Best Investment Ever, Right Christian?

This trampoline is saving the summer!

Home Improvement: Phase Five and Six

Phase five would be the dismantling and redesign of the mantle. It turned out beautifully. Courtesy of Chestnut Brothers, again.

Phase Six would be new paint throughout the upstairs, stained mantle, railing, and painted wainscoting. We love how it turned out!

Home Improvement: Phase Four

Phase Four? Who's counting at this point? Really?

We are really happy with the cabinets and countertops in the basement bar area. It just really feels good to have it nearly done. New paint all around too!

Home Improvement: Phase Three

I don't really know where we are at this point... I think this is the part where the Chestnut Brothers encased our entryway in wainscoting. However, at this point, I've lost track of projects and the amount of sawdust in our home.

Before

After

Home Improvement: Phase Two

The moving of all the furniture to put in the new carpet! It was fun at first, but quickly got a little tricky!

The old carpet got ripped up and taken away.

While the carpet is gone and the furniture is moved, let's repaint the whole house. This decision led to another rabbit hole of projects....

Home Improvement: Phase One

We decided it was time to update a few things in our house. It started out with flooring, new carpet to be exact. But it soon spiraled out of control. I've never really liked the look of this railing. There are so many wonderful things about our house, and I always felt like I could deal with the look of the railing. Until, I picked out the new carpet, then I new it was time for some major changes.

A big thank you to the Chestnut Bros. company for lending their expertise and incredible wood working skills.. This is a project that has taken on a life of it's own, and we'll be living in sawdust for a while...

Power saw!

New posts, courtesy of the Chestnut Bros.

So much sawdust!

The finished product, before stain. Now, to decide what color to stain it...

Home Remodel Project, Coming Soon...

The banister and railing are going to be replaced, very soon. Stay tuned for the upcoming before and after photos. I have a feeling the rest of the summer is going to be full of saw dust and paint...

It's Boring

I spent a significant amount of time and sanity on writing a Department of Labor grant. We received the directive to write the grant with only 6 weeks until the grant deadline. I'll spare the  details of the grant and the writing, and suffice it to say it was a cluster of coordinating efforts and creative writing. When I asked Carter to give the final 30 page manuscript a once over, he proclaimed, "It's Boring!" He was right. It was.

Brace Face Day

We knew it would happen eventually! Those beautiful choppers needed to be tamed.

 

Before

 

After

Easter Time

Pillow Project

I made these pillows with the extra fabric from the backdrop used at Bethany and Dorothy's wedding reception. I dyed it with some fabric dye from the craft store and I think they turned out pretty cute. I also bought a bunch of other fabric, but have since changed my mind on my previous pillow ideas. I'm not sure if I'll ever get this whole living room/decorating thing to come together.

Taking Down Christmas

And just like that, it was all over. All the Christmas programs and the Christmas shopping, all the Christmas parties and Christmas decorating. It comes and goes so quickly. Did I take time to enjoy it? Or, did I spend all my time and energy running around like a crazy? Maybe some of both?

 

As I took the decorations down I thought a lot about how I want to remember the holidays and things that I can do better in the future to reduce stress and make the time enjoyable for everyone, even me.

 

Here are a few pictures of the decorations as they were being put away.

 

Our tree of 9 years finally bit the big one, and whole sections refused to stay lit. We'll be buying a new tree next Christmas.

 

We received a lot of cards from family and friends and displayed them on a little tree in the entry way.

 

We made a Christmas count down with pictures of Jesus and a scripture to go with each day in December leading up to Christmas.

Bethany and Steve Shall Be Wed

So, when Bethany called me in a panic about what to give Steve for his birthday I jokingly said, "since you got engaged on your birthday....why do you get married on his?" We got a good laugh about the idea, but after about 10 minutes of laughing and Bethany giving me all the reasons it couldn't be done, she was suddenly on board.

 

In a matter of several hours my friend Beth, her husband Gary, my friend Brooke, and I threw together a pretty beautiful wedding. Bethany and Steve took care of the legal paperwork, while we made a pretty sweet backdrop and fashioned some table decorations.

 

Thanks to Beth and Brooke for donating so much of their time and their resources like personal home decorations and a million twinkle lights. We stayed up late getting all the decorations ready, and it was pretty perfect considering that we got this idea on a Thursday evening and they were married on Saturday afternoon.

Bethany wrote and read some very heartfelt and beautiful vows to Steve. He went with a less prepared and more humorous style vow.

Caleb thought the whole thing was pretty weird, so he took this selfie of us while he was sitting on my lap.

Christian did a great job of marrying them, and they were both very happy.

As Caleb would say, "Ewwww a first kiss!"

The Casey's

The Casey's

The Gilson-Casey's

The Gilson-Casey's plus Caleb.

I think these two are in for several years of midget wrestling!

Throwing Fits and Doing Projects

Caleb refused to take another step at the family fun run 5k, and he was not kidding. He literally would not move his legs any longer. I had to call Christian to come and pick him up so that the rest of us could finish the race.

 

Christian and Frank started, what turned out to be, the summer-long project of adding an RV pad to he side of our house and ripping up and replacing the existing concrete.