Our family room

I've come to the conclusion that I can't buy things for my house without having a specific plan of what I want to do with it. Mind you, this is in regards to decorating only.

This can be a good thing, I don't spend money on things I don't know what to do with. Hopefully I'll have a purpose for the stuff I do buy. At the same time, it seems to take me a long time to atually come up with a plan, so my house looks kinda blah.

Take my family room for instance. All we've had in there since we moved in were our couches, a glass table that belongs to my mother-in-law, (and I don't love glass tables), a bookcase, and our armoire for the TV. Plus, my fireplace mantel was kinda sad looking.

Just not very inspiring, although Kevin did splurge on that mirror for christmas, so we'd have something pretty up there. I just didn't know exactly what to dowwith it all, plus I wanted to keep it cheap.

I love thrift stores, and tjmaxx. You can find some great stuff at a GREAT price! I started collecting a few things and this past week got to work putting it all together, and I kinda love it!


basicaly everything on that mantel is under $5. Except the platter and the candle holders, that don't hold candles.:) i just need to get a vinyl 'W' to put on the plate, and some pictures for the frames by the mirror. Those white pitchers were really gaudy looking cheap ones I got at thrift stores, then just spray painted white, you'd never know to look at them. The topiaries and the wreath were made by yours truly, and that was pretty much all there was to it.

Then it was time to get rid of the glass table. We're moving furniture around upstairs anyway because of the baby, so I moved this dresser down from the guest room. It was black, with all the drawers, but no drawer pulls. I thought it would look better cream, and with some baskets in it instead. I still need to make a burlap table runner to go on top, but otherwise, love it!

Last, it was time to finally finish that coffee table that we got before christmas. I've painted lots of things, but had never stripped paint before, so I was a little worried about how it would turn out. It took quite awhile to get it all off, but it was well worth the effort.

Now it just needed paint and stain!

We LOVE this coffee table. It's cozy, the girls can do no harm to it, considering how distressed it looks on top, and it was only $50 on craigslist. It's amazing what a little elbow grease can do!

Lest you think I came up with the mantel display on my own, here is the picture that inspired me. Check out Layla's blog, the lettered cottage, for tons of great ideas. She has AMAZING taste, and they're remodeling their house on the cheap. I love her style!

So, there are still a few things that I need to do, and curtains will eventually make a HUGE impact in this big two story room, but for now, it's finally feeling a little more homey, and I love it!

Look-a-like

When my mom was a baby, she had some photographs taken of her that are absolutely gorgeous. They were taken when she was under 1, but the more I look at them, the more they remind me of someone else I know.

Mom, or "Grandma Shauna" as my girls call her.

I tried to repliate the photos, I got close, but someone is a little older, and didn't love sitting still having her picture taken. These two look so very much alike, although I will say that as I look at the picture of my mom, Halli has those exact lips. The other two girls haven't had lips quite as full as that.

Our little Lexie, or a grandma look-a-like.

It's so interesting when you can see the grandparents in your children more strongly than you can see yourself. Most people say Lexie looks like Kevin, so I may have to dig up some bab pictures of him and see just how similar these two are as babies too.

When did this happen?

Today I was wanting to play with my camera, because really, it's kinda fun.:) Lucky for me, Halli actually decided that she wanted to be my subject. I know I'm seriously biased, but really, she is one beautiful little girl.

But here's the thing, after editing the pictures, I have no idea when she grew up this much! She seems so much older in these pictures. She doesn't seem like the 6 year old that she is. I know, she's almost 7, but she is still a 6 year old girl. But somehow these pictures are giving me glimpses into what might be our preteen/teenage daughter, scary!

I am so in love with this little girl! If you know how, feel free to tell me how I can keep her as my little girl longer, I feel like it's just going by WAY too fast!

A very Happy Birthday in Hawaii!

Sometimes, you just need a little getaway. Kevin and I both turned 30 last weekend, I'm older by a day, :) We're expecting baby #4 in 3 months, and we got an amazing deal, so what other reasons do you need to just take off?

Especially when you get to go somewhere like this...

