Happy Fathers Day to our main man.

When I was a little girl I often imagined the type of man that I wanted to marry.

 

 

For me though, being a baby obsessed little mothering-hen type of girl, I pictured my prince charming beyond him sweeping just me off of my feet.

I imagined he would love my future real life babies just as much as I would.

 

I imagined the perfect Daddy for my imagined children.

My idea of a perfect Daddy was someone who willingly tucked babies tightly into bed, someone who would read the same books over and over again until they were memorized, someone who hoisted little bodies up on big broad shoulders, pushed a bike with a teetering body on top of it, cheered from the sidelines of sporting events, someone who would give big bear hugs, someone who would say small words of encouragement, someone who would be silly enough for morning tickle fights and caring enough to do evening closet checks for monsters.

 

 

I pictured a Daddy for my babies long before I pictured a man being a husband to me.

 

 

As a little girl I pictured perfection and as a grown woman I am overwhelmed at the thought that the man I pictured in my dreams has materialized in real life as the Father to my babies.

 

I am so blessed to have a Daddy for my babies that compares to the wonderful example of a Father I saw growing up myself.

 

 

My children are so lucky to have a man that is constant, attentive, loving and oh so funny; it is such an added blessing that he puts us first and always makes us feel protected and cared for.

 

 

 Happy Fathers Day to my babies Daddy.

 

The man who we love and adore.

 

(Hoping you got to tell a man or two in your life what a great influence they have been in your life today.  Happy Fathers Day friends!)

OUR miracle boy is ONE!!!

 

Someone turned ONE!!

  

I can't believe our baby is ONE now!

This first year of his life has been the fastest year of my life.

It feels like I simply blinked and one day my little bundle-of-a-baby that weighed a light six and a half pounds, grew into this moving little amazing person!

 He won't even sit still long enough to let his Mama take a clear picture of him.

But that smile; that sweet smile, melts my heart regardless!

My little man's first birthday literally crept up on me.

I think I didn't want to admit to myself that he was no longer going to be a little baby forever.

A week before his big day I realized if I didn't get my party-planning-mama-butt into gear, my sweet boy wouldn't be having the traditional big first birthday party.

As my husband pointed out, 

"First birthdays are just an excuse for a mother to invite her friends over and to make a cake. The baby has no clue."

For once, I had to agree with my man.

 

There is nothing sweeter than having an excuse to snap a billion pictures of a little one indulging in a piece of messy cake.

So, this last minute mama decided to plan a unique first birthday party!

  

A Mama-and-baby-play-date-party!

I called up a few of my close girlfriends and invited them over for a morning get together -- as we would do any day of the week.

 THIS mama-baby-play-date would be a little different; 

it would include balloons and an excuse to feed my baby boy cake before lunch time. ;)

It was also the perfect excuse to have mimosas.

We brought this regular mama-baby-play-date UP a notch. ;)

Our friends arrived promptly at 10 AM and we got the party started by filling the house with giggles and childhood make believe fun.

(....and coffees for the busy mamas)

I kept the menu pretty kid friendly and appropriate for the time of day.

We included the ripest fruit and kid friendly drinks...

Hats that were sported by the young and young at heart alike...

We had the boy of the hour...

We had snacks that were made in my husband birth country....

(Which funny enough, were my favorite as a child!)

There were fruity flavoured candies...

Organic animal crackers....

Cheesy penguin crackers...

 

Yogurt covered raisins...

 

Polish sausage and rice crackers..

 

And a homemade caramel/cinnamon swirl bundt cake made with love and extra special with a darling one year old in mind!

 

I don't think my heart could have grown any bigger this year.

Or our darling boy, for that matter!!!

This year has been the best for so many reasons, but mainly because we have Lucas in our lives and we are blessed with so many others who love him and us unconditionally!

We have friends that are lifelong and true....

  

...are giving and selfless...

...are understanding and sweet...

...are deep and thoughtful...

...and ones who are admirable and charming!

Our Mama-baby-play-date-party was such a stress free success that I know we will have to do this type of birthday party again! 

There are so many memories to hold onto from this first year of life we shared with our miracle baby....

 We are blessed beyond measure.

We have the love of so many sweet friends,

We get to awake to new beginnings with the same beautiful family we fell asleep with the night before...

We laugh and laugh until our sides hurt.

We make memories that will last a life time,

And we remember to be grateful each and every day for it all.

Our boy is now one....and we look around This Little Estate and we know that we are abundantly blessed.

It turns out that our mama-baby-play-date-birthday-party was a happy success. :) 

I will hold a little one year old boy tighter and a lot of sweet memories deep within my heart from now on. 
:D

Cant wait to see your rooms!

Happy Monday Friends!

I just had to drop in today to let you know about Courtney's search on Instagram for your beautiful rooms!

She recently featured our master bedroom on her Friday Eye Candy post.

It is always so nice to be included into a beautiful grouping of rooms and I am so thankful for this accepting community of creative people.

Feel free to tag "athoughtfulplacefridayeyecandy" on your beautiful rooms on your IG account for a chance to be featured on one of my all time favorite blogs: A Thoughtful Place.

The best part about this, and why I wanted to share this, is because you don't even need to have a blog to join in on the fun!

All you need is a pretty picture of a room in your home. :)

I know so many of you have fabulous style and I would love to see it all in one place on Instagram.

