A Welcoming Front Door

  Monday I shared my color swatches that we were considering for our front door.   Of course nobody wants a "before" pic if there isn't an "after" photo.  And if you're anything like me I like a good tutorial to go along with someone's sharing of anything.  This was a pretty easy project and quick.    I painted the door in one afternoon.  Our door started off beige, and in desperate need of a makeover.  Since I didn't want to paint our options on the door, I instead took a bunch of swatches of each color we were considering and taped them on the door so we could see what they looked like.  Once we picked a color I went back and grabbed a small can of paint and a short time later? WA-LA! A brand new door! 

As for the color we chose, it is Behr's "Jamaican Bay".   I couldn't take my eyes off this color and it just makes me so darn happy when I see it, so it had to be.  Sam is upset that it isn't pink, but I can't win them all.  Mike seems to like it so that's all that matters.  

  Here's what I used:

1. angled 2 1/2 inch brush and a 1 inch brush for the nooks and crannies. 

2. a sander- fine

3. Behr's Jamaican Bay in exterior satin finish with primer (2 coats). The nice man at the counter suggested a satin finish and he seemed to know what he was talking about.

 ALL DONE!! AIN'T SHE PRETTY?

I can't help to smile when I pull up to my house now! Before my front door said, "I'm boring." Now it says, "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!" I love the color so much, I may just paint the inside of it...and the garage door leading into the house too.  The possibilities are endless!  Did I inspire you? Do you have a fun and fresh front door? If so, I want to see it. 

A Splash of Color

So, for a few months now I've been pondering painting our front door.  The front of our house is east facing so in the summer the morning sun can be excruciating so I've been waiting for some milder weather before taking on this small project.  Right now I have taped up a bunch of different paint swatches and periodically go outside at different times of the day to see how they all look.  Like all the colors we've painted in our house, or bedrooms mainly I should say, once I get an idea in my head nobody can sway me from it.  Like the morning I woke up thinking I wanted to paint ginormous navy and white stripes in Tanner's room, Mike tried to talk me out of it, but it was, eh..too late!  I've gotten excited about it and no matter how crazy it seems to anybody else it's happening.

This time, it's a little different.  I'm painting our front door which is visible to everybody on the outside.  I want it to stand out but I don't want it to be an eyes sore for neighbors (yes, I care about their feelings too).  The outside of our house is a rich brown color and I want to go BOLD with a much cooler contrasting color.  Am I pulling out colors out of our stone? Noooo.  Am I going against all the laws of decorating which this choice? Yessssss. But I want our door to make a statement.  Since we'll never be painting our vinyl siding on the house, the door is my only hope for any change (color-wise) that I'll be making.  If we hate it, we can always change it.

Right now our shutters are a maroon-ish color and I'm not a fan.  They look fine, but when the door is painted, they will not, so those will be changed as well.  We're going to replace them since we need only 4, but for now they may actually be painted for a quick temporary fix.

Here's what our door looks like today....

The next 2 days look nice so hoping to actually get some painting while it's still warm and sunshiny!

Happy Monday!

AZARKS-ARZARKS-OZARKS

If you don't understand my chosen title for this blog it's okay, you wouldn't unless you were here everytime Tanner tried to tell someone where he was going on vacation.  We're going to the AZARKS (ponders the word that came out of his mouth)...ARZARKS...ORZORKS...wait for it...OZARKKS!! WE'RE GOING TO THE OZARKS!!  There it is.  It's not his fault, he gets his confusion from his mother.  She booked this trip and the whole time thought she was taking everyone to her old home state of Arkansas (silly lady).  Oh, and in case you're wondering, Lake of the Ozarks is NOT in Branson either.  I know, I was just as shocked.  With all this confusion it's amazing we all made it here with no problems (Mike drove).

