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Welcome everyone from Kelly's Korner. It's that time of the week when we get to show off where we live. This week is so exciting because I get to show you my two girls most precious rooms. OK...I may be a little biased. Anyway, back in November, I did a whole house tour since we had just built, moved in and got settled in our wonderful new home. Instead of re-doing all I did before, I am going to give you the links to the previous posts. I warn you, I have two girls...so there is a lot of pink!
Click here to be taken to my oldest, Rachel's room.
Click here to be taken to my youngest, Rebekah's room.
I hope you enjoyed this tour and I hope to see you back again next week!
Another Show Us Where You Live Friday, brought to you by Kelly's Korner. Yeah, I know this is not technically Friday. But, I have a lot to do tomorrow and I was afraid I would forget it if I didn't do it now. And I know I can set it to publish tomorrow.... :)
This week is Dining Rooms! We do have a "formal" dining room -- but it is not being used as that. Currently, it really isn't getting used much at all. We recently moved the pod chair and rug into there for lack of a better place for them. Once we got them in there, it kind of made the room a little more cozy and more of a "sitting room" feel. We have tossed around the idea of instead of spending a lot of money on a dining room table and hutch, maybe we could take that money and get a nice (slightly used) baby grand piano?? We're not seriously looking or anything - we're just not "formal" people. We're trying to think of other uses we could use the room for. I would love for my girls to take piano lessons -- and to do that, we would need a piano!! Oh well, here are the photos of the room. Enjoy - and I would love any other ideas as to what we could do!
Here is a view into the dining room from our family room. I love the red, it is called Stolen Kiss from Sherwin Williams.
Here is a shot from the far wall of the dining room looking back at the entryway into our house.
And a shot from one of the corners, looking at the other corner. You can see part of each of the archways that lead into/out of the dining room. Ignore the fan and the rug, this photo was actually taken this past fall for this post. At that time, the dining room was temporarily my girl's playroom.
And here is a shot from the window, looking into the family room. Yeah, this photo was from last fall too. You can tell since the couch isn't under the far window like in my post on family rooms.
In addition to my red walls, I love my chandelier. My husband doesn't so much because he has rammed his head into it many times. He is ready to raise it up some since we don't have much of anything in there right now.
There you have it! I hope you enjoyed this week's tour and I hope to see you back next week. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend and be safe!
Last Friday, it was kitchens. This week Kelly's Korner is showing off living/family rooms. I was excited to do this one because since I last showed my family room, we have rearranged! If you want to take a look at my first post about our family room and see the changes, click here.
I like to call it the family room, we don't have two living areas and this is where the family is most of the time. About three months ago, we decided to open up the family room more by moving the couch over in front of the window. I wish it could be centered beneath the window, but it just would not work with the fireplace, coffee table and end table.
Here is what you see as you come in the front door. There is still some decorating to be done, like accessorize the end of our entertainment cabinet. I would also like to find a better place for this red chair, or dress it up with some pictures or something. There is a picture on the floor beside it, I just haven't decided 100% that I want it there. To see the history of the red chair, you need to click here and here.
If you look to the left as you come in the front door, this is another view into the family room. The red room is our dining room, although we have no dining room furniture in there yet. Now it is more of a sitting room.
Here is another view from the dining/sitting room. Ignore those green tubs and the big box on the left. I did some major cleaning out of the play room last weekend. The green tubs are toys I want to keep. We just need to take them up to the attic. The box is full of stuff I will sell or give away.
Now we're moving on into the family room. Eventually we would like to replace our couch and recliner pieces. This has been nice for a while, but it is really starting to show some wear and tear. Jon Paul and I are usually in the duel recliner piece. The single recliner belongs to Nana. I also hope to find a window treatment for the window. I have thought instead of a valance or anything, maybe put a scripture or quote going across the top of the window. What do you think?
This is the view if you come in from the garage. Here you can see where our hardwood floor meets the tile floor.
And this view is from the office/breakfast area, looking back towards the front door. Here you get a good look at our trey ceiling. Love the higher ceilings and also the arched doorways.
This is another one of my favorite things about the house. I love my fireplace and mantle. When we built the house, I insisted we have a mantle. I want to have something to showcase pictures and that is where my nativity goes every Christmas. I don't know where I would put it if I didn't have my mantle! The fireplace has gas logs in it - very low maintenance and is the only thing in the house that runs on gas.
In order to get a good shot of the mantle area, I had to turn off the flash. I love this picture of my girls. It was taken last November. They have already changed so much since then. Rachel's two front teeth are completely in and their hair is much longer now.
This is the new rug we purchased when we rearranged the furniture in here. We already had a rug, but it was too small once we opened up the room more. We loved this rug, but it has become a lot of trouble. For some reason, it continually sheds. We have vacuumed this rug hundreds of times - to the point we think that soon, there won't be any fibers left in the rug. And remember when I blogged about this? Well, every time we run the Roomba, all it does it make a bigger mess. We end up having to take the dust buster and vacuum up behind it. Hmm...that kind of defeats the purpose of having the Roomba. Anyway, I put this in here in hopes that maybe some of you might have some suggestions as to what we can do with this rug. Anything?!?!
