Less Words Wednesday

Random pics from my camera roll. The boys are using their new-to-them basketball goal a lot. Miles has had early practice so he's home before it's dark. I've come home to this several times this week.

When the boys eat at the kitchen island, they both put one foot up on the middle barstool and eat like this.

When I'm coming home with groceries or anything that needs to be unloaded, I text in our group text and tell them I need their help. This is how they greet me when I pull up. 

Sometimes you just have to send your friends a good morning selfie when your morning was  completely derailed, but you pulled it together and you're heading to work with a smile. 

Making up math problems and solving them for "fun". Miles used to do the same thing. Also completely blinged out for school with two necklaces and a watch. 

Carson and I played UNO tonight and did Art for Kids while Darrin and Miles binge watched a show they are watching together.

I said we should measure Miles tonight. He's been at 5'10" for a while and he's not happy about being stuck there for months. Darrin is forever making things more complicated than they need to be. 

I don't know if I blogged about this for not. It's hard to keep up when you jump around like I have lately. Darrin filled in at Miles' school for the end of volleyball season because the coach went on maternity leave. It was a lot of fun. I think it reminded Darrin how much he missed coaching and it reminded me how much I enjoy his life after coaching. We both enjoyed this little stint though and Miles liked it too. 

Carson definitely wasn't as invested in it as Miles was at that age, but I did manage to get a few pics of him on the bench. It reminded me of the time when Miles was on the bench with Darrin during a game and Miles asked Darrin to move because he couldn't see the game. That makes me laugh so hard thinking about it. Miles was very involved back in the day. 

I'm still doing my own nails and really enjoying it. I went with Valentine nails and it's giving me spring vibes. 

I've had fakes ferns on my front porch for a couple years now. I went with some fake fall flowers this year and likes them too. The fake collection will be making it's way to the pool next year. No one enjoys watering the flowers all summer long so we are going to see if I can make fakes ones look good enough. Last year the real ones never looked good anyway, so I sure don't want to spend all summer watering them if they aren't even going to look good. 

Carson and I looked at our wedding album last night. He told me I look the same, so basically he can have whatever he wants now :) I need to find a picture of my mom when she was this age. We look so much alike here. 

Carson and I went to the park to do a bottle flip challenge a couple months ago and it made his year. He saw the game on YouTube. It's basically H-O-R-S-E with bottle flipping. 

I have to say, it was pretty fun. We did it with Darrin around the house a couple times, but driving to the park to play was really fun for him. We even went to the store to buy just the right bottles. 

I found this picture of Miles recently. It's from the first night he ever caught. Oh the places he'll go and it all started here. I remember vividly how much he loved it that first night :)

Before & Afters

When we decided to move Miles into the guest room, the only thing we did was buy a new bedspread. His room has looked like a guest bedroom for 3 years now.

Since then we added his gaming desk and painted his bathroom vanity. We have plans to redo the bathroom, but I don't know when that will happen, so we had to make sure his wall color coordinated with his navy blue vanity. Surprisingly, we did pretty well even though paint colors are not my strong suit. 

It's called Web Gray. It has a blueish tint to me so I like it with the bathroom and lucky enough the bedspread still works.

Carson helped me get the room ready while Miles and Darrin went to a hitting lesson. He took all the outlet covers off and helped me clean the walls and fill the holes. He was very happy to use his toolbox from Granny & Pa. 

I trimmed and Miles came behind me with the first coat. 

He left me after the first coat to go to his girlfriend's house. I painted the second coat while he was gone. I realized how hard of a color it was to paint and what a good job he did. It said it had a one coat guarantee and maybe we should have left it at that. You can see roller marks when the light hits it but overall it's fine.

The end result was exactly what I was going for. I didn't want to paint the furniture, but I wanted to somehow make it look more manly. The color did the trick. 

He's been asking me to move the furniture around, but I was against it. He was right. It fits a lot better like this. 

His gaming desk fits perfectly in this corner. 

Over the last couple weeks, we've finished the decor. We framed some baseball pics from both travel teams. The pictures look small, but they are 14x11 each , so they cover this blank wall well. I can't believe we managed to get these level on the first try. 

I found a cool, and functional, lamp. It's super bright when needed and you can dim it. He also has the bendable light for his schoolwork since he does homework in his bed a lot. 

He's had a white dry erase board in his room for a while. He likes to write quotes and stuff, so I found this clear acrylic. I bought some neon markers thinking they would show up against the paint, but they don't really. Orange does, but black is the best. We also bought some magnetic strips for above his desk so he can change out awards and pictures. 

