Washi Tape Printable Gallery Wall

We’ve been living in the new house for just about six months now, and I have done very little ‘settling in.’ Nothing’s really decorated, and for the most part I’m pretty much okay with that. I hung posters on the wall in the kids’ room, we have kiddo drawings all over the walls in the office, and we hung curtains in the living room, but that’s really it so far.

The floor plan of the main floor has the living room, dining area and kitchen all really open as soon as you walk in the front door. There is one wall in the dining area that was just begging for some love. Since funds were limited (aren’t they always?) I wanted to get creative and come up with something simple and pretty but inexpensive. 

Enter the giant frame. I found a 30x40” frame on a Facebook exchange group for $5! I love the look of gallery walls, but picking up a bunch of frames can get pricey, so I decided it was time to jump on the washi tape bandwagon. I didn’t see any I loved at Hobby Lobby, but Walmart actually came through for me!

I hopped on my Printables board on Pinterest and selected a few of my {free} favorites. From there it was just a matter of printing them out and figuring out the best layout. Well, that and convincing Mr. Bug to hang the frame for me that night after work.  : ) He was a really great sport to do it for me on only four hours of sleep. Husband for the win‼

 

You can find all of these on my Pinterest board (and some other really cute ones) but I’ll link them all up at the end of the post, too. The whole project cost me less than $10 for the frame and the washi tape, and that’s even adding in a couple bucks for cardstock and printer ink. Not bad, huh?
Now I sit there in the morning to drink my coffee/try to get the girls to eat their breakfast and look at my lovely wall and smile. 

Find Joy in the Journey
C.S. Lewis Quote
Feathers
Love the Lord your God - from The Handmade Home
Bowls
Oh, Hello Hexagons
Pray More, Worry Less
Julia Child Quote - This one is Eden's favorite : ) She thinks it's hilarious!
Be Kind - this is our family motto. If the kids are struggling in their playtime together I just ask them what our sign says and they know just what I mean.  

*The 'Be Brave, Little One' and the Bible verse are just ones that I put together in PicMonkey. I'm putting them in the post so you can use them if you'd like. Let me know if you do! And I can't remember where I found the sideways one in the middle. Sorry!*

   

Teaching Our Little 'Man'

My husband is kind of okay : ) I’m very grateful for the husband and daddy that he is, and I’m so glad that Judah Bear has such a good guy to show him what it means to really be a man.

One of the things that makes my teeny tiny heart melt is the way Mr. Bug is teaching our son how to treat women. He’s teaching him to hold the door for his big sisters and his mama, so every time he props the screen door open with his little rear he says, “Here you go, yadies.” He’s showing him how to be a gentleman and help his sisters on with their coats when we’re out. And then my sweet husband holds mine for me. Almost every time we go somewhere as a family, Landon will pull up to the curb to drop off the girls and I, and remind Judah that it’s good manners to drop ladies off before you go find a parking spot. 

We’re not teaching Judah—or the girls, for that matter—that women are helpless or that we need a man to do everything for us. Since Landon is gone so much for work my kiddos know that I’m perfectly capable of doing things for our little family. We’re just hoping to teach them what it means to respect and honor, even when we don’t feel like it or it seems inconvenient.

I feel incredibly blessed. I’m hoping that Judah will watch his daddy through the years and learn from him. Sure, there are things that my hubby needs to work on. He’s human. But he’s bound and determined to teach his son what it means to be a real man. And I love him for it.

Yearning for a Pretty Soap Pump

This post is not going to be relatable for some people. Sometimes even I can’t get my head around my weirdness, but here goes nothing. 

I’m a total cheapskate. Like, seriously. It’s ridiculous. I will buy the cheapest option of most things and not even think twice. There are some exceptions to this, but for the most part it’s true. 

I have been crushing on this soap dispenser for about two years. You think I’m kidding, don’t you? I’m so not. Believe me, I wish I were. But I couldn’t bring myself to spend $9.99 on a soap dispenser. Not when I could get a throw-away pump of soap for $.97 that came with soap in it. I would literally walk by the soap pump almost every time I went to Target thinking ‘This is silly! I’m just going to buy the dang soap pump!’ But I could never bring myself to do it. It just felt too frivolous.

I thought I could settle for something a little cheaper but still pretty like this, so I went for it. It was pretty, the soap that came with it smelled yummy, and it was less than $4. Can’t beat it, right? Well the problem is this: a tall plastic soap dispenser tips over reeeeeally easily. Especially when you have three kiddos 'washing' their hands multiple times a day. So this poor thing spent the majority of its little life flat on its back on the bathroom counter. 

But I was willing to work with it! I even refilled it with some equally yummy-smelling Method soap a few times. All the while, my beautifully simple glass soap pump beckoned to me from the shelf.

That all ended yesterday. Passing through Target while picking up a baby gift for a friend I saw this little beauty. She was on clearance for $5.58, she was pretty glass, and she was already filled with soap! After a quick check to make sure I’d be able to remove the label, that baby was in my cart and I was sprinting for the checkout. I may or may not have embarrassed my children by shaking my behind in a little victory dance. 

Now she’s sitting in my bathroom and she’s so happy to be there. I even discovered when I was removing the label that she even has a little rubber ring on the bottom to keep her from sliding around! It’s like we were made for each other. 

The moral of the story? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not certain it’s healthy to long for a $10 soap pump for two years, but I’m so excited to finally have a simple and pretty soap pump in my bathroom. And I like to think that I’ll appreciate her all the more because of the wait. : )

#KidsAreWeird

Popping in with what may become a repeat post. My kids are strange. Your kids (if you have any) are also strange. Let’s go with that.

 Eden starts out the school week pretty well usually as far as getting up on time. I’ll wake them up at about 7:00 so we can all be out the door by 8:10(ish). When we get to Thursday morning though it’s like pulling teeth to get her out of bed by 7:30, and Friday morning is just a crazy mess of tears and cereal bars. Here’s the kicker: every.single.Saturday.morning, this freaking kid is up by 6:45 at the latest. What gives??

Judah really likes to ‘clink’ his cup with his dining companions from time to time. The procedure goes like this.

Judah: Mommy, will you cwink wif me?

Me: Sure, Buddy. Let’s clink.

*cups clink together*

Judah & Me: And then we drink!

Judah: No, Mommy! I say that!

Me: Oh! Sorry, Bud. You can say it.

Judah: And den we dwink! *Big Smile*

Adaleine loves Francine the KitchenAid. I will often walk into the kitchen to find her making faces at herself in the reflection off the mixing bowl. She always giggles and goes off and does something else, but I will usually find her right back in the same place within an hour or so. I’ll take cheap entertainment for $200 please, Alex.

Being Their 'Mommy' For Now

“Mommy? Can you please help me get this dress on Ariel? I can’t get it,” said my little six-and-a-half-year-old girl. She’s not unhappy, she’s not whining, not frustrated. She just needs a little bit of my help with this darn doll dress. And she called me ‘Mommy.’

Eden is getting bigger every second it seems. She doesn’t need me to read to her anymore, she can bathe herself, dress herself, brush her own hair. She can come up with some rad beyond belief outfits that are way cooler than anything I could pull off. She is doing awesome in swim lessons and I’m being completely sincere when I say she’s a much better swimmer than I am. She is halfway through first grade and she’s absolutely thriving. I love it.

But there are little flashes every once in a while where she still needs her mommy. She can’t quite get her doll dressed. She isn’t totally sure which loop goes where on her shoelaces. She can’t quite figure out the right peanut butter to jelly ratio. And then she calls for me. Because when you just can’t quite get it, you want your mommy.

I want my girls to be strong. Independent. Capable. I want them to be able to take care of themselves because sometimes that’s just what you have to do. But I also want them to know that I will always be their mommy. The person they can call when they just need a little help. I love being there for them now, and I can’t wait to hear their voices on the other end of the line when they get older. “Mom, how long do I boil chicken?” “Mom, what do I do in this situation?” “Mom, I’m so tired and this baby won’t stop crying!” I want to be that call. 

So I will answer their ‘mommy’ calls now. Because in just a few years, I want them to know they can ‘just call Mom.’