Antique Store Finds

I love going to Antique stores and finding just the right something that I never knew I needed but can't live without! Steph and I went over to our local Antique store a few weekends ago, I had been wanting to go for weeks but hadn't made it over there, and I found several new treasures!

I've decided to collect mismatched silver (thanks Steph for the great idea!) so here is the beginning of my collection, needs a little polishing though!


Then I found this cool tin, I've always love containers! And I've been wanting something to put the dog food in, this is perfect and fits perfectly by the dog bowl, it is very rusty but love how it looks. And I must be rubbing off on husband, I thought for sure he would wonder what the heck I saw in that, but he actually liked it!


And the an old suitcase, these are good for storing craft supplies in, and it was brown and red and matched my scrap room, so I had to have it, right?

And my best find of the day was an old headboard, I've been looking for headboards for both the kids beds and saw some possibilities in this one. The best part is the lady said it was priced to high (I didn't think so, and I'm so not good at bartering with them!) so she took $10 off!

So after a little sanding and a few coats of paint and some more sanding, Meg got a new headboard for her bed.

I love how it turned out and the little table that I picked up in Sutter Creek in December that was still waiting for a little make over looks perfect with it.

Love the babies tucked into her bed!

Spring Break

It is officially Spring!!! Yeah . . . we made it!!!! I love spring, the longer days, warmer weather, although I'm still waiting for the warmer part!

I'm very happy because spring means that my favorite mustard weeds are popping up everywhere.
And I'm even more excited because my 2 cute nieces are coming this weekend and I'm really hoping that the weather will be somewhat cooperative so that we can go take a few pictures like we did 2 years ago. Crossing my fingers as the forecast is looking very wet.

The kids have been off of school all of last week and this week. I'm sure I've said it before, but I really do like this modified schedule. It seems like it is just about the time that the kids have had about enough and I'm at my wits end with getting everyone up and going in the morning and homework in the afternoon, that break time comes. Two weeks of no routine is nice, I usually take a few days off to break it up a bit for the kids and to not have to burden any one person with them for 2 weeks!!! Today and tomorrow are 2 of those days, I love days with no agenda.

We have been getting a few projects done around here which also makes me very happy! I brought this phone home from Mom's house last October or November. it's been sitting in the living room since then waiting for me to decide on it's new home.

I finally decided on the small wall next to the entertainment unit in the family room. Well, I decided on it awhile ago, but I had to have Daryl actually hang it, it's HEAVY and I don't need if falling out of the wall, which is probably what would have happened IF I had hung it up!!! This phone belonged to Mama & Popi, and I so remember Popi holding me up to it as a kid and turning the handle to make it ring. It was still hanging in Mama's house when we lived there. but we didn't take it down when we left.


It ended up at Mom's house and she was {gasp} thinking of selling it!!!! Well, I couldn't let that happen, so I brought it home, along with the desk and the high chair that were also Mama's. Greg was also parting with his old typewriter, so it came along for the ride too! I love antique furniture and old, dirty, grimy stuff!


And I already had this cradle that also belonged to Mama. (Don't laugh at the funky looking pillows! The patchwork one I made with my Grandma Topps and the green one in the back was Mama's, I used it to sleep on when I would spend the night with her).

ok, well enough about all my old stuff! Gotta go run to Safeway for some cheap tortilla's and then get some dinner started, no excuse for not making dinner when I've been home all day, LOL!!!!

LIPstick

LIP being the operative word here. Meghan called me into the bathroom tonight after she had taken a bath, this is what I saw! When I asked her what the heck was all over her face, she said Lipstick! I had a moment of "oh my goodness what the heck have you done to yourself, you are so in TROUBLE!" But then I decided it was best to just close the door, laugh, and of course yell for Trevor to bring me up the camera!

Luckily with a little baby oil it came right off. And this is her "I'm so sorry Mom" face!!!

Catching Up

Seems like I'm always catching up, why is that? I'm either terrible with time management or there is just to much to do or that I want to do! I'd like to think I'm not too bad with time management, LOL!

I think we are all finally healthy. Since my last post Meghan had a relapse and Daryl finally joined in our fun. But it's been a week now and we are all well.

