It's All About The House Lately

It seems like a lot of my time lately has been taken up doing things that have to do with the house. Whether it's outside the house, inside the house, or going places to find stuff for the house. A few weeks ago when the weather was warmer, we did some work outside the house. We cleaned up around the yard. We got most of the bushes/plants trimmed up from the winter, mowed the lawn, pulled the patio furniture out, etc. We got a lot accomplished on a Sunday afternoon. However then the weather turned chilly again off and on, and I mowed the lawn again, but still have a few bushes in the back that need to be trimmed. Come on Mother Nature, work with me and stay warm so I can finish! We'd like to do some more landscaping around the deck this spring/summer so it would be nice if the warm weather would stick around instead of this back and forth stuff!

Now for inside the house. I've been wanting some new furniture for the house. Specifically a new chair, end tables & coffee table for the living room. I've also been wanting some kind of cabinet/buffet for the dining room. So a few weeks ago we went out shopping for furniture. Many stores later, we ended up finding a cabinet for the dining room at World Market. It's basically for the wine & booze, as well as some serving pieces and wine glasses. On our shopping adventure we also had stopped into Art Van because we were having problems with our couch and the leather cracking. It ended up that Art Van had to come pick up our couch to service it. Well to make a long story short, after some poor customer service with the delivery guys and the service department, I finally got a manager from the store to help me. They ended up swapping out our couch and giving us a whole new one. They also said they'd give us a discount on the matching chair so we ended up purchasing the chair for the living room. With that said, getting new furniture leads to rearranging the old furniture, cleaning, and in this case filling the new cabinet with stuff. I love the new furniture, and it's nice to have extra seating in the living room. I haven't found any tables yet, but I think that part is going to be put on the back burner for now.

Once we were done with that part of the house, we finally decided to get the basement family room painted. It's been a project that just kept getting pushed aside for the past four years. Neither one of us really wanted to paint the basement because it's a rather large room. Basically it was just a time consuming project that we agreed was worth hiring a painter for if we could get it done for a good price. So that's what we did, and during spring break I had a painter come and paint the whole basement. It was well worth the price to get it done in half a day versus it taking a few days between the two of us. It's such a relief to have it done. It's amazing what a coat of paint does to a room! What a difference it makes down there. It feels a little more "homey" downstairs. Once we get it completely done with accessories, furniture, getting rid of more toys, etc. it will really feel "homey" and not like a basement. I need to have a garage sale first though to get rid of some of the bigger items down there that are all crammed to one corner. We did make some more progress though over the weekend with a trip to IKEA. We got some new shelves & t.v. stand which makes a huge difference already. Now I just need to find the perfect storage bins for the shelves so I can reorganize all the kids crap, I mean toys. Haha!

So that's been a lot of my time lately in between dance, school stuff, etc. I'm also on another yearly spring cleaning bandwagon and am hoping to have this place in tip top shape by the end of April so I can figure out when in May I can have a garage sale! I want this stuff outta here! I'm sure you all want to see pictures of the basement and I will try to get them posted soon once I get the basement back together and furniture arranged. Hopefully by this weekend.

Easter Recap

Well the week is about over already, and I haven't even had a chance to post about Easter. Before I do that though, I noticed my previous post from a couple weeks ago was still in my drafts. I never published it, ooops. So while it's way old news now I figured I'd still post it because I love the pic of my Evan! :)

Now onto something more recent, Easter. Both kids had the first week of April off for Spring Break. Emmaline actually had two weeks off and was off the last week of March as well. We stayed around home for spring break, and I got a few projects done (that post is coming, I promise). Easter happened to fall on the second weekend of Spring Break. We ended up heading down to my sisters & dad's for Easter weekend since we were at my mom's last year. My dad and step-mom had Easter dinner. I was hoping for good weather on Easter because the kids really wanted to look for Easter eggs outside and grandma and grandpa's. Although it rained Saturday night, it cleared up enough Sunday morning for the Easter egg hunt. It was sunny out, but pretty windy so it was a little chilly. At least it wasn't raining though.

I was proud of myself that I got all the eggs filled before the night before Easter. A whole four days before people! That's a record for me. We planned to do the egg hunt before lunch at my dad's on Sunday. However, come to find out when we were at my dad's on Saturday, he filled a bunch of eggs for the kids as well. So we did a few at my sister's Easter morning along with the kids Easter baskets. All together the kids ended up with a ton of eggs to open, and they loved all their Easter basket stuff from the Easter bunny. We had a nice Easter lunch and then headed home. We ended up going to a late dinner with Greg's mom when we got back. Here's a few pictures of the kids from Easter.

Besides the Easter egg hunt, the kids colored eggs with cousin Kaite on Saturday night.

