Around the House

Lately, we've been knocking out home projects like nobody's business! On Thursday nights, we usually go on a date night out.. but this week, we were feeling the coziness of home. We ate a quick dinner out and came back home to hang the gallery wall above. I recently shared some more about the progress in our dining room.. and hanging this art has really completed everything. I'm also looking forward to seeing it shine without the christmas decor around it.

I have always dreamed of having a gallery wall full of black and white photos in our home. As you can see, there's only one photo up so far (haha!) but after the holidays and our trip to Colorado we'll have a few more photos and I'll order my favorites to fill the wall. I think this will only get better with time, especially when the big frames are filled with adorable baby faces.... SPEAKING OF. Prince George. Oh my! He is so precious.  I'm also dreaming of a new light fixture... and then this room is completely 100% done! I would say it'd be the only room in our house that is, other than maybe our kitchen. I'm always scheming in other spaces!

Speaking of scheming....

On Saturday night we both had hurt tummies from something we had eaten, not sure what. Ben felt it more that night but on Sunday morning I needed a bit more shut eye than usual to feel better. We skipped church (which I hate doing!) and I woke up to Ben saying "I think I'm going to tear out our bathroom".. UM WHAT?

We've been talking about redoing our "master bath" for some time now. Our house has two identical bedrooms connected by a bathroom without a shower in it... and another bathroom across the house where we have showered for the two years that we've lived here. People with a master bathroom, I envy you! We've known for awhile that we've wanted to redo this space, and put in a shower. We'll have parts of it done professionally and (clearly haha!) DIY other parts.. but Ben spent the whole day yesterday tearing out all of the blue tile. Oh yeah, here's a before photo :

Image by Zac & Kaitlin Photography

Directly across from the vanity is the bathtub without the shower fixture. You're looking at exactly the area shown in the torn out photo above, too. Which is wild. It was in tact yesterday and now it's totally gone. Praise! I'm excited to share my inspiration and the process of this bathroom becoming about 150 times more functional.

The rest of the house is all holly jolly! I fell in love with this Eiffel Tower ornament from Anthropologie, and snagged it during their 25% off Black Friday sale.. online. It felt so perfect for us- the rest of our tree has mostly gold ornaments, I was born in Paris, and this year we traveled there together for the first time. I wrote a little baby 2014 on the bottom in sharpie. :)

Image from here.

In other news, we have two out of state trips that have snuck up on us. After Christmas we'll be in Colorado until New Year's Eve (Zac Efron ski lodge selfie, anyone?) with family and a close friend. I've never been in the mountains during winter so I'm really excited for all of the snow! Plus, I'm not skiing so I'll be cozy by the fire with a book 90% of the time. :) We'll be there for our second anniversary, too! We're grateful to spend time with family and then be able to celebrate just us when we get home.

Ben spilled the beans on my Christmas present a bit early.. we'll be spending Valentine's Day weekend in New York City as my gift! We love the idea of giving experiences instead of stuff.. and this has been the first time we've really gotten to act on that idea. Well, Ben did. :) We've both been to the city multiple times, but never together. I haven't been since high school! So I'm thrilled. Any recommendations of places to eat or things to do that aren't super touristy? Because we've both been we won't be hitting up Canal Street or the Statue of Liberty.. although The Mindy Project has renewed my interest in the Empire State Building... Since we've been married.. we've LOVED traveling together. In two years we've gone to Charleston, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, England, France, and now Colorado and New York. We're so passionate about travel as a family and making those memories, so I'm thankful for how the Lord has provided these opportunities for us! (Lots of flyer miles and family travel connections have made these trips possible!)

Sorry for this all over the place post today, I just thought I'd share a little bit of where my head is at. :)