Happy 2nd Birthday Breslyn

Happy Birthday to my sweet Breslyn, B, my love, princess, stinker, precious daughter. I love you so much. You make us so very proud to be your parents. You are amazing and so very sweet. You are growing so quickly and learning new things every day.....in fact yesterday Daddy and I heard you start to sing your ABC's!! What a big smart girl you are!!

Hugs and kisses to you on your big day!!

Spring Mantle

So here is my VERY boring standard mantle. It has been "dressed" like this ever since we moved in...um, almost 2 years ago! How sad!! So after seeing so many interesting mantle ideas out there in blog world I decided to bring some spring change to my mine!! Here goes:


I started off with this awesome tin star. My Grandma bought it for me at a Senior Citizen Fair a while back. I believe it was around $15.00...what a steal!! It's just been hanging around waiting for a new home, and now it finally has one. I decided to use a beautiful blue on it...and I LOVE IT!!


Here is the magical can of wonderment!! It is the perfect shade...it was semi-expensive (6.99), but soooo worth it!!


Here is the first coat....already BEAUTIFUL!! See the board over in the corner?? It's another fun project I will post soon.


Here is one of the frames I used...cheap, $1 at a yard sale. Sprayed it with a wonderful green spray paint...didn't get a pic of the can, sorry! It is also Krylon. It was not what I expected but I really like the way it turned out!


Ta-da!! I probably should have primed it...but I do like how dark it turned out. Yay!!


And the FINAL PRODUCT!!! I am SOOO happy and honestly quite proud of the way it turned out.


The "sticks" are from Cato's!! Yes, Cato's....if you don't have one of those near you, they are clothing stores. They have started selling very unique and interesting home goods....and it was only $6.99!! Whoop!!


I bought this precious mirror at a local thrift town for $3.99. I love it and it is perfect for this spot.


The apothecary jars are also another fun project I'll post pics on...but if you search the blog world often you can find about a million tutorials on how to make them.


Well, there ya have it...my beautiful, springy, out-of-my-comfort-zone mantle!! I love it and hope you do too!!

My heart is saddened. I can't really explain every detail here on my blog, but there is just so much sadness going on around me. I say around me, but really it's just what I've heard and read. It is difficult to not lose hope and maybe faith when so many couples are getting divorces. Sweet, honest, Christian, God-loving, normal couples. What has changed? Why do I feel like I have heard more than my fair share of sadness? It is difficult to be positive, praise our God and be encouraged when the world is falling apart morally. I read more blogs than I care to admit...let's just say I'm addicted...shame on me. :) Although reading these blogs sometimes makes me envious of what I don't have or can't accomplish, they have also opened my eyes to important information, happiness, sadness and overall wonderment. I read about ways to make your home beautiful, how to deal with unruly kiddos, how important it is to show your kids God's love and His way, how people deal with the greif when they have lost a child. I don't feel overwhelmed with depression, although I know what that is like, my heart is just so heavy for those hurting in the world. All I feel that I can trust in is prayer. I have not been so great at praying the last few years. I have not felt that strong emotional connection to my God for quite some time. I still pray, and hope and wonder what the future holds for my family and friends. I now resolve myself to prayer....my comfort in this crazy messed up world. Prayer...let it by your prescription for hope, health and happiness.

We're Gonna Rock Around the Clock Tonight

Grandma, Breslyn and I went to a Mother/Daughter/Grandmother 50's Banquet the Saturday night before Mother's Day. Here are a few pics of our evening together. Unfortunately my camera died shortly after taking these few pics. I didn't even get one of all three of us together. :( Pardon the fact that I have no make-up on in the first picture...had to put it on in the car on the way...I know...shame shame!!


My wonderfully talented momma (Gaga to my kiddos) made B's poodle skirt. Precious ain't it??


I think she really enjoyed dressing up! She looked adorable in her scarf-sweater-skirt combo!! I think she will wear this same outfit for Halloween...it's just too cute not to.


Poor baby didn't really feel all that good...bad allergies. She had a runny nose and just looked pitiful. But she was very well-behaved and enjoyed her chips n cheese!!


We had a good time hanging out with friends, eating delicious hamburgers and relaxing. I missed my momma though (she was performing in Annie at a local theater). Love you Grandma...and thanks for letting B and myself join you this evening!!

B's Bow Holder

Now, if you will recall in my last post, I gave a little glimpse of this bow holder!! And now I will post a semi-tutorial on how to make it. Unfortunately, I deleted my entire disk in my camera...so there are no before (or during) photos. BUT.... it is a fairly easy project so here we go!!!

First get a frame..I got this at a garage sale YEARS ago...it was formerly above our bed, but found it's way into the garage. I believe it was a buck or two. I spray painted it black to match my daughter's room...pretty simple because it was already a dark brown. You will also need a stapler, staples and your FAVORITE ribbon!! Picking out the ribbon was my favorite part....it had to match the other colors in her room....black, white, pink and some green. (I decided to add a little somthin-somthin to the corner of the frame. Hot glued some scrapbook flowers and buttons (in coordinating colors) right to the frame....VOILA!! simply GORGEOUS!!

Below is a pic of the back....you can see how I stapled at the top and bottom. This actually can get a little tricky....so good luck~haha!! Okay, not really that tricky, but you want to make sure and measure to decide how far apart you want the ribbon...enough room for big bows and not so far apart that you can only hold just a few bows and flowers!! I used different sized ribbon as well...for large bows I use the wide ribbon, and for small clips I used much thinner ribbon.





