It all started.....

It all started yesterday when I decided to get out my summer clothes and put away most of my winter stuff. Easy, right? It would have been if I would have stuck with JUST doing that. Ever get one of those crazy urges to do some major cleaning/organizing and you get a little carried away? Yeah....happened to me yesterday. :-D My bedroom ended up looking like this:




I didn't get a good picture of the closet but it was looking pretty wild too. See all the hangars, shoes, blankets, etc in the photos? Remember, I was only supposed to be getting summer clothes out. ;-) LOL. Anyway, I ended up spending 2 1/2 hours in my room and had 2 1/2 bags of trash along with 2 bags of stuff to donate to the thrift store. I also added a few things to my garage sale pile.
It was a big job, made bigger by the fact that Levi woke up and was "helping" (he kept throwing stuff from my trash pile back into my "keep" pile!) BUT my closet is nice and organized now, as are my drawers and the clothes in our storage room. I feel very accomplished. :-)

My thoughts exactly

OK, I guess this isn't showing up quite right but if you click on the picture you'll be able to see the whole cartoon.

Bits and Pieces

I'm back from an unintended super long blogging break! Aren't you excited?? :-p Sorry, I've just been lacking inspiration and motivation to blog!
So, what's been going on in my life? Most recently, I took a fun filled vacation to beautiful Arkansas to hang out with my wonderful sweet mom. (how many adjectives can I use in one sentence?? Yeesh) Levi got sick the first night we got there, but quickly improved after a trip to the pediatrician. While he wanted nothing to do with Grammy while he was sick, once he was feeling better he quickly fell in love and she was *almost* as good as mommy. :-)





While in Arkansas, I did lots and lots of shopping, since in my mom's area there are endless thrift stores and resale stores. A bargain hunter's heaven!! I finally found some place mats and a table centerpiece that I've been looking and looking for. I'm really happy with what I found, and you can't beat this: I paid a whopping $4 for the centerpiece!! What a deal. :-D




In other news, I can now say Levi is walking!! Here he is, showing off a few steps for ya: You'll see at the end he still prefers scooting as his fastest, main mode of transportation, but he's definitely getting the hang of walking. Way to go Levi!



In case you haven't followed the story of baby Stellan, from my previous post, he's finally home again after 5 weeks in the hospital and a major surgery. God is good!!
That'll do for now, I promise I'll blog more regularly now again!! (I hope)

Praying for Stellan

Among the blogs I enjoy reading, there is one by a sweet lady nicknamed MckMama that I keep up with. She is an amazing Christian lady and her blog is such a great testimony.
Anyway, Stellan is her youngest baby, I think he's about 5 months old. When he was in the womb, he was diagnosed with a very serious heart condition and the doctors said he would never survive. Miraculously, he was born healthy and well with no signs of the heart condition.
Sunday night, MckMama took him to the ER because he had a cold and difficulty breathing. Something happened there, and things have quickly gone downhill since. Stellan's heart condition (Super Ventricular Tachycardia) has reappeared, and nothing is helping to stabilize him or get his heart rate slowed down. I encourage you to read the latest updates HERE. Even through this difficult time, MckMama's faith is strong, as you will see in her recent posts.
I post this because baby Stellan needs all the prayer he can get. I know none of us know this family, but I feel like I have gotten to "know" them through blog-land, and my heart is breaking for what they are going through, so please say a little prayer for Stellan as you read this. Thank you!!

Finally, the kitchen!

Finally, my kitchen is *nearly* done! I LOVE it, it is absolutely beautiful! Great work, Jeremy. Thank you so much!
It is not 100% done, there are a few little finishing touches, but I couldn't wait any longer to share pictures. :-) If you need a reminder of what it used to look like, go HERE

Looking from the dining room here. The china hutch on the left used to be on the right wall. I like it tons better here!
I want to get matching placemats for the table and a pretty centerpiece.


Walking in and looking right. The back of the peninsula here obviously still needs finished. I may eventually go with an above-stove microwave but don't want to spend any more money for now.


Looking straight ahead at the sink. I turned off the lights so you could see the light fixtures better. I'm going to get a nice plant to put on that shelf above the windows. I may also get a nice wooden trash can that looks better in here at some point.
We still need knobs on the doors on this side. I haven't decided yet if I'll put any curtains up. I would put up a valance and not a true panel curtain if I did.


Lights on:
I LOVE my sink!!!!!!!!!!!! And the faucet!


Looking left of the sink. Nice tall pantry...love that!


Fridge is now on the opposite side of the room. This spot looks funny above the window but there will soon be another shelf up there, just like the one above the sink. You can see we still need to install the toe kick under the edges of the cabinets, too.


I LOVE the floor too!

Family Likeness?

One of my aunts recently sent me a picture of my dad as a tot. As soon as I saw it, I was shocked to see how much Levi looked like my dad in this picture!! How about you? Can you see a resemblance? It was hard for me to find a picture of Levi to show it as clearly as I see it....you may have to kind of know him and his expressions that are hard to catch on camera in order to see the likeness. But, whaddya think?