6th anniversary/ belated honeymoon Get-away

Andrew and i have had in our minds for the past 6 yrs. that we would take a tropical vacation sometime. We hoped sooner than later. Once we found out we were expecting baby #4 we knew we had to jump on the opportunity while we could. Thankfully we have wonderful grandparents who were actually excited to take on the job of caring for two 2yr olds and a nearly 5yr.old for 6 days! We hopped on a plane to Mexico and were super excited to get away and just relax for awhile. 

our lovely resort in Playa del Carmen

We were able to go on a really fun Mayan jungle adventure which included visiting some cool mayan ruins, repelling, zip-line, hiking, canoeing, biking, and swimming in a cenote- underground sink hole.

on top of  a huge ruin in Coba'

Thanks, hon, for 6 great years and for patiently dealing with all my mishaps and health issues during our trip- you're great! ;)

rocking chair

I found this rocking chair last summer at goodwill for $5 and just finally gave it a new look for my nephew's birthday. It had several coats of paint and since i really, really didn't want to strip it and i also really didn't want to do a lot of sanding it just sat in our garage until last week.

Here's the before:

A few days before my nephew's bday party i decided to call my dad and get his advice. Sure enough he told me i should strip it which i then told him was out of the question. Luckily for me, he figured out that i was really only interested in getting the job done as quickly and with as little work/time as possible and that all i wanted to hear was, "sand it a tiny bit, spray paint it and you should be good to go". As a bonus he also said he'd drop by an electric sander to make the job go even more quickly.

 So, i figured out how to use the sander ALL BY MYSELF, even trimmed and changed the paper w/o help, and sanded it for just a tiny bit. Maybe went through 4 pieces of paper and called it good. Then...

i sprayed it with a primer, let it completely dry and sprayed it with several coats of this semi-gloss paint. (i used a can and 1/2 to get a good cover)

 Here's the "after": 

 

I noticed a few spots on the bottom rungs that should have been sanded a bit more, they look kind of rough and like they might decide to bubble up. At least i have a 1/2 bottle of spray paint left over and can just keep covering it up as many times as needed. ;)

Catchin' up

Easter was a bit of a disappointment this year. A. was flying which we anticipated but on top of that the kids got a really bad respiratory cold. Sophie's even turned into pneumonia. Anyway, we tried to make the best of it even though we hung out in jammies all day!

 Will being a goof at breakfast...

a few days later G & G schmidt came over and brought easter treats. lovely pose, Will.

Later that week we celebrated cousin Elias' 3rd Birthday. the girls were still too sick so just Will and i went to the party

tickling the birthday boy

someone was super excited about cake and candles!

One of Andrew's good friends got married over the weekend so we all enjoyed getting out together for the first time in awhile...only to have andrew come down with the flu that night!

Will's new summer look

Girlies eating bananas to pass the time

egg-dying

A. has had to be gone quite a bit recently but we were super excited that he was able to come home for a quick evening of egg-dying before he left on a trip the next morning.

cutie pies

mmmmm

bedroom re-do

First of all, this post is dedicated to Ash J. and my sis who have persistently kept me accountable ever since i mentioned last spring that i was hoping to re-do our master bedroom. I happened to have picked 2 people to randomly mention my idea  that didn't forget...even when my project took months and months to begin and finish and then when it was done it took a few more months to actually take a couple of decent pictures.
the reality is our room doesn't usually look like the pictures on the bottom. If you could insert an ironing board in the corner, a few sippy cups on the floor, baby socks by the door, baby doll accessories scattered about, legos on our bed, and then dump over my jewelry box (favorite activity of one of the 3 kiddos- i still haven't discovered who...) you would get a more accurate idea of  what our room typically looks like. But, i thought i needed at least one nice picture to get a sense of completion....


So....here's the "before". I hope you all appreciate my honesty in posting these very real pictures. We were in the process of destroying our room so we could paint when i remembered i wanted some before pics.

lovely

And the "after".....

this corner still feels a little undone. we used to have another chair up here but i stole it for the living room. now it makes a good home for the unused humidifier and an old red gap bag behind the chair.

this is a shelf that my dad and i made together when i was about 14. We made it especially for my cabbage patch dolls. Yes, all 8 of them needed a place of honor in my room. i was such a cool teenager.

 Now, it holds pictures. And f.y.i- i didn't want to go buy black frames so i rounded up as many different kinds of frames as i had around the house and then spray painted them all black. worked wonderfully!

i'm hoping to post re-do pictures of the girls room soon. They just turned 2 so we thought it was about time to decorate their room and paint over the horrible pepto bismal paint mistake from 1 1/2 years ago. We'll see how long it takes...maybe check back next spring!