Time

So, where does the time go?  How can it already be May 25, 2012?  Seems like I just put away my Christmas decorations.  And how does your youngest child go from little boy to young man over night?  That's what is seems like.  I had my kids very far apart.  First Amanda, then 9 years later Tyler, then 6 years later we had Robbie.  I always felt like I had a baby in the house.  I really liked it that way!  I knew all the Disney movies from 1985 through 2007.  I have had a child in school since 1989.  Now, my baby has just finished 7th grade.  One more year and he'll be in high school.  CRAZY.  For some odd reason I'm not ready to give that up.  I want to slow the clock now.  I want to soak it all in.  I want to be like Fred Flintstone and use my feet to put on the brakes. 

One thing that I have like about having my kids so far apart is that I have been able to focus a lot of my attention on them individually.  Not that there wasn't the dividing of my time between them, but not as much as if they had been closer in age.  Amanda is (and has been for a long time) living on her own.  Tyler is now a sophomore in college and is almost completely independent of me.  So I get to spend a lot of time with Robbie now, even though he may not like it sometimes :o) 

He just had his first piano recital.  He has been in the school band, playing clarinet, for two years.  He just starting taking piano lessons 10 weeks ago and he's already very good.  And just look how he's grown!  The first picture below was taken May of last year at Tyler's graduation.  The second picture was taken this week.  He is now taller than his sister.  It blows my mind how much boys change in the 7th grade!

 I remember this sweet little poem one of my sisters gave me when Amanda was a baby:

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait til tomorrow
for babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow
So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep
I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep

So glad I've been able to enjoy every single step of their lives.  I am one lucky mom.

Happy Memorial Day!  We'll be remembering all those who have given their all for us.

Love,

Kelli

A Blue Ridge Weekend

Last month I had the pleasure of going on a girls weekend trip to Blue Ridge, GA.  As most girls know, it's all about shopping, eating out, and talk talk talk!  We  always love to stop at this one place - Smith Station Antiques - on our way up.  If you love scavenging through junk like we do, then this place is heaven.

Mary Kay made friends with a donkey, Joanne talked to the owner, and I just kept asking myself "now why did I wear white pants today??"

We shopped lots, bought a few precious things for ourselves, and even met another friend for dinner (& drinks).  Thanks girls for a great weekend!  Can't wait to go back :o)

Can I get an AMEN for girls weekends!!!

Love ya,

Kelli

Here's what's been happening!

Well, let’s see..  what all has happened since I last posted.. I have really been so slack about even thinking about posting to my blog.  I’m a terrible, terrible blogger!  We’ve had a few things going on over the last several weeks~

The first weekend in April we had Passover AND Easter back-to-back.  My hubby is Jewish, and we used to always go to his hometown, Cleveland, OH, for Passover with his family.  Now that his father has passed away (his mom did long ago) and the kids are going to college with different spring break schedules, it is very hard to make it up there for Passover.  A few years ago we started our own Passover seder tradition, big dinner and all.  We love doing it, but it is a pretty big production, so it wears us out!  We had a great dinner this year with just our kids and a few of their friends.  Got my seder plate inspiration from none other than Martha Stewart :o)

The next day was Easter so right after we cleaned up from dinner we set about dying eggs!  They turned out so pretty – two of our college-aged kids got in on the act.  Some great time spent with the kids – pretty rare to have them all at home at the same time.

 

The next morning my 13-year old “found” all 15 eggs and then we trekked off to meet the boys’ father at church with my sweet Hubby.  We were not about to even think about making dinner – we went out for wings...  It was awesome!

We have spent all of our weekends working in the yard – nothing real exciting, but it looks good!  But because of that I have not worked on any projects – projects that I am itching to get to!  More about those later~

Hope you have had a fantastic spring so far!  Let me know what you've been up to~~

Love, Kelli

A little garden {very. little.}

Oh my gosh!  I have been so bad about blogging...  Probably mostly because I work full-time and am old as crap and don't have much energy to get things done..  lol  But hubbs and I did get a lot of yard work done last weekend (very exciting, I know) and actually planted a little garden!  And by little, I mean "very small," like 9 plants!  Really, with our busy schedules it is a good start.  We'll see how well we do and next year we could possibly go bigger :o)

 Awe!  It's so yittle!  No matter - we're excited and looking forward to some home-grown tomatoes in a few weeks.  How about you?  Done any gardening lately?

