Just thinking about all of this makes me tired

When Aaron had his birthday a few weeks ago, we decided that we were going to forgo the traditional birthday party and just do something small this year. Well, I decided that and no one argued too much about it, so that's what happened. And past weekend was his birthday weekend.

Aaron has some friends from DeKalb (that are brothers) that he doesn't get to see a lot, and he is also friends with their cousin, so he decided that since I was making him choose just a few friends for his get-together, he would choose them. So Friday evening we met the boys and their parents at Pizza Inn and then headed to the LaCrosse Hotel, here in Texarkana. Which has an indoor swimming pool. Which is why he chose that hotel.

Y'all. You can pay $250 for a 3-hour birthday pool party at that place, or you can get a room for a night and spend less than $100.

I'll take all-night for $100, Alex.

Why my mind just went to Jeopardy, I do not know.

Anyway, Friday night the pool was open until 11:00pm, and there are also pool tables, ping-pong tables, and lots of room to play and run. The boys had a blast. I left when it started getting late, and Robbie stayed at the hotel with four boys for the night.

Austin, Ethan, Cole, Dawson, and Aaron

And he didn't even complain. I do love that man.

Saturday was a crazy busy day for us. A quick run-down of what we did: Aaron's soccer game, Walmart trip, Roadhouse for lunch, quick trip to New Boston, Austin's soccer game, Patrick's (Aaron's teammate) birthday party, Shogun's for dinner, and then game night at our old church.

I actually just managed to fit a day that was non-stop for 13 hours into one sentence. I cannot, however, fit all of that into only one picture.

Aaron's friends,  Macey and Emily, came to watch his game Saturday.

The girls squashed a caterpillar during Aaron's game. They were very proud of their accomplishment. Both of these girls are so stinkin cute! Just love them both to pieces.

Ethan, Aaron, and Dawson at Roadhouse for lunch

This was Patrick's birthday party at Borderland games. The boys got to pick out and play with whichever video game in the store they wanted. It was perfect for 11 year old boys!

I was worn completely out, I needed a shower, and my head was itchy from wearing a cap all day, but it was a really good day.

This was Saturday evening at Shogun's. We were all SO tired by then, but this is where Aaron wanted to go eat for his birthday.

Which is why Sunday I may have taken a 3 hour nap.

In my defense, when I laid down I had only planned on sleeping for 1 hour. My intentions were certainly not to sleep all day.

But it sure was a good nap.

Today I guess I had regained my energy, because I decided this morning that I would move Aaron into the same bedroom with Austin so that I can use Aaron's room as storage until we can get moved. Austin's room looked like this when I started:

And this when I finished:

I call that progress.

Just knowing that we will be moving into our new house sometime within the next few months, I just feel like throwing things away and organizing what we're keeping. I do not want to move trash or junk into the new house, and I think I if can just get rid of it all now, it'll make it so much easier when the time comes. And what I really want to do is start packing things in boxes. I've had people tell me that since we live just a few feet from our new house that we should just use an assembly line or wheelbarrows to get everything moved over. But for me, I'm moving. So I need to pack. It's only natural.

Tomorrow I have to have a root canal done, so I'm glad I actually accomplished something today. I've never had to have one before, and the reviews are mixed. Some people talk like it was the worst thing they've been through. Others say it wasn't a big deal at all. I figure I'll fall somewhere around the middle of that. I do not believe that it will be worse than a kidney stone (oh, please don't be worse than a kidney stone!) but I also believe it will be a bigger deal than if I just stayed home and packed boxes.

The jury is out on this for now....

The writing on the wall

Do you want to see something exciting? Ok, here it is:

Ok, so maybe this is only exciting to me, but I've been ready for this trailer to pull up at our house since the day we poured the foundation. The cabinets and trim may be a slow-moving part, but it's also a fun part. I love the designing part of house planning and especially with Dennis Salisbury. I've known Dennis for 12 years and I have always respected his work and work ethic. He has such good and creative ideas and can do anything with wood that you may not have even known was possible.