This is our last (and first) family hurrah before school starts for Tan man in 1 week!  1st GRADE...I'm not ready for this.  While I knew the kids would enjoy staying here on the lake in our somewhat cabin-like room, I'm going to be honest, the first night was not easy.  Landry did not settle down for more than an hour at a time until about 4am.  Once he finally fell asleep, a monsoon hit (not exaggerating) for the remainder of the dark morning hours so I think it's safe to say Mike and I have had about 5 hours of combined sleep over the past 2 nights.  We're tired.  But we're not going to let that detour us.  The wasps and bees around this place are giving me a heart attack, and it's a little too woodsy for my liking.  I like to see what I'm dealing with and the trees hide what may be lurking. Landry was screaming last night and we couldn't just take him out of the room to walk him around in the dark woods (spiders, ticks, spiders, etc...), so it was really hard to get the kids to sleep and then stay asleep when he was crying all night.

Day1:

The kids were all excited to wake up and look out at the lake.  Sam went on the waterside at the pool about 100 times and Tanner went twice, and 0 if you count the times I carried him up the stairs and onto to slide kicking and crying.  He loved it both times but couldn't push back his fears of the slide by going by himself.  Call me mean.  I call it, "prepping him for the real world."  Sometimes in life someone's going to gently nudge you down a slide.  You may not want to at first, but if you can push your fears aside and make the plunge, you might actually really enjoy it.  Oh, and I did go with him if that makes a difference.  Hoping he'll do it again tomorrow...by himself.  The boys fished while the younger two napped and then Sam joined them.  The most excited I've seen them was when the ducks came over and they got to feed them honey nut cheerios.  I tried to snap as many pics as I could from our balcony so I didn't get any close ups.

 Swimming all morning >>>

Look at all the boats!...hmmmm

Time to go fishing...

I noticed this after I was going through photos the next day.  Mike had fake teeth in and kept trying to get Sam's attention...it didn't work :)













Day 2:

We promised the kids we'd do the indoor water park at our resort today even though I think it may be chillier tomorrow and rainier too but we went anyway.  Nobody would go down the water slides.  I'm pretty sure I spotted the only wasp that happened to make it's way indoors as well.  We took a break from the water park and went to the outside pool in the afternoon.  The bees and wasps were horrible.  Seriously, why can't those things just leave me alone!!  My anxiety was at an all time high on this trip, but I think it's safe to say we all managed to salvage some fun.   Sam fell asleep on our 5 minute drive to dinner. Then it was a couple of chapters from Charlotte's Web before bed.

At least somebody's safe from the bees..

In the car for 5 seconds..

Day 3:

Rain rain, go away!!  It rained most of the day.  We last minute decided to take the kids to see Planes movie on opening day.  Tanner was so excited, he brought his "planes" with him to the theater.  We finally got to the window only to find out that the guy in front of me bought the last 4 tickets!  Needless to say, Tanner was pretty disappointed.  Situation quickly diverted as we headed into the nearest ice cream shop.  We ran in the pouring rain to our cabin and the kids giggled and thought that was so fun!  We fished again, fed the ducks and geese again and swam...again.

Last morning here:  Snapped a few sweet pics of the kids before we left.  Even a few ducks waddled over to say goodbye :)

Our Sweet little Landry Boy

Well, since I'm finally starting to come out of that "having a newborn" fog I wanted to post some pictures of our littlest peanut.  Wow, 5 months (this used to read, "3 months...and then 4 months) really flies when you're sleep deprived.  I feel like by the time they're 3 months old you start to ask yourself where the time goes because it was only seconds ago that they were born but the truth is, for me anyway, that I've been walking around in this fog for his entire life which is probably why I cant remember him being a newborn already (only kidding...sort of).

 Here are some pics of our sweet boy.  I've been working on this short little post for over two months so I'm  just going to post it because he would turn 1 by the time I finish it.  Coming to the realization that with 3 kids I will forever start things that most likely won't ever get finished.  I'll start with the birth day and a few hospital pics for now...#small victories

Introducing:

 Landry Michael

Feb 12, 2013

Isn't he cute??

I love his old man wrinkly forehead

Kisses from mommy

Kisses from daddy

Love from Bro and Sis

Grandma Sue and Landry

Grandpa Mike and Landry

A few more of my favorite pics of the 500 I took (we had a lot of down time)