great weekend :)

This has been a bit of a whirlwind weekend.  Friday morning I spent two hours at Lowes getting some necessary things for my house and looking at items I will buy in the near future.  Then we headed to the condo to tape stuff in preparation for painting the next day.

Here's a tip for you about that: I like to try to do things as cheaply as possible when I can...and I love the Dollar Tree store...and they have painters tape. But don't do that. Buy the "real" stuff. You know, the Scotch brand painters tape.  Otherwise you will come back later that evening and find this:

Puddles of painters tape!!  Ack!! lol

Anyhoo. Saturday morning I stopped and grabbed some "real" tape and headed over to the condo once again to begin the painting process.  We got most of the downstairs done yesterday, thanks to my parents and several friends who came and helped! 

The color I chose for the main living space downstairs is called Hinoki yellow.  It is soft and warm and inviting and cheery and I love it.  However, it is actually somewhat close to the color that the walls were already painted - just with more yellow warmth to it - so you may not notice a huge difference in these pictures from the ones I put up earlier, but here's what it's looking like so far...

If you look closely (click on the picture to make it even larger), you can see the slight difference in the color the walls used to be and the yellow that we painted them.  And they got a little darker as they dried of course.  

It just so happened that Michael's nieces and family were in town this weekend so they spent the night with Lauren Friday night and came to help me paint for a couple hours on Saturday.  We definitely would not have gotten as far as we did without them there!!

This picture is funny because the yellow isn't quiiite this dark...and it looks like we hadn't painted that bump out in the wall...but we had! 

 Aaand this would be half of my kitchen in the dining room ha!  Anyone want to buy that stove? It's for sale.  Brand new.  Never been used.  Going on Craig's list soon.

This shows you in full light how the walls look.  Funny, these last three pictures were taken from the spot on the floor I had finally plopped myself after being on my feet all day long...just turning my head slightly for each one, the walls look different in all the pics! ha. Oh well.  You get the idea.

Man my feet were tired!

Here are a couple other details before I get to more painting:

One of the shower curtains I ordered came so I went ahead and put it up in my bathroom upstairs - already makes it look better!  :)

So this was the hideously ugly and extremely dirty ceiling fan in my living room, but it is no more, thanks to my mom for picking out a new gorgeous one and my dad for taking this one down and installing the new one! (And my brother who helped!) 

 Beautiful new fan!

Ok so back to the painting.  Those of you who know me well know that I have always wanted a RED kitchen.  Well my little kitchen here is a galley kitchen and my mom suggested I just paint the end wall red for fear that red on three walls would be too dark and overwhelming.  But just one red wall would not give me my red kitchen! :-p  Then Leah came over to see my new place and I asked her what she thought and she had the brilliant idea to just paint two walls red, which solved several problems and I think is going to turn out just perfect!  

 Mom nervously applying the first bit of red.

Yeah, definitely needs a second coat, but I love it!

When I said red, I meant it!

Show stopper red to be exact. :}

So after working all day, I went and grabbed Lauren and Reegan and made Reegan a cute little tiny purse while we waited for Michael's nieces to finish eating dinner with their family.

So cute! That is almost life-size! :)

Then we grabbed the girls and their uncle and tried out a new frozen yogurt place called Sweet Frog and their Frog stands for Fully Rely On God!  And their bowls have the reference John 3:16 on them! So go check them out at Turkey Creek, ok??

Lauren and Emily

the funny little sisters, Claire and Reegan  :}

and Abby, who just got her driver's license!

(and a photo bomb by the uncle. goofy boy.)

Then this morning we headed over to cheer for Melissa, Michael's sister-in-law, who was running in the relay marathon race downtown.  

Who says you can't have fun while running a marathon??

She had to have had more fun than the army guy we saw running in his fatigues with a complete pack on his back! Bleck! 

Waiting...

 Three of the four relay runners on Mel's team.  The fourth one had to leave immediately after her stretch of the marathon due to a child's soccer game or something like that. :)  Being a mom never stops - even when you do something as awesome as run a marathon relay lol.

Actually stepping on the finish line.  So I was so excited to get to use my telephoto lens on my camera to get better shots than I did two years ago when they did this same race, that I forgot to zoom out just a little bit so you could see the "finish" banner as they went under it! Ha. Next time...

Congratulations hug. :)

 Getting her well deserved medal.

Eve spotted us. :)

...and wanted to make sure we saw her...  :}  she's cute.

 HI!!

 Yup. Should have untwisted your medal, Mel.  :}  Oh well. I obviously didn't notice when I took the pic.

Just hangin' out in Neyland Stadium.

Cuteness.

Love this part of my "other family" to pieces.

Next week: more painting...I hope!!  :}

not always as planned

Ok, yes, I know, I have neglected my poor little blog for too long.  Yes, I know I'm still behind.  I am way overdue for an update on the boys for one thing!  I'll get there...eventually!  I take too many pictures with my iphone and then get weighed down trying to decide which ones to put on here...and it usually ends up being most of them...which takes a while... 

But anyhoo...

