Joy in the Snowfall

Last week, we had probably our last big snow of the season. When Riley went down for her nap, Aiden, Emma and I headed out for some last big snowy fun before it melted later in the week. This has been a fun year of snow almost every week for a month...and while I normally hate how the snow makes travel difficult and cancels events I want to go to, in a pandemic world, there's nothing to miss out on because of a snowstorm! 

Plus, the kids love it. 

Well, the big kids. 😆

0

Advice from A Second-Time Homeowner

This post has been sponsored by Lexington Law. All opinions are honest and my own. Lexington Law Disclaimer

Buying our second house was SO MUCH EASIER than buying our first house.

Let me back up. 

Devin and I were 19, engaged, and looking to buy a house to live in as newlyweds. We had some money saved and didn't want to rent an apartment if we could find a small, cheap house to buy. But you know what you need to buy your first house? Good credit, credit history, and a company willing to give you a mortgage. 

Though Devin made good money as an electrician and I was finishing up college to become a teacher (remember when I ended up teaching high school Spanish?!), and we had money for a small down payment, the interest rates on the high-risk mortgages were going to make owning a home unaffordable. We literally had ZERO credit history...oops!

0

Christmas at the Hood House | 2020

Me, to myself: Don't let the Internet tell you that you need to spend a ton of money on Christmas decorations. 

Me, on the Internet: Here are my Christmas decorations!!

0

Playroom Organization

This might be a total joke if you've seen my kids' rooms and the playroom, because those rooms are USUALLY messy. The toys are everywhere, totally mixed up. (Seriously! See below for what the playroom generally looks like before we clean.) But those few days when the kids clean up with me, there is a specific system that helps them know where things need to go. Plus, with the holidays right around the corner, it's a great time to sort through what we have and what can be given away. 

Before we jump in, let me admit that this is my least-often shown corner of my house. It's not cute or trendy, because I'll be the first to admit: we have too many toys. But while simplicity might not be my strong suit (thanks, two sets of local grandparents!), there are a few things I've learned from mom friends about how to store the toys you have. 

Related: Neutral Nursery | Project Playhouse | Home Tour 

0

Outdoor Spaces in Summer

Affiliate links used. Not sponsored by Rita's but oh man, I wish this were ;) 

Our old house's backyard was a grassless mudpit surrounded by tons of trees so thick you couldn't see the sky when you looked up in the summer. And yet we had plenty of fun there, too! (Like my DIY outdoor movie night setup, where you can really see the grassless mudpit of a yard.) It really doesn't matter what your space looks like, you can always make it a fun spot to spend time in during the summer. When Pennsylvania was in the red phase and we barely left our house, it was really nice to have a little change of scenery by going outside! Here at our new house, we have a little more of a yard to spread out in and even have a deck (thank you, previous owners!). But all that to say: wherever you are, you can make it fun during the summer and give yourself a change of scenery.

Related: Project Playhouse | Greenhouse Adventures | Easy black bean + corn dip 

0

Project Playhouse

**Affiliate links used.

All the playgrounds around us have been closed for 9+ weeks. (Whaddup, quarantine life in PA). And my husband was laid off for way longer than his carpenter self would like! Usually when he gets laid off in the winter because there are less job sites, he does side projects for people in their houses (he can literally renovate anything!), but then he couldn't even do that. So to keep from going stir-crazy, he started building the kids a playhouse.

Here was our inspiration.

That we did not realize was only like 10-foot tall.

Which is partly why ours is a full two stories. Whoops.

Need some inside activities for quarantine rainy days? Check out this post.

0

Turning Your Plants Into More Plants

**Affiliate links are here. Thanks for supporting this little blog! 

Whew, it's been a whirlwind over here with 3 kids, trying to do fun things, and catching up on laundry/dishes/dinner prep in all my free time. Riley still sleeps all day and I still can't seem to find a few extra moments to write blog posts and comment on other blogs! What am I gonna do when she's awake more during the day?! Anyway, let's move on from my blogging incapabilities to all the plant things. 

Last week I shared three plants that are basically unkillable: the spider plant, pothos, and philodendron...but for all us beginners, there's more reasons to love them besides the fact that they are so easy to keep alive! Pinterest has long lists of "easy houseplants," but starting with these will allow you to grow your selection of plants even more.

Related: The "are you a crazy plant lady?" quiz | Indoor planter inspiration | Hanging plants in the nursery

0

Hard-to-Kill Houseplants

As soon as you walk in my front door, the secret is out: I am trying to turn my house into an indoor jungle. Personally, I don't think it's crazy to have thirty-one plants in your downstairs. That's super logical and my living room air must be super fresh, right? Right.

I love keeping indoor plants alive (not outdoor plants, that's different and hard and no thanks)......but I am also a self-proclaimed cheapskate who doesn't want to spend lots of money. While the exotic, tropical plants are fun (like my living room palm tree in this Instagram post), they are also hard to keep alive and if it dies, then the money I spent on it was a bit of a waste.

Related: 5 money-saving planter ideas | DIY herb garden | How to create a succulent garden

So if you're looking for plants that won't be a huge money-waster, or if you claim to have a black thumb: these plants are for you!

The other incredible thing about these plants is that you can TURN THEM INTO MORE PLANTS. That's right. You buy one, and a few months later you can have lots more. But more about that here!! Let's start with what the super easy plants are.

0

Neutral Nursery For Baby 3

**Some affiliate links used. When you purchase using one of my links, I may get a small commission. Thanks for supporting my blog!** 

The theme of this nursery is, once again, "bedroom." I made that joke when I was setting up Aiden's nursery (let's have a laugh at the photo quality and my "home decor style" from back then! Ha!!). Just like when I put together his nursery at the old house exactly four years ago, I don't have any woodland creatures. I don't have any florals. I don't have any real theme other than "this is a bedroom."

