Through the Eyes of Lauren: April 2010

Ok, so I'm totally letting Mommy take over this post because we procrastinated and it's late and I'm going to bed, so without further ado, here's Mommy...

Well thanks Monkey for letting me hijack your blog and show the rest of the world our beautiful little home, the home that we brought you home to 5 short months ago. ::tear::

HEY Y'ALL! Welcome to our home. Sorry the grass hasn't been mowed, our mower broke this week. -things seem to be breaking for me, my wine glass, my car, the mower- I better not hold any mirrors- sorry I degress, let me get back to our home tour. We moved into our 1960's house this past summer and have painted every room in the house, added a porch, replaced the kitchen back splash, sink and counter and replaced the bathroom sink. We've been busy!

Anyways that is the front our our house with our new porch. I am so excited about it and all the wonderful memories that I know we will build out there. Some of my fondest memories as a kid are sitting on the porch with my mom or siblings drinking sweet tea and just talking. I can't wait to do that with Monkey.

When you first walk in our front door you are greeted by my family wall of photos. They are pictures of our families and us through dating, marriage and baby.

This hangs above the door in the living room and was the first gift my Mother in Law, Nana, gave us when we told her we were getting married. It is one of my favorite gifts of all time :)

I love the painting above the love seat, I love tree artwork, actually I am a huge fan of art in general, trees are just a top favorite.

See, I love tree art :)

Our living room has quickly turned into a playroom for Monkey. We spend most of our time together as a family in here. I made those curtains when we lived at our old house and the walls were painted to match. Hubby picked out the paint I believe because I am no good at picking paint colors :)

our keys and this picture hang by the front door. I love this canvas, and can't believe how much Monkey has changed in just 5 months!

Our kitchen is also the dinning room and laundry room. This is what it looks like when you first walk in. I told you we have a love of art, we even hang it in our kitchen. I believe this piece came from a New Orleans street painter. And yes, Stella dog is hanging in the kitchen-for some reason she thinks I'm in there to give her some scraps.

This is our new counter top, freshly painted cabinets (they were icky gray before) and new back splash. We did all the work ourselves-all while I was 8 months pregnant.

Here is our biggest dilemma in our house right now, our 'pantry'. It works for now, except for being an eyesore, but once Monkey starts crawling it's going to be a problem so if you have a solution let me know. kthanks! Also, don't you just love the kitchen table? It was Hubby's Grandmothers table back in the 50's :)

Like I said our kitchen is also the laundry room so you get to see our beautiful washer and dryer hanging out next to our fridge (which I totally meant to clean off before I took pictures). Also Stella again.

Hall leaving the kitchen. Living room is first door on the right, master bedroom is second door on the right, bathroom is first door on the left and Monkey's room is second door on the left. The painting on the bottom is from Jamaica, it was painted by a street vendor.

Bathroom, not much to say except I love the new sink Hubby installed :) Also, we painted the tile white because it was a fuggly brown and made the bathroom look so tiny.

Here is our master bedroom, I love green but since two rooms in our house were already painted green we decided that the gray would look good with our black and white comforter and we would just add lime green accents :)

This is opposite the bed, next to the door. The tree painting was my first attempt at painting ::eh::-Hubby liked it well enough so I kept it. Also those books are just a few of the ones we have. When Monkey came we had to pack up boxes of them to fit her and her stuff. One day when we have a larger house I'll unpack all the books again. :)

Here is our dresser and another one of my early attempts of painting, I promise I'm getting better. :)

Herd is another tree art piece. This is my favorite, it is just so peaceful and relaxing to me. It was the first piece of art I bought and was so proud of myself. I also love our bedspread-I think it's fun but classic. Hubby likes it because it's not pink.

Now onto my favorite room. Well half of the room, the half that is Monkey's not the half that is spare bedroom.

Her entire bedroom is monkey themed. Shocking I know. We picked out the bedding before we even knew if Monkey was a girl or boy. We'd always joked that our kid would be a monkey so we knew this would be the nursery theme.

The name above Monkey's bed was my favorite project to work on. I painted the canvases with poka dots and then fastened letter I got at Hobby Lobby to them. They are hung with ribbon and just perfect as far as I'm concerned.

The painting in the middle is from a friend of mine and has one of my favorite verses painted on it. She's got great style and I was so glad to have it.

This part of the room is all squished together, but that happens when you live in a tiny house with little to no storage. We make the best of it so that's all that matters.

Monkey goes to bed every night listening to her ipod. I find it funny that she had an ipod at birth and I didn't have one until last Christmas. Can someone say :SPOILED: The picture is of Monkey when she was still a little nugget inside me.

The heart patterned monkey is wearing Monkey's ear muffs. She wears them to Basket ball and Football games and to marching band rehearsal with Daddy. We don't want her hearing get damaged so she wears them for protection. She looks like a doll in them. *reminder: post a picture of Monkey in her ear muffs. The piggy bank says "Lauren's College Fund" and my entire family each put 2 pennies in it so they could say they put their two cents into her college. haha

This book shelf is filled with books, toys and stuffed animals. All the Animals on the top are monkeys that people have found and given to her except for the yellow duck, that was mine from when I was 6. It's really old and kinda gross so Monkey will probably never play with it. I remember what that thing went through and no amount of washes will ever get it germ free. :) (I liked mud as a kids, what can I say).

Here are some of Hubby's guitars. He plays them for Monkey all the time and she just loves it. I hope when she grows up she will have a love of music like her daddy. There are also some of her bows. She might have just a few....

The painting I did above her changing table is one of my favorites. Every time I change a diaper and look up at it I smile. And with some of Monkey's diapers, I'm glad it's there as a distraction.

I hope you've enjoyed our home tour and that I haven't bored you too much. Come again to catch up on all that goes on in our lives as seen through Lauren's eyes.

Once upon a time, @MomNom, @jennandtonica, @emmie_bee, @heirtoblair, and @ColeEmmett were talking about home decor on Twitter. We thought it would be so great to be able to see each other's homes! A *bunch* of other tweeps joined in, @Alena29 put together a terrific button, and #twitterhometour (or #twitterhouseparty) was born! Feel free to join us - add a link to your home tour post (pictures, video, or both!) below.

This week Mommy and I headed to Memphis to visit Nana and Papa and help watch my favorite person, my cousin Lucy Jewel. This girl is crazy fun!

Just look at that face. Who wouldn't want to hang out with her.

We do lots of things together and today we did something really awesome. I took a bath with clothes on, and didn't even have to wash my hair!

Mommy calls it "swimming", I think she may be confused. One thing that was different with this bathtub is that it was really BIG! It was like 10 times bigger than my tub at home. Another weird thing is that everybody wore clothes, I'm not sure why you would want to take a bath with clothes on, but it was pretty neat nonetheless.

I splashed in the water and tried to drink it, but Mommy wouldn't let me.

"I'm not drinking the pool water, that's just your imagination"

I loved swimming around in circles but was not to much a fan of getting my face or head wet.

After a while Nana got out a cool Hippo toy that was just for me!

I could just lay back and chill or splash with some water. Lucy Jewel and I had a lot of fun swimming together. She would pull me around the edge of the pool in my hippo and everyone just thought I was the coolest.

I really liked how my voice would echo in the room, and would holler with my loudest voice to hear it bounce off the walls

Lucy Jewel and Mommy played together while I just chilled in my Hippo. Lucy Jewel is cool so I don't mind sharing my Mommy with her.

After we went swimming we headed over to Great Grandpa's house and Lucy Jewel helped Nana and Great Grandpa feed the ducks.