WAR! A composition by Josh Boersma, 6th grade

Earlier this week I opened a package and found the following writing, composed by my husband at the age of 11. I think we can all assume that this must have been for some sort of descriptive English assignment and of course he's the hero at the end.

Josh claims this was a 'published work' and a little bit ago when he caught me typing up this paper (without his approval) he wondered out loud, 'that was published...I can't remember where, but it seems like I should be getting some kick backs for that.'

One grim, cool morning my friends and enemies went to the wooded paintball battlefield. My team started on the north side of the battlefield and cautiously moved in, looking for the enemy. It was easy to hide among the trees and bushes, but not so easy to find the hidden enemy.

By the time we got down the ravine and were at the water,w e heard a whistle. It was an ambush! We all scattered for cover. We were almost completely surrounded. We were pinned down tight. I was pinned down behind an old, dead willow tree, as my fellow comrades were waist deep in muddy, paint-filled water. They were behind a fallen oak tree, falling victim to heavy fire. As I was returning fire, I saw several paint grenades rolling down the hill. I yelled out, "Incoming paint grenades! hit the deck!" We were surrounded by exploding grenades. Paint was flying in every direction. By the look of things, I thought I had lost my whole squad. But through the spray of paintballs I saw my men bravely fighting back. I pulled out my paint grenade launcher and sot several grenades. It seemed to be working until I ran out of ammunition.

Suddenly, the enemy pulled out a gatling gun. I yelled at my men to get down. It didn't look good for us. All I could see was the green spray of paint flying from the nozzle of the gatling gun. As they were shooting at my comrades, I took out my sniper rifle. I yelled at my men to cover me and to give 'em everything they had. As my men were valiantly holding off the enemy, I slowly made my was around the main part of the battle. I crouched into my sniper position and began to pick off the enemy. Suddenly I saw that they had a sniper taking position as well. He was taking aim at one of my men. I unloaded my rifle at him. I took out their sniper, along with two others. I then continued to pick off more of their men. I saw our chance. I radioed back and told my men to charge! We took out every single one of their men.

That was quite a day! Only one out of the seven men had been injured. We had taken out an army of thirty soldiers and chased them back at least a mile. We had captured their go-karts and completely annihilated the rest of the men. In our minds, it was a very bloody battle. But then again, this is only paintball, so no one actually got hurt. All in all, it was a really great day!

Josh Boersma

16 Thoughts for Tuesday

The past month has been pretty wild and at some point I'll share all the insane details, but for now...I give you this...

Overflow is having a 'Friday Clothing Frenzy' this weekend...you should go. If you haven't heard yet, this is the thrift store where the proceeds go back to three different ministries...have you ever had a better reason to shop? Or to de-clutter a closet and donate some stuff? I think not.

The Duggar's have been tearing up my social media lately. They're on the cover of US Weekly talking about sex, they're Instagramming adorable and trendy pictures, they're posting pro-life controversial things on Twitter...BLESS THEM. Josh and I are smack in the middle of watching all of their episodes on Netflix.

A few years ago we had college kids dropping in on us constantly. For laundry. For coffee. For chats. It was lovely. But that was four years ago and now all those college kids have grown up and moved or gotten married...leaving a big void in our hearts and our house. Except..................................now these three girlies come over for sleepovers. And just like that our lives are complete again.

Josh feels pretty privileged that he is probably the only man who has ever been allowed to fully participate in all-girl sleepovers. No seriously...he has a lot of fun. We're already looking forward to hosting our fourth annual 'Dead Week Slumber Party' with all our favorite girls...even the old and graduated ones. :) 

I'm decorating for the women's conference at my home church, Faith Community Church. The conference is November 8th and for the next month and a half I will be crafting like a mad woman...feel free to come join in the Mason-jar-glittering, Hymnal-wreath-making fun.

Ed Sheeran annoys me. Like a lot.

Libby Asay took our family pics two weeks ago and I. Love. Them. I mentioned it before, but profits from her photography business are going straight toward funding their adoption. And can we take a minute to applaud the coordinated outfits I forced on every member of the family?

I haven't started writing our Christmas card yet. Weird, right?

The final season of How I Met Your Mother came out last Tuesday and Josh and I have slowly been mourning it's ending. We're on disc two and not sure what we're going to do when it's over. Probably watch them all over again. And again. We're pathetic.

I didn't forget about this list. I'm still plugging away, but losing steam. For some reason the hot tub in our back yard wins out over projects and deep cleaning every weekend. But I WILL check everything off this year if it kills me.