Cant wait to see what Courtney features next and to get a sneak peak into your beautiful homes.

Wishing you lots of love and realxing on this beautiful Monday!

Spring Organizing and Some Added Vintage Charm

We have been spring cleaning over here for a couple of months.

Organizing, purging and organizing again.

With three kids tearing around our house it is hard to keep things in order for too long. 

Our house is in a constant state of tweaking and rearranging and that is fine with me - each day there is always something to do!

 

My husband, on the other hand, would argue that he never knows where to find anything and that my "organizing" usually expands into every room of our home and creates chaos for too long.

Isn't that the irony of organizing??

Well, I think I nailed some organizing recently and so I had to share this easy fix.

 

Our china cabinet is sleek in design and I am always trying to figure out what I can add to it to give it some vintage character.

I switched out the colorful globes that adorned its' top a few months ago and switched them out for some sea grass baskets which enabled me some more much needed space for things.

Of course I had these baskets laying around the house since I have a basket obsession collection.

These square beauties, with handles for easy moving, were 75% off when I purchased them; they cost me a whopping $5 a piece!

 I simply printed off some numbers off of my home printer and cut out the number with an exacto knife creating a large stencil for myself. 

I then centered it in the middle of my baskets and used a thick black permanent marker to trace and then colour in my numbers. 

Some French inspired tags were added to the handles so I can list what is in each basket for quick retrieval.

My party-planner-in-training-little-girl helped organize a cluttered kitchen cupboard and collected all of our napkins into one basket. 

(Can you tell what kind of party my little Princess will be having this July?) ;)

Another basket is packed full of party decorations and the last one is full of table linens.

Such an easy project that creates so much texture and organization to our little china cabinet corner.

That paper wreathe also got relocated and gives our dishware some much needed privacy. ;)

You can visit Jenn at The City Famrhouse to see how she made her paper wreath and where I got my inspiration from for mine.

I'm loving how shopping my house is becoming my new favourite thing to do.

It is so convenient to have all of our party planning materials close at hand and yet no one would ever know. ;)

I also love that my little man is in the reflection of that last picture and he seems to have stolen his sisters Popsicle! This Mama had no idea until I heard his happy lip smacking and saw the pink stained white tshirt. 

My next project should be how to tie die shirts to camouflage stains...

Im gonna go get on that one.

Happy Weekend Friends!

Staining a farmhouse table and some hiccups along the way.

I have been dying to use this baby since I got it for Christmas almost two years ago.

 Being pregnant and then having a new born sure does limit you on your use of paint sprayers.

 

I was so excited to give our new dining room chairs a redo that I didn't even read the instructions that came with it.

As any mama knows, time is of the essence when you can get three children entertained long enough to even set up a project!!

So, yes, dear husband who cleaned out a paint jammed paint sprayer, I was rushing.

The babes were safely being babysat by "Bubble Guppies" and I was steps away getting all hasty with my paint gun.

Who knew that blazing hot sunshine and thick fast drying paint were not a good combination??

Well, now we BOTH know....

I couldn't even get the sprayer to even work. 

Uggg.

But what is a mama to do when she has fifteen minutes tops to finish a project??

Move on to the next one!

It had taken me a good part of a Sunday afternoon to sand the finish off of this table top.

And now she was ready for some pretty stain.

I was actually really loving the natural wood that looked so raw and beautiful and hated to stain it, but alas, it needed to be done, and I wasn't about to waste 15 minutes of potential DIY project time.

I whipped out my handy dandy board of stain samples that I made up when I talked about the huge barn door dilemma.

Remember??

 

I wanted to stain the table so it coincided with some of our main wood elements that would be near it.

Such as this guy...

After some speculation it looked like Red Oak was the closest match.

Sure enough, after one coat, I knew it wouldn't need much more stain to make the table rich and beautiful once again.

After two more coats, some open windows and an escape to the park with three crazy kids it took the better part of an afternoon to get the stain to look just as we had wanted.

I finished it off with a diamond wood finish by applying this varathane sealer with a soft cloth.

I did a couple of coats just to make sure it was nice and sealed and ready for sticky-mess-kid-hands and spaghetti nights.

Because I like to multitask, (husband says "rush") I painted the original navy base and table skirting that beautiful matte black I was hoping to spray the chairs with.

Everything works out with a little DIY creativeness. :)

A Cosco pack of tuna helped elevate our table and save our light floors from black paint.

PS: Who knew that when a baby knocks over a can of dark stain if the mama stays calm and wipes it up quickly with a whole roll of paper towels while praying loudly that the light floor can be saved and the baby can be thrown in the kitchen sink and the only thing that will have permanent damage is the baby boys cute little carpenter style jeans. 

Wood stain stained carpenter jeans? Ironic? Oddly adorable? 

Yes. :)

I'm loving the way the table top turned out, despite our little DIY hiccups along the way.

No project is perfect and mine usually have some set backs. Determination is key with DIY's, especially when little people need to be thought of and entertained. 

YOU can do it Mama. :)

The stained top turned out to be just the colour we wanted on our big farmhouse-ish table.

We have already been testing out its durableness and wearing it in!!

The sticky Pasta fingers love its colour blending qualities too. ;)

....so does mama.

:) 

Have you had any DIY fails lately?? Do you read instructions? Or are you like me and you "rush" through these kind of things because you are a time-efficient-go-getter?