We just can’t get enough of sweet nursery designs and today we have another beautiful room designed by our contributing editor Kirsten Krason! One of our favorite aspects of this room is the subtle striped walls that were painted with a tone-on-tone pink stripe. You can get this effect by using the same color of paint but one of the stripes you use a high-gloss finish to give it sheen and create a stripe look! And how beautiful is that ornate mirror? The client actually painted it white and it made the perfect addition above the changing table! Sweet, simple and girly! To see the before pictures and the details of this room you can check out more here.
We were thrilled to be asked to be apart of Kirsten’s “Good Design With Kids in Mind” series she is doing on her blog and today she is featuring Sweet Little Peanut! Check out today’s feature and learn more about our art space and how we designed this corner in our living room to create a fun space for the peanuts + still look stylish!
Today we are beyond excited to share a real mommy moment of our very own Ginger and her sweet family. Ginger has the most beautiful smile and the kindest heart to go along with it. Ginger is genuine in everything she does and we are beyond blessed to call her our friend! She is such an inspiration on what a mother should be: kind, loving and fun! We adore and love working with her and the cutest little peanut you have ever seen, Jonah J!
“Growing up with three younger sisters made it pretty easy for me to dream up my future. I pictured myself in an SUV full of blue-eyed daughters with poofy hair and matching outfits. A little cliche’, but that’s exactly how I envisioned motherhood. I didn’t grow up in a ballet studio. I’m from the family who left the ball field an hour after everybody else went home. Every sport, all year round, you name it – we played it. Kind of fun to joke about it now, with our son Jonah turning two and his little brother coming in a couple more months. Reflecting back to those younger years of my childhood, I believe that those family nights spent together at the ball park molded me into the Mother that I am today.
The instant Jonah wakes up he’s looking for his ball. He won’t let us leave the house without his ‘ mitt.’ Which is actually my husband’s baseball mitt from when he was a Jonah’s age. Can you say melt a mother’s heart into a giant puddle? I love my boys. I live for playtime with them. We play ball sun up to sun down. It’s such a huge part of our everyday life.
Being a mother can be discouraging at times. We all want to be the very best mom out there. It’s easy to compare ‘playtime’ with other families, and what works for them. When I finally let go, stopped comparing, and really gave my undivided attention to Jonah, I found that it didn’t take much to have a good time. I shut off my phone, closed my computer and really dove full heart into play time. By doing so, it has truly become my most cherished time of the day!”
Thank you so much Ginger for sharing this precious moment with us and a huge thank you to the amazing Jared Wortley with Oneilove Media for this beyond gorgeous video and for capturing this beautiful family for us! We invite you to join our challenge of capturing real, imperfect moments with your little peanuts and share them on instagram, facebook and twitter. The most important part is that you need to be in the pictures as well! Tag us and use hash tag #realmommymoment and we will be sharing a round up of some of our favorite mommy moments!
We are pretty certain that it doesn’t get much cuter then a donut birthday party and especially one that involves this darling little peanut Daphne! Any kid that attended a party like this for sure would think they were in heaven! We know we would be swooning! Daphne’s momma, Alex, owns Peppermint Plum Photography & Design and she did such an incredible job with all of the details! We can’t get over how cute the hand-made polka dot table cloth is and those washi tape flags are the perfect touch! And that invitation… to dang cute! Here are a few more details about the party from Alex:
“My girl loves ‘nonuts’ as she calls them. Any chance she gets, she repeats the word over and over again in hopes that one might magically appear. So it made perfect sense to me to fill her 2nd birthday celebration with the things she loves the most; donuts, family, and lots of playing. We called it ‘Daphne’s Donut Shop’ and filled her ‘bakery’ with tons of delicious donuts from our neighborhood donut shop.
We also had a build your own crepe bar complete with all of the necessary fixings; nutella, fresh strawberries, homemade whipped cream, sliced almonds, and mini chocolate chips. As favors, guests were welcome to decorate their own donut creation at ‘Daphne’s donut bar,’ which included cake donuts, three types of homemade frosting, sliced almonds, and of course, sprinkles.”