For now I wanted to be sure to put these pics up and write about this day...because it was most definitely a reminder that we may make all the plans we want...but really only God knows how things are going to turn out! Ha!

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I headed down to the convention center downtown where they hold the annual Festival of Trees where Lauren dances every year.  She was awesome, as always, but due to joining a new dance studio with a new teacher who is very good at encouraging her and building her up, she had a new confidence in her dancing that was exciting to watch.  :)

Afterwards my friend Rebekah and her family were driving through town on their way home from spending Thanksgiving with family and so I grabbed Lauren and we headed to Starbucks to visit for a few minutes.  The times I get to see Rebekah is never long enough and never often enough, but we take any little snippits of time we can and have actually gotten to see each other quite a few times this past year. Yay! :)

After Rebekah and family got back on the road to head home, Lauren and I realized we had the rest of the day to spend together - something we hadn't done in a very long time!  Neither of us had eaten lunch yet so we stopped by the new Chick Fil A (if you live here and haven't been to the new one in Bearden...you should check it out! it's pretty awesome!).  We decided that our plans for the day would be to run by my house so Lauren could take a quick shower, then either go to a movie or go shopping, followed by dinner at a place I had been wanting her to try.  

Well, we got to my house and just before heading up to take a shower we decided to grab a couple pics of Lauren in her dance costume, so we both set our cell phones on the kitchen table, and I grabbed my camera and we stepped out on the deck...me in flip flops, and Lauren in, well, exactly what she's wearing in the above pictures.  Oh, did I mention the high that day was somewhere around 43?? Yeah.

So pictures done, we walked back up on the deck and pulled the sliding glass door to go back in since we were both getting chilly - her more so than me since I at least had jeans and a long sleeved shirt on.  But the door wouldn't open.  Somehow it had locked itself as we came out!!  We ran around to the garage door that we had just entered when getting home...locked.  All the doors were locked!  And my parents had left just before we got there to go see a movie!  (Not something they do very often...but of course they did that day!)

So the doors were locked, Lauren has not much on to keep her warm - not even shoes!, our cell phones were mocking us from the kitchen table, and the cat was looking at us like we were dumb. lol  Not sure what else to do, we headed over to our neighbors across the street to ask to use the phone.  Lauren asked if I even knew our neighbors.  I said I knew them just a tiny bit...but was about to get to know them a lot better!

Sean was home with his five year old daughter, Callie, and graciously let us in, let me use his cell phone, and let Lauren borrow one of his sweatshirts.  I realized that I should call my brother...but didn't have his number memorized, so I called Michael who had it in his phone and gave to me.  However, it turns out he had Daniel's old cell phone number!!  Of course.  So we called Lauren's mom, who had the correct one.  Daniel was no help as he had no key to mom and dad's house and didn't know what else to do.  :-p  So I then called Leah, who was out shopping and came to our rescue!  We went with her to grocery shop while killing time for my parents to get out of the theater.  Then Leah dropped us off at Panera Bread (mom and dad's favorite place to eat...!) to wait for them.  Thirty five minutes later (the movie had gone longer than they thought it would) they showed up to find two very hungry girls who were glad to get a hot meal and finally go home and shower and change into warm clothes!!

Not the day we had planned.  Nor would we hope to repeat it again! However, I was thankful to get to spend that time with my little sister and not alone!  :}

We'll try again soon, Lauren, and this time maybe we'll make it to a movie instead of waiting for my parents to get out of one!  lol!  :)

catching up on june

Well, once again I am behind on blogging!  A lot has happened in the past month but for a while blogger was being dumb and not letting me upload pictures and what is a post without a picture!?  Just boring, that's what.  Lol.  Anyways, I will try to catch up over the next few days.  :)

Here are a few pics from Lauren and Reegan's dance recital that was actually on May 27th! Ha. Better late than never, right?

cinderella

A couple weeks ago, Lauren and I took a short road trip over to Nashville for a very important evening.  Of course, my car decided to act up the day before we were to leave so I ended up having to rent a car for the trip.  The first rental place mom and I went to were totally out of cars! Great.  The second place we went had only one car left.  I said "Oh no...and it's going to be a really expensive one isn't it?? I need the cheapest thing possible!!"  The very nice man behind the Budget counter clicked away at his computer and ended up giving me a better deal than any I had seen online for an economy car. (I had looked before leaving the house just to have an idea of price in mind.)  

This is the car we "had" to take...

A Ford Mustang??  Yes, please!!  :)  Soooo fun for a girls' trip!!  That little car is pretty darn H.O.T.!!  :)

We got to Nashville Wednesday evening and just chilled in the hotel room.  Thursday morning we started off by meeting our friend Rebekah for breakfast with her boys.  This was Lauren's first time meeting one of our favorite little guys...

