Flaunt Your Reds Party Day

Today Southern Lady Nancy is hosting a flaunt your reds party day! Thanks Nancy for hosting this fun party!! I love decorating with the color red and I have a lot of red things in our home. Here are some pictures, I hope you like them.

Happy Friday.

Empty Arms, full heart

Last night Ava and I went to mass for Ash Wednesday. She loves when I pick her up during church so she can see what's happening in the front. She is getting so big, it's hard to pick her up now. When she stands on the kneeler in church she is almost as tall as me! Anyway, I held her for a couple of minutes (it was probably really way shorter, it just felt like that long because she is soooo tall and heavy.) I almost started crying right in church when I put her down, I realized that I will probably never, ever hold either one of my kids again. 11 1/2 years ago we had Brock and when he got too big to hold we had Ava, now Ava (our baby) is too big. Sometimes when I am at church (the people behind me probably think I'm NUTS) I will sway like I have one of them in my arms like I did when Brock and Ava were little, when I realize what I am doing I stop but I find myself doing that almost every time we are at Church.
Don't get me wrong, I am so happy that they are both growing up, it's fun to watch them work on homework, play with their friends and become more and more independent every day but I am going to miss holding a child in my arms.

Wordless Wednesday

Spring Centerpiece

Fat Tuesday!!

Today is fat Tuesday to celebrate Ava and I are going to play Wii fit to try to get in shape-ha! I haven't decided what I am going to give up for lent this year, I better decide quick since it starts tomorrow. I did make a delicious bean salad for us to eat tomorrow because we aren't suppose to eat meat.

Here is the recipe, it's super easy and it is sooo good, you will love it!!

1 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 15 oz. can chick peas, rinsed and drained

1 15 oz. can corn, rinsed and drained

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 small red onion, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

juice from 1 lemon

2 tablespoons sugar

1 clove crushed garlic

1/2 tablespoon cumin

salt and pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients together and chill overnight.

I also finished decorating our house (ok, our dining room) for St. Patrick's Day. I don't really have a lot of St. Patrick's Day stuff, but I do have a few things and I love getting them out every year. I also like to buy or make something new every year. This year I made the green E ornament I love the color green so this is one of my favorite holidays to decorate for!

Catch up

Late Saturday night I got back from a fraternity/sorority conference with 700 college students.I was exhausted!! I took 6 students from the College where I work and we had a good time, there were a lot of great sessions and I hope the students learned a lot. The conference was a little sad for me this year. My friend Allison and I usually go together and have a great time but this year she wasn't able to go. I missed her so much!! Here are some cute things I got at the Greek boutique, I love seeing all the cute sorority stuff they have at the boutique. I got all of this stuff for Ava, I really want her to be in my sorority, Alpha Sigma Alpha,when she goes to college!!

Yesterday, Graig and I watched Nights in Rodanthe. It is such a great movie, I cried and cried. It was the best movie that I have seen in a long time! If you haven't seen it, you should watch it, you will love it, Graig liked it too and he doesn't usually like romantic movies. It's based on a book by Nicholas Sparks.

This summer I want to redo Brock's room so it looks a little more grown up. In June he will graduate from 6th grade and I think this will be a great present for him. I got him a Pottery Barn teen catalog to get ideas and he picked this out, he has good taste, this is $3000!! He loves the loft style bed, but I don't know if it will fit in his room, because we live in an old house our ceilings upstairs are low. Anyway, I think it will be a fun project to work on with him. I can't wait to see what he picks out. I want to reuse a lot of the stuff that he already has in his room, if he really wants a loft style bed I'm sure we kind find a cheaper one, Pottery Barn is so nice but it's so expensive!!

I hope everyone had a great Monday!

