plastic wrapper on the cheap test and realized it was an ovulation test.  Oops.
• William may have another job offer out of the blue (more details to come next week!)

Here’s to a much less eventful rest of the summer!

the fence

I realized that I have never blogged about the big change to our backyard - our fence!  But first things first.  Our patio had huge cracks in it when we moved in.  We ignored it for 2 years, but the cracks were getting worse and I was worried about the kids tripping over them.  So we had someone from our church (who does concrete work) to come and fix it!  They ended up taking the whole patio out and starting over, it was in pretty rough shape.  The great thing about this is that we were able to extend the patio by about 5 feet which, while not huge, FEELS huge.

 

After the patio was fixed, the utility people came and marked the yard for the utility lines.

 

Then, finally on May 1. . .the guys came to start.  We went with a dark gray aluminum fence.  No staining wood every few years for this lady. :)  It took them 2 days to get everything done.

digging the holes

all the supplies

 

posts are in

 

 

kiddos watching them work

Of course, we were only worried about one thing - them hitting one of our irrigation lines for our sprinkler system. And of course, they hit 3 of them.  But they made good on their word and came the next morning and fixed them at their cost.

 

I am love with this fence!  So great to be able to keep our kiddos contained. :)  Not as big of a deal for Owen as I anticipate it will be for my gregarious and always-on-the-move girl.

If you're local and wanting to know who we used, it was Main Street Fencing.  Several people had recommended them and we liked our consultation with them the best.  In general, we would totally recommend them.  A little hard to communicate with as they never answer the phone, but we were very happy with their work!

Why we use a cash envelope system (and a fun God story)

Awhile back, I posted about making these cute budget envelopes and shared that use a primarily cash system around our place.  Someone asked if I would share why we use such a system.  This post is an answer to that.  :)
When I was pregnant with Owen, we decided to take Financial Peace University at our church.  I cannot say enough good things about Dave Ramsey’s class.  Seriously, if you want to get your finances under control, take this class (WITH your spouse if you have one) and do the homework!  Ok, enough of a plug.  We wanted to get a better handle on our budget and where our money was going.  We followed the principles closely, but only used envelopes for a few areas and just tracked things in our excel document.  But this last year, we really needed to overhaul our budget and get our spending back on track.  There had been too much swiping the card even though it might not have “been in the budget.”  So here’s what we did:

1. Budget each paycheck.  We sat down and had several “family meetings.”  Yes, they were painful.  But very necessary.  We budgeted every penny that was coming into the house. 
2. Decide on your categories and amounts.  Since we had been keeping track of most things in excel, we had a general idea of what we were spending in most areas.  We decided which things would be paid via automatic payments.  We also decided to keep using our debit card for gas, since I didn’t want to have to run into the building with kids to pay.  Everything else was turned into a envelope category.  (Ours are currently: babysitting, adult clothing, emergency, Emily spending, gifts, going out, groceries/toiletries, hair cuts, home, kids clothing, kids expenses, postage, William spending).  
3. Fill Them Up! After you've decided all your categories and get a paycheck, fill each envelope with the money allotted for it in your budget. Since William gets paid twice a month, we also decided how much would go in at each paycheck.  For a few of our categories, all the money goes in at the beginning of the month (spending), but some other categories, we put half in each time (groceries).
4. When it's gone, it's gone. Now you can spend your money. :)  The one thing that I really love about a budget is that I don’t feel guilty about spending the money.  Before the cash system, I was never really sure when I swiped if we had the money for said item.  But now, if I want to buy a cute dress for Ellie and the money is there, I can get it and not feel bad.  Same with my crafting supplies or some new fancy frozen Greek yogurt.  But when the money is gone, it’s gone.  No going to the ATM or pulling money from a different envelope. 
5. Give it time. We’re still tweaking this as we go each month.   Getting the money right for each category will take a couple of months of trial and error.  But we’ve already started to see extra money in our bank account each month!  Yay!   We can now put that money towards something we are saving up for, like our future fence or basement finishing!

And if you’ve made it this far, I’ve got a fun story for you from yesterday.  I went to Aldi and then Wal-Mart to get all our groceries for the week.  I lost my debit card last week and I only brought our grocery envelope with me.  I was already humbled that I had to use 3 of WIC coupons.  But I must have miscalculated what I had put in my cart, because I was about $25 over what I had with me.  I apologized profusely and then started to pull a few things out of bags to give back.  There were a few things that I didn’t really need.  The cashier took off the items and I was still hunting through my purse for about $4.  All of sudden, the lady behind me handed the cashier a $10 bill.  I said I would just find a little more to take off, but she insisted.  I thanked her and finished up my transaction.  But as I was walking away, she said “ma'am, please wait.”  And then she bought all the items I had given back.  And dang, I’m crying again as I write this.  She bought them, and handed to me quickly.  She gave me a hug as I started crying and saying thank you. 

