Picture catch-up!

As I've been sorely absent, I have lots of pictures of post! Woo hoo! Less reading! :)

But first things first - I got an email from my sister this morning saying that she and Jason were in the Emergency Room with Bennet last night :( They've been VERY sick and I guess Bennet finally caught it. Poor babe. He had to have blood tests, x-rays, etc. I guess nothing bacterial showed up, so that's good. I called Amanda right away and could barely understand her because she's so congested and awful sounding :( Please say a quick prayer for the three of them, that over the next couple of days all the sickness would be healed and that God will give them extra strength and rest to be able to fully recover.

So a few weeks ago, the new Pottery Barn opened! It had been closed all winter and I was nearly going through withdrawals! I had planned to finish up my pillow renovation when the new store opened. And lucky for me, this GEM was on sale and in my price range!! I love it! (If I'm with it, I'd say bird decor/themes are really trending this season. I feel like they're EVERYWHERE. Obviously, I'm buying into said trend...)

And the beauty is...wait for it...it's double sided. Two pillows for the price of one!

So, the weather has been absolutely unseasonably warm for the last couple of weeks. I'm talking highs in the 70's and 80's when usually highs are in the 50's. So, the flowers have been tricked into thinking it's April/May, when in reality, at that point, it was only early March. Thankfully, no big frosts have come along to kill all the growth and sprouting!

With the warm temps have come proof that I didn't kill my hydrangeas last year! They didn't fare so well in the sunlight of the back yard, so I was really worried that they were goners. But lo and behold, I went to check on them the other and this is what I found! (Note, that beautiful and vibrant forsythia that graces our back yard in early spring. Love it!)

Ah, forsythia. Such a welcome sight for winter wearied eyes!

So Dan celebrated his 28th birthday last week! 30 will be here before we know it! (Calm down, Heidi. Don't freak out. God's timing is perfect and your prime years aren't behind you. Trust and obey. Trust and obey.) To celebrate, we hit up Mongolian BBQ for some always delish stir fry, then headed home for a Pinterest dessert and presents :) (I made one of those skillet cookies. I HIGHLY recommend it. Huge hit.)

Before Dan's parents went to Hawaii in February, he jokingly asked them to get him a genuine Hawaii-made ukulele. Little did he know...they'd actually do it :)

Dan, doing his best impression of the cheesy guy on the songbook cover. Not a bad impression, I'd say.

His face! So excited!



I'm mostly including this picture because of the look on Lawrence's face. Classic.



Babe. So musically inclined. I hope our future children inherit our love of tunes.



The birthday card I made for Dan. Classic Ron Swanson.

So I just finished up a project that had been on my to-do list for what feels like years. (When, in reality, it was like three weeks, tops.) I bought this $150 mirror from Pier 1 for $40 on closeout because the frame had some scratches and dings. I didn't even like the color/finish to begin with, so I bought and stored it upstairs for months while I waited for a purpose for the thing. I finally decided to sand it and paint it white, to hang in the exercise room.

I didn't take a true "before" picture. This was after I sanded down the finish, but you can still get a sense of the original style - a bronze/gold finish...a little gaudy for my taste.

And after! Lovely! Although, whenever I paint mirror, there's always a bit of a rough finish around the mirror edging. I'm not 100% happy with it - but at least it's just in the exercise room. I'm pretty much the only one who ever goes in there. (Yes, that was a backhanded jab at Dan and his lack of physical activity. The only pair of tennis shoes he has are from HIGH SCHOOL.)

Exercise room shot - with new mirror! Now I can see how sweaty and horrible I look when I work out! YES!

I also recently added a bulletin board with a little clock. My time management in the mornings is critical and I'm always in this room longer than I plan to be...when I should be making myself presentable for work. So... a clock will be a huge help. Also, judge if you will, but I printed off some inspirational little tid-bits that I've acquired on Pinterest to give me that extra umph that I sometimes need to finish up that treadmill 5k...

And, drumroll please...the newest exercise room addition! The exercise bike! We picked this up Thursday night and let me tell you...it's no joke. I was sweating BUCKETS at the end of my first knee-friendly workout on this bad boy. I'm going to love it. I can tell already!

Next up? Hopefully, as I type, there's a friendly man named Aron (yes, one A) starting to hang drywall in our basement! Once that's finished up (by the end of this week) I'll be in priming heaven! Pictures to come, no doubt :)