You melt my heart, Valentine...

Today we made non-candy Valentine's gifts for the kiddos classes at school. We peeled and cut down lots of old crayons...

Baby girl looks excited, huh? Well, she was! She was the quality control manager at the table and came up with the process that I could slice the crayon paper with a butter knife, she would peel it and dad would cut them up...so we followed her orders.

I bought these cute little silicone heart-shaped muffin pans from Walmart for $3.50 each. We placed enough crayon pieces in each one to cover the bottom and then baked at 250 degrees for 15 minutes. When you pull them out of the oven, it looks like colored water but they dry in 15 minutes as the shape of the pan.

I designed the little cards to put them on and printed them on card stock. Madi helped slice them down to size on the cutter...and ta da!

Now we have 50 Valentine's Day gifts ready to go to school for $7!

That's what's up!

Since my last post (this is a long one!):

Madi graduated kindergarten and Noah passed the 4th grade. Madi's end of year awards included: kindergarten diploma, accelerated reader for Q4, academic excellence for Q4, outstanding achievement in art award and academic excellence for the ENTIRE school year. Noah's end of year awards included: physical fitness award for the 20 meter pacer, A-B honor roll and Right Moves For Youth member achievement. Lee and I received a Helping Hands award from the Multi-Age program that Madi is in. :)

I'm so proud of both of them for their accomplishments and Lee and I for surviving the first year with both kids in school! Whew, was that hard work!

We made end of year gifts for the teachers...all 7 of them!

and we made one for one of my favorite little monkeys that turned 2!

Madi also wrapped up her first year in "real" gymnastics at Lake Norman Gymastics Academy on June 3, by participating in their gymnastics show. She's still LOVING gymnastics and she's getting so much better at each class.

We got a new family member in April...a mini-dachshund. Her name is Maui...we had two separate opportunities to foster/adopt a dachshund that didn't work out for various reasons and the kids were heart broken. We got Maui from a breeder in SC. I can't get a good picture of her eyes, but they are blue and her markings are called "Isabella double-dapple." It's very rare to have a mostly white dachshund.

She'll be a year old on August 17 and is the softest and sweetest little pooch we've ever met. Some of her favorite past times include snuggling with mom, dad and the occasional dirty sock she finds, snagging clean clothes from laundry baskets to play with and biting her big black lab brother Diesel's ankles.

I plan to do a post on the kitchen soon. We aren't 100% finished. We are still waiting on our countertops and backsplash to be installed. We are bartering with the company and it is taking forever!

What we have completed ourselves: knocked a partial wall down, installed two new pantries, added molding to the tops and bottoms of the cabinets, painted all cabinets, shaved the kitchen ceiling popcorn, sanded and painted ceiling, repainted kitchen and living room, stenciled wall in living room and added moulding, installed new lighting fixtures in kitchen and rearranged the furniture. Boy, are we tired! I'm ready for it to be complete! Semi-before and after pictures to come! I've also completed several other projects that I'll post soon. We've been busy! Until then...

Picture This...

So, a few weeks ago we (read: me...the hubs "hates" to paint and weaseled out) painted the living room and kitchen from a light olive green to a neutral khaki. Lee patched all of the walls for me so that I could start fresh - and until last night I haven't been able to commit to putting anything back up, I just didn't know what I wanted to do.

And then it came to me...I wanted a photo wall (AKA, lots of hanging...another project the hubs doesn't enjoy!) - we don't have a stairwell, so we used a wall in our living room. I'm a person of symmetry and I usually like everything to be all "matchy-matchy." But, I didn't want to spend any money so we hung frames that we already had. I think I like that all of the frames aren't the same. What do you think?

These are some of my favorite photos! Funny story...the one on the bottom right hand corner (smootchy smootchy) was taken EXACTLY one year to the day before we got married. Who knew! We weren't even engaged at that point, we took it at a kiosk in a mall in Hickory and it has the date etched on the bottom. Love was in the air! And boy that was a looonnggg time ago. 12 years to be exact.

Here are a few more angles...no judging, please. TV really hasn't played a huge role in our family, so we are probably the last ones in America with an old-school TV in the living room (we have one in the master bedroom, which is where we watch our shows at night though!). :) It's on the list...but sometimes I'd rather take a vacation or do something fun instead, ya know?!

See that big black thing on the edge of the chaise? That's Diesel. Our 90 lb. black lab. He weighs more than my other two children...God bless us. Chuckles is peeking in the photo on the right hand side too - in our small house it's almost impossible to take a photo without someone in the way. It's well lived in.

I'm not happy with the furniture in our living room...the couch is ok, could use a good upholstery cleaning, but the other pieces are too big for the space and I want to consolidate them into one piece. It, too, shall be replaced...eventually. I have plans, if only I had all the money for them!! It's very neutral right now, I've been thinking of ways to add color...I love color! I welcome any suggestions! I bought a cute little green table at the antique show last weekend, pictures of that will be posted soon. Until then...

Happy Trellis To You...

So, what's been on my mind lately?? Trellis. Yes, that's right, I said it...trellis! I'm not sure why, but this is my favorite pattern right now. We are currently re-doing our kitchen/living space and I have become obsessed with this pattern, it will definitely be making an appearance! I saw it used on the shutters of a house on HGTV and just LOVE it! That channel is going to be the death of me...

I love this wall, but I don't know if I can commit.

And this rug...now that's an idea!
And a few fun trellis accessories...

One of these years I'll finally be done painting, decorating and rearranging everything in our home...probably when I'm dead!

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Today's Project

I've wanted to paint our front door for the last 10 years, but I haven't been able to commit to any one color so it's remained the original color since we moved in - black. It's strange, I've painted every room in our house at least twice since we've lived here, but I haven't been able to commit to a new color for the front door. Our house is khaki colored and our shutters and door are black so any color would look good really. Last weekend I chose a light seafoam green color, "Tranquil Bay" and stewed over it all week. Today I finally did it! I painted the door...and I love it!! It looks blue in the picture, but it's really more of a green than a blue.

I plan to replace the door hardware and weather stripping soon...that's my next project! It, too, is 10 years old in March! Where has the time gone??!!

Dum Dum Lollipop Topiary Trees

You asked for it! I'm finally getting around to posting the pics of the Dum Dum lollipop trees that I made for the kiddos classes for Valentine's Day. They were surprisingly easy to make once I knew how many suckers fit on the foam ball. Just a tip if you plan on making one...a 6" ball holds around 350 suckers and is WAY too heavy to stand up. We ended up needing just a 3" foam ball, which took about 180 suckers and could stand on it's own once everything was glued into place in the bucket. That in itself is still A LOT of suckers!

But it makes me happy when Madi comes home and reports that she got to pick a sucker off of the dum dum tree because she was good. I have a feeling that her class tree will be missing all the purple suckers soon! :) Noah hasn't given me that report yet...I wonder what that means??!!?? :)

I wanted to include the second picture as well. Noah came up with this idea and built it on his own for his Pawpaw for his birthday.

He spelled "I Love You" out of Legos. I love that kid.

Purplicious!

Madi decided last year that her new favorite color was purple and wanted her room to be just like her favorite book...Purplicious! So, I painted two of her walls purple. The two remaining walls are off-white and I've had a terrible time trying to figure out what to put on one of them, so for a few months now she's had one large off-white wall with nothing on it. :)

She's huge into art, so I thought it would be cool to come up with a way for her to display her artwork. We found 8 ugly frames at Goodwill for $1/each, took them apart and painted them various shades of purple. At Michael's we found scrapbook paper with purple patterns and placed magnetic material behind the paper inside the frames (the kind used for advertising on cars, courtesy of dad!). Add a few magnets and less than $20 later we have a wall full of art!

Today we finally hung them up on the wall in crazy directions. I'm sure she'll have them filled up with all kinds of art soon!