Portrait Display

I hadn't gotten the kids' pictures taken for three years!  I do not have a fancy dancy camera, so really all of the pictures I have of them are on my phone/computer.  I actually cherish the candid shots I have of them, but I really wanted to get some "real" pictures taken.  Our good friend, Kristi, is a professional photographer and was having a "mini shoot" day, so I jumped on that.  I just wanted a few before Addie actually got her senior pictures...that's only two years away.  Let's not even go there.

It was a cold, blustery fall day.  The week before it was 70+ degrees. Go figure.  But, boy did she get some great shots of them.

I wasn't sure how I was going to display them, but I new the hallway wall was where I wanted them. I looked around online for some shelf ideas.  I wanted it to be very simplistic and I found a picture of a plain, floating shelf.  I showed it to Shannon and so he went out to his shop, found some wood and went to work.  He asked for my measurements and just like that whipped it up for me.  

I wasn't sure what color stain I wanted.  I knew I didn't want it painted white or black because I wanted it to be a bit different than the woodwork and frames so it would stand out a bit.  I also didn't want to go buy a small can of stain just to do this small project.  

Yes, I am cheap frugal. 

I scoured his shop and found some stain from our old house.  We haven't lived there for over 9 years. So, yeah, it was old, but we opened, stirred and wiped it on.  It worked just fine for this project and it was free. Really free, because it was left by the previous owners of our old house.  Okay, it may have been REALLY, REALLY old. We stained it, went out to eat, and then Shannon hung it for me that night.  

I am so happy with the color of the shelf, because it looks so pretty with the fall leaves in the pictures!

I just love the simplicity of the look and of course, love those sweet faces smiling back at me!

YNAB

YouNeedABudget.

I love a good budget. I love plugging in numbers.

I love seeing our savings increase whether it's for an upcoming vacation or a new vehicle or something else fun we see in our future.

I also really love trying to keep our numbers low in the other areas by finding bargains or doing without.  It's really like a game to me.  A fun game. 

And with YNAB, I always seem to win, and we seem to sock more money away.  It keeps us on track and we can totally see where all of our money is going and adjust where we need/want it to go. 

YNAB logo.  I pretend it's a palm tree.

I've tried a lot of other things like basic pen and paper or other online/downloadable budgeting tools and this just seems to work best for me.  We've had it for about 10 months now and after a small learning curve, I am so hooked.  Addie and Reece even have their own budget set up within it and they actually LIKE it!  It really helps to see where your money is working!