Give Pizza a Chance

Thomas has this cool shirt with a pizza on it in the shape of a peace sign and it says "give pizza a chance".  My sister Victoria gave it to him, so it was fitting he got to wear it yesterday to eat homemade pizza at her house.

Confused weather

It is supposed to be the beginning of winter here but they've had a lot of warm weather and rain, so lots of spring flowers around, just 2 months early.......



Here we are in NZ

Summer holidays for the kids and me and we are spending 5 weeks of it here in New Zealand.

Kate decorated the chalkboard at home before we left.

On our way we went to Dallas and spent a night and took the kids to this Lego place at the Grapevine mall.  Kids had lots of fun.

24 hours later we arrived to nice temperatures and still a lot of Autumn colors (going into winter here).

Kate is standing under a Ginkgo tree at the park across from my parents' house.

More updates to come!

Coffee Table

My Goodwill coffee table that I got for $9.99 got a little makeover last night.  I didn't take a good "before" picture that really showed any imperfections, but it had a lot of scratches on the top and a mark where someone had set an iron down on it.  I had tried all kinds of polishes and refinishing waxes, but nothing really worked as I wanted.  So yesterday I decided to go for it and paint.

Here is one "before", this is one Chris had taken for a safety presentation at work (using 2 people to lift something heavy).

And an after as you'll see below nothing really stays in the same place for too long here.

 I just painted the top and lightly distressed the edges with sandpaper, because this table is the perfect height to put your feet up.

I left the base and legs as is because I love this dark wood tone and I think it is a good contrast to the light rug.

The table has these brass daisy flowers in the corners and brass caps on the ends, and I didn't want to paint over those.

Linking again to the Thrifty Treasures party.



Thrifty Treasures

Hi there, life is busy around here right now.  The kids and I have 2.5 weeks more of school, it's a busy time of year. 

I've had some good luck with garage sales the last few weeks.

This was my favorite find from yesterday.  It is hard to tell from this before picture, but the top was pretty scratched up and the little decorative finial had been chewed by a dog or something.



After priming and painting my favorite soft gray.......

I found this chair at Goodwill a few weeks ago for $6.99.  I was going to paint it yesterday, but I don't have any fabric to re-do the seat, so I'm going to wait until I can finish the whole project.

I really love this green pot - it is marked California pottery, and it was only 25c!

It's hanging out on my mantel with my owl cookie jar and my little white milk glass vase collection.

And I got this milk glass candy holder yesterday for $1.  When Chris and I were antique shopping later in the afternoon I saw one almost just the same for $16!

One more thing (sorry bad light in this picture) - this little cabinet was only $5.99 at Goodwill, it was pretty messed up with the veneer peeled off the top and ugly knobs.  I painted it and found some extra vintage hardware leftover from other projects. 

It makes a great little cabinet for the kids' VCR and DVD player and with space for movies below.

What great treasures have you found lately?

Click here to find more blogs sharing their thrifty finds.





Bluebonnets and Strawberries

Finding some bluebonnets is a yearly tradition for us.

These pictures were taken 6 years ago:

And this year:



And another flashback - berry picking 2004:

And all grown up:

10th birthday party

I'm finally getting to blog pictures from Kate's birthday party over a week ago.  Kate invited 15! of her closest friends, she wanted a sleepover, but I could not stay sane with that many girls for a whole night.  The party was from 6-10 at night instead, so they still had a good long time to play.

birthday flowers

some of the birthday cards

I made these cupcakes and Chris made a chocolate cake, and we had pizza to eat, so overall it was a pretty simple party, but I did have that day off work to organize and get ready for it and I took these pictures before the kids even came home from school that day.

I found this little lantern at Dollar tree, most of the other decorations I got from Hobby Lobby.

A poem Chris wrote for Kate and we had in a little frame, sorry the picture is blurry.

The birthday girl.  The main activity of the party was karaoke outside, with a microphone and small amplifier - sorry neighbors!  I also put bubbles and sidewalk chalk out there, so I was happy to see 10 year olds are not too old for that still!  Our little playhouse got played in the most it ever has too.

A good picture of Kate with her friends.

And sweet little brother who did well for having all of those bossy girls around, he only got his feelings hurt once.  We had one little incident were a girl fell in the pond too, but otherwise a good success of a party.

Thomas' birthday is in May and I will convince him to a simple little family party I think!



And just for my sister, the birthday video: