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*Due to some technical issues, Monica was unable to post her Mudroom Tour. Stay tuned tomorrow for the awesome rooms she has found!

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Did you know that Fathers generally have as much or more impact as mothers do in the following areas of their daughters’ lives: achieving academic and career success (especially in math and science), creating a loving, trusting relationship with a man, dealing well with people in authority (especially men), being self-confident and self-reliant, being willing to try new things and to accept challenges, maintaining good mental health and expressing anger comfortably and appropriately (especially with men)? (Source: Dr. Linda Neilsen, Psychologist and Professor at Wake Forest University)
Most of you also know that a girl develops her idea of God and her faith by her experience with her father. Dr. Meeker, author of Strong Father, Strong Daughter: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know, who has more than 20 years of experience working in Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, says this;
"If [a girl's] dad has not been trustworthy, she will have difficulty trusting God. So if a daughter sees a father who loves God, who turns to Him in times of need, she is more likely to do the same. Also, faith has been shown repeatedly to be a “protective” factor for girls. Research shows that girls who have faith in God stay away from sex, drugs, and alcohol, and are less likely to get pregnant."

All that to say that Kevin and I have realized the importance of developing a strong relationship between him and our daughter. A few years ago we attended a seminar at our church run by the Focus on the Family Institute that talked a lot about being intentional with scheduling quality family time. So, we decided to be more intentional about planning Daddy/Daughter dates. I can not tell you how much both Kevin and C1 love these times together. We are aiming for once a month, but it doesn't always happen that way. Just recently, on a Friday, Kevin told C1 he would be taking her out that night for a"daddy date". C1 was so excited she almost couldn't contain herself, and all day long she kept asking me if it was time for her date with Daddy. When Kevin finally got home from work, she was nearly bouncing off the walls.

These dates do not have to be anything elaborate, and this one certainly wasn't. He just took her to a local pet store, which she loves, so they could look at all the animals and play with a puppy.

Then, off they went to good ol' Mickey D's for some shamrock shakes and french fries (C1 LOVES mint). It was honestly a very cheap date, but it included stuff C1 really enjoys. And that's the goal isn't it? Building a strong, trusting relationship through shared experiences so that in later years, when C1 needs help or advice, she can go right to her Daddy.

Bonus: I got to spend some extra time with my little man, C2. It was a win-win for everyone! If you want to read a little more about this idea, check out this article from the Focus on the Family website.
It's never too early or too late to start investing in your kid's lives! What do you do to connect with the little people in your life?

Sorry guys, no DIY project today, but I thought I'd share a little bit of what's going on in my world. We know you guys love project inspiration here on the blog, but we're always hearing from many of you that you like the real life stuff too!
So, the big news in my world is that I've Retired!! Yup, 31 and Retired!

As of last Friday I'm no longer working in education- it feels strange even to type that! I gave my notice that I wouldn't be returning to the cyber school where I've worked for the last 5 years. Let me tell you that it wasn't an easy decision…

Here's how it all went down… starting in February, Jess and I began working for Knock It Off and the network was super awesome about my commitment to finishing out my school year. We worked almost every weekend from Feb.-June and we worked really long hours. I knew I was falling head over heels in love with our show and wanted to make it my full-time job! Who wouldn't want to work with their BFF, doing what they love, and getting paid to do it! Here's the catch… do you know how many people think it's totally legit to talk about how many shows fail?? A LOT. So, I was torn, take a risk and pursue this once in a lifetime opportunity or play it safe and just keep teaching. It sounds like a no brainer, but when you have 4 kids to think about, it wasn't easy.

Thankfully, the shows' producers were giving us nothing but positive feedback and finally Eric and I decided it was time to take a leap of faith and give 100% to this crazy new venture of Knock It Off! Can I tell you how relieved I was once I made the decision?? It was like about 2000 lbs off my shoulders.

Being a TV show host was never in a million years something I thought I'd do, but life doesn't always work out as we think it will. God has some crazy, whacked out plans. I have no idea where we'll be in 5 years, but I'm secretly hoping Jess and I will be in a 5th Season of Knock It Off!: )
Making a major life change can be scary, but we only have one shot at this life and I feel like with the support of my awesome family and friends this new venture is going to be awesome.

For now, I'm just so relieved to not be working two full-time jobs! Major props to my amazing husband and kids because the last three months took busy insanity to a whole new level. We're enjoying the simplicity of one job and spending a whole lot of family time together.
So, that's what's new in my world. Have you ever had to make a crazy, life-changing decision? Do tell!

