The Sweeter Side of Mommyhood

I’ve been struggling to make time for myself to paint or craft or do anything creative lately with Illy Lilly taking over all of my brain power, but I’ve felt that familiar spark of seeing-inspiration-everywhere that’s helped me carve out some time to craft again just for fun. These DIY painted snowmen ornaments are such a fun a easy holiday project and could be adapted in endless ways to match your holiday decor, be suitable four younger kiddos, or work for gifting! Painted Snowmen Supplies: Acrylic paint- I used the Hand Made Modern brand from Target because we had it handy but I also love the Martha Stewart brand colors because they’re perfect right out of the bottle! ... read more

Not trying to reinvent the wheel here so I wanted to share some tried and true fun projects, crafts and ideas we’ve done in the past. Tuck these away in your arsenal for rainy days, play dates, virtual learning days, or days when everyone’s just bored and needing something to do. First up... pipe cleaner spiders! I don’t have a tutorial here but basically wind up some black pipe cleaners into a ball for the body and wind 8 more into legs. You can do this part for younger kids or let them do it. You can encourage pattern making, counting, color practice. Whatever you want! Next up is painted ghost rocks! These are so easy and take the “pet rock” craze up a notch. To make this ... read more

Oh man, cue all the happy tears! After *years* of effort Brandon and I are finally ready to share that we are building our custom dream home! We literally drew our house out with paper and pencil and our amazing builders (more on them soon!!) brought our dream to life. This new home will be a completely custom 5 bedroom 3.5 bath house that is EXACTLY what we want and need. Every subtle detail has been thought out, discussed and hashed out over the course of more than a year and designed perfectly for our taste and lifestyle. Up until now there were quite a few hypotheticals and details up in the air (thank you covid/quarantine/pandemic/economy shift) but at this point we are only waiting on ... read more

Easter posts get me all choked up right now so I’m quite literally typing this through tears- with so much uncertainty and stress, anxiety and unknown in our kids lives right now I’m excited to have a holiday to focus on. A deep reminder of our faith, a fun and exciting day to break up the monotony of quarantine and a perfect excuse to treat my favorite girlies with little things I know will make them smile.  I get a huge knot in my chest thinking about Easter this year and how different it will be for so many families (ours included). Precious traditions and ceremonies will be dearly missed or done differently. But I feel incredibly lucky to have the power to still make this holiday ... read more