Pretty and pink

Recently, I had the opportunity to put together a couple design boards for a friend. We were going for a sophisticated feminine look. It was so fun sourcing pretty and girly artwork, furniture, and accessories. You can never be too old for pink! As fun as it was to design my two girls' nursery/bedroom, I think it may be even more fun the older they get! I'm slightly addicted to redecorating, so it's a good thing they won't be teenagers for 11 more years!

~sophisticated feminine living room~

Throw pillows and artwork are my favorite way to decorate, or re-decorate, a room. They can be inexpensive, easily changed, and there are tons of places to find just the right pieces. You can almost always find a similar pillow for cheaper at a discount retailer, or buy a $20 canvas and paint a similar piece of artwork. Whether your budget is $2000 or $20, there are always ways to brighten up a space!

 I love this fun pillow

This is one of my very favorite etsy shops. They make the most gorgeous wood signs!

~sophisticated feminine bedroom~

These pillows are so fun, I'm trying to find a place for them in my home. They're also on sale! #lifeofadecorator #resist #irealizehashtagsaresuperannoying #buticantstop

This "dreamer" sign is perfect for above the bed.

If you're wanting to update a room and don't know where to start, pick a pillow you love or a print that jumps out at you. There's your inspiration! Be brave and go decorate!

and then there were three...

Life lately has been a whirlwind of diapers, crying, breastfeeding, carseat-buckling, bedtime stories, bubble baths, sleep deprivation, and cuddles. It's just one big cuddle-fest over here, with a little poop thrown in to keep me on my toes.

Before I start, and if there's one thing you get out of this, here it is. Online shopping. Embrace it. It's here to stay, folks! I've even embraced shipping fees. I mean, 6.99 shipping sure beats 45 minutes of dressing the kids, dressing myself (because let's face it, I'm still in yesterday's PJ's), packing diaper bags, peeing one last time, climbing over the backseat to get Asher buckled, going through the drive-through because I forgot about lunch, running back home because I've soaked through my shirt since 4 hours have gone by since the last nursing session, thus having to wrestle all 3 kids back out of the car because (see below) a mom these days canNOT leave the kids in the running air-conditioned car in the driveway, even for 5 seconds, then wrestling them back in, and then finally, if we've actually made it to the store before closing, getting them in and out for a 5th and 6th time. Shipping $$$. Love it.

Three kids are my world now. It's hard to remember life with just two. Wellll…. that's a lie. It was SO.MUCH.EASIER. But much less fun. :) Getting in and out of the car took about 48 minutes less than it does now. Getting in and out of the grocery store was, well, possible. Now it's not. I just don't. For my sanity and everyone's around me. Now I send my loving and willing husband with a mile-long list at 9:00 pm after he's helped me get the kids in bed. Unless, of course, I want a mini-staycation and then I make a break for the car and head out on an amazing kid-free Kroger run. Even though life in general is a lot busier and a little more stressful, it's perfect. I love our family. I love the way the 2 older ones have taken to Sadie. They love her to the moon and back.

Have you seen the 2.4 million articles crowding your Facebook feeds about moms that leave their kids in cars? Gosh. It makes me sick to think about what happens to poor tiny babies left behind. But, did you hear about the mom who left her 12 year old in the car while she went into a bank, and then she was used as a human shield during a robbery and died? To think what might have happened to her daughter if she hadn't left her in the car. You're darned if you do, darned if you don't. Seriously, sometimes people just need to mind their own business and leave poor moms alone. Being a mom is hard enough without people waiting for you to make a mistake. Side note: If I ever own a grocery store chain, I'll make sure to have a free valet service that not only parks your car, but helps your kids out of the car and whisks them away to a bouncy-house station in the middle of the store.

In the past, I've been able to write out my birth stories and share pictures of their amazing birthdays. This time, Chris and I are putting together a sweet little video that has yet to be finished. My sweet Sadie Kaye will have her very own special birth blog entry, it's just taking a little more time this go-around.

