My 3rd Senior

Emily is a Senior.  My third Senior child.  What's going on?  Where is the time going?  How did this happen?  Wasn't I just getting MY Senior pictures taken yesterday?!
 Anyway, enough of that.  We did things a little different.  We didn't go to a photography studio to take her Senior pictures.  We didn't hire anyone for a photography session.  We took matters into our own hands and kept our money in our pocket.  We did it ourselves.  She knew what she wanted and she made it happen.  I just manned the camera, trying my hand at a little amateur photography.  It was fun.  We had fun.  She is a natural in front of the camera and very photogenic.  The picture quality has been lost a little as these are copies of copies.   It's hard to pick a few, so here's more than a few:

For the Birds

My girls are good pickers.  They spotted this on the side of the road in our neighborhood and knew exactly what we'd do with it.  Do you know what we did with it?  No? 

Well first things first were to spray paint it a happy spring color.  We can't have it looking all undone and raw.  It's a happy color now.  So much better.  Isn't paint wonderful?  Next I put some eye hooks in and ran rope through.  So pretend I showed you that, ok?

And now presenting:  The New Bird Feeder!!! 

 A lovely little bird bed and breakfast. 

There's plenty of room for feathered fowl of all sizes.  I just hope the pidgeons don't hear about it.  The birds were quite jealous of these girls getting all the scraps and feed.

Now there's a place for everyone and we can watch it all from the patio.

Thrifty Decor Chic It's a spray paint party
Feathered Nest Friday
Spring Week Party
Transformation Thursday

A little window dressing

 My kitchen windows have been a little naked lately.  They were a little embarrassed.  I wanted to help them out, without spending alot of cashola.  I had a vision of what I wanted to do and it involved burlap.  I've never worked with burlap before.  I found it to be quite pleasant to work with, except it was a tad messy.  So here's what I did.  I wanted the look of roman shades, but not real ones because I won't ever be closing them to block the view of our backyard.  I bought some tension rods for cheap.

While in Home Depot in the garden dept. I saw burlap garden bags.  What the heck are garden bags?  I don't know.  But I bought it because it was $4.88 and looked like alot of burlap. I don't know how much burlap is by the yard so I don't know if I got a good deal or not.  Let's just say I did.  Anyway, I measured my windows and cut the burlap allowing extra for hemming.

 

Because my sewing machinge is on the fritz, I used my handy glue gun.

 

My pictures got all out of order and I can't get them right, so here's the before of the naked windows:

 Here is an after of ONE of the windows. ( I'm not very happy with blogger today)

Here

Let's back up and look at things in reverse, shall we?  Here's my red wrinkly hand ironing the pleats before gluing them down.

Here are the pleats.  I pinned them and hung it up to eyeball it and then I glued them in place.

And this is the burlap before I started.        *Sarcasm*  Wasn't that fun to see it all mixed up and in

jumbled order?   shaking fists in air!!

Well, I think you get the idea.  Burlap faux roman shades.

Tension rods were about $10 for four.  Burlap was $4.88

That brings it to a grand total of about $15 for four windows.

Naked no more.

Tuesdays Treasures
Tutorials & Tips Party
It's A Cinch
Wow Us Wednesdays
Spring Week Party
Beneath my Heart
Transformation Thursday

Good Times in Pima

Having a fun time at  Grandma's and Grandpa's this week for spring break.  Isabelle loves the horses down at the barn. 

What visit is complete without an outing to the El Charro?

Emily earned some money doing a little work for Grandma.

We also had a little trip to Wilcox for used books and homemade tortillas.  And of course lots of rummy playing in the evenings.
Grandma and Grandpa are great hosts!

So clean and splarkling!

