one of those days

so last night was a goobery night. 
yes, that is the best word i can come up with to describe it.
it was a crazy day in general.
finley didn't have preschool because of parent teacher conferences.
i forgot to go to his conference because i am a flake.

we had to be at avery's school at 10 am for his missionary presentation.

it was a really neat project.
he interviewed our sweet friends and their daughter hannah (who is also in first grade and who he's going to marry one day.)
he did a great job.

later that night was his awards assembly back at school . . . which we have to drive 20 minutes to get to . . . each way. . . at 7:30.
sawyer goes to bed at 7 at the latest.
so i had this brilliant plan to lay sawyer down at 6 for a power nap, get him up at 7 and go to the assembly.
you know how well brilliant plans turn out right?

well, AJ walked in the door at 5:15 and told me i had a nail in my tire.
awesome.
so he left and was gone for an hour running all over town to find a place that would patch our tire.
no dice.
he gets home, we eat dinner, i put sawyer down.
he spends the next hour switching our tires around and putting on the spare.

instead of cleaning up the dinner dishes like i should have, i was looking at rugs on overstock.com in between getting the boys dressed for the assembly.
i know, i am ashamed.
then all of the sudden it was time to go. right. this. minute.

AJ gets the boys in the car and I go to get Sawyer up.
on my way to sawyer's room i notice all the food still on the table from dinner.
i can't leave that!!
so i run over there and start putting the food that will go bad away as quickly as possible, praying for grace at the same time.

i get sawyer up and we strap him in and go.

we go the back way,  and i tell aj i think he chose the slowest way possible.   he doesn't say anything. . . he's good like that.

we roll up at 7:37.  i run avery & finley inside.
and there we see his class sitting down in their seats and the next first grade class coming onto stage.
we completely missed it!
  instead, avery got to see everything he missed by watching the other 1st grade class.
he missed having his character award announced and getting to give me a flower.
it wasn't much, but it was something to avery.
so we just decided to leave. i felt awful.

we got in the car and drove the 20 minutes back home.
avery cried the whole way.
i cried as well.   because i hate to see my baby disappointed.
and he's so like me.  we both take dissapointments really hard.

he said, "satan wanted to steal our fun. i can't believe he did that."  we had a good talk and he was fine by bedtime.  we talked about going to daddy's work the next day and eating hamburgers and chips and getting a sprite.  that was good enough for him.

we tucked the boys in and washed away our troubles with ice-cream sandwiches.  is there any problem a little chocolate can't solve??


and now i must clean my house because our babysitter will be here in a few hours.

i have a hot date tonight with my man and he's requesting I wear my black strapless dress. :)

yay for the weekend. Pin It

big bertha gets a makeover

i'm a little nervous to show you this before and after today.
because maybe the antique police are going to come get me.
but i did it.
i painted our antique wardrobe.

i know! for shame!
i really didn't want to do it.  I like the stain on it.  I like the gold accents on the top.
i like old stuff.

i, however, do not like this:

the chipping veneer.
the nice scribble that my 5 year old did when he was 2.  with a wood marker. yeah, so that baby is not comin' out.
and we have lived with a big ol' scribble on our furniture for 3 years.  of course that's not the only scribble on furniture in our house, but that's another story . . . i digress.

anyhow, i went back & forth on this decision forever.
but this wardrobe is a huge piece.  and it's the first thing you see when you walk in the door.
and it was starting to become an eye sore.   
i also justified painting it because it was mostly not real wood.  mostly veneer. and it's really on it's last leg anyway. so i had to do her a favor. 


first i primed.  
i so wish i would have primed another coat and done it thicker.
because this girl soaked. up. paint.

i didn't bother hauling her big self outside.  i just opened the door and shoved a vinyl table cloth underneath to catch any drips.
you know i try to do projects as quick as humanly possible so that i can get on to the next thing.

i had to laugh at the paint can that says, "one coat coverage."  ha ha ha ha ha.
or maybe it's laughing at me. 

