Easter

For the Saturday before Easter April 7th we went to Uncle Van's house for our annual Easter Egg Hunt. The girls love this tradition. Grandma is living at Uncle Van's house and when she first moved there Kate took Grandma around the property showing her all the spots where she found an egg from the previous year. So a whole year later and she still remembers, this must be important to her.

 Emily and Baby Brock

For Easter Sunday we went to Nana's. We hadn't been down to see nana in such a long time and we were missing her so much so this was such a fun treat. We always have a great time with family because we don' get to see them very often.

The Easter Candy The girls got from Nana....each girl got their own bag filled with all this stuff.

Easter Morning at our house, before we went to Nana's. I have a really cute video of Lydia trying to wake up Kate to tell her the Easter chocolate was down stairs. She kept getting the words mixed up and would say the chocolate bunny came to our house. Kate wanted to know if there were bunny prints in the house...something I told her the bunny did from the year before that she must have remembered. The big hit this year in the Easter baskets were the make-up kits, just some lipgloss and nail polish...the girls loved getting make overs! They also got some cute disney princess night gowns. Poor baby Brock...didn't get anything this year. The Easter bunny was spread thin this year, since we just got home from a week long vacation from Virginia Beach.

Family Photo's

Fun Stuff with Kate

Kate is so excited about a lot of things lately. Mostly things that mean to me that she is growing up. Last week I discovered she had a tooth coming in behind her baby tooth, and she hasn't lost that baby tooth and in fact it's just a tad loose. We had her 6month check up the next day and the dentist told her to start wiggling that baby tooth, that adult tooth is coming in and needs room. If it's not out in 6 weeks we have to go back in and "help" that tooth out. I told her to start wiggling it every day and to eat lots of apples and carrots...which she is doing!

Kate is also preparing to enter kindergarten in the fall. Today her preschool went on a field trip to the elementary school. She loved what she saw and was sad there wasn't enough to time to stay and play in the classroom. She is going to have a great year next year and is so ready for school. I think she is more excited about riding the school bus. Kate struggles with new stuff and change so to hear that she is so excited about this huge change is a great thing.

Kate's half birthday happens to be today. Kate has been talking a lot about her 6th birthday, a lot. She is basically planning it for me. And today I told her it was 6months away from today, she was so excited to tell daddy when he got home from work that is was only 6 days away. I don't think she realizes how far 6 months is. She knows her birthday is right before Halloween. She told Brock and I that Daddy is going to take her to the mall while I stay home and put up decorations for the party and when they get home everyone is going to jump out and say "surprise"! I guess we are having a surprise party for Kate for her birthday. Although is it much of a surprise when you plan it yourself!

I mentioned how much Kate loves Halloween. Today she was telling everyone in our family what they are going to be for Halloween. Daddy is going to be a salamander, Baby B a dragon, L a princess...I didn't make the cut. Love this girl Kate!

Showing off a 4month old!

I have to show off pictures I took of my beautiful baby boy! I took them about a month ago when he was about 4.5months old, now he is 5.5 months old. I want to take some more of him this week to see how much he has changed in a month. Before I do that I need to show these pictures off. I took them with my Canon Rebel using a 50mm 1.8/f lens . I'm starting to get into photography a little and it so much fun to have a baby to work with for photo shoots. If I'm lucky he'll be the one kid of mine who doesn't mind being photographed. My girls are hard to snap shots of hence why I hardly post pictures of them!

I have to show off pictures I took of my beautiful baby boy! I took them about a month ago when he was about 4.5months old, now he is 5.5 months old. I want to take some more of him this week to see how much he has changed in a month. Before I do that I need to show these pictures off. I took them with my Canon Rebel using a 50mm 1.8/f lens . I'm starting to get into photography  a little and it so much fun to have a baby to work with for photo shoots. If I'm lucky he'll be the one kid of mine who doesn't mind being photographed. My girls are hard to snap shots of hence why I hardly post pictures of them!

