The Blue Lion's

Kaden started his second year of soccer a couple weeks ago and its a huge success!  He is doing so much better this time around.  In case you don't remember my post from last summers soccer I'll refresh:  Kaden sitting on the sidelines or trying to escape to the playground.  Me chasing him away from the playground with tears in my eyes because Kimball was at Boot camp and I knew he would be the one chasing if he had been there.

This time around we are all happier.  Kaden is out there kicking the ball and having a blast.  Kimball is at every game practicing and helping out.  I am in absolute heaven!  I think about the contrast every game and am still amazed.  Jo is happy regardless, but she does like mooching the extra treats every game.

A Project

A little while ago my Aunt Ranee asked if I wanted an old chair that used to belong to my grandmother.  I was so excited.  Yes it was gold and old, but it was the perfect opportunity to try reupholstering something.  I love looking at decorating blogs and they are always talking about reupholstering furniture so I have been wanting to try it. 

I expected it to be a headache and take forever, but it wasn't until I'd been pulling out staples for a couple hours that I realized exactly how much time, brains, and blood (those staples can really get ya sometimes) this project would take. 

I mostly worked on tearing it apart after the kids went to bed.  Thanks Kimball for being so patient while I turned the family room into construction central for a week or two.  Then I took it over to my dads so use his staple gun to put it back together.  Thanks to you Dad!  Then I brought my stuff to my aunt's house so I could finish the project with some sewing.  Special thanks goes out to you too Ranee.  It was a group effort.

Everyone told me not to do stripes, but when I went to the fabric store all my favorite fabrics were stripes.  So you can guess what happened next.  Next time I wont be doing stripes.  That's all I have to say about that.

In the end I think I did a pretty good job.  A couple flaws everyone says they can't see (thanks for being kind).  The chair actually sticks out pretty bad in my family room.  Everything Kimball and I own is second had and falling apart slightly.  Putting a great chair like that in the mix makes me hum the song from Sesame Street:  One of these things just doesn't belong here...  As time goes on I plan to start replacing more of the old stuff though, so I'm not too worried about it.

Do you want to know my two favorite things about the chair?  One, it belonged to my grandmother.  It may not look anything like it did when it was hers, but that doesn't matter much to me.  It was hers and I think about her when I look at the chair now.  And two, total cost was only $24!  It could have been $18, but I made a couple first timer mistakes.  If you know me you know how much I love a great deal!  I wish I had taken more photos of the process.  I thought I did, but I have no idea where they disappeared to.   If you want to see the blog that taught me how to do this go to All Things Thrifty.  Its a really fun decorating site, that I've become a little addicted to.