Earlier this week, Dennis and I went through the house talking about each room in detail. There isn't one room in the house that he won't touch, because he is the one that will install all of the interior doors, baseboards and trim, and cabinetry. As we went through the house, he measured the floor and drew out designs on it. He also wrote on a lot of the walls in the house so that he would remember what we talked about when he got to that room.

This is my stair parts order, written on the wall

This is my bathroom vanity, drawn on the floor

Can I just say that you KNOW you are getting a custom closet when the cabinet guy literally pulls out the tape measure and measures the length and width of the shoes you have on your feet, and plans shoe space accordingly. I cannot even speak of the joy that brought me. There are no words.

This is the layout he drew for the cabinets in the game room. Love his ideas here!

Dennis and his guys spent most of their time this week on our wood ceiling. This is the ceiling you can see from all of the main places in the house. It's over the living room, kitchen, stairs, and the extra room we have above the pantry. I absolutely love wood ceilings, so watching this go up this week has been so exciting.

The ceiling in this room goes from 9 feet to about 18 feet tall. So there is scaffolding everywhere right now. We will have the painter stain the ceiling a little darker than it is now, so the finished product will look different.

Have I mentioned that I am really ready to get in this house??

Before our framer left, I asked him to build some benches out of the left over cedar we had from our cedar posts that go around our porch. He built 8 benches for me, so I will put 2 on each side of the house on the porch. I love them.

I am working on getting everything together for decorating the rooms when I am allowed to go in and start decorating. This room is my inspiration for Austin's room. I have Robbie working on getting the silver diamond-plated truck part that I can use as a border in his room. Love that idea.

I've also recently joined in on the pinterest addiction that everyone has been talking about. Here are some of my favorite things I've found there.

This is just a canvas covered in burlap and buttons. I can do this!

I've never thought to paint my butcher block, but how cute is that?!

This is canvas, masking tape and spray paint. Easy.

Love the wood crate magazine storage idea!

I'm not sure yet how many of these I will actually do, but such cute and easy ideas! Or at least they look easy. Don't you hate it when you get into a project and you think it'll be easy, but it ends up being a disaster? Like when you're watching HGTV and they start tearing out walls and put a beautiful room back together in 30 minutes, minus the commercial time, but when you do it yourself it turns into a month long mess...

 That is my fear with some of my pinterest findings.

My brother JJ and my other brother Blake

Something happened in my life 5 months ago (May 11th to be exact) that I haven't blogged much about, but I think it is finally time. I mentioned in this post that I knew my birth father and I knew he had two sons, but that was about the extent of my knowledge of them back in March of this year. I met them all when I was 18 at a restaurant for breakfast, but we didn't keep up with each other after that. At the time, my brother JJ was 11 years old and my brother Blake was only 6 years old. I didn't consider these boys my brothers, I just thought of them as Jimmy's (my birth father) sons.

On May 11th of this year, I got a facebook message from Blake that said this:

"My father, Jimmy, has told me for years that I had a half-sister and I always wanted to meet her. He told me that you were her. Is Jimmy your father?"

Talk about a facebook message that will stop you in your tracks. Wow.

After I took a minute or two to completely flip out from excitement, I wrote him back. I told him that I was the person he was looking for and that I was really happy to hear from him. We messaged back and forth for a while, and then that turned into texting. Blake told JJ about me and told him that if he was interested in having a relationship with me, I was open to it. Not long after that, JJ and I began texting as well. And to this day we are all still texting very regularly. A text from either of these guys just makes my day better.

This summer, Robbie, the kids, and I spent a weekend in Dallas. On that Saturday evening, Robbie and I went to dinner with Blake and his girlfriend. After all the texting we'd been doing, I felt like I knew him already! After dinner, I got to meet Jimmy. This was the first time in 17 years and only the second time in my life I had ever laid eyes on my birth father. It was so good to be able to just sit and visit with them. We left the kids that night with my birth mom, Sherry, but Jimmy really wanted to meet them so we took them back the next day for a few minutes so they would have a chance to meet. We were also able to meet Jimmy's wife, Denise, that day. The whole thing was just so exciting for me. One of those moments that you feel like it's just too good to be true. The only thing missing that day was JJ and his family. If they had been able to come it would've been perfect.

