New Home Tour, Part 1

I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend!  Ours was spent with out-of-town family and friends.  

The kids had a great time playing, while hubby and I caught up with our dear TX neighbors.
Then, my brother and his wife came today, their first time to visit us since the move.  

We look forward to spending more time with them during the upcoming holiday.

I figured now was the perfect time to snap some pictures of the new place, seeing as though it's been cleaned and tidied for our recent visitors.  So, sit back, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the pictures... there's a lot of them!  

Our dining room turned piano/reading room.  

We never used our dining room in our last home, this suits us much better!  

Our cozy and spacious living room with through and through fireplace.

Front entry and hallway going into kitchen/eating area.

Eating area on kitchen side of fireplace.

I'm in love with my 5 foot church pew! 

I'll be sharing more details about this treasure in a future post!

Stained etched concrete throughout the kitchen, living and dining areas.  

This concludes Part 1 of the home tour, I'll be back soon to share some of my recent finds and projects I've completed.  Wishing you all a great week... I'm hoping for warmer weather and motivation to finish more things on the "to do" list!  :)

Vintage Piano

Hi everyone!  Just a brief update to let you know I'm still here.  I've had many requests from my friends and fellow bloggers to start blogging again.  I appreciate the encouragement so much and have decided it's time I resume sharing what I LOVE to do... decorating and creating!  

As many of you know, we relocated to Central Arkansas last summer.  It's taken awhile to adjust to living here now, much as changed with living in a new place, new schools, etc.  I'm excited to share my new home with you, the treasures I've found and the projects I've tackled since moving here in July 2012.  Please bear with me as I start this journey once again.  I may not post as often in the beginning, but I hope to gradually be as active as I once was!  :)  I'll leave you with my favorite treasure of all... 

my 1917 Story & Clark Upright Grand Piano!  Isn't she a beauty?

These were taken at the sellers home, the day we went to see it in person!

 My sweet babies testing it out for the first time... in it's new home!

 I'm in love with all the beautiful details!  I'd say it's in pretty good shape,
considering it's closing in on 100 years!  

The serial number (located in the inside) indicates the year in which the piano was made...

 The keys were filthy!  You can see the difference cleaning a few keys makes!

It's obvious by the wear on these keys that this piano was loved!

 And here it sits (in November) dressed in it's Fall decor.

Hope this finds you all well!

I'm linking up to:

Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday
Feathered Nest Friday at The French Country Cottage
Fabulousy Creative Friday Linky Party @ Jennifer Rizzo

I'm Still Here... House Update and Vacation Highlights

Hi everyone!  Wow, has it been a wild ride!  We moved in to our new house on July 11th, also Ava's 7th birthday!  We had just two days to unpack before making our trip to San Francisco, celebrating my cousin getting married!  We enjoyed five days there, trying to cram in as much as we could!  

We went to Roaring Camp in Felton, CA and rode up to Bear Mountain in an old steam train. 

The kids loved it, especially Tyler!  

We experienced The Mystery Spot, a weird place up in the California Redwoods that will mess with your head and your stomach!

Walked the beach in Santa Cruz and rode rides at the 

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk & Amusement Park...

Took the kids to the Steinhart Aquarium at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco...

Drove over the Golden Gate Bridge on a beautiful California day!

We did ALOT of sightseeing while we were there.
Here is a roadside view of the ocean in Half Moon Bay, I was not expecting it to be so chilly there!
100 degree weather in Arkansas... 50's and 60's in CA!

I turned around and had this view...  Just breathtaking!  

On our last night there, we enjoyed dinner with family in Mill Valley.  It was fun catching up and talking about the beautiful wedding, Congratulations to Danielle and Michael!  

It was one of the most elegant weddings I've ever been to!  

So now that we're home from our much needed vacation... let me just say... much progress has been made!    A part of me was glad to be home, after all, it's fun to "play house," especially when it's a new one!  All of the boxes are emptied, broken down and almost everything is in it's place... for now.  I've been shuffling things around quite a bit, which is the fun part, right?  Finding just the right place for everything.  I have more storage than I know what to do with.  There are several cabinets that are still empty, give it time, they'll be full before I know it!

As far as a new email address goes, this blog is still linked to my old one in Texas.  I'm currently working on getting things updated, so if I don't get to your message, I'm not ignoring you!  For those of you that have had to make updates due to a move, any advice for making those changes would be much appreciated!

Hope all is well with everyone!  I've missed you and have a lot of catching up to do here in blogland!

PLEASE NOTE:
Pictures are courtesy of the locations website:
Roaring Camp Railroads
Steinhart Aquarium
The Mystery Spot
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk & Amusement Park  

Ch-Ch-Changes! We're Moving!

Hi everyone!  Thanks for checking up on me.  I didn't expect to be away for so long!
To say things have been crazy around here would be a HUGE understatement!  

In mid April, we began praying about making changes for our family.  After much thought and prayer, we have decided to move to Central Arkansas.  Hubby works from home, so we are blessed to live anywhere, really.  We had a few things to fix up before listing... stain the fence, stretch the carpets, get them cleaned, just to name a few.  Once all of that was taken care of, we were able to put our house on the market in early May.  We had several showings and were pleased with the activity the house was receiving.
On Day 12 of being on the market, we received an offer!
Whoa!  We were not expecting this to happen so quickly!  God is good!

SOLD!!!
It's been exciting to look for a new home and often frustrating too.  We've missed out on a few that we really loved, but we now know that was Gods way of telling us to be patient.  On our third trip to Arkansas, we found one last weekend that fits our family perfectly!  It is actually one we saw on our first trip to view homes.  We decided to add it to the list one more time, there was just something about it.
After spending a total of 2.5 hours (over the course of the weekend) looking at all the details, we put an offer in and it was accepted a few hours later!  Thank you, Jesus!  

The front of it reminds us of our TX home.  

One of my favorite features about this house... the laundry room is UPSTAIRS!!!  

I am SO excited about this, as I despise laundry, especially toting it up and down the stairs!  

Another favorite feature (there are several) is my long awaited WHITE kitchen!

If you've been following me for a while, you know that I've been "dreaming" of a white kitchen for some time now.  Hubby and I had plans of transforming ours in TX, but God had other ideas!

The house has TONS of built-ins, so I can't wait to organize and accessorize!

SURPRISE!  This explains my long absence.  I'll be absent a bit longer as we purge, pack and press on to our new home.  We hope to be moved in by early July.  What about you?  Do you have changes going on in your family?  Please share!  I'd love to hear what you've been up to!  

Hope you're having a great summer!

Joining the party at:

Feathered Nest Friday @ French Country Cottage

Easter Highlights

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!  We spent ours in Oklahoma with my parents, brother and SIL.
Thought it'd be fun to share some highlights of our (never long enough) weekend...

Egg dyeing with Gigi!  We used white crayon to highlight our designs.  

Ava decorated them by writing our names!

The kids discovering their baskets before heading out for Sunday service.  

The Easter Bunny tried to be practical!  

The day wouldn't be complete without an Easter Egg Hunt!

Ava found the Golden Egg!

Always good times with Uncle Kevin!

A long overdue family picture.  I can't remember the last time we took a decent one!
This is a framer for sure!  Hope yours was wonderful!  Check back soon, I've got some projects to share!    

Valentine Pom-Pom Wreath

I was cruising around blogland (when am I not?), when I discovered this adorable heart shaped pom-pom wreath by Wendy at Ordinary Miracles of Life.  I'm not usually one to decorate for heart day, but after seeing this, I had to make an exception.  Wendy made hers by winding yarn around three fingers.  I tried this with some yarn I already had and let's just say it didn't turn out as well.  :(  Hobby Lobby has their 40% off coupon this week, so after grabbing the wreath and festive yarn, I snagged a pom-pom maker.  

As you can see, two came to a package.  I purchased a 12" wreath (9" is shown, I plan to make a smaller one for Ava's room), three Red Heart yarn colors... Deep Red, Baby Pink and Soft White.

The directions on the pom-pom maker are super easy, so I'll skip the "how-to."

I tied each pom-pom around the wreath in a double knot.  

This is what it looked like when all were attached...

After snipping and primping...

The sweet valentine on the mirror came from my grandpa a few years ago.  He's 95 now, but when he was able, he'd send a single rose and valentine every year to all his daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters.  We live all over, so it was always thoughtful to hear from him.

The glitter hearts were given to me by my sweet cousin, Angie.  She has a blog too... check her out at www.flibbertigibberish.blogspot.com.

Thank you, Wendy for sharing this "sweet" tutorial with us.  It was fun to make!  I plan to purchase the smaller pom-pom maker to create one for Ava's room and for teacher gifts.

I'm linking up to: