Day at the zoo

A few weeks ago my brother and his girlfriend were in Omaha.  We met them at the zoo and had a great time!  Nola LOVES her Uncle Kyle.  When she sees a picture of him she actually says "Uncle Kyle!!"  It's cute, and I think Kyle really likes it too.

Uncle Kyle even got some kisses.

If Uncle Kyle wasn't holding her then she wanted to be held by Allegra.  Thankfully, Allegra loves kids and was happy to show her around the zoo.

They were pretty cute together.  Did you notice Nola's shoes?  Before we left for the zoo I tried on some cute wedges that her Aunt Cathy got her.  She already had socks on so I slipped them on over her socks to see what they looked like.  She wouldn't take them off.  All day.  She wore socks with peep toe wedges.  Fashion faux pas.

We had a great day!  The zoo was fun and the company was awesome!

Last Day of Summer

My 6th year of teaching has officially started!  We started with a few teacher days last week and will start seeing kids on Monday.  I'm looking forward to this school year but I'm sad to see the summer end.  I've really enjoyed spending time with Nola and getting some stuff done around the house napping.  I wanted to start a tradition with Nola so Robert took a day off work and we spent my last day of summer together as a family.  We went to Lincoln and spent the morning at the Children's Museum.  I've never been and wasn't sure what to expect.  It was awesome!  There were different rooms set up as local grocery stores, banks and stores.  There was also a space area, farm area, water area and much, much more.  Nola had a blast.  So did Robert.  Get ready for lots of pictures....

Hanging out in the 3 and under area.  It had games for toddlers and a tree house that Nola loved.

Sam and Louie's employee.

Riding a horse in the Farm area.

Grocery shopping at Hy-vee

Father/Daughter time on the Lunar Rover.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  Nola's favorite because of the steering-wheels.

In the kitchen.

Her favorite part- the water room.

Nola was sooooo good the whole morning.  She was so excited.  We will defiantly be going back.  I think it will be even more fun for her as she gets older.  We spent the rest of the day running errands and had a nice dinner.  The next day I went to school and Nola went back to daycare.

When Robert dropped her off at daycare he said she immediately started giving hugs to all the kids.  That makes me feel a little better about going back to school!!

Chairs for boys

It's the last week of summer!??!??  That seems impossible.  Instead of completing anything on my summer to do list I'm using my last week to paint a doll house, relax and do a little bit of shopping.  Since there is nothing exciting to report I'm sharing two chairs I painted a couple of years ago.

The first was for my college roommate when she was pregnant with her first son.  Kaley wanted a unisex chair so she could use it for her son and any other children she might have in the future.  I decided on a nursery rhyme theme.  After learning the nursery would be farm theme I decided on Hey Diddle Diddle.

The stars have "Dad" and "Mom" written in them.  After her son was born I added his name thinking that she could add names of other children along the way.

I think the dish and spoon are my favorite part!

Me and Kaley at her baby shower.

Kaley's sister loved the chair so much that she wanted one for her son.  I was happy to paint one for her and decided on a planes and trains theme.  Even though I've painted several chairs since then, Caden's chair remains one of my favorites.

Two cute chairs for one of my favorite families!

My First Flip

After watching a TON of HGTV and the DIY network I decided that I wanted to flip a house.  I really think Robert and I could spend a summer working on a house and make some money.  Well, last week I got a house to flip... for free!!

It's a three story Victorian house with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom that needs a lot of work!  I'm going to have to gut it completely and start fresh.  My timeline is short, I'm hoping to be done with it by Nola's birthday in October.

I should mention.... it's a doll house.

A teacher I use to work with called me last week and said a friend of hers had an old wood doll house.  She thought I might enjoy cleaning it up and painting it for Nola.  I told her I would love to take a look at it and that night it was sitting on my door step!  I love that my friends and co-worker are always calling me about neat things they find that I can paint.  This find is especially exciting because I've never painted anything like this before and it's for Nola :)

First I had to clean out the house and evict the former tenant.

Headless lady!!

The house came with a dresser, sink and sewing table- score!

Next I got out the air compressor and sprayed it down.  I decided to take the front porch off and use pieces of it to patch parts of the house that were broken.  I patched the roof and moved some of the trim to cover up some spots that had been damaged.  Once it was all fixed up I taped off some areas and primed it with spray paint.

Now I have a blank canvas!  I'm so excited to paint this.  I'm going to stick to my normal painting style, bright and busy!  Here's a sneak peek-

Stay tuned for the finished product!!

First Mother/Daughter Shopping Trip!

One of my favorite memories growing up is going shopping with my Mom.  My Mom, sister and I would drive to Kansas City and spend all day shopping.  These girls' only trips were always filled with laughs and an unspoken understanding that Dad was never to find out how much we spent.

Nola and I have gone to the store alone before, but it's always been to buy something specific.  This shopping trip was different.  We spent two hours walking around the mall, looking through racks and finding sales.  We also spent so time on the indoor playground.  As she gets older we will spend less time on the playground and more time in the racks!

She made a friend in the playground.

After a few minutes driving the bus she got a "hop-on" and was not happy about it.

After the fun on the playground Nola rode on the carousel for the first time.  She loved it!

After all of that fun we picked up Dad and went to lunch.  Nola didn't even make it to the restaurant before she fell asleep.  When I got her out of the car seat she woke up for a second and then went back to sleep.  She NEVER sleeps on my anymore so I was happy to hold her while we waited for our food.

Shopping wore her out!