home decor and garden are very famous in the world

My wonderful friend and next-door neighbor had a beautiful baby boy recently.  Today I thought I’d share the beautiful nursery she created for him.  We had lots of fun running back and forth sharing opinions and ideas for this fun room in the months before he was born!  <sigh>  Helping on a dedicated nursery like this makes me feel cheated that I didn’t get to do this for any of my six children!

The nursery walls were painted a soft gray, and she chose to use aqua and red for the main accent colors.

We spent probably two hours arranging and rearranging the elements for the gallery wall.  The two gears are not “real”—I think she got them at Hobby Lobby, but they’re much lighter than the real thing!  The rusty lock and key is a real railroad heirloom, though.

This was my main contribution to the nursery!  She wanted a sign reminiscent of an old-time train logo, and this is what we came up with.  The cupboard door I used had already been painted aqua, so I used the vaseline trick before the coat of red paint so you could see the aqua underneath.

The old train on the shelf is a family treasure, as are the wonderful old lanterns.  The old fan was a “treasure” un-earthed from my garage!

My friend has a very talented seamstress aunt who made a new cover for the glider rocker.  I need an aunt like that!

And this is baby Buchanan.  I like to cuddle him under my chin and revel in that fuzzy baby head!

From Erik Boland:

Free agency officially kicked off in the hours after the Giants completed their four-game sweep of the Tigers in the World Series on Sunday night and, as expected, the Yankees on Monday exercised the club options they held on second baseman Robinson Cano, centerfielder Curtis Granderson and reliever David Aardsma.

Twelve of their players became free agents, headlined by Hiroki Kuroda, Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, Ichiro Suzuki, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera. The others are Eric Chavez, Pedro Feliciano, Freddy Garcia, Raul Ibanez, Andruw Jones and Derek Lowe.

Players can start signing with other clubs after midnight ET on Saturday.

OK, just wanted to post that before the Sandy knocked out my power and internet. Stay safe people.

As I sit in my house waiting for Hurricane Sandy to visit us I'm thinking of all the things that are bound to go wrong with our house.

We never got our gutters cleaned this Fall, let alone added gutter guards to keep them clean. Trouble.
Our bedroom ceiling has sprung a leak. And overgrown trees in our yard are swaying like hammocks.

But, in the gloom and doom of what will/might happen to our house I can't help but think of upcycling projects I'd like to do in the aftermath and clean-up of Sandy.

So, in the thoughts that there might be some of you who are sick of watching weather forecasts, here are some clever projects I found while searching the internet.
With any luck, everyone will stay safe and there will be lot's of discarded items up for grabs for clever folks like us.

Happy Sandy Upcycling!

My first thought, gutters - if your in need of replacements, don't let the old ones go to waste.
Plant a wall garden instead.

photo credit – AHL

Thanks to all of you for the comments on the MYCOLOR™ INSPIRED BY PANTONE® PAINTING PARTY!  I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the ideas that you guys have for painting projects. 

The winner of the MyColor by Pantone paint is Rae from Through the Haze – Reads.  Congrats Rae! 

I hope that everyone in Sandy’s path stays safe.  Take care if you are on the East coast.  For the rest of you have a great Monday!

After I got back from Japan, it took me a while to get the house in order and myself adjusted to everything. Although, it seems like life just comes at you no matter what.

I have been away for only 2 weeks, but boy there are so many things we mothers go thorough emotionally and physically each day...

I will share some of the examples of what I mean;

Example 1:

We had our family night one Monday, went out for ice cream, then came back home. We told the kids to go upstairs to get ready for bed. I was in the kitchen cleaning up and packing their lunches for the next day, when all of a sudden; "BANG!!!!".

I froze. Mr. TRH runs up the stairs and found Michael on the floor. He fell off the bunk bed. It knocked the wind out of him, he was so pail... he told us that his wrist hurt and showed us the arm. It was SO obvious that it was broken.