Yesterday one of our little peanuts, Bennett {aka Bennie}, turned one and it was such a special day for us! We spent the beautiful sunny day at the zoo which is one of our favorites things to do as a family! I couldn’t help but reflect most of the day on what I was doing at that time a year ago and was seriously missing those first sweet moments with my new babe. It really was one of the most special days of my life and I’m beyond grateful that this sweet boy chose me as his mommy. The word that I always use to describe Bennie is “sweet”. He truly has the sweetest and most tender little spirit and I’m constantly kissing on this little boy. I just can’t get enough of him. We hear the saying over and over “life moves fast” and it’s over in a minute. It really does. This past year has gone by unbelievably fast! It has been full of so much joy for us and also some of our biggest trials. Adding another peanut to a family always changes things but every added stress and struggle is so so worth it and everything in my life is so much brighter because Bennie is in it! I couldn’t be more thankful for my family and my goal this year has been to cherish those simple and sweet moments with my peanuts + husband and not let them pass me by without relishing in them!
Today we are sharing a few… ok a lot of images of Bennie turning 1! If you know me then you know I will take any excuse to get pictures taken of my family and especially when they turn one. This is such a big day in their life and mine and I’m so thankful for my dear friend and amazingly talented photographer, Lindsey Stewart, for capturing my sweet Bennie. We took these pictures at Wheeler Farm because we did a country style party for Bennie {which we will be featuring soon!} and I wanted something a little rustic and outdoors! It was a perfect day and a perfect setting! I apologize in advance for sharing so many pictures but I kind of have a bit of a crush on this little man! I love you always Bennie!
Today we are so excited to share another amazing momma in our Real Mommy Moment features! Meet the beautiful Jen Stagg and sweet little Ruby! These two ladies will instantly melt your heart and we are beyond blessed to call them dear friends! Jen is first and formost a mom, a news reporter and one of our favorite bloggers! She is the editor for one of the sweetest and most up-lifting blogs, WithHEART! We are so inspired by Jen’s love for her family, passion for life and her kind heart. Everything she does is just that… with heart! We are thrilled to give you a glimpse into an every day with Jen and Ruby and we can’t thank the amazingly talented Heather Nan Photography for capturing this sweet, real moment!
“There is something so special about story time with my daughter. We curl up with a stack of books, and as I start to read, her imagination grows with every page turn. There are no distractions, no tv, no loud noises, just us. I grew up with a strong love of reading and I hope to instill the power of books in her. I’ve saved some of my favorite childhood books for her, as well as some of my father’s. They’re ready for her, sitting on a shelf in her room and when she gets bigger, I hope she’ll still want to curl up next to me so we can share a story. My lap will always be big enough to hold her, even when she’s 20. I just love her so.”
Thank you so much for sharing this special moment with us Jen and Ruby! We invite you to join our challenge of capturing real, imperfect moments with your little peanuts and share them on instagram, facebook and twitter. The most important part is that you need to be in the pictures as well! Tag us and use hash tag #realmommymoment and we will be sharing a round up of some of our favorite mommy moments!
Last week SLP took a field trip to our local Fire Station to get more educated on fire safety and tips to talk to our children about. It’s never to early to start coming up with a family plan in case of an unthinkable fire. It’s also very important for your kids to feel safe around firefighters and for them to understand that they are not scary but there to help. One of the firefighters demonstrated all of the different pieces of their person protective equipment and dressed-up so that the kids could see what they look like. This is really great for kids to become familiar with so they don’t hide from firefighters during a fire.
If you are interested in setting up a field trip with a group of kids you can get in contact with your local fire station. Most all fire departments encourage educational field trips for kids and love to be involved with their community! We are so lucky to have such an amazing group of firefighters near us and want to thank them for everything they do and for putting their life on line every day to keep us safe. We can’t thank you enough!
I think it’s pretty safe to say that all the little peanuts had a blast touring the fire station and getting to go inside the big fire trucks! And not to mention the highlight of the day was getting to squirt a real fire hose!
It’s important talk with your little kids about fire safety and to come up with a family plan in the event that a fire does happen in your home. Here is a list of fire safety tips to talk to your kids about:
Practice escape plans every month.
Plan two ways out of each room.
Get as low as possible to the ground.
Cover you mouth with your t-shirt.
Don’t ever hide in closets or under beds.
Immediately leave your home when a fire occurs.
Never open doors that are hot to the touch.
Designate a meeting location away from your home.
Once you’re out, stay out!
For more detailed tips on fire safety and an escape plan can visit Unified Fire Authority’s site HERE
Thank you so much again to all of the firefighters at UFA Station 121 for letting us come and hang out for the afternoon and for being so sweet to our little peanuts! They are still talking about it!
