My what bold colors you have.

Still not sold on the brown tones, but, we're getting closer!

Not pictured is this color scheme are surprise color(s) I have in store for our interior doors :)

Rome wasn't built in a weekend.

This is the what I have to keep telling myself when it comes to the ever growing list of things I want to do to the house. Here's just a slice (in no particular order)

Add crown molding in dining, powder, master bath, upstairs bed rms and baths
Add recessed lighting in master, master bath, game rm, living , kitchen and laundry
Add/move/remove light switches in living, dining, game rm, master bed and bath
Add fence extension in front
Add gutters
Replace pulls in cabinets throughout
Replace windows throughout
Paint every rm in the house
Paint and repair exterior siding
Replace upstairs carpet
Replace heating and cooling unit that are original to the house
Add insulation in attic
Add plywood surface in attic for storage
Add plywood fire block in breezeway opening
Add additional back porch light
Replace light fixtures throughout
Replace stair runner
Refinish stairs
Add pocket doors to upstairs bath
Replace or add curtain rods throughout
Remove and replace upstairs blinds
Install blinds or shades in kitchen
Install built in baby gate at top of stairs
Add a lock to Carter's door
Extend tile to the sink areas upstairs
Replace tile in master bath
Extend wood flooring into laundry and back entry areas
Replace any white quarter round with stained-to-match quarter round
Scrape ceiling texture, and paint all ceilings the same color white
Trim out windows throughout
Remove wallpaper from baths, texture and paint
Paint upstairs trim
Build desk for kitchen
Repair or replace broken cabinet hardware in kitchen and baths
Sand and touch up all downstairs trim and cabinets
Adjust trim around fireplace
Paint and reenforce mantle

The kicker is, these are all just some of the *small* projects on the list. Bigger projects include gutting the master bath and completely re-doing it as well as the kitchen.

When I look at this list I get so discouraged, especially after a weekend completely devoted to house stuff...I mean we nearly killed ourselves just to get two or three thing done before thie kids are back.

Anyway, just have to keep telling myself it will all happen, just not in one weekend.

While kids are away, parents will play!

At the last minute, my parents volunteered to take the kiddos this weekend, which we totally jumped at because there have been a number of projects we've been dying to tackle that require a little bit of demo (not easy to do when little kids are all up in the mix).

Here's a little preview of the fun stuff happening around here:

Like that last pic??  That was dinner last night.  Yea, those are plastic ice cubes in box wine, and those are frozen red baron pizzas in the background.  We are classy like that.

West Elm has it out for my New Year's Resolutions

So nothing original happening here in the way of New Year's resolutions. Save more, spend less, exercise more, eat less.  Same ole, same ole. Well, we're not two weeks into the new year, and West Elm is just tugging at my heart strings (aka my purse strings) already.  I mean, love, love, love and LOVE:

Versatile Aluminum side tables?  Yes please, I'll take 2.  One in white (which is powder coated for outdoor use) and one in silver.

These lovely pewter dupioni silk panels were something I combed the retail world for about a year ago before settling on some beautiful hand painted linen panels, and apparently I was just ahead of my time, because a year later, viola.  Thanks West Elm (not).  

They are also having a sale on their blue sage dupioni panels -  50% off with free shipping.  Seriously!  I am trying to figure out how to work them into the budget as I type. update! Port, a beautiful deep red, is now also on sale for OVER half off with free shipping.

Here's another thing I am convinced W.E. is messing with me on.  I searched HIGH AND LOW for something just like their new white slip covered sectional (that was less than 2k) before settling on a large slip covered sofa from JCP.  Alas, West Elm, I am just ahead of your time again apparently.

P.S.  The coffee table in the pic?  Yea, want that too.

I think this chair would look amazing in our bedroom, or pretty much anywhere in our house.

My new bedding obsession are pin-tucks.  I love love love this square pin-tuck bedding because it is a lot less feminine than the diamond counterpart which I also love, but less frills means it's more likely to pass the Mr. C test since he tends to veto bedding choices he thinks are girly.

Can I also tell you how much I am in love with the cowhide on the floor??  Yes, I day dream about stepping out of bed onto a dead animal, and no I'm not joking.  I'm from south Texas, ok?  Lucky for me they sell them at Ikea.

And if a brown and white cowhide is too hee-haw for your tastes, how stunning is this white cowhide????  It's more than twice the cost of the one I'm saving up for at Ikea, but soooo elegant, and in the decorator-world pretty reasonable for a rug of its size.  

I have a serious weakness for pedestal tables and this lovely with its salt and pepper wood grain is just stunning.  And the mirrored top?  Well lets just say I'll be stalking the WE site keeping my eye on this beauty in hopes of a sale.

P.S.  I am in LOVE with the paint color in this photo.  Anyone have a clue what it is??  I am picturing it our bedroom with our new white pin-tuck bedding our espresso bedroom furniture and a beautiful brown and white dead cow on the floor.  Can you see it???

If dead animal hides aren't your cup-o-tea, there are plenty of other rugs I am loving from WE like this beautiful zig zag number:

 Which is also available in Espresso:

 And this beautiful orange number:

Also available in green:

And I can't forget this yellow beauty which is also available (though much less tempting) in brown.

