With January almost over, it's time to bring a little color to the house.  And by color, I mean red.  I love Valentine's Day.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's the first big holiday of the year, but it's not so big that you have to stress over it (or at least we don't at our house).  I've also been in a crafty mood lately so our house got a Valentine's makeover this week.

While perusing the fabric section at Hobby Lobby one day, I fell in love with this black and white striped fabric with gold dots.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, but I wanted to use it for something.  Then, the idea just came to me.  I wanted to use it for a throw pillow and add a red heart to the front.  

{Numbers pillow cover:  Hobby Lobby}

Oh, how I love paper garlands.  I have them for just about every holiday and occasion.  One of my favorites is my heart-shaped Valentine garland.  (For DIY info on this project, go here.)
 

{Red jar candle holder:  Hobby Lobby}

We're ready for Valentine's Day around here.  I'm trying to savor every moment because once Valentine's Day is over, it's time to start planning for the big 2nd birthday.  My baby is growing up!

It was one of those days.

Earlier in the day, Katherine's new fascination with the toilet had led her to open the lid, lean in, and splash around like she was at the freaking wading pool.  This resulted in an unexpected mid-morning bath for her, and an unanticipated bathroom cleaning.

At lunch, she spotted me getting her Minnie Mouse plate out of the cabinet, and when I tried to explain to her that it would be another 3.5 minutes until her lunch was ready for consumption, she flung herself to the floor and kicked and screamed so loud that the dogs quickly fled the room.  Apparently when her plate is visible, her lunch should be promptly presented to her.  Photo proof of said incident:

Later, I decided maybe getting out of the house for a minute would be good for us.  I needed to go to Hobby Lobby to pick up a few things, so we headed out.  As we entered Hobby Lobby, Katherine quickly let me know that she wanted to walk and that riding in the cart would be out of the question on this particular day.  Because I only needed two items, I let her walk.  She was actually very good until we got in line to check out and she informed me that she wasn't ready to stop walking.  Standing still in line was not going to happen.  So I held a wiggling toddler in my arms as I paid for my two items and off we went.

Our local Hobby Lobby is next door to a Lifeway Christian Bookstore.  I had gotten a Lifeway giftcard for Christmas and found a book that I wanted to get, so we took a walk over to Lifeway, which Katherine seemed to enjoy.  She held my hand politely as we entered the store.  She held my hand politely as we moved through the sections of the bookstore.  When I couldn't find the book I was looking for on the shelf (that the website had said this particular location had in stock), she held my hand politely as we walked to the front of the store and asked the cashier if the book was in stock.  Katherine held my hand politely as we walked back through the bookstore with the cashier to find my book, which happened to not be in stock (thanks internet).  As we were rounding the corner to leave the store, Katherine spotted the toy section.  We walked over and proceeded to look at the children's books and toys.  When Katherine realized that we were not going to be taking any of the books or toys home, another tantrum ensued.  She refused to stand up and proceeded to roll around on the floor making a scene.  I finally got her to her feet and tried to walk her towards the door.  By the way Lifeway, who's idea was it to put the glass shelving displaying the breakable collectibles right beside the children's area?  Because right as we were moving through "breakable land" to get to the door, Katherine broke free my grip and flung her arms knocking over a glass knickknack, which then knocked over one of those Willow Tree figurines.

"Oh, S**t!"

It came out before I had time to process it.  I was in a Christian bookstore for crying out loud.  Luckily, the store was empty except for us and the one cashier, who had gone to the back to look for inventory for a customer on the phone.  Good.  I don't think anyone heard me.  I picked up the luckily not broken items, set them back up, scooped up my rowdy child, and we were out the door.

We hustled to the car, where an elderly woman watched judgingly as I tried to get my tantrum-throwing toddler into her carseat.

Of course Katherine was a perfect angel by the time Daddy came home later.  Luckily I had taken the photo earlier of the tantrum in the kitchen to show as proof.

Some days are easy.  Some days are hard.  Some days you cuss out loud inside a Christian bookstore.

Jason and I got married 8 years ago today.  I can't believe how time seems to have flown by, considering we've technically been together for 14 years.  Here's a quick rundown of our life together:

We first met on New Year's Eve in 2000 through mutual friends at a party.  He was a college sophomore baseball player and I was a junior in high school.  I know.  We had attended the same high school for one year together, but had never met.  You could say we ran in different circles.  After our first meeting, we spent the next 5 months getting to know each other long distance.  We made it official in May of 2001.  Jason moved back to town and I started my senior year of high school.

