Decorated

 I finally got a day with Tony home to do some "honey-dos". He was able to install an over the range microwave, new (programmable) thermostat, and do the trim and decorations for the girls' walls:

And here are some pictures, just for fun, of Alexa dressed up for decades day, for her school's spirit week leading up to homecoming:

 And in rare form for Alexa, she let me actually take pictures of her. They had to still wear their school uniform skirts, and could only dress up from the waist up. I think she did such a good job with her costume. Can you guess what decade seniors had?

School Pictures

I love how my girl's school pictures turned out! Thanks to Amanda from Pie in the Sky Photography we have some unique, fun, not your run of the mill school pictures.

Sophie, 8 years old, 3rd grade:

Outfit details:

Shirt and tie : JC Penny's

Skirt: Justice

Shoes: Target

Hair Flower: J Wag's doodads (available at Scrapbooks Etc.)

Glasses: Alexa's ;-)

Celeste, 13 years old, 8th grade:

 Outfit details:

Dress: Ruche

Shoes: Mom's closet :-)

And a couple of them together:

 Outfit details:

Celeste's shoes: Target

Sophie's shirt and shorts: JC Penny's

Sophie's Necklace: Forever 21

Sophie's hair flower: J Wag's Doodads (scrapbooks, etc.)

Antique Mall Finds

It will be a while until our "finds" find their permanent homes in our home, so for now here is a sneak peek at what we got:

 Old farmhouse paned windows. The yellow one will go "as is" to my bedroom and the white one may get a fresh, distressed coat of paint for my living room.

 

 Tony's finds, old radio and phone extension. The tag on the phone says "non-working", DUH!

This shabby table will get a fabric covered foam seat and become a bench for my bedroom.

 

This little old school desk already found a home in the girls' room. We also picked up the little personal chalk board hanging on the wall.

 

I got this just because it was funny/cute to me. Published in 1951, I am sure it is ripe with misinformation {even the cover has a baby on its tummy, not what we are told to do these days}. I will have to read trough the section on breastfeeding, I am sure it will be hilarious!

These are going to be a bed side table in Alexa's room. Her room eventually will have a world traveler theme with her pictures of Europe, etc.

We also picked up an assortment of old kitchen gadgets (rolling pins, graters, apron, sifters. etc) that will be hung on the soffit above our kitchen cabinets.

The whole time we were keeping our eyes out for windows, old typewriters, and an old Singer. I described to Tony the black metal with gold writing of the Singer sewing machines that I like. We never saw one but Tony did find me this:

 It's not a Singer, but it sure is pretty. Best part, we plugged in in and it works!

Mini Vacation Day 5

The last day of our mini vacation we were in a hurry to get home, but we did stop at a few antique malls in Albuquerque and got some fun stuff.

We passed on a cool find, and are kinda kicking ourselves. It's my fault because I want to remodel our kitchen and get all new appliances. I have had old appliances for too long. I should have considered this option a little more. We found one of these:

In this shade of PINK!:

 These photos are from the Internet, I did not get a picture of the one we saw.

We probably should have gotten it, it was really cool and actually even cuter than these. I didn't really think about the fact that we could have had it restored or even use it as a shell with a new range top etc. The best part is that Tony liked it and would have gotten it. Oh well! Live and learn.

Mini Vacation Day 4

Day four of our vacation was a little rocky.

Let's just say that a night of storms, lack of sleep, and a not so kind monthly visitor put me in a pretty grouchy mood.

There was a highlight though, meeting this little guy:

 We stopped at Tony's sister's place in Oklahoma City and met the newest addition to the family, her grandson Santiago, 11 days old. He was such a sweet little guy. I had to get some pictures of his cute little baby parts. Glad I got a baby fix, it sure brightened my day.

Shopping at a fun books store and a fabulous dinner helped, too!

Mini Vacation Day 3

Day 3 of our mini vacation was probably the most fun. We started our day just outside of Memphis, so we decided we had to see Graceland.

When we got there, we decided we did not have enough time to do the whole tour, but we did see it and his jets, and got some souvenirs for Tony's mom who is an Elvis fan.

 

After Graceland we stopped at the cutest town where they had an antique mall {I'll post my finds later} and farmers market:

  

 It was a fun day of meandering across TN and Arkansas, taking our time and seeing the sites, shopping, and just being together.

Mini Vacation Day 2

Day two of our little vacation we left Kingsport/Jonesborough {after a morning breakfast/business meeting} and headed towards Nashville.

We took our time and stopped at some flea market, antique, farmer's market, picker malls along the way. I will have to do a separate post about our "finds" as we stopped at a lot of places between TN and Albuquerque...Anyway...

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this little trip was to see my family in Nashville. About a year ago my family moved my Granny from CA to live with my uncle Jim and his family in TN. I was really glad they were all available on short notice to have dinner and visit with us.

Tony, me holding Addison (my cousin's daughter), Brennan held by my aunt Mary, cousin Vanessa, Sith and cousin Kelly, my Granny and uncle Jim. (Thanks to Vanessa's husband David for taking the picture!)

Me, my cousins and Granny

It was a nice visit. I am ashamed to say I had never met Kelly's husband, Sith, as it has been 20 years since I had seen Kelly! I had also never met either of Vanessa's kiddos. They were so cute, and reminded me how much energy little ones take, and how fast they grow! I was nice to get to know them again.

As you can see, I am a little taller than most of my family on my mom's side. When my Granny first saw me she said "have you always been this tall?". So funny!

We had to say our goodbyes and get on the road. We ended our day at a nice little campground just shy of Memphis {as we were advised by David to maybe not stay IN Memphis!}

Day 3 coming soon...