Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Painting a nightstand

I decided that I liked the dresser I painted for Tanner's room so much, why not try to paint a nightstand for him too. I snagged my old college nightstand from my mom's house that I faux painted green and blue "crackle" paint (I know...*sigh*). I did sand it down a little bit with 100 grit sandpaper (prob could have used some with more grit or used a circular sander) but I didn't it need to be super smooth or perfect, because my boy will beat the crap out of it anyway. Oh, and when I talk about sanding I do my best to pretend I know what I'm talking about.

However, painting furniture is a great, inexpensive way to update old funiture to make it look new!  It's my new favorite thing, because I'm on a budget and it's a quick decorating fix.

Lesson learned: Do not sand outside when it is super windy, and wear sunglasses so the dust doesn't get in your eyes, ugh.

Here is most of the nightstand I was so proud of 10+ yrs ago without the drawers b/c I forgot to take a pic of the total before product




I'm sure there are 100 better ways of doing this out there than I chose, but I'm on a budget and I have limited time.

STEPS:

1. Sanding it down



2. Making sure to get around the bottom edges where there were some previous dried paint bubbles and even some splintering going on



Here is the end product, again this was a bit different than the dresser becaue it was real wood and had the texture of the previous crackle paint. The dresser was maybe vaneered wood? I don't even know if that's what it's called, but it was really smooth. You can still see the crackle texture through the paint, but again, I don't care much :)




I used the extra navy  paint I used for his walls for the knobs.  You can't really tell that there are stars on them.  And there we have it, a free nightstand for T-man's room!

Stay tuned for pics of Tanner's new room!

In case you missed it here is the dresser I painted for his room as well.


Sunday, April 15, 2012

Easter Fun!

I can't believe it's already been a week since Easter.  We had a really fun weekend with the kids.  Saturday we died Easter eggs and Sam ended up getting really mad because she couldn't stick her whole hand + the egg in the coloring liquid...REALLY mad. 




None the less they had fun plopping them in different colors and putting stickers all over them.





                                              
                                              Still mad...hey, you can't please everybody 








                             I know there's 2 almost identical pics here, but this one is good of Sam...


                                                       ...And this one is good of Tanner.


I don't have photos of the next activity because it was a little chaotic.  With a screaming toddler and 2 messy kids it was time for bath.  Since Sam recently had a scary experience in the tub during normal "rinse the shampoo out of your hair" time and inhaled a bunch of water, she's now TERRIFIED of the bath and screams bloody murder every time.  I got creative this night...

"Who wants to go have beach party in the tub??"

Well of course they both thought the idea of everyone getting in their bathing suits and getting in the bath, including mom, sounded super fun!  So off we went, we laid out our towels, filled the tub with bubbles and turned on the music in the bathroom and had a beach party.  I must admit, it helped.  Sam did really and there were a couple of things that really helped her not to "freak out".
                              1) the foaming shampoo that I let the kids use themselves
                              2) a squirt bottle I found that I gently squirted Sam's hair with water so she could barely tell.

By the end of it, nobody wanted to get out of the tub, and Sam was actually the last one out!  Because I overestimate my children's cleanliness it's now a week later and I realize we haven't had another bath, whoops!  I'm going to try for beach party again with just the kids this time and see how it goes.  Although Tanner takes mostly showers now, but loves to take baths and play with his toys.

EASTER MORNING:

Usually the Easter bunny hides eggs along with the kids' Easter baskets around the house, but since he couldn't find all of the extra plastic eggs he skipped that part.  So the kids found their baskets along with their goodies and it was all downhill from there...










                      Toby's got her eyes on the cookies. She is always waiting for her opportunity.




Next we went to brunch at our favorite breakfast place with Matt and Cally and the kids and Grandpa Mike.  Everybody behaved (thanks to a couple IPads and some crayons).


EASTER AFTERNOON:

Let's see, of course I was able to get out to the golf course for a little practice while the kids took a nap before our big family dinner.  They had a blast in the huge bouncy house aunt P and uncle R rented.  Of course we had a couple casualties, but overall everyone survived without too many injuries.









LET THE EGG HUNT BEGIN!!











                                                                      Who ME??




                            It took an injury in the bounce house before we had our first break!



Till next year...






Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Calm Before the Storm (or not in this case)

We've been preparing all day for the severe storms and tornadoes we were supposed to get tonight. We are and have been in a high risk since yesterday which is rare and really scary.  The kids helped us clear out under the stairs in the basement this morning and in doing so, we got to organize a little and found a bunch of stuff in boxes we haven't even unpacked yet.  We've gathered our bottled waters and are getting ready to bring our snacks and make our little tent for the night downstairs.

The mess under the stairs we had to clear out


                        The good news is we emptied some more boxes since the move, organized a few and     threw things in the garage sale pile! 



     We also found a few fun items that have been lost in the chaos for awhile, like Sam's first Halloween costume, little ladybug!  And looks it still fits!




The kids supposedly cleaning up (playing)...



Oh, yay all of our hats we've been missing!



Mike's PGA Championship hat


So it looks like I didn't get to take any pics of us all having a blast in our revamped storm shelter.  Next time.  Well, it is now 11:38pm and way past my bedtime.  I finally hear some thunder and rain outside, but thankfully no sirens yet.  Tanner was sad we didn't get to hang out in our remodeled tornado shelter.  I told him it was a good thing we didn't have to, but it won't be the last time either. 

           Happy
                Spring!!!