Master Bedroom

Now that all my party planning distractions are over, I will get back to blogging about my new home! Up next is our master bedroom! I had a really hard time deciding how I was going to decorate our room. I toyed around with several different ideas and just couldn't settle on a color. When you walk in the front door the first thing you see is the master bedroom, so it was really important to me that it looked cohesive with the rest of the main floor. It took a while but I finally decided to keep the colors neutral, and make my accent wall in the room a little more exciting by making it stripped. I also had dreamed of making my master bathroom a fun, bold, and bright color (which I did!) so that was another reason to go neutral in the bedroom. Working within the color scheme of the living room, (a beautiful gray) I chose a lighter shade of the same gray for all the bedroom walls except the accent wall. Here is a photo of the room when we first moved in. Everything was white! The carpet was pretty gross and we are so thankful it was replaced throughout the whole house, what a difference that made!

Master Bedroom Before:

Here is the room with the beginning paint, the lighter gray on most walls and the darker gray which I soon added the stripes to. I was hoping to have the stripes painted before the carpet was installed, but ended up running out of time! It was a race against the clock to get the whole house painted (minus the kitchen) in three weeks before the carpet came.

Soon after we got the carpet installed I got to work on the stripes. Another decision was horizontal or vertical stripes? After looking at TONS of pictures online, I ended up choosing to make them horizontal. Our accent wall is pretty long and to me the vertical stripes looked busy and a bit overwhelming, while the horizontal stripes seems more relaxed and soothing. With my husbands perfect measuring and taping skills all it took was a few coats of paint and the accent wall was complete!

Here is Lola, my best helper! :)

Master Bedroom After:

I am happy with how it turned out, its very relaxing! I still would love to add curtains as well as some sort of sitting area, and buy pillows and candles in a fun accent color, but those are a few things that are on the back burner until I can save some money. This home is a decorating work in progress! :) Hope you enjoyed seeing this room....up next is our living room!

A Trip to the Sweet Shoppe!

In the previous post I shared a lot of pictures of all the prep it took to get ready for Lola's Sweet Shoppe... the invitations, decorations, candy etc. if you missed it check out the complete party here! I just wanted to post a few photos of Lola and her friends enjoying the party. She really had a great time and thank you to all who came to celebrate with us!

Lola's Sweet Shoppe Party!

Its finally here! Lola had her 2nd birthday party last weekend! We had a great time! :) I started thinking about the theme of her party in August... I like to have a lot of time to plan for her parties. Thanks to a friend of mine on Facebook, (Sarah...thank you!) I was pointed in the direction for our party that her sister had just done for her daughter... a Sweet Shoppe! I know Lola is pretty young, and she has never really had much candy, but I couldn't resist planning this party that looked like so much fun! I started immediately scouring the web for pictures of candy buffets, invites, and decorations... apparently this is a pretty popular party idea right now-probably because its so tasty. :) I decided quite quickly that I preferred the buffets that stuck to a color scheme, I just think they look more cohesive. I took Lola outside on a beautiful sunny day all dressed up to get the picture for her invitation. The only thing I didn't account for is her not enjoying the taste of the lollipop- I really thought she'd love it! Most of the pictures after her first taste or two were hilarious, she just thought it was gross! Here is us just having some picture taking fun!

Now that we picked our theme, I wanted to get started on the invitations right away. Lola and I searched high and low to find the lollipop (or Lolapop as Lola calls it!) I wanted to use in the picture on her invite, they are not as easy to find as you might think.... unless you want it rainbow colored! After several days and 10 candy stores, we found one that would work. For the invitations we have used the same company for two years and they are just the best! They will customize any card and they are so prompt with their service! Super impressed! Go to Lilduckduck to check it out yourself! Here is how the invitations turned out! (Sorry I had to block out some of our personal information.)

I had a hard time picking the color scheme for this party because I think so many different colors could be a lot of fun...but finally I decided to go with pink and orange. I have loved this color combo for a while now, so I went for it! I started by picking up the ribbon at several different stores that matched with our colors. I love ribbon! I think it adds a lot to a party and its relatively cheap. Here is what we came up with!

I saw these giant lollipops and knew I wanted to make them! Thanks to my hubby who helped me put them together...he drilled holes first so we could insert the dowels straight, it worked perfect!

To make the lollipops you just wrap the styrofoam with any colored tissue paper and then cover it with celephane. I wrapped the dowels with pink duck tape and then just tied on a big pretty bow! Here is the final product!

