Outdoor curtains

This little project started because we love having dinner outside on our screen porch, but just as it's time for dinner, it is also time for the sun to shine right into our faces when we sit at the table!  So, I devised (brilliantly, in my mind) this little set up:

 Yes, it's a bedsheet.  And yes, it served its purpose.  But, can you believe that it was so ghetto that my husband actually TOLD me to get outdoor curtains?!?  So I did.  Because I knew he was right.  We couldn't leave a ghetto bedsheet thumbtacked to the wall for eternity.  I ordered outdoor curtains and rods from Pottery Barn.  The instructions said it was a two person job, but they have never met this girl who is impatient (dumb?) enough to do any kind of project on her own.  It actually was easier than installing curtains inside the house.  Love the rods and love the curtains, and the feeling they give- they make the porch seem even more like a "room" in my house!

ahhh, much better.  And of course, my husband likes them too...after I called his attention to them when he walked right past them without noticing them.

Galveston in pictures

Here are pictures from our trip to the beach in Galveston.  As I said before, my boys had a blast!  Also, I'm not really a beach person, but I get a kick out of how much fun they had while we were there!  I think you will be able to tell from the looks on their faces.

The water was actually pretty rough.  No way I'd let my kids go out there on their own.  Thankfully Uncle Garrett was there to keep up with Sloan while I snapped pics!

sandcastle building

Pure Joy on Sloan's face!

The beach

So we are currently down in the Galveston area visiting my brother in law and his fiancee and we decided to make it a trip to the beach as well, since Jackson has been asking, literally, since last October to go the beach.  (he would ask once a week atleast).  So, we went this morning and it was fun.  for the kids.  Everytime I go to the beach, and it's not often, I realize that I really don't like the beach.

I like the beach in the hypothetical, anticipatory sense.  Sand, surf, waves, sun all sound like so much fun.  And maybe as a kid, it is fun.  As an adult?  Well, I just don't like getting dirty.  There's always sand everywhere when you go to the beach.  Even when you wash off, there's still sand on your feet so it inevitably makes its way into the car and onto everything that is in the car.  Towels are sandy and wet.  Then, there's the saltwater. It makes your skin and hair feel sticky and gross.  Your sunglasses get coated in a film of salt and saltwater.

All this doesn't mean we wont' ever go to the beach again, but it does make me realize that going to the beach is definitely a labor of love for our kids.  They had a blast and the only reason we got them to leave willingly was because they were hugely hungry from frolicking in the sand and surf.  Which brings me to the next part of the day, which has been my favorite so far.  We went and ate at a local place called the Mosquito Cafe.  It was awesome!  I love it when I find good places to eat.  It's a brunchy fresh food kind of place where everything on the menu looked good and everything coming out of the kitchen looked good.  I'm already planning on going back when we come down for the wedding in a couple months.  Next to the the Mosquito Cafe was a bakery called Patty Cakes, which we found out, was owned by the same people as the Mosquito Cafe--so it HAD to be good, right?  It was!  We ended up getting an entire chocolate cake!  Jackson got a special treat: a petit four!

Pictures to come soon.

The ottoman, part deux

Okay, so remember the ottoman that I made?  I thought it was pretty snazzy and was pretty proud of myself for fabricating the entire thing.  Well, now I know that I cannot compete with furniture manufacturing companies...why??  My button tufting is apparently not up to par with professionals as evidenced by the fact that my boys pulled off every.single.button.  Then, I replaced every.single.button.  and even used superglue!  But, my boys have been blessed (?) with freakishly strong hands/fingers and they pried off every.single.superglued.button.again.  Sheesh!  So, I decided to completely recover the darn thing and be rid of the buttons.  So I did on the morning that I hosted the babyshower (yes, I am a freak and didn't think about what the consequences may be if the thing didn't turn out quite the way I'd hoped and had a half covered ottoman for all the people at the shower to look at, but it did, thankfully!).

The fabric is a little out there, but there's something about it that I really liked and it has all my favorite colors in it.  My husband gave me the "hmm...so you recovered this? what was wrong with it before?" statement which means that he definitely would not have picked out this fabric (but then, when would he EVER pick out a fabric??) and in his opinion, it is way too crazy.  Oh well.  I like it.  For now.  Until my kids have a go at it.

the newly recovered ottoman, in all its untufted glory.

A baby shower: take 2

I had the privilege of hosting a dear dear friend's baby shower at my house with the help of 5 other ladies!  This will be my friend's first baby, so it was a big deal and I am so glad it went well.  We based the decor around the bedding from Serena and Lily, which was blue, orange and white--this was perfect because orange is my favorite color so my house pretty much matched the theme!  Thanks to the help of the other hostesses, all I did was make the cake and send out invites and get flowers!  The rest came together because of them!

