Nursery #3

I was excited to have baby number three from the moment that I got the positive test. I can even tell you the moment that I know I was pregnant (about 5 days before the test). It is amazing that pregnancy takes 9 months and while that seems like a long time (especially the last  months) it really does go by fast. 

I knew how I wanted to decorate the nursery for my first baby even before I found out he was a boy. It was Monkeys all the way! Then when we got our surprise second baby they would be sharing a room so we pinked out the monkeys and mane it a pretty goo gender neutral room (wish I had pics!) then when we finally finished rooms in the basement. our little Fire cracker L got her own special room (for another post). 

This last time around I had no idea! But as I got to the 34 weeks mark I decided it was time to make a choice! 

I decided to do a light grey and a lavender for Girlie #2. You can see the two colors here (just after we tore out the carpet). I am in love with how much the grey lightened up the room. I was so happy to say good bye to the nasty tan walls! here is a better picture of the color with the ugly "before" carpet. Here room is very simple. I finished it with "O's" name on the walls and some cute little vinyl animals in a picture frame. I really do lover her room and feel like it fits her perfectly. It has been fun to learn each of their personalities and how they change as the grow up! I can't wait to get to know this little one and see how she grows into her personality.

Frumpy Mom pants to SKINNY purple pants

I had this pair of jeans. I have no idea why I bought them but when I did I apparently though they were cute. As it turns out I never wore them cause I hated the way that they fitted around the bottom of my legs. I called them my "Frumpy Mom Jeans" and really the one reason that I kept them was because the Hubs always complemented my tush in them. One day I had a grand idea and I only wish I would have taken a before pic!!

I have always wanted a pair of colored jeans and have never been able to find any that fit over my large behind (that don't look terrible) Why not take advantage of the jeans I hate that accent my butt nicely and create something new. One day I decided to turn them into skinny jeans.

This was SO easy! I tried the jeans on and pined them how I wanted them to go down my calves and then took them off and turned them inside out, I then repinned them so i could pull the pins out as I sewed them. I began at the knee and sewed them down towards the ankle tapering it in along the pin line as I went. I then cut off the excess. I did this with both legs and then I tried them on again. Here is the image of the result.

Once I tried them on they were WAY to long for my liking so I did a quick hem on the bottom (probably would have been easier to do first but oh well).

This was not the end of my idea, as I mentioned earlier, I always wanted colored jeans, the last time I went to the store I had picked up a bottle of purple fabric die. After I had my pants the fit that I wanted I filled the kitchen sink with water and poured the bottle of purple die in. In when the pants and I made sure that they were completely covered. I did went the pants before I put them on the die and this help even out the color on the jeans. Also make sure that you rotate the jeans around a time or two during the process. Over all I left them in for about an hour. Here is the end result and I LOVE THEM! can't wait to get this post baby body back into them!

Working Mom

My family mostly will know that I am not a morning person at all. I hate waking up early and it my opinion waking up before 8 am should be a crime. But the fact that I get up at 6am everyday in order to squeeze in an hour of work before the kids wake up gives me energy for the day (don't get me wrong I still don't love it) I can get up and work for - hours, Get breakfast done and out of the way and have everyone dressed and ready for the day by 9:30 AM, and even though I still want to be in bed asleep this makes me feel so accomplished. 

I have always dreamed of being this inspirational writer. A person that can write an article and inspire thousands. When it comes down to it I just cannot get my words out in a way that sounds good. So after conversing through text with my BFF (since 5th grade thank you very much) she has inspired me to get this thing going again and hopefully stick with it.

I am struggling on where to even start as a blogger. There are so many ideas and so little time. 

To begin I just started working again today. My baby is a little of 6 weeks old...so little. I have an amazing job that 4/5 days (if not more than that) I love and I can do it from home in the comfort of my PJ's....I keep waiting for someone to tell me ha ha it was just a joke you don't really get to do this job any more. Still even though I work from home at a job I love it is so hard to return to work. I have to carve out hours of my day to devote to work, time away from my three littles to punch the clock and it is rough. 

I have a routine down that I think works very well for our family. As my husband works in retail and is currently working 60+ hours  week right now due to the sales going on it makes it even harder to return to work. 

