Emily's One Year Old Pictures

I just got the disk for Emily's professional one year old photoshoot by Jackie McHenry. Love them, here are a few of my favorites!

My New Old Sewing Table

Here is the before picture again. And not that I have anything against wood tones but this desk was so beat up, really scratched up bad. If I wanted to leave it wood-y I would have had to strip the entire piece and restain. I like refinishing, just not that much! So....

...she got a distressed white shabby chic finish!

The paint is Valspar's Honeymilk. Distressing by me and Brian who says to me with his sandpaper in hand "gee, mom, we are really destroying this good!" Love it!

Distress-y spindle legs

Love that chippy look!

Plently of drawers for all my purse making goodies. The pink knobs were $1 each at Hobby Lobby.

This old chair belonged to my Great-Grandma and recently came to me by way of my Dad's cousin Shanna. I need to do something with it, spray paint it a color of some sort since I'm not really digging the gold wash look. I just can't decide what to do to her yet.

This chair got the bad end of the brush sometime in the 1970s!

Here is a recent thrift acquisition (something I try not to do too much of since I'm the anti-hoarder). But Brian started complaining that we only drop things off at the Goodwill and that we never actually go in. So, the other day we actually went into the Goodwill. This little turtle was calling my name. He was calling Brian's name too. I use to have a giant hoard of turtle things when I was little. Some of them are still in my parent's storage garage. And I have a touch of turtles around my house now. He's gonna fit right in. Brian has big plans for him, he wants to grow some flowers. I hope he has a green thumb like his Daddy, because I do not have green thumbs, only crafty thumbs!

These Shoes Were Made for Running!

I've been doing some of this lately. Running. Well, jogging really. Mixed in with walking. And mixed in with stopping to stretch and breathe and hand out snacks and pick up dropped toys and squelch fits. But at least I've been trying.

(This is not me, this is some random super fit lady who has been photo-shopped into a scary hitchcock bird beach scene. But I thought you needed a visual)

These are my running shoes though. Nothing fancy, just some New Balance shoes, basically what Kohl's had on sale when I had a good coupon.

I've always been lucky enough to control my weight with eating only since I eat pretty healthy most of the time. But of course after two little ones and turning the big 3-0 recently, I discovered that the 45 pounds I gained while making Emy wasn't coming off fast enough for my liking and I needed to do something exercise-y about the problem.

I really hate exercising. I really hate loading up the kids and heading to the gym. So I needed to find something I could do either at home or near home. I needed something that would be a good workout but not take forever or require tons of equipment. So jogging really is the best option for me right now. I started by walking Brian to school (2.5 miles roundtrip) for a month and then began the Couch-to-5K training program. It is a nine-week program that starts with alternating walking and jogging and builds you up to running a 5K by week 9.

I should be done with the program by now but I think it was moving too fast for me so I slowed it down and have been repeating almost every week twice until I feel like I really have the hang of it and then I move on to the next week. That has been working for me. I've only lost a few pounds but I know that I'm building muscle in my legs and I'm losing inches everywhere. I'm down to what I weighed when I got pregnant with Emy so I only have another 8 pounds til my goal.

My challenge now is figuring out how to run with the weather heating up, we've already had several days over 100 degrees! So I may be dropping some dough on a gym membership after all but I least I won't have to push Bob and the kids at the gym!!

These are my running buddies hanging out with Bob, the jogging stroller. Don't worry about Emy, she cheers up significantly after we start moving.

I know some of my blog reading peeps out there are doing the program or considering it. I would love updates from you all on how it's going for you. Oh and I'm actually thinking about running a 5k race but not until fall when we get cooler weather. So, that's what's going on with me lately!

And my little sister Laura has started training for a half-marathon in the fall to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Visit her fundraising page HERE to read about her training and donate to a great cause.

When the cat is away....

...the mice will:

a. get a stomach virus

b. clean the whole house til it sparkles

c. refinish an old desk

d. all of the above

If you answered "d" you would be correct. While I don't have pictures of "a" cause that's icky or "b" because the house only stayed clean for ten minutes, especially after "a" set in, I have a before picture of "c." I thought I would finish the remodel of my new sewing table this week, but it wasn't meant to be, mostly because of "a" and because the "cat" was away in glamorous New Mexico and I didn't get a free second.

She'll be a shabby chic distressed looking white with pink knobs soon!

Oh and the cat is home and all the mice are feeling better and playing with the cat right now!

Vintage Crystal Necklace

My Grandma Helen recently gave me these beautiful crystals. They had belonged to her Aunt Emy, who would be my Great Great Aunt Emy. They needed to be restrung but before I have them restrung professionally, I thought I would try something fun with them first.
A while back I had seen a tutorial out in the craft blog land on how to make a bead ribbon necklace. Of course I can't track down the exact tutorial that inspired me, but here are a few similar ones on other blogs:

Sweet Floweret Blog

Ruffled Blog

This was easy and cheap, a couple of bucks on the black velvet ribbon and a clasp. I'm planning on wearing them to a formal event we have coming up in June to match a black dress I scored for $50 at TJMaxx. Thanks Grandma!

Mommy's Day

Brian~4 years old, Emy~12 months

I wanted a nice picture of me and the kiddos for Mother's Day and Daddy was able to make it happen. I'm usually never in pictures since I'm the one taking them so I'm glad to be in this one with the little ones who made a mommy out of me.

This little one has been giving me a run for my money, getting 4 molars and 2 canine teeth in the last two weeks. Lots of baby Tylenol and screaming (her, not me) in our house lately. Not a whole lot of sleep going on either. She has 14 teeth now! I think she's almost ready for some beef jerky! ;)

Teacher Appreciation Week

Brian loves his preschool teacher, Miss Helen. She is a sweet lady who is wonderful with the kids and you can just tell she loves her job. We wanted to spoil her with a few small gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week. Brian attends school three mornings a week so she'll be getting a gift each day for three days. Here is what I came up with.
Gift #1: Mint Jar

Brian loves him some peppermint patties (he gets it from his mommy) so we filled a jar (from Cost Plus World Market) with the mint patties and added this saying to the tag:

Thanks for your commit-"mint" to help me learn.

Thanks for your encourage-"mint" to always do my best.

Thanks for your involve-"mint" in my life.

Thanks for your invest-"mint" of time and energy

to make school such a great place to be.

Thanks for making each day and enjoy-"mint."

Thanks for helping create a nice environ-"mint"

for me to learn and grow.

Everything you have done this year has really "mint" alot to me!

I did not make up this "mint" saying but I can't remember where I saw it, just wrote it down a while back to save for future use.

Gift #2: Sock Cupcake

This idea is from this website. My mom bought the cupcake dish for Emily's first birthday party and I made sock cupcakes for the kids at the party. I used one leftover for this cupcake. The sock is a $3 walmart sock. The tag reads:

This cupcake is not to eat! It was "baked" with love to warm your feet!

Gift #3: Barnes & Noble Gift Card

I couldn't think of any fancy-smancy way to wrap this so I used the gift card box that came with the gift card for free. I printed out a party circle from the Back to School Collection by the TomKat Studio onto sticker paper, wrapped some red ribbon around the box and secured it with the sticker. All the printables used in this post are from the TomKat Studio.