Dream Book Design

I've Been A Mama For A Year!

2013-05-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

I wrote a little bit about my thoughts on being a mom for a year on Scottsdale Moms Blog today! Go take a peek if you want:)

Grey, Grey, On The Wall...Which Is The Prettiest Of Them All?

2013-05-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

This week I brought my little sidekick with me to the ever so fabulous Sherwin Williams to pick out some Color To Go samples. We are finally making some serious progress with the house. Everything with the leak is repaired and fixed, except the wood floors. Those will be here hopefully in a month or less. Since everything else is finished though, we have finally been able to focus our nights to little projects. That is the way we are making any progress. Spending about an hour a night, and then obviously all weekend:)We are doing wainscoting throughout all the main living areas of this home, and wanted a soft, beautiful, grey paint to finish off the top half of the wall. Yes, that is totally what we did in our old house, but some things {in our opinion!} are too good to not repeat;)

Here are some images that I feel totally captured the look we are going for with the coloring and wainscoting:

via

Our three top picks of greys were:Ice CubeOlympus WhiteSnowdrop

Oh whats that? You can't even see Ice Cube? Ya, I prob went just a little too light on that selection. It truly is a pretty light grey, but just a little too light for us. The Olympus White at first made me think it was too dark. The Snowdrop was too blue. I was totally bummed thinking that none of the samples were right, but then I did what you should always do while testing out a paint sample. Do a second coat, let it fully dry, and then look at it all throughout the day, in different lights.

Once we did that, we both loved Olympus White. For us, it is the perfect shade of grey. We I initially wanted a very very light grey, but the more I thought about just how much freaking white we already have, and are going to continue to put in the house, we I realized J was probably right about needing it to be a little more light-medium hue. Sucks when they are always right, right?!

So what do you think? I know that its all the rage now to have all white walls, and I was slightly tempted to do that as well. BUT I feel like when you have so much beautiful trim that you worked so hard on, you want to have at least some sort of color to contrast the trim work and show it off. Do you like our choice?? Sure do hope so, because we are planning on starting to do at least some of the painting this weekend, whether it be just trim or the actual walls!

This is a sponsored post by Sherwin Williams. Color To Go samples were provided, opinions are my own:)

Design Inspiration Monday

2013-05-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone had a fabulous Mothers Day yesterday. Ours was full of sleeping in, doughnuts, family, and fun. {Obviously there were some tears involved too- but it wouldn't be a normal day if there wasn't!}. Hope you enjoy some beautiful images to start off the week:

via

Our Love Note To Our One Year Old {And A Year In Photos}

2013-05-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

It all started with a faint second line...

And some family that were thrilled beyond words..

And then came the belly that grew..and grew..and grew some more:) So thankful for that belly.

Here you are baby boy, safe inside your mamas belly...

And 9 hours later...safe outside your mamas belly. So incredible what a difference 9 hours make:)

I'll let the rest of the photos do the story telling, because I choke up even thinking of the words to say to describe your past year of life.

There are no words, none at all that could accurately describe the love your daddy and I have for you. You have been such a blessing, one that we do not, could not, ever be deserving of. A quote that is so true is 'the days are long but the years are short'. You are a spirited child, in the best way {and sometimes testing way} possible. You give us a run for our money. You have such personality. You are determined. You are sweet and sensitive. You are all boy. You love the outdoors more than inside, no matter whats on either end. You can make your daddy and I smile bigger than our faces can handle, all the time. Your laugh, squeals, and noises are the best. We pray that God is going to use you for His glory, over and over again. We pray that we can be the best example of Christ to you through our marriage and our relationship to you. Fat man, you have our hearts through and through. Thank you for the best year of our lives. We cannot wait to see what next year has in store for all of us.

Tips On Painting Tricky Wood

2013-05-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have a painting project that you think will be easy-peasy, and you get in to it and it totally sucks? Wether it be it takes way longer than expected, or it isn't looking how you want it... I think we have all been there. Our first {and im assuming more to come} tricky painting project of this house was Braylens nursery built-ins. Here was what we were tackling:

We thought these would require a few coats, but nothing out of the norm. Boy were we wrong! There was so much lacqure and polyurethane on them that these things just soaked up the paint. And soaked it up some more. Here was our process:Sanded all the wood with a medium grit sand paperUsed a paint sprayer and sprayed two coats of white {a paint-and-primer paint}Bled through completelySanded some moreDid another coat of paint, but this time used a roller instead of the sprayerSanded some more;)Rolled on two coats of regular primer {not a paint and primer in one}Rolled on two more coats of paint-and-primer in oneFinally the built-ins looked finished! Woohoo.

