Cheap is chic...or at least just darn cute!

Okay y'all, the party is over. I am still working on my first jug o'coffee, so bear with me. My normal witty banter isn't all that witty this morning.

Here are a few pics of the cupcakes from my 2 littlest chirren's birthday party.

Are these the cutest things ever? I got the monkeys in a coin-operated machine at the Dollar Tree, put them on a bed of grass icing and added some banana candies. Simple can be cute!

Here is the entire family.

I have more pictures of the cakes that I did for each little munchkin, but I can't get their names cropped off (have to be careful...lots of crazies surfing the net!). I will continue to work on it, but until then, use your imagination.

All in all, the key to a successful birthday party is sugar and balloons. Lots and lots of balloons. Balloons are cheap and kids are obsessed with them.

T. went to pick them up and said that he could just read the faces of all the kids and parents on the way out of the store. I kindly asked for the, oh, 3 dozen balloons to be bagged so they wouldn't get tangled, and they unkindly "forgot", so imagine my poor hubs walking out with 3ish dozen balloons flailing wildly in the wind. The kids were googly-eyed wondering how he wasn't floating away like the guy in "UP", and the parents were mentally cursing him because he had set a ridiculously high bar for balloon purchases in the future. Sorry folks!

Needless to say, after my sweet Memom untangled the entire mess (she has the patience of Job mind you), we had balloons in every nook and cranny of our kitchen and porch.

Looking back at each of my kids, I remember their birth, each birthday, small little victories like potty training (2 down, 1 to go), giving up their thumb-sucking or pacifier, and speaking their first words. I can't believe that my "baby" is almost 2. With each day, I realize more and more how true the saying, "It goes by fast" really is. Soak up those babies! Take in every moment and don't worry about the fact that your kitchen floor is sticky, or your dishes are piled up, or there is laundry waiting to be folded. They can all wait. Just go sit on the floor and wrestle with your kids, or color, or just tell them how much you love then. Everything else can simply....wait.

Before you know it, your kids will be 1...

Then 2...

Then 3...

One day I will even miss this little face...

It all started out with a weird smell...

Oh, Snap!

Sooo, I had a little accident. Well, I have to admit, it was kinda sorta an accident. Here is my story and I am sticking to it until I die:

I noticed that there was a weird malodorous smell coming from my laundry room (actually, you can call it a closet because I don't think a 6 x 6 area actually should count as a full-fledged "room", but that is neither here nor there...). So, industrious and burly as I am, I decided to move things around in my laundry nook. Although I found a couple of socks that had apparently jumped ship and hid behind the washer, and an entire colony of fuzz bunnies, I could not figure out that darn smell. In fact, now that I think about it, as soon as I started moving things around, it was gone. Weird...anywho, as I was moving back the washer, I heard a sound. I thought, "Houston, we have a problem." Although we had a couple of smallish tears in our ever-so-lovely 1994 vinyl floor, they were manageable, and didn't make me too crazy. Now, we had a gaping frisbee-sized window to our concrete. Oops! I can't say that I was sad really. In fact, I had to restrain myself from jumping for joy that I actually had a reason, a legitimate reason, to flex my handyman, um, handylady muscles! So, I bit the bullet. I decided to just start a rippin'. I popped up the quarter round and tore that sonofagun out of there. It felt so liberating! Once the demo was done, I looked around at my handiness and exclaimed, "Oh, crap (excuse the French), T is going to kill me...that or he will think I am the goddess of home repairs!"

Off to Lowe's I went and picked up this:

Vinyl, peel & stick wood flooring

I had been eyeballing it for months, and thought that it looked pretty nice (for the 98 cent per s/f price tag), and wanted to see it in an actual room. Well, here was my chance! I wasn't about to even attempt tile work on my own, and I was determined to get it done TODAY! So, off I went with 1 box of vinyl wood, 10 extra "planks", a scraper (to get all of that darn stubborn glue off of the tile) and a smile on my face. I am woman, hear me roar!

So, for the next 2 hours, I scraped, cut, peeled and stuck my way into pure bliss.

In progress...

Voila'! Ain't she puuuuurdy! Cost me less than $40!

By the way, totally random, but over at WalMart (Yes, I said WalMart. Where else could I have gone in Podunkville at 9:30 PM?), in the garden section, they have these amazing little lanterns in both black and COPPER! Yes, COPPER. Be still my heart! They look like these that you can find at Pottery Barn. They are $10 each. You read it right, $10 EACH for the small or the large, and the large is, well, pretty large!

They also had a big hurricane candle holder that had a black metal or COPPER base with a matching rim around the top. Again, $10! As my mama use to say, "You can't beat that with a stick!"

I think I have gone cocoNUTS!

Okay y'all. I am in undeniable, full-fledged party planning mode. With my 2 youngest little hatchlings celebrating their birthdays together this year (yeah, I am brilliant, I know...well, that or just plain lazy...I'll take brilliant), I had a really hard time with the invitations. C wanted a "hula girl" theme, and I have to admit, I have always wanted to host a luau. I don't know what it is...the tropical feeling, the leis, the coconut bras (scratch that, after 3 kids, there will be none of those), but I have always wanted to go to one or have one. Since I won't be heading to Hawaii anytime soon, I said, "here is my chance"!

Since I always make the invitations by hand (it's more about not being able to find EXACTLY what I want and it is usually done out of necessity, than just wanting to spend hours of time laboring and stressing about making sure that the ribbons aren't going to fray and that the paper is perfectly even...OCD at it's finest!)), I went on a quest to come up with a way to incorporate W into the mix. This was where I really had to think. Since I call him "monkey", this is what I came up with after hours of scouring scrapbook and party supply stores:

I know...they are so cute!

