The man behind Obama's words

Somehow while wandering aimlessly around the internet I found out who writes the majority of President Obama's speeches. His name is Jon Faverau. This one might make you feel old ladies - he is 27!! While it is Obama's smooth, calm speech that draws us to listen to him it is the words that we really hear. I am amazed that a man 4 years younger than me carries so much responsibility. Plus, I think he is pretty darn cute! Bonus!!! He also dates a White House aide who posed for Maxim. This might be a couple to watch!Teagan and Brad are at the boys basketball game tonight. Senior night and the last home game (I think). I can't believe how fast time is going! Today was a beautiful day and a tease I think - it is supposed to snow tomorrow. I don't think it will amount to anything, but after 2 gorgeous days it will be hard to take. Off to fold laundry and watch some Real Housewives!! Good night!

A Dead Dove in the Fridge? Seriously?

I am dedicating this blog to my friend Amy B. I love reading her thoughts about the Bachelor and love how intense she gets about it. So, in honor of her I decided to tune into the last hour after watching Intervention. I changed the channel and see a scence of what looks like a backyard bar-b-que (harmless enough). Jason is trying to hula-hoop (Ok a typical family activity, maybe if you are in the circus). Anyway - the girl’s (Naomi I think) mom calls them over to tell a story. I think to myself “OK, so maybe she is really into signs” I keep listening. Sign? Not sure. Crazy? YES!! What happened next made me turn off the TV and decide to be done with the Bachelor until the last 30 minutes of the finale just to see who wins. The mom was keeping a dead dove in her fridge. What? Maybe she is an animal lover and couldn’t bear that it suffered, but why feel the need to show it to Jason and ask him to bury it and give the eulogy? Sorry Bachelor fans - I can’t do it!!

No new news on the homefront. Mondays are nuts for me. Teagan has dance and I feel like I am constantly running until I sit down around 9:00 to blog. Finally the kids are bathed, feed, and sleeping. I have caught up on my DVRd Nip/Tuck and Intervention episodes and am ready for bed. As I speak Brad has turned on the Bachelor - maybe I'll give it another chance!

I do have to brag about a quick stop I made at Pier 1 today. I was in Cedar Rapids and stopped at the store by Westdale Mall. It is closing so everything is 50% off. I know that none of these things are on my needs list, but I have been looking for some pillows to use in my livingroom and bedroom. I could have went really nuts (Brad remember that when you are reading this!), but stayed reserved and only spent $25 on all these pillows.
The 2 striped ones on the right were $2.50 each and I plan to use them on our bed (when I finish all the other projects). I would like to cover them with some brown fabric that I would like to use for curtains. We'll see how far I get! Need to stop blogging and get to work!

Talking about getting to work - my Grandpa made a locker for Tate (pictures to follow later) and this armoire for Teagan. He made it so that she can hang up her dress clothes - note the rod in the second picture. I plan on finding a basket to put in the bottom for dress shoes and putting up some hooks for jewelry and purses.

I have always been very lucky to have all my grandparents around my almost daily and have always had things they have made for me. I feel even more blessed that my kids get to experience the same thing.
By the way - Teagan wants me to cover up my Grandpa's wonderful stain job with what else - PINK paint. Weekend project here I come!

The Problem with Blogging

It's official - I am addicted to blogging! I find myself going through my day thinking about what I can write about that night. I want to do projects that I can share with anyone who might read the blog. It honestly makes me feel better, like I have something that is my own. Now - here is my problem: You have to sit down to blog. I know this is obvious, but if any of you are like me once you sit down to blog you find yourself looking through your favorites, writing your own thoughts down, and all of a sudden you have been completely non-productive for a good hour! What is a blogger to do!!! I know that I could wait until tonight to go through everyone else's amazing blogs, but there might be something I want to try during the day. Anyone have a solution to my problem?

In other news - I finished up a Valentine's project this week (once I was finally at work for more than 2 hours!) I painted this frame and used scrapbooking paper for the backgrounds. My goal is to change it out for the new seasons. We'll see how that goes!

What - you might ask- are my kids doing while I sit at the kitchen table and rant about blogging and my latest attempt at craftiness? Well, here they are:

Tate is enjoying a mid-morning snack while watching Imagination Movers.

And Teagan is getting ready to watch POMS night at the highschool. She was dancing around by 8:15!! Not sure daddy's dreams of a basketball player are going to pan out!

Brad came home with some shirts for the kids from our good friend Jared last night. The kids loved them!

If anyone ever needs screenprinted apparel look Jared up - ELITE SPORTS in Williamsburg. He does a great job!

Fight Like A Girl!

As I write this my teammates are securing another win for our volleyball team - do you like my optimism? I sat out tonight for one more night of rest and to hang out with Teagan in case she wasn't feeling well. I love my volleyball girls! Not only do I get to play my favoriate sport, but I get to do it with women who are true to themselves and can enjoy a night out. We talk about whatever we need to, we all listen, and can go home ready to face the rest of the week. I look forward to next week. Thanks ladies!
Brad & I are almost back to 100%, so why would we settle for that? Teagan went to the Dr. this morning and we were told she has strep - yep, the girl with no adenoids or tonsils got strep the first time it showed up in school. I know that you can get it even without those 2, but we thought our odds were better of not getting it. So Brad and I split the day at home so she could rest up and get started on her medicine. She was dancing around during supper and playing Wii tennis before bed - I'm thinking she is going back to school tomorrow!

Tate is doing well so far - no signs of slowing down. Although he might be hiding from the germs! This is how Teagan found him this afternoon - Silly boy!

So wish us luck as we head into the end of the week. Who knows what we have ahead of us! Tate goes in for the follow-up for his tubes tomorrow. Should be all clear, but given our track record in the last 6 days anything could happen! Have a great Thursday!

