{Outdoor Facelift}

Yay the time has finally come to paint the exterior of our home. I have dreamed of this moment since the day we closed on this little white ranch - soon to be the little grey ranch!!! Ok so is it gray or grey? Who cares! 

This summer's check list I mentioned in an earlier post has finally come to fruition. Yes the house has been prepped and is being painted this minute. Check!

The tree was removed in order to paint and replace gutters. Check!

The gutter people will be here next Tuesday the 24th to install new gutters and leaf guards. Check! 

In some areas- new landscaping fabric and mulch has been laid. Check! Well almost check... I still have half the yard to mulch, but I wanted to wait for the painting to be finished before I did that. 

Below are some photos of the house before its paint job (even before the power washing). 

So this is the front {south facing} and west side of the home. I'm not going to post every side because you get the idea!

Well who would have thought it would rain non-stop during this whole process? ME! I swear I have a rain cloud following me! Anytime I want to accomplish a summer project it seems to incessantly storm! A 4 day job turned into an 8 day job. The project went as follows: painting window trim and side trim, paint fascia and sophet, paint siding, paint doors, & and paint cupola. 

One of my good friends told me that her neighbor painted their house this beautiful shade of gray. She asked her the name & the swatch was called rugged suede by Valspar. I went to lowes and found the swatch and I was immediately attracted to it. It is choice number one and we are so glad we went with It! We had Jason color match it in Sherwin Williams.

Below are the during (first coat) and after pictures.

Final coat for the back of the house

Front first coat 

Front final coat

The transformation is just incredible! We had no idea it would turn out so beautiful! It really makes it look like a brand new house!! We also replaced all the gutter which are not up yet on the final pictures.  The gutters definitely made it look complete. I'm so thankful that we were able to get this project done. I really have to give all the glory to God for having this all fall into place. Again, we are incredibly blessed to be able to do these projects to our home. It makes us enjoy this house more & more! 

Father's Day went down the gutter!

My husband was sweet enough to stop any fun, relaxing activities this weekend 

{or at least half the weekend} to tear down our old gutters. We had to do it swiftly because of our house painting project. He sacrificed his Saturday for 12 hours of long, redundant, & dirty work.

On the up side he did get to golf all Sunday morning. I usually poo-poo the idea if him missing church for a leisurely outing, but how could I tell him no? Not to mention I feel like Mother's Day was on steroids this year & he didn't seem to get as much attention from the girls. They lovingly got him a golfing gift card to Hughes creek golf course across from our home. That definitely cheered him up! 

The weekend was over as soon as it began. We had a hamburger grill out dinner at my parents to visit with my dad. The night ended early because of two tuckered little girls. It was short & sweet. Here are some pics from the weekend.

Playing ball with Daddy while he took a short break.

She's a clinger & so sweet!

We also had our 7 year dating anniversary on Saturday. 7 years of commitment & love <3

I made the Pioneer Woman's Brown Apple Betty.....don't make this if you don't want to consume the whole pan in one sitting...so good!! 

The Natural Life

This afternoon my house looked like an ancient apothecary. I just need a mortar and pestle for it to look like I'm the local witch doctor conjuring up potions. But hey- if that cures my ailments and removed the pests from our home naturally - I am perfectly ok with that! This entire post is about my new adventures with essential oils. 

In the last 3 weeks I removed 3 ticks from Isla's body, 2 of which were burrowed in her head. Only one became engorged. The pediatrician wanted to see her & I completely agreed. After a quick assessment and google search for certain tick shells, we were given an antibiotic and an order for a lymes disease anti-body titer. The ticks appeared to be dog ticks (thank goodness!). Deer ticks are not very common in this area & they typically are the ones to carry lymes disease.

Something needed to be done. Someone was bringing ticks into our home. Was it the dog? No ticks on the pooch. Was it Justin? Could working outside for a living and treading through long grasses and wooded areas bring them home? No tick bites on Justin. Was it hopping on her when we played outside? It's possible. Or are they just crawling into her room and settling on her head while she sleeps? We have found these obnoxious things on the floor, in towels, or just sitting on top of our jeans! It's just bad here during tick season! 

I wanted a remedy for the pest & I wanted it now! Now meaning yesterday! I didn't want to wait for some outside chemical to take the rest of the summer to stop ticks from crawling in my daughter's room. I didn't want to bug bomb the whole house and still have ticks hop a ride into the house. I wanted something on her (specifically her head) that repelled ticks. It had to be strong, but safe. That's when I heard about essential oils.

Most of my friends on FB mentioned rose and geranium oils to repel ticks. It seems to be a very long trusted remedy & very safe to apply on the skin. Hearing about this sparked interest in other uses for oils. It can help allergies, weight loss, even anxiety. I am totally intrigued. So intrigued that I packed up the girls and went to a local holistic store called The Fruitful Yield. They have a wonderful section of 100% pure expressed oils. 

So in the midst of my researching, the big debate is who has the purest oils? Some say DoTerra, some say Living Young, some say the brand Now Foods at The Fruitful Yield are just fine. Considering I needed an immediate remedy, I purchased my oils and took them home to start using them. I did not want to order a product and wait...and wait....

We have been using the oils for about 5 days now and no ticks. Is it a coincidence? Maybe. But I will continue to use them as long as there are no tick bites. I'm working on making the weightloss trio & an allergy pill as well. I'll be updating on here quite a bit and may even share some recipes! 

An application to rejection?

I am filling out my Masters of science in nursing degree application for Aurora University & I couldn't be more nervous about it. Going back to school is going to be one of the hardest decisions I ever make. I thought I was done with school for the rest of my life, however, things are changing in the nursing world. I may be forced to continue my education unwillingly. I have already graduated with a bachelors degree, but it was not in nursing. Aurora University has made a wonderful program called "the bridge" MSN program which allows you to basically skip the bachelors in nursing and go ahead and get your masters degree within the same amount of time AS LONG as you already have an existing Bachelors. It is not a cohort program, thankfully, which means you can take one class at a time or skip a class- whatever you prefer as long as you finish the degree within a five year time period.

I am currently accepted and enrolled into a cohort BSN program at Benedictine University. I am to begin January  2015. The downfall about this is that you must complete the program following each course with your cohort. It is an accelerated adult program which allows me to finish within nine months. Im feeling in my heart that I would not be able to keep up with that pace. I would

much rather chip away at classes than be constantly thrown into a new course every 5 weeks. Also-  I would only finish with my BSN in nursing and not my Masters.

So my thoughts are- if I'm going to go back to school why not finish with the highest degree I possibly can? That way the likelihood of me ever needing to return to school is nil. Also, if I ever wanted to do be an advanced practice nurse, I already have the Masters for that.

I have lots of back and forth decisions in my head. Lots of prayers are being said. Hopefully I can submit this application and it will go either way. If God does not want me to be in the Masters program I will continue with the BSN. If I do get accepted to AU I will go ahead with the Masters completion program. It's as simple as that. I'm at a fork in the road. He needs to tell me left or right. Either way we're on this journey together. 

Say Cheese

You will be seeing a lot of new "test" photos on here! I have finally made the jump to invest in a very nice professional camera. I am just beginning so I'm starting off with entry-level photos, settings, and editing. I'm tired of paying a fortune for professional photos just to end up not being truly happy with them. Honestly, besides the multitude of props, I could probably take a better photo myself. I'm grateful for my past sessions and glad I did them, but it's time for me to start doing it myself. 

Summer we finally meet again

My sweet little bee was buzzing around the yard while we went and picked beautiful flowers off our bushes. The floral smell of lilac is just amazing. And the beautiful pink knockout roses are  stunning. Ahhhhhhh summertime has finally arrived and greeted us with kisses of sunshine on our cheeks. It is June & it also happens to be the month we celebrate this little bee's 2nd birthday. We have been busy trying to get the house prepared for the summertime bash. That will be another post at another time :)

As usual I love to share our family stories. I treat this as a living diary so I keep everything chronological. Since Memorial day we have been blessed with beautiful weather. We had many fun adventures outside enjoying the sunshine. Here are just a few.

The girls we taking a break from the hot day inside.

We can spend hours on the deck just playing with the sand and water.

No she does not have lipstick on! She is all natural and it is gorgeous! 

We just love pink knockout roses! 

Being ever so attentive to the flowers! 

I love her & her big heart <3

It's hard to take pics of her in the pool with my phone since I'm always running behind her. So a sand pit picture will have to do! 

Can you believe she is almost 6 months old!?! Oh my goodness how time flies!