Our New School Room

This weekend Rick and I were chatting and I told him how many of my friends had been sharing pictures of their school rooms as part of a "Not Back to School" blog carnival. As we were talking it kept coming up that it would be nice to have a dedicated school room again, and so we decided to convert our downstairs office (which wasn't getting much use) into a school room.

Here are the pictures of our new school room:

One of my friends had shared the link to these great Alphabet posters. Each letter poster has a verse that starts with that letter on it.  I loved the idea so much that I decided to make them to put on the wall behind the table.

On the main wall we have our white board, our "100 Days" chart and calendar, and Jacob's "Hooked on Phonics" progress chart, as well as our house guidelines.  

On that wall we also have our bookshelf with curricula, Bible Friends books, manipulatives, and crayons, basic art supplies, playdough, flashcards, and the printer.

On our big bookshelf we store all of the other various supplies. :)

No school room would be complete without the teacher's desk!

Blessings,

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The Playroom!

The playroom ended up very different than I had planned. Somehow, the boys (ah-hem, and Daddy ;)) convinced me that they needed a Cars themed playroom, LOL.

We chose "Blue Lightening" for the wall color. I loved that it was so vibrant and a very "happy" color- which in my mind is perfect for a playroom!

 

We ended up using my old sewing cart in the playroom for the mice's (guinea pigs) home. I was happy that it found a new purpose.

The boys love the Cars decals.

They were very excited for their new race car rug. How fun is that!


I plan to add a red valance to finish it off. I'm just happy to be able to make the boys happy with a playroom that they love!

Love,

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The Big Boys' Room!

I have always really liked the bedding and decoratives we have for the big boys, so creating a room around them was so much fun!

I wanted to use bold, rich colors to set the tone. Since red is Jacob's favorite color, I wanted to be sure it was a main color in the room.  I liked this brown color because it just seemed like the perfect "lodge" feel. We chose "Ironwood" and " Red Hot" for the wall colors. The boys especially loved the foam paw prints and bears.

The only thing left to do is to add a small chair in the corner to finish off the reading area. Jacob loves his special "dog shelf" for his prized stuffed animals.

Joshua (Bear) loves that his room is bear themed.

Love,

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The Little Boys' Room!

Here is Joe's bed. Oh he was so excited to have his new room! The smile on his face was priceless!!! One of his favorite things to do is sit and look out of the window, so we put his horse where he would have a good view!

Joe was excited to be sharing his new room with his little brother, Jamie. Jamie was pretty excited, too.

I wanted to do something a little creative with the paint colors. We chose "Blue Pearl" and "Cucumber Green" for the walls. We used them on opposing walls to add more interest. Our nursery theme is "Vintage Firetruck" by Wendy Bellissimo.


The little boys love their new space, and that really makes me happy. :)

Love,

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Beautiful Snow!

Hugs,

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Christmas Around Our Home

The children had fun helping to decorate our mini-tree in the living room. They REALLY wanted bows on the tree :).

I love seeing our stockings hanging in a row on the fireplace. Next year I am hoping to embroider names on each stocking.

I think decorating the tree is one of my favorite parts of getting the house ready for Christmas. For some reason, putting the ornaments on the tree makes me slow down and just think about each person in my family and all of the things about them that I love. I love seeing how the boys get so excited about the "Christmas balls" and the ornaments that look like toys. I love the way the light reflects off of shiny ornaments, and the way the glitter sparkles on others. I love singing Christmas carols and hymns as we hang ornaments!
I think our Advent wreath is my favorite tradition during this time of year. I love lighting a candle each night at dinner and singing together! I love how the boys look forward to this each day.

During the Christmas season, we leave our table set with the Christmas dishes. Joshua especially loves getting to eat on our "Chrimas" dishes for dinner. He even calls our silverware "Chrimas spoons". Apparently food even tastes better on "Chrimas" plates.

This is our Advent chain. Each day we pull a ring as we count down the days until Jesus' birthday. The boys decided that we really need to make Him a special birthday cake. I think it's a wonderful idea!

This is our Jesse Tree Advent Calendar.

I love this time of year. I love decorating our home to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I love seeing my children's faces light up when the look at the sparkly lights on the tree, or talk about the Nativity scene.

Love,

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Powder Room Re-do

In here we used Dutch Boy's "Moon Over Mauve". We found this lovely valance that has both the colors from the laundry room and also other tones from around the main level of our house.

We decided to switch out a more dated mirror for an ornate mirror that used to hang in our foyer- and it worked out rather nicely I think!

I'd like to find a matching rug, but decided to put that on hold for a while...with having little boys learning bathroom etiquette it did not seem like the best time for a new rug, LOL.

Now all that's left to complete the main level of the house is our foyer, and hanging the new valance in the breakfast room!

Love,

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Laundry Room Re-do

The laundry room ended up rather feminine, lol. We used Dutch Boy's "Dream Dust" and then painted an accent wall in "Moon Over Mauve" that we also used in the adjacent powder room.

I found baskets from around the house to use for storage of things like cleaning rags, baby bibs and vacuum bags. I hung a dry erase board on one wall to create a family message center with our family calendar for the week, and also a list of goals for the week.

I like using this large glass jar to store powdered laundry detergent. I think it looks nicer than having the box sitting around, and it just *feels* a little nicer too :).

We decided under the window would make a perfect spot for a changing table. It made sense to have a diaper changing station on the main level of the house. Rick hung a butter colored wall shelf beside it to hold wipes and hand sanitizer. We added a valance to tie it all together.

This room gets a ton of sunlight during the day, and now it is really a bright and happy place to work :)!

Love,

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