So we have a hot tub now. More on that to come in the months ahead. It's been quite...just a whole thing.

I received a gift in the mail today. It's an informative book written by three sisters and talks about everything from party hosting to waxing to fashion to family...Okay fine...it's written by the Kardashians and I'm kind of obsessed with it. Josh says it's trash. And it is. But also...okay no it is ridiculous. I can't fight it. But I didn't buy it! Lauren Cottings bought it for me so it's not even my fault. ;)

Our vacation is in 41 days from today and we have so much to accomplish before then that it's getting scary. We're excited but how is it already October?!

My niece Henley has the cutest butt I've ever seen. She climbed in the hot tub last weekend without a swim diaper and even if she peed a little I don't care...her little skinny white butt is just the cutest. And we threw some extra chlorine in after she got out so it's whatever.

CALLING ALL FRIENDS: I'm tentatively scheduling THANKSCHRISTMAS for SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13th. Mark your calendars now. Facebook invite to come soon.

I'm still really terrible at cooking and meal planning. In fact I think after those freezer meals, I took three steps forward and FOUR STEPS BACKWARD. Two weeks ago, Josh and I had frozen pizza, leftover pizza, Papa John's pizza, or pizza of some variety 5/7 nights. Just. Stop.

Cornerstone turned 20 years old last weekend. It was pretty spectacular. There was a carnival and we pretended it was Jamie's birthday party and she held this snake. I get shivers just looking at this picture. But also...GOD IS SO GOOD OH MY WORD.

That's the best I can do tonight Lauren...now you owe me a blog post. :)

MmB

How to hang a Gallery Wall...

...but not really because I used this technique and then as I was hanging changed the entire thing because I didn't measure and in my head I had more wall space than I really did...welcome to my tutorial.

Josh had THE NERVE to intrude during my design process and say, 'That doesn't look like it will fit, did you measure?'

DID I MEASURE?! I AM A DESIGNER WITH AN ART DEGREE AND I FEEL LIKE IT WILL WORK SO IT WILL BECAUSE I HAVE FEELINGS!

It didn't.

But my wall still turned out fabulously and I'm really happy with it.

Here area couple before pictures of how the hallway wall looked. It started with the Uppercase Living stickers and a few family wedding pictures. Overtime it morphed into this and I wasn't in love with how I kept tacking new family pictures up as I rearranged the rest of the house and had 'extra's' here and there. This wall had potential but I basically just ignored it for four years. NO MORE!

I decided I couldn't stand this wall 24 hours ago. Not sure why it didn't bother me last Wednesday, but yesterday it did.

By far the worst part of the process. Filling nail holes and touching up paint is the bane of my existence. Just ask Jamie and Josh who wondered for approx. four months when I was going to touch up the spots in our living room...

This is usually how I start planning a new Gallery Wall. It's all eye-balling (shocker). I spent a while arranging and re-arranging and realized I might as well get started because I could spend the whole day re-arranging. I wanted to evenly spread out the black, white, and wood frames as well as evenly disperse the 'texture' pieces. I like things to feel balanced without actually having to use patience to measure and make everything perfectly even. It's a lot less stressful for everyone involved (I'm looking at you, mom and dad).

In true 'Mollie-Fashion,' one project turned into six. I'm not real sentimental about 'stuff' but there are certain things around our house that I love because they're cute but also because of where/who they came from. I searched the house high and low for those lonely sentimental pieces and decided to throw them all on this wall.

After using hot glue, super glue, a little bit of tape, some twine, and completely changing my original layout, HERE is the finished product!

Twine was required to hang the two frames that didn't have picture-hanging holes on the back. I use tape or Command Strips to keep naughty frames from hanging crooked. See those two pictures hung at a blatant diagonal? They were being extra naughty, so I decided to stop fighting them and just embrace it.

Turns out this wall is in DESPERATE need of a fresh sister picture, as well as a new Mollie-Josh-Jamie picture. All those blank frames are ready and waiting for new KeilFamPics, which are being taken with Libby Asay on September 14th! YEYEYEYEE!

(Shameless plug: If you need engagement, wedding, couple, senior, best friend, family, or extended family pictures taken...CALL HER! She's photographing like a crazy woman to raise money to adopt a precious babe...do you need a better excuse to update those crusty, dusty outdated family pics?!)

Josh came in and said that he didn't know what to think because, 'it's not your usual work.' He claims it's because there are so many blank frames...