The mommy to be!

One of the other hostesses made these pompoms-aren't they so cute!!

We set up a candy bar so guests could take a bag of candy as a favor when they left: it was a big hit!

The cake.  made to match the bedding.

The super cute diaper cake and blue hydrangeas in an orange bucket, of course

The spread of deliciousness!

One of the lovely co-hosts made not only the pompoms and the diaper cake, but this yarn wreath as well!  It's got all the stats on it ready to fill out so this can be hung on the hospital door!

Now that the shower is over, I can't wait to meet little Reid!

Happy mother's day

Happy Mother's day to all you wonderful moms out there and to my own mom!  I really never had any clue as to how HARD of a job it is to be a mommy and how much trust God puts in us to raise his little children!!  It gives me pause to think about how awesome of a responsibility it is to raise my boys to become men of God!

Today, we went to church (which was a tear-jerker service, as always on Mother's day) and my guys took me to lunch at Chuys!  This was definitely an act of love by my husband: taking our boys out past naptime to a crowded restaurant!

I also got the most wonderful mother's day gift:

Peanut butter blankets

This post is gross.  Just a warning. 

This morning was perfectly lovely weather, so we decided to head to the zoo as soon as they opened to try and beat all the field trips that go this time of year.  We were successful and we even met some new friends there.  Jackson and this little girl played along well together and he even said "Oh no!  I forgot to tell her about my birthday party at the bowling alley!" (His birthday is in August, mind you).  Anyway, I got her mommy's contact info so we can play with this sweet girl again someday.

After the zoo, we came home and ate lunch and the boys were starving after all that walking- even Sloan because he has decided that he is too big to ride in a stroller, but we still have to have one with us so he can push it around the zoo. sigh.  This boy is I.n.d.e.p.e.n.d.e.n.t.

After lunch, I took Mr. Independent upstairs to his room for naptime.  I changed his diaper and remember thinking: "hmm. maybe I should put his shorts back on him.  Nah, he never does anything naughty in his bed, so he'll be fine with just his shirt and diaper on."

Fast forward 3 hours and I hear him happily playing in his bed after his nap.  I figured I'd just leave him in it until he got upset since he was happy and laughing.  Well, he never got upset, so 15 minutes later, I go and immediately smell something "not right".  I open the blinds to get a better look and see his naked lil hiney and an open diaper in his bed and "peanut butter (if you know what I mean)" smeared ALL. OVER. HIS. BED, ANIMALS, BLANKETS, CRIB, HAND, PACIFIER.  It's one of those moments that receives a similar reaction to finding throwup all over your child's room:  Frozen still, thinking: there's no way I can possibly clean this up w/o a firehose...  First, I thought I could clean Mr. Independent-Peanut-Butter-pants up with a wipe! ha! Not so much.  So, he got his bath at 3:30 today.  And, I should add, Jackson had a running commentary during all this that pretty much went "ew! gross! dat's nasty! Sloanie- you stinky! yuck!"  (I have to say, I agreed with him).

In the end, I got it all cleaned up, and I am thankful for my fancy new frontloader washer that has a SANITARY cycle.  Definitely used that one today.  And, thankful for my husband who took us out to dinner so I didn't have to make it tonight!  Of course, I HAD to text him a pic of the mess so he could suffer almost as much as me. 

Thoughts on a maid (housekeeper or whatever the PC term is these days)

Since I became a mommy, I've debated with myself and my husband about getting some help with cleaning around the house.  I haven't gotten a maid yet, but that's only because I'm too stubborn and my husband was too cheap to pay for one.  Well, now I'm not so stubborn (after adding yet another messy toddler into the mix) and my husband is not so cheap anymore (or rather, he is still cheap, but he values my sanity of mind more than the cost of a maid). 

I always used the reasoning that since I am a stay-at-home mom, then part of that job description including cleaning house.  I don't mind dusting, vacuuming, etc, but I loathe mopping the floors.  Unfortunately, that's the dirtiest part of my house and the quickest to get dirty too.  I also thought that our money could be better spent on something else besides having someone clean up after us.  What, I don't know.  I also kind of feel ashamed that I have someone cleaning up after my family.  We should all be able to clean up after ourselves, right?  I dunno. It makes me feel a bit like a failure if I hire a maid.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think others who have maids are failures- I think we all do what is right for our families and I have plenty of friends with maids who say that their family life is better because they have that much less stress about things to do around the house.

So now, anyway, in the stage of life we are in, I'm thisclose to hiring a maid.  What do you think?  Do you have one?  Do you love it?  Wish you would not have gotten one because now you can't give her up??