That's it? That's all you gotta do?

The party is over....

2013-08-10T15:22:00.001-05:00

Oh no! She's getting so big!!!

Well, this is my last weekend before going back to work. I've neglected the blog this summer. No excuses, but we have been so busy! This was a great summer and we did so many fun things. Vivi is at a really fun age that definitely keeps me on my toes. Never a dull moment.

I spent the entire summer really making sure Vivi was potty trained. Then we went on a one week vacation to Tennessee and all of our hard work flew out the window. That's fun, let me tell you. Vivi doesn't have accidents, she just doesn't go. I even had to call the doctor because I was so worried. You know what the term is? "Toilet Training Resistant". Just great. So now I'm supposed to ignore it and hope that she'll figure it out in the next month. Going back to her babysitter's house next week will be the best thing for her. For years I struggled with sending her to daycare, but I have realized that it is actually good for her. She desperately needs to play with some friends and learn how to play by herself sometimes instead of always with me! We have become so close this summer, but it's time for her to have some space from me for her own good.

Maybe another reason that I'm not so worried about sending her to daycare this year is because I'm actually super excited about my new job this school year. Plus, I'll have Friday's off!! YIPEE! So that means I can still have a day alone with Vivi to do some fun stuff like the zoo or library. I feel so much relief. It's a great feeling.

This Girl's Life

2013-06-12T14:25:00.000-05:00

This girl has the life. Two years old and living it up in Tulsa. We're only two weeks into summer vacation and we have been BUSY! One nice thing about being a working mom/teacher is that we can do all of this fun stuff in the summer.

Vivi at yoga at Utica Square!

Story time at Pottery Barn Kids!

A stroll through the zoo with Josie!

Tulsa Children's Museum

Going through the tape tunnel with Grandma at the children's museum.

Vivi's first ballet class....she was super excited about the big tiara on the wall!

Cold drinks on the patio at the river with Daddy!

Music in the park with friends!

Must be nice to be Vivi! ;)

Father's Day Project

2013-06-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

5x7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Working on a few little Father's Day projects....I just love this picture of Vivi and Frank.

I can safely post this now because I know Frank doesn't read my blog. ;)

Don't forget that Father's Day is in 8 days! I might actually get my stuff to where it needs to go on time this year. Maybe.

Happy Summer!

2013-05-29T14:09:00.001-05:00

So, today was my first official day of summer vacation. I guess that means I can blog again. I've been so neglectful of this little blog of mine, but life got in the way. Thank goodness school is out! I needed a break! We took our new wagon (scored that for $25 on Craigslist...regularly $80!) to check out the neighborhood pool today. It was overcast and windy, but we still enjoyed it. I can see us really taking part in the neighborhood amenities this summer for sure.

I have a lot to write about and tons of pictures to put on this, but this is it for now. More to come later!

Spring Cleaning

2013-04-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

Yuck....doesn't this look just dreadful?! I've had that table and chairs set for years and just stuck it out on our front porch with our dead plants when we moved. It stayed like this for months. Priorities.

Here's a close up of the table and dead plants in case you wanted a better look. ;)

Ta Da! It's amazing what a little sanding, staining, and a trip to Target can do!

I sanded and stained that little bistro set in a total of one hour. Not to bad, if I do say so myself! I planted some flowers today, pulled out all the dead stuff in the beds, and bought some outdoor pillows....much better. Now we're not an embarrassment to the neighborhood.

Here's our little backyard table. Our backyard needs some serious attention.

Here's my temporary herb garden until we can get our back yard under control. It's not bad, it's just so BORING. It's a tiny patio and a backyard full of sod. I can't even bear to take a picture of it for the blog....so boring. But....a blank slate can be fun!

