iphone photo dump

 This morning I downloaded a bunch of photos from my phone to my computer.  I thought this wold be a good way to share some of the small things that are going on in life that don't deserve a full post.

 This is Max and I killing time while waiting for a roller coaster to be fixed at the Dells.  It took a while and it was pretty scary that they let us take our ride on the coaster and then immediately began fixing it again!

Sadie and her friend Maile showed up on Easter Sunday with the same cute dress.  They looked adorable; it's a shame Sadie wouldn't stop making silly faces and get let me get a good pic.

We are at the gym a few time a week and every time we walk by this poster Sadie has to pretend she's a monster!  I have about 20 of these on my phone.  

 

 Sadie graduated from preschool.  My crafty friends made caps, diplomas and lei's to make if official.  How cute is that?

I'm staying pretty active these days.  I got my first bike since I was a kid for Mother's Day and have loved taking rides with my kids.  John and I fell in love with mud after competing in Tough Mudder.  I did pretty good and in November will compete in World's Toughest Mudder, I can't wait!  

On the 4th of July, a few friends signed up to run a 1/2 marathon.  Mother Nature had other ideas and brought Minnesota a heat wave.  They changed the race to 5 miles and I am seriously glad they did.  It was smokin' hot!!  See my white t-shirt?  It's see through because it is drenched with sweat.  Yuck!

As active as I am, I am also equally lazy.  Sometimes when I give my kids chores, I make them take a picture and show me so I don't have to go myself to inspect it.  Pure laziness I tell you!

 Max was excited to catch a few fish at one of his first times at scouts.

One busy morning Sadie found some wrapping paper and decided to wrap herself up.  Once she did she started yelling "Mom, come open up your present!"  It was the best gift I've ever gotten!  

 As you can see, time is flying by and my kids are growing up fast.  I'm glad I live in the blogging age so I will have this silly little mom blog to look back on when I'm old and grey.  

Never Again!!

A warning to everyone on the interweb:  NEVER trust a diy blog that tells you stripping paint is simple.  NEVER.   It's all lies and deceit conjured up by craigslist and stain companies to sell more product.  Trust.  

Can you tell I'm slightly disgruntled?  Here is the run down if you haven't already guessed.  I ran across a tutorial showing how to strip paint and this lady made it look so easy!  She was even doing it in her beautiful living room that was no doubt all handmade!  

Like a dumb fish in this sea of diy knowledge on the Internet, I took the bait and found this little beauty on craigslist, and got work.  Look at all that pea soup green goodness.  It's actually a solid mahogany desk, so it had potential.  

Luckily, I knew that doing this stripping project in my living room was not such a good idea, so I headed to my garage and got to work.  First step:  slather on a jelly like substance, wait a couple hours and then lightly scrape it off.  The first scrapes came off pretty easy and I had high hopes.  Unfortunately, it didn't last long; this thing was a beast!  

After hours of applying and scraping goop the desk looked liked this.  At this point I just had to sand, sand and sand to get the rest of the stain off.  

In the end, I stained it dark walnut, and although it was a nightmare, I think it turned out nice.  It's for Jack and he loves it.  Next time around I'll just buy a desk.