Easter 2017!

Hey Friends! 

So it was our first Easter in our new house/town and it was pretty good! 

Sometimes I forget I am the mom now and I'm supposed to make the holidays magical! So here's my mom fail of the day! 

Our little town apparently does an Easter egg hunt every year and it's a huge deal. So I knew that it started at 10 am but there is always something that slows us down and this time I couldn't find their Easter baskets. So I ended up getting to the hunt at about 10:07 which is pretty awesome in my book but it wasn't awesome in the Easter bunny's book! When we started walking up everyone was leaving!! I guess they start right at 10 and the kids just go wild and all the eggs were gone!

I felt like such a doofus! But luckily the Easter bunny was still there and they were handing out prize bags so the girls got those but no eggs! River even ran way out into the field searching for them! But now we know and we will be EARLY next year! 

After we left I went straight to the store for some eggs so we could have a family egg hunt. YOU GUYS the bag of those little plastic eggs was $6! I guess I'm cheap but that seems like a little much for something I'm just going to throw away or use only once a year but whatever! (eye roll) 

So we had our own egg hunt Sunday morning and they loved it so I guess that's worth $6 ;) 

By the end of the day the girls sugar crashed HARD and not the "oh how cute they fell asleep in their chair" crash it was the "holy cow, our neighbors are gunna think we're abusive because of how loud their screaming" crash. So that was fun! #momlife

All in all it was a good day :) And I love Jesus and think He's the best. 

Phone pic

Phone pic

At the Easter egg hunt! Violet is wishing her mother was more on top of things haha!

I love the dress and rainboots combo!

Her Peppa boots!

Real life table-scape. Not pretty but very delicious!

Hope you guys had an awesome Easter! 

xoxo

Dani

Where I've Been.

I know not many people read this blog but this post is like a new beginning, fresh start, for me type post. 

When we first bought our house and listed off all the DIY's and such I was really excited to start this blog and document our progress and what we do around here and all of that fun stuff. But I didn't factor in life and my own personal issues. I had big dreams and even bigger expectations of myself and of how our life was "supposed" to be. 

The reality though is that I have depression. I've had depression for 11 years now and I've had good times and really bad times. Due to this and other personality flaws I am not very consistent. So we've started projects and started plans but we haven't really followed through with them. 

ANYWAYS... I am going to talk about my depression and my journey and stuff like that in the future but this is not the post for that. 

What I want to say here is that my husband and I have found a way to essentially cure my depression without any medications. So being depression free I have all new motivation and energy to do the things that I want to do and that I am interested in. 

Another really exciting thing that Tyler and I have decided is that we are going to stay in our TYNI cottage indefinitely. We have come up with a floor plan that will suit our needs (which I will share in the future) and we are really excited about it!

Staying in this house equals so many awesome things. Like a very affordable mortgage ($200 less than what we paid in rent). More freedom to travel and do fun activities. And an all around smaller space to clean and maintain. We have also come up with a 5 year renovation plan that we will be able to do everything and remain debt free! I can even go into more depth on our decision to stay here in another post. 

So I'm writing here to let you know you will be hearing a lot more from me and I'm glad to be back. Happy, Depression free, and with a fun new plan! 

thanks for reading! 

xoxox 

Dani

My Break From Social Media

This year I've been making a lot of really great changes and I've been coming into my own in a way. I've been becoming more confident I've been loving myself more and I've been all around more grateful. However this past week I've been noticing something a little off. Like my life just needs a little more fine tuning. I've always been a very social person and in being social I have cared a great deal about what others think and feel. That in it's self and in little doses is a good thing. You have empathy for people and you can better understand other point of views. I have taken this to an extreme though where I see what others are doing or saying and it stifles me. I see that someone is doing something different than me and I feel like I should be doing the same. I see someone has a different clothing style or home decor style and I feel like I should change to like those preferences. It seems as if I have lost myself. I don't really know what my preferences or opinions are. I don't really know how I like my hair or what kind of hobbies I like. And while I'm writing this I know it sounds so weird that I could not even know those things but it is true. I feel like I'm an expert on what the Internet and people that I follow on social media like but not on myself! So the solution for me is to take a break from social media. I've deleted the Instagram and Twitter apps off my phone. I've logged out of Facebook on my laptop and I've unfollowed a lot of channels on YouTube.
My goal is, is to treat social media as a tool instead of entertainment. I found that whenever I was bored I went for the path of least resistance and entertained myself with my social media sights. When there is always all of this other stuff that I want to do and learn but I just put it on the back burner.
After I deleted all of my access to social media I made a list of all of the things that I think I would like as a hobby, skills that I want to get better at, and just simple entertaining interests. I also downloaded a few apps that had to do with my interests.
After a few days of doing this it's been pretty great. I've instinctively reached for my phone a few times forgetting Instagram isn't there but I don't really miss them. I've been able to start learning Spanish and I've been practicing piano. I've also been a ton less distracted when playing with the girls and talking to Tyler. I don't feel bombarded with others opinions and preferences so I've been able to find things that I really like and enjoy. I think this was one more door that needed to be unlocked before completely becoming myself. My creativity is flowing and I'm excited for more learning and growing.
I won't be deleting my accounts but I will be using them differently. I only want to use them to keep in contact with people and to keep my friends and family updated with our life. I really like the Internet and I am really grateful for it! I just want to use it for so much more than comparing myself to others.

xoxo Dani

Snow Week & Happy 2017!

Hey Friends!

