Decorating, Organizing and Panicing

As I sit at my office this morning staring at the calendar, it hits me that I have not yet purchased a single Christmas gift....gasp! There are only 116 days until it gets here....a huge gasp at this point! Now while I am not the kind of person who runs out and purchases lots of gifts for every person, I do try to buy things here and there that I think my children or hubby would like. Apparently this has slipped my mind this year...laughing at myself for thinking holidays would be a breeze even though I am working full-time and going to school full-time....yes, I am a tad delusional....moving on to a more positive note. I have been totally inspired by Decor Chick's fall decorating tips decorchick.com ...check out what she's done...i couldn't believe how simple and beautiful these were, so I have made a few myself and am thinking I may have just solved my Christmas gift dilemma.... I also began my organization extravaganza as I like to call it. I must admit that I have been very slack in this department all summer, but with the kids now back at school I had to begin again...I started in my kitchen, which in hindsight am not sure why, but I did. I have decided to make the desk in our kitchen, that usually collects junk, into our homework/craft station. I am cleaning out the cabinet above the desk and putting back in it only school supplies and craft things that the kids will use most often. I got this idea from another blog that I frequent, but for the life of me can't remember which one it was. It isn't quite finished yet, but hopefully it will be by the end of Labor Day weekend. Speaking of Labor Day weekend...I have all these grand plans for painting an accent wall in my living room and possibly some of the furniture that is currently there, but am still on the fence about the furniture. Back to my rant about this weekend...I didn't want to worry about the kids or the hubby being in the house, but thanks to Hurricane Earl swirling our way, I think them being able to be outside is probably wishful thinking at this point....ugh! I can see it now, me and my wonderful surrogate momma S on ladders trying to paint my cathedral height wall with two kids wanting to help....insert speech bubble with Dennis the Menace covered in paint floating over my head....ahh, the price of living at the beach.... Ok, I have ranted enough for today, but I will have my pics up of before and afters hopefully by Monday, weather permitting, that is...laughing as I go!

The Rainy Day of Summer

We had a great weekend at my parents and Hunter ended up BMX racing two days....i think we are in the midst of a new family hobby being created...no thanks to my sister and her hubby....thanks guys, as if we weren't already busy enough! I will be posting pics from this weekend later tonight so check back tomorrow :)
I feel sorry for hunter...it's his last day of summer and it's a rainy one! He is suffering enough b/c he had to come with me to work, but now it's raining and there will be no soccer practice for him to run out all of his energy...so off to middle (insert cringe and sigh) school tomorrow...i can't believe he's going into 6th grade...hard to believe! that's all for now, will post more later when i get in the mood to post pics....

summer review sort-of

let's just say that i have avoided doing this for almost a week due to not really wanting to admit that summer is nearly over....i just didn't want to face the music, but reluctantly i have given in....i am desperately looking forward to the fall weather though it means new things are to come....hunter is starting middle school next week (insert large sigh) and piper will be going back to her preschool, although i am still wondering if we really made the right choice in not going ahead and sending her to kindergarten early.....ok, for the summer wrap-up....
hunter graduated from 5th grade and we gave in and became parents who gave our preteen a phone....lol...he is enjoying texting more than anything....what did we do before cell phones?

this isn't a great pic, but this was during rehearsal for piper's dance recital...she is the one in the crazy orange....they were gummy bears for the recital.... :)

seriously, is she not the cutest little girl you've ever seen?

piper has no fear of water, so we thought we better make sure she could swim really well...she loved miss megan and her swim lessons...she cried when we had to leave every day....poor thing, she's gonna be my fish...
she wasn't very happy here because she had to wait her turn for lessons and she thought it was taking way to long to get into the pool....

from l-r in top pic....paul, hunter, cole and caleb at church camp...they had a blast learning how to put their faith in motion
bottom pic....hunter and caleb acting cool....they are too funny when they get together.














these are all pics from Spycamp, our churches version of VBS....hunter was called up on stage to be part of a game, piper digging in to the longest banana split on record in our city-100ft....and she was batgirl for one of the songs we did for spycamp....it's called Jesus your my superhero....the kids love it (and the adults did too)
this pic was taken after the car had been on for about 10 minutes...it was really hot here that day, i think we actually set a record for the heat and the heat index that day.....can you say, where is fall?







piper experiencing her first professional manicure (she also got a pedicure)...she wasn't too sure about it and it took her until almost the end before she even spoke a word....hmmm....filing that in my brain for later when i can't get her to stop talking...lol





That about sums up our summer....i will post more pics from the kids week at my parents since this is officially their vacation away from home (we couldn't take a "real" vacation because of my school schedule...only 11 more months of school and i will be finished...hooray)

Obsessions for the day

Ok, so today my to do list is extremely long.....other than getting ready for a presentation in class and studying for tomorrow night, i must make sure the kids are both packed and ready since bright and early friday morning i will be heading out to meet mom and dad.....
getting ready for what was originally looking like a very relaxing week for cliff and i is quickly turning into a jammed packed week of to and must do's....the uploading of new pictures is going to have to wait until at least friday night...sorry, but deal with it....
and yes, i am a little sassy today!

out with the old and in with the new.....

i have decided to go back to updating our family blog again since Meemaw refuses to get a facebook account and bothers poor Kathleen to log in all the time so she can see pictures....a lot has changed since the last post, but more of that later.....look for pic's and updates at least one time a week is all i am guaranteeing at this point....i will update with some recent pic's of the summer adventures tonight hopefully....