 When we moved in to our house, there was a pretty new kitchenaide dishwasher in the kitchen.  I was so happy at the wonderful way that it made my dishes come out clean and sparkling.  I didn't have a care in the world because my dishes were clean and sparkling.  Even the inside of the dishwasher itself was clean and sparkling.
And then the dreaded day.  Our water softner kept running and didn't shut off.  So we turned it off.  And that's how it sat for months and months.  I was afraid to call and have it serviced to find out how much it would be to repair or replace it.  In the meantime, the love I once had for my dishwasher was waning.  The dishes were starting to come out a little less clean and sparkling.  And then they were not coming out clean and sparkling at all.  They were.......dull and streaky and filmy and cloudy.  I tried different detergents.  I tried different settings, I used jet dry and even vinegar.  I mourned for my clean and sparkling dishes.  So I called the water softner people and explained what it was doing to cause us to turn it off.  They said it probably needs a new filter.  A new $360 filter.  A new $360 that I don't have, filter.  So I continued to be sorrowful and everyone in the house knew my pain. 
And then.
And then while grocery shopping one day, I spotted a happy little green and yellow bottle in the dishwashing detergent department.  The first thing I saw was "The Hard Water Expert".  Do you see it there?   We've got hard water to beat the band.   And I thought "what have I got to lose?" 

 So I bought it and brought it home and introduced it to my dishwasher.  And when I opened up the dishwasher after the first load and pulled out the dishes, I almost shed a tear.  Do you know what I had?  Do you know what I saw?  Clean and Sparkling dishes!  This doesn't do it justice because it's a night picture. But let me assure you that these dishes are about as clean and sparkling as they can be!  I found the fountain of youth for my dishes.

No more drinking out of throw away cups because we just can't stand the look of our glasses.  No more scraping off powdery film off the bowls.  No more putting the silverware right back in the dishwasher because they just don't look clean enough.  If you've already discovered this product, you can ignore this whole post, even though it's too late now.  If you are about ready to break up with your dishwasher because you haven't discovered this product, run quickly out to get you some.

Clean and Sparkling.

Prom

Remember the good ol' days when you went to Prom?  The hunt for finding the perfect dress, shoes and accessories.  Fixing your hair and makeup.  The corsage, dinner, dancing.  Good times, good times.

That good time for Emily was last night.  Mormon Prom.   It wasn't too hard to find the dress.  It was $60, she paid half and I paid half.  Then I sewed the sleeves on to make it modest.  It's really a very pretty dress. 

Check out her cute date!  And I think Emily looked very lovely.  She and I did her hair.  I made Grant's boutineer with flowers and greenery I had growing in my yard.

She went with a great group of kids who know how to have fun.

 

 

 

The lovely ladies

The handsome men

Best buds

I'm glad she can have these times to look back on.  Someday it will seem like a lifetime ago.

Spring at my house

Is is Spring yet?  I haven't looked at the calendar to see if it's official, I just go by how I feel.  And I feel like it's Spring.   I got my hands dirty yesterday and Springified my house.  I planted some more flowers in the front flower bed.

They smell so good and look so pretty.

I hung my Spring wreath on the door.

It looks a little sad and thrown together, I'll have to freshen it up later.

I got this huge pot at a yard sale last summer I think, and it's just been sitting around.  So I gave it a little paint job, not a very good one, but maybe it looks a little aged now?  Yeah that's it, it looks aged now.  Planted some flowers and put it in between the two garage doors to give the driveway a little Spring.

Pots on the patio table.  This is what I see out the window when I'm at the kitchen sink.  A nice view.

This is a sitting area outside my bedroom door, on the back patio.  I got these chairs at a thrift store, painted them gray and called it good.  Planted the flowers in a tin planter to give it some Spring.

I started these seeds inside a few weeks ago and we converted this box that used to be the firepit into our new garden.  It's an itty bitty baby garden.  We'll see how it does.

It's fun to get your hands in the dirt and watch things grow.  What have you done to welcome Spring?

Kid History

Friday night the two girls and I went to see these guys of Kid History.  As soon as the girls heard they were coming to Mesa, we HAD to get tickets.  Isabelle is a huge fan.  She's watched every episode so many times, she has them memorized.  They're good, clean and funny.

Just look at her big smile.  If you've never heard of Kid History, check them out here:

Kid History Episode 6