THE BIG TOY ROOM REVEAL! (and totally embarrassing BEFORE picture)

I am so excited to show you our new toy room! I've worked long and hard on this and am SOOO happy to finally have it done! Now maybe I'll be able to actually sleep at night. I feel like it's been the ultimate trash into treasure!

Okay. Are you ready for the before picture? It feels like I'm about to let you see me without makeup on. Hellooooo scary! Just kidding....sort of. Here you go...



*shudder* See? Tan. Catch all room. Beige curtains. BORING. I am embarrassed that this room was ever in my house! Sometimes it can be scary to add color, especially if you are used to neutrals. But let me show you what a little paint and imagination can do!



Can you believe that this is the same room?

Okay. I'll break it down for you now. First, the wall color. I chose:

Valspar Summer Splash for the top half
Valspar Citrus Tickle for the bottom half.

I also added some trim half way up the walls. I only hammered my thumb three times!



Then, there was the toy organization issue. Originally, we had these bin things and it just wasn't working. It looked messy and awful. Then I saw THIS on Pinterest and blatantly copied it. :)


And here is the hanging wall art I designed in Photoshop! (Click HERE for the free 8x10 downloads!) The frames were from our local thrift store, Rainbows End, for $1 each. I spray painted them red with Krylon Cherry Red spray paint.



Next is the TV area. Remember the before picture??? (UGH.)



Here it is now! I put the TV on another white cube thing, and put a little bookshelf next to it filled with the kid friendly DVD's. They also each get their own bean bag to chill in. And I have to say, getting them their own color has been AWESOME. We haven't had any fights about who sits in what bean bag. {giving myself a pat on the back here.}

They can also bring their bean bags to the reading area. Eventually I'll get a nicer bookshelf, but this one will do for now! I even brought out my inner librarian and showcased a few books on top.



And above the reading area, a little splash of color.
I found all of these felt frames and sign at Walmart for $1.00 each! SUH-WEET! Please ignore the fact that I haven't put real pictures in them yet! Haha!

And now for my favorite part! Remember how I was originally going to make this bench from Pinterest with the coffee table from when we first got married?

And remember how I was originally going to make a giant chalk board wall like this one I pinned on Pinterest? Yeah. Well, it turns out I was going to have to sand down my entire wall until it was flat. And...well...I'm just not THAT ambitious. Bummer.


But then...I saw this chalkboard top table. Bet you can't guess where. Yup. Pinned {HERE}


So...then the magical lightbulb appeared over my head and I came up with a brilliant plan. :)
My coffee table was no longer going to be a bench. Now...it was going to be....*drum roll please*

....our new "yes, you are allowed to draw all over that" table.

click {HERE} for the tutorial!



And yes, the kids TOTALLY approve. :)



And there you have it! I am absolutely thrilled with how it turned out! I'm sure I'll do a few more little tweaks here and there...but for now I'm content. :)

Thank you SOOO much for stopping by! See you tomorrow!



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Nat's Top Ten Pins of the Week

Yaaaaay! I love the Top Ten Pins of the Week posts! I get so excited to share the fun things I've found this week! I hope YOU all had a great week, too! Mine was fabulous and I'm ready for another! Each day, spring gets closer and closer and I CAN'T WAIT for it to warm up! So...since my thoughts are with Spring, let's have some nice fun Spring Pinsperation, shall we? Here's this week's Top Ten Pins of the Week!

1. Craft of the Week

I know Spring wreaths have been on my mind lately. My Spring wreath from last year is begging for a makeover. This one is so cute! I love the bright colors. I know Dollar Tree sells foam balls...maybe I could even do it with some of my leftover Christmas ornaments, too??? We shall see....

2. Cute Outfit of the Week

Oh how I love yellow and gray together! I love everything about this. Those sandals are ADORABLE! I'm so looking forward to cute sandal weather!

3. *DROOL* of the week

Time to get ready for those swimsuits! These look delish AND healthy! Just a little waffle bowl (found with the ice cream cones) some yogurt (I love Yoplait Light and Fit Vanilla yogurt) and some fresh berries and kiwi? Yes please!

4. Fittness Tip of the Week


UGH! This is seriously one of my biggest problem areas. I hate, hate HATE my arms! The horrible jiggly arms are also lovingly referred as lunch lady arms, flabby fenders, chorister flaps, or relief society arms. I call them Bingo Wings.

Imagine an 80 year old, slightly wrinkled, blue-hair grandma sitting at the Bingo hall and she just got five in a row. Her arm shoots into the air, she waves her hand back and forth while yelling “Bingo! Bingo!” Nice visual, huh?

