Day 7 & 8

And the gifts keep coming... :)

New tunes for my Ipod! Just in time for outdoor walking season!

Flavored tea...mmmm....

Days 3, 4, 5, 6...

Day 3 - Three pairs of earrings!

Day 4 - Two wonderful-smelling candles

Day 5 - A weekly devotional bible study book

Day 6 - Pancakes for breakfast!!!!

Still celebrating Valentines Day...

My husband is a very thoughtful husband, particularly when celebrating a special occasion and/or buying gifts. This year's Valentine's Day was no exception! My gift from him was 14 days of little gifts! It's so fun to get a little gift each day! I'll be blogging my little daily surprises...

Day 1 - Tulips! (in a pot so I can plant them!)

Day 2 - Sparkling Clementine carbonated fruit drink

The Clementine drink needs some explaining. On December 10, I made a wager with a co-worker to give up all soda until April 1. Between me and my co-worker, the one who drinks soda first in this time frame has to buy the other lunch at Qdoba once a month for a year. That's 12 lunches! So far, never of us has had a drop of soda. And I REALLY want a soda! Especially a big Polar Pop....mmmmmm..... 5 more weeks! Sean bought me this drink try to satisfy that craving for me in the meantime.

We are already on Day 5 of the 14 days, but I want to take pictures of my gifts to make my blog more interesting. Stay tuned for the rest... :)

Happy Valentine's Day

This video is perfect for Valentine's Day....super cute! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno


And finally...a picture of the family room floor after the furniture has been moved back into the room. We love it!!

Shoeboxes for St. Jude

I'm part of a group at work that is sponsoring a drive to collect "Shoeboxes for St. Jude". This is near and dear to my heart because one of my littlest friends was diagnosed with neuroblastoma just a couple weeks ago, and she is now a St. Jude patient. You can read all about my friend at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/princesstess. Tess will turn 4 years old next week, so you can imagine the difficult and confusing journey her and her parents are going through right now. Take some time to read their website - it is so inspiring.

The Shoeboxes for St. Jude drive is an effort to collect shoeboxes full of games, toys, and treats to entertain young cancer patients as they go through chemotherapy. There are four categories of boxes - little girl, little boy, tween/teen girl, tween/teen boy. Tess is very fortunate to have strong support around her, however some of her new St. Jude friends don't have that kind of support. I'm planning to make a couple shoeboxes for this drive, and if you would like make one too, let me know and I can take it to the 'drive' for you. I'm looking forward to decorating and filling these boxes with all sorts of goodies that will bring a smile to a young cancer patients face! The shoeboxes will be collected the second week of March, so I'll be sure to post pictures of my final products! Once all the boxes are collected, the group will take them to St. Jude in Peoria where they will be distrubted to the patients.

If you are truly interested in making a shoebox, let me know and I can send you a document that has suggestions on what types of things to put into the box for each category. The key is to remember that these items should be something that keep them relatively still since they are hooked up to an IV while going through chemo. Examples of goodies include coloring books, crayons, stickers, tatoos, matchbox cars, etc.

New Floor - Day 3

Well, it's day 3 on the new hardwood floor, and we got a lot done today. We were very fortunate to have our friend, Sean R, come over and help with the floor. He's done a few hardwood floors before, so it was awesome to have someone that knew what they were doing! Both guys are completely exhausted, and I imagine they will be very sore tomorrow. Especially Sean S's leg - he did a swing and a miss with the mallet and got his leg pretty good. I did help out, but I didn't do as much physical work as the guys, so I'm not as exhausted. I just placed the planks and got them whatever they needed.

Here are some pictures! We still have about 3-4 hours left to finish it up, but it looks awesome!!

Sean nailing in a board

Me placing boards, and Sean R nailing in a board (proof that I did help!)

A close picture of what the floor looks like and also, see that really 'blonde' piece in there? That keeps cracking us up. We didn't realize how blonde it was until we got all the other wood surrounding it. I'm sure it will get darker with time - there is a word for that, starts with a P...but I can never remember what it is...

While Sean was prepping the floor last night, I decided to tackle the two upstairs bedrooms that have been 'crap rooms' for the past year or so. If you've ever been one of the few people to have seen these rooms, you know what I'm talking about! We usually keep the doors closed to hide our messiness! Here are some before and after pictures. It's been quite a productive weekend!

My sewing room BEFORE (overwhelming, isn't it?!?)

My sewing room AFTER! Goodwill should expect a big donation this week!

View from the other angle.

New Floor - Day Two

Day two of the family room floor remodel...Sean ripped up all the carpet and I helped him carry it out to the curb for garbage day tomorrow. He then started to remove the tack strips, and I opened all the boxes of wood so that they can "breathe' and get acclimated to our house before installation.

Carpet is gone and wood spread out to acclimate!

No need to worry about the dogs, they found their pillows and got comfy while we worked. :)