Hair cuts - 1 wanted...1 unwanted

Well last week was pretty eventful at the Timmer house...we decided to finally buckle down and tackle trying to cut Eli's hair.  We've been putting this off...for obvious reasons - who wants to try to cut a one year olds hair??  Let me tell you it was not super fun,  there were lots of bald spots and uneven areas...but the job got done.  We just put him in his high chair and snipped as fast as we could, big sister looked on (apparently getting some naughty ideas in her head...)

pre-cut...messy mop!

post-cut...I promise that part that looks bald actually wasn't, he wouldn't let me comb it anymore at that point...but you can still notice all the uneven areas lol!!

fast forward to a couple days later...this is how mommy found Sophie in the kitchen one morning!!

yeah...wow....I was speechless

So...off to Miss Jen's for an impromptu hair cut!!  (THANKS  JEN!!))

Eli watching...

Our little cheeser :)

Sophie playing "freeze" so Miss Jen could cut her hair

checking out her new do in the mirror!

My goodness....I think she aged like 3 years with this hair cut!! 

Ok I do love it :)

So we learned a few things over the past week...

1. Don't talk about how much your child needs a haircut, and then keep putting off actually going to get one...she might do it herself ;)
2. Hair grows back...I admit I was a little vain in those first moments when I realized what she did to her hair - I LOVED her hair long!!
3. Enjoy moments like this...while not so funny at the time being - they are memories you'll always remember and laugh at later!

and finally...(probably the most obvious one of all)...

3. DON'T LEAVE SCISSORS ON YOUR KITCHEN COUNTER!!!  :) :) oops....

Why I decided to start...

A picture blog!!  Yep that's right...the girl who can barely remember to post on one blog is going to start an entirely new blog that I (hypothetically) should post one picture a day for an entire year.  Sounds like something I can do...right??  I understand, you're probably a little skeptical...me too.  I've come to the conclusion that blogging just might not be my thing, so why start another blog that I might fail at??  Good question, there's many reasons...

A lot of things I've read/heard/realized lately have made me realize I'm pretty bad at documenting my family life.  I rarely have my camera out, when I do I usually just snap some pics of the kids...and it's almost always just at an event.  Why not start documenting our day to day lives, maybe some people might think it's boring...but what I've come to realize is a picture blog is really for my family to look back on someday to remember what we did, not necessarily for others to enjoy.  Don't get me wrong I would obviously love for others to enjoy it also - that's why I am sharing the link with you all :)  I love looking at my friends daily pictures on their blogs or facebook, it's interesting to get a glimpse into the day to day life of their families!

I know many of you have probably read or heard about the article that was going around recently about mom's "staying in the picture".  Read this if you haven't http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-tate/mom-pictures-with-kids_b_1926073.html.  It really hit close to home with me when I read it...I realized if I were gone tomorrow, my kids would have maybe a handful of pictures of me from the past couple years.  I am almost always the one behind the camera, I never want my picture taken...I always seem to have a great excuse, no shower/messy hair/don't like my clothes/haven't lost weight/my kids are cuter, who wants to see my picture...the list could go on and on!!  That article stressed that someday our kids won't look back at pictures and think "wow mom looks kind of fat here"...they just want to see pictures and remember the memories that were made!  Well that made me feel pretty superficial, really who cares what I look like or think, I should be making special memories and loving on my kids....so with that all being said...check it out!! :)

focuswiththetimmers.blogspot.com

Hope you enjoy!! (And keep me accountable if I slack in my postings)  :)

September Stuff

Here we are again catching up on life :)  We stayed pretty busy in September...Eric's sister got married, I was her matron of honor, Eric was an usher, and Sophie was a flower girl!  We had SO much with the whole planning process and seeing everything come together in a beautiful ceremony and reception!  

At the end of the month we went camping with my family at Ludington State Park, it was a beautiful weekend!  We were lucky enough to have friends from church lend us their camper so we stayed warm overnight...and Sophie had a blast collecting acorns and taking nature walks with her friends :)

Sophie and Aunt Kelly

Me and the beautiful bride!

Kelly with her Matron of Honor and Maid of Honor

Our family minus Eli - we didn't think he'd make it for the night!