PS- Oh, I also bough a MAC this weekend- I'm loving it! Thanks to all of you that gave me input on Facebook!
PSS- One of our favorite Sponsors, Moo&Puppy is having an amazing sale starting this weekend. She's where we get all of our awesome digital papers from! Make sure you check it out- start thinking of patterns you might want in the fall for back to school, Halloween, and then Christmas of course! Click HERE to check it out! Sale starts this weekend!

This is a t-shirt that I actually own, made for me by one of our good friends. Not completely true, but still so funny.
My hubs says we're in a"passing phase". The kind where life is crazy trying to manage our jobs and home and raise two, well-adjusted kids. We often feel like we are two people who coexist, doing what needs to be done to make our children's lives happy and secure, but without connecting with each other. While we are totally in love with our kids, and soooo grateful for the blessings in our lives, we miss spending time with one another. I'm telling you all of this because we truly WANT to spend more time together, but we're realizing this is just one more thing we need to be intentional about. (Want to know more about my motto for the year: be intentional? See here, here and here.) Anyway, I'm sure you all can agree that building a strong marriage is, next to having a saving faith, the most important thing we can do for our families. So, I've been on a quest to find fun, cheap and easy date ideas to reconnect and just enjoy each other.

This idea is brilliant and such a fun gift idea for the hubs. Make 12 envelopes and fill them with a pre-paid date idea for that month. At the beginning of each month, sit down and plan a night for your date and you're set. This definitely requires a lot of planning, but once it's done, you have NO excuses not to go out on a date!

Source: shannonbrown.typepad.com via Jessica on Pinterest

The The Dating Divas are a group of women whose blog's sole goal is to provide all sorts of different date ideas. From Quick and Easy Romance Ideas, to Anniversary Ideas, to Date Nights Out on the Town, to Family Fun Nights, they've got it covered! I was impressed with how many fun, romantic and inexpensive dates they thought of.

Source: thedatingdivas.com via Janenifer on Pinterest

I found this fun list of unique date ideas on Pinterest. Some of them actually made me giggle just envisioning the hubs and me doing them (see numbers 3, 5 and 6), and others made me wish upon a star that they would happen in my lifetime (see number 8).

Source: 9gag.com via Lindsey on Pinterest

And finally, did you know that Groupon now offers special deals on getaways? I'm loving getting them in my inbox every week, and I actually convinced the hubs to book this one:

I'm so excited, but we still need to set a date. That's the tricky part, but we'll keep trying until we find one that works. And here's the pep talk for the day: Make sure you do whatever it takes to strengthen your marriage. It's worth it!
So, fill me in. What do you do to keep the spark alive?

We were really excited when one of our very first blog sponsors, Mandy, approached us about sharing her story with our readers. This is a little different than our normal DIY post, but it's a pretty awesome opportunity and story we've watched unfold. So sit back, relax, and we'll tell you a little story…***************************************************************************This is Mandy. In 2010 Mandy was a mom to two girls, a wife, and a full-time English teacher.

Mandy was happy with her lot in life, but she was a tad stressed with juggling it all. One weekend, one of Mandy's best friends ever came to visit. During the weekend they had a conversation that went like this…Friend: Hey look at my super cute bagMandy: It's adorableFriend: I just got it from a cool, new company called Thirty-One Gifts. Mandy: Cool bag, strange nameFriend: It's a Christian company and 31 is from the Proverbs 31 woman. They do parties to sell their products. You should check it out, you'd be awesome at it. Mandy: (walking to get laptop) I want to check our their site.-5 minutes pass-Mandy: This is my New Passion!(Mandy proceeds to sign up as a 31 Gifts Independent Consultant)Seriously, the conversation actually went like that. True Story.
This is Mandy. It's 2012 and she's a mom to three girls, a wife, and a stay-at-home-mom who's also an Independent Executive Director with Thirty-One Gifts.

Who would have thought starting a business would actually bring calm, growth, and encouragement to a persons life? That's exactly what happened. Mandy went from maintaining the juggling act to joining a group of women that she loves working with, making relationships that will outlast any tote or product, increasing the time she has to spend with her family, gaining personal confidence, and growing leaps and bounds in her faith.
People always want to know about money, so we'll keep it real for you. Mandy left her full-time teaching job and is now making three times her previous income. They've been to Cancun and are leaving Friday for a week in Disney, all through Thirty-one.

Mandy wanted us to share her Thirty-One story with you because she knows how it has changed her life and now is an amazing time that Thirty-One could change yours. Thirty-One Gifts- Opportunity to Join Incentive!

Mandy is super passionate about helping other women, that like her, feel ready to stop the juggling act, and start doing something that will be encouraging, help to put family first, and making working fun!
She'd love to talk to you more, so if you have any questions, leave a comment, click HERE, or use Mandy's Ad on the sidebar to contact her.

