SimplyMal - God, Family, Crafting!

Being a mom can be a challenge. Especially when you don’t want your kids to miss out on all the fun moments of childhood….but you also don’t bury yourself under stress of creating every magical moment. thank you to Pinterest, I think we’ve gone off the deep end.

Particularly with The Elf on the shelf. 

I watch so many friends stress and slave and panic when they realize the next morning that they forgot to move the Elf. Which means the magic is over, the child’s Christmas spirit is crushed for ever and Santa will avoid the house like it has the plague. 

So, my husband and I both agreed to not do the Elf. Our children’s Christmases have been just as magical and moments filled with memories to be treasured. 

And then came the school years and my boys come home talking of their friends wonderful little Christmas Elf with awe filled eyes. 

Dang it. 

We avoided it for so many glorious years. 

So I called Jerad at work and ask him to bring home our Elf, that he bought when they first became a “thing” but have left down somewhere behind boxes of equipment for the past few years. 

Ladies and gents, let me introduce you to Shimmer Hot Charger Hill. 

Liam named him Shimmer, Emmy wanted Hot Charger (?) and Cohen said he hated him. So we compromised. 

Did I cave to the pressure of the Pinterest world? Yeah, kinda. But there was also an adult compromise made: this little fuzz ball isn’t a spy for Santa. No over the top schemes will be made and no money will be spent conducting Elf surprises. 

The Hill Family will be simply enjoying a game of ISpy Shimmer Hot Charger during the Christmas season. 

The kids were excited to find him hiding out today (I’d show you the video but they’re all in their undies as usual) and I was excited to see them excited. 

See, I’m not a total Scrooge. 

One of our good friends is getting married tomorrow in Seattle so Jerad and I came up a couple days early to take a break and spend some uninterrupted time together. (HUGE thank you to my parents for holding down the 3 kid circus back at home!)

We’ve literally spent the last 24 hours wandering and eating and shopping and eating. 

Glorious. 

I have friends without children who take these activities for granted. But after you become a parent, as big of a blessing as it is, a 1.5hour plane ride alone seems like a little piece of heaven. 

This afternoon we left our cute little AirBNB apartment and each went different ways down the street: Jerad to the water to fly his drone and take pictures and I to the right in search for treasures and coffee. 

I walked 2.5 miles wandering around the amazing character filled neighborhoods listening to podcasts and sipping my drink. 

It was perfection. I love my children so much it hurts, but it is also important for us as moms and dads to get away, step back, recharge, regroup and let the distance make our hearts grow fonder. 

I’ve never been an artist.  Sure I can dabble with paints and different mediums, but when it comes to painting something recognizable, it can be a bit of a challenge. But this isn’t to say that I don’t like or appreciate art, because I totally do!

I was raised to recognize the classics, to understand who painted this or that and even a little bit of the artists back story…my mom is quite the art history buff!

So yes, I love art but I’m not about to fill my walls with my own, especially when my kids art is way cuter.

But as of late, I’ve taken my treasure hunting for vintage/antique lovelies to a whole new level since starting my Instagram shop (@SimplyMalVintage) and I’ve started finding these amazing acrylic paintings hidden away in stacks of horrible bulky frames.

So I started rescuing them. Yes, I’m a painting rescuer. It’s a thing, even though my husband just gives me this strange look when I tell him I’ve rescued another painting.

Now it’s not just any old painting that I bring home and pry out of it’s horribly distracting frame; the painting itself has to bring me joy. I have to love it, the colors, the brush strokes and the story I think it tells.
That being said, here is a quick picture of some of my recently rescued beauties:

I love the smaller cityscapes and the textures in the paint. There are two others that I just found at a rummage sale last week but I have yet to retrieve them out of their dated frames. 

There is something beautifully simply about just having a canvas on the wall without the distraction of a frame. I have plans to create a gallery wall with the paintings I find, I just haven’t figured out exactly how I want to place them. I will definitely post pictures when I get these displayed!