Isaac!!!  :)  I kept watching him across the table the whole time just thinking how amazing God is and that I could still hardly believe he was really HERE sitting across from me!!  :)  Isaac is so sweet and is learning English like crazy!  The restaurant we went to was called the Puffy Muffin (!) and was way yummy.  They also had a bakery right across from where we were sitting that had a whoole bunch of yummy looking treats!  Isaac was very excited to get to pick out a cookie for each of the kids in his family and talked about it the whole time we were eating.  :)  And if you have seen the video of him that was Rebekah's first glimpse of him...where he is laughing so hard? Yeah...totally still laughs just like that - and it's one of the best sounds EVER!! :)

And of course this little peanut was there too!  His eyelashes are still about the longest I have ever seen!  He is into being verry independent and wanted to do all the eating all by himself!!  :)

After breakfast we tore ourselves away from Rebekah and boys (there is never enough time spent together!!)  and while they headed home for naptime, Lauren and I headed to one of my favorite areas - Green Hills Mall.  I had to introduce Lauren to the store Charming Charlies...  {{drool!!}}  Abby and Emily were the first to introduce me to this store and kept saying I was going to loove it.  The second I stepped inside I realized why - everything in the store (jewelry, purses, hair items, etc.)  is arranged...BY COLOR!!  Oh my heavens. Those who know me well know I loove lots and lots of color and when it's all organized and separated into groups of the same or similar colors??  Even better! :)

So we wandered around for a while and then decided to go get lunch...and when I come to Green Hills mall...which is MAYBE once a year...I cannot leave without a certain item...which just so happened to be our lunch that day...

Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory!!!  Yes, it was a very healthy lunch, thank you for noticing.  :}

Next was a walk through another favorite store and one that always makes me think of Wendy because it's her favorite too:

Anthropology.  It always smells soo good in here!  We never actually buy much in this store because it is crazy expensive...but "window shopping" in here is always fun!

Next, I knew that Lipscomb University was just around the corner and Lauren has a friend who is a freshman there this year.  Lauren would love to go there herself...if she won the lottery...lol...and I knew she has always wanted to go up on campus, so we did.  It is a beautiful campus!  We met her friend Samantha, who showed us around a little bit.

(Hey M, this pic is for you...you can't tell very well in this pic, but can you see that the continents are actually popped out from the wall a little bit and there are rope lights running just behind the perimeter of each one?? It was so cool!  I think you should do this in your classroom! You already have the basic map on the wall!  :)

After that we headed to the Target by our hotel because somehow I had forgotten to pack makeup! Hello!  Thankfully, Target has a new cheap brand of makeup where everything is either $1-$3 so picking up a couple essential items only cost a few dollars.

Then it was back to the hotel to crash for a few minutes and then get ready for the evening.

Oh yeah, lookin' hot!  :)

First we headed up to the newly re-opened Opry Mills Mall for dinner at Chuy's, a delicious Mexican restaurant.

This was the silverware holder at our table.....interesting!

Then it was on to the main event of the trip at the schermejirjihgisafjfkghrualjfklsf symphony center!! lol!  Yes, you read that right.  I could never remember how it was pronounced so that's about what I called it. :}

(**note: I took none of the following pictures - I borrowed them from Show Hope's fbook page since photography wasn't allowed.**)

As I was pulling into the parking garage, the lady in the white car in front of me pulling in from the opposite direction, gave me the strangest look and I was wondering what her problem was lol just as it sunk in - it was my friend and college roommate, Jodi!! Neither of us had any idea the other one was going to be there!  So fun!

Show Hope puts on a one night performance of Cinderella each year (this was the 3rd year), partially in honor and memory of Maria, Steven Curtis Chapman's little girl, partially to raise awareness and money for Show Hope.  All the proceeds go to Show Hope, which allows even more families to bring their children home through adoption. 

Ah, yes, adoption - the first reason I wanted to go... :)

Steven, Mary Beth, Shaohannah, and Stevie Joy Chapman introduced the program.

Their production was awesome!  Melinda Dolittle from American Idol was one of the step sisters and the girl who played the fairy godmother was the voice of Arial in Disney's Little Mermaid. :)

After the musical was over, Steven Chapman came back out on stage and sang his Cinderella song and then they showed the Show Hope video - the one that has Isaac and Rebekah and family in it!!

The second reason I wanted to come. :)

And THEN...right after the video...

They had Rebekah and family walk out on stage!!  Mr. Chapman introduced them and talked to Isaac, who he had met before on his trips to MBHOH.  Rebekah spoke and got to thank everyone who gives to Show Hope for playing a part in bringing both her boys home.

Then another little Show Hope guy came out and sang Amazing Grace with Steven. Soo precious!!  Those who hadn't already teared up over the Cinderella song...or the Show Hope video...or seeing Isaac on stage...definitely teared up at this!  :)

Finally all the Show Hope families who were there were invited out on stage to sing and the audience was asked to sing along as well.  I thought oh yeah right, how the heck are we supposed to sing when we're all tearing up! lol  :)

It was an amazing night for an amazing organization and an amazing family (who happen to be amazing friends of mine...).  :)  It went by way too quickly.  

Rebekah, just tell me when Isaac is comfortable and secure in being babysat for a day and we'll come steal you away with Lauren and me for cheesecake and shopping!  :)