Happy St. Patty's Day

2013-03-21T15:18:00.000-05:00

It's spring break around these parts. St. Patrick's Day kicked off my week off. We went to Mollie's Pub again for the 4th year in a row. Love that place. It's a pub in our friend's backyard. No joke. Like a real pub. It's pretty awesome. Everyone that goes there wants one in their backyard too. Here's our most recent family portrait. We're going to have some Easter pictures taken, but after Easter so Vivi will have her wrist brace off. It's time for an official family picture. I have 20000 pictures of Vivi and no one else. It's like Frank and I don't exist when you look through my photos.

For the party I made thin mint truffles. They were intense! Vivi now likes to pull up the step stool and "help" me with everything I'm doing in the kitchen. Such a little helper.

If you like Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies, then you'll love these. You take two boxes of Thin Mints and crush them up in a big ziploc with a meat tenderizer/pounder. Then you add a block of cream cheese. Yes, cream cheese does make everything better, thank you very much. You mix it all together until it forms a sort of dough, then you roll them into balls. I melted white chocolate and regular chocolate almond bark according to the package directions. You just roll the "truffles" into the melted chocolate and place on wax paper. I sprinkled some green sprinkles on top just for kicks. That's all you gotta do! (Yes, I just had to say that!)

Here's Vivi at the party. She had a blast. She danced to celtic music, ate, socialized, snacked at the bar....she's a party animal. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The Cloffice

2013-03-06T20:02:00.000-06:00

Slowly, but surely, the house is coming along. This is my laundry room that I recently discovered has a little bit of extra space. It's amazing what you find when you finally clear some of the moving clutter out! I decided to make a "cloffice." A friend of mine termed that word and I love it.

Cloffice: (claw-fiss) noun - making a personal space just for you out of a closet in your home.

(in my case, a laundry room)

So, it's no secret that I like to get all crafty sometimes. I had multiple plastic storage containers in my garage filled with random craft project supplies. I decided to actually go through them and organize them. I bought some cute baskets at Michael's and some little tags....I got all crafty on my craft supplies. I lined these up on the top shelf in the laundry room.

I got that adorable rug at OneKingsLane.com for only $149. I thought that was a pretty good deal for a 2.5 x 8 foot rug. I took our old drafting table and got some cute fabric to dress it up under the glass top. Add a little bulletin board from Marshall's and viola....you get a cloffice.

My very own space to pay bills, blog, craft....ahhhh...

Coming soon: pictures of the new office! The guitars are on the wall and it's just about finished!

The Entryway

2013-02-16T21:34:00.000-06:00

The entry before I got my hands on it....

Not bad, but a little boring....

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I was looking into benches and entryway tables, etc. I stumbled across this cute little entryway table at Marshall's for only about $50. I got the lamp there too. It's a Valerie Bertinelli lamp...who knew she made lamps now. Weird, but whatever, it's a cute lamp.

I had the mirror from our old house. It works perfect here.

Ta da!

The Master

2013-02-09T13:43:00.000-06:00

This is what the master bedroom looked like when we bought the house.....

Then, we had it painted gray. Don't get me wrong, I love a pop of color, but not lime green! We bought a new king size bed as our Christmas present and laughed and laughed at how big it looked in the room! See our old nightstands? They look like miniature night stands next to that massive bed! :)

And here it is finished! The curtains are from West Elm and they were my inspiration/starting point for the whole room. They are ivory with gray swirls on them and that is how I decided to use ivory, cream, grey, and metallics as an accent.

I already had the Pottery Barn gallery shelves from our previous house and they just seemed to work well with our wedding pictures on that large wall.

The bedding is a silk quilt from Pottery Barn in ivory. The grey throw blanket is also from Pottery Barn and it is so soft and cuddly! I still need to buy the shams that go with the quilt. I didn't think we needed them and was going to save another $120, but then I got home and realized we probably do need them. I'm waiting for them to go on sale because $120 just seems a little bit ridiculous to spend on two pillow covers. Although I've already spent so much it shouldn't matter at this point, but it does. The pillows are all from Target! Nate Burkus has a new line of linens at Target and I love it.