My sweet girl 

Can you tell these two are related??

Seriously I love this kid!!

Too cute...his new favorite thing is to climb on EVERYTHING!! Scary!

Lots of fun playtime in our house!

Eli's not always sure what to think of us :)

These two know how to have a lot of fun together :)

Camping at Ludington State Park - Sophie had a lot of fun collecting acorns with the Brown girls:)

Family pic by the dam

Sophie love her cousin Ashley!

In other news...Eli just turned one and is a busy boy over here!  He's walking everywhere and babbling up a storm...I'll be back soon to show some pics of his party and what we're up to in October :)

Epic Room Makeover!!!

Yep I've probably fooled some of you with that title...because as you'll see from the pictures below there actually was NOT an epic room makeover!!  But I think you"ll agree with me that it's definitely in NEED of an epic makeover right!?!  That's where this awesome blog I stumbled on awhile ago comes in...Mandi from Vintage Revivals is doing a HUGE makeover for one lucky reader for any room they choose!  How amazing is that?!?  I absolutely love her style and think it would be so fun if she came to my house for a week and took over this room :)  I think most of you know how much I love to decorate but with pretty much no decorating budget right now I don't think this room will be done anytime in the near future!  (Plus the fact that almost everyone other room in my house needs to be "finished"!!)

Now this is totally not my thing...I hate asking people to do anything for me (like vote for a blog entry!!) but I thought this would be an awesome contest to win so here I go embarrassing myself!! lol

So lets get going on those wonderful pictures I took:)

Here's a look at the room from the fireplace room...where to even start!  So many projects started/not finished...and a coffee table (ottoman), couch, end table that need MAJOR help!! Notice no curtains also....I've been struggling with what to put there (it's a bay window)

View from the front corner - lets tackle the couch in this picture:)  So we bought the couch from the previous owners of the house and put it in this room b/c we envisioned it being our tv room. The couch holds SO many people and structurally was in great shape.  The colors though were not exactly in line with my "vision", so I stumbled across the idea of upholstery spray paint!  Well to say I was excited would be an understatement!!  So I went ahead and purchased some (I based my amount on what the girl in the blog that i got the idea from used)...well apparently our couches were totally different materials, and I didn't factor covering up a pattern!  I used what I first bought on that small portion of the couch, and it barely covered, so I DOUBLED what I bought just to cover the pattern up...I think you know where this is going, it got SO expensive that I couldn't afford to buy more so now our couch looks like this....lol yeah it's definitely a conversation piece when people come over!!

This is a cute little end table I got from my husband's grandparents when they moved out of their house.  I first thought it'd be cute to paint and put in my daughter's room, then I thought I should leave it in here and put a lamp on it because there is no overhead lighting in this room (that's a whole other issue!!).  Well you can see, I never painted it and never put a lamp on it! lol and I'm not sure it even goes well in the room!

I'm sure you noticed this beauty in the other picture...I had this GREAT idea to buy an old coffee table, paint it/staple some batting on/cover with some great fabric and have an instant ottoman!  If you look closely the paint was never even finished, and I did get around to covering it but then the fabric was ruined when "someone" spilled some coffee on it!  So now it's back to looking like this! Super cute huh ;)

BORING CORNER!!! I do actually like this table a lot...bought it from a lady who paints old furniture with ASCP.  It's cute, just not sure it fits in the room!  That poor lamp....it's definitely been spray painted a few times (I have a spray paint obsession!) and has had a few different lamp shades!  I of course had plans to recover or paint the lampshade...it clearly hasn't happened...:)  And the chair....well I just stole it from another room b/c I wanted something on this wall!  Don't really want it in here...:)  Also...nothing on the walls anywhere around this!

Another boring space...should there be a table there?  Or no?  That painting is what people see right when they walk in the front door...I just feel like that space isn't very exciting!  And see that opening to the right...we actually put that in when we bought the house and I LOVE it so much - it opens the space up so much more...but it makes it kind of difficult to know how to lay out the furniture in the front room!

