What's New??

Sometimes I dread it when I am on the phone and they person I am talking to says, "So, what's new?" I dread it only because MOST of the time, there is NOTHING new.  My usual response is always, "Ah, ya' know, same old, same old!"
   Well, a week ago or so, when I was talking to my favorite person to talk to on the phone (besides my hubby, of course), I was asked the question again, and I almost had a perceptible giddiness and a quickness to my step as I was able to respond with, "Actually...there is something NEW in my life..."
  Then I got to tell her how me and the kids worked on a few 'surprises' in the house for Greg while he was away on a work trip to Atlanta for three days!
   I have always wanted to get some fancy pillows for my bed, because in my mind, it would motivate me to actually make the bed more. So, I found some cute pillows at Target, and went from there. I got a new headboard on Craigslist and some new bedding, and some blue paint from Lowe's to do an accent wall in our master bedroom. It is nothing super fancy, but I liked  how it turned out.

 (I am happy to report that it has been over 8 days now, and I have been making my bed every single day! Who knew?!)


Also, we actually moved baby Emerson upstairs into the full-sized crib, and he has been doing great! Emerson had been sleeping in a port-a-crib in Greg's office downstairs, so now Greg gets to reclaim it for himself again!

The other fun thing that we did was to paint a chalkboard in the kitchen. I initially thought it would be fun to put up a square higher on the wall, but after looking at my long kitchen wall, I decided to pain a long and skinny one all the way down the wall. Then I bought some skinny moulding at Lowe's and had my brother teach me how to use the saw to cut the 45 degree angles, and we made a little frame around it.  I love how it turned out and so do the kids.

 I have friends who thought that I was crazy to do that stuff without Greg knowing, but honestly, I just keep thinking of my kids, and how they are growing up so fast, and I want them to have some fun things in life, and I want them to be able to color on the wall (THIS ONE ONLY). It was so great to see the bonding that took place between all of my kids while we worked on these projects together. I honestly wanted to capture it and put it in a bottle on my shelf to re-open whenever they start fighting again!

The kids truly got along well and were so proud of this project!

(Greg with clinging kids who missed him in front of new kitchen chalkboard wall.)

Lane hiding to "surprise" dad!

   Speaking of bottles on shelves, the kids also did something kind of fun for Greg, they painted chalkboard onto little bottles that I found at Shopko, and make a shelf of all of the whole grains that Greg loves to cook with. He really enjoys watching a guy on BYU-TV named Chef Brad, who does a lot of what he called 'fusion cooking' with whole grains. The kids decided to name the shelf "Chef Dad's Grains"! So astute of them to pick up on it and make it up themselves.

    Speaking of astute children, I have to mention here that my two oldest have recently been invited to apply for National Junior Honor Society. It makes me so happy to see them filling out their applications for it and writing the essays for it. I hope they both make it. I have fond memories of being in the NJHS and the NHS when I lived in Argentina. I was even the VP of one of the clubs and we had lots of fun doing service. I still have my pins from them and keep them in my jewelry box with all of my true treasures! Too bad I don't have any digital pics from those days to show off here, that would really be good for a laugh! ;) Have a wonderful day!