what we've been doing:

Things I found around the house:

 Logan's schedule.
Click on it to enlarge.
Notice what time he gets up?
Yeah. . . 

Madison's "teast" (test). 

No matter how early we get her up, she will use the time

to not get ready for school. The thing is, she makes Logan tardy, 

but her teacher never marks her tardy! 

One day we really got onto her about getting

ready more quickly, and I think this is her plan

to be on time. 

Also, it looks like both kids are fighting over 

who gets to set the table.

I got tired of all the backpacks, shoes, and jackets piling up 

at the bottom of the stairs. Ideally, they all have a place

in the kids' rooms, but it just wasn't happening! Now there is a 

hook for each child. I don't know what we'll do if there is a #5. 

 We have a huge bathroom at this house--not fancy, 

but huge. I've been thinking for a while that it was 

a little out of control--I avoided cleaning it because

I just didn't love being there. For about $20, and using what I already

had, I got it cleaned up and feeling a little bit nicer. 

 I wanted something on the walls, but you know me--it 

needs to mean something. Also, art is kind of expensive.

Someday I will get something cooler (and bigger), but for now. . .

I bought some $3 frames from WalMart  and 

put in some pictures from China. 

 Joe took most of them--this is before we had
digital cameras and photoshop.

Isn't he an amazing photographer?

In real life they look even better, because here you can see

my shadows and the flash from the camera. Plus,

it's a picture of a picture.

 The top one is us on the Great Wall of China. 

I still want to put more on the walls, and I want something 

 on the divider between the tub and toilet, but

for now, I love it!! 

Identity Crises

Some of you may or may not be surprised to know that I began my college career as an Interior Design major. This was no easy feat. I applied LATE to the 3-year program at Ricks College (then a 2 year college, now you might know it as BYU-Idaho). That's right, I applied late to a program that only accepted 25 students a year, and I got in. I'm pretty proud of this.

I lasted two semesters before I chickened out and went to China to teach English and came back knowing that my true passion was reading and writing.

"What can you learn in 2 semesters?" you ask. Well, I learned how to draft on a drafting table (and all that it entails--rules, dimensions, arrangements, blueprinting, etc), how to use a light table, how to make layout boards, and I studied different types of architecture and design, fabrics and textures.

"Why did you quit?" you ask. I was pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. But it took a LOT of time. The Ricks curfew at that time was 11:00 during the week and 12:00 a.m. on the weekends. The buildings closed at 10:00 (I think). But the people in my program had a special pass saying that we did not have to obey that curfew and that we could stay in our building all hours of the night. I stayed up working on projects all hours of the day on too many occasions to count. I kid you not. All my roommates were dating and playing and having fun. I hated college and was an emotional wreck. I got permission to take a break from the program to go to China and decided a year later that I would be a happier person if I did something else.

If you came to my house now you might think that either it was a good thing I decided to do something else or that maybe I should have stuck with it and gotten some fashion sense.

Here comes the identity crises part of my thinking. It's Christmas time and we've got our little decorations up. Nothing special, but I think they are cute. And then I start seeing all these trees and decorations that look like they belong in a fancy department store and I start thinking I need to borrow their style.

Then I get home and start looking at what I have. . . mostly hand-me-down decorations and things the kids have made. Many of them are things my grandmother had and made and passed down to me. And what I have bought definitely does not look department-store style. So I start thinking obviously this is what I like. And it means something to me. So I just need to go with it and stop trying to be someone else. 


So I started looking on-line for things that might by my style. And here's the thing:

It completely took me by surprise.

I think I have become a vintage/country/nostalgic/shabby chic style of decor girl.

I'll tell you why this is borderline shocking. When I was taking Interior Design classes, that was the style I least liked. My roommates would tease me because I swore that raffia would be forever banned at my house. Back then I loved the clean, sparse, modern look. I went to China and bought all this Chinese art and thought that someday everything in my house would be Asian-looking (it mostly still is because that is what I have, and I do like it still). I disliked the old-looking stlyes because I grew up in a 100+ year old home in the middle of the country and I wanted to get as far away from that look as possible.

Yet here I am, embracing it.

Now for my scientific reasoning. About 6-7 years ago I started to be infatuated with the Dust Bowl and  WWII eras (especially the home-front aspects). I read everything (non-fiction and fiction) I could get my hands on that had to do with the 1930's-1950's. I've researched fashion, music, furniture, and cars. Call me crazy, but something about that time period is romantic to me.

