Yay

IHeart Organization had a link up for spray painting projects. I added my post for KFC's desk and she featured ME along with 11 other blog link ups! Pretty cool to get 'noticed' by someone I envy for her house full of everything organized. I strive to have my house as pretty and functional as hers! Yay!

Also, KFC was featured on the FRONT PAGE of the newspaper today for the collard fest! I know its just a local newspaper, but its great fun to see my child on the front page of the newspaper! Can't wait till I can have my own copy of the paper! Yay!

Collard Fest

This past weekend we headed down to a friends house to visit and be apart of their town's annual Collard Fest festivities! I didn't know what to expect from a collard festival but it turned out to be LOTS of fun!

Got down there Friday night, hung out and went to bed. KFC slept in our room... still fits in her pack-n-play!!!

Saturday morning, LH made a yummy breakfast, then we got 'prepared' for the collard fest's parade. LH and her friend decided to make a shirt out of collards! KFC wanted something too, so they made her a collard skirt! They were all a spectacle walking down the main street! Someone from the local newspaper stopped them to take a picture. I have checked the newspapers photos of the fest online and didn't see them! :( Was hoping KFC would make it in the paper... even if she was wearing collards! KFC got hot in her collard skirt so then it was passed on to Little K.

The Halls house is walking distance to the parade and festival. It was super nice to be able to walk and not have to find parking! Top left picture if Hubby running to catch up with us after realizing we left the patio umbrella behind! Its shade helped so much because it was HOT out in the sun.

KFC Loved the parade! There were a lot of pageant winners in the parade and KFC said they were princesses! She had a great time waving to the people in parade.

Some of the things in the parade

After the parade we walked back to the house to hang out. It was too hot to walk around the festival so we stayed inside and when the sun started going down we played a little cornhole. KFC started pulling little K around in his wagon! 

Once the full moon came out and was cooler outside, we walked back to the festival. It was like a mini state fair. There was a live band, plenty of food/souvenir vendors, and kiddie rides. We bought a few tickets and let KFC ride a few rides.

She also HAD to have this fake passy that blinked crazy colors because everyone else there had one. We let her get it but told her it was not to be used as a passy for her but for her babies. Sadly it was almost like she was 2 years old again and us trying to get her to break the habit! Sunday she wanted to suck on it on the car ride home! She was sick with a cold and tired and it DID keep her quiet, but it had to go!

After getting back from the festival and putting the kids to bed, we hung out and played games till we were beyond tired! So tired this is what we found hilarious!.....

There was a nail in their wall with nothing on it, so Hubby attached a bag of chips there to see when someone would notice. It was more funny the next day when little K figured out there were chips hanging on the wall!

And then there were Hubby's peanuts! He kept opening his peanut shells to find faces in the nuts! We found a chipmunk and a rabbit!

Sunday we went to their meeting at 12:30pm, came back to the house for lunch/dinner and headed out. On the back roads headed home we spotted this barn. These people must have been desperate because that took a  lot of work to write all this!

Had a GREAT time and can't wait till next years Collard Fest!

Old to New Desk

Since we moved into our house a year and half ago, KFC has been using one of those plastic picnic table things for all her coloring and crafting needs. It was located in her section of the playroom/office and it took up a ton of floor space. It started to become a 'catch-all' for anything that either didn't have or didn't want to figure out a place for things kinda table. When the area was clean and organized I was happy and relaxed in there, but oh when it was a disaster {most of the time} I was super cranky! Since she is growing up and going to need a school desk soon, I knew I wanted to get her a 'real' desk to put into her room. I asked Papa to be on the lookout for one. 2 weekends ago he found a desk and a chair and brought it to us! It looked old and a couple drawers were broken, but I knew We Hubby could fix it right up!

After it being in her room for 2 nights, Hubby got to wondering if there were any spiders or eggs hiding in it! Right at bedtime, he took one of the drawers out to find an enormous spider!!! After sucking him up the vacuum and killing him outside, the desk went straight out to the shed until we could carefully search for anything else!

Here is the spider... Hubby put it in a baggie with water since it was so dusty from the vacuum.

We were thinking it was a brown recluse spider, but internet says its unlikely to find them in this area, but he sure did look like one!

Here is the before of the desk. Someone had painted it a off white color and had taken gold spray paint to accent the indentions! 

We found a paint can in the shed called 'Almond'. We decided to try it and it came out a very pretty creamy off white color! Kind of matches her bed, maybe a little darker, but a whole lot better than bright white would have looked. KFC wanted her chair pink so that's what she got! I liked the knobs, but not the antique distressed looked that they had been given, so I sprayed them the same color as the desk. I LOVE the way it all turned out!

A few months ago, I saved up some soup cans, painted them, and used them to organize her pens, crayons, etc. They have worked SOOO well! There are several more finishing projects I want done on and around the desk. Such as a desk lamp, a fabric covered cork board, and some baskets for the side of the desk. In time these will be added! But for now, this desk has stayed organized, KFC and I love it, and there is now more floor space and less clutter in her play corner! Ahhh, my brain is thanking me. I still have SEVERAL other organizing projects around the house but at least this is a start!!!

Meet Woody

Yes, we have ANOTHER Beta fish... and Yes, KFC is going through the names of Toy Story. {FYI- if this one dies, the next will be named Buzz! Already decided by KFC herself!}

Last Wednesday we lost our 2nd Beta fish Andy. That Sunday before, KFC noticed he wasn't moving as much. After I took a look, she was right. He wasn't his happy self. It amazes me how Saturday he can be happy and eating to Sunday he is moping around and eating nothing! He also developed what looked like fuzzy stuff on his tail - which is exactly what the 1st fish had too. Got home Monday to find that his tail had almost shredded into a bunch of pieces and was all over the bottom of the tank. Looked up beta fish sicknesses, figured out he had a disease but couldn't pinpoint exactly which one. He almost seemed to be feeling better after he lost his tail. But Wednesday morning we woke up to him stiff at the bottom of the tank! 

We finally made it into town yesterday and I decided to go ahead to Petsmart. The lady that worked there didn't really know why the others died, but said I could bring my water in to get tested. In the meantime, I bought a jug of distilled water just to rule out our water being harmful. This trip, unlike the last one, had a bunch of big and pretty Betas! Very hard to decide which one to get. It was a choice between a very vibrant blue and red beta and one with a tail like a fan. I chose the 'froo froo' looking one! He is still scared of us, but hopefully that will change in the coming days!

Meet Woody!

Fork, Knife, And Spoon

Several months back I found a blog that showed how this couple created 3 wall plaques of a fork, knife, and spoon for their kitchen. I knew I wanted something like this and I knew exactly where it was going. I mentioned to Hubby what I wanted and he was 'supposed' to make me the silverware out of metal from his work. I guess since he had to design it on CAD first it never got completed. But last week, he came home with some scrap wood from work, that was thrown in dumpster, to make me my plaques!!! After scaling up the picture from that blog, I was able to somewhat print off the size we needed. After a few adjustments on the drawings, we were ready to cut it out! Jig sawed it out, sanded it down, primed it, and painted it black. I wanted flat black but the spray can was very misleading because it turned out with a sheen. Oh well. 

Here was our process...

Them up on the wall!

Here is the pic I got my inspiration from

Love my new Fork, Knife, and Spoon plaques! Especially when this project was FREE!!!!!