My Home - Some Small Updates

I have been working on a few small projects around my house.
I had a deadline set because we have had lots of company over the past month, and even more events on the calendar.

A little push to be productive is never a bad thing!

The biggest project was actually one that I hired out.
When we first moved into our home a little over a year ago, I had much of the first level, bathrooms, and bedrooms painted. Except the master. That is still on the list!
I did not have the two story family room, or hallways leading to it painted though. It was a big job, and the entire space connects over railings and open space.

I have regretted not having it painted before we moved in every day we have lived here!
Until now! It is done! I had it painted the same color as the other rooms on the first level. Benjamin Moore, Hazy Skies.
Yes, I do need to adjust the frames in this photo so they are more evenly spaced. But I am too tired to do that right this minute.

While I was taking pictures, my camera died. So I went ahead and broke out the iphone shots. With how bad my camera is lately, they are probably close in quality anyway! Another thing on the list!

I went ahead and had the painters do quit a bit of patching while they were at it. Oh my! Did I end up with a mess on my hands! After they left, I spent the next six hours dusting everything we own, and vacuuming all the upholstery in the house! A white film covered it all, in-spite of drop cloths.

Other than the dust, which I is something the painters can only do so much about, I have been really pleased with this painting company! They have done all the painting in the new house, and they are FAST! I love fast.
Here is one guy using what looked like a blow dryer on the walls. I am sure it was more specialized than an actual blow dryer, but it seems to do the same job!

Two story family rooms. Still not my favorite. But it does feel fresher with the new color!

I have struggled with what to do with this fireplace since we moved in. It needs an update, but I am not sure how much money I want to put into it.
The new paint does help diffuse the gold undertones of it while I decide. So I am happy about that! I will probably end up leaving the tile for now and just worry about getting the t.v. positioned in a different spot over it. It is much too high right now, with a giant gaping hole behind it. It was built before the days of simplicity when it comes to televisions on the wall.

Another thing on the list!
 (P.S. the walls in the sunroom are grasscloth. I love grasscloth so much I wish I had more of it in my home. There are a million options when it comes to color and texture! So fun!)

Another view of the paint.

I framed the floor plan of the first home we owned, and built. Well, we still do own it, but we rent it out.
The plans have all of our notes and the added costs of what we debated upgrading scribbled in the margins. I love that we still have this and can see what we were concerned about back in 2003! I want to do a third frame with the sketch of the model we built on the front cover. I just need to dig up the plans from where I filed (threw) them!

My dirty little secret about this room?
While I was taking most of these pictures, I had a massive stack of unfolded laundry in the middle of the floor that I kept shifting around to get it out of the shot. Priorities right?

Another project I had been waiting to complete after the painting was done, was a gallery wall in the hallway upstairs that overlooks the family room, and front entry on the other side. I bought RIBBA frames from Ikea, and had our photos blown up at Kinkos. They can do it on their photo paper in a matte finish.
I love how it turned out, but the first round of frames I brought home were ALL broken! Del was nice enough to haul them back to Ikea for me, with the glass falling out and breaking all over the place because the wood was falling apart left and right. They replaced them kindly.

This hallway was in need of something on the walls! I am loving this!

I like to sit in Del's office while he works after we get the kids to bed. I can read or pull out my laptop in this chair. I bought a cool lamp at an antique shop when we moved in, and I guess it's age caught up to it, because it stopped working, and I am pretty sure it needs to be rewired.
I decided to go ahead and get a lamp I have had my eye on for a couple of years now. I bought a mirror from this company before we moved in, and it must be their thing, because both times the iteams from them have arrived, the packaging makes me panic! They are always boxed in the most massive boxes!

When the lamp arrived, Del was home, and he asked me if it was a coffin! It was that big! I reminded him about the mirror's box, and assured him I did not order a four foot wide lamp! The good news is, the lamp was definitely not damaged from shipping, and the kids had a box to play with for two weeks!

Oh, and that I love my lamp! I love lamps in general, one of my favorite home accessory pieces.
The rest of this room is a work in progress. On the list!

For the past couple of years, I have been collecting art in gold frames. I love the look, and I cannot explain why. This is my most recent find. I got it at an antique shop here in my town, and I love it! It was painted in the 1940's, and it came framed! It was such a good price for a framed painting! Online shops would have sold it for three times as much! I am eyeing another painting at the same antique store that will accept offers. I am going to come in low and see what happens. I think the other one belongs on my wall hanging right below this one!

This was another antique painting I found a while back in an art store. I did have to get this one framed. The framing cost more than the painting, but it makes such a big difference in the look of it!

This one is in my powder room.

