CHEAP REDO

So, I am working on a small redo of my laundry room. Many, many years ago when we bought this house the washing machine was in the kitchen. Of course there was no dryer, only a clothesline. I had a small back porch and my dad closed it in and made me a laundry room. One wall is brick because it was formerly the back of the house. The other walls we sheet rocked. Well, believe it or not I have never done anything to it in all these years. I have really been wanting to paint it a LIME GREEN color. I love that color but would not want to see it in a room everyday, so I thought the laundry room would be a perfect place for my fun, bright idea. So how shocked was I when I went to Lowe's and they had this green wallpaper for 50 cents a roll!! WOW! I bought them all.

Then I picked out this shade of green for the brick part of the wall and put Billy and Wes to work.

Yeah, no more unfinished sheet rock walls
I used to have a collection of frog items on display in my kitchen and have since packed them away. Now I am going to get them out for my green laundry room. I also have a couple boxes of antique snoopy stuff that I might try to incorporate in. I will show it off when all is done!

IN HONOR OF:

We had a wonderful memorial day. Not forgetting that this holiday is to remember our men of service. Without these men who have fought for our country and those men and women who still do we would not have the freedoms we have today. My husbands father was serving in the Marines during the Vietnam war. He was seriously injured serving this country. Upon his return home he raised his two boys single handedly and did a wonderful job at it. He passed away several years ago and it is a great loss to us.
Here is a scrapbook page I did with his newspaper article and pictures of all the medals he received.Also some framed items that hang in our den.

Our celebration started out with a trip to Blockbuster. Aaron, Billy, Wes and their friend Kevin signed up to be in a Guitar Hero competition. Billy came in 8th, Wes in 5th and Kevin won the entire thing. The man in charge of it was surprised because he knew he had some real good players in it and didn't expect our bunch to be so good.Billy was so focused on his playing that he looked like he was in pain.



Then we came back for a cookout! Mom, dad, my sister Sara, Bridgette, Jeremy, Que, Melissa and Tyler all came over too. There is always a fight over the deviled eggs and you can see Sandy wants to lick them all so he can have them all!


We played croquet and even played in the dark. Dad always wins but not this time. There is a first time for everything! Austin is the new champion!


We had ice cream and smores over the fire later that night. Oops, it got a little smoky in that one of Bridgette! Look at the sweet soon to be married couple on the swing :)


And here is mom and dad on the swing.
I hope you all had a wonderful celebration too!

SHOW AND TELL FRIDAY

It is time for show and tell friday over at keli's blog. Here is her site if you would like to join in the fun. http://kellishouse.blogspot.com/ OK, I keep trying to make the link where you can just click on it but it is not working for me!
Today I would like to show two of my favorite childhood pieces of doll furniture. The first one is a doll high chair that my grandfather built. I have a little boy doll that sits in it and it stays in my dining room near the table.
Next is a piece my dad built. Mom calls it a 'rockabye cradle'. I could put my baby doll in the cradle and then sit in the rocking chair part and rock the baby. I think this piece was actually built for my sister but I ended up with it. She had these items stored and I wanted to display them. It was such a great benefit to have a father and grandfather who were carpenters. My dad made us a great play kitchen with real faucets and real stove eyes. Well, they didn't work but the pieces were the real thing. I wish I still had those. Maybe I will get mom to dig out an old picture and post it soon.
Thanks for stopping by to see my show and tell. Have a great weekend!

MY NEW JOB

Wow, the first week at my new job went so fast. I guess that is a good thing. I had so much fun. I am working at a used car lot called Wooten Auto Sales. Here is how I came about this job and a little info on the owners.
Years ago I bought my first car from this car lot. It was a black cherry Dodge Daytona with a sun roof. Best sporty car I ever had. I bought it at Wooten. The people were so honest and friendly. Over the years we bought several more cars from them and got to know the owners on a first name basis. Well, in 2002 a few months after we lost everything in our house fire, someone came and repo'ed my husbands truck. This was our only vehicle at the time but putting the house back together was more important. Well, when the owners wife realized what was going on she called me into the office. She not only gave us the truck back but she paid it off IN FULL! She made me cry that day. Since then I have purchased another car from them and Billy did also. (He no longer has it- but that is another story!)
This couple has been in business- and very successful at it- for many years. I believe that they are so profitable at this business because they are honest and treat people in the right way. They recently moved to a bigger lot and needed more office help. Betty Jo (the owner) called my husband at work because she no longer had our home number. She told him that she really had been thinking about me a lot and wanted me to come and work for her. Talk about a job falling out of the sky!!
A few of my personal benefits are this: I get a car! Yep, a free car! And on memorial day they rent a huge house at the beach for us and give us $500 to spend. We also get paid for all holidays and paid if we are sick. Betty Jo also takes the girls shopping once a year with HER money. We also get many cash bonuses. In other words- they take good care of their employees. There are three of us office girls and three sales men. It is a close knit family like environment. I LOVE IT! And it is only 5 minutes from my house. I will post pictures and more in the near future! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

EXCITING WEEK

It has been an exciting week on my new job. I have not posted this week because I am trying to get into the swing of the new schedule. I will be back later today to tell you all about my new job.

BYE BYE UNIFORMS -- HELLO NEW DILEMMA!!!

