Trying to Beat the HEAT!

Today it is 100 degrees. It's HOT and it's HUMID! We haven't seen a significant amount of rain in what seems like months. The grass is brown, the plants are wilting, and we are just downright melting! Good thing I have a bunch of water babies!

A HOT Celebration

Yesterday we had a small get together to celebrate the 4th of July.  The 4th is one of my favorite holidays.  I use to celebrate with some of my best girls at our lake house.  We had a blast making memories with good food, good drinks, good friends, and lots of good laughs. Now, we celebrate a bit differently. We still have good food, good drinks, good friends, good laughs, but now we have LOTS of little crazy kiddos running around!

It was just under 100 degrees yesterday. We spent most of our time indoors, but we let the animals out of the cage for just a bit to enjoy some water fun!

Almost 2 years ago, my sister gave us this "beautiful" full-sized bed.  I believe Mya had just transitioned from her crib to her toddler bed.  We weren't quite ready to put her in a regular bed.  Not to mention, when she gave us the bed, she had almost completed stripping the headboard but the sideboards and footboards remained untouched (stained).  That meant, something HAD to be done to the bed in order for it to be usable. It just wasn't in my cards. I soon became pregnant and stripping/painting a bed was out of the question.  When Mya was ready for a "big girl" bed, we set up a nice old brass bed we had stored in the basement.  I always knew, that SOMEDAY Mya would get a beautiful, finished full-sized bed!

My neighbor approached me about being a participant in her attempt at a neighborhood garage sale. I thought it was a great idea. I had been wanting to do a garage sale, but really just needed someone to give me a little nudge.  Before I knew it, I had committed and begun ransacking my ENTIRE house! I became obsessed.  My husband actually said to me, "You know, I would've taken you for more of a hoarder type...but not so much!" The idea of making money on my junk was awesome.  Without going into the gory details.... the garage sale was a total bust! We had very few customers. I ended up making about $120. Whatever... I digress.....

The point of my garage sale story is that I panicked and realized I needed to get this bed out of my garage before I held a garage sale.  So, I dove right in..... 4 days before the sale.  STUPID.  I had to sand, wash, shop supplies, prime, wait for drying, paint, paint, paint again, paint for the 4th time!!! Not to mention it was super hot outside AND I had to work around naptimes.  I found myself painting at 9:30 at night, 7:00 in the morning, and during naptime. UGH... did I mention I hate painting???

Anyways, THE BED IS DONE!!!!! We had a slight problem in that the new mattress was too big for the bed! Do these hiccups only happen to me? I mean really, can't things be easy?  We decided, for now, to leave the footboard off the bed.  My mom said you can buy brackets to expand the bed.  Anyone know where to buy those???

I got some help from Mya! Here she is washing the bed.

the sanding process

Picking a white- You can't tell here, but these are ALL WHITES! The flash brings out their tones more.  I had to google which white to use. Seriously, can't they just have WHITE! I chose "decorators white." Yup, it was white!

Once the painting process began, Mya couldn't contain herself.  She literally asked me if she could help paint the bed 50 times. I let her do a little, but let's be honest, I didn't have time for that!!!! So, I finally wised up on day 2. I set up her OWN painting station. She felt SO cool!!!

OMG.... filling the garage for the sale. Did I mention I DID NOT finish the bed in time. After all of that hustling, I decided I better slow down and take my time. The traffic was so slow during the sale, I was actually able to paint while I worked.

Forgot to add that I bought this UGLY bench at a cute little store called Junk Warehouse. It's going out of business and was having a 40% sale. I got it for $30. I almost passed it up but the owner talked me into it. I am SO glad she did.
You'll see why!

Ta Da! I am so glad I bought it! I painted it and recovered the cushion!

The new bed and bench!
ps. I know the lamp is ugly. That's my "next" project. ;-)

Close-up of head board. It's so sweet.





Wet N' Wild

We set up the sprinkler tonight attempting to water our quickly browning grass.  We soon realized that we would have one patch of green grass and rest brown since the sprinkler didn't rotate properly. So, we stripped Mya of her clothes and let her loose.  She was a total chicken at first. So we let the real dare devil at it... Luke! He had no fear! He walked right up to that sprinkler and stuck his head right into the path of water, laughing all the while! He LOVED it and we loved watching him! Mya finally worked up the nerve too and was soon having the time of her life!

Yes, that's a big boogie on his face... it's kinda how we roll around here!

Daddy Day!

They absolutely adore their Daddy... and so do I!

I decided to do some pictures with the kids for Matt's Father's Day gift.  Let me tell ya... photographing kiddos can be a challenge... photographing your OWN kiddos can be a nightmare!

This is the one I decided on.

This was a runner-up.

I decided maybe we should forget the sign and just try sitting like good boys and girls. 

My escape-artist! REALLY, DUKE... JUST SIT STILL!!!!!

Good smile Luke! Really Mya??? UGH!

Can you guess what happened? 
Does Luke look guilty?
Yep! Mya was bitten by our precious little guy!

At this point, I was literally cracking up at these two!

I decided to end here and hope for the best!

Mya filled out a survey about Daddy! Hilarious... my favorites....
"I love my daddy because he's my dad and he works here.
"He loves to eat buns.

The kids are so excited for Daddy to open his gifts.

Daddy got a new spice rack too... just what every Daddy wants, right?

Jameson is Turning 1 and I "TRY" to Capture the Moment

My niece Brittany asked me to take Jameson's 1 year pics. If you remember correctly, I took his pictures a couple months ago. It was a gloomy/rainy day and we were limited on locations that protected us from the weather.  I promised her another photoshoot where we could get a little more creative.  We picked a day and were ready to go.  I had pinterested (is that a verb yet?) some ideas and knew I wanted to try some new things.  This probably wasn't the smartest idea for a beginner photographer (and I use the word photographer loosely).

I soon realized a few things:

a.) using props is WAY harder than I thought
b.) photographing on a gloomy day is WAY easier than photographing on a sunny day at noon
c.) I really need to take a class to figure out what the hell I'm doing

I left the photoshoot a bit frustrated, not knowing what I had accomplished. I was nervous that there wouldn't be ANY good shots of cute lil' Jameson.  I crossed my fingers and headed for my computer.

Here's what we got.... What do you think?

Not too shabby, right?

It's Been Awhile....

We have been busy, busy, busy! I have to admit that I just haven't been "into" blogging much anymore. As we are out and about, I take pictures thinking that I will write a blogpost.  But, as the days come to an end, putting my pajamas on and curling up on the couch sounds so much more appealing. 

But, we have been doing some great things and I do want to share. So, my posts will probably be short and sweet. Lots of pics with little to say!

Here we go....