We totally scored with the nightstands. I found a guy that custom built them for us on Craigslist. He only charged $175 for both! They are tall (31 inches!) and fit our ridiculous bed. They have a gray wash/stain on the bottom part and a dark espresso stain on the top to match our bed perfectly. I hate a matchy/matchy room where you buy the bed, the dresser, the night stands, the mirror, etc. This was a solution. They look great with the bed but are quite different. I bought the mercury glass knobs at Anthropolgie and added them to the drawer.

And this is Vivi helping Frank put up the curtains. She's pretending to be asleep. ;) Gotta love 2 year olds!

Vivi's Room

2013-02-09T13:11:00.000-06:00

Vivi's room was the first finished room in the house and somehow I'm just now blogging about it. Frank's laptop died and he's been using mine for work....hence the few and far between blog posts. I decided to take a few pics of her room and she decided to be the model. We used a more mellow kind of aqua for her new room than the other house. It's called Stratton Blue by Benjamin Moore and I absolutely love it. I think it will be a color she can grow into.

Vivi has a large wall next to the window that I wasn't sure what to do with. We have a lot of little art/wall pieces and it just wouldn't work on that big wall so I decided to do a sort of gallery wall with her stuff. I think it kind of goes with the eclectic style in her room.

Here are her shelves filled with little girl chotsky's (is that how you spell it?).

Her crib is in the opposite corner. We had a hard time placing the furniture in this room and put it every possible way before deciding on this. I picked this room for Vivi because it has a huge double door closet, but in turn that double door closet made the furniture placement tricky.

Her little coat hanger. I found this at Anthropologie years ago and used it in my house for years before Vivi was even in the picture. It somehow is perfect in her room.

Here's Vivi sitting on her poof that I found at a garage sale for $7. Serena and Lily has similar poofs for WAY more than $7. I love a good design bargain!

Best. Dinner. Ever.

2013-01-02T21:06:00.000-06:00

I highly recommend you make this dinner. Every single part of it. Start to finish. The flavors of each individual dish were perfectly matched with each other. This was our New Year's Eve dinner. What a way to end 2012. So, on our menu was filet mignon, creamy onion blue cheese steak sauce, mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, and homemade bread.

Let's start with the steaks. This was a Barefoot Contessa recipe using a cast iron skillet. There were 17 reviews for this recipe. I read them all. So many of these reviewers said they'll never grill a steak again. Searing it in the skillet to form a crust, then putting in the oven for just a few minutes was amazing. Make a filet like this sometime. I beg you! Here's the recipe:

Barefoot Contessa's Steakhouse Steaks

Now the sauce. I watched the Pioneer Woman make this steak sauce once on her show and I haven't truly forgotten it since. I'm not even a huge blue cheese fan, but you HAVE to make this sauce sometime. It was so delicious and a perfect addition to the steak or the potatoes. Here's the recipe:

Pioneer Woman's Onion Blue Cheese Sauce

Mashed potatoes. A favorite of mine. These weren't just any potatoes. This was also curtesy of the Pioneer Woman. Only she can add butter and cream cheese in her mashed potatoes. They were amazing. I actually only used one stick of butter instead of 1 1/2 to 2, as the recipe suggests. Believe me, these were decadent. Here's the recipe:

Pioneer Woman's Creamy Mashed Potatoes

The bread has quickly become a favorite recipe of mine since the development of Pinterest. I have probably made this bread 10 times so far. It is SOOOOOO easy. I can't stress that enough. And...I bet you probably have the ingredients already in your pantry. The only catch is that you have to have a Le Crueset cast iron dutch oven. Well, I suppose it doesn't have to be Le Crueset. It does have to be cast iron though. When you take the cover off your pot 30 minutes into the process, you will not believe your eyes. Can bread be beautiful? I think so! Here's the recipe:

Crusty Bread

And finally the Caesar Salad. This was my brother's recipe. I always call it "Bryan's Caesar Salad recipe. You know, the one with the hard boiled egg in it?" Turns out, he says, it's really Fannie Farmer's recipe. I can't find the recipe anywhere online. So here it is:

1 hard boiled egg
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/4 c. olive oil
juice from a lemon
couple squirts of Worcestershire sauce
salt/pepper

Put all ingredients in a blender and viola! Just add romaine, croutons, and shaved parmesan.