A few weeks ago when Robbie and I went to Canton for the weekend, we were able to go out to eat with Jimmy and Blake, but JJ was out of town hunting so he couldn't be there. I have really been wanting to meet JJ because he and I have a lot in common and we seem to have the same sense of humor. And even though I hadn't had a chance to meet him yet, I already knew that I cared for him and loved him very much.

It's amazing how much you can learn about a person just through texting.

My birth father, Jimmy also calls me every once in a while now to check on me or just tell me to have a good day. I never dreamed that I would be able to have a relationship with him, so just knowing that he cares about me means the world to me.

This is Jimmy, my birth father

Tuesday of this week was Blake's birthday, and he asked if I could come to Dallas for the day just to spend the day with him. Tuesday is the one day of the week I have right now that I have no after school or evening activities planned, so it was perfect. And since I would be in town, I asked JJ if he could meet us for lunch on his lunch break so I would finally get to meet him too. Blake was able to get off work that day, JJ got a long lunch hour approved, and I got a friend to pick my kids up from school, so it worked out for all of us.

My mom rode up to Dallas with me Tuesday so she could spend the day with my Aunt Ruby, which was nice because that can be a long ride alone. And even though we were in a hurry at the time, she got to meet Jimmy and Blake both while she was there. Blake and I dropped my mom off at Aunt Ruby's and headed to meet JJ for lunch. I was SO excited because I was starting to think I wasn't ever going to actually get to meet him!

Y'all. Having lunch with my two 'new' brothers was so fun! Blake and I got there first and when JJ came in he was shaking like a leaf and acted like he was scared of me. It was so sweet! It's because I'm so awesome and he's never been in the room with someone before that is as awesome as me (haha - love you JJ!). I'm glad JJ was confident in his job security because I think we were at Buffalo Wild Wings for at least 2 hours. And even though JJ referred to me as 'old' several times and had a little thing with his tooth (that I will not go into), the lunch date with my brothers was just perfect. And even after 2 hours of sitting there talking, I could've easily stayed 2 more. I love getting to know these boys.

JJ, myself, and Blake at Buffalo Wild Wings

After lunch, Blake and I went shopping for him some new clothes. He has grown out of his Gothic phase, but his clothes had not. His closet consisted of black, with a little more black, and some black on top of that. It was time to get the boy into some color. He tried on almost everything I picked out for him and ended up getting several new outfits (none of which were black). It was SO much fun! He did not, however, give in to all of the pressure I put on him to get his hair cut, but I am still working on that. ;-)

After Blake and I shopped for a while, we went back to the house to show Jimmy some of his new clothes. I stayed and talked to them for a while and then it was time to go get my mom and head home.

I hope that JJ enjoyed meeting me as much as I did him, and I can't wait to meet his wife and little girl soon. And I also hope that Blake is glad that he chose to spend his 23rd birthday with me. It's certainly not a day I will be forgetting any time soon.

With us building a house we've waited years on and my getting to know this side of my family better, the phrase that keeps running through my head lately is this:

My Cup Runneth Over.

I am so very blessed.

To Aaron, on your 11th

Dear Aaron,

Eleven years ago today was a day that changed my life forever. Daddy and I had been married for 3 years and we so desperately wanted a baby. I was working full time at Southern Clinic and you made that as hard as you could for me. You made me throw up almost every day of that entire pregnancy, you gave me raging heartburn, and you made my blood pressure go up and my feet to swell. You weren't supposed to be born until October 24th, but because you were ready to make your presence known, you got here on October 12th.

Riding 4-wheelers a few days ago

When I saw your sweet little face, I forgot all about how miserable I was over the past 9 months.  You were an answer to many, many prayers. You were a healthy and perfect baby boy. I cried many tears of joy just because daddy and I finally got our little miracle. You were loved long before you got here.

And I am just as proud of you now as I was that day. You are in 5th grade now and I love the person that you have become and the man that you are becoming. You always put a lot of thought into your actions, which I believe will benefit you greatly now and in the future. You choose your friends wisely. When I leave a decision up to you, more often than not you choose the way I would choose for you. You are so mature for your age. You're very smart, not only book smart but smart with situations you are faced with. You should be very proud of yourself for the person that you are.