I cannot tell you how I agonized over these darn things. Didn't want it too girly, hence the yellow, green and brown & I wanted to make sure that incorporated the monkeys too. Isn't that paper ridiculous? I hadn't planned on adding the tag, but I had to find a way to use that little monkey.

Before you all think I am crazy, let me tell you that you aren't the first. I do agonize over the smallest details, and obsess over the birthday parties just a smidge, but it is one way that I can release my inner Martha without therapy. Party planning is my therapy.

Okay, gotta run! I have so much to do! (breathe, breathe, breathe...where's my paper bag?)

Finished project and one giddy little girl

I have finished one of my projects! The angels in heaven are singing and, yes, I think I just saw a pig fly by my window. Here 'tis y'all!

C's new "big girl bed"

Well, my precious little C turned the big "3" on the 19th and she got a "big girl bed" for her birthday. T and I sanded, stained, distressed and waxed our way into oblivion for 2 nights until the task was complete. We started out with an unfinished pine bed that we purchased for the rock bottom price of $100, and ended up with this. I sewed the big polka dotted pillow, the bedskirt and the duvet cover. C was so excited!

"Look, Mommy finished something...I am genuinely shocked...can't you tell?"

Night Night my little 3-year-old...(tear, tear, sniffle, blow)

I still can't believe the flash didn't wake her up. Sleeps like her Daddy!

I also went to "Market", thanks to my MIL, and picked up a few other little goodies. They are on order, so I have to look at the pictures and salivate until they arrive. I have until they get here to get my living room, dining room and kitchen painted. Wish me luck!

This is my most favorite place! I could have spent a million dollars there!

See those precious little chalkboards? One set for me, one set for some lucky dog at Christmas! Can't you just see a little "Merry Christmas" written on the front with some sprigs of greenery and a fun little plaid ribbon around the handle?

That sweet little bench will be in my faux-foyer. I don't acutally have a foyer because of the way my house is, but I figure that a few bruised legs and some tumbles over the bench is worth good design. (You can use that saying if you like...)

This little nugget is the piece de resistance! This glorious piece of mirrored deliciousness will be adorning my fireplace. I can hardle stand to look at it...it had me at "hello"!

Okay, this is just eye candy. I really, really, really, really, really, really wanted this amazing mirror, but it was by another dealer and I couldn't commit to the minimum purchase in order to bring this little slice of heaven home. My heart is still aching!

Well, I am on my way to the major decor overhaul. I'll keep y'all posted! Gotta run!

That green-eyed monster & coastal cottage decor

I am always slightly envious of those bloggers that can post some fabulous and inspiring post on a daily basis with their latest, and marvelous,"trash to treasure" how-to, or the spoils from their weeked thrifting excursion, or even simply a few hints on how their perfectly coiffed homes became, well, perfectly coiffed. I would love for this to be one of those posts, but, alas, it is not. Shocking, I know, but my home is not perfectly decorated, my pillows have not been karate chopped, I still have fake flower arrangements (okay, some of you may need to pick yourselves off the floor after that last confession of a major faux pas), I have a menagerie of half-finished projects bursting forth from every closet in the house, my almost-3-year-old daughter still sleeps in her crib because I haven't completed (or even started) her "bed" project yet, my freshly painted walls (of which are about to be re-freshly painted) don't even match my curtains (gasp!), and frankly, I don't know when any of it will be done. Is anyone in the same boat? Do you have projects, rooms or even entire homes that are not only not finished (I mean, who ever really is FINISHED with decorating their home), but that you sit and stare at and go, "Will I ever get done?"

SIDEBAR: I did present my "designer's challenge" corkboard o' ideas to the hubs and nearly squeeled with glee that he like it. That being said it is simply a matter of $ that I am able to complete "the vision". Yes, I have named it.

So, all of that being said, since I do not have the funds for such extravagant things as curtains, paint and accessories, I have been scrubbing cabinets, trimming trees, baking, reorganizing like a maniac, and trying to come up with ways to repurpose some of my old things that are collecting dust. None of these things are blogworthy, therefore, I won't bore you with pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I have a real "thing" for picture frames. I love them. I love pictures. I don't even care of whom. Seriously, if you meet me for the first time, I am not even slightly annoyed when looking at the 42 pictures of your children that you have crammed in that insanely, ridiculously, ginormous wallet of yours. I will be thrilled, genuinely thrilled to look at them. It is even worse at people's homes. I will stare at a wall of pictures for hours and "oohhh" and "ahhhh" over little kids with crooked bangs and missing teeth. Anywho, this picture frame thing has me in a tizzy. I have way too many frames, way too many pictures, and nothing on the wall. I can't commit to hanging any of them. I don't know how or where to begin. It really is a problem.

Well, I have enclosed some gorgeous pictures of homes that I want mine to look like. I am not at all original. All of my friends know this. I steal every good idea I ever have. I guess it wouldn't really be "my idea", but you know what I mean. I can copy someone else like nobody's business, and I am proud of it. That is where all of the best ideas come from...somebody else. HA! Anyway, here goes... (sorry the pics are small..they all came from Coastal Living Idea Houses over at http://www.coastalliving.com/) This, as well as Traditional Home are my new faves since Country Home and Cottage Living bit the dust...may they rest in peace...I am still heartbroken...