Bye-bye birdies!

For those who were actually looking forward to my flashback last week - sorry I just totally spaced it! I had been super busy with a major project deadline (which I will share later, I promise - right now it's top secret) and Friday completely got away from me! This is the last week of school for the girls, so maybe I'll post a new flashback this week - if I get a chance!

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Do you remember last year and our feathered friends? You can check them out here - here - and here. Well, the birds came back again this year - luckily (for us) they didn't build their nest on our porch light like they did last year. Instead they built it on our privacy 'wall' on our deck - which was probably a bad idea (for them - you'll see why later). We were anxious to see them leave so we could finish our deck and painting our house (as you can tell by our pictures below, it needs major work!), but we didn't want to see them gone so soon!

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April 22nd - as they are building the nest

May 2nd - we see eggs!

May 13th - we see another nest in the tree in our front yard. Unfortunately they are a lot higher up and hard to watch. This is a bad pic because the only way I could take a picture was through the window.

May 20th - we first notice baby birds!

We had fun watching them for a couple of days. As we worked outside on Saturday we would see them being fed - and sometimes when we would walk out onto our deck when the momma bird was gone, the babies would poke their heads up. Sadly, Sunday after church, we came home to find a sad scene. We're not exactly sure what happened, but there are no more birdies and we found lots of carnage at the scene. We suspect a cat was able to climb up there and get to them - this is why we think the wall was a poor choice. We're sad that we won't get to watch these ones grow up like we did last year, but I guess now we can move on with our house work - as long as the weather will cooperate!

Weekend Activities

Brianna did a terrific job at her dance recital this weekend. Kaylee missed it and wants to do it again next year, and of course now that Brailee is 3, she is excited that she is old enough to start, too! I enjoyed this year knowing that next year could be crazy with 3 girls dancing!

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Here is her ballet costume - they danced to a song called "Candle on the Water"

And here she is in her tap costume with her BFF Aubrey. Unfortunately they are not in the same class, but they had fun together during the recital. Brianna's class danced to a song called "My Guy" and Aubrey's class did "Brass Monkey"

My favorite dance of the night (besides Brianna, of course) was the all-boy group that danced to "Move It, Move It!" It was a hit!
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Thanks for looking!

Over the Rainbow

I can't believe how long it's been since I've shared something NEW and made of actual paper! I think Studio J may just become my new best friend this summer to make me feel like I'm creating something and not getting behind in my scrapbooking!

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This was the free Make & Take card I created for my Open House, which was last week. Actually, I can't say I created it, because I didn't even get my sample done before people started showing up! Yikes! I had it all in my head - paper pack to use, stamp set, ink colors needed, Wishes pattern to use, etc, and I was going to throw it all together after I set things up for my Open House and waited for people to show up. Well, as I was setting up, the Census man showed up - now he didn't take too long, but it was just enough to throw me off. And then just before my Open House was scheduled to start, I get a call from the girls' school - Kaylee had fallen and banged up her leg and head pretty bad coming in from recess. She was okay (at the moment) but they just wanted to let me know so I could keep an eye on her that night. So, Open House begins and it started off hopping - plus I had a couple ladies that I told could come early, so I didn't get a chance to pop out my card. But I did cut all the pieces for them and showed them what I had in mind and just let them do what they wanted. It was fun to see what they came up with! Then about 30 minutes later I get another call from the school - now they want Kaylee to come home, so I had to leave my Open House to pick her up. Thanks to my awesome ladies who were there and were so understanding and stuck around while I picked up Kaylee, especially since I had just put Trysten down for his nap. BTW - she was fine, just a little sore - she came home and rested for a few hours and ended up playing at their last soccer game that night! Anyway, it was just a busy day and I didn't even make my card until after my Open House, before I put everything away! Okay, enough jabber, here is my card!

And then since I had leftover pieces and another idea, I made another one - this time I flipped the pattern.

Products Used - all CTMH: Wishes Pattern - Simple Expression, NEW Splendor paper pack, NEW Over the Rainbow stamp set, Summer and Winter Brads, Colonial White ricrac, Goldrush, Heavenly Blue, Moonstruck, Bamboo, and Topiary inks, Edge Distressor.

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Thanks for looking!

Flashback Friday

Are you sick of seeing pictures of our house yet? If you're wanting to see some paper projects, check back tomorrow as I will be posting something new - gasp!

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This week's flashback is our Master Bedroom. Here it is before...


And here it is shortly after we moved in - we painted the walls a pretty green color - which David never liked, but he lived with it ;-)


Then Fall of 2008 we repainted our room this pretty brown color - I would call it Desert Sand for all you CTMH fans ;-) And last month we re-textured all the walls and painted it the same color and took our old fan from our Living Room and installed it in our bedroom. I never thought I would like a fan in the bedroom, but the few warm nights we've had, it's been pretty nice so far!

And here is our new bed - I love all the storage! Before, we had 3 mismatched dressers to hold all of our clothes and our room was always cluttered and not very pretty. We purchased this storage bed and matching dresser and it fits everything perfectly. We really like our room now!

Thanks for looking!

Flashback Friday

This week's flashback is our upstairs Living Room. Here is the fireplace BEFORE (look how little Brianna was!):

David sanded and re-stained the mantle, and we painted the bookshelves...

And here is the fireplace AFTER:

And some cute little kids playing IN the bookshelf ;-)

Here is the wall and the door going out to the backyard - BEFORE:

I don't have a picture of the door and wall before we painted it red, but you can kind of see it in the picture above with the fireplace. Here it is after we painted it red in the Fall of 2005:

And then in the Fall of 2009, David replaced our sliding door - this new one has blinds INSIDE the window - I LOVE it! This door faces West, so when the sun sets, it's nice to be able to keep out the glare. Plus this door is SO much easier to open and we finally have a screen again. I just have to be careful because sometimes even Trysten can get it open!

And here are the stairs BEFORE - the ballisters (sp?) were a major safety hazard - wide enough for a kid to fit through!

So David ripped them out and put in new ones, sanded down the pole...

...and re-stained it all. Here it is AFTER:

Thanks for joining me on another Flashback! If you missed my past House Project posts and want to see what else we have done, just click on the following links:

Upstairs Bathrooms

Bedroom 1

Kitchen/Dining Room

Thanks for looking!