Paisley

Paisley LOVES getting her hair cut. Good thing her babysitter, aka Aunt TT (Tiffanni,) is a hair dresser and she gets her hair cut and styled probably once a week!

P.S. Mom needs to learn how to work a round brush! AND french braid!

I lost Beck at Wal-Mart tonight. This was scarier than dumping over a motorcycle. Seriously. So scary. That clothing department will never look the same to me again. I cried. The best thing about it was when the Manager found him Beck was trying to punch the crap out of him and screaming his head off. It's wonderful to know that the kid does listen to me after all and my warning of strangers and scream as loud as possible. And he always says he's gonna "kick the bad guy in the face and punch his eye!" Thank you Wal-Mart employees....

Careful, MAJOR picture and project overload!

One night, (10 PM) a little over a month ago my sister-in-law, aka Best sis-in-law in the world, came to Moses Lake to pick up her son and asked why I hadn't painted my table black yet? (I have been talking of doing this for a little over 2 years) I told her it was too big of a job right now and maybe I would do it in the summer. NOT a good enough answer for her, so she whipped out my brushes and a staple remover aka pain in the butt for the next 8 hours remover... to remove about 1,000 staples and nails from the benches, and I ran to Wal-Mart for black paint. If you have ever tried to get black paint from Wal-Mart before DON'T have them mix the kind on the sample cards. It's NOT BLACK. I made this mistake 3 years ago and that table is now home at my sister's house because I couldn't stand that it was charcoal/blue/gray and NOT BLACK. So anyways, the nighttime employees at Wal-Mart don't know how to mix black paint, so 2 AM we turn in for the night with the tables and now my bar stools primed and ready for paint. I made a trip to Home Depot in the morning for black paint which they also could not supply so Tiffanni brought some from ACE in Othello and came back to help me....I ain't gonna lie Tiffanni and sometimes Stephen, but mostly Tiff, did most of the work.... Thanks guys!!!

One and a half weeks later, (due to staining and finshing coat issues and no fan) and whoo la! Beautiful isn't it? and black bar stools to match!You see that brown cabinet over under the big round clock? That was my project late that first night while waiting for the primer to dry on the table and benches.... I came home with Turquoise paint and Stephen about died.....But later glazed, ain't half bad is she? For $20 at a yard sale and a year sitting in my garage!

The gals at All Things Thrifty and Tiffanni had me on a roll and I found this beauty for $40 on Craigslist. Stephen had been trying to buy all these ugly TV stands for our room because it was sitting on this old flimsy yard sale desk, and this was exactly what I had in mind!a Quart (with TONS left over) of "Burled Redwood" colored paint and my favorite Valspar Antiquing Glaze in Asphaltum color and this is what I end up with. Stephen was sick for a week with the flu, so it had to sit in the garage before I could get it inside when it was all done. Which was probably soooo much better for it because I usually try and haul my projects in when they are still sticky with paint because I am so darn excited!Isn't it perfect? LOVE IT!

Now on to an old chair I have had for a few years which I got at yet another yard sale for 50 cents (yes, I like to brag at how cheap I get stuff because my hubby still cannot understand for the life of him why I enjoy "dumpster diving?")WOW! LOVE IT! The material is left over from a rocking chair that my mother had made when I was born. I just had it reupholstered a little over a month ago for an insane price, but a steal of a deal on the fabric that I found at JoAnn's.

This was my from my "high chair phase" days back when Stephen and I were newlyweds. I cleaned my sister-in-laws (a different SIL) house and she gave me this beauty. I had 5 or 6 dffernt ones, but this is the only one that I kept when the phase was over. And this is what is looks like now.... after spray paint and glaze....

Which matches this little end table I had painted "black" years ago, but I had used that same gallon of paint that wasn't really black, so it bugged me pretty bad, and these were all to match the recently recovered rocking chair of my mothers also shown in the picture.This is what that little nook used to look like and now.....All fits together so nicely....And this is the chair that I found after Stephen posted this on his Facebook while sitting in the car as I rummaged though stuff at Bargain Town.....

Stephen Ashton: Taking korbi to dump to look for "stuff"... I really don't understand the thrill of it.

And I say, "$4 baby, that's why"!And now I have a new piano chair, since I don't have a bench! One man's trash is another (wo)man's treasure!

The fabric I used from my old bathroom curtains at our old house.This is what the upstairs living room used to look like once again. Brown bar stools, stained table and benches, brown cabinet, blue couches (now downstairs)As Kallie and Brooke from All Things Thrifty say "amazing what a little paint can do!" And new couches for Christmas. ;) and Target clearance pillows, and a free piano from above mentioned sister-in-law..... ;)

Happy Valentines Day!