Hayley's Surprise 18th Birthday Party

My oldest niece,Hayley is turning 18 next week. Her totally cutie pie boyfriend along with her family threw together a completely amazing surprise birthday party for her. How cute is that? They have been dating over a year now and are such a great couple. I have so many fun memories of Hayley from when she was a little tyke and growing up, going to school. I've watched her turn from a total Tom Boy into a girlie-makeup/clothes/shoes/purse loving lady!
The cover story was that the family was going to the zoo and then having a family bbq afterwards. Mom was going to call her and ask her to swing by Hill High (a country store that sells pies) to pick up some pies. In the back of the store is an art studio and they rent out rooms and the loading dock for parties. The place use to be an old apple plant. It was such a cool place for a party. Had that vintage feel and the kids had so much fun running all over the place with old crates and "junk" laying around. Anyways, Jamie the boyfriend was going to say "hey we should walk around to look at some of the art and stuff" and they were going to end up where we were.
The birthday girl is a huge "breakfast at Tiffany's fan" Mostly she loves that style, Audrey Hepburn look. So that was the theme.

 The cake made by her grandmother on her mom's side (her dad is my brother)

 Ella (Hayley's sister)hanging homemade flowers in the "breakfast with Tiffany" colors

Andrea, the Birthday girl's mom, takes a break to snuggle a baby. She worked so hard on this party, and it was worth it

A view of where it was held, it totally looks all trashy but it really was cool, lots of windows and stone work, there was a really nice wine tasting restaurant right next to us, and a really cool art gallery in the building too, that big ball hanging up is from the art gallery!

 The sunglasses, tiara and nail polish called "For Audrey" 

Her she is!

 Cousins, Violet, Kate and Lydia

 Hayley with her boyfriend, Jamie

A group photo of everyone who came for the surprise party!

After the party we all went back to Warren's house to see the 7 kittens they are fostering. They were cute but not enough to tempt me into coming home with one! Kate loved them and couldn't leave them so I left her there to spend the night. Apparently there were lots of people there, left over from the party and Kate got overwhelmed and asked to have some "alone time" because all the people and noise where making her "sad". Kate is not a crowd person at all! Warren took her to a bedroom and let her lay down on a bed with a book until the house cleared out a bit. Lydia and the baby fell asleep for the night on the way home. It felt so good to have some alone time myself. I was going to clean the house and read a book when I heard a noise coming from the garage. Then Tilly started to bark, I went to go check what was going on and when I saw Emily and Justin coming in! They scared the crap out of me! They decided to spend the night with me because Van wanted to stay with the kitty's too. We ended up having so much fun just hanging out. Brock was out of town this weekend so he wasn't around for the party.

Lazy Glazing Sunday

So I have several project that I'm getting to around the house. And since it's a rainy indoor spring day it made it the perfect day to work on a project. I picked an easy one to start with. It took about 10 minutes but the results were fantastic! I have an antique bed for Kate, I slept in the same bed when I was her age. It was old, brown and sorta blah. About two years ago I painted it a creamy color, it's livened up right away and is now very shabby chic. I love it now, but it was lacking something. The bed has amazing hand carved detailing in it, and the creamy white paint really masks it. My sister told me about a technique called "glazing", and she learned it from this blog. It really adds that finished touch to shabby chic furniture. Here are some before and after pictures. Oh, I have more glazing projects ahead, so be on the look out. I can't wait to show off a set of dressers I just picked up from a local antique store, along with a few other amazing treasures!

Here's before the glazing. See how white it is, and there is so much detailing but it sorta gets forgotten about. Glazing helps make the detail POP out.

And here's the foot board, glazed

The head board, before glazing. So pretty but....

Here's the same headboard after glazing it. I think it makes a huge difference.

The whole bed, painting it took about 3-4 days an hour each day. Glazing took 10-20 min. Love love love the results!

Blogging Again?? What??

I can't wait to start blogging again?? I think? I feel ashamed when I think of how long it's been since I last blogged. A whole year and a half gone and I didn't even blog once. My mind not being very sharp these days can't remember that period of time very well to record all the details of what our family did and experience.It's gone forever. I'm sad about this....I mean a whole year and a half. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I need to start blogging again. I can't change the past, but I can make up for it and I still have today. I've stumbled across a few blogs lately and for some reason they have really touched me, like answers to a prayer that I need to be blogging and recording my journal. I'll link to those blogs because they really mean a lot to me. How life can change in an instant. So I'm blogging again. I'm going to try and make up for the past and record the present so in my future can be bright! Here's one of the blogs that has inspired me to get my rear in gear and blog. You really do just never know.