LAST MINUTE TOP CHEF UPDATE: Jaime got kicked off tonight. It was all about fish and after this weekend it was about the last thing I wanted to see people cooking, but had to watch. Jaime was pretty full of herself and I wasn't so sad to see her leave. All I know is those judges amaze me. Can you imagine having a job where you do nothing, but eat food? And eat so much of it that all you do is pick it apart to find anything that could possible be wrong? Anyone who knows me knows that I will eat anything. Not the job for me!!

I've Created a mini-me!

I don't know if anyone else is a fan of HGTV (I mean really, who isn't?), but I can be found watching any number of shows on that channel and thinking to myself "I could so do that to my house." Whenever I have a chance to watch a channel of my choice that is what I pick, but that is usually after the kids are in bed and my husband is watching ESPN in the basement. This week much to my amazement Teagan (my 5 year-old daughter) has asked "What channel is the house show on?" I tell her and she changes the channel from "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody" to "Designed to Sell".

This is Teagan watching Clive!

I mean really, this is happening? My own child is picking and watching with interest some of my favorite shows? Is there something off balance in the universe or is it a short lived moment of mommy bliss? I have chalked it up to wanting to be a grown-up like mom, but hey, I will take it for as long as I can!

In other news I am also raising superstars! Not only is Teagan going to be a HGTV star, but as you can tell she will look great in front of the cameras!

Tate had to get in on the action. I will make both Brad and every other dad out there happy by saying he is practicing for all the cameras he will face after he wins the Super Bowl!
But they will always have each other.

I have other pictures to share, but will send them out to email addresses later. Brad and I were sick over the weekend - it was horrible. We think a touch of food poisoning since only a couple of people in our group got sick and we just happened to eat the same thing! We are recovering and on the mend.

What to do today?

Ah, Saturday mornings. I wake up, look at the clock, and think what great things I could accomplish today. Yeah right - I have been awake for 3 hours and I have made breakfast (and cleaned up - thank you very much!), wiped my son's disgusting nose about 20 times, and watched my daughter clean out my purse looking for gum. Remind me again why I can't seem to get big projects done when I am at home with my kids?

I did mangage to do a quick Valentine's gift for Teagan's teachers. I borrowed the idea from another blog. Super easy and CHEAP (my favorite word!) I started with 3 tiny bottles of hand sanitizer - who knew they had it in berry scent and it is even pink! BONUS! DING-DING-DING!! (Imagine I am winning a game show!) I cleaned off the stickers with what - you guessed it - GOO BE GONE!! Wiped them with windex and was ready to decorate.

I used stickers from Dollar Tree (where else?) and I found all the ribbon on an elastic hair tie for girls (also $1). I little strategic placement and tying and here they are. Ready for the teachers!

While shopping at Dollar Tree for the Valentine's gifts I found these great wall stickers. I think I bought about 8 sheets and used 1 for my frames the other day. A couple might go in my livingroom or bedroom. The rest are chalkboard material and I am using them in the kids' bedroom for good night wishes.


Here is how they look in Tate's room. You can see how much he enjoys them!
Here is Teagan's goodnight wish from Dad!
I also found the Dream stickers for Teagan's room. It goes perfectly in her room.

I am using these on the door for reminders for the whole family. The chalk erases pretty well and I like the way it looks on the door.

So there it is - my Saturday in a blog. Not exactly greatness, but it will do. After all it is Saturday! Have a good one!

Goo-B-Gone"r"

Among my amazing group of friends I am not the most crafty or creative one in the bunch, but I am definately the self proclaimed brawn! I pride myself on being able to hammer any nail without splitting the wood or even needing a step-stool to do it (hurray for us 6 footers!!) I love that I can ask my friends for suggestions on what to do and they will give me the straight up about what they think would work the best for me. I actually think this dependance on them is only fueling my lack of creativity. When I have an idea I always think to myself, "Oh, one of the girls will help me with this. I'll just ask them what they think." This isn't necessarily a bad approach to decorating, but I have decide I do need to be able to make some decisions on my own.

So, one of my New Year's resolutions is to do some redecorating around the house. I would like my livingroom to have a little more "punch" and want to focus on using greens, khaki, and other earth tones. I made some pillows (with no sew glue, of course, but hey at least I made them!) And I found a $6 matching pillow to go with.

I also grabbed some cheap Christmas decorations and a $3 vase from Wal-mart to give me a color scheme for my livingroom.

This next project is one I am most proud of so far. I wouldn't necessarily make a big deal out of the cost of my decorating, but the only way to get some of this done is to do it cheap (and by cheap I mean almost free!) I bought these frames for a total of $3 at Dollar Tree and painted them with white acrylic paint. After two coats I found brown paper for the background and used these wall stickers (also $1 at Dollar Tree) to fill them up. These are the colors I want to use for my bedroom. After getting some great advice from Amy B and Nikki tonight I think I will go with one wall of brown and the other walls with blue. (Pictures taken in my kitchen, please ignore the border. That is a project for later down the road)



I also bought these sheets and am thinking about having my Grandma (master sewer) make a bedspread out of them. We'll see how it turns out. It is definately a work in progress, but I have to say I am impressing myself by actually following through with some of my own ideas. Who knows where it will take me!!

This I how Tate helps me with redecorating! I guess we know where he thinks the trash can should be! Thanks buddy!
So thats where I end for the day. I had a great night of socializing with the girls and just having some away time. Thanks to my friends for always making me feel a part of the conversations even if I am not the next Martha Stewart or HGTV star. I know they will always help me out and make my stuff look good and they know I will always be there to hammer a nail and hang a heavy picture for them. Isn't that what it is all about? Thanks ladies!!