Dining Room Re-Do

We moved into our house in 2000. We took pictures of each room in the house so we could share it with our out of town family and friends. However, we did not have a digital camera then, so I'm not sure where those pictures are now.

One of the last rooms to get re-done was the dining room. Here is a picture from 2001 of James celebrating an early 4th birthday. Notice the Amish country wallpaper border and the pink trim. The table was a hand me down from my parents. 

We removed the border only to find another border underneath. The second border was too difficult to remove, so we just painted over it. This picture of the kids with Chris' mom was taken in 2004. You can see the Amish border has been removed and this is the border we discovered underneath.

Here we are in 2008 with the white walls. Chris just painted everything white, including the wallpaper border that couldn't be removed.

 

Somewhere along the way, Chris replaced the light hardwood flooring with cherry hardwood. Then a couple of years ago we hired a friend to paint the room. We gave her complete reign over choosing the color, the drapes, and even some wall decorations. Chris replaced the lighting and blinds.

And today, we finally got new furniture. I can't believe it has taken us 11 years to finish the dining room.

As you can see, we have a small dining room and were limited to what we could do. Plus, our "eat in kitchen" isn't big enough to hold anything other than a small bistro table, if even that, so we eat all of our meals in the dining room. We couldn't really do a formal dining room even if we wanted one.

I am so happy with how it has turned out. Definitely worth the wait!

What am I Reading?

Things have been busy again, so my reading slowed down a bit. Since I last posted, I have managed to get a little reading in, so here goes.


"Text Me - A Tale of Technology and Love" was an inexpensive Kindle book that I purchased a few months ago. It is about a woman who is technology challenged in present day New York.  I enjoyed the storyline, though I find it hard to believe that there are 20 somethings out there who don't have a clue about modern technology! It was a quick read.

"My Jane Austen Summer" by Cindy Jones was an impulse buy on Amazon. I have a thing for modern day Jane Austen tales. This one was about a young woman who spends the summer working at a Jane Austen literary event in England.

James is participating in the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl this year. There are 20 books for his team to read and he must read at least 5 of them. I have decided that I would read the books along with him. "Swindle" by Gordon Korman is one of the books on the middle school list. I really liked it! It is about a group of kids who are swindled out of a rare Babe Ruth baseball card by the owner of the collectibles store and the kids devise a plan to get the card back.



I am currently reading "Killer Deal" by Sheryl Anderson which is book 3 in the Molly Forrester series. 

Happy Reading!!

Feeling Sew Stupid

I hate to sew. I took 7 years of sewing in 4-H when I was a kid, plus I took a few sewing classes in Home Ec back then, too. I still don't like to sew.  A few years ago I hired a friend to sew James' Halloween costume. The few times we've needed alterations, we've paid to have it done. I will sew buttons on, eventually. And patches on to scout uniforms. But I don't like it.

Recently I posted that James made the rank of Star in Boy Scouts. With that rank, he received a new patch. He wasn't in any hurry for me to sew it on because during the summer months the boys are permitted to wear Class B instead of Class A uniforms. But after Labor Day the boys would be required to wear Class A again.

I sewed his Star rank patch onto his uniform in plenty of time for his meeting. The following weekend James was dressed to help fold flags from the 9/11 Field of Flags. I noticed his patch was gone. I'm not a great seamstress, but surely the patch wouldn't have come off so soon.

Here is James' shirt the week after I sewed his new patch on. The patch should be on the pocket. As you can see, it's not there.

Here is the sleeve of his shirt. And lo and behold, there is his patch. I had sewn it onto the wrong pocket.

No problem. I carefully removed the patch with a seam ripper and sewed it to the front pocket. Here it is now in the correct place.

When James got home from folding flags, he pointed out to me that I had sewn it upside down!!!And as you can see in the picture above, it is indeed upside down. I had to sew it on a third time. Needless to say, this didn't help change my feelings about sewing.

Folding Flags

The Kiwanis Club of Marietta had a "Field of Flags" this month in memory of the 9/11 victims. James' Boy Scout Troop helped out by folding the flags the week after so they could be picked up by those who sponsored the flags.


Folding the flags.

There were almost 3,000 flags and over half of them had to be folded into a triangle.

Folded flags waiting to be picked up.

James posing with one of his friends.

We bought a flag for our family and James was given one as a "thank you" for his help. 

Snapping Turtle

Sue stopped by the other day to tell us that while walking the dog, they came across a huge snapping turtle. She thought Hannah might want to see it. And of course, she did.


Here's Hannah with the turtle.  I wanted her to be in the picture so we could see how big the guy was.  She was a little nervous about being that close to him because as soon as we approached him, he started moving.

And here is the turtle. We named him Snappy.

Girls Trip

I was invited on a weekday girls trip with some teachers on fall break this week. We drove up to Cherokee, North Carolina to the Harrah's casino at the Cherokee Indian Reservation. One of the girls had some free room vouchers.

Harrah's Cherokee is nestled in the Smokey Mountains. We spent our time indoors, but there were lots of glass windows so we could enjoy the scenery.

One of our complimentary rooms.

The whole group with our arrival drinks.

Sue & I ready for our evening.

I didn't take any pics during our evening of gambling. Casinos are usually pretty funny about picture taking. We did sneak a couple of pics before we left the next morning.

I look like I had too much fun the night before!

 I took $200 with me. I had about $15 in my wallet to begin with. After an hour or so of slots, I relocated $100 of my cash so I wouldn't spend it carelessly. It was too easy to just slip another $5 into the machines.With that $115, I bought lunch, dinner, 2 coffees, a drink, breakfast, chipped in for gas,  and ended up with $47 cash when it was all said it done. By my calculations, I only lost $12. I was pleased.
.