Mandy, Thanks for sharing your story and this opportunity with our readers! We love you Girl!

Sometimes it's hard to really make something like the tragedy in Japan seem real when we're so far away. We can watch the news, see the YouTube videos, but still it can be hard to even imagine the devastation and even harder to have the same heart that Jesus does when his people are hurting. This blog is called REAL housewives for a reason… we're trying to be real and transparent with our readers and even more importantly, living out a REAL, authentic faith in God. So, I'll be honest, I don't always have the kind of compassion and burden for those that are hurting that I should. I let myself and my life get in the way. Japan does seem real to me because I've been there. I've met wonderful people and I had the privilege to meet a family that has dedicated their life to serving the people of Japan. The Bengtsons Please be praying for their family as they try to put life back together and offer hope to those hurting in Sendai, Japan.

Last night I took a few minutes to look through some pictures from my summer in Japan. It was amazingly beautiful and every person I met was incredibly kind.

My primary purpose while I was there was to help take care of Dean and Linda's two sons while they prepared for a move. I also assisted Shauna (one of my dear friends and life-long role models) teaching English classes.

In addition to praying for The Bengtsons and Japan as a whole, I also found a cool, tangible way to help. The Salvation Army has designed this great shirt and 100% of the proceeds go towards aid for Japan. I looked into these shirts closely and due to donations the cost to produce them is almost non-existent, so the money is actually going to help. I really like the shirt and it's a good reminder that even after the media dies down, and the next big news event comes along, that the people in Japan will need our prayer for far longer. So maybe consider ordering one as a way to help and a reminder to pray.
Just a few gifting ideas for these shirts: 1- Teacher Gifts- I guarentee you the teacher will love it and it won't be the same old 2- Christmas presents- yes, I know it's VERY far away, but I think it would be a good lesson for my kids to give them one months later and remind them that we still need to be praying. (I hope my kids don't read my blog) 3- Graduation Gift- stick it in with some dorm stuff Click HERE to order a shirt through the Salvation Army

If you're looking for a place to provide support financially and aren't sure who to go through, the organization that the Bengtsons have recommended, and are working with is CrashJapan and you can donate through that link.
Have a great Tuesday!

Today's a Seriously Important Day: Happy 30th Birthday Jess!

(Kev and Jess at the"decades" prom we went to last year- they looked awesome!) Let me just tell you that I officially have the best friend ever. Jess is hands down, my favorite person in the world. She's confident, strong, dedicated to her family, friends, and most importantly her faith and having her in my life for the last 13 years has made it all that much better. So here's to 30 Jess, I can't wait to see what this decade has in store for you. Love ya- have an awesome day! ***********************************************************************

So every once in a while I have a pretty cool, unique idea… trust me, it doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does I pretty much love it. The stenciled wall panels in our Nate Show room were one of those rare times. If you haven’t seen the room yet, here she is in all of her fuzzy, screen shot taken from a video glory.

We were walking through the thrift store and saw a roll of this black paper stuff. I didn’t know what it was at first, but then I thought way back when and remembered putting a new roof on my parents’ house with a high school boyfriend (ah, the crazy things teenage girls will do to impress boys. Eric couldn’t pay me enough to get on a roof now!)… Anyhow, I remembered it was like the paper that you put under shingles. Tar Paper it’s called.

This is where the random awesome idea part comes in… I immediately stopping seeing this as roofing material, and I saw it as a canvas-like material for some fabulous high-end-meets-industrial-art. Jess sort of wasn’t quite sure about my plan, but being the wonderful BFF that she is, she trusted me and encouraged me to go for it. Here’s how I turned this roll into art. We had just gotten the stencil in the mail from Royal Design Studio for Jess’ kitchen renovation. Remember, she used it here:

The first step was to simply figure out the size of my panels, I knew I wanted two stenciled images on each panel. Once I had them cut to size I rolled on two coats of semi-gloss navy paint. I was worried it wouldn’t take the paint well, but it worked like a charm. No primer needed- score one for the lazy DIYer! Once they were really dry, it was time to stencil. Stenciling 4 images was a cake-walk compared to Jess’ kitchen. It took me about 15 minutes to complete both panels. I used DecoArt metalic gold paint and it needed about two coats to really get the pop we wanted.

Did you notice all the gold on the stencil when Jess posted about her kitchen? It was a mini spoiler alert!

One additional thing I’m crushing on and could have added to my crush post are grommets. I have been using them as much as I can lately. I pretty much can make an argument that everything is better with grommets! We added them to this piece to give it a finished look and also play off of the industrial nature of the tar paper.

