Summer Summary 2009

If I had to rate this summer, I would give it a 10! It was infinitely better than last summer. At that time, we were still having lots of hospital stays and Georgia was not feeling that great. Now it has been almost 8 months since she has had to stay in the hospital and except for a brief bout with swimmers' ear, she has felt great. We have had lots of adventures and lots of fun. Here are the highlights.

As I mentioned in my last post we swam a lot! Sometimes in the creek, sometimes in the pool and sometimes at other area swim holes.
Here is a picture of my dad diving into the cool clear water near our house. It is good to see him being such a kid.













This is a pic of Taylor (Adrian's best friend) and Gabrielle (our cousin) jumping off the bluff at the Buffalo River near Ponca. It took awhile for Adrian and Tanner to work up the courage to jump, but they eventually did.
Here is Georgia looking off the same bluff, she of course did not jump. We also explored the old homestead located near the swim area. We drove through Ponca and saw one elk and drove through Steele Creek. Some other fun we had included ice skating, movies and hiking. Our biggest memory from this summer will probably be our trip to Destin, Florida. It was amazing.


Although of course we had some not so great moments this summer, overall I think it will be one remembered for fun family time. I hope the fun won't stop just because school is starting. There are several hikes I would like to take, a bike ride around Fayetteville, and maybe some rock wall climbing to do.

Now on the home decorating front, my big goal in that category this summer was to finish painting the kitchen and I DID! I am so proud of how it turned out. Here is the before:
Horrid pink and green stripes - they came with the house.




Here is the after:



















Shabby chic red. We have a very humble home and I realize this kitchen is hardly worthy of most peoples standards, but I love it. I did not take down any trim per my husbands request, instead I painters' taped everything. I prefer to do big jobs in small chunks - perhaps b/c I have four kids - and I painted each section of wall over a period of a couple of months. I will have more posts later about the different accessories as I made some of them. Thanks for stopping by!

Little Update, Little Crafty

WHOOO HOOOO! It's hotter than the 4th of July here. It has been so hot this week and last week for that matter. We have either been swimming everyday or just staying close to the a/c vents. I have realized that since my children are no longer babies, that I can actually get in the water and swim. I forgot how much I loved it. I jumped off the bridge 3 times on Tuesday. I had to give myself a pep talk every time, but I did it. And LOVED it! The water in our creek is deep, clear and cold. We are so blessed to have a place like this right down the road. I can't imagine being a city dweller on days like that. My poor hubby though has not been so fortunate. He has been out in it everyday, fixing other peoples' air conditioners.

Last weekend my cousin from Tulsa and her hubby and 2 girls spent two nights with us. We had such nice visit. We also got to see my grandma Betty and Aunt Chris. On Saturday we went to Eureka and walked around. It was too hot, but we still had fun. I found an adorable topiary for the kitchen at a store called Lilies. Here is a picture of Carla's kids and mine(without Adrian)in Eureka.

Here is a picture of Grandma Betty and her signature red lipstick. She looks great.


Here is a picture of my sister and I. We had a bbq the last day the cousins were here. We celebrated Gma's birthday, Navaeh's birthday, Georgia graduating Kindergarten and mourned my brother leaving for Chicago.


Adrian is back from DC and had a good time. She has about a million pictures. I am not sure she fully appreciated everything she got to see, but I hope that someday she will. She rode the metro the night before it crashed! Her favorite places were Virginia Beach (of course), the capitol building and the Holocaust museum. She was also blessed to get to see Glenda McMath while she was there.



Finally, my latest craft. Have you seen those cute little frames with antiqued looking silverware in them? I really wanted one, but of course I wanted to make it...so much more fun. So I bought a dollar set of silverware and a frame from Dollar General (it already looked antiqued). I took the glass out of the frame and covered the cardboard with black scrapbook paper. I lightly spray painted the silverware with Krylon in Woodland Brown. After they dried, I glued them down. Then I hung it up! Easy! As usual my husband thought my creation was a little strange, but I just love it!


My other recent creation is this lamp. I was inspired by Rhoda at Southern Hospitality. I found this cute little lamp at Hobby Lobby (on sale of course). It was already adorable but I just couldn't help myself. I covered the shade in burlap and glued down the monogrammed "L" (which was also purchased at HB). SO EASY and so CUTE.


Happy 4th of July, hopefully next I will be updating about our trip to the beach!