the best mid century treasure(s) ever

i love to troll craigslist for treasures.  many of you know my affection for mid century furniture, and that is my most favorite thing to look for on CL.  sometimes i just enjoy looking and educating myself on popular designers of that time and other times, i am hoping to find that "just right" treasure for our home.

well, last night we hit the jackpot.  we've been looking for a pair of mid century chairs for our living room.  a pair of matching chairs is extremely rare.  and when you do see some (maybe once every 3 months or so), they are astronomically priced.  way out of our budget!  and while i love original upholstery, it is quite a challenge to find a chair in overall good condition that doesn't require an immediate upholstery job.

so you can imagine my surprise when i found two matching, beautiful mid century chairs that have already been reupholstered quite tastefully.  and for a very reasonable price!  score!  good thing we had a garage sale, and i was called for a handwriting job today, ha!

the chairs have been recovered in a white micro suede material.  white is not my ideal color of furniture with two young boys, but i'm hoping that the claims of easy cleaning that are touted with this material turn out to be true.

john has been making fun of me ever since carrying them into the house right now.  i just love them and love to stare at them.  they are beautiful.  why don't they make furniture like this anymore?  i was meant to live in the fifties!

concerts in the garden star wars style

so to say that this weekend was busy would be an understatement.  i am amazed, looking back on it now, at how well we all handled it.  it was a lot!

on friday, we joined in with my mom and sister and held a garage sale at my mom's house.  sounds easy, right?  well, garage sales are A LOT of work, even if you don't have a ton to sell.  not to mention, my mom lives 40 minutes away, so we were in the car headed south at 6:20 am.  i'm rarely even awake at that hour, ha!  we were a little concerned about the heat as it's been above or near 100 degrees for several days lately.  we were pleasantly surprised with overcast skies, cooler temps and a nice breeze.  we were not so pleasantly surprised when it began to rain, and scurrying to get everything undercover.  it didn't last too long but wreaked enough havoc to really make you wonder if this whole garage sale idea was a good one.  despite the rain, we managed to make around $150, which always feels so strange....getting paid money to get rid of things you don't want anymore.  i almost feel like these people were doing me a favor by taking it off my hands!

we had to head out from the garage sale a little early because we were taking the boys to concerts in the garden that night.  this is such a fun, family-friendly event and a great way to expose young kids to an orchestra.  in case you've never heard of this, concert in the garden is put on by the fort worth symphony orchestra at the fort worth botanic garden.  everyone brings lawn chairs, blankets, food and drinks and has a picnic on the lawn while listening to outstanding music.  john and i have been several times before but this was the first time for us to take burrito and noodle. 

we picked this particular night because the orchestra was playing music by the great composer, john williams, from movies such as star wars, indiana jones, jaws, and e.t.  they even had people dressed up in star wars costumes walking around for photo ops, a BIG HIT with the kids!  we managed to get our pictures made with all three.

and yes, rain tried to ruin our day for a second time, but fortunately it never rained too hard, we were able to huddle underneath our way-too-small umbrella, and it stopped just in time for the performance!  i was just thankful i even remembered to bring an umbrella!

the below picture is compliments of noodle.  i love having kids that can take pictures now!  notice the raindrops on our shoulders thanks to the aforementioned way-too-small umbrella!

this is a very casual event which is so nice when you have kids!  the boys entertained each other by pretending to be little jedis in battle.  i mean, where else can you wrestle to the sounds of an orchestra!

and you can't be a jedi without first donning your glow in the dark jedi belt!  noodle still has his warrior face on!

and just when you think the night couldn't get any better, they choreograph the music to a fantastic laser light show and top it off with fireworks.  as the boys sat in our laps completely enraptured with it all, i had the deepest satisfaction ever.  it was a super sweet "i will always remember this" kind of moment!

so there's my plug for concerts in the garden.  if you haven't done it, you must!