So there you have it, West Elm is out to single handedly trying to undo my resolution to be thrifty. Ok not really, but it feels like it some times.  I'm just having to remind myself that as much as I love all these beautiful things, I love my children more, and would really like to send them to college someday. And until then, little things like new windows and gutters are taking precedent with any cash we can eek out for the house. Guess I'm gonna have to get creative! And maybe bust out a sewing machine.  I mean how hard could a pin-tuck be? Don't answer that.

Where does ______ come from?

Carter has found a new favorite passtime, asking were anything and everything comes from (thankfully he hasn't asked about babies yet).
So, here's a sample of today's contestants in the "Where does ____ come from?" game.

Soup
Time Out
Naughty
Unruly
Fancy
Coke
Pasta
Juice

I try to use these questions as teaching opportunities, but I'm usually the one getting schooled.  Take the latest conversation.

Carter:  Where does juice come from?
Me:  It depends on the type of juice.  Orange juice comes from oranges. Pear juice comes from pears.  Grape juice comes from grapes. 
Carter: Grape juice comes from grapes.  
Me: So Carter, if grape juice comes from grapes and orange juice comes from oranges, where do you think apple juice comes from?
Carter:   Apple juice comes from the kitchen!

Maybe I should just take Mr. C's approach, and just tell him that everything comes from God or HEB.

It's beginning to look a lot (less) like Christmas.

Taking down Christmas stuff, but wanted to take a few pictures of the decorations in the tradition of our little Christmas house.  I didn't want to put a ton out this year because we were still in the throws of getting settled in, and Christmas Eve and morning were going to be at my parent's house.  I did splurge on some real garland, a few potted plants for the front porch and some gold ribbon I can use again (from the Container Store of course :).  All-in-all I liked how it came out...not overwhelming, but enough to feel like the holidays, and room to improve and add on next year.

I love our willow tree nativity.  It's risky to put it out with the kids, and I'll admit a lamb and a shepherd have had to be super glued back together, but I put the Fisher Price nativity under it to keep the kids from messing with it, and it works as a good distraction about 90% of the time.  I do occasionally walk by and notice things moved around, though, like a wise man in the stable with Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus would be hanging out over by the camel. :)

Still torn on the final destination for a tree in this house, but for this year, we hedged it into a corner to limit access to little exploring hands.

This is actually a garland I used to put on our dining table, but our dining room is becoming an office so I wrapped it into a wreath.  I liked it so well, I think I may keep it like this for good. 

The garland used to light up, but this year one of the strands went out  We opted to put it up anyway, and re-evaluate the outside lighting plan next year. Mr. C just LOVES outside lights (ok maybe not so much, but I love outside lights, so he humors me :)

I know it's a little cheesy to decorate the mailbox, but I loved it and hopefully the postman did too. :)

One lucky little booger

We celebrated the first weekend of the new year with a trip to Austin to visit Mr. C's three living grandparents.  We decided to have dinner on Saturday evening at the Black Eyed Pea given it was New Years and black eyed peas are supposed to bring luck if eaten on New Years Day (for a really delicious way to get your yearly dose of good fortune, click here).  Plus, they were one of the few restaurants open because it was a holiday.

Well, I don't think we were the only people that had this clever idea because the place was packed and there was a 15 minute wait for a table.  Knowing it would take at least 15 minutes to load two kids back into the car and find another open restaurant, we opted to camp out and do our best to corral the kids while we waited.

They had a little display of two champagne glasses filled with uncooked black eyed peas (toasting the new year, and the prosperity back eyed peas bring and what not).  It was cute, but Carter kept playing with it.  I was so worried he was going to knock the glasses over and spill beans and broken glass everywhere, I failed to notice he had taken a few of the little peas for souvenirs when they finally called our name.

As we were walking to the table, Carter kept sticking his finger up his nose.  I kept trying to nonchalantly nudge his finger out of his nostril, but he was very insistent on keeping it lodged right were it was, and to make matters worse, the entire trek to the table, he proceeded to get more and more upset.  When we finally got situated at the table, he was in a full-on tantrum.  He kept screaming for me to wipe his nose, which I kept doing, but it didn't seem to alleviate whatever had set him off.

Carter had a runny nose for the week prior to all of this, and being prone to nose bleeds, it did not startle me too badly when all of a sudden his nose started bleeding during this chaos.  Figuring that was what had been bothering him so badly, I took him outside to try to calm him down and mop up the mess, but he just would not calm down, and I finally just decided to abort dinner and take the kids home.

Once home, the little guy had calmed down, but he was not interested in eating, so figuring he was just tired from a long day of travel and visiting, we changed him into his jammies to get him ready for bed.  As I reached for the toothbrush to brush his teeth, he flipped out again.  He kept screaming "it hurts" every time I tried to tilt his head back to brush his teeth.  All of a sudden, he let out a big sneeze, and out of my son's nose comes........yea, you guessed it.  A black eyed pea.

So, if black eyed peas are supposed to bring luck on New Yeas Day, then I think it's safe to say, Carter definitely had is one lucky little booger!!!

Happy New Year! :)