And the final product....TA-DA!! It is soooooo simple and it was totally a steal from another blog....can't remember which since it was so loooong ago. But anyone can do it and it is SUPER cheap...well, except for the price of the bows and flowers!!! ;)


I really am happy with how it turned out...now if only I could steal....er, I mean find an idea to hold her hats and headbands...hmmm!! I will post more projects soon....when I am not breastfeeding my itty bitty Owen, reading books to Breslyn, yelling at Finley and listening to Aidan talk!!! Hahahaha!!

Hot Pink Zebra

Well, I just had to start this post off with an UBER-CUTE pic of my sweet B sitting in one of my latest creations!! So I started off with a tacky, plain, cheap, faux-wood bookcase. I think I got it a few years ago at Wally World for around $20...could have been less. Anywho, I primed it....long story short....my plans were to paint it white, but I knew it needed to be primed first...slick surface and silly me wanted my paint layer to stick, so primer first. Then after deciding not to paint it white...humph....I went with hot pink!! SPRAY PAINT ROCKS!!! So here is a pic of the bookcase all plain and pink!

Breslyn's bedroom is done in Black, White, Hot pink, Light pink and a smidgen of green. I wanted a black and white pattern that would not distract from her bedding (a Damask pattern)...so zebra was a great choice!! I put the bookcase down on the ground face down then I laid my material along the back making sure it was all straight.

Below are my tools!!! Stapler, staples and scissors! Not a lot of materials for a super cute project!

I cut along the edges after making sure it was taut and straight.


Sometimes I had to tuck in the edges and re-staple to have a more finished look.


Stapling is SOOOO fun!! I mean I really love it...i probably used 3X as many staples as I needed, but I was having such a great time!! Teehee!


And....the finished product (I had not put the second shelf back in yet)!! Sorry for the weird picture angle...a professional photographer I am not!!


And the product in her room!! I look forward to filling it with cute baskets filled with her kitchen toys, books and baby dolls! (Notice the bow holder? I will do a tutorial on that later!!) Hope you have enjoyed my latest project!!
Here B is pointing to the new "object" in her room...letting me know that she approves and can't wait to always put her toys away on the shelves and make sure her room is always neat and tidy...okay, that is what I hope she was thinking...but probably not!! I enjoyed doing this project and it makes a great statement in her room. Now on to my next project....stay tuned!!! :)

Behind the Irish names

Today over at Kelly's Korner we are posting about how we came up with our children's names!! One of my favorite topics!! Whoohoo!!

It is no secret all of our children have Irish names...but why you ask? Well, it all started with the naming of our first child. I had heard the name Aidan (from the actor Aidan Quinn...who no one else seemed to know at the time). Anyways, back in 2001 no one else had named their child Aidan..it was an unknown and people (my family) even turned their noses up at the "weird" name. But we were set on the name and the ONLY name we could come up with that sounded good with it, in our opinion, was Riley. AIDAN RILEY...a BEAUTIFUL IRISH name for our firstborn. We had this name picked out early in my pregnancy and it fit him perfectly!!

When we went to name our second child (I already assumed it would be a boy, so we were only coming up with boy names) we were drawn again to Irish names. We found out it was another boy and narrowed down our search for the perfect name. This time we decided to keep the name a secret until he was here...I just couldn't handle it if friends and family made discouraging comments on this name as well. Once our second born entered the world we announced his name....FINLEY PATRICK! While living in Austin we watched every UT football game and there was a player with the last name Finley...I think it really grew on me and then when I saw it in a baby book I realized that it was perfect. We named him Patrick after my hubby (his middle name). I love his name and it still makes me smile every time I say it!

We were blessed with a girl next!!! I never thought that we would have a daughter so I was starting from scratch with names. We had a list but could not decide for a LOOOONG time. Nothing really stuck out...and if I liked it Joey wouldn't. At one point I gave up...I figured something would come to us!! haha!! One day I was cleaning out my desk and was just shoveling paper into the trash can, but I happened to grab one single piece of paper...on it was the name Breslin. That was it, nothing else was on this scrap of paper. The name was in my handwriting, but I DO NOT remember writing it! I went on a baby name website and found that it was an Irish BOY name. Grrr!! But the more I said the name out loud the more I fell in love with it. I decided that we could feminize it (and have a little tribute to my mom) and turn the "I" into a "Y". We had already picked out her middle name as Claire..I'm still IN LOVE with that name. So there we had it....BRESLYN CLAIRE!! We did end up telling people her name and we received mixed opinions, but we honestly didn't care what people thought anymore!! haha!! She fits her unique name just perfectly.

Our fourth AND FINAL child...whom we'll call a BIG FAT SURPRISE is also a boy. I never thought we would have to come up with another name....but decided to get a list going! I was convinced we were having another girl, and we had a name already ready...at least one we liked at the time- Madigan Grace (I would call her Mags for short...SO cute!!). But we ended up with another boy and we struggled for a long time on this name. I had seen a name I liked, but wasn't convinced it was Irish. When I looked it up online each baby naming website would give a different origin! :( But one day while out shopping with my bff, we saw a baby name book and I told her, "If this book says the name is Irish origin, that will be his first name." We slowly flipped it to the name and WAHOOOO!! Owen is Irish!! The middle name was not as easy to decide on. In fact he was approximately an hour old before we finally chose...dun dun dun....Brady!! We had two very precious middle names ready at the helm....Teague...so unique, and Brady...just plain cute! But after much staring at my new baby, I decided that Brady it was. OWEN BRADY was named...finally!! Teehee.

So there ya have it...all my Irish babes in a row!! I wouldn't change any of our choices and love my little kiddos to pieces. Hope you have enjoyed reading our naming adventures!! Teehee!