Beck and Ashton's Preschool Valentines Teddy Bear Tea Party = Major sugar crash....

Happy Birthday my Baby Boy!

Four???? I have a 4 year old? weird.... My little 8 lb 13 ounce bundle of joy that made me a mommy 4 years ago is all grown up. Super excited to go bowling tonight with the family and can't wait to be 5...
At 4 years old he weighs 36 pounds. Loves Transformers (which has lasted a whole year) is getting into Batman and bad guys. Still loves the color blue, hates wearing jeans, still crawls in bed with his mom at about 3 am. Wears a size 8 shoe, is almost the shortest in his class, but definitely has a BIG personality. Loves the gym, but not class, likes his break dancing class for now, loves his cousins, and LIFE cereal. Chocolate milk and candy, candy, candy. Thinks the world revolves around him and loves his little sister... sometimes.... I love you my Baby Beck!

Beck's #4 Birthday party

My son, the almost Birthday Boy. In 2 days, 4 years ago my son and first child was born. 4 years, really? I really can't even fathom it. This little stretch me to my limits ball of fire, changed my life forever, in the best way possible.

He really has had the hardest time the past two days. I think that I heard, "can I please, puh-lease open my presents... just one, I will open the big ones later, puh-lease, I won't tell anyone, just one... PLEASE!" I heard it at least 30-40 times a day if not in one hour. The party started about 2:30, with family and a few friends arriving all within the next hour. Most of the Ashtons (Prunedas) were there and the Nelsons, Jenks, and Gilberts. Cousin Carsten and Aunt Debbie also have birthdays in February and this was the Sunday Birthday Dinner for the Ashton family.

SURPRISE!!! visit from Grandpa Bobby Boy the missionary! Beck kept asking him how he got here?? Did he fly here?

This picture is pretty much a scene from the whole party, fast track and full blur....

We sent him on a scavenger hunt for his big present from us; a "cabin" with little people and farm animals and horse and buggy. He saw it at Ranch and Home a month or two ago and has been talking about it ever since. He also wanted it to "rain gumballs" (off of a movie he saw) for his birthday, I think that his cousin Hanna got that one stuck in his head.

Lots of Transformers, a Batman plane, socks, Batman shirt, airplanes, a Pixar activity book, and Pixar activity/sticker pad.....

and... CANDY!!! from the pinata!

The birthday bunch with a very unenthused Beck..... Cartsen, Debbie, and Beck

Carsten let Beck blow out the candles...

Then he had to blow them out again..... Happy Birthday my Baby boy.... I love you!

Everyone around me is sick. Stephen is just getting over it, I feel it coming on. Kids are dropping like flies down at the school and gymnastics center. My kids have boogie noses.... So even with a cute smile like that on Pais's face as she eats one of her favorite snacks, I can't help but cringe at the sight of the boogie nose. Not that it's nasty (although it is) but that fact of "is it coming?" The real sickies, the barf, the bum, the swollen eyes, the fitless sleep filled with fevers and sweats and chills? Oh man, I sure hope it skips my kids.... But while daddy spends days in bed we made blueberry pancakes, a favorite of beck's, and went to school, and about our lives as Stephen laid in bed miserable. Happy to know that he is back on his feet and crossing my fingers that it skips the rest of the family....

At school today we had a special speaker "Mr. Carlos" aka Chuck. He build houses and he came and talked to the kids and let them drill screws into a board and gave them all their own ear plugs. It was so fun and the kids were super into it. Me and Mindy needed that because man, this past week, bless their hearts, it has not been easy. It's like they can feel the Spring in their bones and they run and jump and scream and fight because all they wanna do is be set free. Which reminds of a quick story.

I have a hard time at school if some of the kids don't wanna stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I understand that they are only 3 and 4 years old, but I want them to learn how to respect the flag and what it stands for. So I have been trying to teach them what it stands for. Today I had been asking them what they like to do? "ride bikes, eat food, play with friends." Were typical answers, so I was explaining that those are freedoms and we get to choose what we want to do, what we want to eat, who we want to play with and we owe that to soldiers and people who have stood up for us and sometimes not been able to return home to their families, so that we can have these freedoms. So anyways on the way to Warden to switch my sis-in-law for my Paisley and her Ashton, Ashton finished his nachos and he says, "Here Korbi, I finished my nachos because this is America and I can!" LOL Seriously, if it were all that easy.... And ladies and gentlemen, it is "all about the Climb...."