A Monday Moodboard

Because we are super excited about our kitchen renovation, I thought I'd put together a kitchen moodboard so you can all see my ideas for our new kitchen. 

After a lot of time spent on Pinterest and Google, I came up with what I think is going to be a pretty awesome kitchen. I can't wait to see it finished!! Although I love all of these ideas, I'm certain as time (and money) goes on, things will change slightly, but this is the overall look I'm going for. :-)

1. Arabescato Carrara Herringbone Pattern Backsplash from Home Depot

2. Moen Kitchen Faucet from Home Depot 

3. Apron Front Stainless Steel Double Bowl Kitchen Sink from Home Depot

4. Tuscan Trellis VS71 Rug from Rugs USA

5. Silver Birch Corian Countertop from Home Depot

6. Clear Glass Globe Industrial Pendant from Shades of Light

7. Large, wooden EAT sign from SmokeStackStudios on Etsy.

8. Shaker Style cabinets. My dad is building the cabinets for our kitchen. This is such a blessing!! I really like the idea of mixing the cabinet colors in your kitchen, so we plan to have gray cabinets in the "U" shape portion of our kitchen and then white next to and above the refrigerator as well as the hutch my dad is building on the other side of the kitchen door.

9. Style Selections 1 1/2 in. Center-to-Center Brushed Satin Nickel Bar Cabinet Pull from Lowes

10. Samsung Kitchen Appliance Bundle from Best Buy (We purchased this bundle last week, but it is no longer available, so I've linked it to all of Best Buy's kitchen appliance bundles)

11. Blast Anthracite 12x24 in. Floor Tile from The Tile Shop

12. Vintage Aqua Ball Mason Quart Jar Canisters from DukeCreekStudios on Etsy

And there you have it. All my fun ideas for our new kitchen. I seriously can't wait to see how it all comes together. :-)

Five on Friday

I'm linking up with April today for Five on Friday!

 Happy Friday everyone! I'm living the single parent life this weekend while Jake is out of town on a golf trip with some friends of his. He left yesterday morning and will be home Sunday afternoon. So far it's going fine, but I'm sure by Sunday, we'll all be pretty happy to see Daddy walk through the door. :-) Jackson is already complaining that it's taking too long for Daddy to come home. Poor buddy.

I have 2 photo sessions this weekend on top of it (thank goodness for Grandparents) and they are both way out of my comfort zone!! The one tomorrow evening is a 2 year old session along with her 3 month old twin brothers!! I've taken little Millie's photos twice before (check out her 1 year old session here), but I've never photographed twins before! Should be pretty interesting. Then my session on Sunday is Wedding Portraits at a city roof top location! I don't do wedding photography, but she just wanted a few wedding portraits done between her ceremony and reception so I thought I'd step out of my comfort zone and give it a try. It should be beautiful but I'm a nervous wreck!!!

 I'm in an "Outfit of the Day" Facebook group and I'm loving it. After being pregnant and having babies, fashion hasn't exactly been a top priority for me. In fact it was extremely low on the list. But after signing up for Stitch Fix and taking a more vested interest in my building back my wardrobe, I'm actually having a lot of fun with it. It seems as though leopard print is all the rage for Fall this year so I decided to join the fun and bought these Leopard Emmies from Lucky Brand. They were on sale and so super cute! I'm not really an animal print kind of girl, but I thought I'd give these a try. :-)

I'm so excited that the new Cinderella movie is out on DVD finally. I wanted so badly to see it in the theaters, but never found the time to go. The kids and I may be going over to my mother-in-law's house to watch it tonight. Cinderella is my all time favorite and I can't wait to see this movie!! 

And lastly, I saw this comment this morning on a blog post one of my all time favorite blogs: Under the Sycamore. It's such good advice that I want to save it for a reminder for years to come. I thought you all might relate to it as well. :-)

“Our oldest son is 22, graduated from college, and moved across the country for a job. Our middle two are in college, and our youngest is a freshman in high school. I would tell my younger self to remember to nurture my marriage more — in the midst of the craziness of 4 young children, we should have gone on more dates! Keep talking with your spouse, keep finding things you enjoy doing together and make the time to do them so years down the road when the kids are gone, you will still have many common interests. Spend tons of time with your kids, all through their growing up years, especially their teen years, and then spend more time with them. All too soon, they are 18, and they leave for college, leaving you wishing you had spent more time with each of them, played more games of cards, gone for more walks together, talked more, etc. Pursue your interests, yes, but spend as much time as possible cherishing your children by giving them the gift of your time and loving attention. As parents of kids your age say to new parents of babies, they grow so soon…treasure this baby stage. Well, treasure this stage of your children’s lives, be fully present, take the time, slow down and stop rushing to get the to do list done because it never leaves. The kids do. That’s what I would tell my younger self.” ~ Kathy