Working makes me a better Mom. when I have said this to my friends (be that they work or stay at home) they look at me with a puzzled look..."How does it make you a better Mom?". don't get me wrong I love my kids and I love that I am at home with them all day and I am so grateful that I can do both, work and be at home. My job provides me an outlet to challenge my mind as an adult and solve problems. I have to have a challenge or something to stimulate my brain or else I feel like mush. 

Being a working Mom makes me more organized. I have designated times where I sit at my desk and work, and yes sometimes my kids are watching TV while I do it. The times I am not working are designated for My kids and MY house. Working makes me WAY more focused on my time with my kids and my husband. It makes me excited when the kids are all asleep by 8:30pm (still waiting for it to happen with the new baby) so that I can have time with my husband. It makes me excited to cook dinner and to play play doh with my kids and go for a walk. I even get excited when I clean the bathroom. IT does this because I feel so accomplish in my self and in the fact that I have organized my day in so much that I have done what needs to be done and what I want to do and that I got to be Mom. 

I am not going to lie. I do envy those women that get to stay at home and do not have to work and there are definitely days that I wish that was me. But the bottom line is that it is not and I feel that because of this it has made me a better person .

Drowning in Debt

Today I feel like I need to write about debt. I was talking with a friend and the subject briefly came up about how to get it paid off. I am no finance expert but I feel like my husband and I have come along long way when it comes to learning about money and debt and how to get rid of it. We are a ways a way from being debt free (of coarse we just bought a new Mini van) but when it comes down to it we are a lot better off now than we were over 6 years ago when we first got married.

To set the scene it was a little over 6 years ago that we tied the knot. When we got married we both knew that the other one had debt but we were a little naive at how much it was. Just sitting here thinking about writing my story I added it all up for the very first time. Over $90k in debt! I was 22 and my husband was 28 and none of the debt included a house! We owed money on 3 different cars, a piece of property on the mountain, student loans, credit cards and I am sure that I am missing something from this list. At that time I was working a full time job and my husband  was working a full time job plus a nearly full time 2nd job. We were young and stupid of coarse and had no idea what we were doing. Our first year of marriage we made over $70 between the two of us (which in Utah for newly weds is pretty good) Looking back at that time I couldn't even tell you where all our money went. It was about six month after we got married I did sit down and create budget. About the same time we sat down with someone from a financial MLM company and put all our finances out on the table. Sadly this is the first time we ever heard the word debt stacking. However upon this meeting we learned that we had to get out of debt!

Though we knew we had to get our of debt we had to make a few changes in our life. We were upside down (by like $10k) in a car that didn't start half the time. We really had no choice but to get into something new (more debt) though this sounds like something stupid to do in the midst of our debt crisis I really see it as a turning point in our financial situation. Once we were out of that car we were able to sell another car and pay off one of our credit cards. Once one of the credit cards was paid off we kept paying the same amount on the rest of the CC debt until it was gone. We also began making bigger payments (where we could ) on the rest of our debt. It took us 5 years, two babies, and a house but we finally paid off all the debt we had each brought to the marriage.

Yes, we still have debt. I read articles about people that live debt free, this is a totally amazing way to live and I aspire to do it one day. I think the idea of debt free ultimately scares people away from facing the debt that they already have.

Budget
To get started with any major overwhelming situation of debt sit down and write out all your monthly bills, debt, and living expense and make a budget! See where you are over spending and where you can cut. For example we cut satellite and are now just using Netflix, and Hulu. for years we paid for satellite but once the kids came along we didn't ever have time to watch it. If you like to eat out make a budget for it. Use the budget and once it is gone don't indulge in the eating out anymore. A hard part of my budget is groceries, and I still struggle with it but having one make me conscious of the money I spend at the store and what I spend it on.

Tackling debt
Even if it is only $10 on your CC or your car it is $10 less that you are getting charged interest for that month which will save you in the long run. I have heard so many people say that they feel like they need to pay at least $100 extra a month on their debt for it to matter but ANYTHING helps.

Evaluate your debt and decide what it is most beneficial for you to pay off first. Some say the highest interest debt first, while others say the highest payment first. You have to decide what works for you and make a list of what you want to pay off first. When we were doing this I arranged the filing cabinet with the debts that we wanted to pay off first to last, this help me visualize it.

