DIY's

The girls in my family are pretty big into DIY projects. We may not be professionals but we do our best with what Pinterest offers us as far as tips to the trade. In the end we usually love our finished products. Here are a few I've done recently and just adore now!

The first one is this old high chair I scored at a local yard sale for only....wait for it....$10!!! What a deal right?! It was originally stained a darker brown color, but I stripped it down to this lighter brown with lots and lots of sand paper. A special thanks to my sister, Whitney, for helping out with that part!

My super smart, and very helpful husband decided the best and quickest, most efficient way to paint it would be to hang it up and spray it with his spray gun. He's a genius and was right! It was super fast and easy.

And here's the final product of all that hard work. I decided to just go with a white paint, that way it will work for a boy or a girl high chair.

Check out how cute it worked out for my cute little nieces birthday party.



 My next project was this adorable mirror I also found at a yard sale for only $10 too! I just love yard sales. One man's junk, is another man's treasure....or in this case a woman's treasure aka mine :)

This one was pretty easy. No sanding, just a quick spray of paint and it's done.

As soon I finished the mirror I loved it, however I felt like it needed something cute to go with it and later that week my sister found a cute pattern for a small entry table. So we had a girls night out and each made our own. First my dad cut out all the measurements for us. Next we sanded, and sanded, and sanded some more.

 

Once everything was sanded and stained, my older brother was nice enough to spend all night with us nailing our pieces together. I hate to admit this, but I'm scared of nail guns, so I'm really glad he helped out!

I really loved this roughed up stained look but I decided to add some white so it matched my mirror better. Plus when I was staining I accidentally stained some pieces with a darker stain than the rest, and I was too lazy to re-stain it all. :)

I'm so glad I added the white!



The last thing to do was add some cute nobs and decorate, which was my favorite part. Here's the final result, until I change my mind (like I always do) and re-arrange.

 As if I haven't asked enough of my husband while I was at it, I had him paint a few other odds and ends lying around to match the basement colors.









None of them are completely done, but at least they are started. I have some really cute ideas for each one that I can't wait to try out. Although any and all suggestions are welcome :)



ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

 This last month has been quite a journey with my husband, Tyson. To tell the story best I will just share his two Facebook posts explaining what he went through.

"Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. For those of you that are unaware I came down with a sinus infection at the end of June. I struggled to overcome it and most of the symptoms went away with the exception of my cough. Last weekend I got significantly worse and went to insta-care for a chest x-ray. The x-ray revealed that I have pneumonia but i'm not entirely sure how long it's been brewing. I've lost 17 pounds in 4 weeks (awesome weight loss program), and this past week I have been so nauseous that I can't keep anything down and i'm not improving. The doctor insisted that I go to the hospital and try to be admitted for further assistance. Long story short the ER didn't think I was worthy of their services. The doctor didn't take enough time to listen to my story and tried discharging me with the same medications and recommendations that I have been on for almost a week now. Which was obviously frustrating for us because my symptoms have not improved, i'm still losing weight, and the x-ray done at the hospital today showed no amount of improvement from last weekends. Enough of my rant. We are home and waiting a little longer to see if any improvement is on the horizon Again, thank you for your thoughts and prayers and hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion"

About a week later this was his next post:

"I'm putting this out there as an update for those of you that are still interested. We visited the doctor yesterday and one of the blood tests from last Thursday came back positive. I've got what's called Valley Fever or Coccydioidmycosis. It's a microscopic fungal spore that got into my lungs from the soil most likely from breathing in dust. The treatment will be 6 months of an anti fungal oral medication to prevent a possible relapse. And this is most likely what brought on the pneumonia. I'm showing some good signs of improvement but the doctor still wants me to wait until I have been on the medication 10 days and we can re-evaluation before I return to work It's good to finally have some answers so we can start treating it right. Thanks again to my amazing friends, family, and wife"

It has definitely been a big struggle, but we are so grateful for everyone's thoughts and prayers. Tyson is continuing to get better each and every day, but still struggles to keep up his energy like he used to. He is back at work, but only part time due to the Doctors request because he wears out quickly and can't seem to shake his cough. Although this was much worse than we originally though it was, we are so blessed that it was not more serious or permanent and that he is healing so quickly. We are so grateful for modern medicine and most importantly for priesthood blessings. He has had too many to count and although I know the medicine is playing a big part in his recovery, I also fully believe the blessings are what have held him together and gotten him through this ordeal. 

After finding out exactly what Tyson had and getting him on the right medications for it, he finally started feeling a little better. He gradually got some of his strength back and was able to not be in bed all day. To celebrate we went fishing to Kolob on Blue Springs with Tyson's dad and sister. It was such a nice way to get him out of the house without tiring him too much. And as you can tell from the picture below, he was so happy to be outdoors and out of bed. 

Although we had a great time, we also had some unsuspected visitors. The first one was a cute little deer, but the second one was a....MOUSE! 

It may be a little hard to see, but that is the mouse's tail hiding under Tyson's seat. 

Below is his lovely reaction to seeing his unwelcome companion. 

We all had a wonderful time, and hopefully it wont be long until Tyson gets feeling much better so we can return.

Pioneer Day Weekend

I always love July 24th in Utah, because we get to celebrate Pioneer Day. I am so grateful for all of the Pioneers that were so selfless and sacrificed so much for us to live where we do today. I am in awe at all that they endured through, yet kept moving on. Their faith just amazes me!

To start off Pioneer weekend, I did what I'm sure most of Southern Utah does....SWIMMING :) 

 I went swimming with Shauni, and a new good friend, Lisa, who took us to her hubby's Uncle and Aunt's guest house, and WOW was it amazing! 

Then later that week I went swimming with Tyson, Maren, Logan, and Cathie. We swam at our Uncle and Aunt's house. It was super nice until out of no where it decided to get windy. That's Hurricane for ya...

Then Wednesday night my family decided to celebrate with our fireworks because we'd all be gone our separate ways the next day. It was so fun to watch the kids faces as they played with theirsparklers and got scared by the bigger fireworks. I love spending time with my family. They mean the world to me! 

(none of these pictures turned out very good, but they're memories nonetheless)

I know Liam's eyes are closed, but I couldn't help it. These two are the most adorable best friends...when they want to be :)

It's a little dark, but there's the whole fam damily ;)

   

Tyson adores these little kids. I can't wait to see how he is when we have our own (Mushy, I know, sorry)

On Pioneer day Tyson and I went up to his Grandma Winders cabin on Panquitch Mountain with the rest of the family. It was so nice and relaxing. We even went fishing for a couple of hours and everyone caught at least one fish. Maren probably out did us all by catching the most! GO MARE!

               

Sometimes I pretend I'm a professional photographer....please play along ;)

I don't know what I would to without these people. They make vacations so much fun!

Our trip unfortunately ended short because Tyson was coughing so much and couldn't really breathe due to the elevation so we headed down the mountain and took him to instacare the next day only to find out that he has pneumonia and has had it for the last month not knowing it. The poor thing has been going to work and carrying on like everything was okay. He's so tough! 

Pioneer weekend was amazing (even with a sick hubby) and to finish it off perfectly we got to see a beautiful sunset thanks to our family dog, Shadrach. He was scared of the fireworks so he kept scratching at the back door and when we went to check on him, this is what we found....I couldn't help but think of the hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth. I feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful place and to have the freedoms that we do thanks to those who fought and still fight for our country and especially to our pioneers and ancestors. We are truly blessed.