FIVE coats later and it was done.
it should be noted that i always follow the instructions on the back of the can about how long to wait in between coats.  there's nothing worse than tacky paint on your furniture.
it took me five good coats to get it to not be streaky.
this was my original set up

but i had to eventually ditch the roller for a brush because the roller wasn't allowing me to get the paint on thick enough.

here's tons-of-fun now . . .

i really like how she turned out.  it lightens up things in the living room.  
it does seem a bit plain to me now, though. 
so i distressed it some . . .

that helps. but i still think it needs something.

should i distress it more?  should i do a glaze over it?  my only question with glazing is that this piece doesn't have much detail work for the glaze to . . . well, glaze.

thoughts?  anybody have any experience glazing and you want to give me some tips?
wonder why i act like my piece of furniture is a she?
leave me a comment with your thoughts and tips. . .i really appreciate it!


and now for the side by side . . .

Pin It

running and stuff

we made a whirlwind trip to OKC this past weekend.
my stud of a husband was running his 5th (it sure seems like more) half-marathon.
he was running with his dad and family friend michelle.
they've run all of them together.
it was cold but the boys were able to enjoy the hotel pool for a bit on saturday night.


fin mostly hung out on the steps where he could feel the ground beneath his feet.

sawyer thought he was big stuff "jumping" into the pool over and over to aj.

i love this picture. those boys love their daddy and he has room in his arms for all of them.

even after all that swimmng and getting to bed late, the boys still did not sleep well in the hotel room.
5 am came awful early after a long night.
luckily aj is a morning person so he was good to go.

there were 22,000 runners! this was the 10th annual memorial marathon to remember the OKC bombing.

michelle's daughter and niece helped keep sawyer happy.  he wasn't feeling great and was exhausted so he did not think being strapped into a stroller was a very cool idea.

 this was the look on his face most of the time:

aj looked like he'd just taken a jog around the block when he came running to the finish line after 13.1 miles.

no big deal.


our little fam.

showing off our 147 million orphans tees. 

 we look forward to one day calling one of those little orphans ours. . . Pin It

i hung plates on my wall.

i would describe my style as modern farmhouse.
some of you would disagree.  so i may not be achieving that look, but that's what i like anyway.

i love the vintagy charm of hanging plates on a wall.
i also love the cheap inexpensive charm of hanging plates on a wall.

i hung these on our main kitchen wall.
i just grabbed a few plates here and there at good will & salvation army.
i was hoping to find some vintage white plates.
what i found was a bunch of cheesy plates with 80's designs & hand painted geese.
awesome.
luckily i know how to wield a can of spray paint. 

since they were all going to be white, i looked for plates that had some sort of pretty edging or texture to them.  i paid around 50 cents for most of them and a dollar for a couple of them.  i bought the middle platter new at t.j. maxx for $6.99.  that was the splurge of the project but i love it and if i get tired of the plate wall, i can use it as a pretty serving dish.

i bought the 98 cent can of gloss white spray paint from walmart and gave each of the other plates 2 or 3 good coats, letting them dry in between coats.  I used spray primer on a couple of the more patterned ones.

on the platter i used a traditional plate hanger.  one plate already had holes in the back to hang it with.  i used disc hangers that i got at hobby lobby on a couple of the heavier ones.
it looks like this:

it kind of cements to the back of the plate but also has the ability to come off if you ever want to remove it.
then i decided that i didn't want to spend more money on the hangers than i did the plates so i hooked up the rest ghetto style.

i got this idea here.  i figure that even if they fall and shatter into a bazillion pieces, i can always go spend another 50 cents to buy another one and it's still cheaper than a plate hanger.  I just poured a big ol' glob of hot glue all over the end of a paper clip or safety pin and let it cool.  so far it's working great.  it's been a week and they don't look like they're budging. 

do you like how i don't even take the time to clean up before a take a picture for my blog?
well that's real life peeps and i have to snap pictures in between quizzing on spelling words and wiping boogies and making play dough people.