Here are a few more of in my collection. One, I ordered from an One Kings Lane, one is from a thrift store and I had the matt switched out to white, and the plein air painting was done by one of Del's best friends growing up, Rick Kennington. He is very talented, and I hope to get more of his art for our home!
Is that thermostat not in the absolute worst place possible!? Right in the sight line from the front door too!
I have a sketch in a gold frame I saw in mind for my collection. One day. I love adding to my little collection!

A few months ago, I decided that I wanted the cabinets in our hall bath painted. They were in pretty bad shape actually, and the whole bathroom had a cute ocean theme. Cute, but not what I was going for.
I used the same color paint as the trim in our home, in an oil based finish. The guy at the paint store tried to steer my toward a water based, but I think when it comes to kids banging cabinet doors, and water, you just have to do the oil. They have made huge improvements to the oil based however, and I found the smell so much more bearable than it was even three and half years ago when I had my kitchen painted in my old home!
I have pulls to add to the top cabinet faux drawer fronts. I was debating doing it, but I think I will go ahead and put them on.

The white makes such a difference in here! I want to frame out the side of the cabinet with wood, but I am in no rush.

I wanted to do something to add a little UMPH! to this bathroom's builders grade cabinets, so I ordered these inlays online, glued them on, and then painted over them.

I am definitely going to do this same thing in our powder bath downstairs!

Here is the before, well, technically, mid sanding, shot of the bathroom, from the opposite angel.

Lastly, I found a cabinet to put under the television in the basement! We had our electronics sitting on the ground down there forever! I ordered these brass knobs for it separately. I love the hammered gold!

So, sorry to bore you if you hate home mumbo jumbo! Things have been busy, but it has been fun to see some small transformations!
Now I am in the middle of dealing with the far less fun issue of a leak in the roof! Yay!

I will end with a picture I took as I drove through the entry to our neighborhood. These trees line the drive. Popcorn popping on these trees for sure!

Will's Baptism

Will was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints this weekend.

We had such a wonderful day, filled with family and friends. It was so nice to be able to have loved ones at our home after the baptism to celebrate with us!

Will has been looking forward to the day he could make the decision to be baptized. In our church, eight is the age of accountability, when a child can understand right from wrong fully, and can make a decision about being baptized.

Del baptized Will. The white clothing symbolizes the renewal, and cleansing power of baptism. We baptize by immersion. Head to toe goes under, and there are two witnesses, in Will's case, both his grandpas, who watch the immersion to be sure that nothing sneaks to the top of the water.
Will only required one dunk on his day. Ha!
I remember that when I first started dating Del, he was asked to baptize his cousin, and he had to dunk him twice. Del did such a good job, but I remember he was not happy that he did not get it right the first time.

Walker and Annie. Two blonde cuties.

Will and his old mom. He is a good boy.

Del's mom makes a memory book for all of her grandkids at age eight. We put Will's book out on display along with his baptism invite.
Will is so funny! When his grandma gave him the book, he sat and read every word of it right then! He read every scrapbook sticker, and tiny blurb she had included. He got to a page that had the words "Office Depot" printed in the margin of the plastic page protector. He even read that with full enthusiasm!

Will asked his Grandma Rinquest to give a short talk on baptism before he went into the water, and his Grandma Laursen to give a talk on the Holy Ghost right before he was confirmed a member of the church. They both did such a nice job!

Because we live about fifteen minutes from our church, we knew that not all those who came to see Will baptized would be able to make it to our home for the luncheon, so we put together a donut and fruit bar to serve right after the baptism. We served our favorites from a small local donut shop. Country Donuts, fresh that morning. They are the yummiest!

We drove to our house in a big caravan of cars.

I wanted a family picture so I rounded up all of the kids. We needed a re-do because we took one outside before the baptism, and apparently, it was far too bright, because this squinty mess is what we ended up with! Ugg! It is so hard to get a good picture with our whole family!

Our friends, the Tysons, have the cutest little girl named Annie. When she heard me ordering people over for a picture, she sidled her way in there. It was so adorable! We all got a good laugh! I wish she were mine! We could use a sister around here, especially one as sweet as Annie!
Here is our daughter for a day.
I need a tan! I say that about every picture of myself, and it never seems to change.

Here we are with no Annie. See the difference, and how she makes everything more fun? Ha!

I forgot to snap some pictures of our table before, but here it is messed up a bit after we ate! I was happy to find that I had cute straws, plates and napkins on hand in my party storage!

Cucumber eyes. My cousin Brian, and his wife Shelby are in the background. It was so nice of them to make the drive up from Naperville for the baptism!

Del and Jared. Don't even get me started on how sad I am that more of our dear friends are moving away next month. I may have cried while talking to them about their plans.

Thanks to all who came! It was a great day!

Georgia Turns 6

We were so excited to have both sets of grandparents here to celebrate Georgia's birthday this year!

