One major goal that has been eating away at me was to get the younger two boys' baby scrapbooks done. I have a good friend who also has 3 boys and loves to scrapbook, so we were able to motivate each other to get going. We planned a few nights to get together and start knocking out scrapbook pages. On one of our "scrapbook" nights, my friend and I actually prepped some stuff for another craft night she was hosting at her house. In addition to a 4th of July flag craft, she found this idea for a decoration out of dollar store finds. Out of a plate, vase, drawer pull, and wire trash can....
.....we made these cute decorations! They can hold all kinds of different things for lots of different holidays. I made one for Emmy, too, since she's always so crafty and for all her help for coming out and helping me and the boys.
Since my friend was busy with these other craft projects and vacations, I started working on the boys' scrapbooks on my own. When I got going on this project, I was able to bust it out pretty easily. Before Kyle was born, I received a ready-made scrapbook, which I used and added extra personalized pages to. I was able to find the same book 2 more times, so all the boys have the same thing. That let me just use Kyle's book as a template for the other 2. I only have a few more pages to finish in Evan's book, since some of the pictures printed out incorrectly, but it feels really good to be {mostly} caught up on all the baby books!
While I was going through pictures for the boys' books, I was able to sort out portraits of each boy and family portraits that I knew needed to be displayed. That has been on my list of things to-do for quite some time now, since I've had some pictures leaning against the wall at the end of our upstairs hallway since we moved into the house over a year ago. Even our most recent family portraits have been sitting in a box for 6 months, waiting for frames. I haven't hung pictures in the upstairs hallway because I've been waiting to see what I had and to save up some money to buy frames, and frankly have been putting off the commitment of putting nail holes in the brand new walls. Then, my housekeeper just happened to ask that very week if I was EVER going to hang those pictures in the hallway, and did I want her to help me? I explained my reasons for still having picture frames leaning on the floor and collecting dust instead of being displayed properly. One step at a time, I thought---the scrapbooks needed to be completed first. The next day, I made a run to Hobby Lobby to pick up some more baby boy stickers in order to finish Evan's book. While I was there, the store just happened to have a TON of home stuff marked down 80%, including picture frames. I found most of the sizes I needed at great prices--only $8.80, $6.00, and even one for $4.00. It was another sign to help me get the upstairs family portrait hallway done.
With the scrapbooks pretty much completed, I could move onto the portrait walls. First, I had to tackle transforming one of these black and gold frames into one that matched the other cream ones I found.
A little spray paint, some distressing, and wood stain, and that black and gold beauty became the one in the top middle. It goes perfectly with the others, I think. Our portraits from this year are now out of the box in the office and up on the wall!
Next, I had to get going on the upstairs hallway. Here is how it looked before, complete with frames leaning against the wall at the end. We've only had 3 broken frames in a year and 3 months.
I wanted a collage feel with pictures and other objects. I found a bunch of C's at Hobby Lobby and painted and distressed them in lots of different colors. That took a few days. Next, I filled the frames with some of my favorite pictures, laid out the arrangement on the floor, and played with the placement. Last, I spent one nap time hanging them all up. Even though Stephen's reaction was something like, "Don't you think it's a bit much??," I like it, and I'm very happy to have completed another task that's been on my to-do list for A LONG time.
Then I got sick. Really sick. Like, unable to get out of bed, sick. I kept wanting to do little things, like eat, but even that was a major task. It got so bad that my family rallied and got my little sister here to help me. I had to miss out on our family trip down to the beach in Galveston with Stephen's family. He was amazing enough to take the boys and go, so my sister and I were left alone for a weekend. Even though I couldn't do much of anything, together we are still an unstoppable force. With only one half of our amazing team able to do any work, there were several more projects completed this weekend. First, Em cleaned out and organized my refrigerator. Then, we took a wooden closet rod out of an old armoire, added spray-painted finials to the ends, and hung curtains in Kyle's room on a real rod, instead of the old spring-loaded cheap one he had that kept getting yanked down. Before Stephen left for the beach, he informed me that my stack of boxes in the garage would probably collapse soon because the box at the bottom of the stack was starting to crack, so we needed to change that--STAT. With my direction and Emmy's labor, we took my boxes from this:
to this:
It's amazing what a few new shelves and a few hours in the garage can solve! It's silly, really, but having things neat and organized just helps me think better and breath easier.
After seeing that list of projects, it's a lot easier to see why not much blogging went on in June. Nap Time was spent in other ways! And just like in the book with that mouse.....when I get projects crossed off my to-do list, it makes room for even more.