Checking out the eggs they found and the goodies from the Easter bunny!

Lookin' for eggs at Grandma & Grandpa's. The eggs were everywhere!

They liked the eggs they found at Grandma & Grandpa's better. Lots of money (change) in those eggs!

Happy Easter from my two little bunnies!

A Great Season

We all know how much I love my beloved Spartans, and I'm sure you can all guess how bummed I was when they lost in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. There was such high hopes from me and all Spartans that MSU would make a good run most likely to the Final Four and possibly win the National Championship. I guess it wasn't meant to be when the team that showed up in Phoenix the other night to play Louisville, wasn't the same team most of us Spartans were used to. The chemistry the team had all year didn't seem to be there, and the hopes of moving on in the tourney were nowhere in sight that night when the Spartans were on the court. Not only am I bummed as a fan, but I'm really bummed that one of the best Spartans of all time, Draymond Green, didn't get the National Championship as a Spartan. He's right up there with Magic Johnson and Mateen Cleaves (who both won National Championships at State) so I was really hoping it would happen for him, as well as the other seniors. Now all we can do is look forward to next year. While State is losing great players in Green and senior Austin Thornton, there's a lot of talent coming back next year, and MSU is getting one of the greatest high school basketball players from Fishers, IN. Gary Harris will be coming to MSU in the fall as a freshman and I see great things happening at State with him. It's kind of a small world sometimes. One of the UL gals from Indiana knows how much I like Spartan basketball, and her husband was Harris' high school b-ball coach. She's and IU fan, but said she will be a Spartan fan next season! So here's to great things happening for the Spartan b-ball team next season, and a congrats to the Spartan team this year for starting the season unranked and ending in the top ten and making it to the Sweet 16.

On Friday, the team returned to East Lansing after their loss to Louisville. Thanks to Twitter, I had an "inside" tip as to when they would be getting back to the Breslin Center. After school I asked Evan if he wanted to go to Breslin to welcome the team back. I knew since they lost it wouldn't be a big welcome back celebration, but I figured it was probably our only chance to get Draymond's autograph before he graduates from State. He of course wanted to go so we left early so we could stop and get a basketball to get signed. Who knew the MSU basketballs would be so hard to find. Four stores later we found one and made a mad dash to the Breslin. By the time we got there we saw the bus and some of the team getting off. Evan and I hopped out of the car and ran to the Breslin (the high school b-ball playoffs were going on so there was nowhere to park so Greg told us to hop out and he'd drive around). By the time we got up to the doors most of the players were inside and we only got to autographs. One of the coaches told us they were going in for a short meeting with Izzo and would be back out this way to get their luggage to wait there. So we did and finally after about 20 minutes they started coming out. Evan was getting lots of autographs on his basketball, and one of the players signed his shirt so then he got a few more to sign his shirt too. We still hadn't gotten Draymond's at this point because he hadn't come out yet. Finally a few minutes later he did come out and Evan was ecstatic to get his autograph and get a picture with him. Here's my boyzzzz, Evan and Draymond.


I was so glad we decided to go to Breslin, and it helped Evan cheer up after the Spartan loss! A big thanks to the players for their autographs and to Draymond for the photo. We got everyone's autographs we wanted except for Austin Thornton's. We somehow missed him when they first started coming out. He had a hat on so I guess I didn't recognize him.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

It's St. Patty's Day! I hope you wore your green today! And if it's St. Patty's Day, that means it's my birthdaaaaaay! We all know I love my birthday! Thank goodness for me (not my mom) that I was born 16 days late cuz a St. Patty's Day birthday is awesome! I couldn't have asked for a better day today weather wise! I mean really 80 degrees on March 17th in Michigan is unheard of. I believe record temps were set today in Lansing. My birthday started off with some green pancakes for breakfast. Greg made them for me. The kids thought green pancakes were pretty awesome! After a relaxing morning we went to birthday lunch at Bennigan's. I was able to enjoy my first green beer of the day and a turkey o' toole. Here's a couple pics of my leprechauns at lunch!

We headed out kid free for my birthday dinner with our friends Brenda and Keyera. We planned to go to Dublin Square a restaurant downtown E.L., but there was a cover charge to get in and it was crazy loud and busy so we ended up going to Buffalo Wild Wings. It worked out good and while they were busy, we got right in and got a table. Enjoyed some more green beer and had a nice special moment when we spotted two former MSU football players Jerel Worthy and Trenton Robinson. Downtown E. Lansing was insanely crazy busy! St. Patty's Day is awesome for Spartans because we all like to wear green anyways! So between the 80 degree weather, St. Patty's Day being on a Saturday, all the green, and March Madness E. Lansing was hoppin'.

