Living Room Progress: The Sitch with the Niche

So how are we saying 'niche?'  Do you say Nitch?  Or Neesh?  

I say 'hole in the wall.'

As in, there's a hole in the wall in my living room and I want to do something about it.

Like so.

I don't know why it's only on one side; the lack of symmetry is silly and I would have loved two narrower 'neeshes' on either side of the fireplace.  Pay attention, builders.  The word of the day is symmetry.

Alas, the builders didn't consult me before they built the house and this isn't a custom home where you get to pick everything down to where you want your light switches. (That's the next house.)  

So I've got this hole and I knew I wanted to put a built-in-esque bookcase in there because we have no bookcases in this house and books are life.

Books are life.
via

via

There's a guy in my neighborhood that builds things and he came over to give me a quote and I was this close to hiring him but then my DIY spirit took over and I was all "I have all the time in the world!  I can build something MYSELF!"

My husband's laughs could be heard from all over the world.  

That didn't bother me; there are IKEA Billy bookcase hacks all over Pinterest and I knew I could do this.  So, we went to Charlotte because we don't have an IKEA here.  Which makes no sense because there are like a thousand colleges in Raleigh and where there are colleges, one needs an IKEA.  But it's whatever; we went to Charlotte and I came home with two small Billy bookcases.

Like so.

Putting the bookcases together was super easy and I was extra proud of myself.  I bought Kreg mini jig and made pocket holes and everything!  The bookcases were about half an inch too wide so I had to screw them together and the nitch isn't perfectly square, so that bad boy is wedged in there like nobody's business.

Now, the reason why I'm writing about this is because I'd like to get it done before Thanksgiving and there's nothing like putting it out to the Universe, aka you guys, to give you the ol' kick in the pants.

I want to trim it out, put in library lights, and get it all styled and pretty before we have guests next week.  Now whether or not that actually happens will remain to be seen, but it's always good to have goals.

A bit of a wider shot of the living room.

Those are my fall pillow covers; they look more

golden and fall-ish in real life I promise.

And one day very very soon I'm painting all our interior doors black.

Wait for it; it's going to be awesome.

But this is about my neesh.  I have plans for it, my friends.  Plans that I hope to execute in the coming weeks and then I'm going to write about it and it's going to be wonderful.

Oh, and let's talk about my sofa for a quick second.  It's pretty much the most awesome sofa ever and I love it so very very much.  Our old sofa wasn't cutting it in the slightest.

You can kind of see where we were putting the TV in the nitch and the rug was too small and the sofa was too small and it just wasn't working.  We needed a sectional.  I wanted to get a nice one but my neighbors talked me out of it, saying that my kids were still too young and would trash a super nice sofa so we got the Amalfi sectional from Haverty's and let me tell you; I'm so happy with our choice!  Navy doesn't come standard but I had my heart set on a navy sofa and seriously, I love it so much.  Navy is an excellent neutral, did you know that?  It seriously goes with everything and now that I know how to sew pillow covers, I plan to change them out with the seasons and navy is the perfect backdrop.  Even though I'm not about celebrating Christmas until after Thanksgiving, I kind of can't wait to make some Christmas pillow covers.  Because that's where I am in my life; I sew and get excited over pillow covers.  Call me Eunice.

Anyway, the sectional is amazing; I got a jute rug from RugsUSA and the living room is slowly but surely starting to come together.

Keep me accountable, my friends!  Help me finish my neesh before the end of the year!

*PS - I went to my neighbor's house tonight for a party where you buy stuff and I had lots of wine, so I'm really hoping this all makes sense and is entertaining and you like it because your girl has a straight up buzz and I'm loving it.

You're so pretty.

Allow me to reintroduce myself

Hello again!  It's so nice to see you!

I do hope that this is the start of something beautiful and that I'll get to visit here more often, provided the two small people in my life give me that time.

Now, I feel like I've been gone so long and so much has happened that a little recap is in order.  And on the off chance that you're reading for the first time, I'll bring you up to speed.  A lot's happened since my last post and it's always fun to look back to see how far you've come.

Join me on Memory Lane, won't you?

Way back when, I was unmarried with a hot boyfriend.

 Not a care in the world.

After a while, we got married.

Bliss.

Then it got complicated, and life took off at breakneck speed.  You see, on the day we got married I thought I was pregnant.  I mean, I was; I thought I was pregnant with a live baby but it turns out I wasn't.  That was my first miscarriage and it was bad.  Like, so bad that I didn't think the sun would ever shine again and it was a downright shitty way to start married life.  

