Emerging from the Craft Room

I got a wild hair last week to redecorate/paint my craft room. We were set to do a whole makeover with cabinetry and all. Have you priced cupboards and countertops lately??? OH MY! For the space we were wanting to put in cupboards, I figured we’d spend around $500.00, but hopefully less. Little did I know! We chose the cheapest cabinets and by far the cheapest countertop and still ended up with a bill of $750.00 for a 54” space. CRAZY! It consisted of 4 total cabinets.

After a humbling trip to Menards we decided to just forget the cabinets. Instead I decided to paint and just buy a white table to put up. I also decided to do a chalkboard wall, which Joel wasn’t exactly pleased with the idea of. As much as I said it wouldn’t happen, my children have managed to write on almost EVERY single wall in my house. No matter how many coloring books they have (believe me there are probably 10 for each kid!), they’ve managed to get a wall. I decided why not let them have a wall in the house they can color on and NOT get in trouble?! Plus I figured if I inform them this is the ONLY wall they can color on, and if I catch them writing on any other walls they’ll be in trouble. It could work……

So I spent most of the day painting on Saturday. I’m pleased overall so far. We left one wall white after getting three of the walls painted. Of course it’s going to need a fresh coat of white paint because it’s a wall the kids have managed to mark up. Watch for pictures to come soon. That is if I ever make it back upstairs to blog again. Someone want to come organize for me?

Terrific Under Ten Tuesdays

For the last couple weeks I’ve been crafting away in my garage. I’m loving every minute of it, except for the waiting for paint to dry bit. It takes time to do these things, but they’re also bringing me joy!

I have a love for old windows. LOVE. The bad thing is I don’t exactly know what I’m going to do with one when I get it. I may have a slight idea, but nothing that will make me want to just go outside and start working on it. This can be a good thing and also a bad thing. Good because then I don’t just jump into some project and end up hating it later. Bad because they can take up a lot of space, and when you have a slightly larger than two car garage, space is valuable.

About a year ago we had a friend that was moving, and had these two rather large windows. When I asked her if I could have them, she said she didn’t care, but the look I got from Joel was Priceless! I had NO idea what I’d do with them. Fast forward a year and I’ve come across Kindra’s blog and had an epiphany. Why not make it a mirror!

I was on the hunt for Mirror Spray Paint. I found it on Amazon, but it was a little pricy. Come in $30.00 credit I got when I signed up for their credit card (two years ago! Totally forgot I had it!).  I also got a great deal on Groupon (great site for daily deals!) for Vinyl wall lettering $30.00 worth for $15.00 and I had a $10.00 coupon just for signing up!

I started by scraping off the old paint on the existing window and sanding it down. I then applied two coats of black paint that has been sitting in my garage waiting on my dining room chairs to give it some love. I then sanded it down again to give it a more aged look. After bringing it in the house though I realized that I’d have liked it a bit better if I’d sanded a little more. (oh well right!) I then covered it with a coat of high gloss polyurethane that we had left over from our hard wood floor redo (which you can somewhat see in the picture). I still have to ad a way to hang this mirror/window, but my dad gave me a cute chain that will look nice along the top.

Total Cost for this project:
Window : Free
Mirror Spray Paint : Free
Vinyl Lettering : $3.83 ($5.00 + $6.50 for shipping, divided by 3 (purchased 3 decals total!))
Black Paint : Already in my garage waiting for my dining room chairs
Polyurethane : Free (leftover from our hardwood floor redo!)

Open House

This weekend we had an open house. I can't say that it was a complete success, or that it was a disaster because you see NO ONE showed up. It didn't come as a shock to me when our agent told me this but yet it did. COME ON PEOPLE! It was beautiful yesterday. Needless to say the news of it was frustrating.

We do have one little nibble though, and so we're hoping for the best. The acreage we're looking at is still up in the air, but we're still praying on that as well. It's hard to be strong when you have no idea of what the future holds. The unknown of it all is one big ball of stress that I am ready to be done with.

If you're the praying kind, could you please put a little prayer in for us?? We're ready to be "farm people" and have an idea of what the future holds. Dreams are all we have right now, and their fading as fast as my tulip petals are falling.

Please don't leave

I know I'm slacking lately, or shall I say I've never really gotten into the rhythm of blogging. Maybe that's it. I'm kind of a slacker though, never completing things until the very last minute. Unless of course it's something fun that doesn't need to be done for weeks when there is stuff that needs to be done tomarrow.

So here is my post to catch up. Of course it's not all the catching up, considering there are over 100 pictures on my camera and I haven't taken a picture in a week. Just know things are staying busy here. With house showings, first communions, confirmations, birthday parties, open houses, baseball, and yard work of course we're keeping busy. We don't have a free weekend until who knows when..and I know it's well into the summer!

