A Weekend in Texas

I got to check off a bucket list item a few weeks ago. For no particular reason, I've always wanted to visit Texas and Georgia. For whatever reason, those felt the most "Southern" to me and I really wanted to see what it was like in the South. We've been planning this trip to Texas since Fall. The whole trip was centered around a girls' weekend at the IF: Gathering. We planned to fly in a day early so we'd have time to drive from Dallas down to Waco for a bit before the conference started. My love of all things farmhouse and Fixer Upper made this a given while in TX. The weather ended up making it an extremely short visit (thanks for nothing Texas weather, the snow followed us down from Minnesota!) but I still felt at home. I could have spent hours in there gathering inspiration. Even though we are in the Baby Steps, we saved cash for me to take on our trip. I did find some sweet little things to add to our home and remember this trip by. Now we just have to go back and visit when the weather is warmer! And note to self: just because it's Texas does not mean 40 degrees will feel warm. Pack more than sandals and a light jacket next time or you'll be buying sneakers to save your feet again haha.

Visiting Magnolia was such a small part of our trip but it was the only time I lugged my "big girl" camera with me. I wish I had taken more pictures of the rest of my time with these sweet friends. I tried to soak it in and appreciate every moment away from my family before we headed back home. The whole weekend put me out of my comfort zone but in the very best way. It's easy to sink into a rut but sometimes its necessary to step out in faith and try something new. These ladies have become like family to me and I so enjoyed getting to experience all of these new things with them!

Entryway Refresh

This is one space that I have wanted to fill since we moved into the house in 2017. I wanted to put a bench there (this stems from not wanting people to wear shoes in the house) but my husband wanted to use a table. We went back and forth about what would be best there. We finally got the chance to fill this little nook and came to a good compromise.

Initially Mark hung the shelf and we planned to add another above it but the space just wasn't there. The studs in the walls line up pretty wonky as well so we had to off-center the whole thing. I would love to shiplap this little nook some day so maybe we will adjust the shelf height whenever we end up doing that. We snagged the table, chair, and baskets from Hobby Lobby. Then we were on the hunt for a lamp and a taller piece with good weight as base pieces. 

We tried a few of the lamps I refinished but none of them were quite right. The industrial lamp we found was at Hobby Lobby! We had the edison bulbs on hand and I love the final look. Then I was in search of a mirror or painting as a tall backdrop piece. Our living room has a large window so I loved adding a mirror here to reflect some more light around the room. The mirror came from Home Goods at an insanely good price! I spotted a large farm house photo at Hobby Lobby that I think would have been great in this spot too. 

I love making my own candles with essential oils but I'm always on the hunt for a pretty jar to reuse for mine. We lucked out and found this one at Home Goods along with the candlestick and scale. I ripped the cover off a few books to add some height in the space.

This small chair was a good compromise because it still gives guests a place to sit and take off their shoes without taking up the whole space. I didn't love the idea initially because I was dead set on a bench. However, after seeing the whole thing come together, I love the chair here! I would like to find a rug to add in the entryway to pull it all together but for now I'm ecstatic with the turn out. I can't wait to decorate this with seasonal pieces and use the "hidden" storage for practical use.

Do you have a table in your entryway? What's your favorite season to decorate it?

Farm + House Co.

As part of our Dave Ramsey/Debt Free journey, I've been brainstorming ways I can quickly make money to help pay off our debt early. DR calls this a side hustle. I love creating things so I thought opening a Facebook shop to sell whatever I made was a good idea. I've grown pretty attached to the Farm + House name so I knew right away what I wanted to name my shop! Farm + House Co. was born just in time for Black Friday! It's been a learning experience over the last two months but I can't wait to see how this shop grows over the next year!

I contemplated what to sell since I have several creative outlets but I wanted to start off with something simple. I had the supplies on hand to make handmade felt hair bows after I made some for my niece. I just launched my second collection, this one for Valentine's Day, last week. It has been so fun to see something I made on my friends' little ones! I'm hoping to add some home decor items to the shop in the near future! 

If you'd like to check out my Facebook shop, Farm + House Co., I would love to know what you think! Is there anything you'd like to see in my shop? Let me know!

January Snapshot

One of the things I've really missed doing was my self-portrait project. I did a weekly self-portrait in 2017 and those are some of my favorite photos from that year. I took a break from them last year but wanted to start again, on a smaller scale, this year. I'm going to share a monthly self-portrait here for 2019. It's so interesting to me to see what parts of motherhood have changed in the last two years and what parts have stayed exactly the same.

I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the boys playing the other day and on a whim decided to snap a few self-portraits. The light was great and Jax wanted to snuggle so I didn't put any planning into these. I just clicked the timer and hoped they were in focus! The first one is a great shot for this part of life. We spend so much time reading books with one or both boys snuggled up in our laps. The second shot is something I never want to forget. Jax is really into smooching everything right now with a big ol' "muaaaaaaaaaah." Especially stuffed animals and puppets. He pulled this monkey up as I started the timer and I love that this is what we ended up with!

TJ Maxx Haul

I had to make a run to TJ Maxx today for some new notepads. I needed to grab my niece's birthday gift too! I used to always grab notepads from the Target dollar spot but I haven't really found many there in the last year. I remembered that TJ Maxx always has an assortment of notebooks for a pretty good price. I packed up a "picnic lunch" for the boys and we headed out over lunch time. Risky with two littles to go just before naps but it worked out in my favor this time! 

Maverick got to pick out a book for her and he chose this sweet farm animal book. I found this adorable Carter's outfit too! I was looking for a picture frame too but never did find those.

I snagged this 6 pack of Moleskin journals for $14.99. I wanted to find a few for lettering on and these are HUGE! Maybe it's something I'll offer in my Facebook shop if they turn out well. I paid about half that much for a 3 pack of journals half the size a few weeks ago so I think this was a good deal!

I love these "lay flat" type of notebooks for journaling. I use one every day my prayer journal and another for gratitude and miscellaneous journaling. Loved these Rae Dunn ones! I'm almost through my current prayer journal so I needed to pick up a few to have on hand.

I grabbed these two large notepads for general use. I love having a flat notepad instead of a spiral notebook. I use these for meal planning, grocery lists, packing lists, taking notes when I do online classes, anything where I need a lot of space to write. My last one disappeared and I've been needing to replace it for weeks!

I grabbed a small wallet to take along when I got to Texas in a few weeks since I'm only bringing a smaller crossbody purse and my regular wallet is too big to fit. The one thing I was disappointed in was not finding any smaller notepads. I wanted to stock up on a few that I saw the last time I was there but their supply was mostly notebooks this time. I know TJ Maxx and similar stores can be hit or miss depending on supply so I can't fault them for that. I'll have to check back in a week or two and see if they have any on hand then.

Can't wait to get working on those new journals! Would you buy a hand lettered notebook for journaling or do you prefer something without lettering on the front?

2019

It seems that everyone thinks resolutions are cliche. There is such a high failure rate that most people think why even bother! In the past few years there has been a trend towards choosing a word for the year instead of resolutions. The first one or two years I chose a word, I ended up forgetting what the word was or didn't let it guide my actions at all. In December 2017 I decided that my word for 2018 was going to be GRACE. I had a teeny baby and toddler running around so I knew I was in major need of grace, from myself and everyone around me. Little did I know how much that word would truly impact my year!

In early 2018 I was diagnosed with PPA and had to make some serious changes to my routine. I had to turn all of my focus onto healing myself and finding a good self-care routine. I had to ask for help and accept it when it was offered. I had to give myself ALL THE GRACE. It took quite awhile to feel better but had I not shown myself grace most of all, I'm not sure I would have been able to heal. It meant making an effort each day and at the end of the day, letting things go when they didn't get done. I felt so much of God's grace surround me as I worked through each day.

Another goal I had in 2018 was to document our lives through the 1 Second Everyday app. In 2017, I did a weekly self-portrait project and wanted to do something completely different last year. I loved how the video turned out! I had to push myself to document more videos than photos and although some months were a flop, I had some form of memory to add in for every single day.

This year I decided to have set monthly resolutions as well as choosing two words for the year. I chose HEART + HANDS as my focus words. You know the saying, "If you think my hands are full, you should see my heart!" I have some big dreams that God has placed on my heart as far as our family goes and that saying just keeps popping out at me. This is the second year in a row that I found a planner with my inspiration word on the cover! I know God will open my heart + hands to accept whatever His plan is for our family.

 On top of those dreams, I wanted to set a monthly resolution to work on a new skill or improve a skill I've worked on in the past. So far I've picked out my resolutions for January, February, and March! My hope is to blog a couple times a week about how I'm working towards those resolutions each week to keep myself on track. I know for myself, when I try to work on a goal for long periods of time I end up falling off the wagon. I hope by focusing on each resolution for just a month at a time, I will find a good routine to continue those skills after I've moved on.

I'd love to hear what resolutions or goals you have for this year! If you chose a word for 2019, what was it?