and baby makes 6!

Decorating at the beach

When we moved last month, we purged ourselves of alot of stuff.

After living in the trailer, I got used to the minimal, so when we started packing up the old house, I had a new perspective of how much crap we owned. 1/2 of which we probably had not used since before we decided to shack up and start a family.

I have always had an issue with getting rid of stuff. Everything seemed to have a memory attached to it. I saved cards, letters, Christmas pictures of other peoples kids, my first set of scrubs, toys my kids got in their stockings. It was bad.

Can I tell you how many garbage bags of stuffed animals we had. 5! 5 big, black garbage bags full of stuffed creatures. When I was 4 my father told me that the stuffed animals come alive on Christmas Eve, dancing and talking. He playfully told me that the ones in boxes would call out “Let me out, let me out.” From that moment on, I could not get rid of one to save my life. I tried. Oh how I tried, but I would always stare at it and associate human feelings to it. Bill would try and sneak them off to Goodwill, and I would always catch him, pull the poor creatures from the bag and put them safely back on my childrens beds.

I can tell you with great pride that I was relentless with the stuffed animals. They screamed and pleaded, but I stuffed them into their garbage bag homes and carted them off to various charities. I told them I was sorry as I dropped them off.

Seriously, we unloaded big time.

When they delivered all of the stuff that managed to make it by my cruel eye, I realized that much of the furniture we had needed a new home. The delivery guy rose to the occasion and carted off chairs, tables etc etc. to the local Catholic womens shelter.

Which left me with the opportunity to decorate this home in Bill and Jody fashion.

We were given an amazing gift from my in-laws…our first ever new bedroom set. We have always had old sets handed down from someone, so this was really wonderful for us.

I found the bedspread locally, and worked the rest of the room around the bed. I pulled the red coral theme out and used it in the bathroom as well.

In the den I wanted to have a very island feel, so we found this wonderful chair and worked around it.

This was a gift from my in-laws as well. My MIL helped packed my house up, and in the middle of it, right around 4:45 we would look at each other and I would say “Is it too early for a drink” and she would reply, “I think I heard a canon go off, so it must be 5 o’clock somewhere!”

I also added little odds and ends like this olive boat filled with shells.

Mia decided she wanted a room that looked like the ocean….complete with mermaids. I found a store here that had the most adorable, glitter sea creatures and pink coral.

We also have little things like a basket by the door for flip flops, signs that say “Shoes optional” and “Just another day in paradise”, a shadow box with our sand dollar collection and many little touches here and there.

I love the openness and the lack of clutter.

We are still doing thing here and there….I ordered some really cool red coral lamps for our night stands…but all in all things are pretty much done with the house.

What do you think?