Ok, so I started my new job today! Yeah! I will be blogging about it later this week. So far it is wonderful. However, I have a new problem and that would be clothes. For the last two years I have worn scrubs. Very comfy, good clothes to hide those extra pounds but...
Well, lets just say I was very happy to throw each of those yucky colors away!

Then for 7 years prior to the scrubs I was dressing like this for work. Don't you love those international flag chef pants?

So, for nearly 10 years I have been in uniforms. Ok, now I have to wear REAL clothes. Look in my closet...hmm... not much there. Some church clothes- too dressy. Hmm, maybe two good outfits that actually fit! Looks like I will have to buy some clothes. But look!! I do not have to buy shoes. Yep, I have a shoe problem. Here are about 1/3 of my shoe collection.

What a shame. All those shoes and no clothes to go with them. I really do have to get some decent clothes for this new job :(

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Yes, I am late on this post. We lounged around in our pj's yesterday watching old home movies. It was so much fun. We laughed and I sometimes wanted to cry. It is hard to believe all those years have gone by. We have not pulled out those old movies in so long and it was such fun to see them. It is funny to see how the boys' personalities have stayed the same even when they were very small.
I got to talk to mom on the phone and wish her happy mothers day. I have a wonderful mother who would do anything for me. Growing up with happy Christian parents makes for a solid and joyful childhood. People tell me that mom always had me dressed to the "T" and I was always clean. I cannot say the same for my mothering skills. Most of the videos we watched showed my boys with dirty faces or dirty feet! Oh, well it didn't hurt them :) My mom taught me everything about taking care of a baby when Billy was born. I had NO clue and wouldn't know what to do without her. My mothers favorite things to do are clean and iron! Yep, that is why I always try to get her to come visit. Just kidding! We used to tease mom that we could eat out of her trash can because it was so clean. But you know what they say- cleanliness is next to Godliness. My mom is great and I am sorry to say that I do not have a good picture to post right now of her. (If you remember my dear hubby erased my memory card!) So I will have to look thru old photos. I love you mom- Happy Mothers Day.
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL OF MY BLOGGER FRIENDS!!!!!!

BRIDGETTE'S BRIDAL SHOWER

Today we had Bridgette's bridal shower. We had so much fun!
She got so many nice gifts. Most of the items were for the kitchen but Jeremy will be using all of those. Bridgette does not cook! Well, yet anyway.




One of the things I got for her was a quesadilla maker. That one I know she will be able to use without his help.
Her mom got her a flip flop door mat. She loved that.
Here she is threatening to 'tong' me because I took her pins away on a game we were playing. We were not allowed to say Jeremy and she said it twice in a row. I won that game.
We played another game where everyone had a name of a famous bride on their back. You could only ask yes and no questions to guess who you were. I guessed all three of mine. I won that one too! Here is one that my sister had on her back.
We also played a game where we had to see who knew the most about Bridgette. I won that one too! My sister was really not allowed to play because she is the mom but she only had one more right than me.
OK- so I won ALL 4 of the games! I am so competitive. Here are my prizes. They were two very nice candles.
Here is Bridgette and the girl that Wesley will be walking down the aisle.
Here is Bridgette with her grandma. Not my mom- my parents are holding a tent meeting in Texas right now and could not be here.
Here is Bridgette with Wes.
MOM- I know you are anxiously awaiting this post. I will email you all of the pictures from the shower.
Sketch your photos at dumpr.net

Juliean at http://juliean-mylife.blogspot.com/ did a cool sketch on her blog so I thought I would try one. Neat huh?

Just Plain Funny- or Just Plain Stupid

Ok, so Wes has a friend that lives in Florida. The other night they were talking on the computer and using the web cam. They found this program where you can distort your image in numerous ways. At first I thought it was kind of crazy, but the longer they did it and they started putting these crazy voices with the pictures- Oh my- I just cracked up. I was sitting in the floor, tears of laughter on my face and nearly peed my pants. It was late and I was tired but I just could not stop laughing. Of course in the end I had to join in and capture one of me!
This is Shawn in the big picture and Aaron in the little. They called this one 'The Club Owner'. They were making comments like a bouncer would.

This is what Wes calls 'Big Body'. That is his tiny head.

And this is Wes kissing himself.

OK so anyone have a caption for this one!!!

Blah, Blah, Blah

Hello all my wonderful blogger friends. As you can see I have changed my side bar and have you all listed by name. I had so many blogs listed that I like to read but have just lost daily contact with many of them. I will still be stopping by to read them now and again. Some blogs I love and comment all the time but never get any sort of response back. Maybe my blog is just too boring for some people! Anyway, I do love all of the comments that you- my small circle of loyal readers leave. At least somebody loves me. :) LOL! I have also met some wonderful people on my celiac blog so it does get overwhelming trying to keep up with everyone. Count yourself lucky if you are listed! JUST KIDDING!
Now, I just wanted to show off my hostas. I have so many people that just go crazy over them when they see them. They just started sprouting up about 2 weeks ago and look how big they are already! I divide them and move them all the time but they just won't stop growing. Somehow a variegated one appeared in the mix.


Here are Wes and Aaron getting ready to go shoot some hoops. Don't you love the 70s style head and arm bands!
Oh, and here is my diet for tomorrow. These are the only things I can eat all day. Welcome to the wonderful world of celiac! Time for an endoscopy and a colonoscopy. Yeah, I am so excited :( Ugh, I am more worried about starving to death for a day and a half than I am about the procedure.
Hope you all have a relaxing evening.