Simkins Christmas Fun!!

TO Grandmothers House we Go!

Mike and I headed to grandmas to see her and my cute mom and dad for a late Christmas.. never knowing what surprises they had in store. :)








Grandma had taken down her tree but there was still evidence that Christmas hadn’t passed her by. The table was full of homemade goodies wrapped in Christmas bags and holiday tins! The spirit was still alive. A big wrapped box sat beside the coffee table what could it be... the best surprise EVER! It was a sewing machine! I’m SPOILED!!! I’ve been looking at sewing machines for a couple months now and only mentioned it once to my parents... I didn’t expect it and was very grateful for there generous gift! I have a new hobbie! HOORAY!!!! :) Mike got spoiled too... He got two books, a car wax kit and a seasoning hook to hang from the grill! We fill loved! :)

Unfortunately, we bore gifts only for grandma-- my parents gift sits in our unfinished basement, covered in dust... awaiting our next trip to Cedar City! Sorry mom and dad... you will get your Christmas present soon. <3 your ungenerous daughter! Grandma unwrapped her gift and a fashion show soon ensued... sunglasses and all! :) Cute granny! :) Before- she almost plowed me over- so excited! After Photoshoot was a MUST!

Grandma is hitting on my man! :) She LOVES him!!

3 Day Mad Miracle!

We feel so blessed to have so many great friends and family to pitch in and help. We had invited Kristen and her family to spend the holiday with us in our UNFINISHED basement. In hopes that it would be the motivation we needed to get it done. How hard could one bedroom and bath be?!?!?!?!? ha ha ha... well, with early mornings, late nights, and apparently a unlimited source of $$ (NOT!)we managed to turn this SECTION of the basement from Chaos to Calm in just 3 days. We are both in love with Restoration hardware and this is where we found the colors to put on the walls.. a little dark some may say to put in a basement but we are really happy with the finished results. Biscuit is a good friend of Mikes and has done the molding and fireplace upstairs and lucky for us he was free to help, putting in long hours, dealing with cold weather, and pressure for the time limit. We really appreciated his help and he did an AWESOME job! Base boards, crown molding, hanging doors, window sills and many finishing touches to complete these rooms! Tyler and Taylor (Mikes bro and sis in law) were a big help too..

Tyler and Mike did all the tiles in the bathroom and laid this laminate floor. The floor is a good match for the real wood floor that we have up stairs. We are very happy with the way it turned out. Taylor and I were the touch up girls and spent time fixing the hard to reach areas! :) We did fabulous darling! ha ha ha After lighting, plugs, outlets, sinks, faucets, door knobs, blinds were all completed by Mike my handy man extraordinaire, It was time to bring in the decorations! :) MY FAVORITE! I was really excited with the bedding I found at Target and was anxious to bring it into the room. It all went so nicely together. lighting up the room and bringing in the paint colors from both the bedroom and bathroom-- the coverlet, comforter are so nice that it was hard keeping myself from crawling into bed and sleeping. I hope the Powells were comfy in our new room.



Our bathroom still has some work-- We love this vanity at restoration hardware and linen tower and the bathroom is all measured to house them, BUT we are holding out for a sale.















In the mean time we bought a single $30 white vanity at Home depot that seems to be doing the job... for now! :)

Also, we bought this buffet for us and my parents on craigs list for $120 that we had hoped to save money on and make it look like the MUCH MORE expensive vanity at Restoration Hardware... Either way....we have options! :)









Speaking of Restoration Hardware... We are also eyeing this living room set for our soon-to-be completed basement. Praying for a SALE!! :)

Southworth Christmas Fun!

Our first Christmas together was AMAZING and very memorable. Our house was so cozy and festive and full of family & fun.. what more could we ask for. :)









This year Michael’s family all came for Christmas! So much fun! Grandma came to visit from Oregon, we also had two brothers and there significant others & children join us from out of town and also his sister and her husband and 3 kids. Who were invited to stay with us in our UNFINISHED basement. No pressure! :) (But Ill get back to that in a minute! ).. It has been so much fun getting to know everyone just a little better. I feel lucky to be a part of such a great family. They all are so great! I feel very comfortable with them and my sarcastic self seems to mesh well.. although I may be treading on the line of offense at times (to comfortable). :) But what a great holiday it has been. :)

Marilynn’s Birthday is before Christmas and so it was nice we could all be here to celebrate. We all went to Payson to spend the day with her. We ordered chinese food and finished with a cake that Kaden and I made together. We had so much fun! :)

We got together on christmas eve and went christmas caroling to some of our neighbors. We loaded in the back of the truck with goodies in had and “wished” them a “Merry Christmas” and came back for some hot chocolate.

