Boxwood Clippings

Well HELLO! How are you? It’s been a long time! I have just finished putting up my Christmas decorations which got me so excited for the weeks ahead. It truly is the most magical time of year and I just love decorating our home to reflect every ounce of Christmas spirit possible!

As I was putting up the decorations I was thinking how things have changed since having kids and how my decorating has changed too!

I feel a little pressure (self-inflicted) while my kids are little to make every holiday as magical as possible for them…decorations being no exception. But what I’ve learned is that you can decorate with a just a few things and still have things be as magical as when I used to put all those hours in to my decorating each year. So here is what has worked for me and what I wanted to share in case you have little ones or even if you’ll have children visiting this Christmas.

Shatter-Proof Ornaments: I paid zero attention before I had children to whether an ornament was glass or not. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! It only took one year after we had Jane to realize, they had to go. I have a few special glass ornaments that I kept, they are housed at the very top of the Christmas tree, or on high surfaces away from little fingers.

Elevate! I used to have boughs on every surface, an elaborate centerpiece on my dining table, ornaments and bows on the backs of every chair. Now with kids, I’ve learned height is my friend! I hang garlands high over my windows, decorations on my pendant lights and really only decorate surfaces out of reach from the little ones. If something is on their level I make sure it’s not easily breakable and as safe as I can make it.

Bowls of Ornaments: I put a bowl full of ornaments in every room wherever I can squeeze one in. Easiest decorating ever and easily removed. I keep a basket full in the middle of the dining table and move it for dinner every night. I love putting vases full of ornaments on my kitchen counters too.

Fairy Lights: LED battery operated lights make any room magical! Honestly, almost as impactful as the tree! I drape them over my piano, in bowls of ornaments and any dark corner. I’m officially obsessed. I only buy ones with a timer as they drain batteries quickly. They come on at 4pm, just as it’s getting dark and turn off at 10, and I love not having to think about turning them on and off each day. I use ones really similar to THESE.

Stick a bow on it! I was extra lazy this year and just decided to keep up my fall decor and add satin bows. There’s something just so classic about satin bows at Christmas time. In my bedroom, I taped a few sprays of gold leaves to my mirror, added a bow and called it good. You don’t need a lot to make a room happy for Christmas.

Last but not least, I guess I’m learning not to stress it. I put out my decorations and don’t think too much about it. The kids love it and we then we move on to cookie-making, dance parties and memory-making. I’m trying to embrace the stage we’re in and thinking about next year when we’ll have a new crawler (baby #3, a BOY) and the adjustments we’ll need to make again!

Please let us know if you have any questions with holidays and toddlers as well as any things you do with little ones to make your home magical and kid-friendly!

Merry Christmas! Love, Em xxx

Wow, this post has been a long time coming!

It was almost a year ago to the day that I started really dreaming about our little boy’s nursery (inspiration board here). With a rocky start to the pregnancy I was finally ready wrap my head around a baby actually coming my way, and I was just about to let myself relax and indulge in some of the most exciting preperations of a newborn when my water broke at 24 weeks…YIKES!

Liam was born (as you know) at 30 weeks, and amazingly with very little complications.

While he was stable in the NICU, I felt an urgent need to get his nursery ready, even though he’s been sleeping in our room, it needed to happen to make me feel prepared for his homecoming, especially with a huge oxygen tank. So between visiting hours, Brock’s work schedule, and the twins we spent a mad couple of evenings getting it together. Luckily, we’d already played musical rooms and cleared out what was the old playroom, so it was a blank canvas apart from it needed a new lick of paint and some simple molding details around the windows.

Jones Paint and Glass, helped us out once again, by perfectly matching the white in our other rooms, it’s seamless. If you are a Utah local we highly recommend going there for their paint expertise!

Without further ado, Liam’s nursery…

A few sentimental pieces on display: a watercolor of the English coastline painted by a childhood neighbor and given to us as a wedding gift. The sweater was one my mum purchased long before we were able to get get pregnant, but a handful of baby clothes hanging around always brought visual reality that one day it would happen! A photoshoot of me and Liam, and his first shoes from a special friend. 

I never kept the bumpers on the girls cribs longer than a month or so before they got moving, but Liam is sleeping in our room still and naps in here where I keep a very close eye (monitored too). I’ve just enjoyed the coziness and like that he doesn’t bump his head which the girls did constantly.

We were going for a ‘traditional nursery with a modern twist’, the mirror really became a statement piece. No longer available but found it for $20 on clearance at Target (along with the desk lamp and wooden stool below). LOVE those end-cap finds!

This room was basically thrown together with very little time and money since we had all the main componants, but we’re very happy with the results. It’s peaceful and a baby haven for feeding and lullabies. Staying really neutral and adding just a few blue pieces helped keep the room feeling super calm and feels quite spacious though its quite a small space.

This little monkey likes it too…

Sarah. x

Hi Everyone!! Are you as excited as we are for the Hunter Collection at Target launching on Saturday?!! We can’t wait to check out the collection in person.

We are LOOONG time fans of Hunter boots. Here are just a few reasons why they’re our absolute favorite shoes for kids!

