hallelujah! holy sh*t, where's the tylenol

This was supposed to be a cute home tour post to share all of our fun Christmas decorations around our house. A little snapshot of the vintage items we've collected over the years and the stories behind them. As I was editing the final photos, this happened.

Yep. It's as bad as it looks. These are the shattered remains of 31 years of ornaments. Two little boys were found staring at me, mouths gaping, unable to move. I'm not sure which of them gave the tree the fatal push, but down it came.

And this was me:

After removing the boys from he minefield, I ugly cried for about 15 minutes, then put on my big girl shoes and cleaned for an hour.

Sweep / vacuum / cry / sweep / vacuum / cry / sweep / vacuum / cry. Repeat.

I'm obviously devastated at the loss of all of our ornaments. I know they are just material things, and things don't really matter, but as we all know ornaments are delicate little orbs that carry the memories of those that gave them to us, special trips, life milestones. 90% of those are now gone and my heart is heavy.

What remains is a random shoe box amount of ornaments (mostly the ugly ones, because they were at the back of the tree...of course).

Silver lining - both of the ornaments with my babies' teeny tiny hand prints from each of their first Christmases survived. I think God knew I would fall apart if I lost those.

Thankfully I have some wonderful friends who sent words of encouragement. I even had donut and ornament deliveries at my house throughout the day, which did me a world of good.

As my friend Kristin said, we can rebuild! I've always wanted one of those gorgeous color coordinated trees that you see in magazines. Here's my chance.

So I press on. Since all of the photos were edited and ready to go, I'll go ahead and share them. I considered making them into a slide show set to Sarah McLachlan's I Will Remember You, but decided that would be a bit melodramatic, even for me.

Rest in peace, Lenney ornaments.

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takin it easy

fall flip-flop: refreshed house tour

sidney's downtown loft tour

woodland creatures birthday party: the maxwell man turns 1

takin it easy

Howdy! As you've probably noticed, blog posts have been sloooooowing down a bit the last couple of weeks. There are 2 reasons for this:

One, we've had a string of dreary days which makes photographing basically impossible. I have several things I want to share with you, but the photos are just plain ugly. I'd rather wait. You would too. Trust me.

Two, it's the holidays. And since this blog is a hobby and not a job, I'm letting myself not feel guilty about taking a little breather to enjoy time with my family, decorate, and make a few more Christmas gifts.

I still have a few things up my sleeves to share with you before 2014 is out, but it will not be in the form of 3 posts a week like you might be used to. Hope that's cool. I've got some cool stuff planned for the first part of 2015 as well - handmade gifts that I can't show you now because it would ruin the surprise on Christmas for a lucky (at least lucky in my opinion) couple of folks.

Hope everyone out there is enjoying the holiday season so far!

Oh, and if you're still thinking about whipping up some handmade gifts in the next couple of weeks, I've linked to some quick and easy ones below. Wouldn't want to leave you high and dry.


MAY I INTEREST YOU IN…

super hero cape tutorial

monogrammed quickie quilted blanket

felt donut pillow

easy elastic waist skirt tutorial

fall flip-flop: refreshed house tour

I love our house, but things were starting to get a bit...stale.

It's sort of difficult to admit this publicly, since I'm an Interior Designer and all, but even the pros can get numb to change in their own spaces. I just got used to seeing all of our furniture in the same spots for the last year and a half and had become kind of, well, stuck. I had ideas for how to change things up, but I needed a little extra creativity (and moral support).

Enter Sidney and Marci, two of the most stylish gals I know. Both are Interior Designers. You might remember Sidney from her downtown loft tour that I shared earlier this fall.

life update - the big kid is cool and the baby is EVERYWHERE

Haven't posted much on the parenting front lately. I haven't been holding out on you. It's mostly that's because - wait for it - the kids are kind of actually well behaved right now.

I totally just jinxed it. Yep. Henry's in the corner throwing an epic fit. Uuuuuuuuughhhhh.

summer bucket list #3 - splash pad

We crossed another item off our Summer Bucket List this week when we visited Klyde Warren Park in Dallas. This park is the bomb. Fountains everywhere, a stage for outdoor concerts, an open air library, a restaurant, and food trucks galore. Oh, and the biggest, cleanest family sized public bathroom you've ever seen...and the entire ceiling is a giant stained glass style skylight. It's gorgeous. I didn't take a photo because, well, it seemed creepy. 

I'm ashamed to say that this was my first visit, even though my office where I worked day in and day out was within walking distance. One big bonus of our summer list is that we will finally to do all of the great things in our city that we tell visitors to do.

To be super honest, parking downtown just makes me crazy. You either have to pay a billion dollars or be lucky enough to find a meter and have change or have the stupid app on your phone. Mostly I avoid it at all costs. Thankfully, my friends Maryam from hi and hello blog and Jane from Art by JC Cheek told me that Nasher and DMA members get free parking. 

Sah-weet.

And, no, not all of my friends have blogs. Just these two. And like 4 more. That's it. I think.

we bought a zoo! (membership)

We are busy plowing through our summer bucket list at the Lenney house. This weekend we loaded up the fam, along with sister Meredith and Mr. Kendall, and headed to the Dallas Zoo. I'm a little embarrassed to say that even though we live in Dallas, we had never taken the boys here. In fact, the Hubs and I hadn't been in almost ten years. Whoops. Being TCU graduates and all, we are Fort Worth Zoo snobs because, well, it's awesome.

If you live near the area and haven't been in awhile, I highly recommend that you check it out. They've made some major improvements. We had a great time checking out the exhibits, splashing in the kids area, riding the monorail and carousel, touching a snake, and best of all, Henry got to feed a giraffe. Have you ever seen one up close? Their heads are ginormous.

brilliant zoo tip: dress your kid in bright colors and stripes to very quickly locate him in the crowd.
it also seems to attract animal attention, which was awesome.

swinging between the two suckers, I mean, willing participants.

he was totally brave, as long as I touched it first.
sidebar- I know you're not reading this blog for fashion advice,
but check the related links below for info on my minty dream fossil watch and shorts!
the mint glasses are from Target

that face

riding high

watching momma and baby apes

I can relate, momma.

I love all the statue photo ops

best part of the trip

deep thoughts with gorillas

chomp

holy crap, a family photo where nobody is screaming!

momma, we're going faaaaaster!

this kid

This post was mostly an excuse to show cute pictures of Henry. Max was just happy to be outside, rolling along in the stroller.

We just happened to get a coupon in the mail for a discounted family membership, so it will pay for itself in 2 visits. Just $89 for a full year, including parking. Score. I love a good deal.

What are you guys up to this summer? Any good zoos in your hometown?


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mint: your post-valentine nausea cure

having it all was too much

First off, let me say that I am beyond amazed that so many of you tune into my little blog each week. My goal when I launched was to have 10 readers in the first month. Not quite 2 months in and simplyCRAFTED has passed 6,000 hits. 6,000 times someone has thought, "huh. this might be more interesting than whatever else I'm doing right now." It's humbling and I am so very grateful. Many of you have reached out through email, Facebook, phone, and even good o'l face to face conversations to tell me about how you can relate or are going through something similar to what I'm babbling about. 

I think what strikes a chord with so many of you is this epic, ongoing struggle of trying to cram everything into our lives and just not having enough time (or energy) to do it. For me, it was the pull between doing the creative work that I love vs. spending time with my family (whom I of course also love). For some of you, it may be the same age old work/life balance dilemma. For others it might be the desire to follow your own dreams vs. what others expect of you. And there are countless other combinations that I don't know about.

Whatever the reason, we all have a deep seeded need to live a fulfilling life, to find and live out our purpose, and also to pay the bills (minor detail) which drives most of us to overcommitt and over stretch ourselves to try and squeeze it all in - sometimes to the breaking point.

things I wish I could tell my 15 year old self

I turned 30 a few months back, and I have to say, I finally feel like I'm hitting my stride. No existential life crisis for me. All the stuff I worried about in my 20s (OK, not all, but a lot of it) seems to be coming together. More likely, though, I'm more confident about who I am and I make better decisions because of it. Basically, 30 is the bomb.

All of this self realization made me think: if I had the chance to time travel back to my 15 year old self, half a lifetime ago, what advice would I have for her? This is what I came up with: