Spring is coming finally!!

So with the warmer weather finally here in Columbus I decided to go to my favorite Hobby Lobby and buy some spring accents to update my mantle and apothecary jars. For some reason I am on a bird theme, which is not like me at all, but I will roll with it.



This cute birdhouse matches the Yellow on my family room walls perfectly. I think it says spring with out saying I'm country. It is also the perfect height to fit under my mirror on the mantle.



I found some moss at Hobby Lobby as well and then they sold these two little bird's nests and little eggs so I placed them in the two apothecary jars I have in each of my bathrooms.

Now I just need to find some springlike picture frames for my mantle an I am good to go.

I also downloaded this free subway art to put on my living room, here is the link if you want to print out your own. http://todaysfabulousfinds.blogspot.com/2011/03/spring-subway-art-prints.html

Winter Mantel Linky Party

I am in the process of updating my mantle for its winter look. This post Winter Mantel Linky Party provided the inspiration and I hope to have some luck over the next few weeks updating my mantle a little bit. I wish I was as creative as some of these ladies. They are so original with their ideas and they also take the time to make tutorials for people like me to try and follow. I love the blogging world for this very reason and the website ETSY is equally as wonderful. Happy looking:)

Christmas 2009

Here are some long time coming Christmas pictures. I posted some on Facebook right after Christmas but haven't gotten to post them on the blog yet. Christmas this past year was with Mike's family but we got to host part of it. It was so nice because the three of us who live in Dublin each took one of the meals. I had brunch on Christmas morning and this worked out perfect for our kids to get to stay in their jammies and play with their Santa gifts. I had fun decorating this year, we decorated a little more than usual since we were hosting.


Here is the whole family on Christmas morning at our house opening tons of presents.

A picture of all four cousins together on Christmas Eve. This can be a hard task so I am glad that we got physical proof that all the cousins were together for Christmas for the first time.


Here is my dining room. I didn't have table cloths for my tables and I wasn't ready to commit to buying a nice tablecloth for the holidays yet. So I found this really cool wrapping paper at Target that coordinated with the plates I was using and I used it as a runner. I think it turned out pretty cute. I also hung ornaments from the chandelier as I had seen on other blogs.


My favorite new decoration was these candles from dayspring. I really wanted people to know that Christ was the reason for the season so I placed these candles with the nativity scene on my kitchen island.

It was a great Christmas. The kids were happy with all their toys. Abby and Will both got a Zhu Zhu pet, Abby got a Barbie hair salon and a new bike. Will got more trains/tracks for his imaginetex train and a cool dragon castle from his Uncle Bri Bri. I got a lovely Cole Haan purse from Mike and Mike got some shoes that he has been wanting. We feel so blessed to have family near us for the Holidays. The only thing better would have been if my family could have been there to celebrate as well. We did have Christmas with my family on new years day and it the best gift was a Buckeye Victory.

Get organized!!

I am trying to get things more organized around here. I am getting tired of looking for my son's transformers for the 100th time. I have been inspired by Real Simple magazine who has provided some great ideas and products. I am going through all the kids toys a bin at a time and tossing what they don't use(although I have to do this without the kids looking) and organizing by type of toy. This will be a long process but if I think about all the time we spend searching for toys I know I will come out way ahead in the long run. I wanted to share a website that I found called theorganizedparent.com. I specifically like the wally wall organizer(corky) and plan on ordering it. I saw this in Real Simple but found it cheaper at this website. It also has alot of great ideas for organizing in general. I also got the idea to get 5 magazine files and label them Monday-Friday and placed them in my laundry room. This will help with notes to school, homework and library books. I got my magazine files from Ikea, 2 for 2.99. I decided to use my laundry room as my organizing center because we go through it to get to the garage. Hopefully I can keep up my motivation. Clutter is something I have always struggled with. I wish I could go through the mail each day and then toss the junk and read through the catalogs that day. Oh well, it's a process and sometimes there are more important things(two cute ones at that) to spend my time on. Let me know if you have any great ideas about organizing.

Children's rooms

Well I haven't posted the last two Fridays because it was Dining Rooms and Guest Rooms. Needless to say those were not one of the favorite rooms in my house so I spared others from having to see them. I do however love my daughter's room.


Abby's room was the only room we had painted when we moved into our house. I hired professional painters to do it since I wanted the border and the dots. It turned out really cute and I hope she doesn't grow out of it too soon. Her bedding is Pottery barn and her bed is an old bed from my in-laws that my mom painted white for me. I would love to get her a new bed with a trundle eventually.


Abby has a small alcove in her room so I had them paint it hot pink. Abby wanted her whole room hot pink so I compromised. I got the butterflies from Pottery barn as well as the flower pictures. The dressers in Abby's are my old dressers. I found some cute hardware at Anthropolgie to update them a little.


Here is an upclose shot of the paint job. They did a great job, I never would have been able to do it myself. Hope you enjoyed Abby's room. Will's room is the typical boy room but nothing too fancy to reveal to the blogging world.

Show us where you Live- Kitchen

Well Kelly has started something new called "Show us where you live". Today she wants to see everyone's kitchen so I thought I would join in.



This is how the kitchen looked when we moved in so I feel fortunate that the previous owners had similar tastes in regards to granite and stainless appliances.


I love these Polish pottery canisters, it is so fun to mix and match the canisters. Plus if I ever change my color scheme in the kitchen I know I can still use them.



Here is our eat in kitchen area. I love all the windows and I love my floral corkboard placemats from Pottery Barn. They wipe off and cover my not so scratch free kitchen table.

Have fun browsing all the fun kitchens out there!!!