Update on life

I haven't updated FOREVER! So much has happened that I won't go through it all. My theory with blogs is that if you try to update and go back through all the important things and write about them all, then blogging becomes a job. But if I just write down my thoughts and add a few pictures whenever I have time, then it's no big deal. Life is too busy and hectic to add another chore. But an update is overdue :)

My family does a newsletter every so often where we just exchange emails of what has been happening. This post is that letter updating what has been going on for us:

Life at the Bailey home is crazy as ever. I was just telling my mom today how summer was supposed to be relaxing and full of vacations, etc. But summers are probably the busiest time of the year! We both are working and I took a summer class and our church callings... everything just kept us so busy, that our summer has just flown by!

Thinking of that, I don't know if I told you all about Dave's new church calling. He is the new executive secretary in our ward. Basically that means he is the bishop's secretary and is keeps up his schedule and meetings, etc. He is busy every Sunday and Tuesday and sometimes other days of the week. It hasn't been too bad yet and I hope it is no busier than he has been already. I am the Relief Society Meetings Coordinator... long name for activity planner. I have a committee of 13 and we plan each month's activity. I don't choose the topic or all of the activity. The presidency gives me the idea of what they want to do according to the month's topic and I just plan out the details. I like it so far, but my old committee had been in for a year and were burnt out, so my new committee should be better... hopefully.

School is taking FOREVER! I had planned on being completely done by August 9th, but due to work beefing up my hours, I had to slow down drastically. Work wants me 5 hours a day and one class on top of that adds another 2 hours of homework a day and having a child to tend to constantly, planning out dinner and housecleaning, and my church calling... I just couldn't keep up. So I dropped all but one class and might have to take it that slow on my last 3 classes. It sucks to drag it out, but I already have the job I would want if I had my Master's degree, so at this point it is not a matter of NEEDING it, I just will need the Master's degree in case I ever switch employers. The work and debt people go through for a piece of paper that says you've done it is crazy.

Peyton is just adorable. :) She picks up new words, songs, phrases everyday. Her newest obsession is chocolate milk. She asks for it all day. If we try to give her plain milk, she yells, "No, I want chocolate milk!" She's not dumb--no sliding things past her! She loves to sing lately too. We sing all sorts of primary songs all day long. It's cute. This is no lie, the other day she sang:

"I am a Child of God,

and he has sent me here,

has given me CHOCOLATE MILK

and parents kind and dear..."

Yep, chocolate milk comes before a good earthly home in her eyes :) Besides that, the news for her is that she loves playing with friends. I love our little neighborhood. Every evening, we sit a blanket out on our front lawn, and within ten minutes, every neighbor within 5 houses of us is sitting there with us while our kids run around playing. It is so nice. It knocks out any last energy she had left for the day and makes putting her to bed a lot easier. :) She loves playing with friends and gets so excited to see them.

That is about it for us. We had fun at Lake Powell. Dave planned on fishing the whole time, but ended up getting in the water to cool off. His cast got a little wet, so he decided cutting it off would be better than letting it rot in a hot cast all weekend. It was probably a good idea, but I still wasn't 100% pleased. I should have known it would happen though. I don't think it is a big deal though. When he got it recasted, the x-rays looked so good that the doctor just wanted to put him in a walking boot. He told the doctor that last time they did that, he hardly wore it (not good, but honest). So they recasted it. Since we've been home though, he's just put his boot back on. Hopefully no harm was done.

Lake Powell was a blast. I am still sore from wake-boarding. Going in and out of the wake isn't a challenge anymore, so Dave is going to teach me how to switch feet and then jump. :) We are going back with my family probably on Labor Day in September. :) Peyton loved Lake Powell--the water, the sand, the boat--she liked it all! She didn't fight us too much on the life jacket either. Dave and Tyson and JD had fun cat-fishing. They caught quite a few and had a good time together. I am so glad that they have so much fun when they are together. I guess I worried a little that my city-slicker husband wouldn't fit in with the country-boys, but they all laugh and joke the whole time they are together. I love those boys. :)

The rest of the summer sounds busy and fun. I have my class to finish up, my cousin Natalie's wedding, our anniversary and a camping trip we have planned up Cedar Mountain, a trip to the Bailey's for a week for Dave's physical therapy, my friend Lyndsi's wedding, then...school starts again. So much to do, and so little time!