Okay. This post was dedicated to all the other foodies out there. If you're not one, I apologize. You probably didn't read past the first sentence. No hard feelings.

New Year's Eve Cookies? Ok!

2012-12-30T22:01:00.000-06:00

I've never been a huge fan of New Year's Eve. Sure...we had some fun ones, especially when Frank was gigging it up somewhere. But, in general, I'd much rather have a night at home with friends or family. That's what we're doing this year. My parents, brother, and nephews will be coming over for a steakhouse dinner and game night. I'm sure Frank would rather be on a stage somewhere, but I'm pretty content just staying home. We decided to have a fantastic dinner that would normally cost a fortune at a steakhouse and wouldn't taste nearly as good. We're making Ina Garten's Steakhouse Steaks, Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes and creamy onion blue cheese steak sauce, homemade Caesar salad, homemade bread, and NYE cookies. The last part I made up. :) I bought all the ingredients to make these fabulous Christmas cookies I got last year as a gift. It turned out that we had so many goodies around the house that I didn't need to make them. So....I turned them into NYE cookies. Instead of dying the swirl red or green, I chose yellow. And instead of red and green sprinkles, I chose multicolored! Ta-da....that is how you make a NYE cookie! I will slice and cook them tomorrow then blog about our dinner again soon.

If you want the recipe for these delicious NYE cookies.....click below!

colorful swirl cookie recipe

P.S. - I love that there is subway tile in the background of my food pics now! :)

Merry Christmas!

2012-12-28T19:58:00.000-06:00

I've been a horrible blogger lately. This house "project" has consumed me. I'm loving it though! I'm currently working on our master bedroom. We bought the bed last week, got the bedding yesterday, ordered the curtains from West Elm today, and meeting a guy that is making our nightstands tomorrow! Merry Christmas to me! Seriously!! As soon as it's all put together I will definitely blog about it!

So....here are a few pictures from our Christmas this year. It was a great first Christmas in this house. It has proven to be cozy. This is a pic of Vivi standing in front of the tree right before we left for mass at Christ the King. Her Nana got her that dress for her birthday. So pretty!

Here we are...the Arnolds! This was after mass and right before we ate dinner. I got busy in the kitchen as soon as we got home. I made Giada's fettucini alfredo. If you're an alfredo fan, like myself, you've got to try this recipe. You can find it by searching on foodnetwork.com. I only make it on special occasions because it is filled with heavy whipping cream and butter...but so delicious!

And here is what my kitchen looked like after I cooked. It was such a mess that I thought it deserved a picture. It took us two days to clean it all up! Instead of cleaning Christmas Eve, we decided to have White Russians by the fire instead. ;)

Christmas morning! Vivi checking out her presents! Blankie and messy hair in tow!

This picture captures it all. Check out the onsie from Grandma. So cute and cozy! And that hair! She's had a huge tangle in her hair after every nap and every morning! It's becoming quite a chore. Almost all of Vivi's presents this year had to do with food. She got a shopping cart, a little kitchen, pretend food, pots and pans, dishes....you name it, she got it! She's one lucky little girl.

This was in the car on the way to Grandma's house. Is she a happy girl or what?!?

Merry Christmas!!!!

So Glad I Went With My Gut....

2012-12-09T20:07:00.002-06:00

The subway tile is in and I LOVE it!!! I'm so glad I went with my gut, because it was right this time. Frank even admits it too. (I told you so!) ;) I wish I had some pictures of the kitchen when we first moved in. The previous owner had under-cabinet lighting, but had a white plug coming down in four different spots from the light to the plug. It looked really tacky. Not sure why anyone would do that?!? Anyway, we spent about $250 for an electrician to properly install the lighting and attach it to one switch. These are the before tile and after electrician pictures.

