Disclaimer:  I partnered with Sherwin-Williams to bring you this post.  All photography and opinions are 100% my own and not influenced by Sherwin-Williams.  Thanks for supporting the brands that support this blog!

We have had the same nanny for our kids for the past 4 years, and at this point she is a huge part of our family.   We love her dearly, and we recently found out that she’s leaving us!  SO excited for her, because she and her husband are expecting a baby (!!!!) but so so so sad to be losing her!  We contemplated trying to find another nanny, but with my husbands ever changing pilot schedule, and my long hours during tax season, finding a nanny as flexible as our current one would be a big feat.   We know a few people that have been host families for au pairs, so we decided to look into it.  Within the first week of registering, we found an au pair that we absolutely fell in love with and knew would be a great fit for our family.  We decided to take the leap and become a host family for an au pair from Brazil!  We could not be more excited! This also meant that she would be living with us for a year, and our spare bedroom in our basement was in desparate need of a facelift!  Let’s take a look at a few “before” pictures of our basement bedroom: Continue reading →

It’s no secret that I like to keep our house light and bright, so when we moved into a house that was all oak and brown paint, I could not change it fast enough!    Our whole house gave off an “I was built in the 90s” vibe.  Some things I have accepted that I cannot change until we undergo a big renovation, however there are other things that are fairly quick fixes, that I can do myself that make the space so much more pleasing! Let’s take a look at how this upstairs bathroom looked on the day we moved in: Continue reading →