After dinner we headed to Lou Ha's and met up with my friend Jess. They had a DJ playing and it was so loud and packed. Lots of interesting people watching! We enjoyed a few drinks and stayed for a couple hours and then headed back to the house to hang out. We got to enjoy my yummy birthday cupcakes Brenda made me. She told me to pick out something from Pinterest so I chose Thin Mint Cupcakes. They were fabulous. I'll have to post the recipe soon. Yummy!

It was a perfect day for a birthday. Thanks to Brenda and Jess for the birthday goodies and celebrating with me. Thanks to my hubby for putting up with me loving my birthday so much all day. :) I'm now officially 37.

Also thanks to my mom for coming to visit on Friday and taking me out for birthday lunch at Hall of Fame Cafe, and to Greg's mom for birthday dinner Friday night at UKAI.

I've Been MIA

Yes, here I am! I've been a little MIA for the past month. Gosh it doesn't even seem like it's been that long. No excuses for not blogging, just life gets in the way of things sometimes. I'm not even gonna try to catch up. I can barely remember yesterday sometimes let alone a month ago. We've had Evan's conferences at school which were fantastic! He's above and beyond where he should be in first grade! So proud of that little guy. I had a UL party that was great. I love seeing how excited people get about the product and the ideas they have of where they're gonna put UL in their homes! I sold some more things on the UL pages I told you about which is good. Emme's clothes are a hot item! We also attended the last women's basketball game of the regular season. Which not only resulted with a Spartan win, but Evan also got to meet one of the football players that was there, Will Gholston, as well as former MSU b-ball player Mateen Cleaves. He even got his basketball signed by Mateen which was really exciting. And we took the kids to the Tom Izzo show a couple weeks ago. Evan had been asking to go all season, and we finally made it to the last show. The kids got their pics with Izzo and Evan got his basketball signed. A perfect addition to his Spartan room.

To top all that off over the last month, Evan was sick for about a week! It was a long week too! He woke up sick on a Tuesday morning and missed a couple days of school. He was fine Thursday and most of last Friday and then it all returned Friday night. It was off and on, and looking at him you wouldn't know it because he was running around playing until he ate and then the poor little guy couldn't keep his food in. He ended up missing four days of school, and finally Thursday he was back to himself and eating regularly. Now Greg is sick with a sore throat and congestion. Here's hoping Em and I can avoid any sickness. Thank goodness for the nice weather that is in store for this week!

Now here it is March, and we all know March is my favorite month! It really is one of the best months out of the year for five reasons!
#5- March is Reading Month (that's the teacher in me)
#4- Spring (that's the I hate winter in me... bye bye heavy coats and boots)
#2/3- March Madness (that's the sports fan in me... I love b-ball tournament time)
#2/3- St. Patty's Day/Green beer (that's the holiday birthday in me) #2 & #3 are tied
#1- My Birthday (that's of course just me! I love my birthday!)

It's a great time of year! I love it! I especially love it when my Spartans are shining in March! After a disappointing loss to OSU last weekend, MSU fought hard this weekend in the Big Ten Tourney! Spartans clinched the win today in a rematch with OSU beating them and claiming the Big Ten Tournament Title! That gave them a #1 seed in the NCAA Tourney! Yay Spartans! Looking forward to the start of the tourney this week and watching the Spartans play Friday! This team deserves it, and I hope they can make it all the way! Let's do it boyzzzzzz! Go State!

On a final note! Our neighbors Jim and Kate were due on Monday with their first baby. That didn't happen though and come Friday after going to the doctor they found out Kate would be induced on the 15th. We were over to their house Friday night watching some b-ball and chatting about it all. Kate was really hoping she'd have the baby by now and had her fingers crossed he would come before Thursday. Before we left I told her she better have that baby tomorrow (Sat.) because that's the day I picked (they did a baby pool). I got a text from Jim Saturday morning, that low and behold Kate's water broke and they were at the hospital. I was a little stir crazy all day and at about 8:30pm I text Jim for an update. No baby yet, but he was pretty sure she was going to have it before the day was over. About 11:45pm I decided to head up to bed since I was going to be losing an hour of sleep. Figured at that point I'd have to wait and hear the baby news in the morning. Five minutes later I got the text from Jim... little Dominick Anthony was born at 10:23pm. Yay! I did get the date right after all! He's such a cutie! Can't wait to meet him! Congrats to the LaPorte family!

Where Do I Start

I'm trying to face the fact that blogging has been put on the back burner a lot lately, and it's become something that when I get to it, I get to it. I've either been busy or too tired to blog. I have to get over trying to get caught up and just start blogging about the now. So after tonight's post, I'm going to just try to write about very recent stuff and quit trying to go back and back and back and see if I can remember what we did three weeks ago. Then maybe I can get this blog current again. We'll see how that goes.