We immediately piled in the car to rush to the emergency room. He was telling the doctor that he was "slowly" walking on the top bunk and stood up on the rail... Mr. TRH and I were giving each other glances and understood what he was doing. He was probably doing Ninja moves and running on the bed instead of "slowly walking", and slipped and fell. After a while they needed to fix his arm and sedated him, but when he came out of the sedation, he was extremely nauseated and I saw it was coming fast!

There was nothing to catch it and I... I caught it with my hands! Bahh... I have no idea why I did that, but it was a natural instinct as a mom. Sigh...

He is ok now, got a lot of attention, his cast signed and everything. Mr. TRH taught him a phrase to say when people ask him what happened, "I got into a fight, you should see the other guy" ha-ha.

We went home at 2 AM that night, so tired buy relieved it wasn't anything worse. He scared me to death!

Example 2:

My oldest son Christopher has been working hard this summer and started to earn some merit badges. I was happy for his accomplishments until Mr. TRH said, "Hey, you need to sew them onto his sash." Ugh, have you sewn scout badges? They are kind of hard to sew. Also, it is horrible for me to say this but it's not creative sewing, so it's not something I want to do.

As soon as he said that, a million ways to cut corners went through my mind. Can I use a glue gun? How about gorilla glue or can I staple it?

Well, I decided to do the conventional way and started to saw. Then a funny thing happened. As I was sewing each one of the badges, I remembered how much effort he put in to earn them and how excited he was. By the time when I was done sewing all of them, I was ready for more. I asked him "Where are the other merit badges? Keep it coming, buddy!"

Example 3;

One Friday I picked the kids up from school as usual, and then Michael said "Mom, I need a poster!"

My response was "What poster?"

"Mooooom (with a nasally voice), it's my birthday next week I need a poster to show the class."

Really?! I already had a bunch of things I needed to do that weekend, where am I going to squeeze in the time to make a poster? Well, to start with, I had to stop by the store to buy poster board and other stuff, it's not like I have those things just lying around. Just like the merit badge story, once I started, I was having fun making it.

I am guessing that just like the Grinch’s heart got bigger and bigger, us mother's hearts expand as we do things for the kids? No matter how busy we get, no matter how tired we get. Even when I went to Japan, the first few hours I was so excited for the "vacation" by myself, and then I started missing them even before I reached Japan.

Everything I saw, everything I ate, I always wished that they were there to experience with me... sounds corny, but I was thinking that the saying: "A mother holds her children’s hands for a while, but their hearts forever". I feel like it was the other way around, they got a hold of my heart forever. I was never alone in my thoughts while I was away. Isn't it funny, even though life gets so crazy and you get frustrated with them for many reasons, you love them more and more each day.

Ok, I have a funny story to tell you... I made the birthday week poster for Michel, and the day of his birthday, I was supposed to bring a treats for his whole class. I jumped into the shower, got dressed but my hair was still messy and no make-up on my face. I was trying to get the kids ready for school packing their lunches, washing dishes and all. Then, I felt like someone was watching. When I turned it was Michael.

I said "What?"

He said sheepishly, "Can I ask you something?"

"What do you wanna ask?"

"Um...are you wearing pajamas? Or is that clothes?"

I started to laugh so hard! Ok, here are the pictures of the dress I wore that day;

It is one of the dresses I bought while I was in Japan. Yeah, I can understand why he asked the question he asked. Picture me with that dress, messy bun, no make-up. No boots or scarf... oh yeah, half pulled up socks too. He must have thought that "Why did she take a shower and get dressed in different pajamas???"

Michael LOVES when I am dressed up and look nice. The other two kids couldn't care less. Isn't it funny how they are all different? I think he was a little worried that I might show up to his school wearing my new pajamas.

I am still learning this "Motherhood" thing and I guess I will never be done learning. Each stage of family life brings a different dimension to it. I just hope that I am always ready for new things, be humble enough to be teachable by the experiences and enjoy the ride. What is your take on motherhood?