Love ya,

Kelli

What's for Dinner Tonight, Mom??

Sunday is my grocery shopping day.  It’s also the day I make the dinner menu for the entire week (so I actually know what to buy at the grocery store).  Problem is…  I run out of brain cells and can’t think of stuff to have for dinner! 

Does anyone else go through this?  I literally hate planning the meals all week long.  I have brain freeze – What. Do. We. Eat. For. Dinner. ? ?  Like a robot I sit there and stare, completely clueless for hours (it seems, probably only one hour, but that’s still too long!) until I finally think, okay, we’ll have grilled pork chops.  Yeah.  How exciting. 

My one little saving grace lately has been Pinterest ~  I have found lots of cool recipes and tried several of them.  One of the best is this pork loin roast in the crock pot from C+C Marriage Factory.  Very, very yummy and everyone likes it (even my very picky 13 year old).   

There was also the crock pot pork chops from Real Mom Kitchen that were heavenly! [I have a thing for the crock pot] 

But so far my favorite as been this little jewel from The Larson Lingo blog ~  oh my stars so easy and SO YUMMY!  Just dump everything in and walk away – so. tasty.

Even Robbie (my 13 year old) has enjoyed breakfast finds on Pinterest – like this and this.  [yes, bacon pancakes] I have lots of pins on my Recipe board left to try.  So now when I sit down to write my shopping list I have to be in front of my computer. :o)

If you have found any good ones on Pinterest I would love to hear about them! 

LOVE Y'ALL!!

Kelli

From Ugly to Pretty With a Little Paint

A few months ago I was dying for some new lamps for our den and started looking... Not only did I not really find what I was looking for I came to realize....lamps are expensive!  Wow!  I guess I hadn't shopped for lamps in awhile!  That's when I started "shopping my house." 

We already had some ugly well-made lamps in the den that hubby had before we married - they were, shall we say, not my faves, if ya know what I mean...

We thought hey, let's paint these or get rid of them, so we chose to paint.  First we primed them and let that dry, then we painted them a very nice, creamy beige.  We also removed that fake "key" sticking out of the side there.  It was a one-hundred-percent improvement!  I ordered black shades from Lamps Plus, which were beautiful, but we realized once we put them on the lamp that they were really too small for the height..  sooo - Hubby took to shortening the lamps...

And in the end they look pretty good.  Although, I'm not super happy with the color.  I always tend to go with a "safe" color as I did here with the beige.  I try to imagine them being red, or yellow, or even gold - but then I'd kind of be right back where I started!  For now they'll do just fine - until I get the itch to paint them again.

How about you, have you ever done a quick little paint job on something that totally changed how you felt about it?   I'd love to hear about it if you have :o)


Love, Kelli

Dining Room Wish List

Here’s my little dining room pretty much cleaned up as good as it gets.  And there are my pretty red chairs!!

This is the next room I want to paint. Then we can see about a new light fixture, table cloth, and rug.  I have no idea what kind of rug I want, but I know I want to paint the room gray and have a beautiful brass and crystal chandelier.

A new, to-the-floor table cloth in black with some fabric overlay will hide the old table nicely. 

OR…  I could do the Rub N’ Buff on the table and forget the table cloth – now there’s an idea~  It would go nicely with that big ol' gold mirror that's leaning over in the corner.  I got that from my office when they redecorated the lobby - for $10!!  If that's not a steal I don't know what is!  We're going to hang it over the piano.  Just got to catch Mr. Renovator when he's not busy...  :o)

So, what do you think?  I would love to hear your opinions!  And what about a rug?  I have never bought a big rug before! 

Love, Kelli