I realize to some people this wall might look cluttery but I seriously love everything about it. This wall represents more than just immediate family...the wooden FAMILY frame came from my Great G'ma Lottie's house and it still has her writing on the back. The white tulip picture was from Deb Lundt, a lady from my home church who did the flowers for our wedding. Two years later she died in a car accident because of a drunk driver. The crocheted 'Boersma' was a personalized gift from dear home-church friends, Paul and Jenny Abens. The framed picture of the London skyline was a gift from my best friend Steph after her semester abroad. They're hard to see, but there are two smaller pieces...one that says 'God bless this house,' and one that says, 'Faith: The substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1.' When I look at these, I remember that we got one from Donna Pearson and one from Janice Martin at the bridal shower my home church threw for us. It seems silly, but I'm pretty good at remembering this kind of stuff, and those are all the people I think of when I look at this wall!

Since I've worked super hard to de-clutter and simplify the rest of our house, having one, special, jam-packed, gallery wall is allowed okay?!

MmB

Katy Perry PHOTO DUMP

In case you hadn't heard...I SAW KATY PERRY LAST WEEKEND.

It was incredible.

We were six rows from the top row of the Target Center...and yet...IT WAS STILL AMAZING.

Hannah, Shannon, Jamie, and I vowed that when KP goes on her Greatest Hits tour in 20 years and we're old and lame (and hopefully also richer ;) , we will be dancing on the floor and taking selfies with her on stage (yes that happened to three people and WE HATE THEM FOR IT).

I tried to keep most of the pics to Instie over the weekend so it wasn't a Davies/Keil-Katy-Perry-Facebook-Overload...so here they are:

KICKING OFF OUR ROAD TRIP RIGHT: Four iced vanilla lattes from Star.

 Turns out, drinking all that coffee requires a potty stop. And also allowed for a convenient photo-op.

Almost bought the Naked2 Pallete as an early birthday gift BUT REFRAINED! For the first time in four years I'm not going to buy my birthday gift 4 months early! Success! Shannon and I also decided against purchasing the red and purple lips.

Jamie's FIRST TIME at the MOA. We did some damage in VS, H&M, and Forever21...and as you can see, tried on too much makeup at Sephora.

Glammed up and ready to see Katy! We got ready in record time and even remembered the tickets (thanks to Hannah). PS in case anyone cared, the outfit I put together for the night only cost $17. 

I'm not above stopping traffic in the lobby and forcing the hotel staff to take a picture of us. I call this 'Fine Fresh Fierce We Got It On Lock.'

The four of us took turns taking sister-pics and actually got pretty good at it. There was a long line to stand by this PICTURE of Katy Perry so we had to post fast.

 Another picture-taking strategy I'll share, it's called, "We'll take a picture of your whole group if you take a picture of our whole group!" Works like a charm every time.

She opened the show with ROAR and IT. WAS. AMAZING. Then she said, "Are you ready to breathe the same air for the next two hours?!"
You have no idea how ready we were, Katy.

CALIFORNIA GURLS.

Probably one of my favorite parts of the night...She sang UNCONDITIONALLY and I just can't even describe. I have an awesome video of the whole song! I sent it to Josh and told him when I sing this song I think of him and he replied, 'That was a long video.' Hey thanks babe, you get me.

SHE GOT OUT THE BIG BALLOONS!

 OMW she is just everything.

KP ended the show with BABY YOU'RE A FIREWORK. There were FIREWORKS on stage, there were FIREWORKS on her dress, there were FIREWORKS IN MY HEART.

And by the way, there was a Twins Game that got over at the SAME TIME as our concert. We sat in a parking garage/traffic for approx. an hour and since I was driver it was a little stressful...but we made it back to our hotel in one piece and I was only honked at once ALL weekend! Also - I cut someone off in order to get into a lane during stand-still traffic heading to the concert, so I think that officially makes me a CITY GIRL.

A Lizzie McGuire song comes to mind when I think about the time we spent at Ikea...HEY NOW HEY NOW THIS IS WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF. THEY HAVE PRINCESS BEDDING FOR THE LOVE.

It was a super-fun 24 hours. Made it back by 5:00 on Saturday, just in time to clean the house and have a date-night-at-home with Josh. :) 

 MmB

Josh's VLAM Bathroom Makeover

About two months ago I discovered the glory that is the mis-tint paint section at Lowe's. I found a lovely, satin, indoor, grayish/tan paint color and bought it for $10, thinking it would be perfect for the project I had planned in Josh's bathroom this summer.