So here is what we learned so that if y'all are ever working on some tricky wood, you hopefully wont have to spend as much time {and paint} as we did.

Sand way more than you would ever think needed. Esp. if you can tell there is a lot of lacquer don't go easy on it
We all love ourselves a great paint-and-primer in one, but now is NOT the time to use one. Stick to a basic primer for your first few coats, and then use the all-in-one
Also, as much as we love our paint sprayer, rolling worked way better in this case because it applies much thicker than the sprayer

Those three things may not seem like that big of changes, but man would have they helped us!

So tell me, what is the most annoying paint project you have ever done? Did you learn anything during the process? I am so excited because I am heading out to Sherwin Williams today to pick up some samples of grey paint for the main living areas of the house. Can't wait to continue making this house our home.

1st Birthday Party!

2013-05-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we finally had Braylens first birthday party. I don't know if this is how everyone feels after their kids parties, but both J and I just felt so blessed and honored. So many family and friends were there to celebrate our baby, our little fat man, and we were so grateful. The party prep stressed me out, as does any party, but once it was started it was so fun! As usual, the ever so talented Melissa Young took some incredible photos for us.

The party was at 3pm, so I wanted some yummy food, but didn't feel like I had to provide a full meal. To me, that is the best situation because you can focus more on the fun yummy stuff rather than making sure you can fill someone up. Here are the recipes I did:

Chocolate chip cookies & White chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies so people could make their own cookie ice cream sandwich

Hummus with pita chips and veggies

Rootbeer BBQ pulled pork sandwiches {these were the easiest and best tasting things ever}

Ice cream cone shaped almond butter and jelly sandwiches {for the kids..or some adults;) }

Strawberry Basil white sangria & beer

I had J make the big 1 the week prior just from some trim scraps we had in the garage. I didn't even take the time to paint it..oh well!

The ice cream cone garland was done by following this tutorial from Oh Happy Day . It took a little time to make them all, but I love that it was a decoration that didn't cost much. And the honeycombs are totally collapsable, so can easily be used again for another party later.

Goody bags were super classy being the classic brown paper lunch bag and clothes pins to keep them closed:)

Well hello there lover<3 p="">

I had huge plans for the photo booth, but life had other plans! I was going to order a large roll of paper for it, but then found a blanket that worked well {and we already had it, instead of buying the paper!} but the wind was pretty serious the day of the party. It prob. got knocked down 10 times, and ended up a mess, but thats ok- because most kids looked like this while in the hot air ballon basket:)

We were finally able to get a shot of the boys with their Vespas! Can't wait till Bray is old enough to truly use this as a rocker!

I cant help but crack up every time he screams for a photo. Its just real life!

The fabulous Modern Manor owners who graciously let us take over their beautiful home for the party, since ours is still total construction from the leak!

For about three weeks prior to the party we practiced singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candle. I had zero expectations that he would actually follow through on the day of, but he did! I think I lierally squealed when he blew out the candle and just smiled huge! And PS- the creepy clown candle was my candle for every Birthday cake I had. Love that my mama saved it for me:)

He wasn't so sure about the cake at first. He should've know it was going to be good. I followed this incredible grain free vanilla cake recipe, it was incredible.

Didn't take long for him to realize what the heck he just got offered!

The beauty who is usually behind the lens, Melissa Young Photography.

And of course, we ended the party with a sweet boy melting down. He honestly did so great though until the very end.

All in all, the party was more than we could have ever hoped. A few key things I think helped the afternoon go great:

Offer kid drinks AND adult drinks;)
Don't have it too planned out with activities {at least for a 1 year old party, im sure its diff. when they are older}. We simply had toys and a water table out and the kids all had a blast.
A thing we did that I felt like we were breaking the rules with: Skip opening the presents. We opted to open them the next day at home, since I knew he would pay attention for .25 seconds and then be over it at the party.
Have some 'real' food {sandwiches} and snack food {hummus} as options, and always a good dessert!
If able, have some sort of photo booth area. You don't need an actual back drop, but have a fun designated area for photos.

Thanks to everyone who came to the party, love you all!

