Hoop Dreams

This is a picture of my entryway:

I'm sure you noticed the basketball goal hanging from the door.  My son is constantly in motion.  Even when he is watching tv he has his basketball out running back and forth across the living room shooting hoops.  He wants to play for the Oklahoma City Thunder someday. (See this post about that!)
Now I would love to hang some pretty pictures in my entry or maybe put a little table with flowers and baskets but that would mess up his "court"!  And honestly, everytime I look at that goal I smile.  It reminds me that my kids are only with me for a little while, and that little while seems to be going faster and faster, so I'm going to enjoy every second.  Someday we will take the goal down and I'll have my entry table but I guarantee it won't be near as fun as shootin' hoops!

Burst of Sunshine

I saw this post a few months ago and thought to myself   "What a wonderful project for me to do when I have extra time." 
Extra time?  HA  Needless to say, it has taken me this long to even consider doing it.  But when you are snowed in for over five days, extra time does present itself. 
I will say this....it was harder than I thought it was going to be.  If I made a second one it would be fine but the whole trial and error thing took me awhile.  I started with a bag of skewers I bought at Wal-Mart, a round mirror from Hobby Lobby and a whole mess of hot glue gun sticks!

Now why oh why would Hobby Lobby stick a big ol' sticker right in the middle of a mirror?!?

To make things difficult I suppose.  So before I could even begin I had to get all that sticky goo off the mirror.

That's right, peanut butter.  It worked pretty well.

Next I marked of every inch on the backside.

Obviously this wasn't exact.

Then I marked down about 1/2 inch on each skewer.

My goal was to line up the skewer, pointy side in, at the mark on the skewer on top of the line marked on the mirror.  Whew, not sure that made sense!

Once I had a skewer glued on every line, I began filling in the spaces.  I staggered each skewer at a different length to give it variety.  I put 5 skewers between each main one.  The entire process took me about an hour and a half.  You can see how much hot glue I used.  It's covered!

It came out like this.  I didn't think there was enough difference in the lengths. 

What was I to do?  I wasn't about to start over.

Enter wire cutters.  That's right, I went around the whole thing and cut the skewers with wire cutters to the length I wanted them.  It worked surprisingly well.

Then I added florist wire across the back.

It doesn't show on the front.

Spray painted it in aluminum and this is how it turned out.

First of all, it's really hard to take a picture of a mirror, thus the side view.

Second of all I think I'm going to add some goldy tone on top of the aluminum because it doesn't stand out enough from the wall.

But all in all, I'm pretty happy with it - plus it fills that weird wall space! :)

Yummy!

We've been snowed in AGAIN the last two days and one of my favorite things to have on a cold, snowy day is a hot stew or soup.  This Taco Stew is so easy you won't believe it and boy is it yummy!!  Warms up your tummy on a cold night.  I usually serve with tortilla chips, shredded cheese, and sour cream.  Mine is in the crockpot and making my house smell delicious!

Taco Stew
1 lb. browned hamburger meat
1 can of sweet corn with liquid
1 can (10 oz.) ro-tel with chilies
1 can (15 oz.) chili beans in sauce
1 can tomato soup
1 envelope of taco seasoning

Just dump everything in your crockpot, add a cup of water, stir and you are good to go!  I will cook mine for 5-6 hours on high or 8 on low.

Organizing Link

Sandy over at Organizing with Sandy is having an organizing liky party...Mission: Office Week
I just linked up my bill organizer.  There are some great ideas so head on over!!

Let Me Count the Ways

I made this little project last year for my husband for Valentine's Day.  I was looking in the scrapbook section at Tuesday Morning and this jumped out at me.

Of course it didn't have paint on it and this is the back of it but you get the idea.

So I snatched it up for 99 cents and came home and went to work.

I need to say right now how much I LOVE craft paint. Less than a buck a bottle and you can paint just about anything with that stuff. 

So I grabbed some Valentinesy colors and some stickers left from my kid's Valentine's and tried to make it cute.

This is what I came up with.

A list of reasons why I love my husband. 

Sometimes we can get so caught up in what annoys us or what we wish we could change that we need to remind ourselves of all the wonderful reasons they are number one in our lives.

After painting each "page" and letting dry, which I have no patience and that is why the backs are not painted.

 I added the writing and stickers, then some cute ribbon to finish it off.

Before I wrote on it I brainstormed on paper any and everything I could come up, even things that might sound silly or special inside jokes.  It's truly the little things that make a relationship special. 

The color is a little off on this pic because I tried to edit it to blur the words. 

Some things don't need to be on the internet! ;)

So there is an inexpensive, thoughtful little something you can give your spouse this Valentine's Day.  And who says it has to be painted and covered in stickers?  I'm sure he would love it just as much scribbled on a post-it!



This post is linked up to Sunday Showcase Party here - check it out!

Stuck at home.....

Today was the fourth snow day of the week for us.  A day or two is not that unusual around here but four certainly is.  Not only that but it started snowing AGAIN today.  I love snow, it's beautiful and peaceful but I hate driving on roads that have not been plowed.  That is exactly why the kids have not had school - neighborhood streets are horrible. 

That being said, we've had a lot of time to work on homework and other stuff.  Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of movies and video games too but watching them work always makes me smile!

Notice the tongue - it always comes out when he's concentrating - I love it! 

Good thing he wears a mouth guard in football!

She had a couple projects due this week so lucky her she gets more time to finish.

She's loving it, let me tell you! ;)

Something tells me they enjoyed this more...

Yep, definitely!

Snowmageddon 2011!!

Here are a few pics of what's going on around here today....love it!  Getting ready to put some chili in the crockpot and watch a movie while snuggling with the kiddos.  Hubby got to stay home from work - woo hoo!!  And maybe some sledding later if this wind will die down.  I'm sure by Friday it will be around 70 degrees...gotta love Oklahoma! :)

Happy Snow Day!!