But, that was our start and through a LOT of tears, fights and despair, somehow we persevered.  I had another miscarriage, but finally I carried a live baby to full term and my first daughter Sofia was born.

Sofia's birth story 

Part 1  

Part 2  

Part 3  

Part 4  It's kind of an awesome read, if I do say so myself.

  It seems like it was yesterday.

Time passed, and we decided we wanted to add to our family.  We knew what we were up against, and I had two more miscarriages and it sucked.  Hard.  However, once again I was able to carry to term and my second daughter Andrea joined us almost two years ago.

Her birth story was pretty epic too.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I am blessed beyond measure.

Life as a mother of two is a ride for sure and the A Number One reason that my writing took a distant backseat.  That hot boyfriend I married and had those beautiful babies with?  He has an amazing job that he loves, but that job takes him out of town a lot.  A lot a lot.  I'm on my own the majority of the time and actually, I hope to be able to write more about that in the future.  

But him being gone means I'm responsible for everything 24-7, no breaks, no tapping out, no helping hands.  All Mom, all the time.  And did I mention we move a lot?

This was our first house, in Texas.  

I loved that house so very much.

Three years later, we moved to Pennsylvania and this little ranch

became our home.

Two very short years after that, we came to North Carolina

and this is where we lay our heads.

If you're keeping track, that's three houses in six years, three states, a baby in each state (except here; I told Drew that there will NOT be a baby in North Carolina.)  It's a lot, and while the adventure is fun, I'm looking forward to putting some roots down and sittin' a spell.

My babies are four and almost two now.

Someone please tell me when the hell and how the hell this happened.

This too, please.

My days are so full sometimes that all I want to do at the end of the day is collapse in bed and binge watch Netflix.  These days I'm starting to feel like I'm catching my breath and one of the first things I wanted to do was come back here and reconnect with you, my readers and friends.  I've missed you guys and it warms my heart more than you know to get those emails checking in on me, making sure I'm still alive.  I've said it before and I'll never stop saying it, you guys are the best.

So I'm back.  I'm here and I'm going to do my best to stick around and update more frequently because I've got ten months worth of stories to tell and I do hope you'll want to hear them.

As always, this blog is a reflection of my life in its current state and currently, I'm all about being a mom and daydreaming about decorating my house.  Do you remember way way back, I was terrible at sewing?  Well guess what?  I'm pretty decent now and I'm regularly sewing things!  Nothing major, I'm not making wedding gowns but I've made things and they don't suck!

With every move, making our house a home is a priority for me and this time, it's no different.  I've just got a gigantic canvas now and it's been a fun challenge.  I've been doing little things here and there and I'd love to share them with you and as usual, I've made mistakes (jewelry storage anyone?), I've learned things and maybe I have some knowledge that might of use to you.  If nothing else, I'm always good for a laugh.

So thank you.  Thank you for checking in on me, thank you for sticking with me and I will be back soon!

Andrea's pink and gold first birthday party

I've been working on this post for two days now; fingers crossed I can actually finish this time!

I sure am glad February is over my friends, because it hit us hard.  I thought it was going to be off to a good start because we got to have Andrea's first birthday party on her actual birthday (the 7th) and that's got to be a good sign, right?  Except, no.

The party was great, but as with any event, the planning is always a production and her party was no different.  I wanted everything to run smoothly and I didn't want to be running around doing a million things last minute.  I started planning and prepping a month in advance with every spare second I had and with help from my mom and my friend Aimee, the party was a great success.  But honestly, I was really looking forward to having a break once it was over.  Parties take a lot of effort and staying up late every night was taking its toll on me.  Unfortunately, Sofia got sick the day after the party with an ear infection and the winter yuck.  I felt terrible that she was sick but I thanked my lucky stars that at least Andrea and I were healthy.  I should've kept my mouth shut, because Andrea got sick just as Sofia was getting better, then Drew went on a work trip to Europe and I got sick and the world ended.  

It's one thing when your kids are sick; it's another thing entirely when it's the mom and the kids and there's no one around to tag you out when you can't take another step.  I was alone, I felt like I'd been beaten with a bag of lemons and I was coughing up a lung. The baby couldn't breathe so she couldn't sleep; she was exhausted and miserable, Sofia wasn't back to 100% yet, so she was clingy and whiny and it was enough to plunge me straight into despair.  There were a couple of times that all three of us were just sitting there crying.  I seriously didn't think we were going to make it through and I was questioning all of my life choices that had gotten me to that point.  I hated everything about my life and I cursed everything in between the coughing fits, the crying, the nose-wiping, the sneezing, the 'I'm hot Mom', the 'I'm cold Mom', the body aches and the praying to die. 

