Our Missouri Vacation

The week after school was out Spencer, Connor and I went on a long vacation visiting family and friends in Kansas City and St. Louis. We were gone for about 2 1/2 weeks. 


We left on a Wednesday morning and 9 long hours later we arrived at my mom's house.


She just had a new fence installed and on Thursday we picked up a badminton set to play with in her new backyard.

On Saturday, my mom and I went to the Princess Diana Exhibit that was going on at Union Station in KC. There were only two cities this exhibit went to in the US and one of them was KC. This was the last weekend it was here and then it was all flown back to England. 

I was bummed to learn that they didn't allow any photographs in the exhibit. I did snap the next two pics with my Iphone outside of the actual exhibit. We got to see her wedding dress, a crown, childhood memorabilia, and a large collection of her gowns from over the years. She was super tiny! I'm so glad that I got to see the exhibit. 

Kansas City is known as the City of Fountains. It is said that only Rome has more. I don't know if that is actually true or not, but KC does have lots and lots and lots of fountains! 

This frog fountain is in a shopping area known as Zona Rosa. It was right in front of a yogurt shop we had just had a little snack in. 


This next area that we visited was the Country Club Plaza. Lots and lots of really nice shopping and restaurants. We also went to see the movie Super 8 here. We went to the afternoon show and when the lady told me that the amount I owed was $12 I had to make sure she charged me for all 3 of us. It was only $4 a ticket! I can't remember the last time I only paid $4 for a movie ticket, even in the afternoon. 

There are lots and lots of fountains on the Plaza. 

And of course we had to stop at the Cupcake store. 

This is the cupcake I got. It is called Marshmallow Fondue and was so decadent! And delicious! The boys both had a Red Velvet cupcake which looked really good too. Heck, they all looked really good! 

This is just part of our trip. We were gone for 2 1/2 weeks and I took lots of pictures! I won't bore you with all of them, but I will post some more in a few days. 


Thanks for visiting me!

Teacher Appreciation Gift

It is Teacher Appreciation week here in our school district. I made this for Spencer's teacher for the bring something paper day. I think they were thinking school supplies, like post-its and notebook paper, but when I saw this project I knew it was perfect for this! 


An apple made out of a paper back book. I am so happy with how it turned out! 

Spencer's homeroom teacher is a Language Arts teacher and she does the reading assignments. I thought this would be so much more fun to give an English teacher than post-its. 

I did not come up with this great idea. I wish I was that creative, but I am an awesome copier and follower of directions! I got the idea from this blog. It has a tutorial and it is really quite easy to do. 

Although it is kind of messy. I had paper bits everywhere. The paperback I used was an old copy of Gone with The Wind. I really wanted to find a dictionary to use, but I didn't have time to find one. I think I'm going to start going to the garage sales around here and see if I can find some. 

A close-up of my apple. 

And the card I made to go with it. The pictures aren't the best, but I just finished this tonight and it has to go to school with Spencer tomorrow. So I had to take it inside and our lighting isn't the best. Maybe one day I will get one of those indoor lighting studio things, but for now I will use my fireplace mantel. 

I'm going to make another one for Connor's teacher for an end of the year gift. (His school does different things for Teacher Appreciation Week and this didn't really fit into any of those themes.)

Thanks for visiting me! 

San Antonio Road Trip-Part Two-SeaWorld

I'm back with more pictures from our San Antonio road trip. On the last day of our little trip, we went to SeaWorld. We got there right at opening; actually a little before opening. Here are the boys at the front while we were waiting to get into the park. It was a little cloudy and cool in the morning. 

Since we were there a little early, Connor decided to check out what he could ride. When we were at Disney last time, he was just a little too short to ride any of the "cool" rides. He was determined this time to ride something big.

And this was it:

As soon as we got into the park, Chris and Connor went right to the Steel Eel to ride it. Spencer and me are not roller-coaster people, so we waited. And waited. The line took a lot longer than we thought it would. It gave me plenty of time to test out my little camera and make sure Chris called me when they were getting on the coaster. I staked out my spot and started taking pictures as soon as the coaster came over that first hill. I only had my little P&S camera, but I was surprised that I got a couple of good ones! 