{In 2001.  We look like babies.}

When I graduated from high school, I moved to Springfield to attend college and Jason followed shortly after.  In 2004, Jason started a new job that lead him to St. Louis.

{Engagement photos 2006}

On New Year's Eve 2005, Jason proposed in front of the Arch.

{Right after Jason proposed.}

In 2006, I graduated college and planned a wedding.  We got married in January of 2007 and honeymooned in Cancun.

{Our wedding day 2007}

{Honeymoon 2007}

We've had our ups and downs in the last 8 years.  Our best "up" was definitely the birth of our daughter, Katherine.  

{With baby Katherine 2013}

Jason is a great husband and an amazing dad.  I couldn't have asked for anything better.

{2014}

The weather has been unseasonably mild here (thank goodness), so it was a perfect weekend for the St. Louis Cardinals Care Winter Warm-Up.  My brother and his girlfriend got us passes for Christmas, so we were excited to go since we have never been.  Katherine was pumped because she thought seeing "the Cardinals would be fun" (her exact words).  This kid is making complete sentences now.  Crazy. 

So on Saturday, we headed downtown for a little Cardinals fun.
Katherine scored a St. Louis Cardinals "magic" wand that she referred to as a "candy cane."  Jason enjoyed seeing all of the Cardinals gear and memorabilia and Katherine loved seeing Fredbird.  We left Winter Warm-Up to go eat lunch at Cardinal Nation, where two tables over sat the Dewitts, the Cardinals owners.  I casually pretended to take photos of Katherine to get them in the background.  

After lunch we took our own walking tour around Busch Stadium since it was such as nice day.



It felt like early baseball season weather outside even though the season doesn't start for another several weeks.  Seeing Katherine's excitement over the Cardinals and baseball in general certainly made her father happy.

In other news, we're enjoying our newly put together playroom (more on that later).  I bought a super comfy area rug for the room that Jason thinks is a good place to nap.  Katherine thinks differently.


We're getting ready for the week ahead.  I desperately need to restock the etsy shop and reorganize the pantry, which is overflowing with Christmas candy.  I'm going to seriously focus this week.  Probably.

I love sharing with you things I find on Etsy, and helping an Etsy business get recognition.  I usually do a lot of Christmas shopping on Etsy, and this year was no different.

This year, I got my brother these raw honey samples for Christmas.

{Photo:  Honeyrun Farm}

He uses a lot of honey and these were the perfect sample sizes, to not overwhelm him.  What caught my eye about these honeys was the different harvest times.  The honey will taste different based on what time of the year it was harvested.  I would definitely recommend checking out this cute shop on Etsy!  (Plus shipping was crazy fast!)

Another shop I love is The Jane Soap Company.  I've used their scrubs and lip balms before and loved them, so I got my brother's girlfriend some "Chocolate Covered Strawberry" lip balm for Christmas.  (And this one for myself!)

If you live in St. Louis, you can also find The Jane Soap Company products at The Foundrie.

I use my iPad in the kitchen a lot to use recipes via Pinterest.  So I was super excited when I got this kitchen iPad holder for Christmas.

It came from Our Sweet Home Alabama, and I absolutely love it.  It makes using an iPad in the kitchen so much easier and it takes up very little counter space.

Last but not least, my favorite Etsy shop (ever, probably) is cristin rae.  I've bought several things from her over the years, in fact when I finally met her at a craft fair she recognized my name from all the orders I had made.

I picked out this scarf before the holidays, and was super excited to get it for Christmas.  This is my second (maybe third?) one of her knitted scarves and I love them!

It's so fun to browse Etsy and find new things that you love.  It's even better when you're helping out another small business owner.  Plus, Etsy finds always make unique gifts!

I'm probably one of a very few that still prefers to write things down, rather than put them in my phone or other electronic device.  I don't trust technology.  Case in point: my fancy smart phone now only makes actual phone calls (and sometimes texts).  It's ironic seeing how it is technically a phone, but the fact that I cannot do anything else with it is super frustrating.

I still carried an actual day planner around with me everywhere as of 2012.  I made the switch to "digital" when I had Katherine and literally could not carry one more item around with me.  I tried to like the convenience of everything being in my phone, but I just couldn't get used to it.  I eventually went back to writing things down on paper, this time on post-its and other random scraps of paper.  Lists and notes everywhere.  Lists about things I needed to remember.  Lists about things to do that day.  Lists about making other lists.

