This week someone turned 40!

This week we celebrated my dear husband's 40th birthday!  I love my Silver Fox.  So happy we are deciding to continue "consciously coupling" together.

My errand buddy and I procuring black balloons for the at home celebration

  I was feeling just terrible that I didn't plan something outrageous.  I mean, 40 is a MILESTONE birthday to be celebrated!  We had a nice meal at home with cake, card, and balloons and a few decorations.  Just the Hubs and I are going to Vegas next month and I have a BIG surprise for him - that of course he already found out about.  I can't get this guy anything!!!!!  

The DQ Ice Cream Cake - his favorite -- and two little nuts that couldn't keep their fingers out of the cake.   You can tell Morgan juuuuust got scolded, ha!  And Joey loves to cheese for the camera now?

Do you Timehop?  I'm addicted.

TWO years ago today:

Pebbles and Belly Rides

 THREE years ago today:

Hanging out in the NICU shortly before she got to come home

I can't even get over how little Morgan was!

And here is what the depressing weather is doing at the end of March in Kentucky.  Unacceptable.  Please Spring, come SOON.

Grandpa Don Visits from MN

This past weekend my Dad flew in for a visit from Minnesota.  The kids (and us too) loved having him around.

Joey started out calling him "Grattadon!  Grattadon!" but eventually got the hang of it.  He'll do that, say something over and over and over again until he gets it right.  Smart cookie that one.  He'd say "Hey Grandpa Don?" and then have nothing to say when my Dad would ask "What Joey?" haha!

We didn't do anything majorly exciting, but just hung out.  And ate A LOT.  He's always so good about helping us with projects around the house (like picking out the proper extension attachments for our shop vac so my husband can go nuts on the ladybugs) and other things.

On Saturday we invited my Aunt Mary Jane to come down (my dad's sister).  She lives up about an hour outside of Columbus.  I was so busy throwing food together and talking, that I forgot to take any photos!  It was so nice to see her though.  She lost her husband in November and I've been thinking about her every day.  

I was surprised, but proud, that my kids warmed right up to Grandpa Don.  Even though they don't see him more than a couple times a year, they remember him and love on him.

I hate that this is so blurry.  Operator error.

We celebrated his birthday early with his favorite cake:  Chocolate with mint frosting.  My mom always used to bake him this cake when I was growing up and since she passed away I don't think he's had it.  I was determined to get it right and kept sending him texts with questions like "Is there mint in the batter, the frosting, or both?"  and "How green should the frosting be?"  I so wished my mom was still with us so I could ask her these things (along with a million other things on a daily basis, of course.)  I baked 2 practice cakes before baking the real deal.  It turned out great -- and I can't really brag because it was box cake and tub frosting and some Creme de Menthe flavoring, so...nearly impossible to screw THAT up, right?

It went by way too fast.  Always does.  Until next time, Grandpa Don!

House Update: Foyer

Last week, the last treasures of my online orderings came in and I was able to put together my foyer.  I had looked at a few  pins on Pinterest to determine what I wanted (along with some suggestions from a designer, my girl Karen).

It's not 100% finished, I feel like the bottom shelf needs some stuff...maybe a basket and some books?

And I can do without the 1 billion ladybugs that accumulate on a daily basis.  It has turned my husband into a shop-vaccing maniac.  (Actually I have my father and his recent visit to blame for that new little hobby, lol!)

Here is the before:

  And here is the after:

Another shot that includes the new jute rug:

I also recently swapped out my great room rug.  That West Elm Souk Rug?  Was. The. Worst.  Fortunately, it was SO bad, we got our money back.  It shed beyond anything reasonable.  Everytime you walked on it, you had a wool ball in your throat.  The fuzz covered everything in the house, despite repeated vacuuming.  I finally settled on one from PB and so far love it.  It sheds some, as expected, but is manageable and isn't gross to sit/lay on.

I'm halted from any further decorating because we are in the beginning stages of deciding what to do with the mountain in our back yard.  We've had 5 different excavators out here and most of them just scratch their heads.  However, I think we found the right guy - a landscape architect designer - who is going to hook us up and steer us in the right direction.  He came on Saturday and hopefully someone will be digging in my backyard before too long!

This picture makes the elevation impossible to appreciate, but that hill behind Morgan just goes up and up and up.  My Dad walked it when he came this past weekend and it was no time at all before he wasn't even visible.

Good thing we have beautiful sidewalk chalk art to look at because that hill?  Is ugly.

Our Master Bedroom is pretty much finished (I think?) and I'll be sharing that soon.  I'm loving getting the house together and making it ours.  I really want to get the majority of it finished before it gets really nice out because I know the kids will want to be outside 24/7 (they already do!)  Last week I took them to a park that I had been hyping up all day..."A new park!".  It was my bribe for everything that day.  Imagine the trauma when we got there and there were NO SWINGS on the swing set.  Gah!  Poor kids.  They had to settle for driveway roaming again (their favorite).

GAP F&F

My heart skipped a minibeat when I got the Gap Friends & Family email today in my ever-overflowing inbox.  I was waiting for this event to pounce on some white skinnies and pounce I did!  Along with some other essentials of course.  You can never have too many t-shirts and tank tops, right?  

While browsing, I did a virtual pop-over to Banana Republic just for a little lookey-loo.  Turns out there's really no place in my life for Banana right now...I don't need to dress up, like...oh...ever?  Anyway, I stumbled across this image on their website and DIED laughing:

What...you and your model husband don't curl up with your toddler all decked out in your coordinating neutrals WHILE YOU'RE WEARING HEELS in your bed?  Pssh.  We totally do.  Every weekend.

This post will be short & sweet because the kids are napping and I'm not feeling 100%, so a nap is happening for me today too.  But the kids need easy slip-on waterproof shoes for the spring/summer.  Is Crocs all there is?  Anyone have any good recommendations?  I'm all about "Fostering Independence" these days in my house and the more they can do for themselves = the better.  The end.

Toddlers, Rugs, and Ombre

I had a thought the other day:  You rarely (never?) see a home tour post from a mom with two or more toddlers at home.

There's a reason why...

Gosh they're getting so big.  And they picked their own clothes in case you were wondering.  Actually Joey wanted to try out his Easter tie that was a Zulily find.  

They've been testing my sanity lately, every hour.  They both think it's hilarious to run away from me whenever I need to change them, or do anything (wipe noses/faces/comb hair/etc.)  I don't always share in their sense of humor.  We are all recovering from nasty colds and they both had viral pink eye last weekend/early this week - yuck.

Thankfully it was 70 degrees here yesterday and we got outside for hours and hours.  All that warm fresh air was so wonderful!  Today, however, it's in the 30's and raining/sleeting/windy so....let's just dwell on yesterday's warmth, shall we?

They love to run off and explore but we have to be careful because there are some really steep drop offs on our property.

 Since Morgan was sick the other day, I took her with me to get my oil changed.  We took selfies in the waiting room, before wandering over to the show room and checking out some new rides.

 And I went kinda-sorta Ombre!  If you follow me on Instagram, I posted one of these.  It's more balayage I guess, but I am really liking it.  The bleach blonde I had was washing me out  and I was over it.

I'm trying to continue putting our house together.  My latest mission is rugs.  Jute rugs to be specific.  Fringe or no fringe?  These are the serious issues keeping me awake at night.  OK, not really.  We have a lot of hardwood throughout the main floor and they are taking a beating.  I hate paying full price so I haven't committed to anything just yet.

We've also made some progress hanging artwork that we've been hanging on to forever for when we "get a house".  Well, it's time!  As much as I love the trendy stuff, I gotta keep my husband happy and we agreed to try to mainly hang stuff that has meaning to us and is hand made.  So in other words, no store-bought, mass-produced junk.  It's been fun going through our stash of paintings from our travels.  Every time we've traveled we always try to pick up something along the way. I'm always the un-fun one saying "we don't need more junk at home!" and he's always the one saying "but this is really unique!  We should get it!"  Glad I listen to him once in a while ;-)