I strongly dislike painting....

So, being the frugal gal that I am, I decided to paint my table and chairs as opposed to buying a new set. Wouldn't you all rather paint your old stuff than buy new stuff??? Okay, well, maybe not, but you gotta do what you gotta do. So, back in oh, ...say....February...I bought all of the paint to do the project. I had 5 chairs, a table, a sofa table and a bench. Piece. of. cake.

I just love a good before picture, don't you? It's kind of thrilling frankly.

BEFORE

(don't mind the naked child with the camo shorts in the background...I told him he couldn't help unless he took off his nice clothes....)

DURING

(don't mind the lady in the pajamas with no makeup on. It's not even me. Besides, what's wrong with wearing pajamas at 3:30 in the afternoon...nothing!)

Still during....Bridger is experimenting with the art of abstract photography...I guess...

AFTER!!!!

Yeah! Those chairs were a pain in the you-know-what to paint. All those annoying rungs--the drips--the horrid smell. I have to admit that the first few brush strokes were pretty exhilarating, but the rest was pure torture. I've read those blogs that show the amazing before and afters of their adorable furniture makeovers--I just want everyone to know what they're getting into :)

Now for the bench. I forgot to take a before pic of this, so here is the only one I could find...I have no idea why I took this picture or what the kids are doing, but here you go:

BEFORE

AFTER

It turned out so great! I spray painted this one--kind of a butter yellow color (although it doesn't show up as such in the picture...) Spray painting is wonderful, but for this big of a piece it did kind of make my finger hurt and it was super smelly...I'm just sayin'...

Now onto the table. I forgot again to take a before picture, but luckily I could find one out of my massive photo archive.

BEFORE

Oh yeah, here's another (it was moving day, don't judge me)

AFTER!!

I love it, it's not perfect, but I am very happy with it. Although I do have a little of Pavlov's Dog Syndrome (pretty sure that's not the technical term for it...) I can't look at the table without smelling that horrible paint smell. I've never had such an aversion to the smell of paint before! I think maybe it was because I had to get up close and could therefore smell it more??? I have no idea...

And last but not least, here is the sofa table that should have been finished say...2 years ago? One night I got ancy and took a bottle of black craft paint to it. I know, that was dumb. I have always meant to finish it, but never did....until now....

BEFORE

AFTER!!!!

I even got the cutest little handles for them. They are just like the one from Anthropologie, which I LOVE, but I saved myself a drive and got them at Hobby Lobby.... It's hard to tell, but they're kind of sea foam green. My favorite part of the whole table!
Aaaaahhhh, it's so nice and shiny now. So nice.....
So, I got this amazing temple print from a friend and a photographer, but I needed a frame. At first I searched thrift shops and antique stores for something really amazing...but there was nothing. So I went to the next logical spot...Ross :) I found a mirror there with a decent frame for $10. I had spray painting on the brain.

BEFORE

AFTER

I sprayed it an apple green color--and I am so thrilled with it! I am so tempted to spray paint every single frame in my house! Don't worry, I haven't...yet... It might be a little much....

And I just had to share this fun old suitcase I found. It still has all of it's travel stickers--Orient Express, Ethiopia, Paris, New York--soooo cute! I keep my current craft projects in it. That way I can clear off my table every once in a while and just stuff it all into an old suitcase :)

Another round of 'isms'

My kids are crazy. They are entertaining to say the least. I keep a little notebook of all the funny things they say to me--and sometimes I just have to share a few. Kennedy is becoming quite the little "queen". She loves talking on the phone ("Oh, hi Daddy! Yes. Okay. Uh huh. Okay. Love you. Bye.") and she loves relaxing in front of the television--her body language is just so funny sometimes!

She LOVES to get dressed up--this was after Grandma curled her hair and painted her nails. I think she looks a little like Shirley Temple--and she definitely acts the part!

Her favorite thing to do, however, is dress herself. She likes to mix her clothes and Bridger's clothes, and sometimes she even puts on my clothes. She walked into my closet yesterday--pointed at a skirt of mine and said: "I love your red skirt mommy! Where did you get it? I really like it." She would have worn it in a heartbeat.

And now that she's discovered princess books and movies, there is no stopping her. We brought home a bag full from the library--she has all the story lines memorized now. She can tell you what happens to each of the princesses in each of the books. Really, the only princess movie we have seen is Sleeping Beauty, but she still knows who they all are (except she calls Belle, Belt, but that's just a technicality :) )

She is always concerned about every scratch and bruise that she finds on me, and she'll pretend to kiss it and say: "better now?" I have to buy skim milk at the grocery store because it has a pink lid and anytime we're at a store, she points out all the "cute" things she would like to have. She is such a little mommy/princess. When Bridger calls out superman, she calls out super princess. Batman? Bat princess. Spiderman? Spider princess. The list goes on......

But as crazy and funny as she is, she still has a ways to go to compete with the crazy things Bridger says to me everyday. First of all, here he is after he fell asleep in time out with no pants on. Why isn't he wearing pants? I have no idea. But I took a picture anyway....

We had company over one night, and since Bridger was bitter that he couldn't stay up, he kept complaining that we were too loud. Well, Jer went and got his earmuffs (that he uses for yard work) and put them on Bridger. Bridger loved that idea! He slept with them on for two weeks. Sure it made his ears a little sweaty, but he went right to sleep!

