before the great living room redo

Behold! House pictures, finally.  So in the following images, you will see our living room.  I will love this room when it is finished.  Very much so.  I like it now.  But paint and more curtains are needed. (I haven't told Seth about the curtains yet).

Oh and eventually, a new coffee table will be there as well.  But that may be a while.  Anyway, what you see on the walls are paint samples of two colors. Two stones, one rolling, one hot.  (Hot stone is the lighter, gray color; Rolling Stone is the darker).  More than you would like to know? Perhaps.  But if you have any opinions on paint colors, let me know.  So far, I am leaning away from Hot stone.  Too gray. 

This wall so far is empty.  I think it will be a good wall for family pictures.  We may also put a table of some sort.  I don't know.

I am most excited for what is going above the mantel.  You'll just have to wait and see....

where in the world am I?*

*Actually, I haven't been much anywhere but my mom sure has.  She is still in Germany, enjoying her world travels with my grandmother.  I have just been a lazy blogger...sorry.

(image from Dvice)

I walked into Barnes & Noble the other day and bought a Nook.  When the whole e-reader thing came out, I didn't want to have anything to do with them.  I can't really tell you why.  But then the Apple iPad came out and I really wanted it.  But because it is $500, I decided that I don't really have to have it.  I decided what I wanted from the iPad, I could also get from the Nook and now I have the Nook.  This really is a long, boring story but I haven't blogged in such a long time, I thought I should blog something. 

Anyway, love the Nook.  Love my cover. 

What else is going on?  Let's see, a lot and not much all at the same time.  We have about 2 1/2 weeks left before school starts and I need to get those kids enrolled! They are getting nervous about school, I can tell, but I am sure they will be fine.  I keep telling myself they will be fine.

I am about to begin painting.  We are going to start in the living area and kitchen.  I promise I will take a picture of the before and post it on here in a couple of days.  Then of course, the after picture when we're done. 

But before I begin, I have to go get paint.  And that means a trip to Lowe's.  With the boys.  Not fun. 

Talk to you soon...

Road Trip! Krista's House! Back Home!

Hello all.  So...last week, my mom, the boys and I had a little jaunt (ha!) across half the country to North Carolina to visit my sis and her family.  We drove two days to get there, stayed about 3 and then drove two more days to get back.

I am tired.

When we were driving home, Noah almost had a breakdown and said, "Please, next time can we fly there?"

I nodded my head in agreement.

Actually, the driving wasn't too bad.  It was just long.  And now I know that if we ever drive that way again, we need to take a day or two more to drive.  Each driving day we were in the car at least 10 hours and most of the time it was 11 1/2.  Then, we need to stay longer.  But, I digress.

High points of our trip:

The boys were great in the car.  They watched movies, read, played ds and occasionally talked to each other and us.

The drive through Tennessee was my favorite.  We went over so many rivers and the trees were beautiful as was the gentle curves.  Memphis and Nashville are two places I really want to visit again for longer than a bathroom break and a night's sleep.  Rhett wants to go whitewater rafting.  Noah wants to visit all the children's museums.  Mom wanted to go to Graceland, but settled for seeing a gianormas statue of Elvis that if touched would sound an alarm.

On the way back, we ate at a Subway in Nashville and mom and I both had a pulled pork sub.  That was the closest we got to having Southern barbeque but let me tell you, it was delicious!

The boys and their cousins got along so well.  The girls watched the boys play the Wii (The Simpsons game is their new favorite), they all played on a water slide for hours it seems both Saturday and Sunday, and we watched two movies together.  We first went to a Drive Through and watched Toy Story 3 for the second time, then we watched Descipicable Me, which was hilarious and sweet. 

I loved that we could sit and catch up with Krista and Chris and just hang out, which we couldn't do at Great Wolf Lodge at Christmas. 

Rhett caught the drawing bug and started drawing action figures.  He even imagined his own and Uncle Chris helped bring him to comic book form life.  Pretty awesome.  Rhett went from drawing simple figures to action heroes that had abs, so that is great improvement! 

Oh and this is how Noah looked for half of the trip:

It is not that Noah didn't have a good time, because he did.  He told me.  It is just that he, well, is Noah.  Last night, I asked him if he had a good vacation.  He said, "Yeah.  Well, I had my ups and downs....Probably a few more downs than ups."

And that pretty much sums him up.

As for me, I had more ups than downs.