Pin It

you know you have a problem when . . .

you have enough weeds in your yard to cover a 7 year old.

round up anyone? Pin It

because i wish you could have been there too.

yesterday was a fun day. 
i told you that i was co-hosting a benefit for our sweet friends who are moving to India soon.
mel and i got to the barn in the morning to set up.

we kept saying we felt like we were setting up for her wedding. it was so exciting.
this barn was the coolest place.  would definitely be a great place for a wedding.
but also perfect place to celebrate your friends and listen to them be all talented and such.

tons of people came.
we had food.

and a kickin' silent auction.

i so wanted this canvas my friend ashley made. 

i even held it up all around my house to see where i'd put it.
but it was a hot item.  people were fighting over it. so i didn't win it.

it was great to see so many people there to listen to great music and support our friends.
it was really above and beyond what we hoped for.
and did i say fun?

and so you can feel like you were there too, here's a little video of the final song. those boys on the stage behind him are the strum brothers.  dave's sweet junior high boys that he's been working with at New Heights. 
and you can even spot me in this video if you care.

i'm so thankful for the good memories we made.
i've been listening to the cd they gave out.  my heart is full and at the same time so tight in my chest.
i know that the days of spending time with them in person are coming to an end.
and selfishly, i hurt at that thought.
but there are people in India who need them.  need them to be to them what they have been to us.
and i am excited to watch their journey and see them be obedient to God who is calling them to go. Pin It

oh, and sawyer's 17 months old today.

it's a busy week this week. i've got several different balls in the air right now.
one of which is our dear friends' benefit concert tomorrow night that i am co-hosting.
they are moving to North India to work in a Tibetan refugee community. with their 2 boys. yes, they are awesome.

not sure why i am help raising money so that our close friends will move to the other  side of the world.

actually, i am so thrilled for them and excited to see God's plan for them play out.

sooooooooo..... just thought i'd post a few photos of life around our casa this week.

sawyer loves to be pushed around the house in Meliyah's doll stroller.
and everyone loves to push him.

 my vinca vines at our front walk are going crazy.
they make me happy in all their spring glory.

sweet girl.  i love her. on monday she sat down in front of me and said "Jesus loves me."  okay, it was more like "Jejus yuv me" but i knew what she meant. :)
well melt my heart little girl, yes He does.  what a sweet confirmation that she is receiving God's love here.

Pin It

tie to the dye

so it's about time i blog about my fin's 5th birthday.

i just realized today that all of my boys have birthdays on or around a holiday.  

sawyer's is right around thanksgiving. avery's is on new years. finley's is around Easter.

it kind of makes me sad because i don't want their birthday to be overshadowed. 

this year finley's big day was the day before Easter.

on Easter we had my family over for an Easter/Finley's 5th birthday celebration.

It was very low key, but very fun.

 

we kind of had a tie-dye theme.

i made these cupcakes that every one and their brother has been making this year. 

 

i got my idea from here. and i used this icing recipe.

they were so stinkin' yummy.  and i'm not a huge cake person.  

the kids were so excited to see the "tie-dye" cupcakes.  everyone was amazed at how bright the colors were.

i will definitely make these again.  I want to try different color combinations.

we also tie-dyed easter eggs.

 

very fun.

and lastly we tie-dyed shirts.

i just bought a kit at wal-mart. it was so easy and fun.  we did it over the sink so it was a breeze to clean up.  the kit comes with squirt bottles so it really is idiot-proof. which is a good thing.

 

 on his actual birthday he got to open a few more presents and do some fun things throughout the day.

 we were supposed to go to chuck-e-cheese that night but aj got the stomach flu. 

which was a bummer. but finley took it really well.  i think i was more disappointed for him than he was.

the next day aj took him out to denny's for a special breakfast with just the two of them.

fin was soooo excited. he just lights up at one on one time.

 you can see he wore his new, super awesome tie-dye shirt.

that night we went to chuck-e-cheese to celebrate finley's birthday a day late.

our sweet friends joined us which made it an extra fun night.

there was a part of me that felt sad that i didn't throw a big ol' party for him and have all his friends and invitations and pinatas and balloons and favors and games and stress and over stimulation like i usually do. i realize i put a lot of expectations on myself and it's hard to let go of.  even though i know he doesn't need all of that. i just so want my boys to feel loved and happy and never have one single disappointment ever.  also i worry that because he's my middle child that he'll somehow feel slighted or looked over. and i just love him so much that i never want him to feel that way.  so i guess all that rambling is to say, i hope my finley had a good birthday with good memories and i hope he always knows that his mama is head over heals for him.

Pin It