They purposely didn't repair the walls too much when they cut into them because they knew that we were going to put tile on it. I stared at a cut sheetrock wall for about two weeks waiting on a tile guy to call me back. When he didn't call back the second time I called, I called elsewhere. The guys I found were able to do it the next day! Now, that's what I'm talking about!

This was after the tile guys tiled. They had to grout the next day. I started second guessing my grout decision too. I liked how you could see the dark between the tile and wasn't sure the white grout I picked would look good. But...I went with my gut again, and the help my hubs and BFF, and stuck with the white.

And here it is! Have I mentioned that I LOVE it?!!?

Here's an up-close-and-personal pic. I can't stop staring at it!

We still have a couple of minor things to do left. We have to repair the wall to the left of the toaster where we pulled out the piece of granite. Then we'll paint it the wall color. I also want to take down the white blinds on the kitchen window. I know that they are just fine and fit perfectly and probably weren't cheap. However, I want to put a half-window curtain there like I had in my old house. I like that in a kitchen. I just need to find a good fabric. I also think we're going to install some pendant lights above the island instead of canned lights and get a globe chandelier for the dining room attached to the kitchen. Still a work in progress, but SOOOOO nice already. We spent about $150 on tile and grout (from Lowes, believe it or not!) and $350 on labor. So, for roughly $750 we changed the entire look of our kitchen. I can't wait to make some Christmas cookies!

Bring on the subway tile...

2012-12-04T21:14:00.002-06:00

It's happening. Subway tile is going up in my kitchen tomorrow afternoon. I cannot wait! I hope it looks as good as I imagine it in my head. My husband's been making me second guess my decision about the tile, because that is what he usually does with decisions, and now I'm a little bit nervous! But I've got to go with my gut here. I will post some before and after pics as soon as it's finished!

Happy Birthday Vivi!

2012-11-25T21:06:00.000-06:00

It's official...Vivi is 2!!! We had a great birthday weekend filled with family, presents, and cake! We didn't have the big party like last year. I decided that I want Vivi's birthdays to be family celebrations until she's older. Not to mention that we kind of had a lot going on lately. Not only did we just move, but we also ended up hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house since my parents were sick. I really loved it, but it was a lot of work. Here's a picture of Vivi with her prized possession....her baby stroller from her cousins Drew and Brady. She is in heaven pushing this around. That was always the first toy she headed for at her friend Josie's house. Now she has her own!

We went to our new Reasor's, (which is amazing, by the way....I LOVE a good grocery store) the morning of her birthday party to pick up some last minute items. We bought pink plates, striped napkins, and a balloon. She was so happy that I had to just stop and take a picture of her in the middle of the store! She held those pink plates the whole way home in the car.

I made the most amazing birthday cake. My mom always made us homemade birthday cakes every year and I am going to do the same for Vivi. This was the start of the snickerdoodle cake with brown sugar cinnamon buttercream frosting. BUTTERcream....lots of butter.....but so, so good.

Delicious! Want the recipe? Click here: Snickerdoodle Cake

I've never made a 4 layer cake before, but it really wasn't that difficult.

Vivi got some good presents this year...right up her alley. She got a doll house that has a potty in it too....all the rage among the kiddos. She got a radio flyer bike and stroller from her cousins, a pretty dress and purse, an alphabet puzzle, a new baby doll, counting elephants, cooking toys, bath crayons, and most importantly.....money for college. ;) She's one happy little girl!

Silly cousins!

Happy Birthday Vivi Grace Arnold! We love you SOOOOOO much!

Good Bye Little House

2012-11-17T21:20:00.001-06:00

Well....it's official. We moved this week. It was a very bittersweet experience. I loved my little house. I can remember when I bought it thinking I would live there forever....and I really meant it. I can remember having a conversation with my mom saying that I really could live in that house forever. Her response was that most people live in their homes an average of 7 years. Well, seven years later, almost to the month, and I moved. We moved. We just outgrew the house. This is the house Frank and I lived in when we got married. This was Vivi's first house. We have so many good memories. The good news is we still own this house. It will make someone a great rent house. I just hope they love it like we did.

