Decor issues! :(

After moving into this new house, I've decided to totally redecorate. Or actually, I really should just say decorate since I really didn't do much with our house in Jacksonville (oops). But now we finally bought a bedroom set (so I feel like our bedroom needs some decor), a bed & bookcase for the boys' room, and moved our old master bed set up to the guest room (so it finally feels like we have an "official" guest bedroom now). But my problem is that I like SO many different styles
that I feel like everything looks mismatched! Yikes!

So in my efforts to streamline, I'm going to try to narrow down my "likes" and "dislikes" to try and figure out what my decor style is. This may prove to be tougher than what I thought. Oh yeah, and write down all of my ideas for these rooms! Sounds like a full on project to me.

My favorite styles, by store:
Pottery Barn
Anthropologie
West Elm
Ikea

Yep, that pretty much is what I like to a T. The problem lies with that fact that while PB and West Elm are somewhat similar, Anthro seems like it is on a completely different style page! And then there is Ikea. Mostly modern with a twist of neutral? PB especially is very neutral (with a few colors/patterns thrown in) while Anthro is pretty much the opposite - bright and funky! Soooo. How in the world do I incorporate these three correctly without making it look like a teenager decorated my house!?

I suppose I'm going for a bit of neutral adult-like sophistication (hah!) with some bright/eclectic choices thrown in. Hmm. I don't mind mismatching wood/metal/white/glass simply because that's what I have! Too matchy-matchy is overrated ;)

That being said, I really like:
Dark walnut wood
White wood
Turquoise, navy, & green (all shades!)
Orange and dark red accent colors
Metal mixed with glass & wood
Burlap & bold patterns
Neutral walls
Neutral bedding and sofas
Bright accents (pillows, vases, photo frames)
Jute rugs
White subway tile (which I am so lucky to have in this kitchen!)
Rustic mixed with modern
Mirrors
Typography & map decor
Beach decor (starfish, turtles, whales, anchors)

Ok, on paper (or typed, I suppose I should say!) those all sound pretty cohesive. But for some reason I am having a hard time tying them all together in my house. I think I need an interior decorator! Haha! Why didn't any of my friends decide to go to college for this?! ;)

Searching for fabric to recover my old pillows for the couch...solid or patterned?

My Favorites: June Edition

Changed up the blog a little last night! While I should have been sleeping no doubt, since my kiddos insist on running me hard from sun up to sun down (no lie, we are go go go from 5 am til 6:30 pm, naps don't exist over here).

Today was sort of a bust, but ended up being fun anyways! We went to Downtown @ the Gardens intending to go to the Mommy & Me event...but it was raining. Of course it was raining, it's summertime in South Florida! lol. So we made a quick detour into A Latte Fun and met up with some friends there. Logan loves the kitchen section (I want to buy a kitchen for him so badly but Daniel says no!) and the trampolines. I love those things too so I really can't blame him! :)

Some new (to me) things that I'm currently obsessed with!
1) black bean & corn salsa - complete with a little diced mango and cilantro lime vinaigrette! YUM!
2) the Latin section at the Publix Bakery. The arepas and cheese pastries are hard to resist...
3) Morrocan Argan Oil by Organix. There are truly no words for this product except how in the world has it taken me 26 years to discover this?! It makes my hair feel amazingly soft for only $6.99.
4) coral + turquoise combo. It literally screams 'summer' to me.
5) smoothies. There's a piña colada smoothie recipe that I have been making that is better than Tropical Smoothie!
6) Phish Food ice cream. Our cousins brought that over and left it in our freezer...and let's just say it didn't last long around here.
7) window shopping on GroopDealz! They have cute little boutique finds, similar to Etsy but in a deal-a-day fashion on GroopDealz.com.

summer rainstorms

Bouncing

Logan spotted a Winnie the Pooh picture in one of his books and proclaimed "Pooh!," so I asked if he liked to eat honey like Pooh Bear.

He replied, "No! I Tigger!"

Yes, yes. You are definitely more like Tigger. Tiggers like to bounce!
And bouncing is what he did this morning at the library story time. And at home, bopping his beloved Publix balloon around. And also while he was SUPPOSED to be eating lunch at Chick-fil-a. Whew! There's a lot of bouncing going on around here.

Fwoons

I love awesome days! And today was definitely an awesome day. No tantrums, no boredom, no whining..couldn't ask for more.

We ventured out to Playmobil Funpark again today for the second time since we've lived here. It was just as good the second time around! The only difference was that this time Logan decided to participate in the singing/dancing time at 11 am. And ohhhh boy did he participate!! I think we may have a little attention hog on our hands. He ran up to the stage, front and center, and insisted on doing the Chicken Dance with all of the older kids. Wish I had gotten it on video! It was seriously hysterical. Afterwards he did the limbo a few times, despite the fact that he never ever had to bend under the pole to pass through. Hahaha. The benefits of being short, I suppose.

He was so excited to go to Publix today and get a cookie and a "fwoon" (balloon). He just kept repeating "a fwoon, Mama, a fwoon! It's bouncing!" over and over again at the checkout. I seriously love this age!

1, 2, 3

The little man did great last night in his new bed! Slept in there all night until his normal wake up time when he banged on the door demanding to be let out. Haha.

Started Blake on baby food the other day! We decided to skip the whole rice cereal bit and just go straight to regular purees. We tried sweet potato for his first food (coincidentally, also Logan's first baby food!) and he loved it. I didn't really have any doubt in my mind though that he wouldn't like it. He is such a good milk drinker that I figured he would be just as eager to have something else to fill his tummy too!

This afternoon I was counting to ten with Logan, just for fun. We count pretty often every day since he still wasn't counting by himself (or doing his ABCs either, so we recite those a lot too!). I've been getting a little worried that he hadn't started reciting them yet since I know a lot of kids his age have long passed that milestone; any time he watches TV now I make sure it's an educational Barney, Elmo, or LeapFrog episode about counting or ABCs. Well, maybe all my efforts have finally paid off since as I started to recite 1, 2, 3...I realized that instead of repeating what I said like he usually does, he was actually saying the numbers ahead of me! Go Logan! :)