That was our February.  It wasn't pretty.

However, we're all better, I'm still married, Drew came home and things are back to normal for the moment so before anything else happens, let me tell you about Andrea's awesome birthday party!

........................................................................

I wracked my brain for a good theme for Andrea's birthday.  I was definitely feeling that second-child guilt and I wanted her party to be as good as Sofia's first birthday.  I just went back and read that post and I'm feeling all the feels right now.  So much has happened in four short years...

But back to Andrea's first birthday.  I chose pink and gold for the theme, because if we're being honest here, I couldn't think of another one I liked as much.  I searched Pinterest for a theme that jumped out at me and nothing did, so I drew my inspiration from her nursery.  Thankfully pink and gold birthdays are a thing, so I didn't have to re-invent the wheel; I just had to pick which elements I wanted and go with it.

With each birthday party I've planned, I've learned and refined my process and while every birthday is a production, I'm getting better at it.  Of course, Drew would disagree and he lectures me every year about doing too much and every year I ignore him.  As long as I have breath in my body and pennies in the bank account, my babies are getting elaborate birthday parties.  Birthdays and anniversaries are my thing and it's just better for all involved not to get in my way.  To his credit, Drew did just that.  I did everything I wanted for the party and he just got out of the way.  That's what you call growth in a marriage.

Once again, I made cupcakes and her layer cake and froze them ahead of time.  Also!  I figured out how to get even layers and pink food coloring without dye!  I really want to make a whole separate post about the cake because I love cake that much, but I just can't keep this information to myself.

I bought these baking strips at JoAnn's and they are game-changing.

You soak them in water, wrap them around your pans

and voila!  Even layers without having to saw off the tops!

This deserves its own post and maybe I'll write it one day

but these little guys from Target will give you 

the color pink and it's magical!

But enough about the cake, this is about my baby.

Gah, she's so cute.

Did you ever see a cuter baby?

I mean, seriously.

I had her pictures done by my amazingly talented neighbor Karen Lord.  She's so sweet and professional and it was an absolute joy to work with her.  If you're local, I highly recommend her!  

To prepare for her birthday photoshoot, I searched high and low for the perfect onesie and I finally found it at KinKin Designs.  I'm always nervous buying things online because you can never be sure of quality.  I didn't want the onesie to be thin and I didn't want the glitter to be cheap to where it comes off on everything.  I crossed my fingers and placed my order and I was so happy with the result!  First, shipping was super fast which is always good when you procrastinate.  Not that I do that, ahem.  The cotton on the onesie was nice and thick and even though there was no label telling you the brand, I knew it was good quality.  The design was perfect as well, just the right size and the glitter stayed put.  Overall, I was a very happy customer and I definitely recommend this shop.  I took it to the embroidery place at the mall and had her name stitched on it before I'd picked out the tutu, so it was quite a happy accident that the colors matched.  

Now, I've talked about how I dress my babies before, and while I've relaxed on my 'no tutu' rule, I won't ever put giant bows on them.  I was going to put an example, but I've gotten soft in my old age; I don't want to post a picture of a baby in a giant bow and make fun of them on my blog, but you get the idea.  The bows or flower headbands that are half the size of the kid's head?  It's a no-go in this house.  

With that in mind, I found some simple, well-made bows from cutebows4girls  and ordered a pack.  They're great quality and this is another shop you should check out.  No one is paying me or giving me free stuff to talk about their shops; I'm just one happy customer sharing info so you can be happy too.

Besides, no matter what's in her hair she just tries to take them off anyway.

I didn't print invitations this time because we only invited invited five families and three of them were Drew's work people.  I charged him with sending them a quick email and the other two were Andrea's godparents and my neighbor so invitations seemed like overkill.

They came all the way from Pennsylvania and it was 

so great to have them with us!

So let's talk food and decorations!  The party was at the house, which made party prep a little easier.  I worked on things as I had the time and just set them in the dining room as I completed them.

I got a heart punch on sale at JoAnn's and made the cupcake toppers

with some gold glitter scrapbook paper and toothpicks.

Sofia even helped make a couple of them!

I also wanted macarons and I couldn't find them anywhere

around here so Aimee brought some from Pennsylvania.