Thank you for coming and I hope you come back!
A few interesting/funny things I wanted to point out about this vacation to Disney World. First, I found it interesting that I had packed the same shirt for Bekah to wear that Rachel wore on our last visit to Disney World in 2003. You might not find it all that interesting, but I wanted to remember it - so I'm putting it here before it leaves my brain! :-) I only captured one photo of Rebekah wearing it, but here are two to compare.
2006 - Rachel in the shirt with Cinderella.
2009 - Rebekah in the shirt on the Tea Cup Ride.
When we went to Disney World in 2003, Rebekah was only 14 months old. One of my funniest memories of that trip was of her with Prince Charming. We were eating at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian and she had kept herself entertained with eating and playing with one of their rolls. The roll was kind of hard on the outside and really soft on the inside. She played/ate on that thing for almost an hour! Well, when it came time for Prince Charming to come to our table, here is Rebekah - doing her best to impress him!
She's a real princess - don't you think!!! Anyway, she had seen the pictures of our trip in 2003 and she thought it was real funny of her with the roll. So, this time, every time we would eat somewhere that had a roll - she would play the part, all over again. When we realized we were going to get to eat at 1900 Park Fare again, she said she was going to show Prince Charming her roll trick again. She practiced it the entire meal. So, Prince Charming came to our table and we told him the story. We told him the Rebekah wanted to do it again and he was all for it! Rebekah, however, became too shy to do it. We finally did get this photo of her, Prince Charming and the famous roll.
No matter that it wasn't in her mouth - it was still precious. I will leave you with a few more comparison photos. Definitely something that we'll remember forever!
April 24th
Our last day at Disney World was spent at Epcot. We arrived that morning and immediately got our fast passes for Soarin - a ride we all could not wait to ride! We made our way to the Imagination Pavillion. We rode the Journey into Imagination ride with Figment. It was really cute. After that ride, we had to make our way over to Norway in the World Showcase. We had a reservation to eat with the Princesses! On our way there we saw some awesome shaped shrubs - all the Lion King characters. Rebekah was a little grumpy and didn't want her picture taken with Simba. We enjoyed our lunch and the girls got to see Belle, Cinderella, Ariel, Snow White and Aurora!
After lunch, Jon Paul and Rachel took off together so Rachel could participate in a mission for the Kim Possible World Showcase Tour. She completed one mission and really enjoyed it! Rebekah and I went over and got us fast passes for the Test Track ride and then headed to the Innoventions buildings. Rebekah had fun playing the games there. She really enjoyed the "Where's The Fire?" game.
It was now time for us to go ride Soarin! We got on the ride really quick and the girls LOVED it! It has to be my favorite ride of all too. Amazing!! Then, we made our way over to The Seas With Nemo and Friends. We started there by riding in a clamobile and watched some scenes and such from the movie Nemo. Then we went to Turtle Talk with Crush. This was a lot of fun. All the kids sat up front, close to the tank, where Crush was. Crush interacted with the audience and then some of the kids got to ask Crush questions. Rachel was chosen and she asked, "How deep is the ocean?" Crush answered, "Really deep!" Then he went on to tell us that turtles can only swim so deep because they have to come back up for air. This reminded Crush that he needed some air and he disappeared. It was really cute. Rachel, of course, loved the attention!
It was now time to leave for dinner. We rode the monorail to The Grand Floridian resort to eat dinner with Cinderella and Prince Charming at 1900 Park Fare. We actually did this dinner the last time we came to Disney World in 2003. We are really glad we got to do it again. This time, they had the evil step-mother and the step-sisters there. The step-sisters were hilarious!!! On a side note, we rode the monorail several times. Thanks to our friend, Karen, we learned you could ask to ride in the front car. We all got to ride up there once and it was a lot of fun. Thanks for the heads up, Karen!!
After dinner, we went back to Epcot and rode Spaceship Earth. The girls really enjoyed this ride, mainly because we let them ride in their own car together! After this ride, we headed over to Test Track to use our fast passes for it. This was a great ride. Rachel was a little fearful, but both girls really liked it. You go really fast at the end - over 60 mph!! After this, Rachel and Jon Paul took off again for Rachel to complete a second mission for Kim Possible. Rebekah and I staked out a good spot to watch the nightly fireworks - IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. The fireworks were really good! After they were over, we made our way back to Soarin to ride it again. This time we had to wait in line - for an hour!! But well worth it. Rebekah will tell you that it was her favorite ride of the week!
