As I have stated in the past, we are hosting Christmas this year and in an effort to do that, we decided to partially finish our basement. However, this is wicked expensive. So to save some, we are doing some DIY things in areas where we can.
The Saturday before last, we spent ALL DAY in the basement doing the ceiling and that took FOREVER! More on that later.
Let's just say that the weekend wa so busy that by the time Monday rolled around, I was very happy for the break!
One morning last week, after I got up to do some work, JAE came in and decided to be the Sheriff. Check her out in her Sheriff Callie cowgirl hat. How sure is she?
This girl is a born model! She just loves to pose :-).
Trying to smile and say cheese at the same time :-). Her morning smiles are the best and everytime I see her and her sister smile, I say "thank you Lord for these blessings" in my head. For truly, they are wonderful blessings.
So, back to the basement. I promise to do a full blog post on the before and after. But for her, I figured I might as well share the pain with you.
Instead of putting dry wall on the ceiling, I wanted to leave it all exposed and paint it all white. However, J was not really thrilled with this idea.
Back to the drawing board. I went scouting on Pinterest (seriously, I plug this site so much that they should be paying me!). I found a few ideas and we decided to build on them.
We went to Home depot and purchased sheets of plywood. Then we had them cut to the specs we wanted. Note that while the sheets were relatively cheap ($14 per sheet), we had to pay $0.25 after the first 2 cuts. Each sheet gave us 11-cuts. So yeah...do the math...it added up. The total cost came up to about the same as what we would have paid for the paint.
However, J liked this idea more so we went with it.
Saturday was spent nailing the slabs to the exposed beams. We got through most of the basement. We ran out of wood so we have to get more to finish up the job. Then the last step for the ceiling will be to paint it.
We are hoping to finish putting in the wood by this weekend.
Yeah...it took so long that my baby fell asleep! We had to work around her. Even the loud noise of the power drill did not wake her up. That's how tired she was.
By the end of the day on Saturday, I had achieved my highest steps in a while! Check it out.
Both J and I were SOOOOO TIRED that all we could do was stay in bed the next morning and watch church online.
Since we were home the next day, we decided to keep it low-key and only do absolutely what we needed to do to prepare for the week.
While making lunches for the week, JOE decided to entertain me. She rolled down their rollercoaster and said "howdy cowboy!" At first, I didn't notice what she had done but then I looked up and saw this sight. As tired as I was, it really made me smile.
Evenings are so much better when I am able to take a selfie with my girls. But why won't they smile though? I say smile and they stick out their tongues. What gives?
One evening, while J and I got ourselves ready for bed, I looked out of the bathroom to see why they were so quiet and I was greeted with this.
Apparently, our bed is the most comfortable place to watch the ipad. Often, JOE is in our bed doing that and JAE is on the floor with her legs crossed in the air.
Last week Wednesday, our neighbor's kids came over. JOE and JAE had A TON of toys to play with. But of all the toys, they chose to play with pool noodles. It was all out war in the house. Hearing all of the laughters and screaming really made my heart feel full because it reminds me of my childhood playing with my siblings. Being from a big family, it was almost always noisy.
PROGRESS PROGRESS!!! Yes, I had to bold AND underline that! Why? Because I am seeing my weight loss progress in the mirror! I got a few Spring/Summer dresses to wear to work and this was one of the dresses I wore last week. I think it is my new favorite dress because it is just so flattering on me! :-D.
In addition to all the work around the house, I have also been busy with orders and ideas for AyoBE Boutique.
First, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your support. Your sharing my posts, commenting, liking them all make a HUGE difference because others are able to see them and it reaches more people. I definitely don't have the number of friends that view my posts on Facebook or other Social media so BIG THANKS to you all!
Here are a few things I have worked on in the past couple of weeks.
Since my boutique focuses on Africa, I decided to do something fun for everyone. This art will look ABSOLUTELY beautiful adorning a nursery wall, office wall, family wall or cubicle wall. Elephants are supposed to bring luck. They make excellent and unique gifts as well.
Go check it out here.
Hakuna Matata comes from the movie The Lion King and the words are Swahili for "no worries". Well, do you know Nigerians also have a pidgin saying for "no worries"? It is "No wahala". Pronounced "no wah-hah-lah".
Why use the same saying as everyone when you can stand out and be different? These tees are now listed on our website here and will make a thoughtful Father's day gift.
While you're at it, why not "say it with a card." Include a beautiful African Print card for dad to tell him just how cool he is! These cards are one of my favorites.
After the very busy last couple of weeks, it was nice to sit back, relax and enjoy the beautiful long weekend.
We decided to head over to NC to visit with my brother and his family. We always have a great time and since JOE and cousin C are only 4 months apart, they always have the best of times.
Here are some of the pictures from our weekend. Also, I have posted a video here you can view of our drive back home.
Sitting on their front porch enjoying a tasty ice pop. This pop was the size of her arm when she got it and she devoured it!
The kids spent 2 days at the pool. Here is my parent's oldest grandson and the youngest grand-daughter. JAE LOVES her cousin B. She was all about him and followed him everywhere. It is just so cute! And he does so great with kids. Gosh...I can't believe how much he is growing. I still remember when he was born and in a year, he'll be starting high school. HOW???
And JOE and her cousin C. Everyone thought they were twins!
With my other nephew A. I love this kid! He is just so smart and thoughful and always wants everyone to be happy. He helped me with the girls and was very considerate of the fact that they couldn't do everything he can.
After the pool, it was lights out for this little one. She was so tired that she could barely finish her milk. And she LOOOOOOOVVVVEEESSSSS her almond milk.
Saturday night was a little bit of a challenge. At 8pm, I looked at my fitbit and had only completed 6200 steps. I wanted to just crawl into bed and sleep but J encouraged me to step it up. So I got out of bed and decided to do some steps (playing music in my head...thanks to taking step classes for like 8 years). And I did some lunges too. I was tuckered out!
I did pretty good with my eating over the weekend and stuck to my steps goals. I also did my steps on Sunday since I figured I'd be spending most of the day on Monday in the car driving back.
I hope you had a nice long weekend and I hope you had some time reflecting on why we have Memorial day. It is not a day to honor the living but a day to remember those who paid the ultimate price for freedom. I am reminded on such occassions that freedom is not free.
Remember always to be kind to strangers!
So proud of you for sticking to your workout program. The results are definitely showing.
ReplyDeleteIs your entire family coming over for Christmas this year? Like everyone from Boston like you usually do at your brother's house? That's going to be one busy Christmas :)
Thank you! The entire family is coming. So it'll be a full house and fill hearts. We already started a list of fun activities 😃.
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