If complaining from his room that we were too loud doesn't get him enough attention when people are over, he'll try other, more creative, tactics. This particular night, a green blob crept closer and closer to us, all the way from upstairs, until it was underneath the table. The blob would touch people's toes every now and then. I thought ignoring the blob would help, but in the end, the blob had to be destroyed...sort of....

The other day Bridger was busy playing with his cars and trucks. He kept talking to me and giving me the play by play of what was going on. Well, I have to admit that I wasn't really listening, but kept responding with the automated "that's awesome, Bridger". After a few times of that, it got quiet. Bridger finally responded with: " Awesome? Why do you keep saying awesome? I just told you all my cars have crashed and are on fire. That's not awesome!" I learned a very valuable lesson that day.... Maybe say "wow" from now on? :)

In church the other day, we kept hearing a thumping noise (probably some other child kicking the bench). Bridger was beginning to look a little uncomfortable--he turned to Jer and said: "Dad, is there a giant coming?"
Right now I am painting our kitchen table and chairs and Bridger has had a great time "helping" me. I was hesitant at first to let him help--at least until I received this threat: "Please let me help you paint the table! If you don't, I'll go on a hike with an alligator, and he'll probably eat me all up. So you better let me help!" Gotta give him creative points for that one--although he'd never go through with it :)

And then he told me this the other day: "Mom, for some reason the idea of eating butter every day is stuck in my head. I can't get it out! Can you please get me some water? I think that will help wash the idea out of my head." Crazy! What does that even mean? How should I even respond to that???

And on one last random note, I just had to take a picture of my kids apple-eating-techniques. On the left is Bridger, he prefers to bore down the middle, leaving lots on the top and bottom. Kennedy is on the right--she prefers to hold the apple in one chubby hand and then eat from top down until she swallows some seeds, then she's done......Can't say I blame her.

We won $10!!!

Last weekend was our city's chalk art competition. It sounded like a fun thing to do with the kids, so I signed us up, knowing full well that I have absolutely no artistic experience or talent. Yes, I have my areas of creativity, but drawing is not one of them. The theme was "folklore" which I thought encompassed just about everything, but it still took me a long time to come up with a picture. Since Bridger was my helper, I thought that we should draw something that would interest him, like a John Deere Tractor. That was a joke. I even tried using the grid system, but somehow it was unrecognizable upon completion. So, I gave up on that venture and looked for something a little more abstract--that way no one would know if it was completely backwards!
No, I didn't do this lion--or the flower above. Although they are fantastic, aren't they?
I didn't even do this patchwork quilt--which I should've and could've though of, but didn't.

My two sisters, Vanessa and Rebecca also competed in the competition, they were doing an elaborate flower--it was really beautiful by the time they were finished.

Jeremy showed up to take Kennedy (he also took Bridger, so much for my fall back plan of him being cute and people taking pity on our artwork....) and I got to work. It was really fun mixing the colors--I worked for about an hour and a half when it started raining. At first it was just a drizzle. It never really "rains" in Utah, I thought to myself, this will just all blow over any second. As the rain fell hard, as artists scrambled to save their pictures, and as I was working under an umbrella that, in the strong wind, blew itself inverted and resembled a stick, I decided that it was time to take shelter. It was sad to see all those beautiful drawings washed away in a half hour. This drawing (below) took two girls 8 hours--it was amazing. I felt really bad for them. But, I didn't feel too bad for myself, I figured it would help my chances. You know, "oh, look at her drawing! I bet it was so nice before the rain hit...." :)

So, here is what we came up with. It is a sun. This is what it looked like during the rainstorm. Luckily in Utah, things dry up pretty quick, so Bridger and I and everyone else got back to work by 7:00--about an hour before judging. I knew we would never win anything, but we still needed to finish.

My sister Vanessa came over to help, since hers washed away and there was no salvaging it.

This is what we ended up with..... Bridger desperately wanted to win, but I told him " it's not about winning or losing, it's about having fun"--poor kid, totally didn't help. Then he came up with a solution. He said: "let's get ice cream", I agreed and all was well. We had a great time, we were covered in chalk and soaking wet (but, like the sidewalk, we dried fast). We will make this a yearly tradition--we didn't win any prizes, but we did get a $10 gift card to Target. And if you know me, and know how cheap I am and how much I love Target, then you know that I was a happy lady. Of course, I shared with Bridger. It's sad that I had to clarify.... I even have some left over chalk, so I think we will be beautifying our own sidewalks here pretty soon!

The next day we attended a bike parade at Jeremy's parents church. The kids were soooo excited to ride their bikes and have them all decorated. Bridger was completely pale with excitement--he was focused--speed--after this picture, he never looked at us again. He had to prepare himself. I guess....
We didn't have much in the house by way of traditional decoration, but we had a bag of pink balloons (left over from Kennedy's birthday) and we had a basket full of jewelry. So, we made a princess bike and Kennedy thought she had died and gone to heaven! She wore her crown with pride.
Our cute niece, Madison, was there with us--she tried to ride Kennedy's bike, but found out she was just a "little" too big! Look at those long legs!
They threw candy at the parade--so, after this picture, Kennedy had her mouth stuffed with taffy. It always gets stuck in her teeth and she always wants me to get it unstuck for her. Ewww! Is that really part of a mother's job description? Good thing she's cute.