We were all really tired by this point. In fact, Rebekah fell asleep in the stroller. Since she was asleep, we made our way to the front to take care of some Photo Pass stuff. And Jon Paul and Rachel decided to ride one last ride - Mission Space. They rode the less intense one and Rachel got to be the Navigator. By this time, it was almost midnight, so we headed back to our resort. Jon Paul and I were up until almost 2am getting us all packed and ready to leave on Saturday.
April 25th
Before we left, we ate breakfast at Chef Mickey's. It was a lot of fun and had some really great food! After we ate, it was time for us to head to the airport. Both of our flights home went really well. We didn't ride first class - but it still was fun. Jon Paul was able to take some really good sunset pictures from the window of our plane heading from Houston to Little Rock. There is one in the slide show. Speaking of slide show, here is the one from our pictures at Epcot and Chef Mickey's - enjoy!
Thursday, April 23rd
And we're off to Animal Kingdom. The girls were excited about seeing all the animals and going on the safari. Rebekah really wanted to see Simba from the Lion King. Before we even entered the park, we got to see Timon and Rafiki and then Pluto.
We saw several animals while walking into the park and up to the Tree of Life. Jon Paul went ahead to get us some fast passes for the safari. I took the girls to where the characters were. The girls got to meet Pocahontas! Once Jon Paul got back, we went in to see the Lion King show. It was amazing and Rebekah loved getting to see her favorite characters from the Lion King. After the show we grabbed some lunch and headed for our safari. The safari was a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of animals. The only one we didn't get to see was the lions - they were hiding out.
Jon Paul went and got fast passes for Expedition Everest. This would be Rachel's first BIG roller coaster. We did ride Big Thunder Mountain at Magic Kingdom - even Rebekah got to ride that. But Bekah wasn't quite tall enough to ride Everest. Another thing I forgot to mention we did at Magic Kingdom was that we all rode Splash Mountain. It was so much fun. Well, Rachel and Jon Paul ended up riding Expedition Everest THREE times. Rachel said that was her most favorite part of the whole vacation. While waiting for Rachel and Jon Paul to get back from Everest, I took Rebekah and we rode the TriceraTop Spin. It was just like the Dumbo ride, only dinosaurs. She loved it. Jon Paul and the girls also rode Kali River Rapids - twice. We also watched the Finding Nemo show - another amazing show!!
We ate a good dinner at Flame Tree BBQ and by then the park had cleared out some. Again, we were taking advantage of the Extra Magic Hours. We decided to check out the safari ride again - we walked right on with no wait. That pretty much ended our day there and we headed back to our resort. Another fun (and tiring!) day. Here are pictures from the Animal Kingdom - enjoy!
Wednesday, April 22nd
This was our day at Hollywood Studios. The first thing we saw upon entering was the huge High School Musical 3 banner. Rachel, of course, wanted to watch the show first thing. It was going to start in about fifteen minutes, so we staked out a spot to watch and Jon Paul went to the Tower of Terror to get fast passes. After the show was over, we headed over towards the Playhouse Disney and Little Mermaid shows. At this time, there was a long wait for the Little Mermaid show, so we went into the Playhouse Disney show. It was really cute and both of the girls really enjoyed it. After leaving the show, we were able to get to meet all four of the Little Einsteins. We also got to eat lunch with June and Leo at Hollywood & Vine. Goliath and JoJo from JoJo's Circus were also at lunch.
At some point, Jon Paul got away long enough to go ride the Rockin Roller Coaster. He and Rachel rode on the Tower of Terror. Rachel said she really liked it. We did manage to see the Little Mermaid show - Rebekah and I even saw it a second time while Jon Paul and Rachel rode the Tower of Terror. We watched the Muppet Vision 3D show. The girls really loved the 3D shows. We saw two of them, the Muppets and Mickey's Philharmonic one at the Magic Kingdom. They both were really trying to reach out and grab at everything.
We also rode the Star Tours ride from Star Wars. Both girls really enjoy flying through space. We ended the day with the Beauty and the Beast show. Rachel loved getting to see Belle again. Jasmine used to be Rachel's favorite princess, but after we got to Disney World this trip, she now says that Belle is her favorite princess. The only thing we wanted to do that we didn't get a chance to do was the Toy Story Mania ride. The wait for it was over 70 minutes and we didn't make it there in time to get a fast pass.
Hollywood Studios was a lot of fun. We were able to do everything we wanted to do (except Toy Story) in the one day. We were glad we decided to just devote one day to this park. Something we thought was very strange. We took advantage of the Disney Magic Hours where we could stay at the park later than other park guests. What we did NOT know about this was that ALL of the eating places would close when the park normally closes. We found this out 30 minutes too late. We were going to eat a quick service meal from our dining plan, but ended up having to purchase a frozen pizza from our resort and baking it in the oven in our room. We thought that was crazy that at least some of the dining places would stay open later since the park was open later. Oh well, live and learn! Here are some of our pictures from Hollywood Studios - enjoy!
