Red White and Blue

Do you ever find yourself living by a motto during times of life that might be difficult, hectic, depressing, etc? Lately I have found myself pondering our life situations, and continually found myself saying "Just Be Happy". No matter how hard or how busy things got, we truly have so much to Be Happy about. Since I have been out of School for the Summer, I have been surrounding myself with the things that make me especially Happy. Time with family, splashing at the pool, and my favorite Decorating.

When we first bought our house, it was our plan to be here for 5-6 years. Well we just passed our 5 year mark and are realizing that we will be here for longer than planned....Life, Right?!

Anyway, for that reason I really have been wanting to change up a few things and really put our stamp on this house and make it what I have wanted all along. Because we have an open floor plan, we just have the living/family room and in case you didn't know, one year olds have a LOT of toys. I was running out of ideas and places to store the things that get used on a daily basis. I decided to make a trip to our local HomeGoods in Salt Lake and found the perfect tufted storage bench, along with many, many other things. I should probably add that to the list of stores I should be banned from. Everything else just kind of fell into place. 

After finding my ottoman, I hit up Hobby Lobby and found these fun accessories, to liven up our space a bit. I spray painted a couple of existing items I had, and added in my 4th of July decor and presto. I am loving the Anthropologie inspired metal "W". It's a great piece that you can see right from the front door. 

I was growing tired of my old 4th of July wreath I had made when we first moved in. I wanted something smaller and simpler. That's my life right now, trying to simplify everything. Kids require you to do that sometimes. I hit my keyboard running, searching Pinterest for Ideas and found this felt project. Extremely time consuming, but easy and, OH SO PERFECT on my front door. 

 I still love my Americana Bunting that I made a few years back. All the Fabrics I found at Hobby Lobby. Sewed them into double sided rectangular pieces, they gathered them into the bunting and sewed them onto a a long piece of fabric to hang them from. 

I seriously get so many compliments on it. 

Again simplicity is key for me. Simple patriotic scrapbook paper, cut into triangles with pinking shears (I didn't even measure the triangles to make sure they were the same size, I just eyeballed them), then I ran them through my sewing machine to stitch them together. 

If you haven't taken advantage of the free patriotic printable I posted, you can download it here. 

I love the 4th of July. So many things in my life have happened in July, got engaged, got married, blessed Maggie, got my gallbladder out. It really is a tie between this and Christmas for my favorite Holiday. 

So I hope you enjoyed a little tour of my Red, White and Blue decor. I am so excited for upcoming posts, so keep checking back and PLEASE FOLLOW ME if you aren't already. Followers mean giveaways and giveaways mean free stuff for you! 

Happy Weekend, I hope you are all enjoying your Summer. 

XO: Kelli

This is not a HomeGoods or Hobby Lobby sponsored post. All opinions expressed are my own. 

Strawberry Days

One of my Favorite things about Summer in Utah is all of the City Festivals that happen, EVERY week. This weekend we celebrated Strawberry Days in our neighboring town of Pleasant Grove. Really though, who was the genius who decided to celebrate Strawberries?! It's tradition to end our evening with a little Strawberries n' cream for dessert and a walk through the carnival and craft fair. Maggie experienced the Carousel for the first time, and could not figure out if she loved it or hated it. She spent the entire ride doing this freaked out giggle. We had to go back a second day so Daddy could come and see her in action. By her second and third time around she had the hang of things and was blowing kisses to everyone....and then she came home and threw up ALL OVER THE FAMILY ROOM. Maybe the Carousel two days in a row after having a stomach bug all week wasn't such a good idea. 

I just had to document, not only my first selfie, but my little, tiny, post pardom, broken bangs/antlers have finally grown out enough that they can be flat ironed in with the rest of my bangs....Huzzah. It only took OVER A FREAKING YEAR to no longer look as though my antennae were trying to phone E.T. home. The things our bodies do for these little ones! (ignore the unmade bed). 

These guys are just as much our children as Maggie is, if not more since they have been with us for five times longer than Maggie has. They had their annual teeth cleanings on Saturday, literally took till 10:00pm for their anesthesia to completely wear off. They spend the afternoon walking into walls and barstools, tripping on stairs and being completely lazy. Maggie loved that they were too out of it to run away when she tried to "Snuggle them" - AKA- tried to shove her doll bottle up their noses.  

Sunday usually means lazy afternoons since we have church at 9:00am. We decided to try out our new mason jar mugs we found at Walmart with some green smoothie. For whatever reason she did not want to pick it up, so she sat on the kitchen floor and drank the entire cup. After every sip she would look up and go "mmmmmm", and then go back for more. I love her in all of her mismatched pajama glory. 

I have been getting the house all geared up for the 4th of July, and doing some minor accessory redecorating in the great room. Stay tuned for a little tour of my Patriotic decor, and my red, white and blue felt wreath. 

Until then, Here is a little sneak peak of my new decor. 

Friday Freebie

I have fallen in love with Subway art to decorate with for the Holidays. It's so easy and I can just store them all in the same frame all year and just rotate them around. It makes for a lot less clutter. I saw this 4th of July printable floating around on Pinterest, so I decided to make my own and share it with all of you. 

Click Here to download it (11x14)

Here is a little throwback of my Mag-Pie last year on the 4th of July. She was exactly 2 months old and starting to get her little rolls. Holy Smokes time flies!

Happy Friday Everyone. Enjoy the first official Summer Weekend of 2014

-Kelli

Lake Mead 2014

We took a short and I emphasize short getaway last week. Our best friends invited us to tag along on their annual Lake Mead boating trip. We left Thursday afternoon and got there that evening. We had planned on spending two days at the Lake and then head home Saturday evening so we could be back for Father's Day Festivities with my family. Unfortunately our Friday plans got cancelled due to Red Flag warnings on the Lake. The swells were much to big to do any wake boarding and too windy to play on the beach. Part of the group decided to head into Vegas and the rest of us stayed back. We found a deserted Splash Pad in Moapa Valley. Because it was so windy it was actually quite chilly. The water felt amazing though. So to stay warm we actually stayed under the water. The kids loved it and Maggie was in heaven. She is such a water baby. We stayed in the small area of Logandale/Overton with some Family Friends. The views there are amazing with the plateau'd rocks as a backdrop the all the Palm Trees. I couldn't help but snap a few pics when we were out driving around.

Saturday was our short lived, amazing Lake day. We got there about 8:30 in the morning and got our beach set up. The second we put Maggie down she started squishing her hands and toes in the wet sand. She had a ball playing in the water and digging with her sand toys. We took a couple spins on the Wave Runners, and Grant got Wake Boarding time in. Then at around Noon and Maggie started throwing up non-stop. We held out for a bit to see if it would subside, but after the fourth time we decided to call it quits and have them take us back to the docks. We got back to the house and started packing up to make the six hour drive home with a sick one year old. I was super bummed I was not able to get all the pictures I had hoped to get, but what little time we did get at the Lake was a blast. We will hopefully be heading back next Summer. On the upside, by Sunday evening our little sickie was starting to hold down food and liquid and she was back to herself by today. Needless to say we are very glad to see her happy and healthy again. I have spent all of today washing her carseat and pack n' play in the bathtub and washing the mountain of soiled clothes and blankets. Sick kids are the worst and try teaching a one year old to throw up in a bowl...GOOD LUCK!

Let hope the rest of our week goes off without a hitch. We are looking forward to our little town's Strawberry Days Festival later this week. Strawberries and Cream is one of our Summer Highlights. We will probably have Maggie experience some of her first Carnival rides too. Can't wait for those pictures.

Until then...Happy Monday Ya'll

XO Kelli