Thursday, March 31, 2011

Family Photos

I got to take some family photos for our sweet friends Todd and Ashley.
They were so adorable and their little boy Ty was so much fun
to work with...

Enjoy...













Isn't he too cute?

And yes, we totally had to bribe him with the promise of ice cream...
totally worked

Friday, March 25, 2011

Who do you Serve?

It all started yesterday when, my unassuming husband, so sweetly came home for lunch to deliver a prize to my kids... a baby duck! It really might be the cutest thing, not quite sure how to take care of it though...

Anyway, after the duck got way to much attention, and the kids went down for a nap, I unloaded on my husband. I really don't even know where it came from...

But it was bad... with tear filled eyes I laid it all out there...most of my sentences beginning with: I want, I need, I don't, I can't, I'm tired... you know what I am talking about, right?
Everything I said was all about ME! After I, for lack of a better term, "vomited" all over my sweet husband, he so delicately concluded with, "I know, that is so tough..." Which is probably because he truly was not sure what was to come next... and after 6 years of marriage you realize that sometimes any bit of reality or truth is not always the best answer. Sometimes a simple acknowledgment of your irrational slur of crazy words, is what you need.

After he left and I was exhausted from my "outburst", I was feeling pretty good about myself. I was thinking that I really got to get stuff off of my chest and let him know how I really feel about certain things and that we got somewhere today... and then I started thinking...

I am the most selfish person in the entire world...

The Lord started giving me verses from His word pointing to the fact that this world is not where we find any of our worth or satisfaction. All of a sudden, I was just overwhelmed with guilt and embarrassment, that my husband who came home to surprise us with a silly duck that we named Tiger... he had to listen to me go on and on about some really ridiculous stuff.

Who really cares, what kind of car that I drive ( I am pretty sure at some point I said if I did not have a car that I could open the back door automatically I was going to cry, I know, my poor husband), or the color of my cabinets, or the fact that I am always tired and all I do is clean up after my kids, because at the end of the day, I am blessed beyond measure. My cup is more full then it deserves to be. I have been bought with a price and I am not my own! That pretty much leaves out any room for selfishness.

I am striving to lead a life that glorifies God and not myself. I am striving to raise my kids to worship their savior and not me, and I am trying to move myself out of the way so that He can complete the work that He has started. I tend to fail everyday, but I am overwhelmed at the mercy and grace that is poured out onto me, faithfully! In the midst of my selfish desires and worldly wants, He meets me where I am and offers something better then any automatically opening car or gorgeously painted white cabinets!

So I leave you today with this thought...

Who do you serve? Yourself or your Savior?

It's a daily choice to take yourself off of the throne and put the true king back on, but we make the choice because His ways are better then our ways and because He loved us first!


Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Dining Room COMPLETED!







Well, after half of my family down with strep and hopefully no more...
I have finished the dining room!

If you are just now reading about the dining room transformation you can see some of the process here, here and here!

It is exactly what I had imagined in my mind...

Here is one more before to show you the earlier color scheme: black, white, and grey.
BORING! ( no offense...)
I really, really LOVE the color of the walls, it's WOODSMOKE by Glidden. It is a true grey with some green undertones...it goes with everything!


Here is the room totally cleared out...


Notice the black lamp and black shelf...
I tried really hard not to buy much for this room, but
to re-purpose a lot of the decor that I had.
So keep an eye out for all the "new" stuff!

Here is another quick look at the dining room table before...


In the process of becoming BEAUTIFUL!

Finally, here are WAY too many after photos!!!!!

The whole feel of the room is so much more comfortable and inviting.
Which is exactly what I was going for...were not exactly the "formal" type.


I have always loved this Van Gogh painting and I was so excited to get it into the room.
The colors matched wonderfully!


The two pictures on the wall are just framed scrapbooking paper.
I actually found the frames for $1.80 at Hobby Lobby!
Sweet!

I love the simplicity of the buffet, I was feeling too cluttered...
The flower base was black and then got a fresh coat of spray paint, along with the lamp.




The curtains were a great find at Fabric.com, it was actually
only 4.95 a yard, you really can't beat that!

All of the blue plates, I found at Target and added the perfect
amount of texture to that side of the room.

One final angle...

I hope you enjoyed our dining room. It was way too fun to tackle
and hopefully next will be the kitchen!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Dining Room Part 3


Well, the dining room is coming along...slowly...but it is coming along!
I finally finished the "new" table ( new to us)!

I ended up selling my table on craigslist and then scoring
this one for $100 LESS on craigslist!
AMAZING!
Which allowed me to buy the new fabric, that hopefully will be here
tomorrow and I can put the room back together!

Here are the before pictures:

Ugly, Ugly cushions....

It came with 2 leaves so it gets really big...
I scored the table and all 6 chairs for 200 bucks!

Not horrible, but not what I was looking for,
but OH the lines of the table are
BEAUTIFUL!

After some primer and some spray paint...

Aren't the spirals pretty? They make me smile :)

The lines on the legs are what really sold the table to me...
I left the top of the table original, mainly because I liked the color and the contrast to the white, and also because it was finished well and I did not want to mess it up.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Dining Room Part 2

I was inspired!!! YEah!
Over at fabric. com they had this super pretty indoor/outdoor fabric that is exactly what I had in mind. It will flow with the rest of the house and be the perfect first impression!
It has been ordered and could not get here soon enough!!!



Friday, March 4, 2011

Dining Room Part 1



After finally selling my dining room table on craigslist, I got the go ahead to start looking for what I wanted... after a couple of weeks of an empty room, my weekend hopefully will be filled with repainting our new table!
(it would be too easy to find one that is already exactly the way I want it)

So here is a little peek into what our dining room used to look like...
This was during Thanksgiving.




So... Goodbye black and white...Hello, I'm not sure yet.
Hopefully this weekend I will be inspired!