Welcome to Kelly Martin's Blog! Here I share my stories from my blessed life as a wife to a super-talented man, Jason, mom to my precious kids, Lucy, Jack, and Connor, and friend to my amazing girlfriends who inspire me every day!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

My Happy Place

I have the best husband in the world, really.  He made my craft room vision become a reality :)

Now that Connor is in his big boy bed, I got to start on making Connor's old room a new craft room for me.  At first, I got busy pinning things and looking on blogs of women that had created their dream craft room.  Of course I fell in love with lots of ideas, but THIS furniture at $1,500 - while A-FREAKING-MAZING - is just more than I'd ever spend.  Plus, I have the handiest husband around; he can build anything!

Plus, I had lots of specific things I wanted in my new craft room.  (Shocker, I know :)  For instance, I wanted a sewing table that was tall, and very deep.  Cutting fabric on the floor sucks.  But, I wanted a separate desk for doing crafts and making cards.  Also, I wanted the sewing part to lift up so I could store things inside.  (Away from little hands.)  Oh, yeah, and, just one more thing, could you do it, like yesterday?  :) 

Armed with a new project - and excited about our mutual understanding that this falls in the category of "I-get-to-buy-a-new-tool-project" (an air compressor for painting the large desks evenly and quickly), Jason got right on it.  He drew up his own building plans and spent an entire weekend building me some awesome, awesome tables!  He even painted it bubble gum pink for me!  :) 

Take a look:


So, the yellow cubbies on the wall were on the facebook yard sale sight I love to peruse.  They needed SEVERAL coats of paint, but since I was painting them bright yellow, I didn't mind :)


And speaking of color, this was my palette.  I had made these pillow covers back when we lived in the house before this one.  While it would have been fun to scrap everything, and start with a new color scheme (I LOVE black, white, grey, and yellow), I do like this fabric and all its bright colors.  No need to be wasteful...


Lighting is an issue in this room because there's only one window, and although the fan/light fixture is nice looking, it provides terrible light.  Well, not terrible, it's lovely ambiance light, but not craft-room light.  So, Jason installed three wall lights from Ikea.  (Thanks so much Mom for picking up my Ikea items!)


Most of this room, I already had. Like with the pillows I had made, the curtains, sofa sleeper, cork board, and pillows were in there when it was Connor's nursery.  All the storage organizers, baskets, and accessories, too, so it was easy to put it all together.  And super fun to find new homes for things that were being stored in my scrapbook suitcase.  In theory, I would have loved to paint the walls turquoise or something, but I was way too impatient to wait for that :)  And the neutral wall was fine to work with.  From Ikea - in addition to the wall lights - I did buy the Bygel rail and colored cups you see in the bottom right-hand corner.  Love these!



Ribbon, fabric, and glitters = one happy me!


  The striped box (and the set of five of them I have in here) were formerly used in Lucy's nursery to hold baby booties and socks :)


Love the storage underneath.  My huge cutting mat even fits in there!


Special artwork:  left to right:  Lucy's ladybug she made in Girl Scouts, Jack's 2's class artwork, and the owl is a little painting I made with my friend Tiffany when I was pregnant with Connor.



My friend Connie came over the other day.  She saw the craft room and asked me, "I mean, do you just come in her, shut the door, and say to yourself, 'I'm so happy'"?

Yes, that's exactly what I do!  :)  Thank you, Jason!  You definitely deserve to be leader of your "people-who-are-awesome" group :)

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Jack's Birthday

Jack turned 4 years old Sunday!  We started the day with birthday doughnuts! 








And opening presents from family.  I gave Jack an Angry Birds necklace (Couldn't believe I found one...it was at Claire's and thankfully it was dog-tag style, so tolerable to give to my MALE child :)



Jason gave Jack a Batman Adventure kit :)



And Papa 'n Lady gave Jack  the Spiderman Web Slinger thing :)


I don't have a picture, but Jack plays his Cars game on his Leap Pad that Baba and Grandpa gave him to go with his new Leap Pad.  He plays that game every day!



Later that afternoon, blessed with glorious weather - 72 degrees on Dec. 2! - we headed to Hays Nature Preserve to have Jack's Spiderman birthday party!


This was a great venue for several reasons:  1.  I didn't have to pay any money to rent the place, 2.  Kids love it, 3.  it's five minutes from our house, and 4.  cake can fall all over the ground and I don't have to clean up - and little creatures will thank me :)


This kid in his hat just melts my heart!  So stinkin' cute...





It's my party and I'll pout if I want to...

Each child got a bottle of silly string, and they ran around and sprayed the Spiderman Villians that I set up around the park.  Great fun!

GOTCHA!

Lady and Papa came for the party! 


Take that, villian!


Jack is super into his friends right now, always talking about this friend or that, asking to have playdates, etc.  It's sweet!







Might be my favorite pic from the day - love this one!  Jason and Jack are super adorable in it!  Lucky, lucky me :)

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Four-year-old Jack thinks...

This is such a fun tradition in our house, the annual questions as a kid turns a year older.  Here's how Jack sees things:

1.  What's your favorite toy?  "walkie talkies"

2.  What's your favorite thing to do at school?  "play with the toys"

3.  What's something that you like to say?  "please"  (awww, cute :)  he is a very polite child :)

4.  What's your favorite food?  "rice, and chicken nuggets, and candy"

5.  How do you treat your brother and sister?  "saying nice things"  *hummm...wonder if he thought the question was 'how SHOULD you treat your brother and sister?  :)

6.  Who's your best friend?  "sam"  (sam is a classmate who also lives down the street.  sam still naps daily, so jack doesn't get to play with him very often, but he adores him and talks about sam all the time.

7.  Where's your favorite place to play?  "outside at school"

8.  What's your favorite tv show?  callow

9.  What's your favorite book?  "spiderman books"

10.  What's your favorite color?  "green"

11.  Who loves you?  "God"

So, there you have it.  Sweet Jack is 4 years old!

Thanksgiving in Oxford

We traveled to Oxford, AL to visit with Jason's family during Thanksgiving holiday.  Aunt Sarah decided last minute to come down too, so that was a great surprise, and Grandmama and Grandpa Bert make the trek all the way up from Orlando.  It was great seeing everyone!


We had AWESOME, very mild weather, so we played outside a lot! 


"kars, kars, kars!" 





fun in the leaves!



Love this pic of Lucy and Baba!







So Lucy!



Coloring with Aunt Sarah!  We missed seeing Uncle Justin, but can't wait to see him again!  :)



Cousin Joshua!


Baba and Grandmama's food was so yummy, the kids had to take a T'giving nap!  :)



More fun outside!


Yep, those are bare feet - it was that nice out!  :)






The kids LOVE walking along their landscape border.  Around and around they go!  All day!



Lucy was super into Grandpa's Twilight Zone.  She watched no less than 4 episodes!



We celebrated Christmas on Friday with everyone.  Jack was super excited to get ANOTHER AU jersey!




Lucy loved her new dresses from Baba!



The Leap Pad 2s are a big hit!


Connor got more cars!


And Jason received the largest box of chocolates I've ever seen!  :)


Bedtime with Baba!



His face is lit up from his Leap Pad...He slept with it every night :)

And as always, Connor slept with his cars :)

Hope you and your family had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!