There's No Place Like Home

Wow, it's been a long two weeks. We are back in SC after visiting our daughter, son-in-law and grand daughters in CA. It was not a pleasure trip, per se', but we found much pleasure in seeing them all.
Thanks for all who prayed for Andrea during her surgery. She is recovering and making progress.
It was so enjoyable taking part in Emma and Olivia's daily routine.
I home schooled Olivia everyday in kindergarten. I got a refresher course in phonics and the proper way to do cursive. She is reading and doing cursive now. WE didn't do that till 2 nd grade, if I remember that far back. lol
We went to the park by their house a couple of times and even went to Disney one day. They had two free passes waiting for us. Of course, their dad stayed home with Andrea.
Our trip back home was not what we bargained for but we arrived safely, in spite of it.
We were stuck in Dallas Sat., when they closed the airport for the terrible storms that moved across that state. After 5 hrs. in the terminal they allowed us to board and we taxied down the runway for take off to be told they had closed the airport again as another bad storm blew in. Literally blew in. We sat on the runway for more than an hour with severe lightning, torrential rains and wind.
We have been acclimating to the time difference and getting ready for company from MI that arrive tomorrow. (I told you I run a B&B) smile.
I wanted to get a post done before they arrive and say hi to everyone. I missed all my blogging friends and keeping in touch with each of you.

Here's some pics of us at Disney. The girls are right in front of the garbage. lol We saw an amazing production of Aladdin.

This is a view by their house of the mountains and city.

This is one beautiful B&B in Redlands, CA.

We took the girls to their gymnastics one day. They were so excited to show us they could do the "bridge".

This is inside the Disney park where they had a display of the Cars movie. I had to get a pic, since I had just painted both of these characters on the stool for Jonas.

This is the park by their house that we went to a few times.

Believe it or not, I'm standing behind the swing. At 5' 1" I'm just a head taller than Emma and she's a head taller than Olivia.

Taking in all the time we had to have fun together.

One day for lunch we took them to a pizza place with rides and games. (John's Incredible Pizza)

They went on a minature roller coaster.

It was a time to take care of Andrea, as well as making memories with the girls. We miss them already.

I hope your week is going great. I'll post again soon and start visiting you guys. Take care!

Painting Project for Jonas

Our grandson, Jonas, loves the movie cars and Lightning McQueen and Mater. I saw this little project on another blog and knew he would love it. I went to Target and bought a little red stool and started to draw the characters on it. They were so much fun to do. I loved seeing them come to life.

It was a little difficult with Mater and all the things on his tow truck but I think it turned out cute. Jonas is only 2 1/2 so they look good to him. lol

I felt it was a bit plain and painted a black border around the stool.

A couple of coats of polyurethane and it was good to go. He will use it for getting in his big bed and for the sink to brush his teeth.

I was unsure which of these shots is better.

The sides even have a car cut out. So cute. They have different colors and cutouts at Target.

I won't be posting for a while. Our daughter had quite a bit of surgery and we will be flying out to help her and be with the grand daughters, etc. I will check on your blogs as I can and post if time permits. I appreciate your prayers for a speedy recover and safety traveling. God is so good and we trust in his care.

Important Wording

I have seen lettering that you gals have put on your walls and was anxious to try my hand at it. Hubby and I were at Hobby Lobby one day and on an end cap I saw the containers at 50% off. This makes them much more affordable and they are on sale quite often. The company is called Once Upon a Wall. Cute name, isn't it?
I searched through the sayings until I found a couple I wanted to put in specific places.
I had a wide area between a large window and our front door and decided this was the right saying for our household. Hubby helped me put it up after I measured it . They are relatively easy to adhere and can be taken down with a hair dryer and not harm your paint.

A little closer look. You should be able to enlarge by clicking on the pic.

