Monday, January 24, 2011

Living Room Makeover(Takeover?)

For a long time, I have thought that our Living Room needed something.  No matter how I positioned our furniture, I was never happy.  It just seemed the room was lacking in some way.  Finally, we decided that the furniture was just no longer "us".  With the New Year, it was time for a new space!  Out with the old and in with the NEW!!

This time when it came to furniture, we decided that we would only buy pieces that we loved.  Lesson learned, when it comes to such a big purchase, don't settle.  When we first purchased furniture, almost 6 years ago, I settled on our red sofas because I knew that was the color I wanted.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much in red to be offered, so we settled on the pieces we had bought.  I liked them for the first year and then had come to the conclusion that they just never fit in our space.  A mistake we would not make again.

When we decided what furniture we liked, it was time to make a small scale of our living room and small scale cutouts of the furniture we intended to buy.  After much debate on which sofas to buy, we decided.  I will say though, that the layout looked better on paper, but we still LOVE our new space!  And the kids are still adjusting to no longer being allowed to eat or drink in the living room, poor kids.  I will say that I loved my red, but I still have a few small touches of it, for example, in the new rug.  For our space, the new furniture is much more functional and really makes the space!  Just for the blog readers, I will share our(still in the process of)makeover photos.  Here is my attempt at giving a 360 view of the room.
 Looking in from the Front Hallway
 As you can see, Daddy is still working on his desk area.  Please excuse the mess.

 Looking in from the Dining Room
 Funny tidbit, we picked the Ottoman before we had picked the furniture.  We wanted it because it serves several functions.  Both sides can hold magazines, DVDs, Books and anything else!  Also each square serves as a foot rest or flip over and have a tray(you know if we actually allowed eating in the Living Room).  It is also great for when you are like us and don't like Coffee Tables.  Certainly more functional than our old Ottoman.

 Don't the two of them look comfy!  They are always telling me anyway.  I think they are very pleased with the new furniture despite the new rules(it was actually the rule with the old furniture too, but poorly implemented then).
 Ah, the very chair that made our decision!  Once we saw this chair, we knew we had to buy it!  Its so big, you can curl up in it with a laptop and you will never want to get up.  Which when you are supposed to be working out, can be a bit of a problem :)  Oh and the best part, it swivels!!
 Once all the furniture was moved in, it then became known that the TV was going to have to be mounted.  Daddy also had to order some new cords(which we are still waiting for)so they can be better hidden.  Thankfully Daddy found a great deal!  We also received some great suggestions on where to look for mounts.
Another thing that we never had in our Living Room, was lamps.  Much needed and so thankful that Lowe's sells Lamp Sets for super cheap(I knew there was a reason I loved that store)!  Who knew?!  I highly recommend!!

Thank you for letting me share my passion with you!  I keep saying that someday I should go back to school to study Interior Design.  Who knows, there are still plenty of years left to decide.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Gone, Never Forgotten

I can't believe that Jack has been missing for nearly a year(officially on Feb. 2).  I still miss him as much as I did when he first disappeared.  To be Honest, this is a post that has been difficult for me to do.  I meant to post about Jack sooner, but was just unable to do so.  Its still difficult.  To make this easier to get through this, we decided it best to make a video of all the photos that we have of Jack.

For the time being, I don't know if we will ever be able to feel any closure from losing Jack, but we sure hope to.  I know some will think I make too much of a big deal over my Jack, but he was truly one of my bestest friends.  He helped to me to get through so many things in my life and I just can't imagine dealing with hard times without the sweet way that he would place his head in my lap when he sensed that I was sad and/or stressed.  I will always miss my Jackie Bear!  As I type this out, all the memories flood back from the 7 years that we spent together and it's hard to hold back the tears.  It may have only been 7 years, but it felt like a lifetime!  He was after all, my first baby.  Please enjoy this little video and see some of the wonderful memories that we shared.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Winter Fun and Beary Good Friends!

Surprise, surprise, I'm behind on the blogging again :)  Once again, I will catch all up on what we have been up to in the last couple of weeks.  Starting with our week full of Snow Days!