There is no doubt about it... we love our girlie!
She is a girly, girl living in a boys world. She loves to take care of her stuffed animals, and roll around in her new pink roller skates one moment, and wrestle a few brothers to the floor and put them in their place the next moment. She is suger and spice to the umpth degree.

Georgia has taken up the tedious hobby of copying story books onto white paper word for word.
She has small stacks of paper stapled together with page after page of books and illustrations, done by her of course.

Georgia loves the series Junie B. Jones.
Junie B. has changed this girl's life. She has suddenly found that books contain stories that leave you wanting to know what happens next. I think we have found the start of a love of reading.

Georgia is a fun shopping companion, master mess maker, scarily perceptive, surprisingly skillful cook, lover of animals (from a distance), mostly faithful retainer wearer, admirer of our nine year old neighbor girl, wild haired, independent little lady!

We love her so, and we are happy she is in our home!
We love you Georgia Janell!

Georgia started her birthday off by coming to the store with me to pick out her school treat. She chose donuts. I am sure that by this point in the school year her teacher is sick to death of birthday treats. She was less than thrilled to see the donuts.
Georgia's class got to go on a bowling field trip on her birthday. She told us she got a strike!

There were two thingsGeorgia told me for months she wanted. A pair of roller skates, and a mechanical  horse named Butterscotch.
I thought Butterscotch was overpriced. She told me she would be happy if that was all she got.

I bought her a pair of Barbie roller skates.

And, here she is opening Butterscotch. Yup, that is usually how it tends to go when it comes to Georgia.

As you can see, Georgia was anything but deprived when it came to presents. Grandmas and Grandpas' always seem to make that stack bigger and more exciting!

Georgia with her grandparents.

And some wild brothers.

Her she is feeding Butterscotch her first meal.

After presents, we loaded up and went to Portillo's for a yummy birthday dinner.  Georgia wore the crown the entire meal.
It was a good day for our pretty little sissy.

Next To Me

There is a song on the radio right now that I love.

I am actually kind of sad that it has found it's way to radio and now it is going to be completely overplayed, and get old. It has been around for a while, but is just taking off in the states. 

I go to a class at my gym that incorporates music into a yoga routine. It is called Bodyflow, and it is so fun. I first heard this song months and months ago there, and as the routines in Bodyflow are rotated, it is played on a fairly regular basis. 

I love it because it makes me think of Del. And while it may invoke memories of the burning in my thighs from sinking lower and lower into Warrior poses while I listened to it in class, it still makes me smile. I think the writer of this song must have a husband similar to Del.

It is called "Next To Me" sung by Emilie Sande.

My marriage to Del is my greatest blessing. And I am sorry for the times I may not treat it like it is. But I hope that even on my ornery days, Del knows, that I know, I am lucky to have a good man next to me. 

Del does not go with the popular flow for the sake of being popular. He makes hard decisions, and good decisions. He is dedicated to his family first and foremost. 

It has been ten years this month since we moved away from all of our family with a two month old baby. I have learned that there will always be ups and downs to life, and sometimes it is nice to have loved ones near by. When distance is an obstacle, or I may be lonely, he is always there, next to me.

Del and I were married young. At a time when many are out chasing the next exciting thing. Right from the start, Del has been willing to give up many of the whims of youth, to be there, next to me.

Sometimes those we think we can trust, betray. Sometimes it feels like life is targeting us unfairly. Sometimes friends have to leave. Sometimes we are sick, or sad. I have had all of those days. And every time, Del can be found next to me.

I happen to have a lot of friends, and family who have husbands with these same character traits, so I wanted to share.

I love Del, and I hope I can always make being next to me the place he most wants to be! It is so rare to find a song with such an upbeat message, and I swear it makes me want to grab that man and dance!

Next To Me

You won't find him drinkin' at the tables
Rolling dice and staying out 'til three
You won't ever find him being unfaithful
You will find him, you'll find him next to me

You won't find him trying to chase the devil
For money, fame, for power, out of grief
You won't ever find him where the rest go
You will find him, you'll find him next to me

Next to me ooh, ooh
Next to me ooh, ooh
Next to me ooh, ooh
You will find him, you'll find him next to me 

When the money's spent and all my friends have vanished
And I can't seem to find no help or love for free
I know there's no need for me to panic
Cause I'll find him, I'll find him next to me

When the skies are grey and all the doors are closing
And the rising pressure makes it hard to breathe
Well, all I need is a hand to stop the tears from falling
I will find him, will find him next to me

Next to me ooh, ooh
Next to me ooh, ooh
Next to me ooh, ooh
You will find him you'll find him next to me

Next to me ooh, ooh
Next to me ooh, ooh
Next to me ooh, ooh
You will find him you'll find him next to me

I have posted a lot of videos lately, but this a worth a listen.