Turns out that can of $10 paint also turned into painting the ceiling (with paint I already had thank goodness), changing out door knobs, picking up a couple fresh towels, sewing a new curtain, replacing the shower rug, touching up the doors, vanity, and trim, and giving the whole bathroom a good deep clean that it desperately needed.

I just can't half-do things. I believe it's a trait I've picked up from my husband after being married to him for four years.

I don't even want to show these pictures because lawd they are ugly. But this is what Josh's bathroom looked like before we were the happy homeowners of 422 13th St.

Notice the fake oak cabinetry, the OAK TOILET SEAT, the mauve blinds, and the plain white walls. Mercy.

The very first thing I did when we closed on this house four years ago was rip down every vertical, mauve, light blue, gray, fabric blind that existed in every room of this house. And actually a few days before we closed on the house I removed the duck switch plates, the eagle medallion by our back door, and the metal butterflies on our fence. I physically couldn't move into a house with ducks and eagles and butterflies as décor.

When we bought this house, there was just too much to tackle. I was so overwhelmed by so many ugly things that I just went crazy and did the first and fastest thing that came to me. For many of these rooms, that was paint like a lunatic. I picked colors and 'themes' for each room, but nothing in our house was cohesive, or neutral. I just knew I hated white walls and oak trim and doors.

And before you judge my hasty decisions and red and green and purple walls...remember that I was 21 for goodness sake!

Anyway, after a few months Josh's bathroom looked like this:

I bought a couple brown towels and hand towels, a tan rug, and added some beachy touches. Basically I wanted to be able to show off the shells we've collected from our trips, and the only way I knew how to do that was to give this entire bathroom a concrete and obvious BEACH THEME.

This is a better picture of the wall color...not bad, but really dark for this small room. I also wanted to re-use one of the brown curtains from my apartment, so I made sure to tie some dark brown into this room as well.

Fast forward to July 31st, 2014...remember I had NO idea what this wall color was going to look like because I had only ever seen it on a tiny paint sample dot on the top of the can. Sometimes it looked green, sometimes it looked tan, and sometimes it looked gray. I couldn't decide if it would be lighter or darker than the current color, but I hoped it would be lighter. It was. ;)

So ignore the ugly linoleum and notice the white mirror and white vanity instead. Those were two of my worst projects but I am SO GLAD I did them a few years ago. I think that changed the look of the bathroom more than anything.

The towels and rug I found have a little tan, gray, dark gray, brown, and white all in the pattern. Which is PERFECT for this room. I have a couple leftover brown and white towels we will continue to use in here, and purchasing new towels in the future will be super easy because there are so many NEUTRAL color options.

 

I tackled this a few years ago when glass was 1/2 off at HobLob. Shells are now neatly displayed and labeled on the top of the bathroom cabinet. For a long time I had them in bowls and jars but everything just got really dusty, so this was my solution.

This letter B might be my favorite part about this bathroom. It's a brown/gold and fits perfectly in here! I still need to find the perfect fabric to make curtains, but for now I don't mind the white blinds letting a little extra light in. It makes the room so much brighter. Just make sure if you're visiting, before you take a seat you close the blinds. ;)

 

As you can see, we still have this Boersma Lawn Care 'situation' happening in here and it will probably stay this way. But at least I can get him to keep everything in pretty baskets. Everything here is easy for him to find and wear and it keeps the dirty grassy mess in one area instead of having it tracked back and forth across the house.

I didn't get a good picture of it, but on the wall behind the other door I have a cute, off-white, vintage shutter hanging. I didn't want this room get too 'girly' because it's Josh's bathroom, but I thought it helped carry my vintage glam theme into this room a little better.

Yes, that's what I've officially decided for the theme of our house. VINTAGE GLAM. It's when you mix a bunch of farm doors, old windows, and feeder troughs with GLITTER. Could also be called GLINTAGE or as this blog post is titled...VLAM.

Got rid of the clutter that used to be on the sink and the back of the toilet. The rooms in our house are pretty small, so things just look better if I keep everything organized and put AWAY in a closet or a drawer. And on the rare occasion I want something sitting out because it's functional and used every day (you should see the dirt that gets in Josh's ears!) I make sure it's simple and efficient and also...pretty.

 

Here's an up close picture of my fastest and easiest Pinterest craft to date. I found this silver 8x10 frame at Overflow last week and didn't have a real plan for it until I decided I wanted to add something chalk board-y to the bathroom. At first I was planning to just paint the side of the cabinet with the chalk paint, but decided that would be a mess and I'd be stuck with it forever. Instead I painted the glass on this frame with chalk paint, and now I'm just stuck with a big hold in the side of this cupboard forever.

