Suzannah Hamlin Stanley's Blog, page 10

My #1 tip for making hard parenting days easier

I’ve been balancing gratitude and just exhaustion lately. Our kids are so wonderful but take so much out of me these days. Wanted to share something that has been hugely helpful for me in the past year having Lucy, and since Jason started working (first part of this year). I work from home, he works late, blah blah blah… I don’t feel like I have a lot of time to myself and most of my time is while I’m supposed to be watching the kids, or on the weekends when we’re supposed to be enjoying family ...

How to print and frame free museum download art prints (the fastest and cheapest way)

I am a big fan of museum art downloads for unique art in my home, but it can be tricky to navigate getting them from the screen to the frame. I’ve tried several different methods and while my favorite is definitely custom framing (I use Art to Frames), if you’re trying to fill a cool vintage or thrifted frame or want to do it really low-budget, you can definitely print yourself, too. I recently made over several thrifted frames for some very pretty vintage art from open sources, and really updat...

Tiling our fireplace surround: 2-day project, huge living room update!

I’ve been working on little changes to our living room for the past three years, trying to get it to a place we really love. Living rooms are tricky because there are so many options both in style and function, and you have to play around with both. We’ve moved furniture around, added furniture, moved and mounted the TV, changed art, changed window coverings, changed the massive rug… And I have done some small updates to the original brick fireplace with 1980s brass screen.

Well, I finally gave t...

Major updates for the Your Home Story podcast

You haven't seen any podcast episodes lately, because we took most of July and August off! Our first break after 3.5 years of publishing the Your Home Story Podcast. Now we're back, with a big update. Plus plenty of updates on what we've been working on around our homes and personal goals. We've both been plenty busy this summer.

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Outdoor dining area back patio reveal! And our new grill/smoker!

Our backyard has gone through a lot of changes in the 3 years we've lived here. When we moved in it was overgrown and had several old wood structures, a large deck, old garden beds, and a big circle of sand in the middle from where a pool had been. We were totally overwhelmed. 

We started removing landscaping and debris and slowly it took shape so we could picture it as a functional backyard for us. We did a ton of improvements last summer (fence, gazebo, garden, wood chips, more landscape remova...

Which is harder: going from 0 to 1 or 1 to 2 kids?

Since I’ve been a mom of two for more than a year now, I thought I should out down some thoughts about the popular question: is it harder to go from 0 to 1 or 1 to 2 kids?READ POST

Lucy's first birthday party

Lucy is one! We had a fun birthday celebration for Lucy this past weekend! 
I keep things really simple for kids birthdays but it feels like I've just got to do a little bit more than just a cake and some colorful gift bags for the big first birthday. For Otto's birthday I did another simple but very cute party, and for Lucy we celebrated in the same dining room and living room, with some different colors and a bit of slightly girly decor. I’m not planning on winning any party planning awards wit...

10th wedding anniversary trip!

On Friday we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Wow, right! I've been blogging for almost 12 years and our wedding was a huge project so I documented it all way back then (see all posts about it here), and I don't post about every anniversary but thought 10 years deserved a post. Plus, we did something really special!

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My Operation: Reduce Stress, and how it's going

I am a pretty high stress, busy, ambitious person. I pack a lot into my time and I feel guilty, or like I’m just missing out on opportunities, when I relax. Some of this is just my nature and I will always want to be achieving new things, but my tendency is definitely to overdo it and get too busy so my progress/goals no longer feel positive. People ask me how I do it all--day job, blog and Instagram, podcast, parenting two kids--and the answer is I am just a ball of stress almost all the time.R...

Our fave toys & books for 2-3 year-olds

I've been a parent for more than 3 years now and I'm finally realizing hey, maybe I know what I'm doing with a few things. Oh hey, I have a good handle on toddler toys!, and wanted to share some of our faves!

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