Valentine's Day Art

Hello!  Happy Valentine's Day!  I'm just not that into the holiday personally, but any holiday centered around chocolate can't be that bad.  I usually don't decorate for the holiday, but this year to celebrate our first Valentine's as a family of four, I created this little piece of art with the boys a few weeks ago.

It will be fun to watch how much their hands grow over the years and I like having this to mark the first Valentine's Day for T.  I never thought to do this with D, but I have his prints now.

You'll need a canvas, red craft paint, and burlap for the hanger.  Super easy and fun for the little ones!

Hoping your day is filled with candy and love.

Things I Love

The past couple of weeks have been very hectic with work (with no end in sight).  I have been trying VERY hard to keep family time as family time and not more work time, but I honestly haven't stopped to really enjoy my family time.  I'm there physically, but my mind is thinking about everything else I probably should be doing.

Well, this morning kind of changed me.  My baby got up around 6 and I fed him, then put him in his swing while I showered and got ready.  As I was getting ready he just sat there and smiled at me, cooed and blew raspberries.  It was the sweetest, most adorable sounds I have ever heard.  T is a very happy baby, and he's does this every morning and evening, but I haven't stopped and actually relished the moment for several weeks.

Then, making my morning even more incredible, D came running in the bathroom and about knocked me over with his hugs.  Again, this is something he does most mornings, but for whatever reason, this morning I needed to be reminded just how much these 2 little boys love me and that everything will be okay. 

It's A Wash

I must confess, I've had this laundry room done for about a week, but haven't gotten around to showing you the pictures.

Let's go back to a few weeks ago when the laundry room looked like this:

I was itching to paint and stencil and add a little modern flair to our home that is mostly traditional country.  Sounds a little funny, doesn't it?  Traditional- country.  What is that, you ask?  Well, it's a mish mash of rustic, cabin-y,  and traditional lines and colors.  I do like a lot of straight, clean lines, so you could say it's touch of contemporary, traditional, and country....now if that isn't a contradiction!

Anyway, I wanted this room to be a little different than the rest in our home.  I really despise the size of this room as a laundry room.  It's very difficult to move around in so I wanted to do something that made me like the room a little more....not necessarily "like" doing laundry. :)

So I painted the wall that you see from the kitchen.  I've got 2 of the other walls that you can't really see stenciled, but I haven't painted it yet....I'm going to live with it for a bit and decide if I think it's worth the time to paint the rest.  It's a very time consuming process and I'm afraid I will get tired of the pattern faster than I can paint the entire room.

So here is the after. 

I wanted to add some baskets to help hide some of the visual clutter.  I am thinking about removing the cabinet above the washer and put in open shelving.  I think it will actually provide more storage than what's currently available.  We're trying to save up for some storage for the kids toy room and a really rockin' vacation this summer (we need it), so the shelving is low on the list of priorities.

I made the sign this past weekend.  I found the quote on a sign in Country Sampler magazine, but I didn't really like the style of the sign and it was too expensive for something I could easily recreate.  I used my Silhouette to cut the words out in cardstock, then traced them onto the canvas and painted.  I love the quote, it's so true to my life filled with boys!

I'm linking up with I Heart Organizing.