mandy's baby shower!

my best friend, mandy, is having a sweet baby girl...madeline grace!!! i am so excited about it...planning this shower was so much fun for me, especially after having a boy...all the pink, pink, pink...everything i did for the shower, i wanted her to be able to reuse in the nursery...her colors are a very pale pink with accents of light spring green and cream...i can't tell you how many cans of spray paint i used...but the whole event turned out wonderful...and it was so fun working with the other hostesses...mandy is definitely worth it!

the flowers were from tipton hurst and turned out beautiful!

i made little food labels with sweet little birdies on them...the bird cages i found at hobby lobby but they were an awful color...so i painted them and added fun ribbon to the top...mandy placed them on top of madeline's bookcase in her room afterward...

i spray painted these branches and all of the stones in the bottom of the vase...i originally planned on hanging sweet baby socks from the branches with clothespins but i thought they good without them...

these buckets were royal blue...once again, spray paint came in handy! then i stencilled madeline's initials on each one...i added a bow on the side of it...when she gets older, she can wear the bows in her hair or on little knit caps...

i absolutely love how these turned out...i bought eight different styled frames from hobby lobby to fill with mandy and michael's baby pictures...i sprayed mandy's pink and michael's cream...then we placed them on the fireplace!

my good friend and drew's mother, shea...we drove down from fayetteville that morning and back, so we had a great time chit chatting

shea, mary lee and me

mandy arriving at her shower!

mandy with mary lee

my mom surprised mandy and i when she walked in the door...she had told me that she already had plans, which she couldn't break...so i was totally shocked and excited that she made it...it meant so much to me and to mandy!!!

mom and i

mandy and her mom, tracy or tiki as madeline will call her

opening so many fabulous presents!

the hostesses...

we had such a great time, and i know we all can't wait to meet sweet baby madeline grace!

mccoys first day of school...

mother's day out, that is!

mccoy is going on tuesdays and thursdays to the mother's day out program called hand in hand at central united methodist church...we were so excited to get in and so far, mccoy loved it! i think he carried around lala (his sleeping buddy) around every where he went...on tuesday night, burt, mccoy and i went to the open house to meet the teachers and check out the facilities! it was so surreal already going to an open house...i know he is a big toddler, but he's still my sweet little baby boy! on the way home...worn out!
i know i am alittle behind on posting, and i have great pictures of events that happened during the first of the month...so i am working on that...but i just had to show how cute mccoy was today on his first day of school...i'm glad kindergarten is still 4 years away because i don't think i could have handled that!

drew's 1st birthday

drew and her parents came down a few weekends ago to celebrate her 1st birthday with family and friends...we had such a good time at the pool party...the boys loved splashing the water...mccoy enjoyed playing with all of the kiddos...he got to see drew, of course, whitley, hudson and baby ella claire...birthday parties are too fun, especially with all the youngins'!

funfilled weekend

a few weekends ago, we had a great, but busy weekend...we had just finished swim lessons that week, so mccoy enjoyed some playtime on the furniture! he was determined to get that ball back there

later that evening, we headed out to the box's lake house to see the cousins...drew loves giving mccoy bunny ears in pictures...mccoy's still not sure about the life jacket...
i took this picture while holding the camera, so austin wanted to try it in the next one...

hanging out with aunt mandy...the life jacket is starting to grow on him

finally, water time!

the boys

with uncle aaron

the next day, we headed down to little rock for chris mitchell and kari kremer's wedding! my girls, becca and mandy...it was a gorgeous outdoor wedding, but it was a little toasty!

my sweetie and i

with the beautiful bride

at the end of the night!

swim ranch 2010

we enrolled mccoy in swim lessons this year at the famous fedosky's swim ranch...i went there as a little girl, and i really wanted mccoy to get in...unfortunately, it is so hard to get, but once you're in, you're in! on registration day, i spent the better half of the morning on the phone listening to the busy signal...then all of sudden, i heard it ring...yay yay, we got in! we had lessons at 10 every day for a week, and at night, you could come and practice your new skills...mccoy and i brought burt along one night to show off...

mccoy was always checking out the other kids...

we were also lucky that our good friends, amy and max, could join us for lessons, too!

getting a snack after all of that swimming

playing with the swim buoy

sorry i don't have pictures in the water...mccoy loved it though, especially all the splashing that we did!

it's done!!!

our kitchen remodel is finally done!!! well, actually, it's been done for a almost a month, but i'm just now getting around to posting it! our house was built in three different stages...the first part, which is the front room, kitchen and middle bathroom, were built in 1928...rooms have been moved around and walls taken down by previous owners...the back two rooms were added on in 1947...then our living room and master bedroom were added in '97...this is a picture as you walk into the house before the kitchen was done... a long time ago, this room used to be two rooms, but for us, it was this really long unusual space that separated the kitchen from the living room...we never were in this room, it was basically a hallway...the door goes into the kitchen, which we normally left open...
my red little kitchen...i had always wanted a red kitchen, and i loved it, but it was time for a change! this fridge was so old that one time i tried to get a replacement seal for the edges, and lowe's couldn't even find it in existence!

that door leads to our middle bathroom...and the pantry to the right, my sister and i built since we were limited on our cabinet space...

this is our really old stove and formica counter tops...in our goal of the remodel, we wanted to tear out half of this wall and open it up into the other room...but we were worried about losing even more cabinet space (which i will show how we resolved in a later picture)...

and the demo begins...

we found this cool, old brick under the drywall, which i wanted to expose, but it was all crumbling and in really bad shape...

a couple of weeks later...these are the cabinets we had added, and then we planned on adding a bar top to it

the color of the cabinets is kind of like a slate blue...i love my new cabinets!!!

another couple of weeks...new appliances and counter tops! brutus checking it out

almost there!

FINALLY!

the finished product...it took about two months, but we were never without use of the kitchen except for two days!

only one column now!

i love how open it feels now...we didn't add any square footage to the kitchen, but it feels so much bigger!

we moved the old door that used to separate the kitchen and the front room to the back of the kitchen...mccoy's room is back there, so it was nice to block out some of the noise at night...

a view from the kitchen...

our new sitting area, aka mccoy's playroom...