Mommy Musings

When I first painted our dining room three years ago, I painted it a dark brown.  It felt warm and cozy and I really liked it.  But recently it felt like everything in that room was brown or cream.  I wanted some color!! So after about a million paint samples, I finally chose a nice blue color I loved. I chose the one on the far right! Once painted I moved a few things around and redid my photo wall and Skip's wall of honor.  Since those last pics were taken, I have also painted the sideboard table, removed the carpet, sewed some new curtains, and added two dressers-turned-china cabinets.  I am soooo happy with the way it all turned out! My wall of honor {just my diploma} Skip has way more stuff...doesn't seem fair, haha I will soon be sanding down and painting the chairs a dark brown, keeping the white seat cushions.  I was going to wait to post this until that was done, but I've gotten behind on starting that.  I'll just have to update again when I'm finished!

Today's house project was one of the easiest and biggest impact I did.  You need a little back story first. Skip and I have never had a "real" bed since we got married.  The condo we lived in for the first three years of marriage was teeny tiny so we only had room for our queen sized mattress on the frame it came with.  We always said we'd get a real bed when we bought a house. Well in May 2008 we finally bought our current house.  And while the master bedroom was indeed bigger, we still didn't buy a bed.  In fact we ended up not even using the bed frame anymore.  You see, Shiba {the dog we have that I hardly talk about} sleeps upstairs in our room.  And she would hide under the bed and attempt to bite you if you ever tried to get her out.  We tried putting things under the bed to block it off, but she still got under.  So putting our box spring and mattress straight on the floor was the best plan for now.  I felt very Asian with my bed choice.  See, not too weir

This is actually a project I worked on last summer, but I never got around to blogging about it.  Since we first moved into the house, one of the things I hated the most was the kitchen.  It's a good space, but definitely not my style.  But since everything had been put in brand new before we moved in, I could not justify spending money to replace it.  But after a few years I just could not stand our counter tops anymore.  They were green and hideous and GREEN.  I ideally want to put in quartz counter tops, with a subway tile back splash, and a deep new sink.  But none of that is in the budget.  But what is in the budget is this lovely box.  I'll be honest, I was pretty intimidated by this project.  It was definitely the biggest project I had taken on to date...and the most expensive.  So I watched the video enclosed, read the directions about a million times, and finally got to work. Let me tell you...this really wasn't that hard!  It took me only two nights to complete an

Once we got home from Florida, I was getting the painting itch again.  Every year or so I get bored with one of the pain colors in our house and feel the need to repaint it. First up was the living room.  I actually really liked my living room color, but there were a few places we had to patch after water damage from the hurricane.  I didn't have any extra color, and when I went to buy more, I found out it was discontinued.  So paint the whole room {and stairwell and hallways upstairs, since they're all connected} it was!  This was Little M about a year ago!  Since I was repainting anyway, I figured I'd get a whole new fresh start and paint it something much lighter to brighten the place up. I have to admit, I don't really love the new color.  It just looks boring white to me, even though it's not supposed to be.  Oh well.  I'm sure I'll get the itch to paint again in a few years anyway! I can't just seem to do one project in a room though, and the liv

Hello Readers!!!  I am very excited for my next few days of blogging.  Every day this week I have decided to showcase a different project that I did around the house.  My house is no where near perfection or real fancy, but I like it.  And please excuse all the pictures, I meant to clean up before I took them, but I just ran out of time!  This first project of mine was inspired by things I have seen on Pinterest {what did we do before that by the way?!?!}  I wanted a way to showcase the outfits I brought the girls home from the hospital in...it made me sad to thing of them just sitting away in the attic.  So when I was at Michael's a few weeks ago, they had some shadow boxes on sale...perfect!  I grabbed two and headed home to get to work. This was seriously one of the easiest projects ever.  I wrote up the girls stats on the computer {name, birthday, birth stats} in Microsoft Word, printed it out, and cut them to fit inside the box. Then I just attached their outfits to the back o

Hello readers!  After some careful consideration I have decided to open up my blog to monthly sponsorship!  I am very excited about this and am hopeful for a good response.  Do you have a small business or blog you want to promote here on my site?  Let me know!  Leave a comment or email me at mommymandymusings@yahoo.com for details and pricing!

