Lending A Helping Hand

So, I have a friend that needed a window in her bedroom treated. She has lived in her house for almost a year and is trying to finish up some final decorating loose ends. This was one of the things to do on her list. So, she asked me to help her make a fabric selection and I had my seamstress I use whip up a cornice board with swags and cascades for her bedroom window. I think it turned out very nice.

Before

After

Where In The World Did The Worlds Go?

Do you remember this piece of furniture from last weeks post? It has been now retired to the garage and will be going to the resale shop this weekend! Anyway, this post is not about the entertainment center! I want you to look at my globe collection on top of it! I didn't mention anything about these guys last week! Were you wondering where they went to????? Did you think maybe they went to the garage too????

Here they are! They are in our office on top of the cabinets in there! I always new that when we rearranged the game room, they would end up living in this room! I think they are just as much fun in here as they were in the game room! What do you think about them?

What's Your Favorite Game

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas we rearranged our game room in preparation for Santa bringing a Wii! So here is the before and after pictures. . .

BEFORE. . .I love Pottery Barn! However, I do not love the price! So, I met a man from Oklahoma that can build Potter Barn knockoff for a fraction of the price. I had him build these cubbies 2.5 years ago when we moved in this house. This wall has housed the cubbies all this time. Check out the picture below to see the AFTER of this wall. . .

AFTER. . .We found this all leather couch at Pier 1 to go on this wall and I found a few more game boards at our local biannual Barn Sale. We lacked seating in this room until now. The next picture below shows the BEFORE picture of the wall directly across from the new couch.

BEFORE. . .So, before this wall housed an entertainment center we bought early on in our marriage. It's been a good old faithful, but we have been ready for a change for quite some time. Check out the after of this wall below. . .

AFTER. . .So, after moving our old faithful entertainment center out, we moved the cubbies to that wall and reconfigured them for a flat screen T.V. to hang on the wall. I bet you were wondering if I had moved the cubbies out for good. . . nope. . . kept those multipurpose little friends! They have a lot of life left to give us over then next several years!

After our transformation of those two walls, I took some croquet sticks I had laying around and mounted them above the window in there.

Last spring we finally got rid of our 1st couch we ever bought and got these two chairs. The ladder over in the right corner is still on the bubble. I haven't decided to hang it, leave it like that, or pull it out of the room. What do you think about the ladder? This is one of my favorite rooms in the house because it is for my kids! I love all the old game boards I have found! What is your favorite game to play?

Tole Trays

As we were cleaning out our attic this weekend, I went through tons of Rubbermaid's that were filled with things I have collected over the years. Most things were from childhood like old Cabbage Patch dolls, New Kids On The Block dolls, posters, VHS, trading cards, Care Bears, Annie dolls, and the list goes on and on! Don't ask me why I still have all this stuff because I won't have an answer for you. All I can say is that it is all organized nice and neat in a labeled Rubbermaid on a metal shelf in the attic! Now that I am all grown up (NOT) I collect things that are much different than the stuff in the Rubbermaid's upstairs. I collect things to decorate my house with. Today I want to share one of my collections with you. It is my collection of tole trays. . .

This collection of black tole trays was a gift on my 29th birthday form my sweet husband. Every single one of them came from eBay. He shopped for a month or more before my birthday to have all of these in time for the big day. One day I was home and it was a blank wall and then by that evening before I could get home, he had come home without me knowing and hung them all up for the big birthday surprise! This is my favorite collection of tole trays and I didn't even have a hand in hunting for them!

This tole tray came from our local biannual Barn Sale! This one is in Baby Girl's room! I think it is beautiful!

These two tole trays belong to Baby Girl too! The larger one came from the local Barn Sale and Daddy bought the small one for Baby Girl on eBay when he bought my birthday collection! He loves both of his girls :)

This collection of 4 small tole trays hang above Baby Girl's doorway! I found them for $8 at Canton! What a steal!

These two have to be my next favorites! They hang by the vanity in my guest bathroom! They were a find from Round Top!

This one is on the dresser in my bedroom and for the life of me I can't remember where it came from, but I do remember it was cheap!

Well, these are my tole trays! I really do enjoy them when I see them around the house! What kinds of things do you collect to decorate with????