He is so happy with it and every time I walk in I remember how much I love it too. Next up is Carson's room. He's been told he can have a new room when he's ready to part with around 50 stuffed animals and his little Tykes basketball goal from when he was a toddler. I think it will be a while.

Weekend Wrap Up

Carson brought this home from school on Friday. It reminded me how different my kids are. I'm pretty sure Miles' snow globe would been procedural about how he would stay warm, get food, etc. Carson is just interested in the fun :)

Darrin and I went grocery shopping on Friday night as quickly as possible. It had to be done because there was no time on Saturday and we knew we wanted to watch football today. We had to get some food in the house. As much as I love Walmart grocery delivery, if I can make time to go to Kroger, I will do that instead. I was so tired after a long work week, and it shows.

Carson had two basketball games on Saturday. 

Both games were close, but they came out on the losing game. He was not a fan of that.

I think he had a good time. If nothing else, it's good exercise and a chance for him to get out of the house and burn off some energy. 

Stephanie gifted the boys her basketball goal so Darrin and Miles went to get that. Ours had a hole in the backboard because big brother got mad at little brother while they were practicing baseball and threw a ball through the backboard. Not his finest moment. They were very happy to have a goal again. 

While Darrin and Miles worked on the basketball goal, I told Carson to burn the boxes. I didn't realize it was too windy for that. In my defense, Darrin didn't stop him either. The wind spread the fire quickly. I looked out the kitchen window and saw it spreading and Darrin throwing water on it. I ran out to help. While the three of us worked on it, Carson was freaking out. I told him to stop yelling and help us. He yelled, "I'm just stressed!" Then he kept saying, "I feel so guilty!" I told him later how important it is to remain calm in those situations. I think he learned some valuable lessons.

Another weekend, another birthday party. Carson helped celebrate one of his best buddies, Rhett, at one of his favorite places, the arcade where he won the iPad. 

Adult night out on Saturday. 

We met Darrin's cousins in Martin for dinner. It was a good halfway point. We had a party of 20 and the Blue Oak Oyster Bar & Grill handled us perfectly. It was a rare night to be able to get this group together. We've discovered that January might be a good time for everyone. 

The boys lived their best life together at home. No place they would rather be.

I hung out with them for a while in Miles' room when I got home. They are at fun ages. 

I bought some free weights and actually put them to use today. Unfortunately I've completed slacked on working out during this extremely busy phase of life. We'll see what these little free weights can do for me. 

Once I hit publish on this blog, I have one more thing on my to do list and then it's the Bills/Chiefs game and more relaxing. We needed this day!

Weekend Wrap Up

Several days late with the weekend wrap up, but I've had technical problems with pictures and then after I got these uploaded last night, I was too tired to do anything. Friday, Darrin and I drove to middle TN for my aunt's funeral. This picture was one of the pictures scrolling before the service started. It is perfect because some of my favorite memories with her are from playing games. We lived with her for a little while when we moved to TN and our house was being built. She was a great lady.

I took this picture when she met Carson for the first time and I remember thinking then that I would cherish this picture one day and I do.

This one too.

When we woke up Friday Carson was running a fever. We drove through Kentucky on the way to the funeral so Carson could stay with Granny & Pa.

It was surreal to be at my home church where I was saved. So many memories with my youth group. I got to see one of my best friends from my teenage years after 20+ years. 

As much as Carson is like Darrin, he likes to play games endlessly like I did at that age. 

Darrin took Miles to a catcher's clinic on Saturday, while Carson and I stayed home. 

Carson had to miss his basketball games on Saturday because he was still running a fever when he woke up. He did have his first experience of burning the boxes...which is a thing you do when you live in the country :)

This might be the day a pyromaniac was born. 

We got in a few games of UNO.

And some downtime. 

Saturday I impulsively bought a new rug for under our dining room table. I saw a brand new washable rug on Facebook and went for it. Our old one was in bad shape. I'd been looking for a while and just didn't feel like spending a ton on one. On Sunday, I moved all the furniture, dry swiffered, wet moped, and steam mopped the floor all before church. I've decided I'm nesting before baseball season.

I was happy when I came home from church and it was all finished. I don't love it, but it will do for now. It looks small compared to what we had, and the washable rug is so thin. It looks like we put a blanket under the table. It probably won't last long. 

Miles had a baseball showcase on Sunday night. We didn't plan to have two baseball things in one weekend, but this was rescheduled from the snow last weekend. 

Carson felt better on Monday, but basketball practice didn't start until 7:30pm. When it was time to leave, I found him like this. I gave him the option to stay home since he'd been sick, but he went and did fine. 

Hopefully my tech guy (Darrin) has me fixed up and I'll be back with another post soon.