Oh my goodness! i am so excited! I check this site: "Give Away Today" almost daily. It's really neat and I think it's fabulous (even when i don't win!)
BUT
I won a dress for Georgia.
This is the one I picked out.
Isn't it precious?
She is going to look so adorable in this dress (even with her bandaged hand!)

:0)

Ok, I am FINALLY ready to post the before and AFTER photos of my bathrooms!
I started working on the bathrooms over the Thanksgiving break. I (umm...really it was my fantastic MIL and hubs) painted the master bathroom. They did the walls, I came back later and sanded and painted the cabinets, put in the hardware. Then over the Christmas break my Pops came and installed the new faucets, I hung up all of the new stuff/decor for the walls. :0)
Then sometime in Feb. I painted the guest bathroom and finally over our spring break last week, I did the cabinets in there!

ALL FINISHED!
I can't get over the transformation!

Neither of my bathrooms really had a look or style at all. Just a hodge-podge of stuff. NOW, they look classy and...well, fabulous (IMO of course!)

I'll break down the costs as best as I can because I still sit back in joyful shock over how very much can be done for such a little cost (at least for me!)

Master bathroom:
Paint (my MIL bought the paint and supplies..:0))
cabinet paint ($24...I think..at the most)
new rugs ($24 and $14)
new stuff for the walls (this is hard for me to remember because I got them all at Hobby Lobby 50% off over a YEAR AGO!...I knew one day I would want the fleur de'lis in my bathroom...so maybe....$80) Some of the stuff I've had forever and spray painted black....like the basket over the door that has fake greenery in it.
hardware for cabinets ($15)
So for ME....around $145!

when I took this photo I thought we were only going to paint the walls so I didn't care about getting a shot with the cabinets in it

then I came back and took this shot. It's after the walls had been painted but before the cabinets.


This just does NOT do the bathroom justice. The walls are a tan/brown "paperbag" and the one wall (reflected in the mirror) is a deep red. :0)

this was just a fun shot to show where the two colors meet and my nifty fake plant holder.


Guest bathroom:
Paint ($14....just the green wall paint, I had plenty of cabinet paint and supplies)
shower curtain and new decorative towel ($40 BUT I used a Christmas gift card for that)
hardware for cabinets ($15)
all of the decorations came from other places in my home. :0)
So for ME....$29!

I JUST LOOOOOVE them! I want to live in my bathrooms. They are the ONLY rooms in my house completely finished and I can't wait to do more now! :0)

My WiiFit finally works for me!
It's not that the WiiFit was having any problems, I was.
Just wasn't motivated.
I had gotten annoyed with only being able to work out on it for 3 minutes max.
Then have to wait through seeing your score, rank, ETC. AND then click "retry" or "cancel".
Very annoying.

I've finally worked through some of that and "opened" some of the other exercises.
While I'm still annoyed that I can only do some things for short amounts until I EARN more time, it is finally working for me!
I do step aerobics for 20 minutes, hula hoop for 6 minutes (that's the most workout), and then do one or two yogas.
Ending with a total of at least 30 minutes.
EVERY DAY so far this week!
YEA!

I'm so glad I'm finally off my bum and doin' it.
:0)

I have just a few photos I wanted to share. The first two are of Georgia with her favorite find on a recent trip to Michael's. It was a box of all of these ITTY-BITTY chicks. Super cute and she LOVED them. In one picture she is kissing all of them. :0) As much as she loved them and played with them A LOT for two days..two days is all they lasted. They were just little balls of fluffed and it didn't take long for the eyes/head to fall off, feet to fall off, etc.
Then the vacuum brought them to their resting place.

The other photo is her in one of my favorite GROCERY STORE finds! This adorable dress was at our nearby HEB (that's a grocery store here in TX) and it was only $8. I loved it, she loved it, and everyone that saw her in it loved it. It doesn't feel like a thin, stiff cheap dress either. It's soft and the bottom half is even lined on the inside! Honestly though, even if it falls apart after a couple of washes, it was worth it because I LOVE it! :0)

FIRST THE WORK

I love breaks from work/school and I try to make the most of them.
This spring break...yard work.
Stuff I have been putting off FOREVER! (well, almost 4 years!)
We haven't ever done anything with our yard really.
We put in a sago palm and little bed by the steps but didn't do a great job
and certainly haven't kept up with it.

SO, now was the time.
I've been wanting a flower bed around our tree for a long time
and I've been wanting to plant another tree (the "circle trees" are my favorites... beautiful pear trees)

The Hubs and I started Sunday.
We marked a circle around the tree (I had put bricks there months ago but it looked bad) and started digging up the grass. NOT FUN! dug it all out, then put the edging in. Then went in the weedcloth, cut holdes for my new flowers, and put it all in. Then covered it with some good rubber mulch. (If I only get around to this every 4 years, I knew we should invest in good mulch). VOILA! I LOOOOOVE it!

I couldn't stop there, so yesterday, last night, and this morning I raked out, cleaned up, edged, weed clothed, and mulched the big front bed. We planted two lantanas but nothing else. We have all we need in there.

OH MY! I can't get over how much better it looks! A REAL flower bed! TWO OF THEM!
I am so super excited!

We had to postpone completion of the new pear tree...we (well, my hubs actually) was hitting a LOT of rock trying to dig the hole. So he'll work on that again another day. Then we'll go ahead and do a flower bed around that tree too!



(if you click on the photos it will get bigger so you can see the typing...)

YEA YEA YEA!

NOW...if ONLY we can get the grass to grow!
:0)
(we're going to aerate, put down dirt, and throw down some seed next month!)


NOW the FUN part

all of us took place in helping plant so all of us needed some fun today too (mainly the kiddos!)
So I had been promising to make some "slime".

Elmer's glue
liquid starch
food coloring.

VOILA! Instant fun!
The kids loved it, especially my King of Slime!
:0)

Georgia is suddenly ALL about getting her photo taken and it cracks me up! She enjoyed having a little photo shoot this evening, what a ham!






Then we enjoyed a great Texas Winter Evening and I put the kiddos to some use too! They had a blast and although their car washing skills left little to be desired, at least it was fun! :0)

My boy Caleb really is a lovin' kinda' guy.
He likes to show his love.
He really does.

And so when it was Valentine's Day he decided to show the neighborhood his love and "make the neighbors happy".
(yes, it has taken me this long to post this!)

Caleb had apparently learned how to draw a heart that week at school.
I gotta' say, I must have missed that day when I was a student because his hearts are better than mine!
Anyway, he started drawing hearts and "happy people" on our sidewalk and our driveway.
Then he went to the next door neighbor's.
on both sides.
and then the next next door neighbor's.

and on it went.

for a looooooong time.

He drew pictures in front of approximately 12 houses , each one having approximately 6 or more "squares" (sidewalk sections...each one HAD to have a picture in it) in front of each house.

That adds up to a LOT of hearts and happy faces.

He had a blast.

After quite a while, I told him we needed to go inside so I could get dinner ready.
He looked at me and said "But Momma, I haven't done ALL the neighbors yet. All of them Mom, on ALL the streets. They need to be happy too."

"Ummm...well, we'll pray that they are sweetie. Right now, we need to go inside. Great job though! "

Ok, so I probably could have given him a better little speech, a more thorough one or deeper one. I just wasn't really up for it or just didn't. Either way, he accepted that.

Two days later though, he grabbed his cart full of chalk again.

This time he said

"Momma, I want to draw hearts and happy faces for the WHOLE WORLD!"

We definitely didn't have time for that.

But what a sweetie.
:0)