1. Versatile. Really is there anything cuter than a little boy or girl in little wellies? From swimsuit to snowsuit these classic rain boots look great paired with almost anything.
2. Durable. Don’t you just hate it when you buy a pair of shoes for your kids and after a few rounds at the playground they are totally hammered? It drives us crazy, which is another reason why we love Hunter boots. They can play hard and get messy and with a quick wipe down they are as good as new. In fact they’re so long wearing  that they can easily be passed down to another child to get double the wear!
3. Convenient. Buckling and lacing shoes every time you leave the house gets really old, really quick, right?! We love Hunters because they’re so easy to slip on and off. No assistance from mom needed…Hallelujah!
4. Year-Round Use. When we first bought boots for the kids we thought we’d use them through fall and winter but it turns out we’ve used them year-round. No need to buy snow boots, we just usually layer two pairs of socks for snow days. Often in the summer you’ll find us at the pool with the kids in swimsuits and their wellies. For young toddlers the boots are a lot easier than even flip-flops for kids to manage trips to the pool. Summer mornings you’ll find our kids in their jammies and boots in the back yard watering the flowers.
5. Lightweight and flexible. Compared with most other kid rain boots the Hunters are so much lighter and bendable. We’ve really liked this feature especially for toddlers, it makes it so much easier for them to walk and move around in.

Even though Hunter boots are on the pricier side of $55, if you break down the cost to how much wear they will get they actually turn out to be cheaper than any other shoes we’ve bought. When you consider year-round use, and the fact you can buy them a little on the big side to get a solid year of use out of them, not to mention them being in good enough use to hand down to someone else we think they are deal!

When it comes time to buy a new pair, we’ll let you in on our secret on how to always get a deal! Google search ‘kid hunter boots’, next hit the shopping tab and search ‘price low to high’. This will give you the best deals on the web that given day. Nordstrom will price match most USA stores and sites like Amazon, so we always price match with them and score free shipping too!

The Target collection offers kid boots for $25, and you bet we’ll be checking out the cute matching rain coats too! Do you follow us on Instagram HERE? Check in with us on Saturday and we’ll make sure to show you all our favorites we see in store. See you then!

-Sarah and Emily

xoxo

It seems like holidays come around really quick when you’re a mom of little kids, am I right?! As each one approaches, I have a little panic attack that usually goes something like this…

“What am I going to get the kids?”
“How am I going to make it special?”
“How much money am I going to have to spend?”
“Please, not more candy!”

In our world of consumerism it’s easy for me to get overwhelmed. Do you feel this way too? I want to be a good mother and give my children the world, but I need to remember that simplicity is how I want to live and my time and energy is much more “special” than anything I can buy.

So with Easter approaching I challenged myself to limit Easter basket spending to $10 per child. Baskets, shred, all of it. Of course, you know I headed to the dollar store. Even here, it was hard to keep to budget…so many things my kids would LOVE.

Here’s what ended up with…

For Ben (almost age 2): paint set, ceramic duck craft, bunny novelty glasses, easter basket, egg sidewalk chalks, bubbles (will share with Jane), stuffed animal, gummies to fill eggs, paper shred (share with Jane), play ball. Total $10.

For Jane (age 3): bunny tic tac toe, bunny erasers, easter basket, play ball, stuffed animal, novelty glasses, glitter easter eggs (share with Ben), Easter Mike and Ike’s, ceramic bunny craft. Total $9.

I started by choosing the Easter pails and then coordinated the colors for the other items. I tried to choose non-candy items… Sidewalk chalk, bubbles and plastic balls will entertain my kids for hours. I thought the paint sets and little ceramic animals would be a fun little project to do with them on a rainy day and then threw in the novelty items of bunny glasses, a little candy for eggs and a stuffed animal…only because I know Jane will looove that (not-so-cute) pink bunny.

Here’s how the baskets turned out:

Things from the dollar store usually look better unwrapped, so we got rid of all that packaging to make the baskets a little prettier and easier for little hands on Easter morning.

I know my kids will be thrilled Easter morning and I’m happy I only had to visit one store and that I stuck to my budget of $10 per basket to get Easter morning checked off my mom list.

If you haven’t started buying basket fillers for your kids yet, head to the Dollar Tree first. You’ll spend so much less than at the grocery store, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with what you’ll find this year.

For more Easter basket ideas for little kids see our posts HERE , HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Ahhh, it’s good to write a blog post again, thanks for reading friends!!!

-Emily xoxo

Happy Friday Everyone! We hope you had a good week and have a weekend planned full of Christmas festivities!

We just wanted to pop on to show you the twins’ bedroom decked out for Christmas. One thing we love about decorating with neutrals is that you only need to add a few pops of color to change things for the season… we just fell in love with these happy red pillow covers that were only $6 at Ikea. Red ribbon, fresh holly and berries and a few red toys and we’re done.

Ahh, if it only it stayed this nice and clean for more than five minutes!

A few sources: red cushion cover HERE | tea set HERE | picnic set HERE | London playset HERE | play kitchen (similar) HERE (we love this matching apron and oven mit set HERE) | dolls cribs HERE | white Christmas jammies HERE | little people nativity HERE.

Merry Christmas!!!!
Sarah and Emily xoxo

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