Busy Boy!

Awhile ago as I was browsing Pinterest, I came across the idea to do a Busy Board for a little boy.  I thought this idea was really cool and wanted to make one for Jace.  But as most of my ideas go, it got put on the back burner, then forgotten about...until his bedroom "makeover."  Back on Pinterest, this one came across and I liked the simplicity of it since the first one I saw looked too hard (aka they set the bar too high).

So with this picture and this site as my inspiration, I begged some time during a recent date night to go to Home Depot with Justin so we could find some fun things for Jace Jace.

We had a good time finding things that we thought J would like to tinker with and kept track of the prices so we didn't get out of control.  It's still kind of pricey (the original website said $50, we came in a little under that) but we also got a light that he could turn on and off so that hiked the price up a bit.

Saturday we laid it all out, stained the board, painted the sides a yellow and secured everything on the board.

Sunday we installed it on the wall and let him loose...

It's a winner!  He doesn't just stand there and play with it for hours on end, it's a come and go thing for him. It's simple in design so it's not too overwhelming. 

The worst thing about it is that there is only one busy board and two kids who want to play with it...ahhh. A lesson in sharing.  Perfect. 

Design By Text

I guess going on a week long vacation and then coming back gives you a fresh perspective on your house.  After taking about a week to recover from our trip to the beach, I walked into my son's room and thought - what is going on here??  The room had no flow, it was pieced together and although there were certain things in there that I loved, it was just NOT working.  There was a LOT of stuff in there too.

                                   

I love the way my friend Maria decorates her home, so I immediately texted her and she was game to help me!  We created a board on Pinterest and we both starting pinning away!  What I think is hilarious though is that while we are pinning, our whole conversation is being texted.  Our kids were sleeping and instead of actually talking, we texted all of our thoughts.  It was ideal though so we could send photos of the current "situation" in Jace's room and ideas on where to put things as well as respond when we had the time.

First up, rearrange the room.  Next, shopping for new bedding.  I'm trying to keep the budget low so I'm hopeful to find things on sale or already in my house.  I've only made a few changes and I already love it so much more!

Before.....After.

This is my work in progress.

Fun things still to come - to actually make it a fun little boys room!!

(And since we have rearranged and taken stuff out, the kids have played in there more than they ever have.  Love!!)

Just Beachy!

We had a good time at the beach.  I love that there are no schedules (except Jace's nap time) and it's pretty much a do-whatever-you-want kind of trip!  The kids have a blast because of sun, ocean, pool and plenty of candy (courtesy of Papa) around!

Jace did great.  We bought him a new life-jacket because the one I thought was a great deal made him scream the whole time.  Unfortunately all life-jackets for his size have the neck thingy on it, which is what he doesn't like.  But he survived :) He loved the water for a few minutes at a time but mostly enjoyed the sand and even sampled it from time to time!  He did great with naps and night time sleeping was a little rough, but nothing we couldn't handle.

This little miss loved the pool and the ocean.  I'm proud of her because she went swimming several times without her "crab" and swam entirely by herself the length of the pool a few times!!! 

 As our tradition, we also took some fun beach photos...

I wish my camera wasn't crooked and off center but I still love this photo.

And the cousins!! 

Impromptu family photo! 

Nothing beats a week at the beach.  Already looking forward to next year. We are planning on going back to Gulf Shores (we vacationed there before the oil spill) so the drive won't be as long!  Hooray for that!

Getting There

We have been waiting a whole year since our last beach trip! We always have so much fun and really look forward to each year with Justin's family.  We rent a house and then lounge for a week by the ocean.  

This year though with airplane tickets being so ridiculous, we decided to drive. Our trip was going to be 18+ hours in the car.  I was excited and terrified at the same time.  Haylie does ok with long rides, Jace however, does not.  And there really are not a lot of options for him for travel toys since he is at that awkward stage - all he wants to do is throw stuff.  Anyway, I got some things together for both kids - one of which I made this travel book for Haylie.  I thought she would love following our trip with a map, and some page-protected pages with dry erase crayons.  It went over okay - she liked it but mostly just scribbled circles on the pages.  Whatever makes her happy!!

Since we were travelling so far, we rented a mini-van so we didn't put all those miles on ours.  It was worth EVERY PENNY.  It was a smoother ride, it had a DVD player (utilized most of the time!) and had lots of plug ins and storage for our cross-country trip.  We fell in love with this car and were a little sad to return it!

We had good moments and rough moments.  Going there, Jace cried hysterically about every 2 hours.  He was so sad to be strapped in his car seat and nothing seemed to help except to get it out of his system.  We stopped a few times to stretch - our last fill up was 1:45 AM in Birmingham, AL...needless to say it was not a great area.  After that, both kids fell asleep until about 7 or so - and the moment Jace woke up, he realized he was still in that dang carseat and let us know his thoughts about it.

After a breakfast stop, I finished up the driving and got us to "the edge" as Haylie calls it.

First sights over the causeway.  Welcome to Ocean Isle, NC.

Let the week begin!!