so, that was just friday.  saturday brought another visit to the garage sale (we were excused from being there early since we had a late night!).  we picked up the things that didn't sell and that didn't warrant a trip to the garbage, collected the remainder of our earnings and headed back home to get ready to attend john's cousin's wedding in dallas.

i love going to weddings as a married couple.  it just renews in me my vows to john and just makes me feel good all over!  i think john, for the most part, feels the same way.  i won't share what the boys thought about having to attend a wedding but i will say they did great!  the wedding was truly worshipful and the reception that followed was lovely.  congratulations kyndall and keith!

i am grateful to have been able to attend.  especially, in part, due to the horrific way i felt on the way there.  for the past few months, i have been plagued with nausea that seems to have no rhyme or reason.  we suspect it may have something to do with hormones out of whack from my last surgery (the technical term is a unilateral salpingo oophorectomy, try saying that 3 times real fast!).  you can read all about that starting here if you want the low down.  i have an appointment this thursday for a normal checkup but we are hoping to gain some wisdom as to what might be causing the nausea.  would you please pray that the doctor would either have some idea as to what may be going on or know what tests to administer (bloodwork, ultrasound) to determine the cause?  we would really appreciate it!  it is no fun feeling sick most of the time.

so that's what's been going on with us.  we're having a low key kind of day to try and recover from the busyness and also to help me feel better.  happy sunday!

Whom have I in heaven but you?  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.  But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

Psalm 73.25-28

random stuff

call me a bad wife or a bad blogger but i just didn't get around to posting a "happy father's day" post on the blog like every other blogger in the world yesterday.  BUT we are so thankful for the dads in our lives.  and we are especially thankful around here for john david.  he truly is an exceptional father, and i don't say that flippantly.  he really is.  every day i am continually amazed at his grace and patience with me and the boys.  and we all know it comes from the Lord because who can keep that up without the help of the Holy Spirit!  john david we are so thankful that you love your Heavenly Father and soak up His Word to lead and guide you as the head of our family.  we LOVE you!
because he's so awesome, this is what we got john for father's day...

ha, ha!  not really!  we got him a gift card to half price books, john's favorite destination for hunting down book treasures.

and talk about a great dad!  how many dads would lay in the floor and let their kids put all of these cars on them!  be sure to look real close, they are even going down his feet!

last week was the week of home projects.  the internet is so great to help teach you how to diy so many things!  we educated ourselves on the how to's of re-roofing our covered patio.  so off went the old roof and on went the new.  if only it was that easy!  actually it really wasn't that hard, just HOT!

after accomplishing that feat we decided to not stop there and give the patio cover a new coat of exterior paint.  we have lived here almost 3 years and we're not sure how long ago it had been painted, but it sure needed it.  it's amazing what a coat of paint can do!  we loved it so much that i think we may tackle the exterior painting of the rest of our house next week.  and just because you don't see me in these pictures, doesn't mean i didn't help!

next week.  we need a fun break this week!  i am ready to hunt down some more mid century treasures like this one i found a few weeks ago:

isn't she lovely?

so what do we have planned for this week?  we're hosting another senior movie night, we're having a garage sale at my mom's house, we're going to concerts in the garden to hear star wars (and other movie tunes) performed by the symphony, and we have john's cousin's wedding to attend.  see...no time for home projects this week!

signs of summer

there are certain signs that it must be summertime around our house.  my first piece of evidence:

our living room from a different angle.  note the long string of cars!

toys, toys, everywhere.  if you know me, you'll know that i like order.  living with 3 boys seriously challenges my need (notice i said need, not want!) for order.  and even i can relax about order during the summertime!  this is a daily site in our house right now.  the boys have rediscovered their love for hotwheels.  and as you can see, we don't have very many!

hideouts.  hideouts are BIG!  they built this without any help or direction.  they are so enamored with this hideout that they begged me to have reading time in there today.  they have reading time every afternoon apart from each other for 30 minutes.  it is a nice little break for everybody.  i was a little skeptical about whether or not they could be in such close quarters without arguing for 30 whole minutes, but they surprised me and did great!  so sweet (sometimes!) these brothers!  melts a momma's heart!

