Picture Post

This post is just a bunch of pictures J

Ben & Elmer. I love it when his bottom tooth sticks out, such a goofy dog!

Layla at Jump n’ Bounce. This was our first time there. It’s basically a bunch of blow up jumpy toys in a warehouse and you can run around a play!

Ben at Jump n’ Bounce looking kind of sweaty! Gross, but he was literally like a 5 year old. Right before this picture he asked,”Can we have my birthday here this year?”

Then he hurt himself…

My little Sweetie! She just got her bangs cut and we were headed for a Mommy & Layla target trip.

And a sweet picture of my Girl. We had a Saturday morning to ourselves!

Rockford the Fireplace

2 posts in 1 day!!! I finally have a few minutes to talk about finishing up the fireplace!! It was no easy task and it made me a little crazy but it look so much better!! Here’s the before:

Such a monstrosity!!!

When we first moved in I really like it. I liked the how the two vents and the actually fireplace looked like a face. (Hence naming it Rockford) but then as my living room started coming together it was looking more and more out of place. We thought about taking the fake rock off and dry walling then tiling or something but that seemed expensive. I think we might eventually do that but for now I already had the paint and decided to just go for it. You can read about the insane task of painting it here.

After I finished painting it. It’s actually more gray then white…

Then as I mentioned before my Step Dad Tommy works in construction and at the time he was building a house way up in the woods! The property owner had a mini mill and was mostly using trees from his property to build the house. I happened to call Tommy at just the right time saying I need a fireplace mantel! I really really need one! At work the next day, talks to the extremely nice homeowner and he trots down to his mill and makes me a mantel! For free!!! I couldn’t believe I was so lucky!

One day while  I was at work Tommy came and cut the rocks and installed the mantel for me! It was a little scary to walk in and see missing rocks but he assusred me he could fix it. After this step there was so much dust! it was nuts how much dust fake rocks make!

After 2 coats of dark mahogany stain

Finally after the rocks were reattached and 5 coats of stain. Excuse the Christmas stockings, this happened awhile ago.

Up close of the wood detail, I wanted it rough looking and grainy

And here's what it looked like last weekend after I added some paper bag hearts for Valentine’s Day:

So much better!!!



Layla’s Room

Layla Lou’s room is always a work in progress. Just last Sunday I moved it around again. She’s finally in her big girl bed, which I never painted. It’s too cold now so whatever it can be half painted thru the winter. It looks sort of shabby chic or something.

One day a few weeks ago I was reading thru my blog roll and saw Effortless Style did a post about Tagxedo. Tagxedo lets you make fun word clouds:

They have a ton of shapes and all you do is put in as many words as you can think of, pick a shape, pick a color scheme and bam you have super cute FREE art!

Here’s the one I made for Layla’s room:

Chevron Wall

So I know I’ve been missing lately and I don’t have an excuse or anything. Just kind of lost the blogging bug for a bit.

Anyways I saw this beautiful wall on Pinterest and fell in love!

Via Apartment Therapy  

I started making plans to have a Chevron Wall somewhere in my house! Enter the wall at the top of the stairs!  I haven’t found anything I really liked there and it was annoying. So one Friday night after the kiddo went to bed I forced Ben to draw it out. J He always starts out grumpy about projects then about 5 minutes in he’s on board and excited about it.

I didn’t take a before picture, so I found kind of sort of one on my facebook.

And the after:

No real directions since they can be found anywhere on the Google Machine. Break the wall out into a big grid and connect the dots. J I have plans to continue it down the stairs and around the corner down the next set of stairs but Ben’s in charge of the math part so I’m at his mercy!

See part 2 here: http://bklhome.blogspot.com/2012/03/chevron-wall-part-2.html

Linking up with: 
Thrifty Decor Chick 
 DIY ShowOff

Coming out of Blog Hiding...

For SUYL with Kellly's Korner, this week is Show us your Singles!

Meet Jen:

32, Eastern Washington

Jen is a middle school math/science teacher for "at risk" kids. (basically they get kicked out of regular school and go to her school) We've known each other just over 5 years and she is amazing!!! Seriously one of the funniest people I know. My kiddo adores her! Like I think she might love her as much (or more) as she loves me :)

She's Fun! She loves relaxing at home, camping, hiking, shopping, and just about anything. This girl is always down for adventure. She owns her own home, loves to travel New York is one of her favorite places to visit.

Her family is very important to her, she loves her nieces, nephews and her Layla :) She hopes to one day have a kid of her own.

Interested? Wanta know more? Drop me an email kristakins26@gmail.com or leave a comment.



A Wedding in the Snow!

Saturday our really good friends Rick and Jenn got married at Elkins Resort on Priest Lake. It was beautiful! And oh so cold but way more beautiful and fun! Saturday morning my Mom and Tom came by so Tom could finish my fireplace mantel! (YAY!!!) And so they could go shopping and watch Layla for the night. Around 11am Ben and I started the 2 hour trek to Priest Lake. This lake is amazing! Rumored to be so deep they’ve never found the bottom of it! Also rumored to have vacation homes to Tom Cruise and Ben Stein. Anyways it’s awesome!

The view at the lodge!

Once we got there we were happy to already see a lot of out friends out and about. We rented Cabin #4

·         3 Bedrooms: 3 Queen Beds, 1 Double Bed

• Sleeps up to 8 people.
• Creek side cabin
• Fireplace

We shared the cabin with Becca, Toby, Russell and Joey. I literally walked in and my smile did not leave my face for days! It was so much fun! Once the rest of the group got there we started to pre funk and dance around the cabin!

The ceilings were SO short in this cabin! It was crazy! It made me feel tall!

The wedding was supposed to start at 4pm but really started around 5ish not a big deal at all. We were all having a great time! The wedding was so beautiful! I love it when the Groom cries; I think it is the sweetest thing! (Ben, for the record did not cry)

Lovely Bride!

After the wedding we enjoyed some amazing food and drinks, followed by some cabin hopping and a bon fire by the lake! An amazing night! A great little get away for everyone! 



Lights @ Mainto

Friday night we went to Manito Park to see 30,000 lights! It was cool but left us wanting more. We thought the whole park was going to be covered with lights but they only had a green house that was decked out. It got us out of the 15 degree weather (holy burr) and we walked around some pretty lights:

(Excuse Layla's hair, it was up really cool before she went to school something must of happened to it though)

After that we drove down our Christmas Tree lane which... sucked! I thought it was a given that if you lived on a street called Christmas Tree Lane you had to go all out. Yeah not so much.  After that we went to dinner then home to clean. Saturday my Mom picked up Layla and Ben and I headed to Elkins Resort for a very beautiful winter wedding! More on that tomorrow…