And since I have 3/4 of a gallon of this mystery paint leftover, in a few weeks I'll be tackling my bathroom and nixing some of the zebra. Can't wait!

MmB

Busy Summer Stuff

Fall is starting to gradually creep into my heart, people. And I have been doing everything in my power to SHUT THOSE FEELINGS DOWN. I love summer so much but I just helped my mother-in-law order her Christmas cards which put me in the mood to start writing our Christmas letter. And then the other night while Josh and Caleb were watching a scary movie, I went into our bedroom, sewed some buttons on our duvet, and watched..............................The Holiday.

So. To keep my love for fall and Christmas dormant for a little bit longer (I need to hold on until September 15th before the leaf garlands come out)...I present to you highlights of our summer, thus far:

To kick off the summer we had a bonfire with these fresh Cyclone grads. Well...most of them are alumni, there are a couple in here who aren't, but that just means we get to keep them around for a little longer.

Josh turned 26 and we celebrated with his favorite, French Silk Pie from Perkin's.

My liberal-hippie-Colorado-friend Ellen came to visit! We've seen her twice this summer!

The Boersma's threw a wedding. And we got another seester! Meet Hannah BOERSMA.

We took my dad on pre-planned day-trip all over central Iowa visiting Lowe's, Fleet, Farm, Bass Pro, Thiessen's, and Home Depot. He was unsure about a day of 'shopping' with us, but of course, he had the best time of his life. Josh and I ended hour day with supper at Pizza Ranch with his dad, G'ma and Uncle, so it was a perfect day full of family.

Wedding #2 of the summer...Landon and Susan are married!

Josh has two employees! Which means he spends a lot of his time at home on the computer working on bids, at home pacing around the house on his phone, or at home working in the shop sharpening blades. I just like the AT HOME part. :) 

We celebrated our anniversary on June 19th with a trip to The Cafe, followed by drinks at Cafe B, and a movie in the THEATER. We never go to movies anymore!

And we kept celebrating with a weekend-trip to "our" cabin at Twin Lakes.

Kylie came to visit for church and a double-date lunch to +39...

Then I went to visit her in Omaha for a weekend filled with laketime, restaurants, and church on Sunday.

This is what our 'crew' looks like after a long day at work. Dirty, but still the most adorable lawn care crew this side of the Mississippi, I'd say.

We celebrated the 4th of July with the Boersma's and they hated me for forcing them to take this picture, but I don't even curr. Note: Which one of these things is not like the other? Jamie spent the 4th pretending to be a Boersma too. :) 

We watched fireworks on top of a parking garage in downtown Des Moines and the weather was GORGE for the whole weekend. Perfect for sitting outside drinking coffee, yet also perfect for spending the afternoon at the pool, and ending the day around the firepit in a sweatshirt. I'm having a love affair with Iowa-weather this summer.

BLC Employee of the Year gets married! And I nominated myself as personal attendant to the Mother of the Groom. You're welcome BethAnn.

Mr. and Mrs. Butcher are SUPER tall. And adorable.

The Keil Girls took a trip to Galena and loved it. We even accomplished some Christmas shopping...imagine that.

We took a trolley ride and the weather was INCREDIBLE so we spent the whole weekend walking up and down the main streets of Galena...and because it wasn't 105 (like it usually is in the Midwest in July), we looked this cute the whole time. Jamie wanted to wear athletic shorts and an ISU t-shirt but I wouldn't allow it.

Best picture from our trip! And I even got Jamie in a DRESS.

We try and visit the farm as much as possible, but it's hard in the summer when Josh is working and G'ma and G'pa have such busy social lives. We did get to spend a Sunday afternoon on the deck with them a few weeks ago.

Brecken turned five and we celebrated with a Spiderman party and the adults celebrated with wine after the children were in bed. He's going to be a big brother to a little bro coming in December and we just love his imagination and how sweet he is ALL THE TIME.

And here are the boys shooting before the birthday party. Brecken shot a couple times but was more interested in the fireworks and sparklers. 

This is a common occurrence lately and I LOVE it. Sweet corn and jalapeno hot dogs on the deck with these two fools. 

The Boersma's treated me to my first-ever Jethro's experience last Sunday after Hannah got baptized. Jill and I ordered 30 wings because it was 2:00 and we thought we were starving. We ate five each. SUCCESS! ;)

MmB