I'm now sitting in my new house writing this post. I feel like we live in a mansion even though it's 2,200 square feet. Our two year house hunt has made us REALLY appreciate this house. It is so spacious and roomy and nice and new and clean..... And the kitchen....oh my gosh. I love my gas stove, my dishwasher, my awesome faucet. I love my pantry! How did I live so long without a pantry?! Vivi has even gotten lost a time or two. It's hilarious! We've already started a few home improvements, although it's all cosmetic. We had a painter come in and paint Vivi's room and the master bedroom. Good bye lime green! We had an electrician install under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen and hopefully the tile guy can do our new subway tile backsplash next week. I will be posting many pictures in the future, but I just can't do it today. I have to pay homage to my old love.

Good bye little house...we'll miss you....

Super V

2012-10-26T21:32:00.000-05:00

Monte Cassino's Trunk or Treat was tonight. I didn't take Vivi last year, but I knew she would love it this year. So, her costume. Where do I begin? She is Super V...to the rescue...a cute little superhero. I made her cape from a t-shirt, puff paint, and zebra duct tape. It came out pretty cute and she's been wearing it around the house for a couple of weeks now. I found these cute tights at Target and put a onesie on top of it. So, tonight when we actually have to wear the costume, she wanted NOTHING to do with it! I barely got the tights and onesie on. She wouldn't allow me to put on the zebra belt, she wouldn't wear her sunglasses, she wouldn't wear her black Chuck Taylor's, and I barely got her cape on. Not to mention it got very cold here, so she had to wear a hoodie and a vest. We left the house and she's wearing polka dot tights and a purple hoodie....not exactly a Halloween costume. Instead of Super V as her costume, she chose to be a temperamental two year old for her costume.

Ahhh....and I hear the three's are even worse!!!

These Boots Are Made for Walking....

2012-10-21T20:07:00.000-05:00

Vivi got some new books! She rocked the Uggs last winter from Aunt Anna. We got more compliments on those boots than you could imagine. So, this year I investigated some new winter Uggs for the Veeves. Once I found out they were $120, I quickly looked for an alternative. Seriously, who would spend $120 on a pair of boots for a two year old?!?!?!

So, thank you Zulily for these $18 Ugg look-a-likes. Vivi loves them and they're pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself. They'll keep those tootsies warm this winter for sure!

A new home, maybe?

2012-10-09T13:57:00.000-05:00

Source: zillow.com via Caryn on Pinterest

I hope I'm not jinxing anything by this blog post. We have a contract on a house and if all goes well, we'll close on November 9th! Frank and I are so nervous about this situation after the last time. We had a contract on a house about a year and a half ago and told the world, then it fell through after the inspections because of a repair that could not be agreed upon. So....we had to tell the world that it didn't go through. I feel good about this though. In fact, Frank and I feel completely at peace with this decision. Yes, we are kind of "selling out" and moving to the burbs, but it's only 15 minutes away! And we get a practically new house (built in 2011)with everything we want (for the most part) and WAY less than we were planning to spend in mid-town. When we looked at our pros and cons list, it couldn't be argued.

Anyway, now I'm getting excited. I'm really into design and character in homes...well, guess what? These new subdivisions don't have much. So, I've been browsing pinterest and can't wait to get my hands on these builder boring choices and make them my own. It's going to be fun. I'm sure there will be many future blog posts about my new project! Just crossing our fingers until November 9th!

Happy Vivi

2012-10-06T20:23:00.000-05:00

I'm so proud of my cautious little girl. She wanted to go in the Juniper Jump at Harper's birthday SO bad, but was scared. She did it though and loved it! Tantrum when we left to prove it!

