Into the Night to Save the Day!

Any other PJ Masks fanatic households out there?  Both my boys love that show - A is obsessed, and L perks up when he hears it, too :)  So, when it came time to decorate their new, shared bedroom, this seemed like an obvious choice!  It was gonna take some work, though, to get the room to a kid's dream from where it started.

 the "before" room - white walls & a green carpet

I am not the kind of mom who goes all out in the kids' rooms, buying all theme-based items and spending a fortune.  Mostly because I know that what's loved today is forgotten tomorrow, and the boys will be wanting a different themed room pretty darn soon!  To keep it easy to change themes, we painted the room a neutral grey, and planned to use accent touches to get the PJ Masks idea across.  

those beautiful wood floors were a delight to find!

I painted letters in the PJ Masks colors to put the boys' names on the walls above their beds, and I splurged on two posters ($9.99 each on Amazon) to add some color.  We also got new, blackout blinds for the windows (because they are the difference between 6am wake-ups & 8 am wake-ups) and let A pick the night light for the room (it's Paw Patrol, not PJ Masks, but he picked it himself, so I'm coming to terms with it... lol).

L's crib is buried in storage... as soon as we can get it out, 

he'll have it in his room

 

 

When we showed the boys their room Friday night, they both LOVED it!  L just kept looking all around, and A was shouting, jumping up and down, and just overall being thrilled!  It made the work SO worth it, and made me feel pretty proud of my budget-friendly, DIY decorations :)

Happy Birthday, Hubs!

My wonderful, handsome, loving husband turned 30 years old yesterday.  I'm not sure how that's possible, because I'm pretty sure we were in high school just, like, last year, but... somehow it happened!  I, of course, am still clinging to the "I'm in my 20s" party line until October ;)

Our marriage has gone through a lot in the recent months, so I was EXTRA excited to celebrate this milestone for him.  A helped me with some of the projects (with cheering from L, of course), but I spent Wednesday evening after bedtime cooking, decorating, and prepping to surprise Daddy when he arrived Thursday morning:

"Cheers to 30 Years"

balloons, a clock from the boys, and a shirt for the birthday boy

"kiss your 20s goodbye" babe!

birthday breakfast - citrus biscuit knots & chocolate milk

A & L waiting for daddy to arrive

begrudgingly wearing his birthday shirt ;)

After breakfast with the boys, we dropped A at school... and spent an exciting morning digging through our storage units to find the boys' furniture (more on that project to come!).  Quite an awesome way to spend your birthday, right?  Nothing says "happy 30th!" like manual labor.  Luckily, my hubby is such an amazing, family-oriented man, he didn't mind one bit.  He even brought lunch to me at work later that day, instead of claiming birthday laziness rights, like I would do ;)

We picked A up from school together, then we had birthday dinner at Chili's.  Neither of us really likes that restaurant, but A has been dying to go there ever since they built it next to his daycare, so he was thrilled!  Lol.

family dinner!

Luckily, the birthday cake at home made up for the mediocre dinner - lemon cake with lemon icing from The Jefferson Pastry Shoppe.  The hubs loves anything lemon, and the boys like anything with icing, so it was a crowd pleaser ;)

All in all, it was a lovely day for my husband, with the celebration centered around family time, which is exactly what he asked for.  I'm so glad he had the day he deserves, and that we got to celebrate together!

isn't he just so handsome?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, y'all!  This used to be one of my favorite holidays - as a kid, my mom did fun little things for us to make it special.  In college, it's basically the biggest party day of the year, and I celebrated as hard as I could, and even as a young adult, I enjoyed my corned beef & cabbage dinner with more than a couple beers...  Once I became a mommy, the focus of this day shifted significantly.  Gone are my days of finding any excuse to get drunk, and now I'm thinking about how to help my boys make special memories of their own.

With everything going on in my life right now, my ambitious plans for the holiday didn't exactly pan out... it's tricky to do what I would normally do when I'm not living in my own house & there are a lot of other issues taking my focus...  Last weekend, I had planned on helping the boys make t-shirts with handprint shamrocks, like these

but we never made it out of the house on Saturday, and Sunday was a struggle just to get them to cooperate in the grocery store.  So, the shirts got scrapped (thank God for my sister, who pulled an awesome Auntie move & bought Aidan a shirt to wear to school today!).

