twenty-six.

It was my birthday last Thursday and this is how I celebrated it: 

Wednesday: Earlier that afternoon, I went out with my mother-in-law and sis-in-law for some afternoon appetizers and desserts at a quaint little restaurant, Zzest, as a little early celebration. That night, my sweet hubby took me out for a Valentine/birthday date to a fun restaurant in town, The Loop. 

The next morning, I attempted to make heart shaped pancakes for my loves. 

Little one sat on his potty with a sucker for a bit right after breakfast. Real life right here.

Ready for the day photo.

My sweet little valentine/date for the day!

We spent the morning at the mall...and had to get a little valentine treat at the candy store. 

Lunch at the mall.

Playing with "choo-choos" at Barnes and Noble 

 I got to spend the night of my birthday at Bible study with my friends and they made it so special for me. There was a cake, flowers (thanks Hannah!) and they all sang to me. They are so sweet! :) 

My little sweetie

The next night, my family came to see me and take me out for my birthday. We visited one of my favorites, the Redwood Room, which is a small, dark basement restaurant with lots of character and live music. We were seated close to where the musician was singing and Brecken would clap and yell "YAY" after each song. I think the singer liked all the attention. 

 Birthday dessert

And what birthday would be complete without a Scratch cupcake from my hometown? Wow. I never get sick of these!

All in all, it was a great birthday! I always love the extra attention of my birthday and all the extra love, calls, and texts it brings. I am one blessed girl. <3 p="">

Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day from our little heart breaker:

Feb 14

I kinda think that Valentine's Day is an overrated "holiday." Maybe it's partly because it's my birthday and I hate trying to find a place to go out to eat on my birthday.  :)

Well, this is another way to think of valentine's day and the real meaning of love. This gives a whole new meaning to valentine.

(I did not come up with this.. I found it on pinterest... I don't want to take credit for being this creative, I just wanted to share this cool idea of seeing the word valentine in the verse John 3:16 and what I did on my chalk wall.)

18 Months

I look at Brecken and wonder where the time has gone. I really can't believe he is 18 months! A year and a half old? Time really goes do fast. I think I say that every month - but it's so true! 

Learning to do: I was such a proud momma last night! We bought Brecken a little potty since he told me "poop" one day and within 15 minutes had gone. Why not buy the potty and have it if he tells me that again? So last night he pulled down his pants and acted as though he wanted to sit on the potty. Within ten minutes he had gone potty for the first time in his little potty! You would have thought he made the winning basket with the celebration we gave him!

 I'm not going for hard core potty training yet, but I think it is good to familiarize him with the potty so maybe it will make potty training easier later. 

Loves: Elmo, Elmo, Elmo. Oh, the kid is obsessed with Elmo. He will grab the remote all the time and tell me Elmo. He really like sports and it mesmerized by football or hockey - but only for a few minutes and then he is onto the next thing.

Words: He is coming up with new words all the time - it's hard to remember all them. He loves sports and knows his sports balls - basketball, soccer ball, baseball, football and hockey. He says mommy ALL THE TIME. I love it.  He says Yea and will answer questions with yea or no. 

February

I posted about my yearly goals awhile ago, but in order to keep my yearly goals, I am trying to downsize them into monthly goals so I don't get overwhelmed in November.

Here are my February goals:

1. Make dentist appointment 
2. Go on four one-on-one dates with Brecken and four dates with Todd: two in, two out
3. House: Hallways and Family Room painted and art/pictures up. Work on painting the trim in these areas as well.
4. Organizing: clean out "junk" room. There is a room in the house unused and stores all the things I don't have a place for yet.
5. Stick to a cleaning plan this month
6. Write 2 encouraging notes
7. Blog three times a week
8. Work out three times per week
9. Start class at church. My church is offering a class to discover my spiritual gifts and what I am passionate about and this lines up with my goal to write a purpose statement and discover my gifts/talents.
10. Make 7 freezer meals and start a list of meals I know how to make
11. Finish Bible by birthday - I started reading the Bible last birthday and I have a few books left til I read it all in a year. 
12. Organize the photos cds I have, and clean up photos on phone and computer
13. Finish Happy Moms book and 2 Karen Kingsbury Books
14. Plan a fantastic event for work. I am working on a HUGE fundraising carnival for the preschool I work for and this is big focus for the month. This is my added goal for the month! 

Chalk Wall

So, the other day I talked about this boring wall that is part of our eat-in kitchen area. I talked about how we did a magnet wall and how I wasn't sold on the magnet paint. There was another plan for this wall. Not only did I want it to be magnetic, but also wanted it to be a chalk wall. 

