My Summer Must Haves

There are a few things that I use daily in the summer, thought you might like to give them a try too! A few that I forgot to list were Taco Be*ll's Fruitista, I love the mango strawberry! I also could not live without a case of water from Cos*tco, something like 48 bottles for 4 bucks! Can't go wrong! I also love lip gloss, makes me look more fresh with a summer tan. I live in flip flops from May to September
What did we do before these chairs were invented? I carry them to baseball games weekly!

I love the Scentports at Bath and Body Works, these clip on your visor, my favorite is the Sweet Pea, and they are only 5 dollars!

This is my sunscreen of choice, not sure why, but we bought it in Florida for the first time years ago and it kept me from burning, it must work! I use the spf 30 and get a golden tan but never burn.

A summer read, this is next on my list, I love Lisa See's other books and this is her newest, it is on my birthday wish list!

After I am in the sun I love putting this lotion on, it smells wonderful!

This is our new favorite family game. Laddergolf. So much fun and easy for all ages.

I love these water bottles, I can reuse them over and over again. I found mine at Di*cks sporting goods for $12.

Don't ask me why, I have not had one of these in years and now I am addicted again! Yikes!

This new "Daughtry" cd has been playing in the background of our life ever since we bought it this week, love him and love this cd!

I really want to thank the person who made a cooler like a tote bag. Saves my back and with all of the ball games I am at it is so easy to haul it around!

My neighbor got me hooked on Arnold Palmers, half lemonade and half iced tea. Who would have thunk it?

**my garage sale finds are coming next, I carry a change purse around with me all summer for this reason! ***

Coming soon, I promise!

I have been getting some awesome things at garage sales this summer! I am working on posting them for you soon!

Our 16th Wedding Anniversary!

Today is our 16th Wedding Anniversary! I love this picture, it was taken from the balcony of the church. This church stands way out in the country, is very old and so special to our family. Mark's grandparents were married here as well as his parents, aunts and uncles and many cousins as well, Mark was baptized here as a tiny baby! I remember walking down the aisle on my dad's arm and felt such a warm feeling as I smiled at our friends and family, we had waited 7 years for this day and everyone was so genuinely happy for us. It was a wonderful day for our families and we cherish the memories of that day. Almost every family member from the first two rows have since passed away, we have surely been through alot in our 16 married years together but I am so thankful that I have such a wonderful man to stand beside me through it all. I love you sweetie! Happy Anniversary!

Summer Decorating

I found this antique dough bowl at a garage sale and filled it with my shells. The huge shell was from our honeymoon almost 16 years ago!
The dining room is always my favorite place to change with the seasons. I added lots of greens and glass. It looks so fresh. I still love my huge window. I took the leaves out of the table that we never use and folded the sides down, made the room seem bigger and brighter!

I took a huge framed family picture and propped it up with an antique mirror that I found in my travels for $4. I love the cloche with the tiny topiary in it, I put it on top of a new tray that I found at Violet's Blue (my favorite store!)

I brought some blues and browns downstairs from my bedroom and I like how they look in the family room. This pillow was a Christmas gift to myself for $14 from Ballard Designs. Actually, the new Ballards catalog came the other day and inspired me to do these changes.

I brought this table down from my bedroom too, it was a family piece and I made a no sew table cover for it last year. I found those cool candleholders at a garage sale for $5, The price on the bottom totalled $80 for the pair! I love garage sales!

I moved my brown plates to the table above from this wall so I added an architectural piece and a little star. I also moved my tall dining set up from the rec room instead of the little white set and I like it so much better!

I love starfish!

This tray can sit on my bar area or my dining table.

I bought a $2.99 succulent from Ikea, looks so summery!

I took this old jar and put a few pictures from our visits to the beach inside it. The beach is one of our favorite places to spend family time, looking at this jar brings sweet memories to mind.

This poor shelf has taken a tumble and I lost some of my favorite pieces. I decided to keep it light this time and added beach pictures of us. The shelf isn't crooked, my head must be! My good neighbor Ken fixed my shelf for me and put some heavy duty hooks on it, he said I could hang from it now! Let's not get carried away now!

You must know me well enough by now to know that I change things ALOT! I decided to bring some summer elements into my decor. I love all things natural so it was easy for me to walk around my house and steal pieces from other rooms to put in my family room/kitchen area. I love blues, browns and whites so I made that my "theme". I love the fresh new look! I have been garage saling again and have come across some cool things. Have you found any good stuff lately? I have gotten very choosy in what I purchase but I can't tell you how many good things are out there. Seriously, you could re do a whole room for pennies.

Sorry that I have not been a great blogger, it has been another crazy month for us, my husband's step father died suddenly 3 weeks ago. I have also been taking care of my own health for the first time in a long time and you would be proud of me! Lots of Doctor appts. but that is good, I need to get answers and feel good. Decorating is my therapy, I have finally had the energy to change things up a bit and it makes me happy. Summer is here and in a day and a half Dayton will be out of school, I will have a freshman in the fall! Yikes! I cannot wait to spend time with my family over the summer, we need to get the boat wet, this weather has not been cooperating! Today it is rainy and 59 degrees, as I type I am watching Footloose, boy does that bring back memories! I was the same age as Dayton when it came out! I forgot that Sarah Jessica Parker was in it! I love her!
Well, I will sign off for now, I promise to bring more to this blog in the future! I am working on my flower garden so hopefully I can get some good pictures of it soon! I am so ready to spend time outside!