Now for one of the most important aspects of a candy buffet, the candy! I looked online at bulk candy companies for a while and just couldnt justify the amount of money it was going to cost to have all the candy shipped. I finally came across Oh Nuts! They have resonably priced candy as well as shipping. They were super prompt and the candy arrived perfect! Lola was so excited when all the candy landed on our doorstep! I couldnt believe how well she understood and accepted that we couldn't open any of the bags of candy until her party.

Here are the photos from the big day!

My Mom and I made this "Lola's Sweet Shoppe" banner using her Cricut paper cutting machine.

Here is Lola and I! :) She was so happy to finally eat some of the yummy candy! The food and drinks were set up in the kitchen, but I forgot to take a picture once we had all the food set out. :(

The candy buffet!

I found these adorable bags at Display & Costume. The kids were given a different bag to load with candy and then put them into these cute tote bags along with their cookies, pixie sticks, and such.

Yep, we really gave out toothbrushes as favors! :) Below are some pictures of all the jars I found to hold the candy. I found several at Walmart, a few at Target, and my Mom found some at Tuesday Morning.

Here are the kiddos treat bags all filled up! My Mom also found these adorable candy soaps for me to put in the bathroom. I definitely inherited my love for decorating and going on the hunt for all items that work within my theme from her!

And last but certainly not least, Lola the party girl! I really tried to not go overboard on her party (Even though Tori Spelling is my party planning inspiration...have you seen her kiddos parties?!) I think its safe to say that if I had a dollar for every time someone mentioned to me while I was planning this party that Lola is only two and she will not even remember it, I probably could have paid for the entire party! :) I know she will most likely not remember it, but I will! I had such a great time making this my hobby for the last few months! Going shopping for all the supplies with Lola and seeing her and her friends enjoyment at the party was great! She is still talking about her party and that is what makes me happy! :) Hope you enjoyed seeing our very sweet party! Stay tuned for a post with pictures from the party!

*Thanks to everyone who helped me make this party happen! I wanted to mention that while I found many of my ideas from several different blogs, the one I referred to the most was Grace's Candy Party, Check out her blog for some really fun ideas! :)

Lola Turns Two!

Warning: If you would like to skip this Mom's sentimental mushiness, just scroll below and enjoy some fun birthday pictures! :)

I keep wondering....is it possible? I have a two year old? One of the most common things people tell you when you have a baby is to "enjoy this time," "savor every moment," and "it goes by so quickly," well let me just tell you who says those exact things to all the new mommies now....ME! Its one of those things you hear but don't realize or appreciate how true it is until you go through it yourself! To me it seems like just yesterday I was two weeks overdue waiting for my little girl to make her arrival, frantically cleaning the house before I left everyday wondering if the next time I came home I would have Lola with me. Well I cleaned the house everyday for the last month of my pregnancy and then ended up being scheduled for an induction. At least when the time finally came I was ready! 21 hours & a C-section later we got to meet Lola! She was adorable! :) As much as it seems like all this happened just yesterday, I cannot remember life before Lola! What in the world did I do with all my free time? If I wasn't dressing up dollies, playing with little people, doing puzzles, teaching colors, animals, and english, changing diapers, picking out outfits, putting bows in her hair.... what was I doing with all my time? I love Lola and am so glad she is a part of our lives! She will always be the best(and most shocking!) surprise of my life! I am so proud of my little girl, and am so honored to be able to call myself her mom! She is so loving, happy, tendered hearted, outgoing, giggly, and beautiful! Here are just a few fun pictures!

Lola's first birthday! : ) Was that really a year ago?

For Lola's birthday this year I just wanted her to have a fun day! I know she will not remember any of it but I always will! I took her to get our toes painted : ) I have painted her toes before and she liked it, but its been a while! I knew this could either be a disaster or turn out to be alot of fun! I am so glad it turned out good! She was so so quiet and attentive to her cute little toes. We had a great time together and I have decided this will be a tradition every year on her birthday, to go get pedicures together :)

Last year on Lola's birthday we met Papa & Mimi at Red Robin for dinner! We had a great time so we decided to do it again this year! My little brother and his girlfriend also came and we had a fun evening full of laughs! Here is Lola at dinner, she was very happy!

(Her new Yo Gabba Gabba book from Papa & Mimi...she LOVED it!)

After dinner we all came back to our home and Lola got to open some presents, it was a really fun night! :) Happy Birthday Lola!

*Stay tuned for pictures from Lola's Sweet Shoppe birthday party! :)