Just in case...

you ever need underwear.

Just check the end table by the chair.

Apparently that is where Bode likes to keep his underwear.

The end...

I don't really like the title of this post but it is true. Not just the end of competitive sports for Lee but for all of us. My parents have been FAITHFUL supporters of their children in athletics for the last, well, gosh 20+ years. It started when Pete first played sports and ended with Lee. They have driven thousands of miles to watch all of us play. And I am not joking when I say thousands of miles. They bought a motor home when Pete played football in Wyoming. They went to many of his games. We went to Utah to watch Tim hurdle a meet. They racked up lots of miles watching me play at EA. And more recently they drove to Wisconsin to watch Lee finish out her volleyball days.

Lee's last game at GCC.

Me, Lee and Jill at Lee's last game. Love these girls. Lee and I were joking the other day about friendships. I am horrible at being a friend. I get caught up in my world and forget to keep old and new friendships going. So we both came to the conclusion that God gave us sisters because we needed friends. I am glad to have two best friends. PS, Lee why do you look so tall? For the record I am the tallest sister by at least 3 inches. Give up Lee, you are done growing. We all know you are on your tippy toes.

Firsts...

Our little Laine bug took her first steps!!!

Excuse me while I wipe the tears from my eyes...sniff, sniff.

She is growing up so very fast. She has been toying with the idea of taking steps for a week or two. She finally got up the courage to do it, on Thanksgiving day no less. She is so very proud of her little self. She giggles with joy every time. She turned 10 months on the 17th. So maybe it is a little soon but she is ready run and play with Bode. Oh boy, I sure have my hands full with this one.

If you couldn't guess what was in the box...

It was my stroller!

The kids were very curious about the big white box.

Bode tried to stuff Laine in the basket underneath the stroller. He told her it was her spot and his was up here. (referring to the seat)

Thank you again for all the votes. I am so appreciative. I give this stroller 2 big thumbs up! I took it shopping in the mall the other day and wow. It turns on a dime, so maneuvering through all the clothes was so easy. But my favorite part is the adjustable handle bars. Normally the handles to push a stroller and uncomfortably short, but this has 4 settings so I can get them high enough. Again thank you to all of those who helped me rack in the votes. There is no way I could have won with out your help!

Have you met this kid...

If you haven't you really should. He is a hoot. Bode gets to go to preschool two days a week. He LOVES it. He wants preschool to be everyday. He loves to come home and show me the things he has made from his back pack. He is so proud of his letters and pictures. We still haven't got counting down...

This is his Thanksgiving turkey hat. When I picked him up on Thursday there was a rafter, look it up its the right word, of little turkeys to greet me. They were all going "gobble, gobble". Well Bode was saying "gob, gob".

Oh how I love this little boy. He is my little buddy and I am so grateful to be his mama. See this kids eye. I think I had mentioned that he has a stye. It is the stye that won't die. Poor kid gets double looks everywhere he goes. It started out as a pretty regular stye, but has grown into something gross. We have taken him to the doctor and then the eye doctor. There really isn't much we can do just wait for it to go away. If anyone asks he will point at his eye and tell you he has a stye. Or we are going to get a patch and tell everyone he is a pirate. I still love his face.

PS...

Guess what I found on my doorstep yesterday.

HOL...

AKA: Heidi On-Line

Yay! I have a computer again! Woo Hoo!

I can't exactly remember how long ago, it seems like months, but I was blog hoping around the blog world. I was on a blog that I have looked at before and it had a link so I looked at the link and bam! I caught a virus. It was one of those pop-up ones. I tried calling qwest, then dell then McAfee to resolve the issue. No one would help unless I pulled out my credit card and spent at least $150 to fix it. I didn't want to do that so I went another way... it was the wrong way. I had someone try to clean it up and it crashed. A hard nosedive into a brick wall.

Luckily for us we didn't loose pictures or documents because of my husbands foresight to back up the computer with an external hard drive. So basically we were looking at either buying a) a new computer or b) a new hard drive and new programs. Each option was not cheap. Either was we were going to be out at least $300-$400.

So we both decided that we would wait and see if the Black Friday sales would have a great deal and barrow my mom's laptop until then. But my sisters volleyball team went to nationals and my parents went to Wisconsin to support Lee and she needed her computer. So we needed to see about getting a new computer.

One night a close family member of ours mentioned that we owned the rights to the programs that came on our computer from dell. We decided to get a new hard drive and load new programs. Much cheaper then buying a new computer. So Jer tried calling dell. They were horrible! The lady tried to hang up on Jer, wouldn't transfer him to the manager or give him her id number. Very frustrating. So I called the next day to try again. Much better luck this day! We found out our computer is still under warranty. We have talked to dell 3 times and no one mentioned the warranty. They wanted us to pay to fix it or buy a new computer. But since it is under warranty they fixed it for free!

So with in 3 days the tech was out here to fix the computer. He ended up having to put a new hard drive and mother board in it. We basically have a new computer in our old tower! I have spent way to many hours on the phone in the last month. I hate the phone.

So things I have learned in this process:

• Always buy a warranty.
• Every company outsources their calls to India.
• I cannot understand an Indian accent.
• People on the other end on my phone call get very annoyed at me asking to repeat every word.
• Qwest offers free virus protection if you are a customer.
• Qwest doesn't outsource to India.
• I like Qwest.
• After spending hours on the phone. I learned that the only way to keep kids quiet when I am on the phone and can't move from the computer is candy.
• Laine likes suckers.
• Bode asked me to get on the phone... so he could have candy.

I am glad to have a computer again :)

Red...

Thing you must have when redoing a piece of furniture...

A great sander. This cuts down on a lot of work. Sanding is a must do in any project and an electric sander is a must. I am so glad Jer persuaded me to buy this one at a yard sale for $10 bucks. Laine was very interested in this. She watched me sand the whole hutch. It took about an hour. She sat on the other side of the screen door watching the whole time.

Paint. In your favorite color. I was worried to do it red but all your comments made me go with my gut feeling on this and go red. I am very picky when it comes to red. I wasn't going for barn red or crayon red. But more of a deep burgundy red. I found "Royal Garnet". Mmmm, yummy. It is beautiful. I went back and forth on how much paint to buy. Is a quart enough, a gallon to much. Well I bought a gallon and it is way to much. So stay tuned for more Royal Garnet paint projects.

A good paint brush. I have made the mistake before of using a cheap paint brush and have ended up picking out stray brush hairs all the time. So I bought a nicer brush this time and the end product was much better then I expected.

This was a fun must have for this project. Wallpaper bead board. Ever since I hear about this stuff I have been wanting to try it. I originally wanted to use real bead board on the back but it wasn't long enough. So I bought a roll of wall paper and just covered the back. It was a bit tricky. I wasn't sure it was going to stick the right way. But it turned out perfect. Now I have beadboard wallpaper left over and again stay tuned for more breadboard projects.


With all my work I turned this...

Into this...

The picture makes the red look kind of bright, it is much deeper in person. I decided against the black wash and I need to update the drawer pulls.

Up close of the bead board.

Oh one more must in any project for me is two tolerant kids and me knowing my house will be a total wreck before the end of the project.