I definitely should've gotten up early this morning to make a special breakfast, like the green pancakes I usually make every year

with green milk to go along with them.  

When I was a kid, my mother always dyed our milk green, telling us a tricky leprechaun must have stopped by while we were sleeping and left us the surprise!  It was always so exciting, and so fun... and I totally missed the boat this year :(

I figure, I can still salvage this holiday celebration, and do something super fun with Aidan after school tonight.  I had "pinned" this Leprechaun Bait snack mix a while ago, 

and I just know Aidan would love it for a yummy treat after dinner.  Plus, it's easy enough to do together, and he loves to help in the kitchen.  I'm sure ours will turn out just as pretty as that picture... yeah right!  But I AM sure ours will be delicious & the process will be a fun mommy-son time for us <3

Snow Day Project

We FINALLY had a Snow Day, y'all!  It only took us until mid-March, but who cares?  I got a free day at home with my boys :)  I always feel obligated to get a little something productive done on a Snow Day, as any mom does, so I did my laundry.  And I mean ALL of my laundry - seriously, I had ZERO dirty clothes by dinner time.  Of course, that lasted all of 30 minutes, until I changed my boys into their jammies, but... it was nice to be all caught up for once!  The main benefit of choosing laundry as my chore for the day is that it leaves a lot of time free to really enjoy myself - I spent my time in between mommying to complete a crochet project I've been excited about for a few weeks :)

I pinned an awesome "C2C Tote Bag" idea a long time ago, and I've been itching to try it ever since.  When I was organizing my yarn stash a few weeks ago, I noticed I had a large enough amount of a nice heather grey available, that I could try this out.  If you've never tried Corner To Corner (C2C) crocheting before, I highly suggest it!  It's nothing but hdc stitches, worked in blocks of three, creating a diagonally striped product.  I've used it before, like for my younger son's baby blanket.

(yeah, I couldn't resist this adorable newborn pic... Hi, Baby L)

So, for this project, I created a long rectangle of C2C.  You can make it any size you want, as long as the length is exactly three times the width.  So, for example, mine is 12" wide and 36" long.  Once that was done, I crocheted sc all around the edges, to give it a nice, finished look, and to make sewing it up easier:

Turning your rectangle into a bag just takes a little bit of fancy folding, but once you try it, I swear it's way simpler than it looks!  

You just sew up the seams (I like the ridge showing, but you could do an invisible seam, if you prefer.) on both sides, and the pouch portion of a tote is done!  I made a strap out of the same C2C stitch (sorry, I forgot to take a picture) and sewed it onto the bag.  Then, I added a bright pop of color around the edge of the bag, to make it one cohesive product.

I'm pretty sure this is my most favorite thing I've ever crocheted - it looks so clean, crisp, and (almost) professionally made, and it was super easy!  I've already started another one, experimenting with the size of the rectangle to make smaller (or bigger!) bags, and trying a different crochet stitch.  The possibilities are endless!

God is GOOD

...so, so, SO good, y'all!

I know it's been a long while since I've written, but I've been preoccupied with some WONDERFUL changes in my life :)  That big situation I was struggling with?  It's in the process of being resolved in the BEST way possible!  It took many therapy sessions, hours of self-examination, and a LOT of prayer, but I finally settled my mind & my heart to agree, and to hear God's will.

Getting to this point has been wonderful for my own emotions, as well as my kids' feelings, and has really cut down on my stress and anxiety.  It is so gratifying to feel happy again, and to see my boys feeling content & at peace.  I almost feel like I'm cheating in my Lenten goals, because I haven't been tempted to worry too much!  Lol.  Though, to be honest, I am still worrying here & there, and I'm trying my best to follow my plan - give it to God & focus on right now instead :)

I promise, I'll try to get back to posting regularly - and, hopefully, more fun stuff instead of the stressful topics I've been sharing before.  But right now, my 4 year old is doing something that makes a crashing noise in the living room & the baby is waking up from his nap, so I'm back on Mommy duty ;)