If you have been following along with the blog this month or if you are a new reader, we are celebrating motherhood this month and sharing some stories about inspirational moms and their real mommy moments. You know those moments that are not prefect but are so sweet, simple and a moment you want to cherish and remember forever? These are the moments that make all of our hard work and sacrifice so rewarding. We are personally trying to relish more in these moments and are encouraging other mommas out there also to capture those real mommy moments with their little peanuts.
We started a fun hash tag series #realmommymoment on instagram and we wanted to share just a few of our favorite images that have been tagged by our lovely mommy followers! We just love these images so much because they show the beauty in motherhood and real mommy moments! Every image is so sweet and brings a smile to our face. We hope everyone has a wonderful Mother’s Day this weekend and takes time out of their busy schedules to really celebrate this special day and all those special ladies in our lives! Thank you so much to all of the beautiful mommas who are featured below for sharing a sweet moment with your little peanuts!
In case you have missed any of our Real Mommy Moment features this month you can check out Lara Casey’s story & Paige Christensen’s story. We have more sweet mommy features coming the rest of this month so make sure to check back and to keep tagging your images on instagram using #realmommymoment. We will be sharing more on our instagram and another round up at the end of this month! Have a great weekend!
With Mother’s Day just around the corner we teamed up with one of our favorite fashion and children’s blog, Lunchpails & Lipstick to give you the perfect Mother’s Day Gift Guide! The girls over at L&L are as beautiful as they come, have such an amazing sense of style and know how to accessorize an outfit perfectly! We love what they have come up with for this years gift guide and we would gladly take one of everything! hint hint!
Now that you have had a little does of some gorgeous fashion head over to Lunchpails & Lipstick’s blog to see a fun little Mother’s Day Craft we put together including DIY flower seed packets and terracotta pots!
We are continuing on in our celebration of motherhood this month with another real mommy moment feature. We are so excited to introduce you to the amazing and inspiring momma, Paige Christensen, and her sweetest little peanut Milo. Paige is not only one seriously beautiful momma… she is a physical therapist assistant, an artist and an assistant photographer to her amazingly talented husband, Ben Christensen! If you aren’t familiar with Paige’s artistic work, you will have to check out her instagram page to see her unique family sketches and paintings that we are completely obsessed with!
We are inspired by Paige’s passion for life, going on adventures, keeping things real and spending as much time as she can with her family. Her love for little Milo radiates from every inch of her and you can tell just from these pictures that they share a sweet and special bond. Although we might be slightly jealous of all of Paige’s stunning images of her and her family… we can’t help but adore her down to earth personality.
“Something you should probably know about me first off is that I’m an extreme animal lover. My dad is a retired veterinarian so as long as I can remember, and still to this day, we had every kind of animal imaginable. We would rescue every animal we saw, even the baby birds that couldn’t quite fly yet. We had a household of animals but don’t let that fool you, we weren’t the crazy cat people or stinky animal people, everything was kept nice and tidy. We grew up having horses, cats, dogs, birds, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils and so on. My fondest memories are with my family and our animals. I may sound crazy but animals (most) are always happy to see you. Personally I feel that they bring such a positive environment to a home, especially dogs.
Daily my daughter Milo and I go sit under our grapefruit tree and watch our dogs play. We have three in our home and Milo loves each of them. Milo gets so excited to see them and when I say excited I mean the high-pitched scream, straighten the body like a pencil and wobble back and forth while reaching for the pups. It’s a special moment that her and I have together because we are able to take a timeout from everything around us and sit under a tree in our backyard and relax. Nothing in that moment matters except for the time we have together. Doing activities like this with my parents is something I hold dear to my heart and I can tell Milo will too. In the end it’s all about the special moments and memories you make with your little ones.”
We have enjoyed getting to know Paige and Milo a little better and love their story! Thank you so much for sharing this special moment with us and thank you to Ben for capturing it for us! We invite you to join our challenge of capturing real, imperfect moments with your little peanuts and share them on instagram, facebook and twitter. The most important part is that you need to be in the pictures as well! Tag us and use hash tag #realmommymoment and we will be sharing a round up of some of our favorite mommy moments!
When it comes to mother’s day and thanking those very important ladies in our lives we are often searching for unique and special cards and gift ideas to brighten up their day. We have designed some simple + sweet Mother’s Day card designs as a free download printable for you! There is even a design that can be colored or painted by your little peanut to add an even more unique touch! We hope you enjoy these beautiful cards and hope they help share a sweet message to amazing mothers! Check back the rest of this week for some more cute gift ideas for mom or grandma that are easy to make!
1