So with that said, over the last two weeks I've been busy having an online garage sale so to speak. The UL gals have a couple of Facebook pages where we buy/sell/swap UL items. Then we also have a Facebook page where we can buy/sell non-UL items called the UL Bargain Page. Many of the girls have been selling items on there for quite some time. I've posted a few things here and there over the last few months. Then I saw on there a couple weeks ago, there was an interest in kids clothes. Of course I've got a ton of kids clothes! I posted on the page what sizes people were interested in, and from there I began to get all the tubs out of the basement. Plus I had some bags of items in Em's closet I had recently bagged up that no longer fit her. When it comes to garage sale set up, I'm a little anal about the way it's organized. So surprise there was no difference when I decided to post items on the UL Bargain page. Most of the stuff was organized in tubs by sizes, but I had to take everything out and take pics of each item. I posted many albums and sorted them by boys and girls, as well as by different sizes. It took some time to lay everything out, photograph it, upload the pics, and post on the FB page, and write a description and price. However it was well worth most of my time because I've sold a lot of stuff. I figured it's to cold to go outside now so I can do it from the warmth and comfort of my home so why not. It's less stuff I have to set up when I have a garage sale in the spring. By then I'll want to be outside with the kids anyway so it'll be a little less time I'll have to spend in the garage come garage sale time! The only little downfall of it is that I have to figure shipping on the items. Since most of us are buying from or selling to girls in other states we charge shipping as well. I package the items up, and then take them to the post office to check shipping rates. I've become good friends with the self serve postage kiosk. So convenient! It's not too bad when I can take a bunch of packages at once and check shipping rates. Sometimes though there's package here and there so I have to make a special trip, but thankfully the post office is on the way to school so I don't have to go out of my way!

Selling the kids clothes brought on a new project. The UL gals were also looking for women's and men's clothes so I decided to clean out my closet. It's been a long overdue project and I'm so glad I did it. There were clothes in there I knew I'd never wear again, and stuff I didn't even know I had. Greg also went through his clothes. We've got heaping piles sitting in the loft. I haven't sold any of the men's clothes, but I have sold some of my stuff. It feels really good to get rid of some of this stuff, and to make some money while I'm doing it. I still have some other things in the closet to go through- shoes, purses, etc., but the big part of it is done. It's nice to have some extra space in the closet, and I'm excited to get a few new things this spring. Next up is cleaning out the kitchen cabinets again because there's a couple cabinets that are a mess!

So that's been a majority of my time spent the last couple weeks. While I'm trying to save some of the money I've made from my online sales, we did have a kid free night a week ago Friday so we went out for a change. We had planned to go to dinner and out for drinks with our neighbors Jim and Kate, but then Jim forgot Kate was going to be gone for dance competition. So we ended up just going to dinner with Jim. We went to Harrison Roadhouse. Hadn't been there in forever and it sounded good. Then the three of us headed to Lou & Harry's and met up with our friend Brenda. It ended up being a fabulously fun night. A little too fun because I ended up drinking a little too much! Jim introduced us to the "Bomb Pop" shot, and it was downhill from there. So so yummy! It's like the red, white, and blue popsicle, you used to get as a kid! Very addicting! I ended up with a hangover the next morning. I don't remember the last time I had a hangover, but it had been a very loooong time! It was slow moving on Saturday for me that's for sure. I can't tell ya how much I laughed though Friday night and enjoyed hanging with friends! Fun times... fun memories! I have a couple more things to share from last week, and then I'm moving onto this week I promise. Stay tuned!

Evan's New Room

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted pics of Evan's new room. I thought for sure I did that last week. Ugh! So it's now been a month since we painted his room, but it's still not done. The framing of the jerseys is taking longer than I thought. I didn't realize jerseys were so expensive to frame. Ugh! Plus I still haven't found the exact couple pics that I want to hang. It'll get done eventually. So with that said, here's some pics of the room almost done.

The room before.... Best I have, since I forgot to take a pic before we tore it apart.

The room after with the the new green and gray walls, and the new Spartan bedding.

Another angle- This is the wall where I want to hang a few pics above the dresser.

These pics are of Kirk Cousins and Greg Jones that Greg took at a game in 2010.

The other empty wall above the bed where I'd like to hang the jerseys. I also found the new sports lamp at Hobby Lobby which I really like!

I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I love the green! It's perfect and Evan really likes it too. He did well picking the gray. We were deciding between two different shades, and we let him choose. I think this room will grow with him well over the years (as I don't plan on changing it for a very long time). It's a Spartan room so there's no way we'll ever get tired of it. :)