We spent Christmas in Payson with the family, exchanging gifts and playing with the kids. Christmas dinner worked out great. Everyone pitched in and we had a delicious dinner. Ham, turkey, stuffing, yummy potatoes, rolls, and vegetable pie! Yum

A few days after we drove up to American Fork Canyon to go tubing. We hiked our way to “the bowl” and each took our turn down the hill. The kids had a great time and Isabelle and Lincoln.. the youngest of kids, braved the slopes on there own. happily and had a great time, although poor lincoln experienced his first face plant and snow burn... no thanks to me. Sorry Lincoln~.. :( Poor boy! Other then those minor injuries the Southworth’s made it out of the canyon casualty free! :)

Last night we went to see the savior of the world at the conference center in SLC. Mike got the family tickets for his Moms birthday which was on Dec 23rd. It was a great night and if it weren't so cold we might have managed to get a family picture at temple square with all the christmas lights to post... but it chilled our bones and we raced to the car eagerly to escape the bitterness. :( Regrets!
Here are my limited pictures... (more regrets)

THE BOYS AND BABES! :)
Langdon and Lincoln at Grandma and Grandpas













Jared (J-dogg) and kaden, Lincoln, Isabelle, & Hailey! Mr. Mom!












Temple Square Lights with my handsome hubby













No nativity at my house, so I made these mangers for the kids and to remind us ALL what Christmas is all about.. :)











Sledding with the family, around the corner from our house! So FUN!












Aside from all the family fun, Mike and I have a tradition of making treats for all his clients and this year we managed to skip on taking a picture of the basket of goodies. :( Which were ADORABLE! Last year we did Christmas Tins and this year we filled decorative baskets with at least 7 different treats. Including Chocolate dipped nutty caramels, Oh Michael bars, Crack, toffee, peppermint bark, magic bars, holiday cookies. From what Michael said he had some happy clients! :) YAY!!!!

Caramels & “Oh Michael Bars”

We are problem solvers!!!!

Extending our deck- our BIGGEST problem our Favorite Solution!
One of our most favorite changes yet! Our Deck!!












Idea: Standing in kitchen “We could really use a fresh tomato from our garden”

Problem: We had to go through the living room, down the stairs, through the construction zone, and out the sticky back door





Danger: danger of tetanus, spider bites, blade threats (saws/axes/etc), electric shock, attack of the dust bunnies, fighting with a unruly door, tripping over water hose..-- it’s worse then walking through the ghetto to buy groceries! ;)

Solution: Build a door from the kitchen with stairs directly to the garden. Increasing light in the kitchen and the views of utah lake by also extending the deck and wrapping it around to the living room!
Outcome: Two happy home owners and two (presumably sore) southworth boys!
THANKS TYLER for all your hard work!! :)






Foot Note: My handyman isn’t the only Handy one in the Southworth clan! But, he’s my favorite! :)

*and also a special thanks to my dad, for helping unload the door! :)

Shelf Life!!!

Adding shelves to the garage has saved MY LIFE! We needed room for storage and with all mikes MANY, MANY toys and all my STUFF n’ JUNK! We had to have somewhere to put it. We spent a few nights out in the garage building some pretty awesome shelves. (..and by “we”, I mean mostly the handyman) We loaded up bins, bins, and more bins of EVERYTHING in “like” fashion and propped them up there... It seems now, it’s time to go through the bins and have a yard sale.. Lets pause on that subject for a minute.. I’ve had ONE yard sale and to be honest.. I couldn’t wait for it to be O-V-E-R. Some people dig it.. and others don’t. Consider me an “other”. :) ha ha On the flip side.. I LOVE going to yard sales and digging through other peoples stuff.. but I don’t like people digging through mine. . But look how semi-organized this looks-- we have a whole basement to bin out still... no room! YIKES!

Mikes crowned the king of the throne!!

Oh the joys of home renovation. While Holly and I were painting the fire place hole blue, mike was tackling the rust colored bathroom.. some frustration ensued and Holly and I stayed clear of the little bathroom.