So my maternity leave to-do list is still pretty full. Pre-baby #3, I had painted a beautiful picture in my mind of getting an entire to-do list done in my 12 weeks off. According to that list, I'm 75% behind. The thing is, I don't mind. Instead of doing all those to-do's, I've had a chance to step into this crazy new mom-of-three role and have time to enjoy it. I've bonded with my baby girl and had more cuddle time than ever before. I've been able to just sit. Never really had time for that before! I wish I could say I've had time to nap, but that's just wishful thinking! I've been able to just BE with my boy and my girls. We've made play-dough. We've chased bunnies in our backyard. We've watched way too much Netflix. We've swam, played at the park, we've been to Target, we've painted, and we've even attempted to learn the National Dance Day choreography. Talk about hot mess! We've had tea parties and played hide & seek and I've watched my Hallie girl learn how to put sentences together! One of her first whole sentences, and my favorite: Hallie plopping a laundry basket over her little body and yelling out, "Asher, sit on me!" It sounds more like, "Asha, sito me!" Such a goob.

My maternity leave/mom-of-three top five list:

1|   The feeling of freedom when I wake up in the morning!
2|   The wee hours at night I get to share with my little nursing baby
3|   Meeting other moms and having time for play dates
4|   Having time to clean my house, and at the same time, learning to deal with the messiest our house has ever been!
5|   The endless hours I've been able to dedicate to my kids

I'll remember and cherish these past weeks forever.

A place of "ok"

I tend to overanalyze and critique the way I do things as a mom. Don't we all? But lately I've been really hard on myself.

Well, I think God has a way of nipping these things in the bud, especially when they're getting in the way of being content, happy, and at peace.

This time, it was my son that knocked me on my butt and helped me realize that, really, everything is A-OK!

1. Sitting on the couch next to me, watching me work, he says, "Mommy, I like our house. It's my favorite place."

~Music to my ears. The amount of time I spend worrying about how our house could be better is wasted on him. All he sees is his home. Oh how I wish I had the eyes of a child sometimes. 

2. He comes running into the living room to show me a picture he drew of our family, complete with his correctly-spelled name, and d-a-d, and m-o-m. The picture included a nice round belly on mom. How sweet.

~He didn't need to go to a fancy preschool to learn how to spell. I apparently did a good enough job in between laundry, work, and bathtime to teach him how to spell his name. And as if that wasn't all, I birthed a child who learned how to spell mom and dad by himself. Good grief. Again, this helped dispel my worries about him not learning enough, fast enough, because he's not a fancy preschooler. And I really don't have to do anything besides provide paper and crayons to encourage his artistic-ness. I can relax and let him do his thing, and stop worrying that it's not a super-structured art center packed with every Crayola product on the market.

3. He looked out the window this morning and warned me that I might need an umbrella "cause it looks like rain a lot, but I don't need a hat because it's not cold."

~He's learning his weather, and all without an amazing morning circle time complete with detailed weather chart. 

4. He makes a pretty incredible PB&J. In order to do this, he has figured out how to place his step stool in exactly the right place to bypass my lame attempt at keeping the PB out of his reach, and he knows to use a spoon, not knife, to spread said PB over the bread that he so carefully lays out on a paper towel on the floor.

~Watching my boy use his fine and gross motor skills to create a giant sticky mess PB&J masterpiece is enough to make me tear my hair out melt. It's real-life ordinary every-day things like this that teach him what he needs to know. I sometimes forget about that, while I'm worrying that I didn't have enough time in the day to make a sensory box for him like his preschool counterparts. 

I could go on and on. The way he can play for an hour by himself and build the most hysterical zoo out of blocks and pipe cleaners and neon colored plastic animals. The way he finds every single pillow and blanket in the house and makes a giant jumping castle tent for himself and his sister. The way he helps his sister tuck her babies into bed or cook lunch in the play kitchen.

So, today, I'm in a place of "ok." Perfectly, wonderfully, and definitely ok with the life my children lead, with the decisions we've made, and with what we've done with what we've got. 

Thanks to a barely four-year-old kid, my perspective has changed and I've been 

encouraged and validated. Thanks buddy. :)