Home Sweet Home

Someone walked in my house the other day and asked where I got all my cute artwork from and then I started realizing how much of my prints actually do come from Alexa Z Design. Her bright personality shines through in her art and that's exactly what I want filling my home (especially to offset my horrible tan walls). Above, she designed the Home Sweet home print and did the watercolor print of the Bountiful, UT temple! My friend, Corina, also did that cool watercolor painting of me and Devin on our wedding day.

It's been a while since I did any kind of home tour, so here are some more things that have made our house feel more like a home:




After taking the first photo I picked up this black frame at IKEA and think it matches the print a little better, what do you think? Either way, seeing this quote every morning as I come into the kitchen is exactly what I need to start my day off right! And I used her brilliant quote transfer tutorial last year to burn that cute Happy Harvest onto a piece of wood. Fall is my favorite season to decorate for!



I love having designated areas of play for my kids - not only does it help rooms stay tidier but it also gives them ownership over a special little place in the house. This under-the-stairs space was a big selling point for this house to me and Alexa's "play more" print was the perfect piece to focus the main role that it plays for us! I mounted it on an 8x10 art canvas vs framing it to make it stand out a little more.

And bringing that pallet-turned-bookshelf downstairs into this new little reading corner was the best decision ever. We've just discovered Usborne books at our house which has revamped Ava's love to "read" and browse books and our TV time has naturally gotten cut in half! I got rid of tons of books that neither of us even liked very much and replaced with some really great ones that she can often sit down and be entertained by without any assistance.



I've always loved having Ava's room be the most colorful room in the house and I've slowly been adding to it. When Alexa came out with these darling prints of "Have courage and be kind" I knew we had to have it. Ava just barely missed the huge Frozen obsession and has really gotten into Cinderella (which I'm totally okay with!) and I just can't help but hope for this to be a lifelong motto for her.

As you can see below and in a previous picture of our dining room above, I got into some stenciling as an attempt to brighten up our horrible tan walls. I plan on getting a tutorial up for that soon...in the meantime go check out Alexa's darling etsy shop and give her some love!

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Bringing Home Baby

This experience of having a baby has been so entirely different than when we had Ava. The biggest difference being that we got to leave the hospital just over 24 hrs after having him, opposed to 6 days later and staying at the hospital that whole time.  I've also recovered extremely well and faster than I imagined - being able to walk around tin the evening of the day I had him.

I'm also bringing a baby home to another child who isn't far from baby herself!  That transition has also been smoother than expected but that is also HUGE thanks to Devin's mom who has been here to give Ava lots of attention and taking her out of the house to do fun things  (and much more).  However, I still feel this overwhelming sense of needing to show Ava my love  more than ever.  I felt during this pregnancy that my patience with her had gone downhill so fast and only expected it to get worse with a new baby added to the mix. But when we came home with Owen I felt this overwhelming sense of love and need and desire to be patient with her, knowing that  patience might be all it takes for her to feel loved right now while sharing my time. She has been especially sensitive to anyone wanting to try and take her away from me, so I'm trying to let her be with me and the baby at the same time as much as possible so she knows it's not one or the other.

I knew Ava would be sweet with Owen because of how much she has shown a LOVE for babies in the last little while. But I didn't realize HOW sweet and careful she really could be.  It doesn't freak me out to have her near him, she just gets really close to him and either gives kisses or strokes his head or touches and labels body parts that she knows, and she seems to understand that eyes are off limits.  Every time she comes home from doing anything she immediately asks to know where the baby is, for now I think she wants to make sure he's staying in our family :)

 

 This pic was taken after our second night home.  He stayed swaddled all night and only woke up twice to eat, it was great!