But since blogger requires a post title, me and my wild burst of inspired creativity have decided to call this a "neutral nursery."

0

Bonfire Nights

**Affiliate links used. 

Devin and I have been talking about getting a fire pit since we moved in over the summer. We had fires at our old house before we had even moved in (and here's some delightful proof from 2012! Gotta love the awkward old blog archives!). Our old house had veryyy little grass in the backyard, so our best/most recent fire pit was just a hole we dug with rocks around it. We weren't worried about messing up the yard, since it was already such a patchy yard. (It made it easier to burn scrap wood, fallen branches, and other home renovation wooden leftovers!) At the new house, we have actual grass! A yard that gets sunshine and doesn't require 15 gallons of bug spray just to go out amidst the mosquitoes? YES PLZ.

0

Rainy Family Nights In

This post is sponsored by Bona but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Let's talk about the post-nap (or post-school) time. The "before dinner," the "after dinner"...that time frame. It might not be enough time to go out and do something fun because dinner and the bedtime routine have to fit in there. WHAT DO YOU DO. That is what I'm normally wondering.

The other night, we had a really chill evening all together that wasn't a stressful "is it bedtime YET" kind of night. We couldn't go in our yard or to a park because it was straight up pouring outside, and we had some time after naptime before dinner, and then after dinner before bedtime. So what did we do? What helped the night be enjoyable? What can you do in those gaps of time to help keep the total mayhem at bay? (Spoiler alert: it's THIS!)

What makes an afternoon/evening in more fun: 

0

Home Tour | Bedrooms, Etc.

Last week, I shared the kitchen, dining and living rooms at this new house. Today is MUCH less exciting because it's our undecorated bedrooms! And the playroom, which I plan on sprucing up, too. Our old house has stilllll not sold yet (prayers that that would happen quickly would be much appreciated!), so the home decor budget is still $0.

0

Home Tour | Living Spaces

Can you give entire home tours before a space is the perfectly decorated, Instagrammable version of itself? I'm going to go ahead and say YES. Honestly, some of my favorite blog posts are the hideous renovation "before" posts of our old house (exhibit A, B, and C), because it made it even more fun when a room was finally finished! So in that vein of reasoning, this "home tour" is the very first version of the new house. We haven't spent anyyy money on decor (still waiting for our old house to sell!), so the bedrooms are veryyy plain (shared in the next post). And you know what? It's totally fine. I'm a firm believer that life goes on, even when a house doesn't look like the trendy layout in an Ikea display.

While I'm not embarrassed to share the unperfected state of the house, I have been slow to share pictures of the house because it feels so....callous. I know people who don't even have a safe place to live, so to share photos of a house that we didn't fix up ourselves, that came to us like this, suddenly feels insensitive to talk about. Just know that this post is not coming from a strangely stuck up place.

0

Tips for Moving With Kids

We have lived in our new house for about 2 weeks, so the moving day memories are still fresh in my mind. We've got three-year-old Aiden and one-year-old Emma, which only made moving "more fun" (more complex). Before we actually moved, it felt like an impossible task! Yes, packing things with the kids around was tough--they wanted to play with me, or they played with each other and needed a referee every 0.3 seconds. Yes. That made it harder to be productive. During naptime and evenings, we packed things away, and come moving day, things went really smoothly! The only thing that was tough was trying to show people where things went at the new house (see tips below under moving day!!). Anyway, all that being said, moving to a new house with kids is totally possible even though it is a big undertaking.

0

traveling HOME to see our HOUSE

i saw my our house this weekend!

three bedrooms, garage, driveway, adorable neighborhood, a big backyard that leads to a creek

devin already got us a remote-controlled, electric fireplace and hung a picture from our vacation in colorado...but i'm getting ahead of myself. 

after a (WINNING) field hockey game on saturday, i ignored the threat of snow and took a bus back home to philadelphia. after 5 hours on the bus, i was still in connecticut, and the snow was piling up around the oversized bus. there was a disgusting amount of traffic since nobody thought to have plows and salt trucks ready for the deluge of white flakes (you'da thought this was freakin' georgia the way they were so unprepared for snow!), and it didn't help that for 2 hours, the bus was completely stopped on a "highway" that a tree fell across, making it impossible for cars to pass. once the tree got cleared, the bus went 5 mph (or slower) and got stuck on patches of ice every 10 minutes. have you ever seen a double-decker bus try to rock back and forth to get off of a patch of ice? it's even less fun to be in that bus as it goes from reverse to engine-revvingly forward. 

a 6 hour trip home took 13 hours. i got on the bus in boston at 4 PM and got into philly at 5AM in the morning. 

my dedicated, loving, exhausted fiance picked me up, and (after running straight to him, dropping my duffel bag on the sidewalk, and leaping into his arms) we drove to our house! i got the full tour of the house because after getting secretary's butt and cabin fever all at the same time on that wretched bus, i was dying to see the place we will live in 7 months. (7 MONTHS?! well, 7 months and 3 days). 

after sleeping for 4 hours, i went back to our house with devin and got to see the large backyard (perfect for frisbee, my dad insisted) that leads to a small creek. the rest of the day was spent giving my parents, 3 siblings, and all three sets of grandparents tours of our house (careful, these stairs are steeper than you'd think, like the sound of the doorbell?, they're going to expand the bathroom to about here...). devin's maternal grandparents and my only set of grandparents prayed for us as a couple in our living room before they left, and it made me so thankful to have family that has loved Jesus longer than we've been alive. 

taking the bus back to boston was sad, but knowing that devin and i can start working on our house on my thanksgiving/winter breaks burns away any tears that may have sprung to my eyes as i kissed my fiance goodbye. 

2