5. Quote of the Week

Great quote. It's so true! We are so blessed to have all that we have. Sure, someone out there will ALWAYS have MORE than we have, but someone out there will also ALWAYS have LESS than what we have. Be grateful, be happy about it, and make the best of everything. It reminds me of the Little Princess. Remember how she lost everything and was kicked into the yucky old attic? Yet she stayed bright and optimistic and just the sweetest thing ever. I want to be like her. :)

6. Tip of the Week

This is awesome!!! Here's the link to some free printables of Kitchen Conversions to keep close at hand when you're cooking. I know I need one of these for sure. Now...how many teaspoons are in a gallon??? :)

7. Hairstyle of the Week
Oh my gosh, this looks BEAUTIFUL and SOOOO easy!!! This will be a Natalie go-to hairstyle for sure. LOVE IT. It would be super cute with the outfit of the week...hmmmmm.

8. Kid Craft of the Week

This is genius. Travel Tic Tac Toe! Throw one in your purse for when your kids start to get bored. Like on our long drive to Houston for Spring Break...EIGHTEEN HOURS, my friends. I am so doing this! And putting one in my church bag.

9. Home Inspiration of the Week

Oh mercy...teal and old stuff and white. All together! I would LOVE to have this in my house! I'll be on the lookout for elements similar to these now! I have a bathroom shelf thing just dying to be filled with pretty things!

10. Tutorial of the Week

Would you ever guess that these are not on canvas!?! These are just Styrofoam and scrapbook paper! Ohhh....the possibilities with this! Canvas can be so expensive! Love this idea.

And there you have it! My Top Ten Pins of the Week! I hope you all had a great weekend!

Coming up this week:

The toy room reveal *squeal!* (complete with the rest of the set of FREE PRINTABLES!)

{Pin}spiration Knockoff

My favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (Seriously. When I had Kate, my friend asked me what I wanted as a baby present, and I said a batch of her coveted chocolate chip cookies. Which I did get, along with the recipe! LOOOOVE them!)

Annnd....the result of the Glitter Giveaway on March 8th.

See you again soon! Thanks for stopping by! I really am so excited and happy to be blog BFF's with all of you! It means so much to me when you stop by and say hi! :)

Stephen Update: Decision Made

Here is the update from Stephen's Parents:

***********************************

In the past we were usually on track for major diversions, problems, roadblocks, complications and the like about every two weeks.

This time around we got one day! One Day???

We had made the decision to go with the 6 week "curative" treatment yesterday rather than a "palliative" 3 week course of radiation. That meant we would go with a longer radiation treatment of carefully planned and focused radiation and play it by ear until things changed as we expected they would. This was all decided, interestingly enough, while Stephen was in the same MRI that would force another change in plan.

What we have learned today from that scan is that:

1) The tumor in Stephen's pelvis has grown by 25-50% within just the last week. This has even surprised and shocked the doctors. (We knew it was fast growing - that's why we called them over the weekend!)

2) The spot of fungal growth in Stephen's brain has also grown and now has assembled itself into a pattern that they can recognize as fungus. It's very clear.

First to address the tumor:

We are now pressed into yet another plan - we will go forward in the same mindset as the 6 week plan, but compress it into 3.5 weeks. The tumor has grown so fast that we can't take the time necessary to calculate and plan a more specific, focused, "slower burn" radiation treatment. That preparation was taking a few days and would have prevented us from starting before Monday.

We will now begin slinging more generalized, higher concentrated dose radiation at the tumor tomorrow morning to try to stop it. They feel worried enough about it to have scheduled him to come in on Saturday for the radiation too. The revised plan will take 3.5 weeks.

The hope is that as fast as it is growing, with enough radiation it will also shrink just as fast. They will be obtaining new MRI's each week and if successful, we should see results that quickly. However, no one has any hope of the radiation clearing all of the cancer. Chemotherapy would be needed to "mop" up the remaining bits left over down to the microscopic scale. The fungal infection will prevent that from happening within the proper time frame. (more on that below)

We also heard officially today from the head surgeon at St. Jude that this specific tumor is completely unresectable now and would likely never be resectable due to it's position on the sciatic nerve. We have to take surgery off the table all together at this point. It's nothing we didn't already know.

So why the heck didn't we feel good yesterday about the 3 week choice when we are now being forced into a very similar plan today???

Strangely, we think we are better off having made the choice to go "curative" yesterday when the plan now is clearly a hybrid of curitive/palliative. For one, our doctors clearly know now that we still want to fight. They are supporting us and approaching it as if that is still the focus today. If we were to have made the choice to quit yesterday, they would have written us off in a way. There would have been no more MRI's to define mass changes or find metastatic disease. We would not have had the information provided us to play this out to the point we are forced to throw in the towel. That point has not come yet, but is growing ever closer. We are fortunate now to have doctors that are not throwing in the towel just yet either. We could sense a finality in their language with us the other day and now it is not so. That is clearly a product of the choice we made yesterday. .

We also needed to make the decision yesterday to firm up our resolve to do all we could and not have any regrets. That one is big. Had we made the palliative choice yesterday - even knowing it was the right or inevitable choice, we would have always looked back and questioned ourselves. I think Heavenly Father knew this and took it into account on our behalf.