Wordless Wednesday

Super Tuesday

Today was such a fun day! Brock and Ava enjoyed the second day of their winter vacation

First of all, I (finally!) finished painting the trim that I started painting on Saturday. It took 5 coats! After lunch, Ava went to our neighbor's house to watch High School Musical 3 which came out on DVD today. Brock and his friend went to the Boys and Girls Club and I got my hair cut. I love how my hair turned out, I will take a picture tomorrow, I can't put any product in my hair because tomorrow morning I am going to put on a clear gloss to make it shiny. I got it at Wal-Mart, I usually get my hair highlighted when I get it cut, but it is so expensive, so I thought I would try this clear gloss. I will let you know how it turns out!

Tonight Brock is spending the night with his friend Brandon and Ava had our neigbors over to play Wii. She also showed them how she does gymnastics on her bed, she loves doing flips on her bed!

Wish I were a painter

A couple of weeks ago this talented blogger made this adorable sign for Kelly's little girl Harper. Isn't this the cutest sign that you have ever seen?? I love it and I want her to make me one for Ava. I had one leftover canvas from when we made this craft last fall. I love how these turned out, they still aren't hung up in Ava's room yet! Anyway, I wanted to see if I could paint up my leftover canvas like the one she made for Harper. Well I painted and repainted it about 10 times, it just wouldn't come out right. After about 10 times I got sick of painting it and I stuck the letters on, then I modge podged it. Everything looks better with Modge Podge!
Today, Brock was at the Boys and Girls club for almost 8 hours playing basketball!! He loved every minute of it! When he came home he ate 2 grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup and then went straight up to bed, he was exhausted!!
Ava spent today with Grandma Jan. They had a fun day and Grandma Jan bought Ava a new Cabbage Patch doll with a carrier. Ava loves her new doll!
I am home from work for the next two days with Brock and Ava! Tomorrow we are going to relax and I am going to get my hair cut and Wednesday we are going to a Children's Museum. I am looking forward to the next two days!!

Valentines Day weekend

This weekend was really busy, I spent a lot of time painting our trim, that's still not done! I have 3 coats on so far, I think I have one more coat to do. I love the way it looks. Here is the heater in our dining room. Today was a busy day, Graig took Brock to a soccer tournament Ava and I stayed home because Ava had dance practice and a birthday party this afternoon. Ava and I stopped by Wal-Mart and they finally had a Wii-fit in stock!! I have been looking for it every time we go to and it's never in stock. I am so happy that I finally found one today! Brock and I played it tonight, it was a lot of fun! I did yoga and the hoola hoop and Brock did running. I think we are going to get a lot of use out of it! This week Brock and Ava are on their winter vacation, they are looking forward to a week home from school.

A Valentine Birthday!!

Happy Valentine's Day!! We are spending the day relaxing at home. I am taking a little break from painting the trim in our living room and Graig is talking a nap on the couch. Graig bought me flowers today and tonight I am making one of his favorite dinners, barbeque pork and mashed potatoes. Today when I went shopping I got a cute heart cake and peanut butter cup ice cream and we will have that for dessert! After dinner we are going to watch Space Buddies with Brock and Ava. I will show pictures of our painted trim tomorrow, I like the way it looks so far! It just takes so long to paint and since it was so dark and I am going to white it is going to take at least 3 coats!

Today is my Dad's birthday!! Happy Birthday Dad!! We love you. This is a picture of him with Brock and Ava this summer in Wyoming.

Paint, paint and more paint

Saturday morning I am getting up bright and early to start painting our trim in our living room white. Right now it's dark blue and I love the dark blue color but I am ready for a change. It was already painted this color when we moved in and we haven't changed it. I have wanted it white for so long, but I haven't gotten around to getting it done. This is the weekend!! I am going to spend all weekend at home painting. Graig is going to help so I am hoping that we get the whole living room done. We will still have to do our sunroom, office and dining room...but it will be a good start!

This is what our trim looks like now

After Christmas I painted the shelves in our living room white, I really like the way they turned out! I can't wait for all of our trim to look like this! I love how this looks!!

