My First DIY with Chalk Paint

I have jumped on the chalk paint bandwagon! I come from a very, VERY artsy family...all my parents do these days is make jewelry and amazingly good clay sculptures and paintings, and travel from one art show to the next...and I am the total black sheep of the family when it comes to that. Give me a ball of any sort and I'm good to go, but art, I have no talent or creativity! Ha! So, because of that, Joel didn't have a whole lot of faith in me when I told him I wanted to re-finish a foyer table. I don't blame him! Thankfully, while we were in Nashville last weekend, Anna was working on doing the same thing to a table of hers and she was able to teach me how to do it. Otherwise, it probably would not have turned out so well! She even took me to a store in Nashville and told me everything I needed to buy, including $80 in paintbrushes, which I about fell on the floor about. But, now that I've used them, I think they were worth it! I think?!?!?

 

So this is the before...

 

And this is after!

I love it! Someday I'll do a house tour when we have the den fixed the way we want it, and show the whole room, but it really adds a pop of color to our den. The walls are gray and the rug is gray with a slight hint of bluish gray in it. This was so much fun to do! It was quick and easy, and you really couldn't mess it up if you tried. And if you did mess it up, you just paint over it and start again (I did have to do that a couple of times). It's really that simple!

Just for reference, I used Annie Sloan Louis Blue with a combination of the dark and clear wax. I actually preferred just the clear so there's not a ton of the dark wax showing up on it. The piece already had some really nice cracks to it, so I was able to easily sand it after I painted it to get the distressed look I was going for, along with sanding all of the edges of the piece.

I think there will be more re-dos in the near future. I've already told my parents I'm going to raid their storage unit looking for old pieces that I can have. I really can't wait!

A Little Birthday Party and The Wizard of Oz

We had a little birthday party at the park to celebrate this 3 year old on Saturday morning.

 

 

The weather was just perfect!

 

 We had a balloon man come to the park as a little something extra, and that was a big hit. There were no limits to what they could get, so we came home with several garbage bags full of balloon animals, aliens, dinosaurs, swords, and Olaf the snowman! One of the little girls went home with literally every single Disney princess. It was so cute!

 We loved the new Cam's Corner area of the park!

Harrison couldn't wait to blow out his candle, but unfortunately the wind beat him to it every time! Bless his heart!

Some of his sweet friends!

I think we can now put Harrison's third birthday in the books! A full 10 days of celebrating and we are officially done! You know it's bad when you tell him it's birthday party day and he tells you he already had his birthday. Oh well!

 

We did have his 3 year old check up this past week and he was 35.6 pounds (90-95th percentile) and 36.3 inches tall (90-95th percentile). He's still HUGE...but proportionally huge! :) I'm very glad that he now at least looks his age and I don't have to tell people that he's 2 anymore. I got some crazy looks before. We are still having ear issues--after having the surgery a month ago to drain the fluid from his ears (which cost an arm and a leg by the way), he already has fluid back there again that is causing him discomfort. Frustrated is not even the word for it! But other than ears, we have a healthy boy, so we are thankful for that! Up next is potty training! This sweet boy has absolutely NO desire to do it so I'm going to have to get a little more serious about it!

 

Since much of our focus has been on Harrison the past couple of weeks, I decided to take Hudson on a Mommy/Hudson date to see The Wizard of Oz at the Children's Theater yesterday. Our friends, the Stephens, joined us, and we had so much fun! Hudson and Reese loved the play, but I think they may have had more fun telling Carroll and I that they were getting married--ha! Not yet buddy!!

 The lion was Hudson's favorite! He was so funny!

 We loved the tin man too.

We had a fun afternoon! We love supporting the Children's Theater!

Weekend in Nashville

We spent this past weekend in Nashville with Jordan and Anna. We had such a blast! They just bought a new house in Franklin and we were dying to see it, and see them too, especially since they've been there a year and we had not even been up to visit.

 

I think if Hudson ever needs glasses, he's going to look cute in them! Ha! He "borrowed" these from Anna!

 

 My little stud!

