For my mom.

My mom has asked me a few times over the past month about seeing pictures of my new van but I keep forgetting to take some.

Tuesday is usually the day the Drew mows our lawn. He could be half dead or the Pope could be in town.. it wouldn't matter, he'd still mow the lawn. But with the light changing, he's going to have to switch to Saturdays. Which meant he mowed the lawn last night to help with the transition.

Just smile and nod, it's well thought out in his head.

Back to my van.

It's a darker red.. I love it! It's very comfortable, has great get-up and go and I love that the doors open with the push of a button.

Inside the van.. the kids love the DVD player in it (I think the screen is 10.5"?)

Looking towards the back..

And there you go! :o) Do you like it??

My mom is amazing with flowers and plants. Unfortunately that gene skipped over me.. nothing is safe.. Thank goodness for Drew!

This spring when my mom was here she gave us advice on pruning our peach tree and it was just barely taller than I am. It totally worked because our tree is HUGE now!! What's crazy is that last year it was a tiny little twig.. it was from a pit that grew up at his dad's house.


What else.. This past Saturday, we were at Lowes and checking out their trees since they were 75% off. I called my mom to consult a tree option but she didn't know anything about it so we decided it wouldn't be a good option for us.

We ended up going with a Japanese Maple. I really like it! Drew does such a good job planting things. He's already done many google searches (seriously) so that he can give it the optimal growing experience.



And this is just cuteness... Kait was sad that I wouldn't let her eat a cracker that fell in the dirt. Her little bottom lip is out and everything. So dramatic.

And two seconds later she was over it.
And there you have it, Mom! Sorry it took so long. :o)

DIY: Master Bedroom Art

It's DIY day at a Soft Place to Land again (she's moved it from Thursday to Tuesday).



Last week I showed off an inexpensive piece of wall art that I did for my basement. After posting it, I decided I wanted to do something similar for my bedroom.

Here's my color scheme.. brown and blue. It's been a year and I still *love* it. Good thing since I invested so much into the bedding.


The following morning, I again went to the local thrift shop and purchased this large beauty for $5. It's propped on my very professional stand, a purple children's rocking toy thingy (that's the very professional name, by the way).

Because I have very little patience and it was early day and the big kids get out of school at 1:05, I had to work very quickly.

I grabbed my spray can of primer and went to work. While the frame was on the toy, I sprayed the top part.. went inside to check on the little kids for a minute and then came back out and laid it on the ground so that I could spray the 'art' part of it.

At that point, I realized that I HAVE to add a mask onto my list of items that are required cause WOW... wow. So I only primed the top part and figured if the bottom did not paint over well that I would prime it later on.

After checking on the little kids again, I put the 'art' down onto the grass and sprayed the other side of the frame.

Once everything had dried, I dragged out the gallon of chocolate brown paint that I also used for my front door a few weeks ago and then used one of those craft foam brushes to paint it.

For the 'art', I also used a craft foam brush. I did it in long thin sections (since I was working in the sun and it was drying quickly) and it worked very well. Awhile back, I purchased a $5 oops quart of blue paint. I had no idea what I would use it for, but I loooved the color. Turns out I was super smart to have purchased it, because it matches my bedroom perfectly. Oh, and the non-primed part covered just as easily as the primed.

By this time, the kids were out of school and half of the neighborhood children were gathered around watching me paint. Who knew I could be so exciting!

(the frame is drying up by the garage- it's hard to see)

Here's my finished project!

Only problem is that there was a gap at the top where the art and frame met. It was making me CRAZY. Guess that's why it was $5. LOL

So, I grabbed some matching fabric that I had found in the remnant section and used double sided sticky stuff (again, very professional term) and stuck it up at the top. The tan color matches the side table lamp on Drew's side of the bed and the art that's by my side of the bed.

Much better.


Doesn't it look cool? I have a vinyl phrase "love me Always" that I think I might put on the lower right side. I bought it forever ago.. I can't decide if it would look good there or not. Still deciding. (my husband and I started saying "love me" back before we were married instead of the regular i love you.. we still say it all. the. time.).

Now I just need to get those white walls painted. I have Monroe Bisque waiting downstairs... any volunteers?

DIY: Inexpensive Wall Art!

As I've mentioned before, I've really been enjoying decorating. Here is an inexpensive wall art project that I did a few weeks ago but I'm just now sharing because:

Today is Do It Yourself day over at A Soft Place to Land.



My poor neglected basement was in need of something large scaled for the wall by our new TV. I've been looking and looking but everything was just too expensive.

I finally decided that I should just make something myself.

I went to a local thrift store and purchased this lovely piece of art for $7. Pretty sure my grandparents had something like this in their home. I just love the chunkiness of the frame.