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Little Update on the New House Renovations

So we've been busy working on the new house when and where we can. Labor Day was the first day we were able to get over there and get to work on the yard. I ended up waking up sick that day, so I stayed home with the kids while Jake and my parents spent the day working in the yard. They got a lot done and it looked quite a bit better after they were done. 

They mowed, weed-eated and pulled tons of weeds. The front and side landscaping had weeds almost as tall as me and there was so much ivy growing even all the way up the fireplace stack to the roof! So they got a lot of that cleaned up.

Then this past Saturday, my mother-in-law came along to help with the kiddos while we worked diligently to get a lot more done in the back yard. By this time, the pool was green and the fence was so covered in weeds and vines that you couldn't even see it in some spots! So with my parents help, we got the fence all cleared off and my dad cut down a lot of trees and brush (that were probably weeds at one point but no-one ever got rid of them). Later in the day, Jake and I took a sample of the nasty pool water to a local pool supply store to figure out what we needed to do to get it clear again and they were super helpful in getting us all squared away with a plan of attack. Close to $200 later and the pool is looking so much better.

here's a before and after picture of the pool and back part of the fence. This picture doesn't even show you how much we got done, but it's a little glimpse. You can see how the fence was just so overgrown and it was just as bad if not worse on both sides! The pool is looking a ton better too. It's hard to believe it's even the same pool! It just needed a little TLC. :-)

My dad has been working hard on building the new cabinets for the kitchen and they are looking great!! He went over to the house yesterday and tore out the old kitchen and flooring! I'm so excited at all the progress that's been made! 

 Here's as shot of the kitchen and laminate floor before my dad ripped it out.

And here it is now. :-)

And here are some of the cabinet boxes that he's built. :-)

I'm also super excited that we got all of our kitchen appliances ordered over the weekend. Best Buy was having a sale and we got a great deal on our Refrigerator, Gas Range, Micro-hood and Dishwasher! 

So that's where we are now on the house. Lots happening and there will be a ton more to update you on in the next few weeks and months! Our next thing to do is to pick tile for the floor by the entryway and into the kitchen and get hardwood for the hallway and Avery's room. (The rest of the first floor has hardwood that we'll be keeping and refinishing.) I'll be sure to update here as we get stuff done. :-)

Five on Friday

I'm linking up with April today for Five on Friday!

Remembering that horrible day and all the lives lost. Praying for the victims friends and family. 

May we never forget!

Last Thursday we closed on our new house and are so excited!!!

I ordered this super cute baseball t-shirt yesterday and I'm so excited about it. I've been wanting a cute "photography" shirt and I fell in love with this one as soon as I saw it. If you're interested, you can find it here, along with several other items from these local photographers here in St. Louis.

As I've said before, there is a lot of work that we want to do around our new house and a couple of those things we plan to do before we move in. The major thing is the kitchen. We are gutting it and putting in a whole new one. My dad is building the cabinets and doing all the work and he's already started on building the cabinets this past week. Jackson's been Papa's right hand man all week while my Dad's been building them. 

Don't forget that Grandparent's Day is this Sunday! I posted 10 ideas here last week if you'd like to check them out or of course, there are tons of other ideas on Pinterest!

 I might be biased, but our kids have THE BEST grandparents ever. I honestly don't think we could make it without them.