Life is good. Hope this was a good update for everyone.

Love you all,

JaRelle

The Aquatic Center!

Wow, after that LONG post about the table, I don't really feel like blogging about every picture here. I'll just say that the new aquatic center is pretty sweet. It has a huge windy slide, a lazy river, a place for toddlers, little slides for kids, water fountains (not the kind you drink out of), and a competition pool--seriously, way fun place!

So... long story short:

McCall and JD came down to stay for the weekend.

We went to the new Cedar City Aquatic Center

Petyon loves the water.

We had a really good time.

The end. :)

Before and After table re-do

Okay, you all know that I love to craft. And I humbly admit that I am addicted to crafting blogs (Don't believe me? Check out how many I have down the right side of my blog! My sisters made fun of me because I have more craft blogs on my link list than I do friends!) I love looking at those blogs and seeing the before and after shots and the how-to's that show you every step of the way. Most of my house is made up of DIY projects, DI and yard-sale fix-ups, and hand-me-down furniture! Last year for my birthday Dave really wanted to get me a nice desk (which in the end, he did--and I do love it), but I had a hard time letting him buy me a new piece of furniture when I could just find an old piece of furniture and re-do it. It's the transformation that I am in love with--seeing something go from old and drabby, to new and fabulous. :) Anyway, while I am not an expert on home-makeovers, I do enjoy trying.

So for once, I remembered to take before and after pictures. :) I can't say that I take credit for the idea because my cute friend Blayre actually had the same hand-me-down coffee table that she got from her in-laws too! (weird huh--exact same table from her in-laws) She actually had the vision to redo her table with Crackle-Medium, and she did hers in a mustard yellow... mmm, it turned out so cute! She has a matching end-table she did too. It's so cute; so shabby chic! I had been planning on redoing my table for quite some time now. We got this table from Dave's parents when we got married. They got it when they were first married I think and used it all these years and through their many moves. In the end, it became their TV stand and it's years was really showing by the time we got it. It had scrapes and dings and was chipped all over. The knob to the drawer was missing too. I always knew I wanted to red0-it, but didn't know how until I saw Blayre's table. So thank you Blayre for your inspiration and allowing me to be your copy-cat! :)

Here is the dreaded "Before" picture of my living room. I swear it looks cute if you look at it from a different angle where our decorations are, but from this view, it is.... BLAH! I can't put any cute decorations on the table either because Peyton will destroy them in under a minute, so I had to make it cute some other way besides decorations. I was also hating the lack of color I had going on in my house! Everything was so neutral and safe--boring! I HAD to bring some color in and this table was the biggest/easiest way to do it. :)

See what I mean about it being all beat-up. It is a good-quality table though. Solid wood and heavy! Something that lasts forever and you just don't get rid of. (until your kids steal it after their wedding! Thanks Linda!)

More before pictures.

Can I just tell you, if you ever want to redo a table, realize what you are getting yourself into before you start. It is NOT a one or two day process. Sanding down this puppy took forever, even with my new, nifty sander that I got from Lana from Christmas (seriously, you have to be a craft fanatic to ask for a finishing sander for Christmas!) This is the table after I sanded it. Those legs took FOREVER! It was hard to get it angled around all those curves and edges. But the detail on the furniture is what makes it extraordinary though.

This is after it was all primed. Because those legs were so hard to sand down and the little grooves were impossible to get into, I made sure I primed the legs EXTRA good. :)

Next, I painted the whole thing brown. It was my base color for the crackle. After it was completely dry, I applied the Crackle Medium. In case any of you ever want to do something like this, make sure you get the Crackle Medium that says to let it dry completely before adding the top coat of paint. I actually used both kinds The other kind says to put on the top coat of paint when the crackle medium has dried to a "tacky" state. It was a timing game that became tricky. Some parts it dried too much and didn't crackle, some weren't dry enough and I just blended the two paints and it looked crappy--needless to say, I did have to re-sand and do one end of the table over.... go figure, when it comes to crafts, I never do anything right the first try! Anyway, there is no picture of the step with the crackle-medium on it because it is a clear coat. It doesn't look any different than this brown picture.