Last week, like many in the Great United States, we were buried under several inches of snow.  Playing it safe, we canceled many of our meetups and activities and just hung out around the house.  As you can guess with a couple of toddlers, that can lead to a lot of pent up energy!  Finally, after the snow had finished, we bundled up the kids to go out and play.  Of course I sent Daddy out with them, I wasn't going to ruin my new Uggs in the snow and not to mention my strong disliking of freezing cold weather!!  Here are a few pics of the fun that LBF and BLL had.......
LBF had to make a Snow Angel(or as he calls it, snow cloud).
Getting up to check out his "snow cloud".
He is getting so good at these!
 And the result of laying in the snow is.........
Ta daa!! 

After the kids were soaked from head to toe courtesy of the snow, they came back in to the warm house and removed all the soaking wet clothes.  Then Daddy decided to make some brownies to which LBF and BLL broke the rules and licked the beaters from the mixer.  Curious what the result is of that?  No need to remain so, I'll share a photo of that right about now!
See how BLL tries to look cute and innocent?!  Yea, she looks sweet!

Also last week, we finally replaced our old furniture.  Our new furniture arrived on Thursday!  I will post more on that soon when I can share our full makeover of our Living Room!  For those that know me well, they know I have a passion for interior design and I absolutely love sharing our projects and makeovers!  To be continued.......

Onto this week, this evening we had a Meetup with our SAHM's group at Build-A-Bear!  I was as excited(maybe even more)as the kids were.  I LOVE BAB!!  Honestly, one of the best meetups we've had, though there have been many fun events.  Leave it to my kids to have a choice of any "buddy" in the store and they go for the matching bears, in pink and blue of course!  They also decided that they wanted their bears to be named after their name sakes.  As much as they can drive me crazy, they can also make me laugh.  Here are a couple of pics of the two of them enjoying their new "buddies"!  
 By the way, how awesome is it that BAB offers free bows for their bears!  I'm thankful they do because BLL LOVES those bows!
All is caught up for now, as you can see, we didn't do much in the last two weeks.  We sure did enjoy relaxing around the house though!  Sometimes, when you have the opportunity, it nice to stay home and have do nothing days.  Enjoy them while you can because it doesn't take life long to get you up and running again!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year!

As the first day of 2011 is upon us, the time has come to change the calendar over to a new year.  Our calendar also serves as a memory keeper because every year I make our Family Calendars and send them to all the family as our annual family Christmas gift(btw note to family, if you are interested in having one too and we have not sent one, please let us know and we will make sure to send one your way).  With the changing of the calendar today, I've become nostalgic.  Please bear with me as I go down this road of nostalgia.  I just find it so amazing how much our little family has changed in just the last three years of making the calendars, I wish I would've started making these just after Little Big Foot was born!  Unfortunately I didn't know about the website, shutterfly.com, until after Baby Long Legs was born.  I'll treasure what we do have though!

Front Cover, Our Annual Family Christmas photo.
 January of 2009, 2010 and 2011
 February
 March
 April
 May
 June
 July
 August
 September
 October
 November
 December
 Hope you enjoyed our little trip down nostalgia road and thank you for bearing with my Proud Mom Syndrome!  

Also in honor of New Year's Day, I made a couple of pretty hair bows for BLL and her friend Ai.  We all went to a New Year's Eve Party and of course BLL and her friend had to have fabulous hair bows to wear!
We all enjoyed our time at the Party and after midnight, it was time to head home and get two little tired babies to bed.  It didn't take long for them to zonk out in the back of the car either once they were loaded.  Record time I believe, it was really seconds after being buckled into their seats, they were asleep.  Thankfully we had their blankies in the car for them to snuggle up to on the way home.  When we arrived, LBF and BLL did not wake up when we took them out of the car.  BLL slept in her clothes, but finally after placing LBF in bed, he woke and asked for PJs.  He is so sweet!

Truly I was amazed how well they both handled being out so late, but we knew when it was time for BLL to go because she just started fussing and didn't stop until she passed out in the car.  Poor kid.  Definitely one of the best New Year's Eve time that we have had as a family of four!  Happy New Year!!