Oh yeah, it was fancy.

 I may have done a little much in the sweets department.  We had cake, cupcakes, macarons, creme puffs, cookies and brownies in addition to regular food.  Also, we had the party at three in the afternoon and that makes for horrible lighting so my pictures aren't the greatest.  My apologies, but you get the idea.

These beautiful and tasty cookies are from

Southern Sugar Bakery

and pictures don't do them justice.  They were gorgeous

and I'm crazy impressed that they do all the designs by hand.

I'd asked the lady making the cookies to use/find gold glitter

but she couldn't so we made do with yellow.

However, my neighbor Monica made the creme puffs and

she found gold glitter at Marshall's so she wins.

I made a pineapple lemonade and floated some frozen strawberries

for our pink and gold drink and it was a hit.

Whenever I make punches, I'm always worried they'll be too sweet

but this one was just right.

By comparison, the punch I made for Andrea's baptism gave 

everyone a sugar headache and we all had to water it down.

I really shouldn't ever try to modify recipes if I haven't tried them first.

I'm bummed I didn't get a shot of the cake once it was cut, but

I promise the layers were beautiful and even and it

tasted great to boot!

I doctored a box cake this time but for Sofia's birthday I think I'm going to

try my hand at making a cake from scratch.

For the regular food, we had ham and turkey sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, white bean dip, hot spinach and artichoke dip, and pureed pea crostinis and hummus with sun-dried tomato crostinis.  I wanted to have more food but they all convinced me that what we had was plenty.  For me, it's not a party without cake and food and I would consider it a terrible faux pas if I invited people to my party and I didn't have anything to feed them.  Also, I'm learning about portioning!  We usually have way too much food left over at the end of our parties and this time the leftovers weren't overwhelming.  We only ate on them for a couple of days versus the week we were eating tiny sandwiches and meatballs that we had at Sofia's second birthday party.  And third birthday party.  I'm telling you, I'm getting good at this birthday party thing.

I kept decorations pretty minimal, but I knew I wanted to showcase Andrea's weekly pictures.  I took Sofia's weekly pictures too but I couldn't get it together enough to have them printed in time for her party and I didn't want to make the same mistake again.  Again, the lighting was terrible but I bought teeny clothespins and spray painted them with gold glitter paint and they turned out so cute!  For some reason, I didn't think that 52 pictures was going to be that many and I envisioned one string of photos and I was going to have her one week and one year picture on each end.  Please note: 52 pictures is a lot.  It doesn't seem that way but it is.  Remember that.  

People had varying opinions on her changes; some said she stopped changing around fourteen weeks, some said you could see subtle changes every week.  I really liked seeing all the pictures side by side because being with her 24-7 sometimes makes it difficult to notice the little changes and for the record, I saw changes in every single week once I had the opportunity to see the pictures all together.

I got the wood frames at Michael's and spray painted them with gold glitter and 

glued some cardstock to the backs to frame the pictures.

I found gold glitter stick-on letters at Michael's and that

saved me a ton of time making the banner.

I made another one for the dining room archway

that said Happy 1st Birthday Andrea, 

but I didn't get a shot of that one.

 We wrapped some balloons on the newel post and that was it for decorations.

I wanted to make a tassel garland for the stair rail but 

we ran out of time and a tassel garland is harder to make

than it looks. 

Besides, Andrea was the star of the show anyway.

It's not a first birthday if you don't have some baked goods to smash.

That's a rule.

We all sang to Andrea and Sofia and Aimee's son Carter 

took care of blowing out the big candles.  

I didn't plan that, but I'm so glad they had something to blow out

because Sofia definitely didn't understand that this wasn't her party

and was a little confused that all this wasn't for her.

I'm pretty sure Andrea didn't know it was for her either,

but I know she loved her cupcake.

After a quick bath to wash the cupcake out of her hair,

the birthday girl was back and ready to party.

We had a great time, and once everyone left it was time to clean up.

I mean, it was time to fashion a sassy gold skirt out of the 

birthday decorations.

The next morning, the birthday girl

had a wonderful time playing with the tissue paper from her presents.

She could have gotten bags of just tissue paper and she 

would have been thrilled.

Whew!  I got to finish a post, Andrea's birthday party is in the bag, Sofia's party is going to be great, my birthday is tomorrow, we go on vacation in a few days, we're all healthy again, and the kids are taking naps!  

I think that calls for a happy dance.

I'm just going to leave this right here.