WOW!

Our daughter just left for her last day of High School! Wow!

When life hands you lemons...

You just paint another room!

Well as I eluded to last week, we were supposed to paint the outside of our house; something we have wanted to do for awhile but really got the urge to get ready for Rachel's graduation party, thus giving us some serious motivation to get it done. However, the house is still white and not the beautiful boston fern that I have chosen. We were not blessed by the weather last weekend and not to jinx us, but things aren't looking too good for this weekend either (boo).

I must admit, I was very disappointed. We had spent most of the week power washing the house, moving everything away from the house, and even trimming all of the bushes and such so we would have a nice clean house to paint. Got up bright and early on Saturday to get ready to tape the windows and we were not cleared for take off by our Painting Crew Supervisor (aka my mom's bf who was a painter in his former life). So back to bed we went and ended up having a great day running errands and spending time together.

However, Sunday morning I woke up and decided that I really wanted to paint the living room. We got new furniture several months ago and the new couch blended in with the old wall color a little too much for my taste. So I conned Brian into taking me to Home Depot after grocery shopping and picked out a new color... mulled spice (sounds spicy, doesn't it?). He was a trooper and after we put the groceries away, we got to work on the living room. I must admit I love color and I am not afraid to use it in my house; however this was a little brave for me, it is a bit orange and scared me a bit putting it up on pretty neutral walls.

So here is a before and after shot, I am very pleased with my new choice of color and think that is feels much warmer in our living room and a bit Tuscany...

Before

After

Mother's Day + Committment List Check Off

I had a wonderful Mother's Day Weekend this year.

My sister invited me to a Scrapbooking Retreat in Bailey to the Gingerbread Cottage http://www.gbcottage.com/ and it was awesome! My goal was to do Rachel's scrapbook, something I had put on my Committment List for the year. It was something I really wanted to do for her for Graduation. I was able to start and finish it over the weekend, and I am so pleased with it. I can't show any pictures yet because it's a surprise for her, but I can mark it off my list of things to do this year (Yay!).

We left on Thursday afternoon and came home early Sunday morning so we could spend the day with our kids on Mother's Day.

I came home Sunday to my wonderful husband and son working so hard in the yard. We are getting ready for Rachel's graduation party and it is a huge incentive to get stuff done. Brady and Brian had dug up our old - dying rose bushes and planted some new beautiful Choke Cherry Bushes that I had picked out before I left. They had gotten the backyard cleaned up from the winter, picking all of the weeds and dead stuff out, cleaned off our deck, and threw away all of the old stuff before I was even home. I helped plant the new bushes and then we went to Home Depot to buy new fencing and some flowers.

When I was growing up it was a tradition in our family that on Mother's Day, we would plant flowers for the year. We did it with my Grandma and Mom when we were kids and now I do it with my family. Brian, Brady and Rachel took me to pick out some flowers for this year and brought them home to get them planted. We also started spraying our house off with the power washer to get ready to paint (boo to the rainy weather this weekend; plan was foiled).

They also surprised me with a new purse, a big surprise because my gift has always been the flowers and the yard, so to get a new purse was a great treat. We had a wonderful day and I am so thankful to Brian that he makes Mother's Day important to our kids. I love him as my husband and he is a wonderful as a father, I am blessed for sure.