 One of the main reasons we headed to Nashville this weekend (other than visiting J and A) was to see Frozen on Ice! Harrison is OBSESSED with Frozen. He would watch it every day if we let him...and this has been going on for months. So back in the summer when I heard it was going to be in Nashville the day after his birthday, I just knew it was meant to be! The show wasn't originally slated to come through Birmingham....of course a few weeks after we bought the tickets, we found out they had added Birmingham in May 2015 (and tickets go on sale November 1st for all those wanting to go!). It really was such a good show, even if Elsa did bust it on her big "Let it Go" song. :)

 We survived the show by only purchasing a $12 bag of cotton candy, which came with the Olaf hat. I'd say we did pretty good!

Saturday morning, we headed to the pumpkin patch in Franklin. It was a chilly morning and finally felt like fall! Perfect day for the pumpkin patch.

 We saw some chickens too, some of which were "wrestling" so to speak. Hudson asked Jordan what they were doing, and he said they were mating, and of course, Hudson says, "What does mating mean?" at the top of his lungs. Jordan just said that it means they were making eggs! We got a lot of looks for sure!

 Our adorable hosts for the weekend!

 We made it through the corn maze!

 Yep...add it to my snake count. I can run into a snake anywhere.

I love this picture of Joel and Jordan and the boys. The boys just ADORE Jordan and Anna, and they are so good with them. They are going to make the best parents someday!

 Tractor riding...

 And finally we picked our pumpkins...we never get to go to the pumpkin patch early in the season where the pumpkins are actually still on the stalk, so this was a new experience! We are usually picking the ones they probably purchased from the grocery store and had thrown in the field! Ha!

 Love this boy...

 Harrison had pretty much lost it by the time we got in the patch and refused to be put down, so he's not in any of the patch pictures. Boo! Jordan and Anna gave us a new word for this--hangry--he was hungry and angry (and sleepy too!). He was there though, and he did pick a big pumpkin!

After the pumpkin patch, we ate lunch at Puckett's, which was awesome. Harrison had a hush puppy come on his plate, and at first he said he didn't want it so I moved it to another plate. A little while later, he started asking where his dog was. We could not figure out what he was talking about until he pointed to his hush puppy! So funny!

Then we headed back home to watch football the rest of the day. What a great day of football it was!

The kids got creative....Harrison is walking the dog.

We came home early Sunday in time for Hudson's football game. It was a great weekend and we can't wait to go visit again! There's so much I want to do in Franklin...what a cute little town it is! Thank you to Jordan and Anna for being such wonderful hosts and being so gracious, especially when you got 7 am wake up calls each morning by two little munchkins ready to play with their aunt and uncle!

Happy 3rd Birthday Harrison!

Harrison turned 3 today! He began the day at 5:30 am...he was just too excited! He said, "I'm free, I'm free!" Ha! School mornings aren't quite like they used to be. There's no dilly dallying around anymore and taking our time getting out the door, and of course today would be the one day I had an 8 am meeting at work, so there wasn't a whole lot of celebrating done first thing. Boo. Joel reminded me that I always took Hudson to Krispy Kreme for his birthday. Made me feel great! We did manage to sing Happy Birthday though and let him blow out his first set of candles of the day, so I call it a good start to the day! And he did get one present to start his birthday so he was happy!  

 

I also managed to get an obligatory birthday picture before we left for the day!

 I took cupcakes to his school at lunchtime and his teachers and friends sang Happy Birthday. He was eating it up!

And then I took him home for the afternoon! We played outside for a good while--his favorite thing to do!

 Since he woke up at the crack of dawn, he took a 3.5 hour nap, so our good one on one time for the day was pretty much gone. He needed it though! Big Mama came over and brought gifts once he woke up, and he was pretty excited about that! Then we gave him his big gift from us...

So, so fun. He loved it.

 Then we went to Johnny Rockets for dinner, Harrison's pick.

I didn't know that they sang at Johnny Rockets, but they called attention to the entire restaurant and had everyone sing along, and then they brought out this huge ice cream sundae to the birthday boy. Harrison didn't quite know what to think about it all! He pretty much buried himself in the seat cushion. My shy one for sure...

After that we came back and Harrison opened gifts from Migi, Pops, and Stuart! It was birthday overload today. I think he had a good day. I asked him what his favorite part of the day was and he said "my whole birthday!" And more birthday fun coming this weekend AND next weekend! This is one special (and spoiled!) 3 year old!