Remembering 2013

I believe I started a new family tradition this year. Well, technically I started it last year but this year I really stepped up my game and I am so so happy with the results! And by "the results" I mean this little package that showed up on our doorstep a few days ago and made me jump up and down in our living room (maybe). 

Yep, that's right! A photo book. And it. is. awesome! It contains nearly every picture from the entire year of 2013. I mean not including the 15 pictures that Elias took as he walked down the hallway and things like that. Obviously some editing went into this book but at nearly 100 pages with an average of about 6 pictures per page…well you get the idea. Lots of pictures!!

I used My Publisher this year which I'd never used before (I've always been a pretty loyal Shutterfly customer) and I have to say I am really impressed with the quality of this book. You do pay a bit more but to me paying for a good quality book once a year that can hold all of your pictures from the year is worth it.

I started it with a highlights page just outlining the major events that took place during the year. (Sorry these are iPhone pictures of pictures so the quality isn't great but in person it looks awesome!)

And then got to include page after page of pictures from our whole year! Like this one from Elias' first birthday party.

And this one from our ski trip last March.

And this one from our trip to Carlsbad.

I also included all of the random pictures of our day to day life: Elias' cuteness, date nights, things we did with friends and family.

For the cover I just used our favorite family picture from last year. Which is even more special because it includes the new bean who we found out about during 2013! Even though she won't be here till summer 2014, I thought it was fitting for this picture to be the cover.

The other great thing about this book is how thin it is. Over 600 pictures stored in such a thin album is a huge space-saver.

We are beginning to have quite the collection of photo books!. That is the 2013 album there on the end with the teal spine. That is a regular size traditional photo album next to it just to get an idea of width. These things are tiny!

I honestly couldn't be happier with how this book turned out! I did an album last year of 2012 and it was good but because I went with a much smaller, cheaper, Shutterfly book that was more "scrapbook-y" it only included maybe 75 pictures from the whole year. This year's book might have 10 times that! And even though it feels like an investment when you finally click "place order" on one of these (this one came to about $60) I keep trying to remind my hubby myself of how much it would cost to print that many pictures and buy albums for all of them. I would think at least that much if not more. Of course now I'm really tempted to go back and make albums just like this one from 2011 and 2012. Wouldn't it be so fun to have them all lined up in a row?! We'll see what my hubby (and the budget) say about that…

So for now I am just admiring this one like crazy! And if you come to my house I will probably show it to you…just be forewarned ;) 

And I might already be planning the book for 2014...

House Tour Before and After: The guest room

Haven't updated the blog with one of these in a while but our snow day activities made me realize how far this room has come! So before I share nursery progress in there I thought I should do the good ol' before and after. 

This room is at the end of the hallway past Elias' room and the laundry nook. It is almost identical to E's room (just a couple feet bigger). It was actually the only room in the house that we left the carpet in when we moved in so this is the room that we lived out of for the first few months we lived in the house. On a mattress. On the floor. Oh yeah…forgot about those days...

Here it is in all it's blue metallic-y glory…

And this is the shot looking down the hallway.

Pretty right? Well during the major remodel we did all the basic stuff: patched holes, painted walls, trim, and window seat, replaced the outlet covers and doors, replaced the carpet, etc. We chose to paint it the same neutral beige color that we painted all the other main living spaces and hallways of the house. The only rooms we actually painted different colors were the master, E's room and the bathrooms. This was partly for resale purposes and partly because my newlywed, pregnant, crazy brain couldn't handle that many decisions ;) So then it looked like this.

Then we got some hand-me-down furniture and new bedding and I put (very little) effort into making it look like an actual guest room. This room has had lots of various stages and arrangements and I wish I had taken pictures of all of them just to laugh. But basically it has looked like some version of this. 

Pretty recently I moved the bed over and hung that little birdcage so the view down the hall has been looking like this (yes most of the time there is a mess included). 