Design Inspiration Monday

2013-05-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well, Brays party was a total success. We felt so loved by family and friends. The best part? I have been 'practicing' with Bray for weeks now to try and get him to blow out a candle. Every time we sing Happy Birthday he smiles so big, and just days before the party, finally figured out the candle part. He totally was beaming while all of us sang, and then like a champ... blew out his candle! It was amazing!

via

Baby's One Year Photo Shoot

2013-05-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

So in exactly a week my sweet little baby turns one. ONE PEOPLE!! I don't know how this happened. I don't know when I stopped wondering/praying if tonight would be the night he slept through the night, or if he would learn to roll over today. Instead, now I am wondering what day will the be the day he learns to walk unassisted! Or start saying mama, instead of just dada! Its crazy how fast this first year has flown.
I want to capture this first year celebration just as much as I have documented his whole first year. I ever so lovingly asked my BFF Melissa Young Photography if she could capture some sweet shots of my almost one year old baby, and luckily she said yes. And said yes again when I cancelled the original shoot because Bray was in zero mood to smile, much less laugh for a photo or two. If you follow me on Instagram then you saw that marvelous day. We were alllll ready for the shoot and just had to call it quits before we even started. The kid cried over everything that day. Why? He was getting a tooth. That, well that and I wouldn't let him eat dirt, or climb the stairs, and well- the sky was blue. So he cried;) But, we did end up doing a shoot a few days later, and I love how they turned out. We didn't capture his full smile in too many of them, but the shoot overall totally captured his sweet and curious personality.

May I present to you the 'I'm coming to get cha' face:

All of those teeth in the silly grin...love him too much:

He posed himself like this and I about died:

His 'give me the rest of that freaking banana, mom' face:

This one absolutely kills me. This is SO his face that means one of two things. 1: Im shy but flirting with you 2:Im totally doing something wrong and know im not supposed to, and know that your watching me

Lately, he cuddles. Lately, I melt to a puddle.

We were totally bummed to cancel the first shoot since it was on a weekend, and J was going to be there. We are going to do a full family shoot soon though, since this boy loves his Dada too much not too:) And yes, he says Dada. Not Mama. What the heck?! One day..hopefully soon.

PS- Am I crazy to think that I will be this on top of documenting every little thing whenever the rest of our babies come? I hope I do, because I love to be able to look back and reminisce, and I think it will be neat for them to have for when they are older. But, I also realize that life gets crazier {and more awesome-duh} with each kid.

Drawing The Line

2013-05-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

Despite the flood and the planning of Brays party, projects are moving along here rather well! Two nights ago we got the lines drawn for where the chair rail will go, and last night {while I was sipping on wine and creating decorations for Brays party} we put up some of the chair rail. I of course helped here and there, when needed;)Just by having the baseboard and rail in now its amazing how much more this feels like our Home, not House. I guess we associate trim with home:) Now, it will obviously take some time to get the whole house done, and then to add the crown, but progress is good! We decided to make the chair rail a little bit lower in the new house than we had before, ending up with it being 42 1/2 inches high.

Today we are getting some of the flooring replaced from the leak, then the new kitchen cabinets will go in. Still no word on finding flooring quite yet, but we are keeping our fingers {and toes} crossed. In the mean time, I will be busy making a million and one ice cream cone garlands, all the while chasing after this crazy kid...whose only two goals in life right now are to eat the dog food or climb the stairs!

Home RO Systems

2013-04-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

via

If you live in AZ you know how miserable our hard water is. If you live in a place without it- count yourself lucky! One way that is has been wrecking havoc with us lately is our ice from our LG refrigerator. The water from the frige is perfectly clear and fine. The ice however, once melting, leaves gross calcium flakes in the glass {they said its because the ice freezes so fast there isnt enough time to filter out the calcium} Keep in mind- this is a brand new frige, with a brand new filter. We called the company and they said they will replace anything we think needed, but in reality, the frige is doing nothing wrong...its our water.

So, we have some options. We either stop using the ice maker in our frige and just start buying bags of ice, OR, we get an Reverse Osmosis system for the house. We have zero experience or knowledge about these, so I would love any and all input from you. Do any of you have one? Or a water softener? What has been your experience like with it?

Darn you AZ and your stupid hard water!