I sit in my office, as I'm doing now, and can see the saying perfectly from here, also. A reminder to live up to the words I'm seeing.On the other side of the entrance, which would be coming toward the office, we put these words. We taped them up to see where we wanted to position them.

The final product.

A closer look at the words. I hope people do feel this after they have visited here.

Hope you enjoy your weekend with family, friends and worshiping. Thanks for visiting!

Visit more show and tell at Kelli's at http://kellishouse.blogspot.com/

Spring Cleaning & More Projects

I'm "sprucing" things up around here, trying to getting ready for the class I'll teach on decorating next Tuesday night.
I added a metal work design above some pictures that needed something additional on the walls.
Here's one above pictures of hubby, me, and our two daughters, We're all close to the same ages in the pictures. I added one above the daughters wedding pictures in the living room. Ceekay has been bugging me to do this for nearly two years. I was unsure about it but love it since it has been up.

All this Spring cleaning is exhausting! I've done all our closets and many projects lately and it was time to take the bags to Goodwill. We threw in the old light fixture, as we had no place to use it. Have you all been busy with cleaning out things yet?

On to the next project that has been bugging me for a while. I bought these in a pkg. of five a long time ago. Since then I have gotten additional things that are more in the brown tones so out came the brown paint and brushes to tone them down a bit. What you can do with a little paint. This is a shot of before.

The after shot does not really show how brown I did make them.

This pic does more justice to how brown they became. They blend in better now, I think.

I have two other projects that I just finished and hope to post soon. For now, off to clean the wood blinds and baseboards. Hubby is helping with this task. He's so handy to have around, I just love him for his willingness to help.

Hope you are having a good week. Thanks for stopping!

Good Buys at Tuesday A.M.

I got a flyer in the mail this week for Tuesday Morning and knew I wanted to get there when they opened on the day the sale started. I love things that are monogrammed but don't usually have any luck finding our initial. They are either sold out or don't have enough of the item with our initial to complete a set. I was there when they opened and sure enough they only had two sets of these dishes with a J on them. I got the sets of salad plates, two trivets, coasters and even paper plates and napkins. I was a happy camper. I have black and white dinner plates so I thought they would be very versatile.
We had our daughter and grandchildren over for dinner last night and I decided to use them. If you remember the high chair post, I had extra material and used it for a square table cloth.

I put a bird cloche in the center with a bird nest under it and a couple of candles on the side.

The word Love.

An initial I painted and pulled out of my office.

Here's the coaster. Sorry for the glare.

They even had paper plates and napkins to match the real dishes, so I picked some up for desserts.

Thanks for coming by. I hope your week has been a good one so far.

What a Little Paint Can Do

After having our rockers for a couple of years and the dampness and winter weather they were looking pretty bad. I couldn't wait for a nice day to have them washed down, dried and painted. Hubby was sweet enough to get some bleach and water and scrub the mildew off and get them ready. I was embarrassed having them out front on the porch. Here they are on the back patio get washed.

So nice to have them back on the front porch looking like new and enjoying the spring weather.

So much better!

We have such beautiful flowering trees in the Carolina's at this time of year.

Japanese tulip tree out front.

Thanks for stopping and have a healthy, happy week!

Be sure to go over and visit Mrs. G. at http://howtokeephouse.blogspot.com/ for a fabulous giveaway. She has a beautiful blog.

New Chandelier

When we moved into our house the light fixtures were already installed by the builder. Of course, they don't put in the best or most expensive. One by one we changed out the fixtures to ones we liked better. The dining room chandelier was one of the last to go. We recently purchased a new one and installed it.

This is the old one.


Another view.

We decided to put up a medallion with the new light. It makes such a difference, don't you think?

It has taken some getting used to. This one is much larger and heavier. My sister came for a visit recently and thought it was soooo big. (lol) In comparison she's right.

We love the style and looks of it. Better late than never.

Thanks for stopping at my Show & Tell. Be sure to visit more of them at Kelli's There is no place like home . Have a safe weekend.