I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day weekend!! What are your Valentine's Day plans?

Wordless Wednesday

The best $8.50 I have ever spent and more crafts!

Ava and I went to Wal-Mart tonight to get a present for a birthday party this weekend. While we were there I spotted these TV trays, Brock and Ava always fight about what they are going to watch in the morning while they are eating breakfast. Brock wants to watch ESPN and Ava wants to watch Nic or the Disney Channel. It's a ongoing battle with them every single morning. Anyway, I saw these and thought one of them could sit in the kitchen and the other can sit in the living room, these will make our mornings run so much smoother...and they were only $8.50!! I couldn't believe how cheap they were!!

I am also so inspired now that I have my craft table set up so I made this cute little ornament for St. Patrick's Day tonight, I love the polka-dots on the monogram!

I also found these little candle holders at the Dollar Store. I bought some in pink and some in green for the spring. I added a few candy hearts in the pink ones for Valentines Day and I added a tea light. I think they will look good on our dining room table for V-Day!!Both Graig and Brock are sick as dogs! Brock (poor thing) has a sinus infection that he can't seem to get rid of and Graig came home tonight after work and said his stomach was upset, Graig never, ever gets sick! He took a nap and I got him some Gatorade at Wal-Mart. I hope Ava and I don't get sick!!

crafts, crafts and more crafts

I am working on getting all of my craft supplies in order, Graig calls all my stuff my crap supplies (ha!) Anyway, now that it's all in one place in the basement I realize all of the stuff I have. I always seem to buy paint, ribbon, scrapbook stuff, and wooden letter "E's"

Here's my not so organized Craft table. I am so happy that I finally have one!!

I made this cute little swag for St. Patrick's Day tonight with some fabric that I found yesterday in the basement. I like the way it turned out. I am going to put it out next week after Valentine's Day.

I took this picture of Graig and our dog Daisy tonight, Daisy is the Queen Dog around our house. She loves being right next to us at all times, Graig loves to snuggle with her so she loves to be in his lap whenever he is sitting on the couch. She also loves to go on walks, it was so nice today I was able to take her for a walk for the first time since before Christmas, it was so pretty out today!

Lazy Sunday

Today was such a relaxing day! Graig, Ava and I stayed in our pj's all day and just did stuff around the house. Brock played basketball in the morning, he came home to eat and do his homework, and tonight he went to play basketball again. Tonight, he's playing in Graig's old high school gym...Graig loves that he's playing there!!

This afternoon we cleaned our basement from top to bottom!! I am so happy, it took about 2 hours to clean the whole thing. We set up a table down there so I can work on my crafts which will be great because now I do my projects on our bed which isn't the best place and I can have all of my craft stuff in the same place!

Tonight, we made sugar cookies for Valentine's Day, actually Ava did almost all of the decorating while I picked up our downstairs. I think they turned out really cute!!

Ava also started a blog today! She has wanted to have her own for such a long time, I helped her set it up. It's going to be private because I want to know who's reading it, we'll see if she sticks with it. I made her this header, she picked out everything that went on it and she picked out a cute cupcake background from www.thecutestblogontheblock.com

I am ready to get in bed and watch Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters!

Heat Wave!

Today was sooo warm, it was 46 degrees in upstate NY, I was so happy today! It has been so cold and miserable for about a month. It was so nice to go outside today because it was so warm! This morning I took Ava to ballet and Brock to soccer. This afternoon Ava and I went to an ice festival at an old saw mill. It was so warm outside we decided to go, normally I hate outside events in the winter because of the cold weather but today was a perfect day to go! Ava going for a ride!

Ava next to a swan, I love this hat she wore, she looked so cute!

Tonight Graig, Ava and I went out to eat at Brooks. It was so good, we ate so much! Brock is spending the night with his friend Jordan.

Tonight I am catching up on all the shows I DVR'd this week and I am working on a little craft project.