I'll warm you up with the Easter Egg Pictures.

Come along as we turn these


Into these


Dahrran did a great job coloring the eggs with the white crayon.


The girls had a great time just dropping the eggs in the cups.


Kaitlynn had this fascination with licking/eating the eggs. She LOVES boiled eggs.


This picture is just to prove that I finally gave in and just gave her an egg. Look closely in her hand...the one that's NOT in the cup!


All the colors the kids had to choose from....and this was one of the cheaper kits!


This is the best picture I have of the whole thing...just don't look at Kaitlynn's nose.

Can't say I didn't tell you!

While we colored eggs (yes ON the stove) this baked (yes IN the stove).


The day before Easter was our town Easter egg hunt. This of course is the best picture I have of them with the Easter Bunny. MacKenzie WOULD NOT go near the bunny.


The kids after the hunt was over, BEGGING to go through their baskets!


All the loot. There were over 300 eggs hid, and only 13 kids showed up. Which meant TONS of eggs for each child. They had plenty!


I just had to add these. As I was taking pictures of their candy she sat there and cried and cried. It was just precious. I did not then take pictures of her instead of the baskets. What kind of mom does that...not this kind.


She cried because she wanted a Reese's PB Egg. Just like her mommy.


So now that I've overloaded you on pictures, go rest. Or have a good day. It will be a few days before I get back. I'm trying to read up on all the blogs, but not doing too well with that either. Please don't leave me! I'll try to be back!

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On an unrelated note. We had lookers at our house a week ago, and they've decided to come back on Wednesday!!! We're really excited. . . although things aren't looking too well on the place we put an offer on ourselves. God has a plan, and it's what gets me through.

Easter Pictures...just a few

I'm just now getting around to posting our Easter pictures. And the sad thing is, they're not all here. We had a great Easter morning even though Joel wasn't able to be with us. Our plans were minimal for Easter dinner. Joel put a ham roast in the crock pot Sat. night, and all I had to do was make the side dishes. Two guys Joel works with don't have family that live close, and he invited them over for lunch. It was a nice dinner, and the kids and I took a nap. All in all it was a nice day.

Except. Look closely in these pictures at MacKenzie, do you see what I see?

Do you notice in the first picture the lack of color in her face. She was so pale when we got home from church. I could tell during church she wasn't feeling well, but figured it was because the little stinker was up at 7am. Poor little thing ended up running a fever for 3 days. It went through our house Easter weekend. I'm not quite sure what it was, but it included temps and body aches.

Kaitlynn wouldn't look at me, though it's not surprising. Her latest thing is she will not for the life of me look at me when I hold the camera up. So frustrating! But you get to see her dress. Did I mention that I bought them at Wally-mart for $6.00 EACH! No expensive dresses this year, I went inexpensive, can wear again dresses!

Here is what the Easter Bunny brought the kids. They included a gardening tote, and rake. Dahrran and MacKenzie got gardening gloves. Dahrran and Kaitlynn got a ball, and MacKenzie got a dress. They also got gardening shovels and hand rakes that I purchased last year on clearance.

Morning of traditions. Must take pictures at the top of the stairs before anyone is allowed to go down.

Kaitlynn was upset because I wouldn't carry her down the stairs! She eventually got over it when she saw the eggs all over the living room.

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The house is clean, and I'll be sore as all get out tomarrow. I don't think I've cleaned this much in a LONG time!!! I have to admit that towards the end I was just throwing things in boxes. And there was a TON of laundry in my expedition on the way out to dad's house. I washed and washed, but didn't take the time to fold it all. The majority of it is folded now just waiting for me to put it away.

I'm hoping the showing went well, but we won't know anything until our agent calls us tomorrow! Keep us in your thoughts!!!! While we're thinking/praying, please keep little Stellan in your prayers tomorrow as well!!

Bottled Water for Sale

So where did you think I was standing the other day when I took the picture? A pretty stream, a pond or maybe you know my drive way!? So what if we've got a pond for a driveway.

We've lived here for almost 4 years now, and for almost 4 years now I've had a love hate relationship with our front drive. We've had plans each and every year to backfill it, and put white rock on top. Every year we've had a reason not to do it, and this year I'm sure it will be because it's for sale again.

It happens when it rains, when the snow melts, whenever we get precipitation, the puddle is there. And usually it takes it a while to go away.

And then there is this, which isn't my driveway at all, it's my sidewalk. Which now looks more like a river. I love that it's warming up, but when it freezes at night this is like a little skating rink!

When I asked Joel what we should do with all that water, he came up with the idea of bottling it up, and selling it. So here ya go, freshly melted, ice cold bottled water for the blog!