Happy Halloween

Citizenship test day

Today I got to take the day off work to go to my US citizenship test.  It was pretty quick and easy (much better than the experience when I first got my green card 12 years ago), and my oath ceremony is next Wednesday November the 9th.

I had to study 100 questions, and you have to get 6 out of 10 correct.
My questions:

What is freedom of religion?

What is the ocean on the East Coast of the United States?

Name one state that borders Canada.

When must all men register for the Selective Service?

When was the Constitution written?

How many US senators are there?

I got all the questions right so I only had the 6 questions.  Also I had to write a sentence in English, my sentence was "We pay taxes."   And I had to read one sentence too.

The whole process takes a few months though, we sent all the paperwork in July I think, then last month I had an appointment for fingerprinting, this month the test, then the oath ceremony.  We have to be there at 7 in the morning so I guess the kids will be coming along too and get to go into school late that day.

If anyone is interested in the Citizenship questions I think they are good for everyone to know.  Kate is in 5th grade and she helped me study.

picture from our vacation summer 2010

New family pictures

 

Very happy with how the new family pictures turned out!  If you are looking for a great photographer in the Houston area check out:

Heartspun imagery

Round Top and the weekend

Busy weekend around here.  Yesterday we took the kids over to the Grandparent's house early morning and headed to Round Top, TX for the big antique fair weekend.  At last the weather has cooled down just a bit here, so it was a pretty day, but sad to see how dry all of Texas is, not just here close to Houston, where millions of trees are dead and dying.

I didn't take many pictures, but just a few of things that caught my eye:

Pretty mirrors and light fixtures

Owl made of recycled materials

contrast of classical antiques and funky folk art?

I liked this shabby yellow cabinet

pretty vintage fiestaware

lots of old signs and letters

this caught my eye because it is the same as the one I bought for Kate's room for Goodwill for $14.99, I didn't see the price on this, but I'm sure it was at least 10 times that amount

pretty farmhouse table with unique pieces for display

a church pew - my mother in law wants one of these, so I am on the lookout for one.  This one already had a sold tag on it.

subway sign art.....

very unique coffee table made out of an old tuba

This blue bed caught my eye, because it is pretty similar to the one I bought and painted for Kate's room.  This was not priced too high ($150), but it is still fun for me to see things that I have found for a fraction of these prices (Kate's bed frame was $30).

This was at the La Bahia antique show.  The other previous pictures were from the Marburger farm show.  My only purchases of the day were a pair of Euro pillow shams ($10 each), and a $5 pair of earrings. 

Looking forward to going back again in the future, it is an amazing experience to see all of this out in the Texas countryside. 

Then today we had scheduled for family pictures to be taken, it has been many years since we had a professional family picture taken.  The photographer who I have known several people to use was doing mini sessions in the Heights (near downtown Houston).

I'll get our pictures in 1-2 weeks, but I had to take a couple of pictures of the kids while they were dressed for the occasion (it took a little bribery to get Thomas to wear the button up shirt).

At home:

before pictures (I made them get out of the car to take this picture when I saw this antique store - Thomas was not impressed!):

out to eat at a restaurant named Lolas after our "photo shoot" (by this time they had more practice with striking a pose!)

Green yard sale chair and some fall decor

This is my latest find, high back green chair, in great condition, it was only $20!

The pillow was from Homegoods a few weeks ago, as well as the green one on the sofa, which just happens to match perfectly to the new chair, must have been fate that I found the chair....

And some real little pumpkins on the coffee table.

I also found this owl to add to the collection at Homegoods a few weeks ago.

and put up the fall wreath that I made with the kids a few years ago.  I need to re-attach some of the berries that are falling off and maybe add some more leaves too.

The white pumpkins on the mantel, I think I got these 3 years ago (or more) from Dollar tree.  The little gold planter was $1 at an antique shop.

And one of my new favorite fiestaware colors, I think it is called "Persimmon".

Linking to:

and

Painted antique dresser

A little project for the weekend, I picked up this dresser on Friday night, yesterday it got the first coat of paint, and today the second.
I picked this up from Mandie of Altar'd furniture, I follow her blog and facebook page.  I saw she was selling some "as is" furniture, and although I did not NEED it, I really love the style of this dresser / chest of drawers, and thought it would be a pretty easy project to do a little work and paint it.
When I brought it home on Friday I found the little wheels in one of the drawers (3 of them I think were original to this piece of furniture - little wooden wheels).
It did not need too much work - the top veneer was peeling up so I glued it with wood glue and Chris helped me put some clamps on while the glue dried.  Also one of the wood pieces that the drawers slide on had come unattached, so we glued and screwed that back on inside.

Here is a before picture of the dresser, you can see the top wood peeling up, but overall it is solid wood and a really beautiful piece of furniture:

I painted with what paint I already had on hand, "softer tan" paint that I have used in my kitchen and some other projects.  I knew I wanted to put this in our master bedroom and while the rest of my bedroom furniture is painted black I didn't want too much black in there and for everything to match.

So here is the dresser "after" paint.  I also spray painted the bottom handles oil rubbed bronze, and the glass knobs on the top two drawers and cabinet I got from Hobby Lobby (50% off).

The other chest (from IKEA) that the TV used to sit on now is on the wall to the left of the bed, with this cool "subway" style art from New Zealand (it is actually a tea towel from a souvenir shop, in an IKEA frame)

Here's the black painted bed in case you didn't see it before.

And one more look at the pretty antique white dresser, I love it!

Linking to Makeover Monday: