Fun Day at Legoland

My hubby and two of his friends were just having a conversation the other day about how some of the greatest memories they had were from their childhood. The two friends commented that it was sad those days were long gone and could no longer live life carefree and spending each day playing and just having fun. My dear hubby told them that as a parent, you are able to live those moments again with your children and have fun creating memories right along with them. It brings joy to my heart that we are able to share these special moments with our children, watching them play, laugh, and experience new things during there adolesence.
We recently took our kids to the new Legoland that just opened at Grapevine Mills Mall. They did a great job in all the details of the 'dreamland' they created. They even have magical sounding classical music that makes you feel like you are living out your dream by being there. It really is quiet and experience. It is a little pricey but we were able to get discount tickets online and after being there for almost 2 1/2 hours, I think it was worth the price.

 It begins by entering the lego factory and they learn all about how legos are made by Dr. Brick a Brack (I think that was his name).  They are even able to help in making a batch a legos.

We then took a ride through 'Kingdom Quest' which is pretty much a video game come to life. We were taken aback at how almost everything there is made out of Legos! It was incredible! There is a section called, 'Lego Miniland' and it has some awesome Lego structures of city landmarks in the DFW area.

And, who says legos are only for boys? They had a special section for the little princesses....

Here's my dear son building his race car to race it down the different tracks...

There were Legos of all sizes!

And here's one more on our way out through the gift shop. 

(Of course they had a gift shop. Do you really think they'd let you leave without tempting you to spend even more money?)

 

All in all, we had a wonderful time. My kids have already asked a few times when we're going back. :)

Bedside Chest of Drawers...Before & After

So, I thought I'd share with y'all how I did my first ever furniture makeover project. It was actually quite simple, especially since my chest of drawers didn't have any grooves in it.
This was handed down to me from my mother when my brother bought new furniture and no longer needed it. Here is how it looked before:

As you can see, it needed a good wipe down before I could get started. After thorougly cleaning the dresser in it's entirety, I was ready for my next step. Since there was a glossy shine to the wood, I needed to sand of the shine finish so that the primer would adhere better to the wood.

As you can see, I used a small handheld sander which made the process so easy. I had to go over it a few times, to be sure I didn't leave any shiny spots anywhere. The next step: primer

Don't let the rust on that brush fool you. The bristles are in good condition which is what matters anyway, right? I think we left it soaking once too long and that caused it to rust on top. Anyway, I gave the piece two good coats of primer, waiting between each coat to give ample time to dry. The next step was to paint with the top coat and decided to go with white semi-gloss paint I already had. The last and final step was to add new knobs. And here it is when all was said and done:

What did this little project of mine cost me? I already had the paint and primer from previous painting projects, and I already had the sander/sandpaper, along with my rusty paintbrush, so all I paid was $10 for the knobs at Target.
As for the tabletop decor:
*Lamp--$4.74 (clearance item from Target)
*Orchid plant--FREE (V-day gift from hubby--he knows how I feel about spending money on roses since they die within a few days so thought I'd appreciate a plant instead. I LOVE IT! It came in a cute wicket basket with a valentine's bow but I didn't think it matched so I put it in the little tin container and wrap a piece of green ribbon around.)
*Candles--FREE (already had)
*black box--FREE (already had--it was from a Christmas gift set & was red. I just gave it a quick coat of black acrylic paint with a foam brush)

All I need now is another just like it or atleast one to compliment it so I can put it on the other side of my bed. Bare with me for not showing a picture of each step by step process. I'm still trying to get in the groove of taking pictures while at work so I can share them with you all. I promise I'll TRY to do better from now on. :)

Living With Superheroes...

No need for me to worry, I'm being protected by my very own superheroes. :)

A Girl On A Mission....

I've been hard at work the last couple of weeks giving our bedroom a much needed makeover. It's kinda late to be posting, but I keep putting this off and thought a short post with a few pictures would have to do for now. I still have a few more things to buy and do before I'm done but I just wanted to share a few pictures of my work in progress. When I'm finally complete with my makeover, I'll share some before and after pics of everything along with all my bargain finds. :) Let me know what you think of everything so far. 

This looked completely different before I got my hands on it. 

As you can see, my color palette includes: gray, white, navy, and green.

So there you have it, my room in progress. We took these at night, and although I think it looks nice, I love how fresh and airy it looks during the day with the blinds open. I'll try to take some daytime pictures to share with you.

Prepare to be amazed.....

Well, not yet anyway, but it's coming. In order to get to the big kitchen remodel, there are a few steps we need to take. For example, we removed the washer & dryer that were formerly situated in the kitchen and moved them over to our new laundry room, which I blogged about in a previous post. Our next step was to remove the current back door and install a new back door in our dining room. This will allow us to close off that wall so we can have more cabinet space in our new kitchen.

On Sunday, I'm proud to say that Jesse & I installed the new door all by ourselves. :) Although, I do have to mention that our very good friend Renito lent us some tools we'd need for the project and was sure to give us so much needed tips for installing the new door. Oh, and it's amazing what kind of things you can learn from youtube. :) We ran into a few bumps toward the end of the project, but overall, it wasn't as hard as we thought it'd be. We still need to finish adding the molding on both sides (inside & outside) but the hardest part of the installation is behind us. Here are a few pics:

Before we started:

Jesse is wondering what the heck we got ourselves into. lol

Here I am hard at work, trying to remove the 2x4s that were secured under the window.

We are ready to install the door!

....and the door just went in perfectly. :) ....Soon after this picture, we realized that we weren't done just yet. We installed the doorknobs only to realize that the door was too far away from the frame so it wouldn't lock. We had to loosen the frame a little, level the door again, loosen the frame a little more, level again, loosen the frame just a little more, level again, well you get the picture. After all this, we finally got it just were we needed.

Tadaa! Here is the door completely installed! 

We still have a whole lot of work ahead of us but we feel so happy to see our home projects actually starting to get done. Please keep visiting and I'll be sure to keep posting updates of all we're doing. Love you all!