Lexxa's a College Graduate

The girl did it!

My baby is now a college graduate.

She earned a BS degree from Chico.

It was tiring, and stressful and wonderful!

Here are a few pictures of Lexxa's special day. 

Of note, Lexx wore the same shoes to her

high school graduation ceremony.

 

I'm such a proud mama.

I have a smart and beautiful daughter.

We had to park about three blocks 

from the venue, and the wind was blowing 

like crazy, but the kids were in great spirits.

 

Lexx and her boyfriend have been together

since their freshman year.

They have now experienced two graduations together,

high school and college. 

 

There was rain forecast for Lexxa's graduation day.

The weather held out, and there was no rain,

but it was overcast, cold and windy

(think 50ish degrees).

However, the weather didn't seem to dampen 

any of the graduates spirits.

There were probably 1000 plus people 

graduating on this particular day.  

Lexx was on the big screen for a brief moment.

She received her degree and was home free.

Lexx was extremely lucky and got to

sit next to her best friend from college, Emily.

Aren't they the cutest little things ever!

And here is a picture of everyone Lexx invited

(minus me - I'm taking the picture).

She was only given 8 ticket for everyone in the family.

I know there are a total of 9 people.

Lexx somehow managed to scrounge

 up an extra ticket somehow.

It was an enjoyable day,

and Todd and I couldn't be more proud.

Now it's off to new adventures.

I can't wait to see what the future 

holds for the girlie!

If you want to reminisce, here is Lexxa's 

high school graduation blog post.

Cuteness Explosion!

Via

Could they be any cuter?

Mother's Day Celebration

I had such a wonderful Mother's Day.

My hubby made sure to spoil me

and take care of me since the kids

are away at school and couldn't help me celebrate.

Todd asked me where I wanted to go

to celebrate, and I was in an Islands kind of mood.

Of course I had to have a strawberry

daiquiri and diet Coke.

I was REALLY thirsty!

On Sunday morning, Todd went to his mom's

house to help her do yard work.

After helping her out for about 5 hours,

we headed off to Sizzler for dinner.

I took this great picture of Anne and the boys

with my cell phone after dinner.

Amber was wanting her picture taken

so I obliged and took this cute

one the two of them.

Because it was Mother's Day,

I figured I better get a picture.

Ya, I'm a dork.

I was trying to take a selfie,

but it was at a weird angle so I was

kind of leaping in the picture.

I may look horrible, but Todd sure looks hot.

That's my hot Toddy!

After we finished dinner,

Todd's Uncle Lynn brought over

flowers to the house.

Aren't they beautiful!

I just love that color purple.

Todd also got me this awesome gift set.

I'm a sucker for cute packaging,

and I loved the pretty white box

with all the gold details.

Inside was a bottle of Miss Dior,

and a little pink atomizer that feels like leather,

and would fit in most purses.

And last, but not least,

I got this wonderful card and gift

certificate from my two wonderful,

but broke, children who shouldn't have.

They are so thoughtful,

it makes me tear up!

It was such a nice celebration,

and the only thing that could have made

it better was to have the kids with me.

I feel so fortunate to have such

wonderful and thoughtful people in my life,

and I know I'm truly blessed.

Lexxa's Spring Break Project

Around Spring Break I mentioned that Lexx

and I were busy working on a project for her,

but I couldn't let you know what it was

until it was actually done.

It's done, and I can now reveal what

it was that we were doing.

My beautiful and smart daughter is graduating

from college, so we were taking some

photographs near the river so that we

could use them on her invitations.

It was probably one of the warmest days

in the month when we actually took the

photos, and Lexx and I were dying hiking

up and down hills and walking all over the place.

She was a trooper, and the pictures turned

out well, especially considering I took them

and didn't have any professional equipment

and I didn't use any software to touch up

the pictures.  What you see is 100% Lexx.

We probably took over 100 pictures,

but here are just a few of our favorites.

 

The hard part was narrowing down the

exact pictures we wanted to use.

In the end, the style of invitation we used helped us decide.

I ended up using the pictures that

fit best with the card format.

Tinyprints is my go to site that I use for most of

my card/invitation needs,

and true to form they did not disappoint. 

Front of invitation

I chose a trifold style so that

I could use four of the pictures. 
The invitations had a gold color decoration

and I had the pearlescent finish added.

If you are wondering what the big white

blob on the invites are, I smudged out personal

information, you know.....

for privacy reasons.

Back of invitation

Close up

I chose a gold envelope to go with the

cards, with a wrap around address label

that matched the invitations.

I didn't show you a picture of the labels

because again, privacy.

In this picture the envelopes photograph

a brown color, but in person they are gold.

I was very pleased with the way the

invitations turned out, but more importantly

I'm very happy and proud of my

wonderful daughter!

Cuteness Explosion

Via

What I feel like when I try to get back into an exercise routine.

Little Black Door

Remember how I said I only have

 two projects to do in the bathroom?

Staining the door is one of them.

I saw some examples of some stained doors on the Internet

and I kind of fell in love with the look:

See here and here.

 

 I purchased the gel stain about a month ago

and waited for the weather to improve so I

 didn't have to battle humidity in the air.

There's only one problem with waiting

until you have a nice beautiful and sunny day

after a wet and cold winter -

you want to do other stuff like sit on your

porch and drink iced coffee and relax!

 

 

So I did, and it was awesome!

 

 

After I got enough sunshine on my face,

I got to work.

 

 

I purchased General Finishes Java Gel Stain for $19.99.

I started with 1 quart because I wasn't positive

how far the stain would go, and I didn't

want to be stuck with a ton of extra if

 I ended up hating it.

 

I started off without reading the directions,

you know, cause that's how I roll.

Common sense rules, right?

I first wiped the door down so it was nice and clean.

I then used a normal paint brush and covered

the white door with one coat.

 

The results scared me.

It seriously looked super streaky and purple.

Whaaa!

That's when I decided to read the directions.

Oops, apparently common sense does not rule.

First, I was supposed to lightly sand the surface,

second, I was supposed to use a sponge brush.

 

That explained the streaks.

Another little tidbit of information

that I wasn't aware of was that you

had to wait 6-8 hours between coats.

 

Anyone who knows me knows

 this is my worst nightmare.

I have project/cooking ADD.

If something takes more than

5 minutes to complete...

I don't want to do it.

Can I tell you the first coat took 45 minutes!

But the next time I stained,

I used the proper equipment

(sponge brush).

This helped tremendously, and when applied

looked way less streaky.

 

It took me between 2-3 weeks

 to finish one door.

 

It's looking much better,

and I'm actually kind of loving it.

The picture above was taken after the

second coat was applied, and it was

in the process of drying.

 

I don't have a final picture of the door

 hung in the bathroom yet,

but I can show you this crappy picture

of it standing upright in the garage.

 

 

And there you go.

Brenda bathroom project #1-

 DONE!

 

Of course, I will show you a

finished picture of the bathroom

when it is complete.

You might be waiting a while.

I would venture to guess that

we will have it decorated and

complete in 2 more months.

 

I'm just as excited to see how it's

going to turn out as you,

you know, because I'm decorating it.

Who knows how that's going to go.

Guess we'll have to wait and see.