Whew, it's been awhile

I'm not sure why other than it's just plain busy!!  All.the.time.busy.

Our latest adventure was spring break with Mikayla.  I did take a couple of days off to be with her and we were going to go camping...

well.... the weather was pouring RAIN all week.

We got our camp partially set up before a total down pour came, we decided to make the trek back home again because it was going to be miserable all that night and the next day.....

so the next day - we had Mikayla Day!

Out of a reasonable list of things we could go do, she chose to go to the mall.  We visited the American Girl store and amazingly enough they had an opening in their bistro!  That has seriously never ever happened before.

 

We didn't remember to bring any of our dolls but the bistro had one she could borrow so she would have a friend at the table with her!

 

From there we went window shopping until we hit the Vera Bradley store.... oops is the only thing I'm going to say about our visit there.  Then we went to the shoe store and on and on...finally I decided I can't afford any more Mikayla day so we went home.

 

In the rain.....

 

That night we had one more surprise and that was to go see the new Cinderella movie... Oh my gosh I LOVE LOVE LOVED it.  LOVED it!!!! 

 

So.. while attempting to completely ignore the fact we are NOT camping.... all that work, sorting, buying, cleaning and packing... you know we don't travel lightly, right - however I wasn't completely packed full because we had two cars going  LOL

 

 

We finally threw in the towel and decided to go get our 1/2 set up camp and call it quits. The grounds were a MESS and we were not interested! Amazingly the camp ground office was willing to comp our entire 4 nights for another time vs. just reimbursing for one night which was our hope at a minimum.  :)  yay!!!

 

 

Finally it started to clear up....

 

It dried out a little, so we camped at home.

 

 

Roasted marshmallows and cooked popcorn chiminea style.

 

Set up the camp.

Mikayla was ecstatic!!!  Whew... we may have salvaged the week after all....

 

Now tonight we have to take it down before the scheduled rain starts tomorrow....again.....

 

My not so tiny Valentine

I have to say I LOVE Valentine's Day!!!  It brings me so much joy to make it fun for Mikayla too.  Of course I love that Michael proposed to me that day 17 years ago too.  It's just FUN!

Mikayla has been asking me for about the last week about her "Valentine table" and if I was planning to do it and so forth.  Little did she know......

I LOVED this years plan.

Ohhhh she was elated.... she got so distracted with the numbered packages she didn't even see the stuffed animal at first LOL

So.much.fun.

Here is the video...I LOVED capturing this!.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0g7LKtTeQQ

 

So.....before we could head out, we got her new fish tank allllll set up!  It did recommend that you let it set up for 24 hours before putting your fish in....so we did that and even though it wasn't ready to have it's new fish inside.... we did pick out our finny friend.

 

 

 

Introducing Elliot.  He is an elephant fin betta.  Elephant....Ellie....he's a boy...Elliot.

 

 

It has taken him about 3 days to get used to his new tank, I feel like he's still exploring.  I came out the other day and could NOT find him.... I was thinking oh shoot...please don't let us kill him already.... but no, he was sleeping in one of the caves... whew!

 

 

Ahhhh he's still adjusting and getting used to everything.  He sure likes his little space now though!

 

 

 

ahhhhh there we have it, best.Valentine's.day.for.Mikayla.yet.

A little pre-Valentine

Ohhh I love Valentine's Day.  I wanted to show the Valentine's we made this year.  I can't believe I actually made them..... let me backtrack a little bit.  Michael got me a new cricut for Christmas and ever since then, I'm afraid to admit that I've been seriously obsessed with it.... well with them because of course I have my old cricut too.  Since then, I have used the sticky off of two mats.... that's a huge deal because I've had a mat last me over a year before...OOPS!

 

So anyway, back to the Valentines, I saw some on  my beloved Pinterest (obsessed much?) and the lady made hers and also provided the file....so.... naturally I had to challenge myself to see if I could do it!

 

Guess what!!!!???!?!?  It totally worked!!!!  Here they are!!!!  Mikayla wrote who it was for and from on the back!!  Brilliant!!  SO fun!!!

 

 

now for the Valentine box.... um... well I LOVE making them... so I gave Mikayla free reign on Pinterest (oops) and let her pick which one she wanted to recreate....

 

this is what she picked.

 

 

 

well, I'm up for the challenge for sure!

 

Here is what we created.  Isn't he CUTE!!!

 

 

 

 

 

I still kind of can't believe we made a Minion!!  LOL!  it makes me happy just to see it.

 

 

Here are some of her other boxes, I use them as part of my Valentine décor...that's why I saved them :) they totally look like a kid made them, right?

 

 

When she brought it to school..... all of the girls that were there crowded around her to see it!  She was a bit embarrassed by the attention but when I told someone that, they said well she should get used to it, imagine how Martha Stewart used to feel.... LOL!  PERFECT.... a mini Martha in training!!  LOVE IT!

 

 

So we're all ready for the big day,

she's ready for her exchange at school,

she's the only one that brought her stuff in early, I am so glad I didn't wait till the last minute.

 

all of that...to end up NOT having school at all on Friday when everything was scheduled because there was a campus wide power failure......

 

anti-climatic much?.....

 

oh well, they are going to exchange on Tuesday LOL!

 

Happy Valentine's Day!  Ohhhhh I can't wait to give her the main gift from us.....

A Pinterest Pantry

I had big dreams about making this one happen however it was more intimidating to me than the gallery walls that I've done. But here was my inspiration.  If I came a little close I'd be ecstatic!  I want pretty but it has to be functional otherwise it won't work.

 

 

Let me start by saying that this wouldn't have happened without my mother-in-law....she's amazing and did all of the painting and then I added my part when I got home from work and we came up with this magic.

 

It started here..... *hangs head* it's was organized chaos.

 

Whoops, cleared the top shelf before I remembered to take before pictures.

 

 

I started by putting recipe books in this wire basket I had...whew!! no more books falling all over the place.

 

Then the first layer of paint went up - yikes!!!  it's pretty but.... wow, drastic change.

 

 

Then I added in the vinyl I cut on cricut.... and wow.... look what we have now!

 

 

OHHHHHH ok, now I'm excited, look how pretty this will be.  Whew, I will confess the dark paint kind of scared me.

 

 

We went shelf by shelf.... she painted by day, I added in the vinyl and shelf paper by night... then we loaded in a little more.... it was far less intimidating to do it one-two shelves at a time vs. emptying the whole thing then trying to work around the mess.

 

 

GIDDY!!!

 

 

Best.plan.ever!  Little by little we made progress! 

 

 

 

and then...... we took these wooden crates that I found at Home Depot from this.

 

 

 

to this.  I hated to throw away all the negatives from the vinyl that I cut...so we found a use for them!!  One again, MIL painted and I added the vinyl.  We just need to add the wheels and they will easy roll in and easy roll out.

 

 

 

And then..... the magic happened.

 

Isn't she pretty.  I am still tweaking it a bit and moving stuff around and we're going to paint the step ladder the same blue because we certainly can not have it not match...not after this work to get it this way :) 

 

The crates!!!  ACK I love them so! 

 

 

ahhhhh I haven't even shut the doors too much because I like to look at it every time I walk by!  HA!

 

 

 

Before:

 

After:

 

 

Just a little work remains to paint the door trim and doors.... but I was so anxious to share the amazingness of this new little space. 

 

Ahhhhhh now I can check that one off my to do list!