The Hansen Family

It's been a while since I've posted. We've been busy getting three kids through High School and College. I thought this would be the perfect time to share some of the things that have worked for us over the years as we move our daughter into her first post-grad apartment. When my daughter started college, I did what most moms do: I scrolled through Pinterest, searched dorm room boards, and filled carts with everything from command hooks to mini ottomans. Some of it worked. Some of it just cluttered the room and never got used. Now that she’s living in her first apartment, there are a handful of things she's  still using,  and I honestly wish we’d just bought those from the start. Rolling Storage Cart Used daily as a food stand in the dorm. Now it lives in the bathroom with hair tools, skincare, and makeup. Cozy Blanket A girl can't have enough blankets, however, this one has stood the test of time and something that she uses.

New Blinds make a difference. And they are EASY to install! It has been a while since I have blogged. I’ve been busy! The kids are getting older, I’ve switched jobs, I’m also more active in fitness and nutrition. But don’t worry, I haven’t stopped decorating rooms or diy’ing our house, projects, etc. Since my last post we have finished our basement. We studded the entire basement ourselves and contracted out the rest. We spend a lot of time in the basement and I’ll give you a full tour soon. For now, I am happy to report we have FINALLY added some blinds for privacy. And let’s be honest, to hide the ugly basement window view. BEFORE: AFTER: My hubby installed these on his own. Incredibly easy to do. You basically screw in the brackets on each side of the window. Slide in the blinds and add the cover piece at the top.  Literally took us 30 minutes to do all three! We are currently working on some summer projects and our oldest da...

Well it only took a year and a half, but we found a lamp for the side table in our living room! Remember this post ? We were looking for candle holders and candles at Hobby Lobby and this literally was right in front of me. Everything happens for a reason, right? This lamp matches perfectly with some other baskets we have in the room! (sorry for the grainy photo) It sets off the right amount of light at night. And I really like the height of it in contrast to other items on the table. We also added a circle wall hanging in our den: Its amazing how long it takes to decorate a house. And it never ends. What have you been decorating lately?

I know that sushi is a staple in some people's monthly diet, but I'm not very knowledgeable about sushi. At all. We have a gourmet group where we host dinners with eight other couples. This quarter we did a sushi party. The general theme was Asian cuisine. Because we didn't know HOW to make the sushi, we hired a local chef, Becky Ringsby to help us. She was Ah-maz-ing! Our menu consisted of: Egg rolls Pork tacos Miso soup Sushi Fried bananas Green tea ice cream Mai Tais Japanese beer   The Asian Pork tacos were a hit as well as the Egg rolls. This was a great appetizer before the Sushi meal!   The hostesses with the mostesses and Becky Ringsby. If you need a chef in the Central Iowa area, I highly recommend her. Here is her contact info . Getting ready for our sushi demonstration. Becky demonstrating how to roll sushi. Some were better than others. And now we're ready for the meal at the beautiful place settings. ...

I've been trying to add more and more green accents to our living room.  It started when we purchased the console table in our walkway here . I ordered some moss balls online through www.saveoncrafts.com. Which is a very addictive site, by the way. I can't say these were "cheap" for 12 6" moss balls. They are BIG none the less. However, I did save money because what I originally wanted were $17.99 per decorative ball. That would have totaled over $215. So, I saved over 60%, and that's still a savings. They really look happy and green and alive in the room. I added some natural stick balls that I had already to add more texture to the basket. It's the little things that make me happy. And slowly checking items off this room makes me happier. What little decorations are you adding to your room that makes you happy?

One step at a time we are getting closer and closer to having Sidney's room done.  I'm still searching for a bookcase and I think I'm going to break down and go to Target. It just needs to be complete, and why are bookcases so hard to find? However, I did get her artwork hung on the wall. Although, it's still not complete. We need to hang her hooks so she can hang all her medals. Here is how I did this and all the measurements were perfect and easy to hang without putting multiple holes in the wall for each frame. I started by laying 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper on the floor and taping them all together. Then, Sidney and I tried different picture frame compositions and the above was the winner. Then, I traced the outer edge of each frame and measured where the nail should be. I taped it to the wall and MOST IMPORTANTLY I used a level to make sure the frames were straight. After adjusting the paper I hammered the nails into the spots I marked. Then I c...

I have started on Sidney's room with her wall art featuring her wonderful drawings.  I'm sorry to drag you along in this process. And I don't have a full reveal today either, but we're getting there. To start we laid out paper on the floor and taped them together. We then tried many different options of frame compositions and the above was the winner. I can explain more of my process when it is all up and complete. How do you design your wall art collages?

Our youngest just "graduated" from Preschool this week.  It's hard to believe she is growing up so fast. It's hard to believe school is almost out, summer is here! This means it's time to start scrambling for the end of year teacher gifts.  I am doing a couple different ideas this year. Like usual, I get most of my ideas from Pinterest. However, the Preschool teacher gift, I came up with, by myself. It's a mixture of many ideas on Pinterest.  I really wanted to give Sweet Basil as a gift. I had no idea how hard it would be to find! When I got this idea, I was so excited. I wanted to have a cute little chalkboard sign and a Caprese Salad recipe attached.  As it turned out, I had to go to four stores to find sweet basil. FOUR stores! I ended up settling for a 4" pot of basil. That is all I could find.  It was a nice size for basil and I thought I would split it, since I needed two for two preschool teachers. I found the white square pots at Wa...

Our girls bathroom is really small.  So small it's hard to take a picture, but I tried to get the main point. We had a basic shower curtain rod and the bath/shower needed a little more space. Therefore I wanted to add a curved curtain rod. Oh and look at our bath mat. Yes, just a rolled up towel. We needed to update that mess. I went to Target and purchased the curved rod for $39.99. I installed it in less than 15 minutes. Seriously people this was easy. No drilling into the wall, nothing. It's basically like the old rod, just curved. Adding the green bathmat, really made a difference to the whole room. Little steps people, little steps. What do you love about your bathroom?

I am excited to finally showcase what we did for our Pinterest Challenge, hosted by Bower Power and Young House Love . I have had this plan in the "works" for about six months. Creating "heart prints" for the MGMC Annual Benefit featuring the Kentucky Derby benefiting the William R. Bliss Cancer Center. Each heart represents someone who has been touched by cancer and each individual who attended the event filled out a heart.  We displayed it at the event with these heart strings. My original inspiration was here: (original source) We have had a very interesting May. Snow, kids sporting events cancelled, the MGMC Kentucky Derby event and soon Mother's Day. Today I am very excited to show you all how the Kentucky Derby event went.  Remember last year's event ? And remember the gift gathering party we threw here ? The event was this weekend and we raised more than $238,000 for our local Cancer Center . This is a fantastic group of peop...