The fungus is growing too:

Stephen is NOT currently experiencing any symptoms from the fungus in his head. If he was, he'd have headache, nausea, fever and possibly some vision problems cropping up. If they can not stop it, he will. It would end his life in the same way brain cancer would, except much slower.

Had we chosen the palliative route yesterday, they would have given Stephen Fluconazole for the rest of his remaining life to keep the fungus at bay. Because we chose to fight, they have also added another IV drug into the treatment. They hope the combination will kill all of the fungal infection for good. However, that may take a long time.

We have started going into the medicine room every day to receive the 2 hour IV dose. Because the drug is hard on the kidneys, he also has to have a half-hour bag of fluid first bringing our new daily diversion to 2-1/2 hours each day for the next 7 or more days.

Because the fungus really likes plastic and can't be cleared from it, they also have wanted to do another brain surgery to replace Stephen's shunt as early as in two weeks. We told them "no", and our doctor looked at us like "what??" When Amber explained that we wanted to hold the surgery off as long as possible in order to see how everything else came out... that we didn't want any unnecessary surgeries... he understood. He agreed with us and even commented that we were very knowledgeable medically.

I thought that was quite the compliment from a doctor. I don't know about "knowlegable" but I do know that through all of this we have really tried to keep up with as much medically as we can absorb. We've read, we've researched, we've asked tons of questions. It's been quite the education. But MORE than that, I really do believe that we've been guided by a higher power. We've been lead to connect facts and symptoms together. We've made correct diagnosis's before the doctors have in some situations. We have really been guided, and I'm just grateful for doctors that have been humble enough to listen and trust us in those situations. I do believe they have been guided at times as well. It's truly been a collective effort from the professional, the parent, and an almighty power on Stephen's behalf.


UPDATE:

Just thought I'd let you know, since this was posted and they started doing the radiation on the tumor, it has shrunk by 50%. That's right! FIFTY PERCENT!!! This is WONDERFUL news! It's nice to hear some good news, isn't it. :)

NatSprat Is Now On Twitter!

Do you hear the birds singing? It might be me! NatSprat is now on Twitter! I'm excited to see the new possibilities this opens up! If you want to follow my tweets and be my peeps (hahah) you can follow me. Just click on the buttons which can also be found on my sidebar! (Yup, I was up late last night designing my own buttons! I LOVE blog design!)

There is also a new Pinterest button and RSS feed button, too!



And, if you sign up to follow or subscribe to any of these, you might as well count it as an entry in my current St. Patty's Day giveaway! They count as one entry each! The winner will get to pick either a {pinch proof} shade or a {pot of gold} shade. Hurry, it ends March 8th!


And, if you don't care so much about the giveaway but would like to see the Glitter Nails tutorial, it's all in the same post. *wink wink*

Glitter Nails with a GLITTER GIVEAWAY!

Have you done glitter nails yet? If not...you're missing out on a ton of fun! They are so easy to do and they last a long time! For St. Patrick's Day, we have done Whitney's in rainbow colors. She'll totally be cute AND pinch proof.

Want to know how? All you need is a base color, glitter, a small paint brush and a clear top coat. I LOOOVE the NYC New York COLOR Minute clear coat.


This stuff is da bomb. I can NOT wait ten minutes for my nails to dry. About 60 seconds? I can handle that.

He Says She Says has a fabulous picture tutorial on how to do glitter nails. {Such a cute blog!}
So, check it out for more detailed instructions!

OH! And be sure to do this over a piece of paper that you can crease and dump the extra glitter back into the vial with! ;) Otherwise, it will look like Tinkerbell ate a gigantic bean burrito for dinner and let it rip at your house.



So, with Whitney's nails I followed this tutorial and just used a different color of glitter on each finger.

Now...maybe you're thinking, "Wow, that IS cute! But...I don't have any glitter."

Which is where I come in. :)

There are 6 St. Patrick's Day Approved Martha Stewart Super Fine Glitter shades to choose from. You get to pick one {Pot of Gold} shade AND one {Pinch Proof} shade!



From left to right:

Golden Beryl {pinch proof}
Peridot {pinch proof}
Verdelite {pinch proof}
Smoky Quartz {pot of gold}
Yellow Barite {pot of gold}
Aquamarine Crystal {pinch proof}

Just wait...cause that's not all! You will also get a bottle of my favorite NYC quick dry top coat!

Now you can do your own glitter nails!

HERE'S HOW TO ENTER
(U.S. only, please!)

1. Follow NatSprat
2. Follow me on Pintrest
3. Blog about this giveaway
4. Post this giveaway on facebook
5. Tweet this giveaway
6. Tell me which glitter color you would choose

Each thing you do= 1 entry, so please leave a comment for each one!!!

Annnd....that's it! This giveaway ends on Thursday, March 8. The winner will be announced on Friday.

*GOOD LUCK!*


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