This text from you last weekend when you were spending the night with friends made me smile. So sweet.

One of my favorite things to do is to watch you play soccer. Your thought process on the field amazes me. Somehow you keep your mind about 30 seconds ahead of where that ball is and you are a good judge at where you need to be so that you can get a good shot at the ball. When you run you are so graceful it almost seems effortless. You have always played well with your teammates and tried to help the ones that need a little extra help. Last year at one of your games, you had been playing almost the entire time on a very hot day, and when Jeff let you have a break to get a drink and sit a while, you chose to use that time to help another child that really needed you. You've got such a good heart and it comes out time and time again while you are playing soccer.

People keep reminding me that you are only 2 years away from being a teenager and only 5 years away from driving. Personally, I don't really like hearing that because it's just a reminder of how fast time goes by. But at the same time, I am not worried at all about it. You keep showing me me daily that you make good decisions for yourself. You are very thoughtful in weighing your options. You surround yourself with people that are good influences on you. And you've been driving well since you got that little jeep when you were around 2. You have always been (even as a baby) very coordinated and a natural at most things that require coordination. I pray that you will continue to make good choices as you get older. The friends that you choose, the girlfriends that you choose, and the decisions that you make when daddy and I are not around are going to be a very important shaper in your life, so please choose wisely.

I have really enjoyed watching you grow over the past 11 years, and I can't wait to see what the next 11 years holds for you. I love you so very much.

Happy Birthday!!

Love,
Mom

Life as we know it at the moment

A few days ago, my birth-father made a comment about how busy I always am. My first thought was, no, I don't think I am. But then when I think about what our schedule is like, I guess I am a pretty busy girl these days. During the day I work on getting things done for the new house, and in the evenings we're either at soccer practice, church, or somewhere between it all. I bought my car 8 months ago with about 75 miles on it, and I'm currently sitting at around 25,000 miles. In my defense, we live about 30 minutes away from town and there are very few days (if any) that we don't have to go to town for something. Most days we probably go more than once. It's just how it seems to be working out lately.

As far as the house this week, I finally picked out the tile I wanted to use in our bathroom, and as I type right now it is being installed into our shower. And so far I really like it, so I will go ahead and take full credit for picking it out. (Because if it were really bad, I would totally blame it the lady at the tile shop.) Our Sheetrock is also all up and textured, which makes it really difficult for me to not go out there with a paint brush and get to painting on it all.

The tile is laid, and will be grouted next week.

Another shot of our shower. The grout is going to be dark, so it will be beautiful when finished.

This is the entrance into the game room off of the living room.

This is a shot from the living room.

And because I am SO over carpet, there will not be any carpet anywhere in the house, unless you count rugs. Which I guess is technically carpet, but if I get tired of a rug I can roll it up and throw it out. If I had installed carpet, I would think about how much I hated it for years before I would actually do anything about it. So I'm thinking this was the right choice for us. Although it leaves me with more tile decisions to come, but I think I have a few weeks for that.

A few days ago I was looking on Craigslist and saw a coffee table at a resale shop here in town that I knew I wanted to look at. It actually looked a lot like one I had looked at in the Ashley store not long ago that was over $300. This table was handmade, rustic, and one of a kind, which fit all three of my favorite things when buying furniture. It also has lots of storage, which is always a good thing. And it was advertised for only $75, which meant that I could more than likely bring it home for closer to $65, which I think is a STEAL for well-made furniture. Here it is:

It is now sitting in our storage with the rest of our things for the house.

 I'm getting very anxious about getting everything in the house. It's so hard to be patient right now. Next week our cabinet guy (Dennis Salisbury, one the THE best around) will start on all of the cabinets and trim work, and he will take around a month to get his part done.

 Maybe he won't notice when I start moving in before he gets done.

Or maybe he will. Sadly I do not care at this point.

In other news (because I do still have kids that need attention) Austin had his first dentist appointment this week. Well, I guess technically it was his second, but this was the first one that he actually sat through long enough for them to feel right about charging me for it. I must say, the boy impressed me. He did so well getting his x-rays and cleaning done. I had one of those watery-eyed-proud-momma moments while we were there. He is getting so big it just breaks my heart and makes me proud all at the same time. He did everything he was asked to do without complaining and held his mouth open like a big daddy alligator better than anyone I've ever seen.