Kitchen Makeover Reveal, finally!

I wish I could find some before pictures, it is quite a dramatic transformation. I love these brown toile-ish towels, I found them in a little antique store in Cooperstown for $6.00, there is a little price tag inside each one that reads $35.00 a piece!

I love the old rolling pins in the basket, my son Dayton just made the beautiful cutting board in shop class, it is too pretty to use!

Loving my $7.00 ice bucket for my utensils, like I said, 2 drawers calls for lots of unique storage solutions!

The top picture is labeled "The Thorn and it has a date on the back from the 1800's. It hung in my grandparents home for as long as I can remember, I used to look at it all of the time, I like how it looks in the kitchen. The bottom photo was taken at a local school in the 30's.

So sorry I have been a bad blogger lately! Life has been crazy. Since my dad passed away on Jan. 14th I have just not felt like "me". I thought it was "normal" but since have gone to several doctor appts, had test done on my heart and blood and found that I am severely anemic, so I am slowly getting my energy back, I could hardly climb the stairs and my heart would just beat out of my chest. So I am working on getting that fixed and a few more minor adjustments. I am praying that I will be better than ever! That tied in with the kids spring sports and activities help to explain why my life has been a bit crazy.

So that explains why it has taken me a month to get back to blogging. Anyhow, I am trying very hard to find pictures of before the re-do but they are somewhere in the many boxes of photos I have around the house. I will find them someday, actually I don't think I have any where they show how bad the kitchen was, I didn't want pictures of that! It was just tired, we have lived here for 8 1/2 years and we bought new but the builder picked everything out, cheaply I might add. We have worked hard through the years to update and make the house more "us". Cheaply I might add again! You should know that about me by now!

So the main portion of our little budget went into flooring, it was awful and now I love my laminate wood floors. They do look very pretty. I would love to gut the whole kitchen and I really didn't want to put tons of money into the floors in case we won the lottery and in a few years decided to do our dream kitchen. It is very small and I have 2 drawers in my whole kitchen, so storage is always a challenge. I also kept our white appliances because well, if they ain't broke don't get rid of them. I would love stainless someday. My handy man of a hubby hung some beadboard for me on the walls and under the bar area, we also put some up as a backsplash, my cottagey look started to really come together at that point. The main difference was in the cabinets, we painted the old oak cabinets white and kept my original knobs. We are going to put crown molding up on the top when we get a chance. We painted the walls a nice taupey color. It is Wicker by Eddie Bauer at Lowes. I had a color picked out first and Mark put one stroke on the wall and I told him to wait, it looked like I had dumped my foundation bottle out and put it on the walls. Yuk! Love the Wicker now! I also am on the lookout for a beat up but sturdy old table for the nook instead of my set that is there now. It is fine for now but it won't be long before one of us breaks a chair! I did simple mistreatments on the bay window, I just cut the fabric, didn't stitch an inch! I attached them with drapery clips and hung them from the new rod. I added lots of vintage touches like a frozen food sign above the stove, a cake and flour canister, and a wooden corned beef box from mom's garage filled with hydranges. I also put a pretty berry garland at the top of the window. I added some new rugs and voila! A cottagey kitchen that I can be proud of! I hope you enjoyed this little tour, sorry it took so long. It was a labor of love and was a wonderful winter project to keep my mind off of things. Bless my hubby's heart for doing all of the work, he is the best!

Go Spartans!!! Woo HOO!

We went downtown yesterday to take in all the sights, we had a blast cheering on our Spartans!

Ford Field, where all the games are taking place.

Sparty at the pep assembly!

Myah all decked out in her new wrist and head bands.

We are so excited that our MSU Spartans are in the final game! Go State!

Go MSU!!!

These two men are like royalty in our family, Magic Johnson and Tom Izzo! To prove it, here is a funny story. When my cousin Mandy was being tested for kindergarten her teacher asked her to draw a picture of her family. She drew four little stick people representing her dad, mom, brother and herself, at the end was this tall, dark stick person, the teacher asked who that was and she replied "Magic Johnson". Yes, she thought he was a member of the family.

Today our beloved Spartans will play in the Final Four game, at Ford Field no less! We are hoping that our hometown advantage will prevail! We are going downtown today to take in the sights and sounds and show our support for MSU!!! I have to believe that my Dad was their "angel in the bleachers" this year, he and my Uncle Cleo were their biggest fans. We still have somewhere in mom and dad's house the video tape from the 1979 Championship game where Magic Johnson played against Larry Bird, it is the 30th anniversary of that game this year. Dad watched it so many times! Let's go MSU!!!!