Design Inspiration Monday

2013-04-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

You know what is so great about weekends? They are just long enough so that if your baby decides to melt down all day long on Saturday, you still have Sunday- and usually they redeem themselves that day;) But really, this weekend was rough on Saturday {teething sucks} but incredible and fun and memory-making on Sunday. Hope you all had a great weekend as well. Here are some of my favorites floating around right now:

via

I adore this picture:

via

Can you even handle these drapes?!

both above via

1st Birthday Inspiration

2013-04-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

via,via,via

Let me ask you something. Is there anything more crazy than your first baby turning one?! I feel like I blinked and now hes almost one. A full year. A year since I felt him moving around inside my big ol' belly, wondering just what he would look like. Would he resemble his daddy, mommy, or both? Would he be big, small, or just average? Would I have him early, or on my due date? So many thoughts going through, and now- my thoughts have changed drastically a year later. Now its, what should I feed this man-child for lunch? How many times is he going to face plant and give me a heart attack today?! I love it! What a difference a year makes.
We are throwing a small Birthday party for him next weekend and I cannot wait. I am going with the theme of Ice cream. It mainly came from the thought that I really wanted to make yummy cookie- ice cream sandwiches. I wanted to have 3-5 different delicious cookies, and multiple ice cream options, for people to build their own sandwich. And then I thought, crap- I want a theme...hmm.. Ice cream!
I am making the above ice cream cone garland, the giant number {obviously a 1 instead of 4}, some ice cream cone shaped PB&Js, and were hosting it at our friends home! The color scheme will be a fade from white to teal. But quite possibly what I am most excited for? The photo booth:

via

I just pray I don't have a complete breakdown at the party about my baby 'disappearing' in to a little boy. But lets be honest, it will most likely happen, and people will just have to deal with it;) Happy weekend loves!

I Was Beginning To Think..

2013-04-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

That you guys didn't like me anymore! Apparently when I marked the box to have Google+ comments allowed on the blog it made the comments stop working all together. I didn't know this until today. I literally thought, man- no-one likes Brays nursery at all. And no-one even likes the beautiful home features of the Midcentury home. I thought it was weird, but thought maybe I had just lost my 'groove' with y'all. But nope, Blogger just sucked- whewh! So glad that some of you messaged me saying you were trying to comment and couldn't! Thank you!
Another thing that was kinda sucky this week- our hardwood floors. See how just some are torn up here?

Well now its the whole entire room...and the wood is discontinued! What the WHAT!?! Yes, the same wood we just purchased a few months back, not on clearance or 'close out' pricing at all. We are calling every.single.place out there to see if anyone has any left in stock, since we always buy extra {but not enough to do an entire room!} we don't need a ton, but definitely are in need. The worst part is that if no-one truly has any than we have to wait three months for some to be made. Yes, three whole freaking months on the front room not having flooring. Big big bummer.
But at least you guys still like us, right?!
So, thats what I have for you today. Some bad news mixed with good news! Now, do me a huge favor and go and leave some feedback on the nursery and home tour posts. It would for sure make mine and Modern Manors day:)

Braylens Vintage Nursery In The New Home

2013-04-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time you know a few things about me. 1-I am stupidly in love with my hubby and baby. 2-I write way funnier posts when I have already had a beer or glass of wine {wait, you didn't know that? Well pretty much any time you think a post is decently funny...its usually a late night post with wine involved!}. 3- I have a problem with showing you guys a room reveal or a tutorial until everything is absolutely finished and perfect. That third thing worked fairly well for me and this blog in our old home when most of the big projects were finished, and I just had one project at a time going. With the new home, its madness, with 20 projects going at once. This equals NO ROOM ever being finished in the near future. With all that being said, here is Brays room, unfinished, but still rad. {Keep in mind we didn't want to change much about it since we loved it so much in the old house, and he was really only in it for a few months before we moved!}
Here is what the room looked like when we got the home:

We removed the random door, that was sealed shut and lead to the playroom. Once that was gone, everything else was done by us, and here is the after:

Some things that are different in this room compared to last are:
-No built-out reading nook closet :(
-A ton of built in drawers with a beautiful wood top that we use for the changing table..love it!
-No more sunburst gold mirror, we figured there were already a ton of mirrors in the room
-We added a second rug since the space is larger, and lucked out because it was on clearance this time!
-No more campaigner dresser since we have all the built-ins. It is still being used in the house though, thank goodness!

