Three Projects...

i recently finished three "around the house" projects...and i am so glad to have them done:)

meet our shoe basket, it didn't used to have a liner, but i measured out the interior dimensions and sewed one up in the course of a couple of old school Care Bears episodes.

much better! now maybe we won't get mounds of sand on our tile:)

the next project i was super excited about because we finally took down our horrid vertical blinds (sorry no before picture) but you know the kind right? long, attached at the top and they get stuck all the time or come off all the time when your 2.5 year old pretends they are roads for his cars...and the plastic or vinyl they are made out of would break all the time at the place they were connected at the top...annoying!

so i went to a "no sale garage sale" swap kind of deal a while ago, and found a LONG curtain rod, with some brackets and thought, "that is ideal for our sliding door problem!" and then it sat in the garage for a while.  Then i bought a drop cloth with intents to make it into the curtains...it was too small.   Then a couple of weeks later i bought another drop cloth...bigger this time.  Then i looked around for ideas for a couple of weeks (you can see how this process was very long right?) anyway, long story short (too late Jen!) i decided on trying out this method of making a zig zag pattern, or chevron, using squares instead of piecing triangles together, which sounded like more work than i wanted to do:)  

i tried out this method really with the intent to make a baby quilt for baby girl who is due in November, but this was a good way to get a feel for the process and see if i liked it.  Turns out i like it a lot in small doses, but i don't think i want to do a whole quilt of it...another reason i'm not a quilter..i digress...

but i couldn't decide on a specific color scheme, so i decided to go with all colors, in a kind of color blocking/ ombre kind of effect...i don't know if it actually gives that effect, but i do like it A LOT!

yay for curtains!

the third project, was something i really needed! being pregnant and having some vein issues in one leg, gave rise to the idea that i NEEDED an ottoman when i sit on the couch.  NEED!  so i looked and looked for a table to make into an ottoman...cause i am cheap and felt like i wanted to make one instead of buy one for upwards of $150 for the size i wanted.

so i found this table at Goodwill for $30. It's BIG:)

getting ready to paint, i used a plastic table cloth for my drop cloth...at this point i got attacked by ANTS, so no more pictures of the paint process! sorry, but i will say i didn't prime (GASP) this time, because i wanted to sand it and have wood show through at the end. I sprayed it on (much to the kids' frustration, they wanted to help), Krylon Navy color spray paint.

i stenciled the smaller drop cloth with doilies, what looks like brown is actually gold, it's sparkly:)

there's Avery...gives you some size reference.  ***EDIT/ADDED: the table is topped with a 3 inch thick piece of foam from Joann's, which i got when their foam was on sale a week or so ago.  The fabric is staple gunned onto the table, around the foam.

distressed legs...

AHHHHH....so nice to be able to put my feet up! I love it!!!!

total cost: table $30, drop cloth $15 (i think), paint $4, foam (on sale) $30ish, sandpaper and paint i already had....so for about $80 i have an ottoman!!! yahooo!!!

Today is Christian's Birthday...

Christian Hartley Wilson was born a year ago today, he weighed 7lbs. 9 oz. and was absolutely perfect!!!  We remember today as a very happy day when he entered our family, and blessed us with his sweet, loving spirit.  He had "old-soul" eyes...we recognized that pretty early on...and we found out, he was a very patient little guy as well.

the spirit in our home while he was with us, really was different.  It is hard to describe, but it was very sweet and peaceful, even when things got stressful with his being in the hospital etc.

Today our little family is one member short, but we feel his spirit with us.  We visited his memorial marker today, with new flowers, a birthday balloon, and pinwheels to make it festive:)  

We also ate cupcakes (thanks Doti for making them!) in honor of his first birthday.

We are very thankful that Christian came to our family, if just for a short time on Earth. We know that we will be together with him again.

Happy Birthday, we love you sweet Christian...and we miss you very much.

Miss A turns 5!!!

this is our Avery. She turned 5 today (aug 12th).  Amazing to think that it's already been five years since she arrived in our family.  She is dynamic and lovely, smart and friendly.  She loves art; painting, drawing, stamping, coloring...anything like that. She is opinionated and sassy at times, but always very loving.  She LOVES babies, she LOVES her brothers, even though she'll tell you sometimes they annoy her:)  Avery LOVES to wear skirts, she REALLY LOVES chocolate...she ADORES her daddy, and she likes her mom okay too;)

we love having her in our family.  she is a spot of sunshine and a stinker, all rolled into one:) happy birthday my love!

Happy Birthday and Tom Sawyer...

Today is Kendall's Birthday!!!! He's 31...and so AWESOME!  he's a great dad, a fantastic husband, he works really hard for our family and is good at pretty much everything:)  We love him SO much and hope that he is having a GREAT birthday (even though he has to work;( but we made him a special breakfast, gave him presents and i'm taking him out tonight...then a family party on Sunday, which is actually Avery's birthday:)  we have to do joint family parties for them...two birthdays in 5 days just requires it!!!

so happy birthday to the BEST guy i know:) love you honey!!!


today we had a Tom Sawyer experience...have you read the classic by Mark Twain? There is a part in it where Tom has to whitewash the fence and he convinces other kids in the neighborhood to help him, without them really realizing it, he just proposes it as something fun or that he only wants to do because it's so fun and they end up begging to help....

i digress...