We celebrated Trevor's 14th birthday, here are a few bad photos! Boy am I ready for springtime and some light. I've got to figure out how the heck to get decent pictures in my dark living, oh, I mean family room.



I also went to parent's night at Freedom High School. I guess that is what happens when you have a boy turn 14, but I still can't believe we are already registering for High School! I have to say that I walked away feeling it would be ok! The Principal and Counselors that spoke all seemed genuinely interested in the students and it felt like a very nurturing environment. But seriously . . . High School! Trev is actually really excited, and High School has changed so much since I was there 25 years ago. There was a whole course catalog with so many elective options it's crazy, so much more than what we had, so many options to help them prepare for College, it is kind of exciting.

I'm knee deep in 2 different on-line classes right now, what was I thinking? I'm loving Karen Russell's Photographers Workshop, she is an awesome teacher. I feel like these first few weeks have been sort of a review of many things I already know and hoping that as we progress she will hit the areas I'm still weak in, such as low light family room shooting! And we've all been waiting for probably a year or more for Jessica to come out with her final advanced digital scrapbooking class, and of course it started the week after the photography class did! I'm very behind but that's ok, got through the first lesson today and am loving digging into photoshop again and I plan on spending much of this rainy 3-day weekend at the computer, catching up!



Oh, and I almost forgot the other big news of our newest addition ~ meet Oreo our hamster.


We got this for Meghan, our pet lover. She had begged me to go to the pet store on Saturday, which we did, just to look. She really really really wanted a hamster, but I told her that she would have to convince her Dad. She had gotten him to agree to go to the pet store on Sunday, but then Meg ended going home with Kaitlyn so that they could go shopping and to see the new Justin Bieber movie! So Daryl, Trev and I went by to take a look on our way home. Somehow we got him to let us bring one home!!!



We surprised Meg on Sunday night after dinner. We were at the Tidwells house and decided to play a round of "telephone", one of her favorite games. I clued Kaitlyn in that she need to say "what should Meghan name her new hamster?"

Can you tell she was surprised? Here she is watching the video Daryl took on his iPhone.

And her first look when we got home.


She's in love, she sleeps in her room and so far hasn't woke her up a night spinning on the wheel, or me either for that matter!

oh and mom, take a look at these ~


yep, the heels that we both told her NO to. She went shopping with Kaitlyn and she took her purse, which had her VISA gift card in it. And what is the first thing she does, goes and buys something I told her I wouldn't buy for her. Oh the teenage years are going to be such fun, I can tell already.

Ok, well this ended up being a long post!

Necklaces

I ordered these 3 right after Christmas, 2 of then really cheap cause I had a groupon from Love Stamped for them, they other one I just ordered from The Rusted Chain cause I wanted something with my "word" for the year on it. I love them! I've been eying this style of jewelry for awhile and just never could decide WHAT it was I wanted! The one with the camera says "capture life" and then the last one has 5 different charms on it, mine & Daryl's initials, the kids names, on that says EST. 9-8-91, and one that says love.

I think I have one more groupon left, hummmmm . . . what else should I order?

Will the germs please leave now?

So my last post was about my sick babies, of which one missed the entire week of school, and today asked if we could please leave the house for a little bit, I think HE is finally feeling better. Ended up taking him to the doctor yesterday when he was still feeling pretty bad, I was afraid he might have ended up with pneumonia and/or bronchial asthma, like I did. Luckily his lungs are clear and he got some antibiotics and is finally feeling better. Now if that cough would just go away! I'm feeling much better . . . amazing what 1 dose of antibiotic and a mucinex will do for you when your feeling really bad! So Trev and I have pretty much spent the week home together coughing in sync with each other, so not fun, I wouldn't recommend it at all.


So most of my photos this week looked like this



And why the 5 bottles of liquid antibiotic you ask? Well, my son, since he was a baby, has had a major gag reflex and can't get most pills down. A motrin is about all he can do. I tried to give him a mucinex yesterday morning since it had helped me so much. I gave him pudding and said to put it in a bite of pudding and then just swallow, well, I almost ended up with chocolate pudding in my face! So the doctor was concerned that the pill form would be to large for him, so she prescribed liquid, a lot of liquid. Even at the pharmacy they asked why it was for a liquid when he was 14 years old and told me that my insurance may not cover it that way. Great . . . but luckily they did cover it and my receipt shows that my insurance saved me $219.00, so I'm thinking that I basically got 5 prescriptions for my one $5.00 co-pay! And I don't have to get a pill down his throat, thank goodness!