I've got to get up from here and finish up my laundry and cleaning so I can go to town and get my errands done, which includes Home Depot, cleaners, Walmart, and the paint store.

Yes, I live such a glamorous life.

This evening Aaron will be in DeKalb for the night and Austin's favorite babysitter (Emily) is coming over to keep him so Robbie and I can go on a date. We've agreed this will be a 'no phone' night, so if you try to call or text either of us tonight and we don't respond, it's because we are intentionally ignoring you. It's just got to be that way every once in a while.

 Y'all have a great weekend!

Canton: My New Favorite Place

 Now that we are getting down to making decorating choices in the house, my mind has been on overload with all that still has to be decided. There are so many decisions that have to be made within the next month. What paint colors will I use? Which tile do I like? And what tile border do I want, or do I even want to get a border? What will we do our kitchen counter tops in? Granite? Tile? Quartz? I keep changing my mind!!

Fireplace: complete!

Sheetrock, mud and tape is everywhere!

Last week the sheetrock all went up and is taped and mudded. This week our walls and ceilings will all be textured and ready for paint. Then our cabinet and trim guy will get started. The guy that will be tiling our shower is going to start tomorrow, even though I haven't even decided on the tile. I think maybe I should decide that tomorrow before he starts laying something he picks out.

On second thought, maybe I can just let him put in whatever he wants and if I don't like it I can at least say, 'yeah, it's ugly, but I'm not the one that picked it out'. Hmmm...

With all of the decorating decisions I've had going on in my mind, I decided that the First Monday Canton Days was where I needed to be this weekend. So on Friday, Robbie and I dropped the kids off with my parents and headed toward Dallas with lists, measurements, and a u-haul in tow. My intention was to knock out a large part of the house shopping that would need to be done between now and the end of November.

And boy did we make a dent in that list....

My style is very rustic. I like furniture that has been around forever, and is heavy, and been used for different things. I like things made out of old barn wood and tin. I like imperfections in my furniture. And I like for old things to be refurbished into new things.

Here's a sample of my list:

• Rob and I bedroom furniture
• Aaron bedroom furniture
• table for laundry room
• cabinet for mud room
• bench for mud room
• things to hang on walls

Yes, that's just some of the things. I was a woman on a mission Saturday, and it completely paid off. Here are some of my finds:

This is Aaron's headboard and footboard. He is going to have a hunting room. It's made of Aspen wood and we got the tables and dresser to go with it.

LOVE this piece! This cabinet will go in my mud room. It's made of old barn wood and tin.

This is our new headboard and footboard. They are made out of very old, refurbished doors.

My friend, Leah, told me to go in the Paul Michael store just outside of the trade days park, and the place did not disappoint. I fell in love with this chest and it just had to be mine.

I also got this table at Paul Michael. It will go in my scrapbook room. The colors on it are beautiful.

This is a door that I bought thinking it would go in one place, but now I'm thinking about it in a different place. Not sure yet where it will end up, but it will be beautifully hung somewhere.

This is one of the side tables that goes with our bed. Austin took most of these pictures today as we were unloading the u-haul, so this ammature photography was truly done by an ammature!

 One of the things I like so much about buying at Canton is that you actually get to talk to the people that made the piece. They can tell you exactly how it was constructed, what it's made of, where the materials came from, how long it took to build, etc. Nothing against furniture stores, but you just don't get that in a store. These people take pride in what they build and sell, which makes me appreciate it even more. This was only my second time to go to Canton, but it was my first time to go without kids and with very specific purchase goals. Robbie and I literally walked from 7 am to 7 pm Saturday, but it was a beautiful day and when I found something that I loved, it was like finding a hidden treasure. I didn't find it hard at all to make decisions on whether I wanted that piece or not. I either loved it, hated it, or loved it but couldn't use it. We covered a lot of ground and walked a lot of miles, but it was so worth it and so much fun.

Why is it that I can spend one day in a place and make huge furniture decisions within minutes, but I can't seem to settle on things like tile and cabinet tops that I've spent weeks thinking about?