You can barely see Connor's head sticking up in the last shot. He was so proud of himself! He also didn't  want to ride it again. lol! 

We also went to see a couple of shows. This is the Believe show that has Shamu in it. 

And again, I was very impressed with the pictures I got from the little P&S camera. 

The water park part of SeaWorld was open this week too since it was Spring Break. The boys wanted to go to this all day and finally in the afternoon the sun came out and it got a little warmer. So they changed into their suits and gave it a try. 

It was a little cold. 

Therefore the swimming part didn't last too long. Connor and Chris did go down a water slide. I'm not sure which one it was but I think Connor liked it, although he said he ended up going down backwards and it was a little scary. 

We went to the aquarium and saw pretty fish and cool sharks.

Now on to the power of the internet and smart phones! I had posted early in the morning a picture of the Steel Eel on Facebook stating that Connor was getting ready to ride it. A friend that I had met years ago on a scrapbook message board posted on that picture that she and her family were at SeaWorld too. I didn't think we would ever meet face-to-face because I lived in Missouri and she lives in Texas. I think we actually emailed back and forth more about the show Lost than scrapbooking! We were always discussing Lost theories the day after the show aired. 

So now I'm living in Texas and happened to be visiting SeaWorld the same day she is and I posted it on Facebook. She happened to check her phone and saw the picture I had posted. We texted back and forth a few times and finally caught up with each other! 

Me and Jenn

It really is a small world! It was great finally getting to meet her! 

So that is the end of our mini vacation to San Antonio. It was a great success and even ended with an unplanned meet-up! We will definitely be visiting again. 

Thanks again for visiting me! 

Spring Break Road Trip-Part One

Last week was Spring Break here and we decided to take a short road trip to San Antonio. Warning: Photo Heavy Post Below. 


We stayed right on the Riverwalk. The weather was just perfect! 

Here are the boys on the Riverwalk right after we arrived. It was so busy! I'm not used to everyone having Spring break at the same time. I think the whole state of Texas was off that week. 

This was the view from our hotel room. We actually had a little balcony. The boys loved the hotel because they offered free soda and popcorn every day from 3-10pm.  I think in the first picture Connor is carrying a bag of popcorn he got at the hotel when we checked in. 

The next day we went walking on the Riverwalk and went to the Alamo. Unfortunately the boys were not very thrilled with this historical tour. 

However, right across the street from the Alamo was a Guinness Book Of World Records Museum. And this was very exciting for the boys, especially Spencer. Spencer has been buying every edition of Guinness for the last 4 or 5 years. 

Right down the street from the Guinness museum is a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. This is seriously the street for boys. All kinds of weird and kind of gross things to entertain them. :)

Here we are at the entrance to the Ripley museum. These animated figures were singing Top 40 tunes and Chris thought they were very funny. I have to admit that it is kind of funny to see the "bearded lady" singing Ke$ha. 

That guy isn't real, but doesn't it look like he is? Creepy! 

These test tube things were funny! The boys crawled underneath and then popped up inside of them. I have a ton of pictures of them making goofy faces in them. 

Since we were there the weekend before Saint Patrick's Day, we got to see the river dyed green. 

Hey look, there is actual photographic proof I was on this trip too. ;) I don't know why it looks like a major storm is brewing behind us. I think that is a building or something, because the weather was nice. Sometimes it got a little cloudy, but never looked like this. 

Those are just some of the pictures from our first two days. We went to Seaworld the next day and I will post pictures from there in a day or so. 

Thanks for visiting me! 

Spring Is Here!

Spring is starting to make an appearance here in Texas! Yeah! Just in the last week or so, the trees have started blooming. 

Unfortunately for us, spring has also meant that some squirrels have wanted to make a home in our home.  Our neighbor told us that she saw a squirrel go up into one of our soffits. So after getting quite a few bids from different companies, we decided on one today.

We have two of these one-way doors on two of our eaves. The other eaves were sealed up. Once we are sure the squirrels have left the building, these last two spots will be sealed up as well. And hopefully the squirrels won't be bothering us again. And we caught them early, so they did not have a chance to do any damage inside the house. 