I cried the whole way out of the store, cried putting my groceries in the car, cried driving home, and cried telling the story to William.  We have had times in our life when we were on her side of things.  But now I am humbled and grateful that I was the receiving end.  God cared about the little things I had wanted to get.  I’ve just prayed God would abundantly bless that sweet lady for doing what she did yesterday.  I also pray my humbled spirit will remember this long after I'm (someday) done being on this side of needing the help.

recipe organization

This was one of those projects I was going to blog about when it was done.  But now that I'm a little ways in, I’m realizing this is going to take quite a bit of time, as in, it may never get totally done.  So why not post about the process now?

In the quest for organizing more in each of my rooms this year, I wanted to get my recipes under control.  This is what they look like currently.  I have a fabulous recipe binder that my dear friend Sara made for me for my wedding.  It has all her favorite recipes and has been so helpful.  I was just shoving more of my recipes in the back but it was getting really full.  So then, the recipes just got thrown in a manila folder which had spaghetti sauce and cookie dough all over it.  Finding recipes that I needed: impossible.Enter: my mom.  This is how she organizes all her recipes.  I saw it last year and wanted it.  So she was super kind and bought me everything I need.  Tons of large index cards, 2 plastic tubs, and some labels.My goal is to get every recipe onto one of these 4x6 cards.  Either cut from a magazine, printed from the internet, or handwritten:Then I just file them under their correct labels like appetizers, chicken, cookies, fish, etc.  It makes the recipes very easy to find.  And I can pull all the recipes I'm using that week for dinners and make my grocery list!My mom has 2 or 3 of these tubs all done.  She writes right on the card any changes she did and how they liked it, etc.  Or just tosses the card if it gets a thumbs down.  Someday, all my recipes will be easy to find.  I’m trying to get a few done each week.  Slow going, but I already love the new system.  How do you organize all your yummy recipes?**ETA – Used a acid-free glue stick to put my recipes onto the index cards.  And Lindsey asked which categories I used so here’s my list.  I started with all the “basics” and then added as I came to a recipe that I didn’t know how to file.  So these may be different for you:

1. appetizers
2. beef
3. bread
4. breakfast
5. cakes
6. chicken
7. cookies
8. dessert
9. dips
10. fish
11. jello/pudding
12. Mexican
13. pasta
14. pork
15. pies
16. potatoes
17. rice
18. salad
19. snacks
20. soups
21. veggies

outside lights

Last Sunday, I got the brilliant idea that we should put up lights on our porch. We did it last year with garland so it should have been extra easy this year as the garland was already wrapped with the lights. But nothing is ever easy is it. After they were about half hung up we decided to check the lights. Dope, half of the strands weren't working and we could not find a single replacement bulb anywhere. So the lights and garland came down. Maybe next year folks. But it was a beautiful day out so here's some pictures of the kiddos playing. Owen discovered the dirt pile and we literally had to drag him inside after a few hours. He was so happy.



my happy girl!

why are you taking so many pictures

 

too engrossed to look at the camera

this kid was DIRTY!

this was right before we thought of checking the lights

Ellie boucing on the front porch

Owen loved climbling the ladder

Pinned It, Did It Monday {lids, rings, and caramels}

It’s Monday.  And amidst the craziness of having people in my house all week, I got a few things done that I’ve pinned from Pinterest.  2 cleaning ones and a simple “dessert.”Is your tupperware drawer as messy as mine was?  Oops, forgot to take a picture of how bad it was.  But trust me, it was bad.
Picture I Pinned:

Source: This That, and the Other from As the Card Rack Turns
My Picture:Review: Um, duh, why did I think of this?  I just bought a cheap dish rack at Wal-Mart, but they even have some at the dollar store.  My lids were all over the place and now they are easy to find!  I wonder how long they’ll stay like this.Nothing better than caramels in the fall!
Picture I pinned:

Source: Microwave Caramels from Food.com
My picture:
My review:  I’ve made caramels a few times before but it usually involves standing over the stove for a long time.  Who knew you could do it in the microwave with 5 ingredients?  I needed to cook them a touch longer, but these were amazing!  I added some sea salt to a small part of my batch.  Since they were a bit soft, we just used it for caramel dip.  Fabulous!  Try it.Are your rings filthy?
Source: How to Clean Your Engagement Ring from FabSugar
My pictures:My review: This short video gives you 3 ways to clean your ring.  I must say I’m still madly in love with my engagement and wedding ring.   William did a pretty amazing job with them. :)  I used the ammonia method, but did also use a toothbrush.   The pictures don’t do justice how much cleaner they are! I love how sparkly they were after only a few minutes of cleaning.  So pretty!

Have a great week everyone!