You should have seen the looks I got as I hauled it up to the front of the store. It was a little awkward trying to carry it with one hand while pushing Kaitlyn in the cart with the other hand and yelling out to Carson to stop running off.

I don't have pictures of the process from when I made this because I've discovered I'm horribly impatient once I decide to work on something. And the batteries were dead on my camera and I wasn't about to wait for them to recharge. Sorry.

I took the picture out of the frame and set it aside.

I then carried the frame outside and spray painted primer on it ($1ish at Walmart).

At Lowes, I had purchased one of those little sample cans of paint in black. They're normally only $3 but this was in the oops area (although never opened) and so I got it for $1.50. I also painted two other frames and ended up only using 1/2 of the little can and that's with two coats, each. Woo hoo!

Next, I laid out enough batting so that there was two layers worth and cut it out to match the size of my art. The entire package was $4ish and I used around half.

Again, because I'm inpatient and had no other ideas how to do this, I just hot glued the edges of the batting onto the art. Seriously.

Then, I laid out my lovely stretch fabric ($4ish for a yard)onto the floor (design side down) and then placed the art onto it, batting side down.

I then used my glue gun to firmly secure the fabric onto the back of the art. I did the top and bottom first and then the sides.

I heart my glue gun. Even better, I didn't burn myself!

I popped my fabric covered art back into the frame and made sure it was secure in there with the little nails that were already there.

And ta-da: my lovely creation!

The batting helped push the fabric out so it really looks pretty cool.

I like that it takes up a large amount of space and looks nice but when the TV is on, it's not distracting at all. And hmmm... the picture makes it look a little off centered.. but really, it's perfect. Trust me.

FYI: our TV is on top of our old entertainment center because I don't want the little kids to have any sort of access to it. You know about their track record and our nice things.... our couches are on the taller end so it isn't uncomfortable to watch a movie or play Rock Band (the reason for the fan- you should see Drew play the drums!!).

What I'm also happy about is I think it would be easy to rip the fabric/glue off of the the back of the 'art' if I ever decide I want to change the pattern out.

Not bad for under $20, right????? :-D

And here's one quick other project.

Also in our family room is two of our desktop computers. Again, nothing was on the walls in that area (I told you it's been neglected!!).

I had a cork bulletin board that was from my Grandma's house. I also had a bunch of pictures I wanted to put somewhere.. they're kind of the 'out takes' from the photo session I had done of my kids a few weeks ago. LOVE THEM. But I wasn't really sure how to display them.

So.... I used the same primer/paint as above and painted the edges.

I tore up some fun remnant fabric (under $2) so that it would have the harsher edges and glued those on.. and then pinned up my pictures. It needed a little extra oomph so I added some coordinating $1 chipboard cutout things that I found at Michaels.

I'll show you close ups of the picture later on since I know you're dying to see what my flash canceled out. You're welcome.

Hope you enjoyed!

They're Incredible.

Two years ago, I purchased Incredible pajamas online from Disney for a great price. Luckily, I was smart enough to order a larger size for down the road when the kids were bigger.

Two weeks ago, I pulled these warmer jammies out and the kids were SO excited to see them- they had forgotten all about them. It wasn't my smartest idea though because instead of drifting off to sleep, my children were running around like Dash and making spherical forcefields and disappearing like Violet. And arguing that Carson looked more like Dash so Hayden had to be incredi-boy (which he was not happy with).

Anyway, they were totally adorable and the next morning I asked for the kids to sit together on the couch and smile so I could take a picture.


Apparently *I* should have worked on my spherical forcefields to contain them.

Or maybe Elastigirl's techniques to keep them in place.. stretch out an arm and a foot..


Actually, now that I think about it, the ability to freeze them a la Frozone would have probably been best.

Pretty incredible, right?? :-D

Our Labor Day.

This past weekend we also stopped by the local Hobby Shop. Drew has a money pit, I mean hobby, that he really enjoys. It's his gas powered Revo. Of course something always breaks or he knows of a way to make it better, so small purchases are required.

Hobby Stores have LOTS of tiny little parts and things that my children can't help but touch so I stayed in the van with the kids while Drew ran in.. he was sure he'd only be gone a minute or two.

Five minutes passed and I started to wonder where he was.. then 10.. then 15.. then 20. The kids were contently watching The Incredibles but I was getting uncomfortable from sitting in the van so long.

From across the parking lot, I stared into the store, hoping for a glimpse of Drew so I could wave him down in a non-crazy kind of a way. Cause no one wants to be the 'crazy wife', right? But noooo, I didn't see him at all.

What I DID see though was a big black truck parked directly in front of the store. Of course. How had I not noticed. The license plate had a Fire Fighter symbol and was personalized.