I had some fun patriotic decorations up (until this morning) (no comments on how long they were up:)) and this was one grouping of them...see the beans in the jars???

so i was taking everything down and i thought it would be good to separate out all the beans into colors and put them away separated so if i wanted to use them for something else, they'd already be color separated...so i proposed it to the kids as a project for them (and me:) to do together and a way they could "help mommy" and they thought it was awesome! they got right to work and were awesome at it!!!  we had three bowls to put the colors in and they did almost the entire large bowl of mixed beans (i helped some:))!!! 

i was very impressed with them, they were really good helpers (i already knew they were but this was kind of tedious and they didn't complain at all:))

good lessons learned from Tom Sawyer:)

first day of school...almost 2 weeks later...

ethan started school July 19...so two weeks later, i figure is a good time to post pics:)

big first grader...good example of the LARGE gap in his mouth from those two front teeth that are missing:)  

sibling shot:)  they sure love ethan, as do we all.  what a sweet 7 year old boy he is.  opinionated, passionate, stubborn, thoughtful, sweet, loving, cuddly, smart and curious.  he loves to learn, and really enjoys school, we are proud of him and love him to pieces...just like those two jokers next to him:)  

sweet little people

Birthday Parties...

Ethan had a total of 3 birthday parties, one with my family in UT, a spiderman party with friends and one with the AZ Wilson family:)  he is very loved and blessed, that is for sure!  it is hard to believe he is 7...and a toothless wonder, i might add.  before we went to UT he lost one of his front teeth and when we got back, he lost the other one...so now he has a gaping hole in the front of his mouth...i'll have to get a picture of it, to document...it's quite a sight:)

friends came to the spiderman birthday, and colored in their activity books until everyone arrived, and got spiderman tattoos...

then they each picked a string of yarn and followed it through this giant spiderweb i made to get their spiderman masks

we did a balloon pop, we played a scavenger hunt for spiderman pictures and traded them in for candy, we went to the grassy area across from our house and had a silly string fight...we played pin spidey in the web (like pin the tail on the donkey) and had party food (pizza, chips, watermelon etc) and cupcakes:)

and a fun time was had by all!

they each got these party bags with their names on them...with some fun stuff in them...

spiderman masks

Activity books...

pillowcases i made for them that had their initial on the spider painted on (this pillowcase is ethan's and is a store bought one)

and some spiderman ring pops and pop rocks....

fun times for birthday parties:)

Ethan had a Birthday...Shout HOORAY!!!

after kendall and i had our trip we were home for a little bit and then we went to UT for my niece Dellah's Baptism.  We drove there and decided to stay until the 4th of July, and we drove back on the 4th.  Ethan's birthday was on the 2nd of July.  it was such a treat to be able to celebrate his birthday with my family, he really enjoyed it!

SEVEN years old!!!!! i am having a hard time believing it!!!

 YUM-O!!

 aunt Erin,uncle Gabriel, Theo and Dellah

opening presents, my mom at the end of the table...

another day in UT, my dad and the kids having a cheeto break on the porch!

we went swimming at Dimple Dell (indoor pool with a play structure and slides) on Ethan's birthday, also while we were there we took the kids to Temple Square, visited some museums and visitor centers, went to the new City Creek Mall (which is HUGE and amazing!) and had a great time with family!

thanks family, as always, we love you and miss you!!!  and we had a GREAT time!

Last DC post...PROMISE!

i know, are we done yet?  that's what you're thinking, and yes, this is the last post about our DC trip. Our last day in DC we went to Mt. Vernon (George Washington ancestral home, Arlington Cemetery and the Jefferson Memorial.

Mt. Vernon from the front

Mt. Vernon from the back

turn around, with the house behind you and this is the view..beautiful!

Washington's Tomb

Arlington Cemetery....the thing that surprised me the most about Arlington was how MASSIVE it is.  I mean, you know there are lots of soldier buried there, but it is HUGE! so many graves of brave men and women who died serving our country and protecting our freedoms.  i felt very thankful.

the Kennedy's Graves

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier...we saw the changing of the guard which only happens 2 times a day i believe. that was very cool

Jefferson memorial, from the...back? i'm not sure which side to call it, but there's cute Kendall:)

same side of the Jefferson memorial, just closer

Gigantic statue of Jefferson himself, the thing that was kind of sad about this memorial, that we hadn't seen on any others, was the words on the walls....they must have been made of copper or something because they were turning green and (the other side of the wall, not the one pictured) had lines of oxidized run-off down the wall.  so ribbons of greenish gunk running through the letters of the words.  presumably from weather and moisture, staining the marble/stone that makes up the walls.

another super fun thing we did...this trip is actually an anniversary trip, that we took early.  our anniversary is in December, 10 years woo woo! but in December we will have a very new small person (who happens to be a girl!!! yay!!!) in our house (yahoo:)) so we took the trip early.  i had never ridden in a limo, and kendall always said that for our 10th anniversary, he would take me out in one. well, lo and behold, he surprised me with one while we were on vacation! very fun! funny story though...while the driver was waiting in the turn around at the hotel, she had her door open to get out and another car tried to sneak past the limo, but hit the door, wrenching it back toward the front of the limo! making it so that the door wouldn't close and the limo could not be driven! when we arrived downstairs, a police officer was there with the limo driver, and the driver of the other car... another limo came to pick us up 15 or so minutes later...this time a white one:)  so i actually got TWO limos:)