and i see these little piles of discarded clothing almost every day because of this...

burrito and noodle think they just might explode or self combust if they don't get to go swimming everyday!  so we pretty much oblige!

thank you Lord for helping me to savor these sweet signs of summer.  i am loving every minute of it!

nothing like dirt

my parents are having a huge workshop built in their backyard.  my dad is very handy and has LOTS of handy tools that need a home.  so they had this very nice workshop built.  i think it is quite pretty for a workshop.

well, as part of the building process, they had a BUNCH of dirt delivered to level out the yard. 

a bunch of dirt + 2 little boys = heaven

they had so much fun running and jumping and digging in the multiple piles of dirt.  temporarily loosing a flip flop could not even steal their joy, not even john's, who patiently dug until he recovered the missing shoe.

ahhh, the simple pleasures of life.

vbs 2010

so here it is again, a week later and no update on the blog.  it must be summer vacation because i am so off schedule!  well, i have a good (sort of) excuse for not blogging last week.  my days were filled with vbs!

our church did a space themed vbs this year called space probe: genesis 1 for ages 3-6th grade.  i had the privilege of co-teaching a group of 1st graders and burrito was in my class.  we had 18 first graders so you can understand why i was too tired to blog last week, right???

i think all of the kids had a great time, and i had a wonderful time getting to know them better and teaching with some wonderful ladies from our church.  it was a busy time, and we were constantly on the move.  we rotated from one activity to another every 20-25 minutes from 9:00-12:00.

all of the groups started the day marching into the sanctuary to sing to the Lord and to watch a little space skit everyday.  we then rotated to the lecture hall to listen to an astronaut tell a story from the Bible about creation.  we then had class time where we practiced our memory verse for the week, listened to a Bible story, decorated space ships and worked in our workbooks.  we also had snack time, recreation, music and crafts.  we then all joined back up in the sanctuary at the end to sing all together.

both burrito and noodle absolutely loved it.  last night, we had an all-church sing and the kids were invited back to sing a few of their songs from vbs for the congregation.  our boys were so excited we had to have a "practice session" that afternoon at home to get ready.  and they did not disappoint.  in fact, i had a couple of people come up to us afterwards to tell me how cute they were.  they were very serious about those hand motions!  ha!

it was a great week of fun and i am thankful for all those who worked so hard to make it happen.  can't wait for next year!

the week in review

this was our first official week of summer with john home all week long and boy were we busy!

here's our little week in review:

monday and tuesday were work days filled with grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning the house.  the boys and i did some rutherford summer school and they seem to be adjusting to that quite well.  tuesday night we hosted senior movie night at our house.  a few of john's graduated seniors came over and we watched a ridiculous movie but had a lot of fun.

wednesday we decided to head north to one of our favorite bookstores.  we packed a picnic lunch and ate next to the courthouse in the town square.  we hit some antique malls and found a few treasures (i'll blog about those soon) and the boys bought some hot wheels cars.  they loved playing with them on the sidewalks outside the courthouse.  we stopped at braum's on our way home for an afternoon snack of ice cream.  it was a perfect summer kind of day!

thursday we hung out at home, did school and made a brain.

that's right, i said a brain.  thursdays are our science experiment day, and this week the boys and i made a life size brain from a kit i picked up at a garage sale for $2!  it was a little bit of a process (boiling and mixing and cooling) and it had to gel in the refrigerator overnight, but the boys were pretty patient and loved it!

we talked about the parts of the brain while they touched the squishy thing and then they were able to paint it.  it was quite the hit and hopefully they'll remember some of what i said about the brain!

notice they are in their swim trunks while painting the thing.  i've learned from experience to have them wear as little clothes as possible when painting!  and the fact that we forgot about the poor brain, left it out in the sun, and ended up with a melted brain made it all the more cooler!

friday had us frequenting another one of our favorite resale shops where we picked up a couple of really great educational games that teach math and phonics.  i was so excited, and i love that the boys can practice what they've learned disguised as a game!