My Bog Is Faboulous. . . Well, That's What Girly Stuff Said. . .

Once again Girly Stuff gave me an award! She just loves me! Who doesn't?

DON'T answer that! :0

So, she tells me that there are some stipulations to holding this honor. I must list 5 addictions and then pass the award on to 5 blogs I love. Here we go. . .

1. I am addicted to discount retailers like Ross and Marshall's. My kids are in Mother's Day Out on Tuesdays and Thursday. I have to limit myself to going to those stores on those days only. Usually one on Tuesday and the other on Thursday. I usually go for no particular reason expect to see what was new since I was last in.

I love to hunt for hidden treasures there during my kid free time!

2. I am addicted to estate sales for the same reasons I love discount retailers. I love the hunt for treasures. I go to those usually only on Thursdays.

3. I am addicted to my iphone and facebook. I think this will pass though. . . it's still new to me.

4. I am addicted to organization. . . .if it can be purged, merged, rearranged, I am on it! I go to someones house and open a cabinet or closet and my mind instantly sees what needs to be done to organize it and make it better. . . .I draw the line there though, don't worry. . . .I don't touch any of it. . . . I just think about fixing it for my friends. . . . I just stick to

organizing my own stuff :)

5. I am ashamed to say it, but I am addicted to Sex And The City reruns at night. . . . never saw it when it was on the first time around, now I love it!

Well, time to pass the award on . . . and the winners are. . . .

An American Girl In Tokyo

My Point Of View

Cutie Patootie

Live, Laugh, Love

We Are That Family

Until next time. . . . .

It's Been A While. . .

So, it has been a while since Miss Priss posted! I have good reasons for it!

Right after Christmas we headed out off to Keystone to go skiing for a week. This was E.T. and Baby Girl's first time to go! They loved and we loved it too because they were in ski school for 2 days. For us that meant adult skiing and it was a blast! Soon after our return from skiing we had a few more family members come and visit us for the New Year and do a little post Christmas celebrating with some we couldn't see closer to the holiday!

Next thing you know this week got started and before I was able to ease back into a routine of taking kids to school, working out, and blogging. . . .

I had the privilege of attending a Celine Dion concert in Dallas Monday night! It was a blast!

Our seats were so close I could have spit on her, but I seriously would never do that, that would be rude, but you get the idea of how close we were :)

This was my third time to see her in my lifetime. Who knows if it will be my last. . . I sure hope not! I saw her in 1999 in San Antonio, 2004 in Las Vegas (My first trip away from my then 9 month old twins.), and of course on January 5, 2009! Next break. . .Las Vegas to see Bette Middler live at Cesars Palace. Until then, I will try to be timely with my posting and not make you wait so long to hear from me. . . I hope you had a great holiday break! Are you back in the swing of a routine yet for this new year? I am sure trying to get there!

Holiday Round-Up

Well, seems like a lot happened in the last few weeks before Christmas. We had a couple of more family gatherings in the days leading up to Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Christmas Eve we hosted lunch for my husband's brother and his family that live in the same town we live in. This year we had sick grandparents that couldn't make it for the holidays :(

In the late afternoon on Christmas Eve we went to our church's candlelight service.

Keeping with Christmas Eve tradition, E.T. and Baby Girl put on their coordinating Christmas pajamas as usual. My Mom and her husband came over for dinner that night too and then we opened our non-Santa gifts after dinner.

We also made our annual gingerbread baby cookies for Santa. My kids love the Jan Brett book Gingerbread Baby!

We had to decorate them too. . .

Yummy! Don't these just make you want to eat them, especially since two five year olds decorated them and had been licking the icing off their fingers the entire time they decorated them. . . poor Santa!

How did your Christmas holidays go? What are some traditions you have? Did you maybe start some new ones this year or revive some old ones? Whatever you did, I hope you were able to take this time and reflect on why we really celebrate Christmas. If it were not for Jesus' birth, we would have no reason to celebrate and because of his birth we can really celebrate the gift of Christmas in our lives every single day if we chose too. I hope you chose to celebrate the gift of Christmas and what it means to Christians every day of the year. That is my challenge to me and to you too. . .