uh-oh......

it all started out so innocently....

i wanted to lighten things up in my kitchen.  

it's a little dark even though we get a nice southern light in this space all year long.  

lots and lots of natural light made us not afraid to paint our kitchen cupboards black about 5 years ago. 

it kinda scared my dad though, because when he first saw them he asked me if we were 

"going goth"..... 

the cupboards started out your typical builders grade oak....

boring.....

so during my pottery barn phase of house decor, we painted them black.  we also painted our kitchen table and chairs. they used to be a dark oak which wasn't bad, but i thought they looked much better in black.  which they did...except that dust shows up on every black surface 3.7 seconds after you dust them....so i used tablecloths a lot.

but now i am in my light and bright phase of decorating and i wanted to change things up a bit.  

so i painted that table and chair set....

it's not finished yet because i haven't sanded or waxed them yet but i am 

already loving how they lighten the space up.  

and we were both amazed at how the detail in the chair backs showed up with the new lighter paint.

here is a chair in paint progress....note the cool dragon thingys in the corners of the chair backs....

even thought i have had this table and chair set for almost 30 years

(10yrs really, cuz i'm not that old)

i never noticed the detail in the backs of the chairs.  when i bought the set, i bought one of each of the styles of chairs that they had so each has a different design.

 because i'm weird like that....

i will be distressing the table and chairs lightly.  and yes that is paint on the floor under the table leg but we already have this

 new flooring for our kitchen waiting to be installed.

so we also decided that we are going to lighten up the cupboards too.  my plan was to paint the upper cabinets white (or off white) and the bottom cupboards a medium gray.  

i think that if i paint both the uppers and the lowers white, the countertop will make it look 

like just too much white. and i am sure that we don't have plans to change the countertops out

in the very near future.  not that i don't want new ones because i do and i have even 

plotted setting a hot pan on them and burning them to get new ones...

but i am don is much more practical than that.....

so......

since we decided to paint the top cabinets white, don decided to get started on them....

while i wasn't home to supervise....

and i came home to this...

painted with this.....

(insert long, loud scream here)

i had been extolling the benefits of this paint (which i used on the table and chairs) to don 

and excitedly told him how you can paint over any type of finish

without having to prime, sand or prep your surface first.  

in his mr. oblivious  mind, 

this was the perfect medium for the cupboards....

i had to do a lot of double talking to get him to understand that this was not the best medium to use unless he wanted to pay way more coughcoughthirtyfivedollarsaquartcoughcough than he intended to for this little project without actually telling him how much more!!!

so, it's back to regular paint and primer for this job....

phew!!! that was close.

garage sale results......

since i only held the garage sale for one day, (baseball got in the way) i didn't make a ton of money.

most of my big stuff got sold though and i was glad to get it off of my hands.

these guys, however, made a killing on the lemonade stand.

i set up everything under the tree in our front yard after rethinking the placement i had originally set up.

if you look at the top picture, i had the tables set up in front of the shed on the left so i could screw the chalkboard into the shed wall. (shhhhh!! don't tell don i did that, he'd have my head on a platter}.

i don't know what i was thinking, you have to set up a lemonade stand at the beginning, right?....

we got the other chalkboard out of the house and used it to advertise the flavors of our cupcakes. salted caramel and rainbow cupcakes.

who wouldn't want to buy the rainbow cupcakes that the kids helped me bake the day before.  you 

know, the day..... 

they sold out first!!!

there was also banana bread and brownies.  halfway through the garage sale, austen's friend nick made some break and bake chocolate chip cookies because we were running out of goodies.

everything sold.  at first the bigger kids (austen and nick) were afraid to ask potential customers if they wanted any cupcakes or lemonade when they approached the lemonade stand.  

so they recruited this one

the three year old....

to do all of the talking for them.  she turned out to be their ace in the hole....

she asked every single person who showed up that day if they wanted a cupcake or some lemonade.  if they said no, she would ask them if they wanted a brownie or a cookie while following them around the driveway.  