Another thought I've had is that modern-simple decor kind of dictates that you go with form and function, meaning that you only have things that are beautiful and serve a purpose. You don't just have stuff to have it and display, if that makes sense. So in this way, the two styles of decor are similar to me. The things I have (specifically Christmas decor) retain meaning and purpose for me.

Maybe I am gaining appreciation for my childhood home.

The stockings are like the ones we had growing up, the bear on the right is something my grandmother sent (looks old), the sleigh on the left was given to us, and the jar of ball-ornaments were just extras I had and dropped into a glass vase. My favorite thing on the fire-mantel is a little man sledding--I think it was my great-grandmother's, so pretty old and possibly from another country. There is a hand-written price on the bottom. The pail on the right filled with stuffed Christmas animals (she made?) was also passed down from my grandmother. It looks hand-painted.

The angel on top was another item passed down from my grandma. I think she made it, too. After I decided what my tree-style was I looked up pictures on-line and had the kids make gingerbread and orange ornaments to help it look like it was the style I was going for. :) The angels were given to us by my grandfather Goss shortly before he passed away. 

My grandma made this Nativity set, and it is the one we used to do the Christmas Eve nativity when I was little. The mouse was also passed down to us. 

I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head, but I think I covered the basics. So we aren't fancy, and our decor is eclectic and simple. But I will embrace it.

Fire Mantel Again

I got brave and asked a lady in our ward who has some serious decorating style if she would help me with the mantel. She came over and gave me some ideas that never crossed my mind--like a big flower arrangement in the middle (she let me try one of hers out to see how it looked), a clock in the middle, and an easel to help with height. I like the bold lines better than the flowers, but I think the clock might be too small for the space. Also the "stuff" on the sides are things I already had and used just to see how it looked. The teapot is down too low and the flowers are fallish, which might work for now but not long term. I like more bold and simple designs without a lot of clutter. I also believe decor should have form and function, so I don't want to buy a lot of "things" just for show. I like the China things because they remind me of the people I knew and time I spent in China. Hmmm. . . I just emailed her these pictures to get an updated opinion. She's probably cringing. :) Which one do you like, and do you have any suggestions for "stuff" on the sides?

p.s. click here to see a site that has some good fire mantel ideas.

a week in review

a little crawl

a push-up or two

and now I will sit down for you!

Sadly, I never got the gorilla/tri-pod I'm-sitting-but-gonna'-fall-over picture. :( Seriously, I can't keep up with the boy! He's also been awesome about taking a long nap for me after lunch--the same time Grant does. It's wonderful.

Ammon is entertaining himself for longer periods of time. Today he crawled/scooted all over the bedroom for an hour looking for things to gnaw on. The kids have been pretty good at keep little toys off of the floor. . . although he did get hold of a Star Wars coloring book and chewed the cover off.

I should mention that last Sunday Joe took Grant to the E.R. for a smashed finger. It looked really bad, and we'd had some experience with smashed fingers (Madi smashed hers off), so we decided to be safe. They took some x-rays and said he was fine. . . and we felt kind of dumb because by the time we got home it was looking a ton better. It still looks bad. . . his fingernail will definitely fall off, and an inch of his finger is horribly bruised and scabbed over, but not E.R. worthy, for sure. He did, for the first time in his life, ask for a band-aid. Ah well. I'm trying not to think about it.

What else. . . do you want to help me come up with ideas for the fire mantel? We had fire places in the last 2 places we've lived, and I thought we did ok, but this one has a curved recessed area above the fire place, and I hate it! Even if I could fit a small picture/mirror in there I wouldn't want to because I think it looks dumb. Every other room in the house looks somewhat put together and ok, but I have been avoiding this room because of the lack of furniture and the fire mantel! So right now the whole room looks crummy, but I am itching to get it put together because I want to pull out my fall decorations (like the one on the left of the mantel in the pic). I need help!!

*I think Grant got the camera and smudged the lens because all of the pictures are coming out blurry. Or it could be because I spent 30 minutes pushing buttons on the camera and wondering just what those buttons did. . .and now I don't know how to undo everything. Oops. Also, do you see how you can see Ammon's reflection on the floor. . .pretty cool. Maybe my floor is cleaner than I thought. ;)