Little Thespian

At the beginning of the school year, Isabelle could choose between before school choir or after school drama.  She chose drama.  We're good at drama around here.  Her little theater group performed their one and only play on Friday night.  a 1920's murder mystery.  They got to invent their character.  She came up with Olivia Rubick with a british accent.

 Her character turned out to be a little girl, which she was dissapointed in because that's not much of a stretch for her.

 But her character was a little brat, which is totally out of character for her.

 They were a cute group of kids from 4th-6th grade.  They did a great job!

 She loved every minute of it and is a natural performer.  Where do my girls get it from??

 Here she is with her drama teacher who wrote, directed and acted in the play.

She had a great time and I'm sure we'll have many more performances in our future.

Sisters are like that

Sisters are great for borrowing clothes, learning new hairstyles, boyfriend advice.  But......they're also great for copying their awesome decorating ideas!  And thank the stars above, my sister is a FABULOUS decorator!  She came to my house in August after I had only lived here a month and had all kinds of ideas of what to do.  She had this vision for my laundry room, and I couldn't see it until I saw it in her laundry room.  She actually built shelves herself!   Her laundry room takes the cake and mine is only a nod to hers, but it's sooooo much better than it was.
She was my inspiration.

The Before:

 Dull.  Boring.  Drab.

 It's not very big but it sure was dreary.  Stark white walls, dark dreary oak everywhere.  So many detergent bottles!

 There's no sink in the tiny bathroom off the laundry room, so this is where people wash their hands and apparantly smoosh the towels around the towel bar as tight as they will go.

The freezer.  It's really just a place to put laundry baskets.  And then the baskets go on the floor when we need to get in the freezer.  Makes sense, right?

The After:

 white painted cabinets.  YES!! 
 Stole the detergents in bottles idea from Bev too.

 Cute little crate from Marshalls.  Bev gave me the Nellie's laundry soap and antique bread pan for softener sheets.

 Aaaah.  No more smooshed towels.

 Also stole this idea from the Master decorator to redo my cart and put it in the laundry room. 
 She gave me her wall paint swatch and I marched to Lowes and got some mixed up pronto.  best paint color ever!

So much lighter and brighter.  I LOVE my laundry room now.  I go in there and just stand and look and smile.  My family thinks I've gone nuts.  I can't wait to keep going on the rest of the house.  Oak beware!

Another post about Emily

Isabelle is getting a little upset because there have been so many Emily posts lately.
Well, here's another one.

LDS Prom was Saturday night.  We spent a little time making this dress modest and it turned out pretty well.
Emily and her date made a deal that he would get the corsages and she would get his tie.  So here he is putting it on after he arrived to pick her up.

They had a great time and made such an elegant couple!

Last of spirit week

Okay, I have totally slacked off on the spirit week updates.  Day three was pajama day (can't they be more creative than that?  And I heard some girls were wearing nighties to school.  I mean, c'mon!)  Anyway, Emily told me she wasn't really going to do much.  So I slept in.

Day four was sports day and she just wore one of her tennis skirts and a top.  Not that exciting.

Today was blue out day.  Wear blue. All over.  So here she is.  She's been really busy with tennis matches, choir concerts, and working lots to try and pay for her choir trip to California next month.  Oh the life of a high school girl.

And just so you don't think I only post about Emily, here's a picture of a bowl of grapefruit.

And my dog Zero

Spirit Week: Groovy, man!

Here we are at day #2.  Can you guess?
Hippie Day in all it's peace and love!

I thought she should have gone with a tie dye t-shirt.  If only she had a VW bus to drive to school.

And now a before and after project I've been working on.  Amanda gave me a Pottery Barn gift card for my birthday.  I've been wanting some keys for awhile now, and PB has this collection of keys plus shipping to equal the amount of the giftcard.

I've had this old rustic frame for a long time.

Hmmm..... what if I could somehow marry the two together.  And this is what I came up with.

I wanted it to look a little worn and aged and luckily the frame didn't take to the spray paint all that well.  So you can kind of still see some of the wood.  It's kind of wierd, but there's probably not another one just like it anywhere.  I kind of like it.

Spirit Week: Nest Head

Here we go again.  Spirit Week at High School.  Emily will be diving right into all the dress up days at school.  And loving every minute of it.  Here is day one.  Crazy hair day.  I was thinking something with lots of pony tails or maybe even pipe cleaners.  Not creative enough for Emily.  Here's what she came up with after searching online:

Nest Head

Stay tuned to see what tomorrow brings!


On a side note:  Amanda's Scott reports to the MTC this week.  Her amigo, buddy, amore, compadre, best friend, side kick, love.
We wish him the best of luck on his two year adventure to Bolivia!  Hasta Luego, Scott:)

Tennis girl

Emily made the Tennis team.  She's on J.V. and was kind of upset about not making varsity.  But after getting creamed her first match with a girl who used to be #1 on Varsity, I don't think she's too upset anymore. 

She has since won two matches.  And she looks cute in a tennis skirt!  It's fun to watch her and it brings back memories.  Her Dad and I played on the tennis team together in high school.

Her loyal fans.  Small but mighty!