JESSIKA REED

Hip & Simple Creativity

Father’s Day – Pinterest Style

For Stephen’s first Father’s day and the fact that my dad was in town, we had a BBQ with my brother’s over. I, like many, am totally obsessed with Pinterest. I have found so many cool ideas and inspiration from other’s creativity. In fact, I found myself and a couple of posts from this blog on Pinterest the other day and that was super flattering! To get ready for Father’s day I took to my pin boards for ideas.

We had a regular old BBQ. One thing I am trying to teach myself is how to make bread. I have had some successes and some fails but it is a learning process. I found this recipe for rolls and have been dying to try it, this seemed like the perfect time. They don’t look bad, not perfect but I was impressed with the turn out!

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Finishing Basement

My dad, Kari and In-laws are awesome. They told us they wanted to finish our basement for us before the baby arrives. This is something we have been planning on doing for quite some time but it is so nice of them to help us with this. It keeps going to the back burner but will really be so nice for more space and playroom for the family and the new little one!

Our basement is pretty small about 500 square feet but it is still 500 square feet that are unused. Stephen and I first lived in a basement apartment of a house and that was about the same amount of space so to have that unused space just seems like a waste!
The builders had plans showing a finished basement that included 2 bedrooms. We considered their plan and thought to use an extra bedroom and an open office area outside of the room like the option below.

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Nursery Colors

I have been struggling with nursery ideas. I will be honest, I was really prepared/hoping for a girl. I am thrilled to have a little boy but I just don’t know how to prepare or plan for boy stuff. There are tons of things on pinterest about how to play with boys and help them develop their boy-ness while spending time with (and enjoying) their mom. Stuff like that is helping me feel a little more comfortable with the idea. Maybe all future moms worry about being inadequate? I sure hope so!!

Anyway, my focus has been on getting the nursery set up. We switched the room we want to use. The walls in the room have 18in thick horizontal white and light tan stripes. I am going for a pretty neutral look, thinking all white furniture, burlap or a similar colors on the curtains and rug, etc. But looking at it, there needs to be a little color somewhere. I am pretty picky with colors, so I figured why not design something on my own. I came up with the following art I am pretty sure we will end up using.

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For the Love of Marriage

There is so much negativity about marriage out there. Terms like “the old ball and chain” and hearing from many people that the first year is the hardest and then that the second is…. and so on and so forth. Today, I came across a blog that talks about a lot of the things that Stephen and I believe in and the way we treat one another. I agree and live most of the things listed and it is refreshing to see that other people still believe in marriage as well.

Here is the post: http://www.ablogaboutlove.com/2011/10/best-tips-i-can-give-you-for-really.html

I have been feeling very lucky and fortunate in my life lately, most of all because Stephen is in it. We have been married only 3.5 years but it has never really been work. He is the best decision I ever made and the best one I make everyday. There is so much advice out there and statistics but honestly the only thing that has really helped me is when a friend’s mom told me that relationships should be at least 90% good, easy and fun, and if not, you aren’t with the right person.

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Baby Reed Progress

I am always disappointed when I check out other peoples blogs and they haven’t updated it, sometimes it has only been a day but the feeling is still there. Yet here I am being a slacker. Sometimes I am tired and I have done some projects I would like to post but keep forgetting to, I will blame all of that on pregnancy. In all honesty, sometimes I don’t feel things are blog worthy, like it needs to be cute, helpful or really great but some of our far away family reads this for updates so I need to get over that, because I really do enjoy blogging.

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Baby Nursery Design Idea

We had our 14 week check up on Monday and the doctor couldn’t hear the heartbeat. I was freaking out because of how my doctor was reacting. She sent us to the hospital for an ultra sound and thankfully everything was okay. That makes 3 ultra sounds when some people haven’t had any at this point. This stuff is stressful! Other than that everything is going well pregnancy wise. 
 
I have been searching online and especially on Pinterest for nursery ideas. I am working on a budget and have this plan in my head but can’t find anything like it so I decided to put it all together and actually use my schooling for something! I am loving coral and blue. Our current office is already a blue I really like and I feel that would work for a boy or a girl. I just need to paint the ceiling, trim and doors white, they are a tan right now but I really like the clean white look. I think what I have come up will be better for a girl so I will probably swap out the coral for another color if we are having a boy. 
 
What do you think? 

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Grilled Pizza

This is a super quick, cheap and delicious meal. Using the grill makes it so much more flavorful, it tastes a lot like pizza cooked in a brick oven. One thing to keep in mind is that it isn’t always pretty, throwing dough on the hot grill gets a little sticky and sometimes isn’t perfect but it all tastes the same.

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Pregnancy Love

I haven’t posted in a while, because shortly after my last post we found out we were expecting. All I have wanted to talk about was being pregnant and since we wanted to keep it quiet until we were a little further along, I couldn’t come up with anything else to say! Now that we are at 11 weeks and everything is looking good, we feel a little more comfortable talking openly about everything.

I am sure other people who have kids have been through this all and maybe it isn’t as cool as I think it is but this is our first and it took a lot getting here so I am going to gush about it, you have been warned. We have been trying for a while and I have been discouraged because of how long it has taken. I don’t know how teenagers do it so easily! I have learned a lot about the reproductive process and there really is such a small window each month to conceive and even then if things aren’t perfect, it doesn’t always happen. I was becoming pessimistic and really trying hard to be happy for others when I found out they were expecting before me. I didn’t like what I was becoming. It didn’t really help hearing other people had been through the same and conceived, because honestly it wasn’t me so I couldn’t see how it would happen. It was starting to get a little dark and I didn’t like it and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

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