BRITT, YOU BABE!

Last week Misty and I went and took Brittney's senior pictures. Even though she graduated last year (early) her mom really wanted some senior pictures done of her. I was able to color and cut Brittney's hair and do her makeup before we took her pictures. I loved every second of it and am so looking forward to doing this more and more. It is so much fun for me to help out with the hair and makeup as well as take the pictures. It really does make me so happy!












I am going to a a photography workshop over near Napa and I can't wait. I am so excited to learn from so many amazing photographers and I am ready to soak everything up. We are having a full day of shooting in the wine valley and then we will have a full day of editing and learning Michelle Kane's work flow and how to take our shots and make them into art using Photoshop and lightroom. You have to check out Michelle's work she is so talented and I am so freaking excited I can't even stand it!

NO MORE DIAPERS

I am happy to say that Nikell is potty trained! She did so good and I am surprised at how well she did. The first day I will admit I was thinking to myself, what have I done. I actually decided the day of that I was going to potty train her, so I really didn't prepare myself well. But after a few accidents in her princess panties she started to understand it all. She loves flushing the toilet and asks me every time if she can flush now. The first day of potty training Brooklyn was showing her all the cute underwear she could wear if she learned to go potty on the big toilet. Every time Brooklyn would show her a new pair she would say, "no thanks, I want pincess (princess) ones". Finally Brooklyn found and brought her some that had Cinderella on it. Nikell got so excited and said in the cutest voice ever "beautiful, pincess, cimberella (cinderella), mommy I want to wear these ones! I love how she calls Cinderella, Cimberella. She's pretty dang cute! When she was all potty trained we went to the store and bought Nikell her very own pack of princess underwear.
Yeah, for no diapers! For now anyway.

Memorial Day

The day before Memorial Day we went to hang out with Troy and Amy. My cute friend Amy is pregnant with twins and is on bed rest which I am sure is not the funnest thing. She is so positive though and has such a great attitude. Her due date is in August so hopefully it goes by quickly for her!


We didn't bring the girls swimming suits but they thought the water looked so inviting so Brooklyn just started stripping off her clothes. She wasn't very happy about the reaction she got from her dad, and didn't understand what was so wrong with jumping in the pool without her clothes. I'm with her, theres nothin like swimming in the nude ! ;)
On Memorial Day we had some friends of ours over for a pretty relaxed bbq/swim day. We hung out all afternoon and had a really great time!

We are loving the pool, especially now that it is getting so hot. I am looking forward to getting some color on this pasty white bod of mine. Even if that color happens to be red which seems to be the only color my skin will turn.

SUMMER FUN

For most kids school just ended or is about too. Well the preschool that I have Brooklyn signed up for does a Summer Fun program full of fun activities and learning things for a few months during the summer. Brooklyn's birthday is in September and when preschool rolled around last year I wasn't ready to let her go. I really feel like I will only have my girls home with me all day long for just a few years before they start school. Then after that school will consume their lives for so many years. I knew it wasn't vital that Brooklyn start school so early and I am glad I kept her home with me longer. However, our little Bing keeps asking us when she will be old enough to go to school. So we decided this summer program would be great for her to get started. It is only once a week so I think I will be ok. In the fall I am still only going to sign her up for two day's a week and teach her and Nikell at home once or twice a week.
I really like the preschool she will be going to they set up three or four opportunities for the kids to come to the school before the program actually starts so they can get used to the teachers and feel comfortable with everything. So on tuesday I dropped her off for 30 mn and she had a great time. She had so much fun that when I went to go pick her up she ran away from me because she didn't want to leave. She got to pick out something special from home to take to school to show her teachers and the other kids. She, of course, chose Jerry the giraffe. She was very excited to take him along with her to school.


We started potty training Nikell today, yikes I know! Today was just ok I hope tomorrow goes a little better and I will update some more on that later.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Now that I have some time I thought I would post the pictures of the before and after pictures of our house. When we got our house it was a tiny bit scary because it really did need a lot of work. The people that owned it before had done all the painting themselves and it looked really bad. We had someone paint the entire inside of our home and we are really happy with how it turned out.

This is our downstairs bathroom and you can see in this picture that there was a gold, ugly mirror on the wall. I took it to a framer and he took the old one off and made me a new one.

Before...
after...


Dining room before...
after...
Nikell's room before...
after...

Brooklyn and Nikell's bathroom before...
after...

Upstairs before...
after...

This is our room outside the house. It's called a casita. Before...
after...

Our awesome babysitter just moved in to this room and is going to be living here! Can I get a woo woo.

Laundry room before...
After...

The wall looks purple in this picture but it is grey.

Formal living room before,
after...

It's hard to see but we painted the little nook's in the wall an accent color.
Front entry before...

after...
Kitchen Before...
After...

(don't mind the mess, had just moved in)


I don't know why but some houses out here have some rooms that aren't wired for a ceiling light. We had to get an electrician to wire it so that we could have ceiling lights in 4 of our rooms. Our friend Carl put all of our new lights and ceiling fans up for us.

Guest room...
Master bedroom...
Family room...
Brooklyn's room...


This post might be an ongoing post because it's amazing how much different these rooms look with furniture, decorations and window treatments. Not to mention all the other little projects we have in mind. I love doing this type of thing and don't think we will ever be done changing and revamping things in and outside our home.