See the front door to the right...seriously people walk into my house and see this room first thing!!! Scary scary!! lol :)  So the lamp...bought it from Target awhile back b/c we just needed more lighting in the room (again, no overhead lighting!!)....well I'd wanted to recover that shade also, didn't happen here either!!

So this is the view people see when they walk in then...little boring...scary couch...what's with the coffee table....lol I would just love to see a fun exciting space when I walk in!!  Such a great room, just needs some love - and some coordination!! :)

Again...just wanted to show you the couch lol!!!

Oooh this spot drives me nuts!!!  We originally thought we might have the tv in the corner of the room based on the shape.  You can see we didn't end up going that route...but we never moved all the outlets and cable spot!!  Of course though my hubby doesn't want to open the wall up to move those! :(  Totally understand...but that needs to be covered!!

Ahh the entertainment unit, we had this built from a friend at church and it's exactly what I wanted!!  BUT I can't settle on a color or how to decorate it!  Yes this piece has also been painted a few times...and if I showed you some up close spots you'll see that it still needs another coat of paint! lol...keep forgetting!! (Or just want a different color??) haha j/k

Bay window...I do love this part of the room.  This gives us such great natural light in here....the problem is with the window coverings!  When we first moved in we just wanted a quick fix for privacy reasons so we bought some super cheap roman blinds from the grocery store.  Yes that should've been our first sign that there'd be a problem!  Within a few months they pretty much ALL broke!!  So we've been living quite awhile with broken blinds...so if we ever want to see out those windows we have to completely take them off! lol I would LOVE a different option here!! :)



So there you have it!! I would LOVE LOVE LOVE for Mandi to travel all the way from Utah to Grand Rapids to help us figure out what to do in this room!!  PLEASE help us by voting for us when it opens on Sept 7!!  We will have you ALL over for a big party if you do:) :)  (If we win I mean - lol!!)


Oh yeah...did I mention that she's letting the winner keep all the power tools that Lowe's is supplying for the makeover...Eric would over the moon if he got to keep those!!! (And you all know how excited my hubby gets!) :)
Thanks all!!! Much love :)


Jenni

Week at the cottage

We spent this past week out at Barlow Lake with Eric's family, they rented a beautiful cottage for the week and we enjoyed great weather and a lot of fun times together. Eric wasn't able to come out much due to being very busy at work, but I was very blessed with a wonderful mother in law and sister in law that took great care of Sophie for me while I tended to Eli - I REALLY appreciated it!! During the week we celebrated Peter's birthday, Eric and my 7th anniversary, my in-laws anniversary, and just enjoyed most days relaxing on the beach watching the kiddos play together.

I didn't feel like captioning all the pics below, I think they're pretty self explanatory:) Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture Alert

Yes you are reading this correctly...another post so soon :) I thought I'd catch up on the past few months with a picture update.  We've kept pretty busy since Eli was born!  Looking forward to this summer - a few camping trips and a cottage week planned, I'm sure we'll have some updates soon:)  Hopefully I'll actually remember to post them.

October - Sophie was pretty enamored with Eli when we first came home from the hospital

Helping mommy bake

November - hanging out with Aunties at Thanksgiving

December - Eli's baptism

Attempting a cousins picture at the baptism - didn't go so well (this was the best of the option lol!)

Matching pj's by the tree

January - spending time with Alena, these two have a lot of fun together!

March - Went to see the butterfly exhibit at Fredrick Meijer Gardens 

Sophie turned three in March and Grandma and Grandpa Timmer dropped off a treat! 

and Great Grandma Timmer sent a cute little crown in the mail - Sophie enjoyed being a princess :) 

Baby shower for an old college roomie - so great to catch up with these girls!

Just a happy kid! 

April - Had an Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Secord's house 

Lately Sophie has taken to falling asleep anywhere in her room but her bed! 

Or if she is in her bed...she takes all her clothes off!! 

Love his smiles!! 

My cuties 

Another...b/c he's so cute! 

Have you ever known a kid to NOT like Puffs?? Well apparently this one doesn't....strange!:) 

May - Hey Mom! 

Smiles by Sophie...and yes we do stay in our pj's around here a lot!:) 

Well that's all for now! I'll try to be more regular on here...(for you people who keep bugging me to update my blog!!) :)