I got a new lens for my camera this week. I think I'm going to love it! Chris upgraded my old Rebel Xti camera to a Rebel T2i for a Happy Engagement Anniversary present last month. Woo Hoo! That was a very nice surprise. So I sold my old Xti and with the proceeds of that got myself a nice new lens, the 

Tamron AF 28-75mm f/2.8. 

I got to test it out today and all of the pics on this post are shot with it. 

Spencer shooting some hoops in the driveway. 

Of course some shots of Maggie. 

And the ice cream truck visited the neighborhood this afternoon. 

It is definitely starting to feel like Spring here in Texas. Not that it got that cold here in the winter. I think we had those two bad weeks and other than that just some cold weather for short bursts. All in all, a pretty good winter for our first one spent in the Lone Star State. 

I hope Spring is springing soon for everyone!

Thanks for visiting me! 

Next Project

I know I said that my next project was going to be Connor's bathroom, but  I just could not get the motivation going to remove that wallpaper. So I decided to skip that project for right now and work on our master bedroom. There is some wallpaper to remove there too, but it is just a border so hopefully it won't be too hard to remove. 


I finally narrowed down my color palette that I'm going to do and here it is:

This is a really different color scheme for us. Wish me luck that it turns out like I'm envisioning in my head. 


Thanks for visiting me!  

Operation Bathroom Redo: Complete

We are slowly making this house look more like us. After we moved in last summer, we noticed that a lot more would need to be updated to our tastes than we originally realized. We have already painted both boys' bedrooms, the office and the kitchen and had the patio around the pool redone. So we are getting there, but it takes time (and money).


For my next project I decided to redo Spencer's bathroom. This is what we started with:

I had already started to remove the wallpaper when I remembered to take some before shots. 

I personally think wallpaper is evil. Especially removing wallpaper. I also don't like brass. I am more of a silver/brushed nickel kind of girl. And I don't like oak. Thankfully, Chris and I agree on these design elements and have the same taste for decor. 

I also wanted to get rid of this tile in the shower/bathtub area, but that is outside of my DIY knowledge. And I didn't want to pay for it right now either. And it is mostly covered by the shower curtain anyways. Someday I might be able to have that redone too. 

We went from that hideous seashell wallpapered, brass, oak, yucky bathroom (remember these are just our opinions and since this is our house, those are the only opinions that count. lol!) 

To This:

We removed that wallpaper and painted the bathroom khaki, the same color as Spencer's bedroom. (The bathroom is in the bedroom.) We bought a new light fixture and mirror and refinished the vanity.


Here is a close-up of the new light fixture. I think it was the most expensive item in this redo. It was $60 from Lowe's.

I also redid the vanity and medicine cabinet in a new darker expresso color. I got this kit at Home Depot from Rustoleum called Cabinet Transformations. It was so easy! 


The kit cost $80 and comes with everything you need. I don't think I used even 1/4 of it for this bathroom. So I have more than enough to do my next bathroom. I bet I will still have some leftover from that bathroom too. 

We also put some hardware on the cabinets. None of the cabinets in this house have hardware.


And I'm sorry the pictures aren't better. It was really hard to take good ones in a small bathroom with limited natural light.

A new towel hook. The towel bar was over the toilet before and it grosses me out to have towels hanging over the toilet. I just don't like it; especially when it is boys trying to hang that towel up over the toilet. 

The towel hook, toilet paper holder, and new circle mirror are all from Ikea. 

We are so happy with how it turned out. And Spencer loves it. He said he hated looking at that seashell wallpaper every day. Spencer's room also serves as a guest room whenever we have company because it has its' own bathroom. So our guests will now have a nice, new, fresh bathroom when they come visit! 


Next up is Connor's/the hallway bathroom.

Oh yeah, more ugly wallpaper to remove! Woo Hoo! (Can you tell how excited I am?)

I'm going to take a couple of weeks off from bathroom renovating and then get ready to tackle this ugly room. 


Thanks for visiting me!