Honey, I shrunk the chairs!

A couple of weekends ago, Madison came up from the garage holding a couple of small wooden chairs. I totally forgot that I had them stashed in there! My sister had ordered them from Pottery Barn years ago and could not figure out what to do with them, so she offered them to MOI! And I stuck them in my garage!

Fast forward three or so years, and a fine painting project presents itself! Since I have really been into lightening and brightening my home, I saw huge potential in turning these sweet chairs from dark brown to antique white. Fun, fun, fun!!

Here are the chairs in their original brown state. Cute, but too dark and not enough character (of course being cute little wooden chairs of different sizes and styles is pretty darn "charactery" to begin with).

I promptly dusted off the wee babes and painted them with a creamy white acrylic craft paint using a variety of small brushes. After allowing them to dry, I "antiqued" them using some black antique glaze and rubbed with a towel to obtain a distressed look.

Now that I was addicted to painting teeny little pieces of furniture, I decided to add some detail. I created an "H" stencil and traced the stencil with pencil onto the seat of the chairs. I filled in the "H" using the antiquing paint.

Still not satisfied, I decided to paint over the "H"'s using a turquoise paint. This added an element of fun to these sweet chairs!

I love my chairs! And I plan on making little, spring pendant flags to hang on the back. Can dress them up for Holiday! Super Fun!

Maria Selby Gardens

I discovered one of my students has a parent that lives in Sarasota and is going there upon graduation. Previous to this discovery, she was telling me how much she loved gardening and flowers. Naturally, I had to tell her about the Maria Selby Gardens in Sarasota. I reminded her on the way out the door and had her repeat the name back to me!!! They are amazing, she will be amazed. She better go!!!

Anyway, I have been inspired to post some of my pics. Too lazy to add captions right now, but the beauty of the gardens speak for themselves~

And speaking of my students.....AMAZING. Amazing how much I learn and gain with each class I teach. The relationships formed, lessons learned, and futures brightened. One of my students asked me to come to graduation. She teared up as she told me this is her first graduation, she never graduated from high school.....GED. I told Chris I need to be there. I am so excited for these ladies. Three going to ETSU, 2 to Milligan, 1 to King College and my sweet student who overcame many obstacles to complete this course. I am so proud of these ladies.

Anyway, I love what I do. And I would like to think they love what I do, too:)

D.C. and Jack's 5th Birthday!

How perfect that our niece was in D.C.with her daughter, Emma, for Easter and Jack's 5th birthday! We were so excited to see Amber and Emma and Jack was super excited to celebrate his day with his cousins! Perfect, perfect, perfect. Of course, Chris, Brian, Katherine and I have all had fun hanging out, eating good food and drinking wine, so........that lends to a good weekend, too! Here are some pics of Emma, (who is super sweet and UBER smart) and Jack's b-day celebration. We are super, fantasically blessed~!

Emma and Great Uncle Chris!

Sweet baby hand

Five year old opening gifts!

Matt dying Easter eggs

Brothers

Hans Solo trapped in Carbonite

Jack wearing the top of his Dark Vader Pinata, he cracked it after 3 swings with a baseball bat

Jack blowing out the candles on his Dark Vader/Angry Bird/Life Saber pretzel rod cake!

The cake

I will add more pictures after our Easter celebration tomorrow!~

Toodles,
Beth

The Day O' Easter Egg Hunting

A good day not to be a FULL-TIME working mom! I got to go to two Easter Egg hunts, first Carly's and second Jack's. Carly called me twice to make sure I was coming. I surprised Jack. The rest of this day was busy preparing for our trip to D.C. I had to get all Jack's Star Wars stuff for his 5th birthday party, Easter stuff and my Great-Niece, Emma will be there so I got to pick out a couple of little, tiny baby girl outfits:). Here is a few pics and then it is bed time for me!

"Listening" to directions before the hunt begins. Notice Carly and others are scoping out their first eggs.

Eating lunch after the hunt

Trampoline time

Now Jack's school

And there off!

Jack and Maple, I got to see her very brave and sweet mama today.

Toodles!

Good news!

I am so glad that I can finally say this!!! My baby sister and dear friend is....well, let me just post a quick picture:

In December, I will have a niephew (cute title,huh)? I couldn't be happier. Can't wait until we get the go ahead to tell the kids.....they will be so happy!

So, Congrats to Chris and Courtney, you will be AMAZING parents!!!

Beautiful night...

Today was HOT,HOT,HOT!!Mid 80's! We better not be skipping Spring this year! Anyway, I just went outside to watch the girls shoot basketball and show them my mad skills,ahem, and we noticed how beautiful the sky looked. I had Madison run and get my camera before anything changed. Here are some photos.

Of course, the pictures don't do the view justice, but I thought I would share. I thought our dogwood tree looked like snow in the night. Don't you?

Jack's job chart!