The walls were transformed to a wasabi green, which holly took the ball and ran with. She suggested we do a sushi theme. Here are a few of her ideas.
Soy dish= soap dish
chopsticks= a framed picture
Rice- texture for the walls
Sushi rolls- towels rolled to look like sushi
Her ideas were great and she had a few more that aren’t coming to me... but we decided that wasn’t really the look we were going for.

Mikes frustration was understood. The gorilla glue was egging him on and trying to bully him. He lined the mirror in the bathroom with a frame and used the big tough gorilla glue to help it. Unfortunately, directions were required for use and while drying, it expands, spills over, needs pressure for HOURS, and only a little is required. None of this was followed, so naturally there was a struggle. In the end, Mikes blade and innovation won that battle! But that was not the end... Another struggle lied ahead. Mike vs. Crown molding!!!

Oh boy, that crown molding earned it’s “crown” it’s the king of all projects and reins over all other projects. IT’S TOUGH!!!!! But of course, 3 different methods, 4 bad instructions, and I believe 3 different machines.. Mike’s brilliance shined through. It came out BEAUTIFULLY!!!!! Flawless! The struggle with measurements, dimensions, etc was all worth the pride he felt in the end! My handy husband deserves the crown now! :) Long live the KING of home improvement!!!!! Hip Hip Hooray!

Take a look:

Warm to VERY COOL!!

First you need to be inspired This painting mike bought me last year for my birthday is not only beautiful but it is also our inspiration for the LIVING ROOM!


The warm cozy living room got transformed to something “cooler” less then a day after moving my stuff in to “our” new home. (Mikes house) I will admit I had some hesitation about moving in with him. I was thinking it would be better to start off with something new together... instead I had the worry of how our stuff was going to blend and how we were going to make it our place, instead of his place. I didn’t expect Mike to be so accommodating and excited for change. I guess he likes my style a “yiddle” bit.! :)

This is the room where he got started.. maybe it was my white furniture mixed with his palm tree furniture, or the painful effect it had on our eyeballs- that inspired him to revamp the room, but a new coat of blue paint was on the taped up wall in less then 24 hours. Luckily we had some samples laying around for ideas we have for the basement and he picked this one. I think it turned out well, but we still have some furniture to buy. Specifically the side chair. It is potterybarn usually priced at 1k+ and we found it at Downeast for $500+ so we felt good about our savings and decided to hold off on buying it at PB and become stalkers at our 3 nearest DE locations. 2 months later... still no luck. No worries, Mikes couch is filling it’s spot until we find it! (so keep your eyes pealed for us) So FAMILY.. if you want a place to sit when you come to visit. Now is the time. I think the chair is going to eliminate seating by 3 count! Unfortunately, Mike doesn't’ think a sectional or a love seat is going to fit! We continue to agree to disagree! I love being in love! ha ha :)

*UPDATE!!!!!! I won that battle! Look how much seating we have now.. My Christmas present from Micheal was exactly what I wanted! :) LOVE HIM!!! :)



























Holly and I getting into the hard to reach area’s! You may not be able to see Holly... she’s in camouflage grubbys. “snicker snicker” and I'm having a moment of zen.. Renovation can be STRESSFUL!! ;) Thanks Holly!!! :)












The above pictures are of Holly and my victory dance after clearing that space in the unfinished basement. The middle picture is of Mikes surprise upon seeing it for the first time. (psst.. Mikes acting surprised for photo op) Although, I know he really did appreciate it! He’s good like that! Holly and I sneezed for about 5 hours due to the dust bunnies >> those suckers know how to reproduce.. 10 fold!

My mom came to visit a few weeks later, and she was kind enough to bring here sewing machine. After bringing home several fabric samples, Mike picked his favorite and my mom began fashioning the ottoman cover and pillows to tie the room all together. How do you think they look? I am having a hard time with the pattern. It reminds me of an old mans beach towel.... I’m just sayin....






Well, what I’m saying is, that I’ve been keeping an eye out for less “old man beach towel” fabric.. :) I’ve got ideas! Here are 3 that look great but I can't decide which I love best...
Aren't they sooooooooo cute!!! At $40 a yard they better be! Gulp!














After all the changes in the living room, the kitchen needed a little bit of change! I woke up to ONE blue cabinet, that has now been sanded back to it's original color (your welcome), but to bring in some of the living room colors, I arranged a few of Mike and My items along the top of the cabinets. We are happy with it.... FOR NOW!