I've had a few people emailing me since my 9 months up 9 months down post asking about how I lost the weight.  Just seemed easier to post about it than email everyone the same thing! Now yes, my weight loss tips here have to do with my losing weight post-baby.  But these tips can also be applied to just regular weight loss in general.  Mandy's Unofficial Weight Loss Tips 1.  Portion Control  - Now in full disclosure, my eating habits are really only a step above horrendous.  Truly.  Candy for breakfast, cookies for lunch, why not?  Hubs always jokes about my ability to make a meal out of Twizzlers.  And while I have gotten much better over the years, I still think life is too short to not be able to indulge when I want to.  That's where portion control comes in.  If I'm going to eat a gooey piece of cake, I will eat less of my dinner.  I also will limit the amount of cookies I eat, aiming to just eat 1 or 2 that day.  If I go to a restaurant, I NEVER finish my meal. 

From the time we're born, it seems as though we're programed to always be working towards the next thing.  Middle school is prepping you for high school.  High school prepping you for college, military service, or a job.  Moving out, marriage, a career path, children.  Everyone has their own path to follow, but the overlying idea is that we should be always working towards the next thing, our next goal and milestone. I was no exception to this.  My whole life I knew I wanted to graduate college, become a teacher, get married, and have babies.  Simple really.  And this past June completed those dreams for me.  I was a married, college grad, former-teacher, mother to two little girls.  We were settled in a house we can live in for many years to come and two fur babies running around completed the picture.  Everything I had ever wanted has come true. But as I thought about it, I got kind of nervous.  I only know life as working towards the next thing.  Establishing goals and takin

Everyone knows that life can be hard when you are a military kid.  You have to move a decent amount, your military parents is gone for long periods of time, it is confusing and frustrating at best.  But something most people forget, myself included until recently, is that cop kids have a rough go of it as well.  I knew what I was signing up for when I married Skip, who was already a cop at that point.  Long hours, missed holidays, dangerous work, worrying all the time would all become second nature to me.  I knew it would affect our kids as well, but I really didn't think about the details and all the day-to-day stuff.  When we first had Little M, she was far too little to understand Skip's job or everything that comes along with it.  That's the stage Baby C is at now, but as Little M grows, she's starting to get frustrated with the situation. As I mentioned in a previous post, Skip had to work a lot over Easter weekend.  The hardest shift was working Easter morning and

I'm totally late to the party, but today I'm liking up with Kelly for her Show Us Your Life series.  Today's {well, last Friday's} topic was moms of girls....how perfect for me! If you're stopping by from SUYL, my name is Mandy and I have two sweet little girls. Little M is three. Baby C is almost 10 months. And since Baby C is our last baby, it's official...I'm a girl mom!!  And I have to say, I love every second of it. I am about as girlie-girl as they come.  Pink is my favorite color and I love nothing more than doing my nails, hair, make-up, and gettting all dressed up.  I have always played with dolls and used to play dress-up for hours.  Romantic movies and books are my favorite, and other than my love of football, I'm about as far away from a tomboy you can get.  So when the doctor first cried out, "It's a girl!" when Little M was born, I was elated!  My own sweet little girl.  Bows, dolls, and everything pink danced through my head.

I'm very excited to be linking up with Andrea and Cole today for Three on Thursday! Today's topic is What are three of your spring 'must-haves'? Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of spring.  I like it a whole lot better than winter, that's for sure, but I feel like it's kind of a tease.  I just want the hot summer weather already! But it is nice to start to shed some of the winter layers and enjoy the sun. Here are the three things I need most once March and April roll around. A fresh pedicure in a nice pink color.  Time to get away from all the dark, winter nail polishes! Bad picture, but this Kohl's juniors maxi dress.  It's so comfortable, and the long length makes it perfect for the slightly cooler spring weather. White jeans...now I don't actually own a pair yet, but I am hoping to sometime soon!  They just scream spring to me! So what about you?  What is on your must-have list for spring?