100 Days of Summer 2015

If you follow me along on Instagram, then you've seen I've been doing a little Summer photo project. Back in May, I saw the idea here, to do a 100 days of Summer Instagram project and take a photo-a-day of our Summer. It was a very fun little project and something I'm so glad I did. Our summer was busy with selling our house, moving into our temporary condo and then searching for and buying a new house, but there was so much more day to day stuff going on with us and the kids and I'm glad I took the time to capture it, even if it was just on my iPhone. :-)

Some of the things we did this summer (besides all the house stuff): 

-Jackson played his first year of t-ball

-Uncle Jim came in town for a visit

-We went Strawberry Picking

-Played in the hose and in the kiddie pool 

-Went to several pools in the area

-Went to the Winery

-Got Ice-Cream from the Ice-Cream Man

-Jumped in Muddy Puddles

-Lots of Snuggles

-Lots of cake-pop trips to Starbucks

-Rode bikes on the sidewalk in front of our old house

-Went to the St. Charles 4th of July Carnival

-Went to Six Flags

-Went to the Zoo

-Went to Purina Farm

-Took Jackson to his first Movie

-Several trips to several parks

-Made pizzas at Grandma's

-Blew bubbles and played in Maw Maw and Papa's backyard

-Ate dinner on the condo patio

   -We frequented the grocery store and Steak 'n Shake

 -Had a big family Picnic at Rend Lake

-Got dirty and took baths on repeat

-Jackson went to preschool

It was a great summer and I am so sad to see it come to an end.

I put together a collage of all of our 100 days of summer so you can see all the pictures I took and so I can have a spot where all 100 photos are easily accessible. :-)

I had so much fun with this little project, I'm considering doing a #100daysoffall project. ;-)

Jackson's First Day of 3 Year Old Pre-School

Jackson went back to Pre-School yesterday and had a great day. He was very excited to go and kept saying "Can we go now?" as we were getting ready yesterday morning. He was great at drop-off and his teachers said he had a good day! They said he was a little quiet and shy for a while but eventually came out of his shell. :-)

He went during the summer as well to keep him used to going. His school has different summer camps there every 2 weeks, so Jackson went to 3 of these 2-week long camps, 2 days a week. I think keeping him in the groove of school really helped the transition back to school this Fall and he had a lot of fun too. 

He is in the Star Class this year and because he and many of his classmates are either already 4 or are about to be 4, they will be spending a lot of their day alongside the Pre-K Rainbow class, but will have some circle and learning time just as Stars. 

His teachers' names are Ms. Becky and Ms. Cathy. Thankfully he's in his new class with his best friend from school, Gabe, since Gabe is just a month older than Jackson. :-)

I found this super cute idea for a Back to School printable and then just re-created it in pic-monkey to make it my own. I also found this little "First Day of Pre-School" questionnaire here. Jackson was so cute and excited to help me fill this out. We measured him and weighed him on our scale at home. Then I asked him the questions. He answered them almost exactly as I had expected he would. :-)

And here are a few other pictures from our quick photo session before going to school yesterday morning. (He picked his back-pack out all by himself and was pretty proud of it.) I had also got him a new outfit for his first day and he loved that it had dinosaurs on the shirt. :-)

I'm so glad he had a great first day and he already can't wait to go back tomorrow!!! He's getting so big and I'm so proud of him!

10 Gifts for the Grandparents

Grandparent's Day is this month, Sunday, September 13th. So after scouring Pinterest for some cute gift ideas, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you all as a friendly reminder of the special day.

My Dad (who loves nuts of all kinds) would love this gift.

Free printable found here.

I thought this would be really cute to frame and give to my mom or mother-in-law.

Free printable found here.

I love any gift with my kids handprints on it, so I know their grandparents would love that as well.

Idea found here.

Like I said, I love handprint gifts. ;-)

Idea found here.



A super cute sign for the grandparents. This can be bought here on etsy, or could be a really cute and fun DIY project with your kiddos.

My sister and I did something similar for our Mom for Mother's Day one year, and we later re-did it to add "Maw Maw and Papa" to cover both of them. We'll be re-doing it again soon when my sister has her third baby this Fall.

 Idea found here.

I thought this would be a super cute printable to print out and frame for the grandparents and it would be a fun way involve your kiddos in the gift.

Free printable found here.



If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know I am photo-obsessed. So naturally, I think this would be such a fun gift to give to the grandparents.

Idea found here.



I thought this was super cute and can be found on etsy here. Or it would be very easy to recreate just using Photoshop or my personal favorite... picmonkey.com.

And last, but certainly not least, another gift more geared for grandpa is this cute little jar filled with is favorite goodies. :-)

Idea and free download found here.


I think any of these (or any one of the hundreds of other ideas on Pinterest) would be so cute and thoughtful as a gift for Grandparent's Day. Our kids' grandparents are so supportive and are always there for us to help out or love on our babies. They love their grandkids to pieces and Grandparent's Day is a great day to show them how much we love them back.