While writing here, and many other goals (ahem, losing baby weight), slipped away from me in 2019, I do have some bigger goals for 2020. Hopefully putting them in writing here will hold me accountable and help me achieve them 🙂 1. Write once per month (I’d love to say more, but hey, once month is waaaaay more than I posted in 2019 and it’s already January 30th and this is my first post…) 2. Plan out my garden area…
For a St. Patrick’s Day themed homework assignment, my kindergartener had to make a leprechaun trap. We created this fun and easy leprechaun trap out of simple items that we mostly already had! We started with the gold hat that my son wore on his birthday (his golden birthday was this year!) and used that as the basis for the trap. I hot glued popsicle sticks into a ladder and my son painted it. The rainbow is made out of…
I’m baaaack! After a bit of a hiatus, I am making my return to blogging. While there are still a lot of unfinished projects around our house (ahem, basement bathroom), there is one project that was started and completed to utter perfection during my break from this site… Our little Violet joined us this month, and she is the perfect addition to our family! Get ready for more frequent posts! In the meantime, Jolly the Elf will be making his…
How it began… On our long list of house projects, remodeling the basement bathroom was not in the top 5, or even the top 10. I avoided going in there because the whole room was a haphazard DIY project from a previous homeowner and was fine ignoring it since it was in the basement and guests rarely saw it. However, the toilet in the bathroom began to have a slow leak. My husband decided to take out the toilet to…
Over the summer, I painted my front door a sunny shade of yellow. While the bright color is so warm and inviting, I am still working on making the rest of the porch as inviting. The biggest issue we have at my house is storage…and shoes. All of us have a lot of shoes–from rain boots to sneakers to sandals, the shoes seem to multiply overnight! Our entire first floor has NOT ONE CLOSET, which forces me to become creative…
Tips for having the BEST Disneyland Day ever! Over the Thanksgiving holiday, we traveled to Southern California to celebrate with my in-laws. We arrived a few days early and decided to spend a day at the happiest place on earth–Disneyland! I was a bit worried that the boys were too young and might not last all day, but with a bit of planning and strategy we had an amazing day! 1. ARRIVAL: Arrive early. We parked by 7:20 am and…
And so is waking up in a cold sweat at 4 am realizing that I haven’t moved Jolly, our Elf on the Shelf, to a new spot. Last year I was able to get away with very basic elf poses (think high up and out of reach) that required little planning ahead because my youngest didn’t abide to the “no touching the elf” rule. This year will be a different story, so I am hoping to be a little more…
Mud & Merlot is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Utilizing the links below helps to keep this site running. One rainy Wednesday in Seattle, I was driving around visiting my accounts and preparing for a big visit from some mucky-mucks high up in my company. This had been consuming my weeks and suddenly I realized…
Summertime is for painting. I love freshening up areas of our house with a new coat of paint. But then once I start to paint one area of my house, I can’t ignore others areas that so badly need a refresh. Our shed is the first building people see when pulling up to our house, and while it had quaint charm with the all-cedar siding, I decided it needed a little facelift. Shed Makeover: The first area I updated was…
Hi! Today I am sharing with you a tip for keeping toys organized. I swear the toys in my house multiply in the night and toys seem to end up across the whole house. I created a visual system for keeping the toys organized, and it works really well! These are my favorite items in our playroom, because my boys can pick up their toys and keep them (mostly) organized! The pictures on the front are an easy visual clue…