These are grommeting tools. The funny thing is that no matter how many times I use it, I have to think pretty hard to get it all lined up correctly. Once you do, it’s a piece of cake.

There she is… I’m pretty sure it’s the prettiest a piece of tar paper has ever looked. She’s like the Miss America of roofing materials. (It got a tad wrinkled when it was shipped back to us after the show, but it really does stay nice and flat on the wall)

I was really thrilled with how they looked in the room and wow, look what Nate was saying during this part of the show…

Oh, you didn’t hear him say that?… weird. Must have been a glitch with your TV. (hehe) The bottom line here is that ANYTHING, literally anything can be turned into art and it doesn’t need to cost a million bucks to be fabulous. This was $10 tar paper (for a whole roll, I could make about 50 more with what I have left) and it was beautiful enough for Nate Berkus.
So who’s going to their local roofing supply store today? Ha! Actually, next week I’ll share another awesome project I used tar paper for. It’s a pretty cool one and saved me a ton of moolah!

One of our New Year's Resolutions was to share a little bit about ourselves. And you want to know something about me? Last year was the year I quit {almost} everything. Want to know something else? Last year I didn’t like who I was. Let me explain.

Probably one of the most frequently asked questions of us is “How do you do it all?” The answer for me this past year, was “Not very well.” First, let me preface this by saying, I’m speaking only for myself. I recognize that every person juggles their hats differently, and every person has a different tolerance level for busyness. I would say that I have an above-average tolerance for busyness- it takes very little to stress me out. However, that level was completely maxed out last year.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with you, Mr. Berkus. You're too dang cute to cause much stress.
Don’t get me wrong- I’m not complaining about the past year. No way. I have a fabulous life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And I have to admit, I really liked it when someone said “oh my gosh- I don’t know how you do it all! You are so inspiring!” On the outside, it looked like I had it all together and that it just wasn’t a big deal to juggle all those things. All of that busyness was of my own making. Yup, I said it. But if you were in my home every day, you’d know that I was short-tempered with my husband and wasn’t allotting any quality time for him. I was hurrying my kids through their day, not really focusing on them, just waiting for naptime to come. I was comparing myself to other bloggers and feeling badly about my projects. My confidence took a hit because I was so focused on how good other people’s stuff is and how insignificant my stuff was. I got uber-upset when a criticism would come along. I wasn’t enjoying my life. Period. I felt like I couldn’t ever give 100% to anything I was doing because I was spread so thin. I was exhausted.

source
I finally realized that I needed to simplify my life a bit so that I could really focus on the things that matter most to me: my faith, my family, this little ol’ blog and the opportunities that might come as a result of it. I quit my job and stopped coaching tennis. I have dedicated myself to enjoying my babies while I still have them at home. I’ve stopped putting pressure on myself to come up with the best projects ever, and am just creating things that I love. I’ve developed the ability to say no, if I know it will negatively impact my family. I figure that I won’t ever look back and wish I had worked more and spent less time with my family. I’m happier, more focused and more productive. Plus, my kids think I’m more fun. I’m not saying it’s all better. I’m a work in progress and I’m still tempted to compare myself with others. In fact, it's often still really hard to say"no" to good things, especially when I know it may disappoint people.

So, what am I saying? I guess my hope is that you'll realize that it's ok to say no to some things, even when it feels like you're letting people down (I'm a HUGE people-pleaser, and this was hard for me to learn). I know that it's not possible for everyone to quit their job to pursue just the stuff that gives them joy, but there are tons of good things that we can do with our time, that don't fulfill our goals in life. I encourage you to evaluate what's important to you, and then pursue those things. Don't bog yourself down with stuff you think you're supposed to be doing, just because it makes other people happy or even because you like the appearance of being busy. Figure our your priorities, and cut out all that junk that messes with them. Just my two cents.: )

So, how about you? Do you over commit or are you good at saying no?

T he little pink booties fit Margaret. She had them on several weeks ago but they were still a little big. Today they fit.
These sweet booties hold a lot of meaning for me. I bought them many years ago while looking for a baby boy gift for a friend. I couldn't resist them as I always dreamed of having a little girl.
Then came the five years of infertility....But I dug them out just before our IVF procedures, of which it just so happens to be the one year anniversary this week.
To keep my heart full of hope and faith, I set the booties on my bedside table. Every night I looked at them while Mike gave me my shots. When we learned we were pregnant, they stayed there as a sort of promise for the rest of my pregnancy.
Today I put them on my daughter Margaret and I felt very blessed.
Little pink booties....
xo