I had used this Valspar Black Chalkboard paint before at our previous house and for little projects. I bought a can of this to paint the chalkboard wall. After painting with the black magnetic primer, it left the walls too dark I thought. The black looked too harsh. 

I had read about a new kind of Benjamin Moore chalkboard paint on a blog. This new kind of paint is great because you could make chalkboard paint into ANY color - red, blue, green, you name it you could turn it into chalkboard paint providing there was enough contrast between the chalk and color. I didn't want to go as dark as black but still wanted a high contrast of the chalk and wall color - so I looked for a darker gray. 

Let me just tell you that me and picking our paint colors don't mix. I like to come up with the general color of the space, but when it comes to picking that PERFECT shade, I am terrible and it doesn't help that I am incredibly indecisive. Picking the perfect color of gray that would have contrast, go with my kitchen and brownish gray couches was a challenge. After literally hours of analyzing a couple paint swatches, I finally settled on a charcoaly gray color from Sherwin Williams - I couldn't tell you the color name though - it wasn't written on the can. 

It was much better than going with the harsh black, but it still looks black in some lights. I recommend this paint and think it would be fun to use other colors as well instead of something as boring as gray. :)

 Once I painted and let it dry for three days, you have to "season" the wall as you call it. I didn't know you had to do this so the last few times I've used chalkboard paint I was always seeing remnants of the last chalk creation. Turns out you have to "season" the wall with chalk before you write on it so this doesn't happen! I thought this would be a quick job and use a piece of chalk or two.This project takes longer than you think and I probably used up at least 10 pieces of chalk from rubbing and scribbling on the wall. It's good exercise for your arm muscles!

Oh, and it makes a GIANT mess on your floor :)

So, I have already used the wall for Christmas and New Year's sayings. It is fun to be able to switch it out and change the quotes/sayings out often. 

I love this new chalk wall and so does Brecken who is learning to draw on the bottom portion as well. 

Magnet Wall

So there is this large wall that kinda sticks out in the eat-in/dining area of the kitchen.  Behind this wall is the closet. At first I was going to do something really bold and do a chevron wall. The more I thought  of it, it seemed like it may be a little too busy with the backsplash we did in the kitchen (more on that later!!). I came up with the idea of doing a magnet/chalkboard wall. It would be the perfect wall to switch up decor and add seasonal/holiday touches. 

This is a picture of the plain, boring wall BEFORE:

 

 I had seen magnet paint on other blogs so I thought it would be a fun thing to try. Let me tell you that painting with magnet paint is FAR from fun. This paint is awful to paint with. First off, you need to mix the paint up really well to mix up the paint particles from the bottom. Then the directions say to put on thin layers, and that is what I did. I painfully painted the 3 layers and waited for it to dry. Ummm... problem. Magnets weren't sticking. Oh no!! I didn't wear gloves when painting and paid for it later when I couldn't get any of the paint off my hands. This is really messy paint. It is impossible to get off brushes and rollers, too.

After calling the company to see WHY magnets weren't sticking to the wall, I realized I didn't apply the correct amount of paint for the size of the wall. So off to the store I went to buy another quart of paint, and endure the three layer painting again. This time after it dried, I tried out the magnets and they stuck.  Top heavy magnets like bag clips don't stick to the wall, but magnets with a lot of surface area or really strong work ok. It defiantly isn't as strong as the fridge, but it works...

Things I Learned from Painting with Magnet Paint:
* Wear gloves when you use this stuff or you will be scrubbing for days.
* Use older brushes/rollers, ect when using magnet paint that you are ok with throwing away
* You need to read the box and buy the correct amount of paint
* This stuff is expensive - $20 per quart
* Magnets will stick - but not as good as a fridge.
* Magnet paint maybe isn't worth it :/

Now, I just need to get some cool magnets for Brecken to play with on the wall....

House Tour, Part 3

Today concludes the hour of our new house with pictures of the front and backyard and of the basement. You can see the main level here and the upstairs here.

Have a great weekend!

The front of the House 

The backyard - standing on the deck

Basement Family Room 

Guest Bedroom/Workspace

Guest Bathroom 

House Tour, Part 2

The house tour continues today with the upstairs. If you missed part one, here it is. Not much has changed in these rooms, since I've been working on the main floor instead. I have some big plans for them though!

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Nursery/Brecken's Bedroom right now

Brecken's Future Bedroom 

Brecken's Bathroom