With my Etsy shop, blog, and daily life, I had to find some way to stay organized and on task.  I'm a fairly organized person, so you can imagine my excitement when I found that there are others out there just like me, needing the right template for their organization.  I found exactly what I needed on Etsy.  Big surprise.

First I found this daily planner from Pixel Luxe.  It's a digital download so I was able to print it immediately, and I can print as many as I need when I need them.  It's simple, without the extra graphics that aren't necessary and it gives me plenty of space to list my daily lists, including meal planning.  My favorite part is the water intake art, which lets you track how much water you've had that day.  
Next up, organizing the blog.  There are lots of blog organizers out there, but this one from The Native New Yorker worked best for me.  This was also an instant digital download that included 13 pages to plan and organize a blog.  Again, I chose this one because it was simple and easy to read.  I wish I had done this years ago.  It makes blogging so much easier and frees up so much room in my brain.
Last, was the Etsy shop.  While I had established my own organizational techniques for the shop, I still had a hard time keeping track of some things.  There are so many Etsy business planners out there, but I chose this one from Coffee In The Morn.  Also an instant digital download, you can print as much or as little as you need.  This planner has also made my life a lot easier.

I keep these planners in one big binder (divided of course), so that everything is always together and not in piles of post-its.  Obviously, I don't carry this around with me outside of the house, but it stays in sight where I can check through things during nap times.

{Binder from Target.}

There's an organizer or planner for everybody.  You just have to find what you're looking for.  What ways do you stay organized?

When all of the Christmas decorations come down in January, the house always looks really sad.  Where there once was lots of color and lights, now sits empty walls and spaces that scream "It's January!  It's cold outside!  Blah!"

OK maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, but the house always feels sad after Christmas.  In all of these years I've never had anything to hang on the front door after Christmas.  Between January 1 and Valentine's Day, our front door sits bare.  Not this year, I said as I walked through Hobby Lobby looking for something (anything) I could throw together to give our front door some "winter cheer."

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the abundance of Christmas florals on clearance, some of which weren't even that Christmasy.  At 80% off, I scooped up an arrangement of pine cones and pine needles.  I then headed straight for the vine wreaths.

Putting this wreath together took 2 steps:

Step 1:  Attach winter floral to wreath using craft wire and/or hot glue.

Step 2:  Add ribbon to hang wreath from.  I used blue burlap which gave it a more winter feel.

Done.  5 minutes and $6.59.


Happy Winter!   How many more days until Spring?

I know.  I know.  I'm a little late on the Christmas update.  I took some time off from all social media in general for a few days, and now I'm catching up.

We had Christmas at our house for the first time and it.  Was.  Awesome.  It was the first year we got to stay home instead of bouncing from house to house.

It was hard deciding on what we wanted our Christmas Eve tradition to be.  We ended up baking cookies for Santa that morning, followed by lunch and watching the Polar Express.  We had breakfast for dinner, then Katherine got to open up one present: new Christmas pajamas and a book.  Then it was off to bed so Santa could come.

{Christmas Eve fun}

{Opening our jams and book}

{She had a hard time staying awake before bedtime}

{One quick photo in front of the tree}

{Sampling Santa's cookies}

Christmas morning was full of magic for Katherine.  We told her Santa had come, but she was still a bit surprised to see her new toys in the living room.  It was hard for her to focus on presents and her stocking after seeing her brand new play kitchen that Santa had brought.  We opened gifts, then once my parents and brother and his girlfriend came over, we opened more presents.  




Katherine got new boots for Christmas and insisted on wearing them all day, even though it was in the 50's outside on Christmas Day.  We hosted Christmas lunch for the first time, which went great.  It was our first Christmas to not be in Kennett, but our house was filled with so much love that I hardly noticed.  We were so blessed and the Christmas aftermath showed it.

We spent the next couple of days recovering before it was time to load up the car and head off to Christmases number 2 and 3.

First we headed down to Arkansas to see my family.  Katherine scored more new toys and of course there was a stop at U.S. Pizza.



After a short 19 hours in Arkansas, we headed north to Kennett to see Jason's family.  Katherine received another haul of toys, and I wasn't completely convinced they would fit in the car to take home.  The best part was Katherine got to spend some time with her cousins.



We were in Kennett for all of 43 hours, so it was a short but busy few days.  I'm so glad to be home.  Now that the Christmas decorations are down, it's time to start the first home improvement project of 2015, a playroom to fit all of the new toys Katherine received.  Operation: Playroom is officially underway.