Homemade Thai

2012-09-27T21:35:00.000-05:00

This is too good not to share! I recently made dinner for my mom's birthday....a Thai soup and the "In The Raw" salad (a local sushi restaurant). It was a nice night and we were actually able to eat outside again. Frank and I love Thai food. Well, we love food in general. It's one of the things we have in common. We have the conversation often about how we lived for years and years without trying a food item....for example, Tom Kha soup, and how it's a favorite now. How could we have survived so long without knowing this delicacy! I still can't believe that we never even tried Indian food until we were in our late 20's. What a shame! We love Indian food now! I really do feel sorry for picky eaters.

Anyway, these two recipes were delicious and easy enough to make on a work day after a long day with a room full of 8 year olds then an evening with a toddler. That's saying a lot....

Try them, you'll like them!

Coconut Curry Soup

ITR Salad

Happy cooking!

Here's to...

2012-09-16T15:17:00.001-05:00

Here's to a great girl's weekend! It can be done. I can leave for the weekend and I survived, Vivi survived, and Frank survived. I can't even tell you the agony I put myself through preparing for this. Torture. But....I made myself do it and I'm so thankful that I did. We had a blast celebrating Miranda and her bachelorette party. I laughed so hard that I cried multiple times. I can't remember the last time I did that. So now that I know I can do this, now I'm planning an overnight with Frank for our upcoming third anniversary. We've gotten the short end of the stick on our last two anniversaries. At our one year I was 9 months pregnant. We were going to do dinner and a movie. Which turned into brunch and a movie. Which turned into just brunch. I was too fat and lazy. :) For our second anniversary, we just did dinner but made sure we were finished early enough to put Vivi to bed. Now, for our third I feel like we can maybe actually do something nice. At least now I know that I will survive without Vivi for one night. ;)

The Final Product...

2012-08-28T20:40:00.001-05:00

Okay, ladies and gents, here is the finished table! It's been finished for awhile now, but I just can't seem to blog as much since I've gone back to work. There are some imperfections that will probably drive me a little bit crazy every time I look at it, but overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I did it the right way this time....sanded, primed, painted (two coats), and polyurethaned it. It's amazing how nothing sticks to it when you do it the right way.

The No.1 and No.2 came to me when I realized that I didn't want to put Vivi's name on the table. I found this cool way of doing painted lettering. I found it on Pinterest, of course. Click below if you're interested....it worked great, to my surprise.

Painting Lettering on Furniture

Pinterest also helped me tremendously with the chevron. If you want to make a chevron stencil, check out this website below:

Make a Chevron Stencil

How did I survive before Pinterest? I say that at least once a week. Below is the website I found that helped me redo this table the right way. I followed the directions they gave pretty closely.

How to Paint Furniture the Right Way

Vivi loves her little table. She likes to color, read books, and have snacks on it. Mission accomplished!

The Time Has Come

2012-08-12T21:38:00.000-05:00

Source: angelaparmer.blogspot.co.uk via Caryn on Pinterest

Summer is officially over for me tomorrow. I had a few moments this week. I got teary eyed at Pottery Barn Kid's story time when I was telling the leader how much we enjoyed it this summer. I cried three or four times in one day when I got an Evite for a fun girl's weekend away in September just thinking about working and leaving Vivi for the weekend. What is wrong with me? I don't think this is normal. I just don't do well with change I guess. I'm FINE when I'm at work and in a routine. Just fine. I enjoy my job and the people I work with. Why do I continue to freak out every time I have to go back to work???? Okay. Enough about that.

We had the best summer. It really was the best. Our trip to New York was awesome. Vivi got to spend some quality time with her extended family. Santa Fe was awesome! We found a new favorite place to visit. Who knew? Vivi and I spent A LOT of quality time together.....story time, library, zoo, parks, Reasors, Target, play dates, the backyard. You name it, we did it. I did almost everything on my summer list. What I didn't get to was power washing the deck. I'd rather just pay someone to do that anyway. And...I never got to my wedding album. Imagine that. There's always Christmas break. ;)