A new look for Lulu and Junebug!

Hi all!  And when I say all, I mean the one or two people who are still reading this poor neglected blog.  I have been away awhile doing all sorts of fun (and some not so fun) things, which I will blog about soon.  But first, I had to talk about my new look!  I have been working with the amazingly talented Jennisa at Once Upon a Blog, and she has revamped not only my blog, but all of my Lulu and Junebug business cards, hair accessory cards, Etsy banner, and my logo.  I am working on opening my Etsy store in the very near future and I am so excited!

Here is the link to Jennisa, if you are in need of a blog makeover.  I VERY highly recommend her!!!

 

 

I will be back soon to share some of what has been going on around here lately.  I can't believe that we've had two parties that I haven't blogged about yet!  Lots of fun things to talk about!!!

 

Pinterest Love for Carter's Mickey Mouse Party

I know it's been a LONG time since I've blogged.  Once again life has gotten crazy (I won't bore anyone with too many details!) but I really want to start blogging more.  I just need to make the time for it!

I wanted to share today how AMAZED I am that Carter's second Mickey Mouse birthday party has gotten so much attention.  It has been pinned so much on Pinterest - I honestly can't believe it.  I get at least five or six emails a week asking me questions about how I did various things for the party decor.  When I go to my stats on my blog, though, I get the most hits to my party from Tip Junkie.  I went over there today and was SHOCKED to see that our little birthday party is featured as one of the top popular parties - of all time!  On Tip Junkie of all places!!!!

I am truly humbled that so many people are interested in my party.  Honestly, planning that party was one of the hardest things I've ever done, because I had just had a miscarriage a month and a half earlier and I really don't remember a lot of what happened during those first awful months.  I thought about not having a real party, but then I somehow pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got everything together in a matter of days.  The project I get the most emails about is my Mickey topiary - you can go see that here.  Next, I would say that the most popular item is the M&M cello bags - I shared where I bought those bags here.  Finally, I also get a lot of questions about how I made the Mickey wreath - you can go here to check that out and get a link to a great tutorial.  So - if you are one of the people who have pinned the party, clicked on my blog, emailed me with nice things to say, or commented - THANK YOU!!!!  It truly makes my day to know that others would be interested in the silly stuff I do around here sometimes =)

Carter wants a Thomas party next - it's coming up soon, so I've started pinning a bunch of stuff to get some ideas.  If you have any great links for me for train parties, please send them my way!

Beautiful Christmas giveaway...

The amazingly talented Kristen over at Kristen's Creations is having an awesome giveaway!  I don't normally post about giveaways, but this one is too good not to.  She is a very talented floral decorator, and is giving away one of her gorgeous creations, along with some other treats - shown below:

Click here to enter the giveaway - but hurry, it ends soon!!!

Thankful...

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving today!  I have so much to be thankful for, but what I am most thankful for is the health and well-being of my family, and a husband who loves me despite my flaws.  I love my family so very much!

(one of the pictures from our Christmas card photo shoot this week - more to come soon!)

Since my mom and mother-in-law do all of the Thanksgiving cooking, I got off easy this year - I made this turkey cheeseball (inspiration via Pinterest from Brandy's blog Gluesticks here).  I think my turkey head/neck was too big, but in my defense I was making it as we were running out the door!  The cheeseball recipe was YUMMY though.  Emily made the most ADORABLE place cards for everyone using my scrap ribbons.



 We had some DELICOUS food - including my mother in law's famous fried okra, which I could eat all day, every day, and never have enough!  My mom's dressing (in the South we call it dressing, not stuffing, just so you know!) was out of this world, too!  We were so stuffed.

A rare picture of four out of our five kids (Will had to work today so we went downtown and took him out to dinner).  Thanks for smiling, Zach =)



Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Stay at Home Mom???

Whoever invented the term "stay at home mom" clearly was NOT a "stay at home mom."  I have so many crazy days as a mom, but I think today may have been one for the record books.  I am sure this will be interesting to no one but myself (ha!) but I wanted to document all the craziness that is my life right now.

Here is my day today:

6:20 - alarm goes off
6:30 - finally roll out of bed, get Emily up
6:30 - 7:05 - fix Emily's breakfast, pack her backpack, supervise hair and teeth brushing
7:05 - wake Lindsey up
7:10 - get Emily and hubby out the door to school and work
7:10 - 7:30 - fix Lindsey's breakfast, keep her moving in getting ready, Carter wakes up so get him out of the bed and get my morning snuggle
7:30 - 8:30 -  Carter dressed/changed/fed, help Lindsey straighten hair, get myself ready
8:30 - 9:00 - drive to orthodontist appointment - half way there, find out that there is a MAJOR traffic jam and have to turn around and go the opposite direction - barely make it there in time
9:00 - 9:30 - control and entertain Carter while Lindsey is getting her adjustment
9:30 - take Lindsey to get a flu shot at the grocery store pharmacy - have to walk around for 15 minutes before we can leave, per the pharmacist.  Pick up a few items for dinner while we are there.
10:00 - take Lindsey to school
10:15 - 11:45 - come home, clean kitchen, laundry, deal with MAJOR Carter meltdown (I don't think he feels well - he has a stuffy nose), answer important emails, pack a lunch for Carter
11:45 - 12:15 - meet Hubby for lunch (a VERY rare treat!)
12:15 - 1:15 - get convinced by Carter to take him to the toy store to look for a new engine that he wants and has been asking for no less than 40,000 times today.  Halfway there figure out there is yet another major traffic jam but this time there is no other way to go so we have to just sit there.
1:15 - 1:45 - drive all the way back to my mom's house (pass our house to get there) to drop Emily's dance clothes and shoes off (my mom takes her to dance for me on Tuesdays, thank goodness!)
1:45 - 3:30 - bring Carter home, more laundry, more cleaning up, work on shipping eight ebay packages that HAVE to go out today.  Put Carter down for nap.
3:30 - 4:30 - research a company that I am applying for a part time job at, and try to contact the hiring manager but have to leave voice mail.  Try to get into "professional" mode from "mommy" mode before calling.  This job would be part time and from home, so I am PRAYING that it works out!
4:30 - 4:45 - Lindsey gets off bus - talk to her for a few minutes before I have to go pick Emmy up from dance.  Carter still napping so leave him with Lindsey.
4:45 - 5:30 - pick Emily up, go by my mom's house to get Emily's backpack, then head to grocery store to order cupcakes for Lindsey's joint birthday party with her BFF this weekend (the party that has 60 - yes SIXTY - people coming to it, almost half of which are BOYS!  Lord help me!).
5:30 - 6:45 - fix Emily a quick dinner because she has to to BACK to dance at 6:45.  Help her with homework as I start the rest of the family's dinner.  Wonder when third grade homework got so hard.  Carter wakes up from nap (thankfully in a great mood!).
6:45 - drive Emily to her lyrical class with Carter in tow. leaving Lindsey at home to do her homework (or text and talk on the phone, ha!).  Have to go in to talk to the woman at the front desk about Emily's class. 
7:00 - 7:30 - get back home, finish up dinner, by this time hubby and stepson are there.  Everyone eats (but Carter) and then I have to go back to the dance school to pick Emily up.  Instruct hubby to bathe Carter while I am out.
7:45 - pick Emily up and realize that I still need to get diapers and Lindsey wants me to get her something "soft" to eat because her teeth hurt really badly from her braces adjustment earlier in the day.  Stop by the store on the way home.
8:15 - get home and Emily wants to eat again so fix her a plate of food, do dishes, get Carter and Emily ready for bed (after dosing Emily up on Benadryl and honey for a terrible cough she has), then remember that I never got the shipping labels off the printer for the ebay packages.  Go pick them up off the printer and tape them to the packages.
9:15 - 9:40 - Sit down to type this and realize that Emily's cough is getting worse.  For the past half hour, I've been calling the pharmacist, getting her more medicine, making her sit in the steamy shower bathroom and filling the vaporizer to put in her room.

And with that...I'm headed to bed!  Oh, after I check on Lindsey and make sure she is finishing her homework, and put one more load of laundry in, and send yet another email I forgot to send regarding room mom stuff...oh and write down about six things I need to remember to do tomorrow...

So yeah - "stay at home mom" - not so much!!!  Life is so crazy these days, but I know I am doing what God wants me to do right now, and boy do I ever LOVE these kids of mine!

Shirt to Fall Artwork Refashion

Over the years, my kids have had several items of clothing that I have been very sentimental about.  I save so many of their clothes, but unfortunately I can't keep everything.  I have gotten better about getting rid of things, so I sell a lot of their outgrown clothes on Ebay.  This year as I was going through some old clothes to list, I ran across a shirt of Emily's that I just loved, mainly because it had an owl on it.  This is the shirt (purchased from Gymboree several years ago):

As I was looking at the shirt, I saw that there was a stain on it that I hadn't noticed before, so I couldn't list it on Ebay.  Since I liked the little owl so much, I decided to frame him!  I had a frame that I purchased from Goodwill (I think) and I simply cut the shirt apart, stuck it over the glass in the frame, and I had a cute little bit of Fall decor - for free.

Five minutes, and free - can't beat that!

I am itching to get out the fall decor, but for some reason I just can't bring myself to do it.  Maybe I am just needing some cooler weather to get in the mood!  I have been pinning some pretty fall stuff on Pinterest - you can see my fall and Halloween board here.

Sharing this project here:

 

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Sprucing up the top of a hutch

Sort of a random post, but I always love when I see how others decorate certain areas of their homes.  I have a really hard time figuring out how to decorate several things, like the tops of armoires, book shelves, and my entry chest/console.  I change things all the time because I am seriously never happy with how they look.  It seems so effortless to some people to make these pretty vignettes, but for me it seems to be a never ending process. 

Today, I found an old urn in my mom's basement, and I brought it home with me (with her permission, of course!).  I thought it might look good on top of the armoire in our newly painted office.  Once I had it up there, I decided it needed more "stuff" so I shopped around my house and this is what I came up with:

I am so crazy when it comes to decorating - sometimes I love little vignettes like this one, and sometimes I take it all down because a lot of "stuff" drives me crazy and I think it looks messy.  I kind of like this one - what do you think?

Other than the urn, I placed a Pottery Barn wooden tray, some picture frames, some old books and a cute iron bird cage that I bought earlier this year from Michael's.  I love this bird cage.

The green photo frame is one I've had forever - the picture is of my TWELVE year old daughter, Lindsey.  Can't believe she isn't still that tiny baby sometimes.



This was a kind of boring frame that I added a pretty green ribbon to.  This color green is the accent color I want to use in the room.  I was thinking of painting a small table this color (please don't tell my husband!) but I can't decide - anyone have any thoughts on how that might look?

You may notice that I am not showing pictures of the whole room - there's a reason for that.  The main reason is that the office is a MESS right now, with Carter's Thomas train table taking up half the room!  The desk is messy and disorganized - a future project that needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later.  I do have a picture of a corner of the room that I like (well, that I mostly like - not sure what direction I want to go with those pillows).

That's all I am sharing for now - but hopefully soon there will be a BIG reveal of my super organized office!!!  Wishful thinking, perhaps, but I can dare to dream, right?!?!?