We did some hiking, up diamondhead. It wasn't too hard, but I'll admit, it would have been alot easier had I not been 6 months pregnant. You'll forgive me for the lack of pictures of myself. I write the blog, so I get to decide which pictures make it on. :)

Kevin looking handsome at the top. I took only one lens with me to the top...and it was the wrong one, dang it. So no good pictures with us and the background, it was really one or the other.
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But it was a pretty impressive backdrop.

See, this was the best I could get, But it was beautiful up there, looking down at Waikiki and the ocean.

Notice all the little dots of people in the ocean. Waikiki beach is pretty busy.

We got to enjoy some seriously beautiful plants. I loved it! Yes, the beach screams Hawaii, but these flowers do too!

We went to a Luau, cause you can't go to Hawaii and not go to a Luau. They had some areas set up to get tattoos, make a headband with palm leaves, and to try to make fire, so we had to give it a shot. I got smoke, then got tired from working so hard.

Kevin wasn't going to do it, but then once I did he had to show me up:)

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Guess what? He did! He didn't get fire, but he got alot of smoke before he decided that he was done.

Then we had a delicious dinner, I could have just eaten the fresh pineapple and been happy, SO GOOD! It did give me heartburn though, dang pregnancy!:)

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The Chief for the Luau was hilarious, and made for a very entertaining night.

The dancers were awesome as well.

My favorite happens to be the fire dancers though. They can do some amazing stuff!

Oh, there I am...after we made our palm leaf headdresses.

We decided to go whale watching. This is the boat we got to ride on, we also had traditional Luau food for lunch here too, loved it!

Here's some more of that beautiful Hawaii scenery.

This was in the water by the pier, before we even got on the boat. I couldn't believe just how clear it was! The water was really calm, so I was able to get this shot from above the water, and it looks like I'm using a waterproof camera!

Kevin with Waikiki behind him. We didn't stay in Waikiki, but we were down there quite a bit.

A view of Diamondhead from the boat. See the highest point there? We were there just a couple days before this!

We were very excited to get to see some Humpback whales while we were out there. Well, we saw their dorsal fins and their tails, but it's still pretty cool.

After we got off the boat, we met up with some friends of ours from the parkway ward, the Nordgrans. He is in the Navy and is stationed at Pearl Harbor, so they gave us a behind the scenes tour, I didn't have my camera that day, and they took us out to dinner at this amazing restaurant on the east shore. Great food, and an amazing setting.

It was all open air, so this was our view for the whole dinner, it was wonderful!

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A huge thanks to the Nordgrans for taking time out of their week to hang out with us, and show us some areas that we never would have found on our own. It was like we had our own tour guides who were tons of fun too!

We went on a hike one day to Waimea falls.

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There were beautiful gardens to walk through, and this was the prize at the end. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, it was freezing water, so we didn't get in, but we could have had we wanted to.

Isn't that breathtaking?

After that, Kevin's mission was to find some good boogy boarding. We found a great beach right outside of Waimea falls. The waves were a little big, and Kevin got a little beat up, but I think it was worth it.

Later that week, we headed out to do something I've never done before, we went on a submarine. We got to see it surface, and there were tons of portholes to see out of. It was scuba diving, while staying dry.

We saw TONS of cool fish, a couple sting rays, and a turtle. See it there, right in the middle?

Some of the very cool fish.

Then we got to spend our evenings here...right on the beach at our resort, watching the sunset.

It was beautiful, relaxing, and amazing! We owe a HUGE thanks to my sister-in-law Jill for watching the girls all week. I hear it all went pretty well, but three kids, on top of her little 7 month old, that'll wear anyone out after a week. Thanks Jill, the girls adore you, and so do I!

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What better way to ring in a new decade, right? Although if you ask, I may still say I'm 29, I don't feel like a 30 year old just yet.

The {N} kids

While I'm busy editing the hundreds of photos I took while we were in Hawaii, (it was a blast by the way) here's a sneek peek at a photoshoot I did just before we left. Three adorable little kids, at a beautiful location. Check out a few more of the photos here. Hopefully I'll be able to post some of our trip tomorrow.