As mentioned, yesterday Jack and I completed his job chart! He helped with most of the project and it turned out really cute (and hopefully useful). He had preschool graduation pictures at school today. I took time brushing his hair and put a nice shirt on him. While he was brushing his teeth, he looked in the mirror and said, "Why did you make me look so handsome?"! He really did look sweet. Can't wait to see the pictures! I have TWO children "graduating" soon! Madison starting MIDDLE SCHOOL and Jack KINDERGARTEN! I will be a wreck. Maybe. Or maybe I will have a full time job by that point and be too occupied to be a wreck. I will have to be a highly efficient wreck!

Without further ado, our chore chart tutorial!:)

We started with this picture frame that we are currently not using (under our bed covered in dust). Don't worry mom, I have plans for the print:). I thought the frame had a glass plate, but it actually is just a piece of plastic. We will see how that works out.

We went outside and painted the frame Behr Disney Bright blue (the color that Jack chose for his dresser, which looks so good in his room).

Yes, we paint outside in our pajamas. At noon. In the FRONT yard. Thankfully, Jack did not take a picture of me wearing my very seasonable purple, fuzzy snowflake pajama bottoms!

Instead of covering the cardboard insert with fabric or scrapbook paper (expensive),I opted for clearance red wrapping paper. Warning: clearance red wrapping paper is hard to use, shows every line and wrinkle. Wish I would have sprung the extra dollar for some nicer stuff. Next time.

Jack and I decorated the red insert with stickers (40% off Michaels's). It says "Jack is on the way..." on top. He then put stars and school stickers around perimeter (this was a good lesson about self-control for Jack, he wanted to use every....singe...sticker). We then put the plastic piece on top and placed it on the frame.

The next part was Jack acting out his chores while I took pics.He did surpisingly well at this. I'm telling you....we baby the boy! He did everything so well (except the shoe tying of course) and without help. Once he gets into the routine of this chart, we can add different chores.I had the pictures printed and taped them onto cardstock. Then I placed them ON TOP of plastic covering. They can easily be removed. I do plan on laminating the cards so they will be durable. I hot glued a dry marker CAP (this way when it dries out or I want to change colors, I just take the pen out and stick a new one in the cap) on the side. We can change what Jack is getting ready for and make tally marks next to the chores. Haven't decided what we are doing with those marks!

Ta Da!

Close-up of lettering underneath plastic piece.

I can't wait to show him final product when he gets home from school. Now I need to make myself a chore chart with pictures of me exercising, doing work, etc.:)!

Just in case all of you (my two faithful readers) wonder if I did not learn yeseterday's lesson about procrastinating.......I spent a loooooooooooooooooog time completing my powerpoint for Northeast and this was my reward!!!

One last pic.....our rose bush is blooming....so pretty!

Choices, they seem so obvious sometimes!!!

Put away clothes?

Or dye eggs with the boy?

Believe it or not, I had to force myself to leave the clothes and ignore the papers to grade. I signed him up for two day a week preschool thinking I would do all my work (housework and work-work) on the days he was there. But I quickly fell into catching up on the days he was gone and then doing more work the days he is here with me. He is my last baby, off to kindergarten next year. And he sits and watches t.v. or plays by himself. Oh the guilt. And oh the mom who has to manage her time better!!!

So, I tried my best to ignore what already should have been done. And hung out with the sweet boy. Of course, in the back of my mind was this.

But, I managed to divide the time today. The big problem with procrastination is that some task is always at the back of your mind so you can not live "in the moment". Ever. Its like being in graduate school again, and THAT is not a good feeling to have!

Jack and I did manage to make his sweet chore chart today. He has been so excited to make it and we got the supplies we needed last week. We are hoping by making this we can get him ready to go to school next year. I never had to get the girls ready, they just were. We maybe have done a bit of babying with the last one;0!

Tonight I put my student's final exam online as soon as we ate dinner so I can spend the rest of the night relaxing with the kids, without having that exam in the back of my brain all night! We even made a run to the store for a sweet treat AND I put gas in the car.

I will post pictures of the chore chart soon. He was super helpful in making it!

Springy Saturday

We have done a bit of everything today. Started the day by taking a VERY crabby seven year old to a birthday party a the children's museum ( what child does not want to go to a bitrhday party?!)in the pouring rain. We then worked on my craft area/office a bit. Much more to go, but moving on the right direction. Madison and I finished our spring garland for the fireplace and then painted sweet little teeny wooden chairs. For the rest of the afternoon, the kids have played with the neighbors soooooooo nicely. And I am slightly stressed that I can not find my laptop anywhere. How does one lose a laptop? Hmmmmmmmm.

Sweet Little Chairs to Craft....more to follow

Perfect day for parachute play!

Spring Mantle

chick lovingly made by my late-Grandma Fran

moved our shelf, refinished and added mirror.....getting ready for craft area/home office:)

Making flat bread for gyros with daddy.

Fabulous weekend at the Huber house......gearing up for Monday....

Welcome to our family blog....

Who am I kidding? this is MY blog about me, starring my family. I am currently obsessed with: finding a full time job, making our home beautiful on a budget,and my children! I don't know much about creating a blog, but I am determined to use this blog as a creative outlet to share with others!