There are some obvious things left to be done, like getting some sconces for the changing area. We are totally bummed because the original ones accidentally got thrown away during demo:(

We also are going to end up having to take out {at least for awhile} the tripod lamp from here. It is 100% not baby friendly, which sucks. It will go in office either forever, or at least till hes a safe age for it. We are also debating on changing out the hardware, but that will probably be awhile from now, since the original stuff works just fine.

The little man loves his new space. His favorite is looking at himself in the mirror and making faces while getting his diaper changed. He also loves to crawl as fast as he can in to the bathroom right outside his room. This boy loves his bathtub!

Here is a source list for the room:Iron Crib- Craigslist.Campaigner Dresser- Local AuctionVintage Airplane Mobile- Planes from eBay, Vintage hat holder from Junk In The Trunk MarketShip Painting- Local AuctionRug- West Elm {which happens to be on sale right now-get it if you like it, because we love it!}DIY Tripod Lamp- Tripod from eBay. Lamp shade on clearance at Marshalls, DIY covered in burlapWooden side table- base from Modern Manor, DIY wooden topVintage Pant Hangers- eBayVintage Brass Balloon Sculpture-eBayRocker- Local Auction recovered in a hide from Tandy LeatherCrib Skirt- DIYThree gage plaque- QucumberzCompass wall hanging- QucumberzBlue paint color- Benjamin Moore Van Deusen Blue in flatTutorials to come on the window trim {which I am totally obsessed with, and is now up in all the windows-just not painted yet} and on how we finally got the white paint to work on all the built ins. We learned some serious tips on painting stubborn surfaces!I hope you love this nursery as much as his last. This room lost some of the great aspects of his last one, but we feel like it incorporates really awesome new ones!

Design Inspiration Monday

2013-04-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone!! Hope you all had a fun and or relaxing weekend. We got quite a few trim projects finished which is exciting. Tutorials will be up as soon as it gets caulked and painted! And now for some treats...

via

both above via

Midcentury Modern House Makeover:Backyard, Nursery, and Guest Bath

2013-04-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

A few things to start, 1: J got off work a little early yesterday, and just by having that extra hour we were able to go to the dog park and have a huge water play session in the backyard with Bray and the dogs. Can work end every day early, please?! 2: I shouldn't even tell y'all this because it hurts my chances of winning, but I think its so fun. Emily Henderson is running a fun Instagram contest. Go check out her post about it if you want to enter. I have loved searching through all the hashtags for it- so really inspiring pieces in there.

Without further ado, here is my dream backyard. Seriously.

How stunning are those Russell Woodard chairs!?

The center table here is actually a fire-pit but they are clever little minds and when its gets too warm in Phoenix for fires, they lay the beautiful marble over it and turn it in to a beautiful coffee table.

Yes, Kylie is the next freaking Martha Stewart, except with a little flair to her style;) She has three huge raised beds and various other plants elsewhere.

Now I don't want to overload you guys, but I just can't wait to show you the remaining rooms of the house. Here is their little mans room:

Yes, you are thinking right. We have the same rocker as them. Yes, they had it first! We just lucked out when we found ours at an auction for $25.

Because what little boys room is complete without a teepee these days?!

And to finish it off for today, heres the guest bath:

I adore the look of having the shower curtain be more like a normal curtain. Totally changes the vibe. Is vibe even a commonly used word anymore? It should be if its not!

I didn't know until I saw this in their house, just how much I love when toilet paper is displayed incredibly. Until then I was fine with the standard decorative pole of some sort, but now- well now I was something rad when we re-do our bathroom {you know, in 5 years!}

There you have it friends. If that backyard alone didn't make you drool a little- I don't know what would. Can I tell you the best part about this home though? Its not the amazing kitchen island or the luxurious master suite, its not even the backyard that makes you feel like you are in another world...its the people. Ryan and Kylie have the biggest hearts. They love on others at all times, and do it well. They constantly have their home open to people, always willing to host any and all occasions {thanks for hosting Brays 1st birthday!!!}. We love them, if you couldn't tell;) What is your favorite part of their home so far? I am always interested to see if the things that blow me away are the same for you! Oh ya, and happy Friday!!!

Midcentury Modern House Makeover: Master Suite

2013-04-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

Are you guys ready to be fully blown away today? May I present to you the master suite of the Midcentury Modern house by our friends Ryan and Kylie {modern manor owners}. I have already showed you how it all started, progress updates, their main living area and kitchen, and their laundry room here. Now its time to show you their own little retreat. J and I don't hang out in our bedroom much, {maybe because its a total disaster zone since its one of the last rooms we are focusing our project time on!} but if this was our room...thats a whole other story!