Once you have one debt paid off take that payment and put in on the next debt (also know as debt stacking). A lot of people will think that they have extra money each money once a debt is paid for. The best thing to do is adjust the payment of the debt you paid off right into the next debt you want to pay off in your budget. That way you never even see the extra amount that you would have. Then once that debt is paid for then you can stack it to the next debt. At the end of our debt stacking we were making payments of $1300 towards our final debt. It seemed huge but we had been paying that much in debt the whole time and we never thought about the extra money we "had". 

Paying cash and planning
Let's be realistic and mention that we all have those sneaking costs that come up that no one plans for or the bigger more costly things that you need to buy. Car repairs, new dishwashers, home improvements are possible while conquering your debt. With us it came down to planning.  If it was an unplanned repair we would create a payment plan so we could pay it off either immediate or with in 1-2 months so it wouldn't add to our debt. We also just bought a dishwasher. We bought it on a store CC and scrimped and saved every penny so we could pay for it when the statement came and not be charged interest.

I think the biggest thing about debt is to take charge and learn from it. If you don't like your financial situation you are in, you are the only one that can change it. Keep in mind that you do not have to work 17 jobs to do it. Once our first kid was born I worked one part time job and my husband worked 1 full time job. We had to use this situation to work for us to get out of debt as it was the situation that was given to us.

Don't give up and keep plugging away. Eventually you will get to a point where you feel comfortable.

Hallowween helicopter

When I asked the boy what he wanted to be for Halloween last year without hesitation he blurted out "A Helicopter" at 2 and a half I am unsure if he knew what I was even asking but it put an end to my wondering and hey how many helicopters do you really see at Halloween?

 

At first I had no idea how I was going to go about this helicopter costume I had committed to make. Then it hit me that I had a Kohl's box out in my garage. I grabbed it and cut of the flaps from the top and bottom. From there I cut slits in what I decided would be the back of the helicopter. I used the flaps and freehanded a helicopter tail. I slid it through the slit that I had cut in the body of the helicopter and gave it a good taping. I was pretty impressed how it turned out on the first try.

 

I went with red for the color (cause that is what I had on hand). I had to send a pic to the hubs to pic up another bottle on his way home from work so I could finish the body work.

 

After much spray paint, some yellow acrylic paint for the numbers on the side and some brown paint to make some windows it was almost ready. I had some left over fabric that I cut into strips long enough to go over the boys shoulders. I stapled them to the cardboard, crossing them in the middle. I used winged do dads to attach some propellers to the tail.

 

For the hat I got a red beanie from the dollar store. I used another doodad to attach the propellers to the hat.

Can I just say that this was probably the cheapest costume ever, with the cost for the spray paint, beanie, and dodads it was a whopping $6.00! I got so many compliments on it at the neighborhood trunk or treat and my little boy had a blast wearing it!

Floating shelves

I wish I would have taken a before photo, you can see some of the pics our big and bulky entertainment center. Our living room is fairly small and it's all we got until our basement is finished. New Years day I was itching for a project, so the two seemed to go hand in hand. I had in mind that I wanted to do floating shelve for awhile.

 

To begin we started by deciding on a size and building frames for the shelves to sit on. The length of our shelves are 4' by 1'. We used  two by fours with four feet across the back and 12" pieces on each end and two in the middle. Screwing it all together was tough! Once we had the frames put together we nailed them to the wall (checking to make sure we nailed it right into the studs).

After the frames were nailed to the wall (and one long trip to Home Depot) we got all the finished wood together to finish the project. We decided to go with white finished white board to match the baseboards and doors in our house. Upon measuring for the side boards we failed to measure for the width of the board and so there was a gap on the corners. We got corner pieces and glued them on. Which actually made me love them more!

Here is the finish project with it all decorated. I was so excited to have so much room in our living room! It opened it up so much!

Here is the final pic with the TV mounted (The hubs payment for helping me) There is so much more and I am still in love!

Making it happen

Hello,

Welcome to my new blog! I have been contemplating doing this blog for months now. My ultimate dream is to be able to stay at home while making a living doing what I love. I know that this cannot be done by playing with my kids or eating all day (while it would be wonderful!) By starting a blog I hope to share my ideas and love for baking, crafting, cooking, and being a handy man with others to help inspire.

I love Pinterest! It is safe to say that I am addicted to pinning. Through this blog I hope to share things that I have pinned and tried and tested. Pins that are great, pins that are not so great and new twists on pins.

I hope to receive great feedback as well as ideas and suggestions to be tried!

Thanks for reading!!

Paige