and of course with the 100 degree weather we've been having, there has been lots of swimming and water balloon fights.  i'm not sure who likes those more, john or the boys!

water balloon fights rutherford style are quite comical to watch.  they boys want to get hit with the water balloons and really have no interest in throwing them at john or at each other.  they just want john to throw the balloons at them.  it is the most pathetic "fight" you've ever seen!

so that's been our week.  i feel like we've all adjusted to this new schedule, and everyone seems to be enjoying the break!

our mini vacation to austin and back

thanks to our sweet friends the funderburks, we headed out of town for some much needed r&r this past weekend.  they live just outside of austin and austin is one of our most favorite places to visit (or i should really say, eat!) so it's a perfect combination.

since i am on this huge rutherford summer school kick, i couldn't help but indulge myself by making some of our visits like a field trip.  with a little research under my belt, my plan of attack was ready.  i knew that i wanted to take the boys to the bob bullock texas history museum and also to inner space cavern in georgetown.  with those two destinations in mind, the boys and i headed to the library before our trip to check out a few books about texas history and caves.  i think it was just as educational for me as it was for them!  most know that the state flower of texas is the bluebonnet, but did you know that the texas state plant is the prickly pear cactus?  i love random facts like that!  we had fun quizzing john one afternoon to see how many state symbols he could get right.  and the boys were most excited about visiting the cave after reading about stalagmites and stalactites and bats!

so first up was the bob bullock texas history museum.

we really thought we would spend a few hours here but we quickly realized that we might possibly make the fastest visit ever recorded.  the boys bounced from one exhibit to another like a pinball.  we did manage to talk about texas' fight for independence, the alamo, drilling for oil and the space program in houston. 

we had a good time learning about our state and will definitely do this again on another austin visit.  and a trip to austin would not be complete without going to our most favorite place to eat:

magnolia cafe!

we love this place and if you're from dallas this place is equivalent to cafe brazil.  delicious food with an exhorbitant amount of menu choices.  the boys love eating pancakes here. 

then we were off to hit our favorite bookstores and vintage shops.  we really appreciate austin's uniqueness and plethora of crazy shops!  after our fill of shopping we headed to the funderburk's for a sleepover with this cute curly-headed guy!

it was so fun to watch our boys play together all weekend.  i just loved it!  there was lots of sand digging, rock collecting, and bubble blowing.

on saturday we headed to the quaint little town of gruene, tx.  apparently, so did the rest of central texas (think memorial day weekend and a river).  nonetheless, we ate some good food at the grist mill and headed down to check out the guadalupe river.

i love little towns like this with sweet little general stores and antique shops.  when the boys get a bit older, tubing down the river will definitely be on the agenda.

sunday morning we headed to church and saw this crazy plant growing in front of this house down the street (i couldn't resist taking a picture!).

do you see how it's taller than the house!?!?  you never know what you'll see when in austin, ha!

finally, with much little boy anticipation, we headed to inner space caverns.  the boys were so excited!  inner space caverns was discovered in 1963 when the texas highway department was drilling to check if the ground was strong enough to support a highway bridge.  when the drill hit an air pocket, a crazy highway department guy volunteered to be tied to the drill and lowered down the hole to see what was below.  he was the first human being to see the caves.

and we quickly realized the magnitude of precociousness our two boys possess.  we were at the front of our guided tour the entire time and they would not stop talking to our (very patient) tour guide. 

we saw a bat, several interesting cave formations, and what it would be like to be in total darkness.  our tour guide had us sit down in this one cave room and he flipped off the lights.  and here's another random fact:  did you know that if you were to live in total darkness for 6 months, your retinas would die and you would be blind?  it was really fun.  i love making these kinds of memories as a family.

we headed back home that night to enjoy memorial day at home.  we grilled up some salmon, stuffed with crab, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes.  yummy!

so that was our mini vacation to austin.  thanks funderburks for hosting us again.  since we started summer vacation with this trip, maybe we'll have to end it with another trip to austin!