The trip was a short one. We left home at 11am on Monday and were back by 1pm on Tuesday. It was fun to get away, even if it was for such a short time. 

New Carpet

Our house was constructed in 1992. We have gradually replaced most of the carpet with hardwood flooring.  We spent a few years debating what to do with the stairs and hallway upstairs. We finally decided that it was going to be too costly to put hardwoods there. This week we finally got around to replacing the original, nearly 20 year old worn carpet.

I forgot to take "before" pictures, but here is Hannah with her new socks that I blogged about recently.

And here is the new carpeting.

It has made such a big difference! We are very happy with it and wonder why we waited so long to replace it.

Scrapbooking Goal {Week 5}

After a couple of weeks with last minute scrapping, I started my scrapbooking much earlier this week.


All three Christmas layouts use kits from Out on a Limb Scrapbooking.

The Hoover Dam layout was from a kit by Lotts to Scrap About. 

Goal Update: 44/288 

Wicked

We took the kids to see Wicked last night. It was their first "real" Broadway musical.  They LOVED it! Hannah has been listening to the music for the last couple of weeks in anticipation of seeing it. Here are a few pics from our evening.

High School Football

I went to my first high school football game since I was in high school, 25 years ago! I know it was 25 years ago because this past weekend was my 25th reunion, which I was not able to attend.


James & I went to the McEachern High School football game this past Friday night. When I started thinking about it, I noticed some similarities between McEachern High School and my high school in Indiana. I attended Carmel High School, in Carmel, Indiana. Both schools had their homecoming game this past week. They both have the same school colors, blue and gold. Both teams won their games by several touchdowns. Both teams are nationally ranked - Carmel is ranked #51 this week on maxpreps and McEachern is ranked #148.

  McEachern won 55 to 0

Carmel won 42 to 0



Here are my pictures from the game.

Here I am with my girlfriends.

The marching band - that's another similarity between the two schools. Both have strong marching bands.

The letter "M".

James and I had fun. The weather was gorgeous! We are going to try to get to at least one more game this fall.

Creative Writing Assignment

Hannah had a creative writing assignment at school recently. The students had to write a descriptive paragraph about their favorite food. Then at the end of the week the students were allowed to bring in their favorite food for tasting while their paragraphs were read in class. Hannah's teacher asked me to come help.

Hannah wrote hers about Paula Deen's "Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding". Here she is reading her paragraph to the class.

Here is what she considers her favorite food.

So while Hannah's friends in another class all had to bring in volcanoes this week, Hannah and her classmates got to bring in their favorite foods for a tasting party!

Cupcakes

There was a request of "sweets" for Hannah's dance company this week, so I made cupcakes!

I started with a batch of basic vanilla cupcakes and added caramel sauce. I've done this before and they turned out quite well.  This time, not so well. The batter was super thick and the finished cupcakes were all sunken in. They tasted alright, but I couldn't send them to dance. So they ended up in the trash. I reread the recipe and realized that I had forgotten to add the milk. That explains why the batter was too thick! I was multitasking that day and wasn't focusing on the recipe as much as I should.

I was out of caramel sauce and didn't really want to run to the store again. I noticed that I didn't have enough sugar when I started, so I had to run out and get some. I searched in the pantry and found a cake mix! I had purchased it with the thought of using them for cake balls, but hadn't gotten around to making them yet.

So I made milk chocolate cupcakes from a mix. But I did make a nice vanilla buttercream frosting! Hannah's dance company colors are zebra print & purple. I used zebra print cupcake liners that I had purchased from Sweet Estelle's Baking Supply

The buttercream is a light purple sprinkled with coarse sugar crystals.

Stone Mountain

While we were at Stone Mountain Park for the Yellow Daisy Festival, we thought we would visit the top of Stone Mountain. We had been to the top of the mountain before Hannah was born, so we thought we were due for another trip to the top.

We had planned to take the cable car up to the top (and back down). It was mid-afternoon already and we didn't really have the time for a full on hike. But to our dismay, the cable cars were down for maintenance, so we had to scrap that idea.

So instead, we decided to do the "Sky Hike".

The Sky Hike is one of the nation's largest family adventure courses. We started out at 12 feet above ground. The next course was 24 feet above and the top course was 40 feet above ground.  We were harnessed securely for the adventure. We saw some little kids completely relying on their harnesses and just walking across the planks and ropes. Then there was me who was holding on to anything I could get a hold of!

Here's James making his way across one of the ropes. We weren't supposed to take cameras with us, but I did sneak a couple of pics.

At each platform, there was a choice between 2 different ways to cross. Usually there was a solid path and a rope path. Whenever I could, I chose the solid path. James and I called it quits after doing the 12 foot trail and the 24 foot one. My arms were killing me from holding on so tightly for dear life!!

Hannah & Chris continued on to the 40 foot trail. Since James and I were on solid ground, I was able to take more pictures of them.

Hannah LOVED it! (So did her Daddy!) James and I felt good about doing it, but immediately afterwards, we weren't sure if we would do it again. However, the next day both of us had decided that we might do it again. Still not sure if I would do the 40 feet one though!

When Hannah & Chris were finished with their "hike", they decided to climb the rock wall.

Chris climbed up to the top pretty quickly. It was not his first time rock climbing.

Hannah only made it about half way up. It was her first time doing anything like this and we were proud of her attempt at it. I know I sure couldn't get up that far!!

We have decided that we definitely need to go back to Stone Mountain park! We still need to get Hannah to the top of the mountain, but there is still a lot for us to do there.