NumberNineteen

Progress on the House!!!

The house is coming along beautifully.  In just about a month, we went from this:

to what you see above!  In fact, it's even farther along than shown in that photo.  The roof is on, all of the electrical, HVAC, & plumbing are installed and the front porch has been poured.

We had the pre-drywall walk through on Monday & it went really well.  Everything, aside from one very minor item, was perfect.  It was so exciting to be in all of the rooms and envision ourselves there. 

Hope & Glenn, standing at the entrance to the study.

I've been completely zen about the process & really taking the timeframe in stride.  BUT, now that we've seen the inside, I'm so excited to get moved in and start making it just the way we want it.

Summer Kid Projects

Today is the last day of kindergarten for Hope & I must say, I'm so stinkin' proud of her.  She has learned so much and has become such a perceptive little girl.  When I picked her up today, several teachers (even ones who didn't teach her) told me that they would miss her.  Love her.

Now the time has come to think up ways to amuse her this summer.  I've been gathering ideas from around the web in the past few months & thought that I'd share them here.  Mostly they are crafty projects, but I think that they will hold the interest of non-crafty kids as well.

Homemade Playdough:

Fun to make, fun to play with!  And, you can customize your colors.

Galaxy Play Dough:

If you want to kick it up a notch, try out this Galaxy Play Dough.  I don't know about your kids, but mine will do anything that involves glitter.

Sidewalk Paint:

We've tried this one already & it was really fun.  The paint washes off after a good rainstorm or washing with a hose.

Magic Potion:

What kid doesn't want to make magic potion??

Simple Homemade Lip Gloss

This looks like a super simple but really fun project -- I can't wait to try this one.

Marshmallow Toothpick Boredom Buster

Click through to the link to see all of the fun things that you can do with this project.  Its kind of like edible tinker toys.

Those are just a few of the ideas that I found.  Type in "kids crafts" on a search engine or Pinterest & you'll find so many fun activities.

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Please visit the creative people who came up with these ideas at their blogs through the links.  You'll find full instructions for all of the crafts.

Homemade Playdough: Art Nest

Galaxy Playdough: Fairy Dust Teaching

Sidewalk Paint: Pink & Green Mama

Fizzy Magic Potion: Minieco

Homemade Lipgloss: Meet the Dubiens

Marshmallow Boredom Buster: Ashley Ann Photography

Kitchen Choices

I just realised that, after you all so kindly gave me your input on my kitchen cabinet selections, that I never showed you our final choice.  As you can see in the photo above, we went with the pure white cabinets.  Almost everyone voted for the cream cabinets and I was really swaying between the two.  Since I couldn't decide, I went back to my inspiration photos on Pinterest:

Every single inspiration photo has pure white cabinets.  The decision was made. 

You may also notice that many of the photos have marble counters.  Well, yeah, that isn't happening.  As you can see, we went with deep black granite called 'Black Pearl'.  We'll have shiny silver knobs & we are going to add shiny cup pulls on the drawers as soon as we move in (it wasn't an option offered by the builder). 

We haven't yet decided what to do as far as lighting over the island, so we just had the builder install a pre wire so that we can put something in later.  I really like either the school house pendants shown in the first photo or the lanterns in the third photo.

Also, I'm going to make my first attempt at tiling.  I'm going to install a white subway tile backsplash.  They do it all the time on HGTV -- it can't be that hard, right???? :)

I am really excited about my new kitchen and can't wait to get in there and start playing!

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photo credits: 1st photo: apartmenttherapy

2nd photo: thebookofsecrets.tumblr

3rd photo: daisypinkcupcake

4th photo: brightboldbeautiful

Free Recipe Cards to Print!

I recently ran out of recipe cards & decided to make my own.  Using cute vintage-y images that I found on the web, I made a collection of brand new cards that were just the cost of the blank 4x6 index cards. 

You can print the cards for yourself.  Just right click on the image & save it to your computer.  To print, set your printer to a 4x6 document size & print on 4x6 index cards.  Or, print several on a standard piece of cardstock & cut out:

Enjoy!

(Please do not use any work from my blog as your own.  Give credit where credit is due.)

No Windows but Bright Bathroom

Will ya look at that!!!  We have walls!!!!  Even better, Glenn went by yesterday & we have second story walls.  We might have a house one day!

I've spent a great deal of time cruising the web for house decor inspiration recently.  It's a great way to avoid take a break from school work.  One room in the house that I had a tiny bit of concern over is the hall bath upstairs.  It has no windows & my mantra about this new house is LIGHT.  I could go with the spa feel that we had in the last house, but this will be Hope's bathroom, so I want it to be fun.  But, not kiddy.  What's a girl to do? I was at a loss until I saw this photo:

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I love that this bathroom is bright and kid friendly but not kiddy.  I'm in love with Amy Butler fabric and I think that it would be perfect for a shower curtain in this room.  I'm thinking of this pattern:

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Gotta have some pink cause of Hope, doncha know.  Maybe that limey/yellowy color on the walls with a hot pink bath rug?  The tile & counters are white.

What do you think?  Thumbs up or down?