Owen took a binky on the first day as well as latched on and has been nursing really well. Both of these things have made night time pretty good with him, as long as he is swaddled - he is so good at sneaking his little hands out and waking himself up!  The hard part has been trying to get to him in time before Ava wakes up to his cries. So far she only slept through the night once since he's been home-but she was waking up at least once in the night before we had him too - that's been a difficult thing to figure out.  We're going to try another night of him sleeping in the crib in his room and if it's problematic with Ava again then we'll prob nice him to a pack and play in our bathroom or something.  As far as my sleeping goes, having Devin's mom here has been great because she'll get up with Ava and take her for a walk or to the nearby playground while I sleep in because Owen usually sleeps until after 9 and that has helped me SO much., at least during this first week while my body is still repairing and recovering.

Owen at 3 days old and Owen at 6 days old

 We took our first outing last night as a family to The Village to watch the fountain light show, let Ava run around, enjoy the BEAUTIFUL weather and got some frozen yogurt. We just kept Owen covered up and he slept the whole time. I'm interested to see how we do this weekend with Devin's mom gone - she's probably wondering how we're going to do it because she's been doing so much! Haha she's been cooking and cleaning and doing laundry and playing and shopping and listening and all that we could ask for! We're so very grateful.
  I'm excited to have my mom come next week too when I'll hopefully be feeling even better, she hasn't seen our house and hasn't seen Ava since she was just one!

 Owen really has been a very mellow baby and we  just love watching him change a little but every day!

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Playing With Ava

I snapped these pics for no other reason than the lighting was good, we had bubbles, and her eyes looked especially blue that day :) 

And here is one from the playground that we ride our bike to every morning.  She has started bringing this little baby with her everywhere and loves to send it down the slide in front of her.
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Everything's a Growing!

My pictures are horribly edited but I've been wanting to do a post on our garden and plants for a while now and just need to do it!




We planted everything from seed, which explains why we had to replant some things last week because some things just didn't grow (or the dang birds came and ate the seeds!).  While weeding we dug out the row of carrots and peas and replanted all of them so it's funny to have big bean plants that have been growing for a while now and little peas sprouting next to them.

We also replanted corn because out of the 16 we originally planted, only ONE grew. You'll notice two of the tomato plants are quite a bit bigger than the others also, those ones I started indoors in March or something. Replanted our basil and jalapeno and our red potatoes never grew either so we might just leave that space for the squash to take over.

Raspberries!

This raspberry bush happened to be here when we moved in.  We haven't done a single thing to it - no water or pruning or anything, so I didn't expect to see any berries this year.  When Ava and I went out yesterday there were some even ready to pick! Ava was pretty disappointed that there weren't more than 5 to eat though haha Pin It

Backyard

There is a lot of yardwork in our future, mainly because the previous owners did ZERO.  So we've (Devin) been spending Saturdays analyzing the yard and doing some small things now before we have our work cut out for us this spring/summer. 

 It's a nice size yard though which has been so fun for Ava to explore and we have so many windows looking out to the backyard that I can even let Ava dig around in the dirt while I...do the dishes! Yes, I let her play outside by herself yesterday for about 10 min and she didn't care where I was as long as she had some dirt and a spoon, or a stick, or a ball. 

 

These pictures were actually from Saturday when Devin raked up and got rid of all the leaves. She was trying to be a big helper :) We've had 50 degree weather the past 3 days - in FEBRUARY! We've already been on lots of bike rides and walks around the neighborhood. Can't wait for Spring! Pin It

Home: Part I - Downstairs

If I have your address, there is a moving announcement coming your way and I've been getting asked for pictures of the house! These were taken within the last month so there have been a couple additions/updates here and there.  It's also been pretty cloudy/rainy/snowy this whole month, so this was pretty much the only day with optimal lighting.

KITCHEN/DINING AREA

 Curtains from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, table from Costco

FAMILY/LIVING ROOM

 

TV stand from RC Willey 

FRONT ROOM

These are all the main parts of the downstairs.  I'll do a separate post on some of the miscellaneous things downstairs like the laundry room, half bath, walk in pantry in the kitchen, and "closet" room that is under the stairs where Ava's toys are (right by the kitchen so she can play while I cook dinner, I love it!).


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