I have never felt more like I am at a resort than when I am in their bathroom. It feels so luxurious and decadent. I want to shower there everyday...and no, thats not weird at all;)

Up tomorrow, their backyard {which is seriously a dream land}, their little man Sawyers room, and the guest bath. This entire house is done to perfection, so just wait:) Here is a full source list in case you are curious:Bedroom source list:Gold mirror- Craigslist, originally from a Mississippi mansion from the early 1900'sBed- OverstockPillows- Pottery Barn and Crate and BarrelArt- David Weidman, 1960's Lamps- vintage carrear marble from an Estate SaleChair- Adrian Pearsall recoveredHat rack- vintage brass from CraigslistNightstands and credenza- Adrian PearsallChest under TV- 1850's, from CraigslistWedding memory box- Goodwill
Bathroom source list:Rain shower head- Amazon Handheld- AmazonHandles in the shower- AmazonCountertops- LimestoneMirrors- Vintage Tub.comFloor- Floor & Decor

Antiquing In Phoenix

2013-04-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

I'm sure other states have just as great of antique stores, but we sure do love our AZ ones. 7th avenue holds some of our most favorites. I wrote all about our favorites over a year ago, but here are the recaps from each store:Modern Manor and QcumberzRust and Roses and FigsParis EnvyMelrose Market and Frances Boutique
On Monday J and I had the afternoon to ourselves, so naturally we went and scoped out any of the open stores {most of the good ones are closed on Mondays, which was a total bummer!} We made our way in to J Sparrow and found some fun little pieces. I loved these metal baskets, and they were only $12/piece:

But our favorite spot of the day was Melrose Market. When they first opened they had a lot of questionable items in there, some just plain old ugly. Today however, they have totally improved. We still found some funny things, but overall they had a ton of rad pieces:

Two funny pieces of the day:
These are actually vintage golf bag holders, but I couldn't stop thinking of them as slots to put kids in 'time out'. Haha yes, I am joking- but be honest, you can totally see what I am thinking, right?!

This is the other iffy piece of the day. Because who wouldn't want a creepy old gyno chair?!

This store definitely makes you dig a little, but you find so many good things once you do. And since it is all consigner here, you can get lucky sometimes with a great dealer, and visa versa:/

What are your favorite spots {AZ locals!}, or for you that aren't in AZ- do you prefer actual antique stores, or do you love the hunt more at thrift stores?

Design Inspiration TUESDAY!

2013-04-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Lets all take a moment and say a prayer {have a positive thought, whatever it is that you feel comfortable doing} for everyone in Boston. This world is a sad, sad place.
Sorry for the lack of post yesterday. J and I got to pretend we were out of town Sunday/Monday and stayed at a beautiful resort. We both love our time away, but we ended the weekend early because we are freaks and both just wanted to be home and spend time with our little man. Suckers much?! Anyway, hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Heres is some eye candy- and later this week I will be showing off some real-life eye candy, the rest of the remodeled Midcentury Modern home of our friends {who own Modern Manor}.

via

I want this tub!

via

both above via

5 Years Of Marriage

2013-04-11T23:42:00.001-07:00

Today is officially 5 years of marriage for Jeremy and I. What an incredible blessing it has been. It has honestly mainly been easy and smooth, which I think is for a reason (a couple of them actually). Jeremy and I had an extremely rocky dating relationship, where for 7 months we were broken up, with no plans of getting back together. In that time we both truly sought out Christ and His will for us individually and together. It was a really dark and hard time of my life. I struggled with depression and anxiety a lot during then, when I never had before. Once we got engaged everything felt a lot more "easy", since we both felt right about it with God and with ourselves. That doesn't mean there weren't day's where I would spiral in to anxiety of "is this 100% the right choice?!" But I felt so strongly that J was the man God wanted me to marry. I haven't physically felt His presence much in my life, but one of the times I did was for when J was proposing. What a blessing to be able to be so certain of His will for your marriage!