she was so darn persistent cute and sweet that even the ones that said no at the beginning 

bought something from the kids before they left. 

the kids took turns manning the station and were very good about being responsible.  their responsibility paid off well...they made $35.00!!

they learned a lesson about business, persistence and how customer service pays off.  one lady gave them $10.00 for a 25 cent cup of lemonade.  she told them that they were doing a great job.  another young man gave them $5.00 and he told me it was because he remembered that someone did that for him when he was little and he never forgot how happy it made him.....

it touched my heart and the kids were thrilled!

all in all, we had great weather and a very successful day.  

all of the chaos from the day before i preparation for the sale was well worth the happiness we all felt at the end of the day.

the real life.....

this is what my life consisted of today.....

there were, at one time or another, 9 kids in my house

using my couch cushions and decorative pillows as a fort and/or armor... 

for an epic nerf gun war.

things got out of control pretty quickly

what is this, you ask?

besides a really dirty front door rug?  how about the front door handle

which ended up on the floor

how does a handle just fall off of the door?

since we are having a subdivision garage sale tomorrow and i will be participating, i made some 

goodies for the kids to sell....4 dozen cupcakes, a pan of brownies and banana bread which resulted in my kitchen looking like

this:

and this:

aah, a little visual reprieve....

nope. back to real life.....

the dog played it safe and hid out in his cage during all of the madness...

and what could be more craptastic than all of that?

the email i got from my girlfriend that said 

"good morning! 

your baby is now a high schooler"! 

yes, austen graduated 8th grade and hence is done with middle school.  he had his recognition ceremony 

tuesday night....

and today?

he turned 14.  fourteen!

and my stomach is sick.  he was just in kindergarten....how does this happen?

he is too young to be 14!

happy birthday buddy, you are a rock star.

sweet baby jamison......

just turned one-year-old when his mama contacted me to do family photos.....they had seen my work and really wanted to have pictures done on "the sofa".

she called me the day of the shoot and told me that baby jamison had awoke that morning 

 with possible pinkeye but it seemed to be improving.  

i told her to keep me apprised of his condition during the day and if it was not better, we could reschedule the shoot.  it resolved enough that we decided to go ahead for that evening.

what a pumpkin. 

the lilacs were in full bloom so i decided to take full advantage of their beauty....

mama told me that he is a very happy and smiley baby....but he was pretty stingy with his smiles.

no matter what we did to try and make him smile or laugh...

including making mama and daddy jump on the trampoline!!

 he wasn't having any of it.....

they have the same profile, no?

mama found out later that night that he had an ear infection  :(  poor baby.

he did remarkably well considering how bad he must have been feeling...

mama and daddy were all smiles though...even thought she was sure i would not get any good shots of the two of them together.... 

 eventually though, i did coax a few smiles from the little peanut.  

thank you kevin, linda and sweet baby jamison...

you guys rock!!!

the ugly bench......

started out as a roadkill roadside rescue last fall.  i got a little anxious to get started then and didn't get a picture until i started hacking away at it with a saws-all.

note the lovely 1970's fabric at the front of the seat.  and the thick, chunky, dark brown style.  

i hacked and hacked......

and then i primed.....

and primed again.....

and then it sat.......all winter long because it was too big to bring into the house and it was too cold in the garage to finish it.

but then lisa saw it......

and wanted it for her patio....

so i painted it.

and gave it someplace to place cushions on...

and painted it some more.  

but man, that thing was bright.....

so i toned it down with a little black stain that i got at home depot on their "oops paint" table for 

$.50.  fitty cent, as they say.

and it toned it down just enough for the beautiful cushions and pillows lisa sewed for it....

not bad for a piece of crap, right?

stay tuned for a photo shoot reveal in the next post.

i am volunteering for austen's 8th grade breakfast at school this morning....it should be a fun time....

but...

i head out to cedar pointe amusement park tomorrow for austen's last day of school class trip.  

now that's my kind of chaperone duty~!!!