Celeste and Sophie's Room

We've been working super hard on Celeste and Sophie's room for a couple of months now. I don't have any before pictures, but the goal was to get rid of their 2 beds, and get them a queen to share, get rid of Celeste's old dresser, and paint. Well, that turned into revamping the entire room, as one thing led to another {and another, and another...}. The room is almost done, all that is left is the crown molding, new door and knob, hanging all the cute frames, shelves, mirrors, etc that we bought, and getting a few more storage solutions {under bed bins maybe?}. Without further ado, here is a tour of their room:

The view walking in their door

turning left, the bed and Celeste's dresser...Sophie's dresser is the same and lives in the closet.

turning farther to the left, their closet with curtains, no doors

as you walk in, this wall is on your right {opposite wall as the bed}

and this wall is directly forward, the headboard, nightstand and desk are here (and on the white board on the desk is a chore schedule the girls devised to keep their new room looking great....we will see how long that lasts!)

Here are a couple of close ups:

hand made pillows

my happy girls

Their message to me reads "We love our new room" from Celeste, and "thank you Mommy" from Sophie.

Here is where we got all our cute stuff:

Blinds, Paint (Behr "Hidden Meadow" (green) and "Sea Life" (blue): Home Depot

Bed: Craig's list (new in box from a model home staging company)

Bedding, colorful cube cubbies/bins: Target

Lamps: Kirkland Home

Dresser, desk, nightstand, cube unit, closet curtains, curtain rods: Ikea

Flooring: Floor and Decor {Elliot and Priest}

Closet Banner, window curtains, lampshades, throw pillows: Hand made by me, all fabrics from Scrapbooks, Etc {of course!}

Sneak Peek

We've been busy....more to come!

19 Years and Counting

Tony and I just celebrated our 19th anniversary.

"That's not possible {you say} you guys look too young"....hehehe.

Seriously though, I can hardly believe it myself sometimes, but yes it was June 15, 1992, and yes, that was 19 YEARS AGO!

I thought I would share some photos of that day, but I think I will wait till next year, for our 20th. You'll just have to wait to see the big hair and mullets of the 90s!

Since it was a Wednesday, and we both worked, we did a relatively low key outing for dinner to celebrate. It might sound strange, but we went to a buffet at a casino. I went there with some friends to celebrate a birthday, and it was fabulous. The best I have ever been to and the whole time I thought "I need to take Tony here". It was perfect. They have such a variety of "boy food":

Prime rib, Caesar salad, chicken Parmesan, shrimp, etc.

And "girl food":

Caprese salad, artichoke heart salad, fresh marinated veggies, pasta salad, etc.

It has truly the fanciest foods I have ever seen on a buffet, including things we did not try, like 3 different salmons, grilled eel, and some fancy french cheeses that probably smell and taste like feet.

And the deserts were to die for....we tried 5: chocolate filled crepe (that they made right there, to order), raspberry cheesecake, carrot cake (so good, really dense/moist, and lots of spice), banana creme pie, and this fruit tart:

I really need to learn the art of food photography, as these pictures do not do the foods justice!

And did we have anyone take a picture of us? Nope, I'm such a bad photo/scrapbooker to not make sure that happened. But you all know what we look like anyway....

Movin' On Up

For those of you who have heard me talk about it, you know one of the hardest days of the past year was when Tony's (now ex-)partner came to our door and said "I'm here to pick up the truck". That was the start of a very stressful (and exciting) time for us.

Well, fast forward 6 months, and I can say we had one of the BEST days in the past year, when I turned to my husband and said "no one can ever say 'I'm here to pick up the truck' again". And that is because our business just purchased our first service truck!

We found a great deal that we could not pass up, and drove to CA this past Thursday to pick it up. We paid cash, so not even a bank can come and get her, she's all ours!

And paired with the service trailer we purchased a few months ago, Tony is well equipped to handle quite a bit of work, so bring it on!

MVP, Oh Yeah!

Last night was TPA's spring sports ceremony, and can you guess who got high school MVP for softball?

We were so surprised, and Alexa was honored to be chosen for this recognition. Her team had a great season, turning their record around from 5-12 last year {their first year moving up to 2A} to 12-6 this season, ranking them 2nd in our region and 11th heading into state. They even made it two games into the state tournament, losing their last game 11-10.

They have all worked so hard, their school's motto "work works" is so true for them. When you attend a school focused on academics, housed in an old church, with no fields, no gym, no facilities at all, you really have to work hard as a team. They practice at a public park and have no "home field" for home games. These girls are amazing, as are their coaches. 5 of our girls {including Alexa} were voted into first team all region, and our head coach got coach of the year. The Arizona Republic wrote a fabulous article about them for these reasons. Work works!

Coach Byant had some really nice things to say about why they chose Alexa for MVP, citing her dedication, hard work and improvement, leadership, positive attitude, and not least her great stats. She was in the top 3 players for her stats (batting averages, RBIs, etc.).

{Alexa with her MVP award and all region award}

I am so {irrationally brimming with tears}proud of this girl!

More Projects

Due to the boredom of having my boys in KS, I have been filling my time with some home projects. I really liked how my reading nook turned out, and wanted to do more. I found a TV stand on sale at Ikea for $10, and thought it would be good for a bench by the front door. I have wanted, for some time, a place to sit and take off/store shoes. We will see how long it holds up for this purpose.

I covered three 20" pillows to serve as cushions with some more patterns of the same line of fabrics as my lamp/pillows. I may try to find a shallow basket or two to fit in the ledge to hide the shoes, but for now, I am liking it.

I also recovered the throw pillows on my couches, rearranged the furniture, and cleaned out/organized both large bookcases. Whew!

Now I am on the hunt for a cedar chest of some sort to store {out of sight} the girl's softball gear that tends to end up all over the living room. The more progress I make, the more I want to do!

Mother's Day

So, my Mother's day was pretty low-key. The boys are in KS for work. The girls and I hung out, did errands, and visited my niece and her new baby. The girls swept and mopped the house while I took a nap. Then we went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. All in all, a nice day...

Well, it was my niece, Desiree's first Mother's Day. I took some pictures of her little cutie, Izaiah, when he was 12 days old. I made a super easy announcement for her (seriously took like 10 minutes, love Photoshop!):

And here are a few {of the 100 pictures I took} that did not make it onto the announcement:

    

We printed them all for Desi, got a cute collage frame and filled it with our favorite 6, and took it to her along with 20 announcements and a Happy Mother's Day balloon {from Sophie}. It was nice to share her first mother's day with her.