Now, 5 years later-I can think of no greater way to explain the way that J loves me than this :
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (NIV) 1 Cor 13:4-8

He is patient with me even on the times that I am running late (which is his pet-peev, which also happens almost daily for me)
He is kind to me, to my heart, to my soul. He is kind even when I am not.
He isn't jealous or envious when I go on girls trips or nights. He trusts me with all he is, so in turn he doesn't worry about the nonsense.
He doesn't boast/isn't proud about ALL THE MILLION times he has been right about stuff when I have been so stupidly wrong. He never rubs it in my face.
He is the opposite of self-seeking. I swear this man puts his family and others miles before he puts himself.
J has yelled at me twice in the almost 9 years we've been together. Both times I was a FREAKING idiot and seriously needed someone to snap me back to reality (aka-soft words weren't doing anything for the situation). This man doesn't have an angry bone in his body.
For what an amazing memory he has, he still seems to keep zero record of all the wrong things I've done to him. Thankful for that daily.
He rejoices in truth with me daily. He rejoices in The Lord.
I grew up praying specifically for these last few things. To have a man who protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, and never fails. The fact that my God has given all these things to me in Jeremy is just mind blowing.

He is the guy that BEATS that list you write up in middle school of all the things you hope for in a guy. He has a heart of gold. He loves The Lord and family and friends so well. He makes me feel cherished. He protects my heart from others, and from myself. He makes me feel beautiful. He is my one.true.love and I pray to God I get 50 more years to learn just that much more about him

J,
You are it for me. All I will ever need in a man. Thank you for loving me and Braylen with all of your heart. Thank you for choosing me, and continuing to choose me daily. I would be lost without you, in so many ways. You have my heart...happy five years babeh

11 Month Baby Update

2013-04-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

Note to self- dont even attempt to get an 11 month old to lay still, or even smile, when you want them to! This was the best I could get out of a million photos!

Some things hes loved this month:-Listening to us sing The Wheels on the Bus song- Giving people and babies in books kisses

- Waving hi and bye-Loves walking around with his red wagon and cruises around any and all furniture he can. Pulls himself to standing on everything. -Now whenever I wear him in the Ergo he loves to be on my back instead of carrying him in the front. Its comfortable for both of us, just a little tricky to get him in there by myself.

-Eats SO much food, and grunts and whines while im preparing it in anticipation of eating. This kid is a piggy! He eats a full meal at 8, 12, and 6, with a snack around 3.-Now has a total of 8 teeth. These last two haven't been so bad coming in, just gives him some rosy cheeks:)

- Absolutely obsessed with airplanes and birds. Even when he hears them while his bedroom window is open he stops what hes doing, points and goes "oohh"!-Points at everything hes interested in-Started cuddling with us this month! You have no idea how happy this makes me. Until this month, he hasn't been cuddly at all since he was really young. Now he just lays his head down on our shoulders and snuggles..and we all melt.

-Always wants anyone and everyones glasses-Loves to sit outside and crunch leaves/play with grass

-Loves to drink from our cups, whether it be from our straws or just cups-Sadly losing some of his arms rolls!-Loves playing with water..anywhere. Outside with tupperware, water split on the counter, in the bath, etc.-Learned he can spit food out...fun times ahead for me!-Always smacks his lips when hes hungry or wants more of what hes eating-Now takes his baths in the actual tub, not the kitchen sink anymore. Yay for him, boo for me!

-We enjoyed going to the zoo multiple times this month since its been so beautiful out. I put him in the splash pad and at times he loved it, while other times it made him cry!

-Celebrated his first Easter

-Food wise this month we added:black beanspinto beanswhite potatoes {sparingly}sugar snap peaschia seedsraisinskabocha squashcucumberstried a little bit of watered down grapefruit juice, but still not giving any juices-To top it all off- HE FINALLY STARTED TO CRAWL. Like real crawl, not army!!!!! I cannot believe it took him till he was almost 11 months, but he finally does it! Its like one day he just decided he was over the army crawl, and now thats all he wants to do! Silly boy.This month has been so fun overall. Nothing that bad or hard happened, no sickness, just good stuff! I love his cuddles, his excitedment over airplanes and birds, and his constant OOoo sounds he makes. We love you so much Bray! Cannot believe that the next monthly update I do is for your ONE year! What a blessing you are. Thank you God.