This week/year has been pretty good so far! I am actually really excited for 2017 for a lot of reasons:

1. My favorite number is 17

2. My birthday is 02/17 so it'll be 02/17/2017 this year. Which just looks cool!

3. I've learned a ton about myself in 2016 and I'm excited to put all of that knowledge to use this year!

I've got lots of goals but let's be honest those are kind of boring ;)

This first week of the year we have had snow upon snow upon snow!!! This past Wednesday we had a full on blizzard! We have huge snow drifts right outside our big front window and our roof has at least a foot of snow on it! The plows that come into our little town don't come down our road so we've had some really kind neighbors dig our car out and plow our road for us 3 times this week! These people are such amazing christlike humans I feel really lucky to live here. We've played in the snow a lot this week and I'm definately in need of some snow pants, waterproof gloves, and boots! 

We also finally got the trampoline we got from Santa set up outside! (He had it set up for us in our living room Christmas morning) 

It's been a good start to a good year :) 

they love eating the snow

violet's new thing is playing in the sink

she'll bring over her little stool and splash in the water 

she loves to tell me "no" contantly

playing in the snow wore her out

house hugs!

xoxo, 

Dani

We've Gone Blind!

Well not really... we just got blinds. 

So we finished our first little project for the Tyni Cottage! When we moved in (like I previously mentioned) we had nothing over the windows so in order to not feel like we were in a fish bowl I nailed blankets to all of the windows and used the girls pants as tie backs haha! It worked but it obviously wasn't a permanent solution. 

Tyler measured all the windows and recorded the measurements. Then we took our info to our new hang out spot, The Home Depot and they actually cut the blinds to fit exactly what we needed for no extra charge! It was pretty cool! Here is a few pictures of the process...

Tyler's "helpers"!

The Before :)

BEFORE

AFTER

And here's some adorableness :) 

 So not a huge change but it was a HUGE deal to me! And I really love how it turned out. They make the room seem a lot more put together :)

More updates soon! 

Thanks for reading! 

Dani

Our First Week in Our New House.

So this week hasn't been pretty and I wouldn't say it's been fun either. It's been a lot of stress, readjustment of expectations, patience, and trying to see the potential. 

Here's how it went...

Friday

We got the house! We went in and signed all the papers and waited for the county to record that it was our house. Then we went out to lunch to celebrate!

I packed a few things but thought I could finish the next day no problem.

Saturday

Tyler worked from 6 am - 3 pm. So I packed and organized and got the house as ready as possible with two little ones in tow. 

Then Tyler got off work and the real fun began. We got the UHAUL and then family came over to help us lift some of the heavy stuff. After they left we were up loading the UHAUL until 1 in the morning! It was exhausting. Then we had to sleep on the ground because our mattress was packed so that was fun.

Sunday 

We get ready and clean the house. By 11 am we were on the road. 

It was actually really sad for me to leave our apartment. I mean that was the place where my girls have had all of their birthdays and where I brought Violet home from the hospital. It had so many memories and I just wanted it's next residents to take care of it because it had done such a good job taking care of us. 

Continuing... When we got to the house we walked in and it smelled like a dog. You know the smell. As we unloaded the truck it started to sprinkle and the heater wasn't working and the flies decided to set up camp and I was going crazy! Not to mention I was in a dress because I was dressed for church and all my clothes were at the back of the UHAUL. It felt dirty and gross and all I could think is "what have we done?!". Fast forward to that evening when all of the windows had no curtains and it was like we were in a fish bowl. I couldn't take it so I nailed up all our blankets to the windows. 

As I went to bed that night I was really disappointed. I mean we left our nice temperature controlled, good smelling, flyless apartment for this? 

Monday

Things started looking up. We got the UHAUL unloaded and bought a couple of fly swatters. 

Tuesday

We discussed the smell and came up with a game plan to get rid of it. 

Wednesday 

We bought blinds and a carpet cleaner. That night Tyler set up the blinds in the living room and cleaned the living room carpets. He's so awesome. 

Thursday

Thursday was the day where I remembered why we bought the house. It was sunny and the girls and I spent a few hours outside and they love it here. We have horses next door and a view of the mountains and I'm going to try my hand at gardening in the spring. That night we all chased each other around the living room in our pajamas and we didn't worry about disturbing downstairs neighbors. The girls play more here and it seems as if life is slowing down. We came up with a list of projects and it all seems more doable. 

We are no where near what I want the house to feel, smell or look like but we will get there. And I don't think we made a mistake I think this is just the beginning of a big learning and growing process. 

I'm excited to share it all with you guys! 

xoxo Dani

Apartment Gardening.

Hey Friends! 

So this past spring/summer I became obsessed with gardening. The idea of growing my own food is just so fun and exciting to me! At that time we had no plans to buy a house so I improvised. I started my own little herb garden. It was really fun and an easy project. 

I only planted 4 herbs to keep things simple.

wheat grass

chives

thyme & 

basil

For plant markers I just wrote on rocks I found with permanent marker.

To start off the garden I went to Walmart and purchased THIS planter. Which made it easy to keep it watered and it was skinny enough to sit in my kitchen window seal.

Then I purchase THIS potting soil. Remember to get seed starting soil if you grow your herbs from seed. It makes things much easier. 

Then I went to our local NURSERY to get the seeds. Which were very affordable and they had a huge selection. 

When I got home I read the backs of the seed packages and got to planting! 

After a few weeks I started seeing growth which is really exciting!

This would be a good beginning gardener project, it's easy and simple and doesn't take a lot of space. You can even plant individual herbs in tin cans if they have good drainage! 

There are so many resources on youtube and pinterest. So if you want to test your gardening skills without getting too committed try out an herb garden. 

If you have any questions send them my way!

Stay tuned for my next gardening adventure in our new house! 

xoxo 

Dani