Finally it was time for the top coat--my olive green :) I fell in love with this color as soon as I saw it. I just love green :) Notice my green sweater--that is actually because I knew I would smudge and get some on me at some point. Why I choose to do garage crafts in the middle of the cold winter, I don't know. I had to come in several times so my limbs would defrost!

And TAH-DA!!! There are actually two more steps that I forgot to take pictures of. After I painted the whole thing green and it crackled beeeeeutifully, I did a light glaze over the whole thing, emphasizing on the grooves in the legs and edging on the table. It really makes them pop out more and it gives it a more antiqued look. (Plus, I am obsessed with glaze--I love it!) Then after that, I added not one, not two, but THREE coats of polyurethane so that all the crackles were down tight. I have seen crackled projects in the past that weren't protected with polyurethane and they can actually chip off if people rub it or pick at it after a while (especially little toddler fingers like Peyton's!) It has so much finish on it, that I can clean it with windex!... maybe I went a little too far. :)

Detail of the drawer. I found the knob at good ol' Wal-Mart. It came as a set of two... one for the matching couch table that goes with this coffee table. I decided to save that project for summer though... when it is a little warmer. I learned my lesson.

Here is the corner and leg, showing the glaze. The lighting in this picture doesn't show the glaze in the grooves too well.

And finally, I have my table back so I can kick back in my bright yellow sweats and watch Peyton play with her toys. :)

So again, BEFORE........

And AFTER! I bought some material at Joann's to cover some $1 DI throw pillows. I love being thrifty--it's how I justify my crafting disorder. McCall also is letting me borrow her drapes since she doesn't need them in her new place (don't mind that they are crooked in the picture). Adding color with the table, pillows, and curtains makes a HUGE difference huh? It was all really cheap too! Success.

P.S. Don't let the relief society president see you doing things like this--she'll make you do a class on it if she does!

Peyton and Jaxton

For Lana's birthday she got a really cool camera... I think I may be as excited as she is about it because I know who my new photographer is now :) A few weeks ago we tried to take pictures of the babies together. Have you ever tried to get two babies to smile at the same time? It's nearly impossible. When we first started, Peyton was in a fairly good mood and gave us a few good shots, but Jaxton was hungry and whiney. Then after he got fed and was all smiley, Peyton no longer wanted to participate and was cranky.... we tried. Here are the best shots we got. They are so cute that it really doesn't matter if they smile or not :) At least in my opinion.

This was after we had tried to play "smile!" for too long :(

She wanted to "cuddle" for the camera. :)

Isn't he so cute?!

Peyton: "I hate this. I won't pose with him anymore!"

Look at this stud! He rocks the smile poses, and the serious poses!

"Okay Jaxton, let me teach you a thing or two. In a second, we will start crying at the same time and they will try to hush us. If we keep crying they will bring us treats to get us to stop... then we'll smile for a second and do it all over again. Got it?" (and this they did.)

Her mischievous looks kill me. It explains her whole personality!

Poppyseed Temple Art Class

For those of you who haven't seen this on facebook, I am holding a Poppyseed temple art class. They show you how to make your own temple picture like the one shown below. I have always wanted one, but wasn't willing to dish out $300 for one at Deseret Book or Costco. These homemade ones are SO BEAUTIFUL! My Aunt Camille made a few for Christmas gifts and they turned out so wonderful.

Poppyseed provides everything--for $50 you get the temple print, the antiquing gel, the thick, black frame, and the class instruction on how to do it. They are big too! They are 26" X 32". I'm still waiting on the instructor to confirm, but I am tentatively planning it for Saturday, May 7th. If you would like to join us or would like a kit (for those of you who already know how to do it and just want the print and frame), let me know within the next couple of weeks. They also do big family picture frames too that includes the big frame, matting, and vinyl decoration. They are also 26" X 32". The little photo plaque at the top left is only $13, and is 12"X12".