Kitchen/Living Room Leak Update

2013-04-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

What a whirl wind this leak has been! This is the current look of our living room and kitchen:

The living room looks like a scene from Dexter, right?! Kinda creepy. Anyways- they got all the mold, and everything is currently drying as we ~~speak~~ type. The whole floor is removed from the living room and the whole bottom half of the wall is gone there too. Its pretty pathetic over here. So, to have something to look forward to, J and I are focusing on how we want to do the backsplash. I think we have finally come to a mutual agreement! To start, we are going to only tile under the coffee area cabinets, and under the stove area. If we get that up and decide that we absolutely have to do the whole wall, we will...but thats where we will start:) Thanks so much for all of your input on it- it really helped us make the decision. And to all 20 of you who originally sided with me, ill send you some Peeps ASAP;)

That One Time We Thought It Was Dog Pee

2013-04-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend J and I had huge plans. I wasn't going to go in to work until Saturday evening, so we were going to get a TON done that morning. It started off great, with some baseboards being installed by 8am, and then it took a turn, a bad bad turn. We went to move some of the baseboards from our 'storage area' for them, aka our living room. We have had the boards piled up there since we moved in, and have only been grabbing ones off the top here and there, not moving much stuff around. Jeremy noticed a wet spot on the wall, and called me in the room to complain that Boomer must have peed. We then quickly found two other spots on the ground, and started to get anxious. We {as quickly as we could} moved all the baseboards out {those things are freaking long and heavy} and immediately knew that we weren't just dealing with Boomer being a bad boy and peeing, we had a serious leak.
We immediately called in a plumbing team, restoration team, and got on the phone with our home warranty.
This is how everything looked the day of:

Uh-huh, thats all our brand new flooring ripped up. And those perfectly smoothed out walls- they're gone! So heartbreaking, but we obviously need to get it up and out so we don't have issues later down the road. This was Saturday, today there is way more flooring up and the wall is knocked out a whole bunch more. I cannot show you it though, because this is what I see:

They sealed the room up, but a dehumidifier in it, and are going to start working more this morning. It was sad to see the floor gets ripped up, and sad about the smooth wall, but what makes me cringe the most is the fact that they are having to rip out some of our kitchen cabinets as well! Yes, the cabinets that we JUST got all in..

Those two uppers are coming down since there is most likely damage to the dry wall, since it is splitting underneath the cabinet here:

Suck, suck, suck. So much for the kitchen almost being finished, and for us making great strides. Braylens birthday party is also oficially not going to be here anymore, since I would rather not have a bunch of sweet one year olds running around literal construction zones. Ugh!

So- thats where we are at. We are bummed. We just felt like we were making a dent on the to-do list, and now this! Such is life. Hopefully they can get it all fixed and back to normal ASAP.

Have you guys ever dealt with leaks? Any helpful tips for us, both physically and mentally?;)

Design Inspiration Monday

2013-04-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

I hope you all had a great weekend. Ours was eventful to say the least. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow..via

three above via

both above via

both above via

Our Homes Rugs

2013-04-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

First off, we are loving all of your responses on the subway tiled wall. You guys never cease to amaze me with how awesome you are about helping us out!

Knowing that we were moving soon, when Cyber Monday rolled around with its beautiful deals, we jumped on the opportunity to save some mula. Rugs USA was having a 75% rugs sale and we bought a bunch!!

This is our family room rug. We both love the pattern, but are not in love with how its holding up. It is obviously used the most between us, Bray rolling around on it, and the dogs running all over it. We have never had a rug have pulls in the string like this, so if anyone has any recommendations as to how to help- please let us know! Other than the pulling, we love it.

This is our Dining room rug. I love this one so much! Its super thick and comfy, and the design is beautiful. The fact that its mainly dark doesn't hurt either, especially being under the table that we eat at:)

This is the only rug we kept from the old house. Not gonna lie, its pretty beat up with stains. We will eventually replace it, but for now it is magically the perfect size for the kitchen {just like it was in the old house!}. This is the only rug we have thats not from Rugs USA, this is from West Elm.

This is Js favorite rug! It is our office rug, and it is a perfect rug for that room. It is made to look old, which I think is perfect for a study/office area. Its hard to capture the color of the rug in photos, but it is a light forrest green.

This is one of my favorites...our master bedroom rug. I love that we are able to have this light of a rug somewhere without having to worry about it getting ruined fast! The blues in the rug tie in our headboard great, and I love having the mix of teal in it.

So tell me, what is your favorite place to get rugs? It seemed silly buying so many rugs at once, and the total wasn't too fun initially. The fact though that we got 75% off what it could've been, well that made me smile:):)
PS- I wrote a post about First Birthday party do's and dont's on Scottsdale Moms Blog. Go check it out and give some tips if you have them!