It *had* to be Tim. HAD TO. That's why Drew was in there.. he was talking with Tim.

Tim has been a friend of Drew's since the beginning of time. Well, or Jr. High or High School. I forget. Either way, he's been a good friend and we haven't seen him for about a year.

At this point, 30 minutes had passed and the kids began revolting because they were thirsty and would die any second if they didn't get something. I drove off and picked up a drink for them and then returned to the hobby store to find Drew standing out front. With Tim. (he thought I had left him there!! hahahahaha)

Ha! I knew it!! We ended up staying there almost an hour more talking.

Tim told us about a City fair that was near by us on Labor Day and there was a classic car show.

As the owner of a '67 Mustang, Drew is never one to pass up a classic car show, especially on his day off of work.

And so we went.

Here's Drew and Tim. I had to kind of randomly take this picture.. can't really ask grown men to pose together, ya know???


There was a firetruck there and since Tim works where he's needed and is known all over the valley, he hooked the kids up with sitting in the truck.

(mmm love the yummy sun in this one!)

Poor Kait. I left her in the stroller because I knew as soon as I let her out she'd be running all over the place. My poor back and hip just wasn't up for that.

Don't you love her stroller??? I had to replace our old one that was smashed in the car accident and I went with a super girly one. Just because I could. Look, she matches!!! :-D

Me and that man I'm in love with..

You can tell from Hayden's expression just how much fun he had looking at the cars.

It's because there was an inflatable slide that he saw on the way over that he wanted to go on.

Carson, however, LOVED seeing the cars. At *every* car he LOUDLY proclaimed, "Wow! I love it! Can we buy this one??"

His favorites were the mustangs, of course, and anything with flames on them.

Because he was having such a great time, he stayed with Drew and Tim while I took the whiney kids to the slide.

Waiting in line.
Climbing up...
They had a great time!

Kait indulged in a sprite and lemonade mixture.
My camera battery died at this point. Figures.

It was a lot of fun though and I'm glad we went.

Everyone loves a party...

I'm joining my first party!!

Sarah, at Thrifty Decor Chick is hosting a Before & After party. I stumbled upon her blog a few months ago and fell in love with her fruity kitchen decorations. Remember how I've talked about that before??? Anyway, I LOVE looking at before and after pictures so this is right up my ally. You know, with all the free time I have.

Decorating is a newer hobby of sorts for me.. I've always loved being creative (or pretending to be) but I've never gotten into it this much with pulling entire rooms together (I've been missing out, let me tell you!). Since the car accident, my brain is finally working a little better and I can use my wrist now so I'm trying to put more effort to get back into the swing of things.


Moving on. I've been talking about painting my front door for a long time now but I've been thinking about it a lot for the past few weeks.

Our door was here when we moved in almost 6 years ago.. it's one of those cheap-o ones and it came complete with a few dents. Over the years, my children and the neighborhood children have dirtied it up. Not even a magic eraser helped!

I thought about a soft yellow.. but then how would that look with my christmas decorations. Kind of liked the idea of a sage color. I was DYING to have a black door but apparently Drew hates them. (who knew)

This past weekend I was at Lowes and looked, like always, at the oops paint. There was a brand new can of choclatey brown outdoor paint. I considered it.. I consulted the kids (they did not care).. I sent texts furiously to my sister for her input.. I asked Drew if he liked it but he likes anything I choose (good man!!). I put it in my cart. I took it out of my cart. But in the end, I walked away with it. For $10 I figured that if it didn't work out then at least it would be a cheap learning experience.

I also bought some primer.. turns out it was latex instead of oil based. I had inteded to get the oil based but so far it seems to be ok. *knock on wood*

I applied two coats of primer some what randomly.. it covered all surfaces but I didn't get all crazy making sure they were perfect (which is why I did two).

Just having the door white had me saying, "Why didn't we do this YEARS ago???"

I painted a coat of brown.

Painted the trim around the door with the white Primer to brighten it up.

I painted another coat of brown.

Got nervous that I couldn't really think of anyone else I knew with a brown door and wondered if that was for a reason.. maybe the brown wasn't a good choice.

I painted the stair well in the garage because I had a lot of paint still left.

I painted the final coat of brown. And while it dried, I wished that I had painted the inside of the door as well since Drew had the door knobs off..

Then I stood back and admired.

Love! It!

Before:
After:

I know it looks a little uneven in the middle but you don't see that when you're standing there.

Isn't it fabulous?? I'll probably put my big chunky frame back up today.

My only regret is that I didn't take more advil prior to painting and that I ran out yesterday and had no choice but to buy another big bottle. All the stretching and moving around about killed me.. I'm still sore today. But at least my door looks amazing!! :o)