Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Giveaway--Blog Makover

Spring
Spring is here, and it's time to make everything fresh and pretty! Hop on over to Kristi's and comment to be entered to win a FREE blog makeover. She does fabulous work! I don't know about you, but I'm loving the pinky goodness of the "Cheeky" design!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Bye-Bye Spring Break--We Had Fun!

Our spring break was fast, furious, and fun. We had a major home improvement project, but I'll get to that in a minute. First, I have to brag on myself. The first Saturday, I completed a 5K, my first one since college. I checked my results online, and I found that I was in the first 1/3 of my age group. I was excited about that especially since the weather was nasty, and the course was extremely hilly. Thankfully, I have been running on a big hill. If you've ever been to my house, you know the major hill I'm talking about. So I was prepared, and I actually passed about 20 people up on the last hill.

I love holidays, so I couldn't resist some fun for St. Patrick's Day. Since our kitchen was a construction zone, and the kids had nowhere to eat breakfast, the leprechauns set up a special breakfast surprise on the kids' little table. Those pesky dudes even turned our milk green. Em and Ty got a kick out of it!



These pictures turned out noisy (Canon Rebel owners, do not set ISO over 400 unless you want this problem, too), so I added some vintage and some grain to them to try to make it work.





This shows you what color we painted our wall. I thought it made a nice background for a photo of my green-wearin' girl!





The laminate floor was something we've been wanting for a while. But the problem I had was this--our furniture is dark, and our walls were beige. So with a dark brown floor, I was afraid that we'd look like a big, brown poopy cave. I knew we needed color on the walls, but it took me forever to figure out what color. I am so pleased with the "pollen grain" shade that we chose because it looks so nice with our dark furniture, and it compliments the accents I already have. And it doesn't clash with the green dining room either.



My hubby is super-talented, and I have to blush and say how stinkin' hot I think he is whenever he does projects involving power tools.



Is anyone else's TV constantly on basketball lately? I am also currently on a quest to hide the sub-woofer. Surround-sound wiring is nice for the small speakers, but why don't they rig a way to hide the biggest eyesore speaker?



I have also been playing with this niche, trying to get the right display. I have experimented with different colors, but I think I hit the nail on the head this time. I love the way the dark frames stand out against the blue. And the blue doesn't clash with anything in the pictures. I have to say I am really proud of how it turned out.



I finally got brave enough to sign one of my photos. I don't know why I felt so silly about doing this before!



Since moving into this house (where I have a formal dining room), I have always set a table for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year, I decided to set the table for spring. Instead of using my china, I decided to use my Fiestaware, and it's probably my favorite tablescape I've done. Dee had to make so many crazy cuts to get this floor to flow into the dining room, but he did a beautiful job!





I have been trying to figure out a unique way to decorate my centerpiece, and thank you, Amanda, for inspiring me with your Dollar Tree flowers and jellybean arrangements.



My favorite thing about this tablescape is the bold colors of the Fiestaware along with the bold colors of the jellybeans. They are not your typical spring colors (and I usually LOVE spring decorating b/c it gives me an excuse to decorate with pink), but I wanted to try something different this year.



Emily loves these place cards. I just grabbed some of my neglected scrapbooking supplies and stuck them together in about 5 minutes. She goes around the table naming the person to whom the initial belongs!



Just when I thought I was done being impressed with the skills of my husband, he impressed me some more. He took the kids outside to plant our vegetable garden. It was so adorable to watch him show Ty how to plant seeds and water the garden. Be still my heart!




Wow! Was that long enough for you? We are totally exhausted, but we sure loved every minute of our break. Now it's time to focus our big AP exams in early May, and then we can count down to summer and our cruise (no kids, this time)!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Emily's Birthday Wrap-Up

Miss Emily had a super-fun 4th birthday. My mom came for a visit (and to help out), so she absolutely enjoyed being spoiled by Grammy for a few days. Her actual birthday was Friday, so I took the afternoon off and brought cupcakes to her class. Then, we picked up Ty and cousin Kylie from school. Emily and Ty had so much fun playing with their cousin all afternoon, and at dinner time, we took Emily to the restaurant of her choice. She requested "The fettucini place" also known as Fazoli's followed by dessert at Maggie Moos. Dee was at a baseball tournament all evening, so I was really happy to have my mom to help me tote 3 kids around.

Saturday was the big par-tay, and we had a blast at Chuck E. Cheese. I have to admit that I was not too excited about a Saturday afternoon party at Chuckie's. It sounded crazy, hectic, disorganized, germy, etc. However, with Dee playing in a tourney all weekend, I needed a convenient location (so he could attend between games), and I also needed a location that would take care of food/set-up/clean-up for me (and still be reasonably priced). I was extremely happy with our decision, and I will have another party there in a heartbeat if my kids ask. The kids had a good time, our hostess kept everything organized, I hardly did anything, and it wasn't nearly as crazy as I had imagined it would be.

SO here's a funny story regarding my camera. I had decided beforehand that I was going to take more "snapshots" of the party, so that I could be more "in the moment" than "capturing the moment." I had made the decision to shoot in automatic and *gasp* use built-in flash. As luck would have it, as soon as I tried to pop that sucker (the flash) open, my camera showed an error. No matter what I did, I couldn't get my flash on. Now my only choice was to use manual exposure, but I was so thankful I knew what I was doing (or I wouldn't have had any pictures). Most turned out okay!

Here's a slide show I made with web-sized images. Mommies, I plan to share full-sized images probably next week.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Wanna win some cool stuff?

YAY! I can post again. Blogger was acting all weird on me yesterday. But since I am able to post, I have a great tip for you. Read on to see how you can win some seriously cute stuff!

I love, love, love monograms. I always have, and my friend, Amanda, is giving away some adorable monogramed items on her new blog. You have until midnight to enter, so head on over right now! While you're there, check out some of her other cute ideas!

Clicky, Clicky