I also hung a little bit of stuff on the wall as you can see in this pic. All of that will get reused in the nursery. It's just felt like this room has never really had a defined layout or purpose except when we actually have guests in there. It's hard to keep clean because we don't have good systems in place for the stuff that goes in there. And even though I had made attempts to "decorate", this room just never really came together very well. Hopefully, all that will change soon!

This room also functions as our extra-stuff-that's-waiting-for-a-real-home room so lots of the time the other half of the room looks like this. Keepin' it real guys…

But aren't those closet doors pretty?! I love love love the doors that we chose to replace all the interior doors in the house. They were a good choice!

Well, that's where I'll leave it for now. The snow days have been filled with trying to clean out this room to turn it into a nursery so I can't wait to update on that! Happy snow days!

Elias' Airplane 2nd Birthday

We celebrated Elias' 2nd birthday at the end of January and I cannot believe that a whole year has gone by since I was writing up the post from his first birthday!! He has grown up so quickly! 

We had such a great day with all of his friends and family and realized just how blessed we are to have them. 

The theme was airplanes because of his interest in them for a lot of this past year. I thought it would be such a cute theme and he was very excited about it. The inspiration for the whole party started when I saw this picture.

via

I already knew I wanted to do airplanes but this picture sparked the idea to merge the airplane theme with another smaller "cardboard" theme. So "cardboard airplane" became our official theme as we kicked off the party planning.

And then I started hoarding boxes. Literally, we started collecting boxes before Thanksgiving I think. Yeah, our office was a little scary. 

I found all of the printables for his party including the invitations, labels, and banner letters, online for FREE here. Free is what we like around here. So I just printed everything off at home and then bought some brown kraft paper decor at Hobby Lobby when it was 50% off.   So as far as decorations and party games, this party was definitely low budget. We did rent a building this year as opposed to having it at our house like we did last year. But even that was a lot cheaper than we expected since we used our neighborhood clubhouse. And it turned out so perfectly to have all the space for the kids to play in the cardboard airplanes. 

As his party got closer and we started talking to E about it, I told him there would be airplanes at his party and every time he would say "aaaaaaaand cars!". Apparently, airplanes aaaaand cars were expected at his party so we accommodated that request and threw in a fun hot wheels racetrack too. 

But why am I rambling on when really the pictures are the important stuff? Here ya go!

 My sis-in-law was a lifesaver and chopped and arranged all of the food for me while I was running around doing who-knows-what! 

A little plane for JoJo and Baby Jo(seph) ;) This was the setup in the middle of the room with the cardboard airplanes and airport. Sorry for the lighting this room was super hard to photograph!!

The cardboard planes!

 Marcos actually came up with this idea of all the paper airplanes

Marcos' Meme did the cake for us again this year. It was so cute!

We had some wooden airplane kits for the older kids to assemble during the party. 

I was so proud of my hubby's work on the cardboard airport. It was adorable! All the little kids' heads popping up inside of it was just too cute. 
Example A…my little bro :)

The Hot Wheels racetrack was quite the hit with the kiddos. We even kept it around the house for about a week after the party!

We had this little photo station set up for the kids to sit on the airplane and get their picture taken. The wooden airplane is actually a swing that Marcos'  Pawpaw built for him when he was little!

Cousins!

Whew! There ya have it! I had such a great time putting it all together and everyone had a blast the day of the party! I just can't believe our little monkey it 2!! 

Wasn't this just a few weeks ago? 

IT'S A...

GIRL!!! 

Yep, we are having a girl this time around! We are surprised but so super excited to welcome a girl after our crazy little man. :) I was leaning a lot more toward thinking it was another boy since I felt almost exactly the same as I did with E. I should have known though, because both grandma's were just SURE that it was a girl! Those ladies have powers I tell ya. 

Anyway, we are way excited and know that this little bean will be a joy and a blessing! Here are some ultrasound pics!

Profile - her nose is definitely different than E's

Waving :)

Left and right foot (she was sitting on one)

It's a girl! 

Her little face (which I'm sure is adorable…it
just happens to look slightly like an alien)

And yes I realize I haven't even posted about our announcement or finding out about this bean (ette?). Gotta work up the emotional energy to write that one out :)