So hoping to have Trev's birthday dinner tomorrow night, only a week late, I would have never thought he would have been sick for an entire week, I think this is a first, and hopefully the last!

Not so Happy Birthday

Today Trev turned 14 . . . unfortunately he caught the bug his sister had early this week and was stuck on the couch with a 102 degree fever and feeling terrible. I told him we would pretend that today wasn't his actual birthday and that the first day he felt better would be his birthday, hoping that will be tomorrow, but if he follows in Meg's path it won't be till Monday.


Here is Meg on Thursday


those of you that know her well know that seeing her sleep in the middle of the day is completely unheard of! She woke up from this 3 hour little snooze and I asked her if she wanted some of the soup that Mimi had made for her? She said "for breakfast"? She thought she had slept all night!

Today she is completely back to her sassy little self . . . and for that I am grateful.

So excited . . .

One more week till this starts! And I am soooooooo excited!!!!!

Finally Friday . . .

Why is it short weeks always end up seeming the longest? I had Monday off and have to say I didn't use my day home as wisely as I should have . . . I should have put Christmas away, but I didn't want to . . . I should have done all of my ironing . . . but I didn't want to . . . I should have, well, the list could go on and on, but I didn't do much of anything at all, except sit and do a bit of reading, internet surfing and enjoyed a little peace & quiet.

So because I didn't do anything on Monday my house is still a mess of Christmas decorations, everywhere! Daryl took down the tree and took all of the ornaments off today while I was at work, I came home and found all of the red & green ball ornaments in a pile on the couch, screaming for me to take a picture. Love all of the reds and greens and I added a few silver ones this year for a little more sparkle!

This is my other favorite "ornament" photo from this year,

I'm looking for ways to be more creative in my picture taking.

Tomorrow is the Singing Hands Concert that we have been practicing for for that last few months, we are all excited and ready to see what God has in store for this performance. I know that our hours and hours of practices will pay off and we will be ready for tomorrow, it will be awesome!

Hello 2011

But can you tell my why 2010 went so quickly? Why does the time have to keep passing so quickly. I was not a good blogger in 2010 and hope to do much better in 2011. See the problem is once I get behind I don't know how to catch up, so instead of doing something, I do nothing. (I'm pretty sure I have blogged about this before.) I see the solution as NOT to get behind, right? Ok, well, let's see how long we can keep that going!

Today is my last day of "vacation". I've decided that since Mondays are the worst day of the week, and Monday's after being off are even worse, my new rule is to take off the Monday after vacations, this is the second time I've done this and I'm loving my new rule! I'm working on putting the house back together after a week of goofing off . . . and trying to get up the enthusiasm to put Christmas away. I'm just not really feeling it and want to enjoy a little bit of peace & quiet for a bit with no kiddos in the house.

A New Year is kinda like a new slate . . . I guess that is the reason of all of the Resolutions, which never seem to last. I will follow along with Ali again and her One Little Word. I like this so much better than resolutions and I think I have finally decided on my word for 2011 after lots of different words have been flying around in my head for the last few weeks. My word is Create. I wanted a little nicer sounding word than last years ~ I think that I can apply this word to many areas of my life and look forward to working with it this year.

Our Christmas was awesome this year, I'd say the highlight for Meghan was getting her own iTouch . . . yes, I know she is only 7, but . . . she spends sooooo much time on my phone this was almost a gift for me! You might remember this post from last year . . . you could say she was NOT happy about the boys getting iTouches and she didn't. She looks much happier this year!


Although now that I look at these pictures again, she might just be more excited about the iTunes Gift Card she got!

At any rate, she is one happy girl. Trev was only a little bit pouty about the fact that she has a better one than he does, but he did get over it when he saw his present . . . a futon for his room.

Apparently I didn't get a good picture of it before it was carried up to his room, but he and Daryl sat on it all morning!

I can't believe it's all done! It was a great season and we feel so blessed to have our family, our friends, our health, our jobs, our home . . . waiting to see what 2011 has in store for us.