Crazy Hair Day

Hadley, who is 18 months old, finally has enough hair for a crazy hair day once in awhile!

Here she is playing inside our bathroom cabinet:

Beach Music Concert

On April 21, our family had a great time at an outdoor beach music concert at a local mall. The Embers performed the kick-off concert in the summer beach music series, which will be held every Thursday night for the next 17 weeks. Our family arrived an hour before the concert, so we could find a parking spot and a place to sit. Tal and the girls set up our beach chairs at the concert, while I got our dinner from Chick-fil-a in the outdoor food court. It was a fun, free, family-friendly evening filled with good music and shagging!

The Embers 

Tal and Savannah enjoyed shagging during the concert:

Garage Makeover: Reveal!

Our garage makeover is done!

Over the last two weeks, Tal and I have decluttered and painted our garage, as well as installed organizational systems for our tools, bikes, and equipment:

For years, Tal and I have struggled to keep our garage neat and organized. This time around we decided to invest the necessary time, energy, and money to do it right. Tal and I spent several weeks discussing how our family uses the space and mapping out a new layout for our garage makeover. We spent a lot of time measuring each zone and thoughtfully considering which organizational systems would best meet our family's needs for the next 5-10 years:

For our garage makeover, Tal and I chose a neutral, masculine, and utilitarian color scheme of gray and black. We painted the garage Urban Sunrise by Valspar:

Tal assembled this shelving unit, which holds our tools, paint supplies, and gardening items:

We created zones for bikes, mowing equipment, and lawn tools:

Tal ripped off the old carpet on the garage stairs, pulled out the staples, puttied the nail holes, and lightly sanded the stairs. Then, I gave the stairs two coats of black paint and a coat of poly (mixed with a nonskid additive):

Our garage makeover cost around $600, including paint supplies, storage containers, the shelving unit, and organizational systems and hooks.

Tal and I love coming home to a pretty and organized space!

Picture Day 2016

 On Picture Day last year, I had a mom-fail moment when I sent Savannah to school wearing tennis shoes and neon pink biker shorts:

This year I was more prepared and made sure Savannah looked picture perfect from head to toe:

Savannah sure looks like Tal in this picture! 

 

Garage Makeover: Part 1

Our garage makeover is almost done!

Before

After

Over the last 1.5 weeks, Tal and I have decluttered, painted, and organized our garage:

First, we removed everything from the walls and purged old, broken, and unused items:

Then, Tal and I painted the garage Urban Sunrise by Valspar. It's a medium gray that doesn't have any blue, brown, or purple undertones. We used 3 gallons of paint. The sheet rock had never been painted, so it soaked up a lot of paint. 

After the paint dried, we divided our garage into zones that make sense for our family, and Tal installed some organizational systems:

Along this wall, Tal hung the extension ladder above his truck. He also put together this shelving unit that holds his tools, as well as our paint, painting supplies, gardening items, and coolers. We used gray storage containers with black lids (from Home Depot) to create a cohesive look for our gray and black color scheme. We used a label maker to label the contents of each container. 

On this side of the garage, we created zones for bikes, mowing equipment, and lawn tools:

In the area below, Tal hung our bikes two feet off of the ground. Our bikes are easy to access, but there is enough room underneath for Savannah and Hadley to park their scooters, shopping carts, strollers, etc:

We used the garage closet to corral our lawn mower and wheel barrow. Tal removed the old shelving inside the closet and installed some hooks to hang his weed eater attachments. To tie in with our color scheme, I updated the NC State sign (that Tal's dad painted) by giving the brown frame a couple coats of black paint.

Finally, on this wall, Tal installed two track systems with hooks that organize our lawn tools, beach chairs, and extension cords:

Earlier this week, Tal ripped off the carpet on our garage steps. I need to remove the staples and sand the steps before I give our stairs a couple coats of black paint (to go along with our color scheme). Then, our garage makeover will be done!

Some people think Tal and I are crazy for spending time, energy, and money to make our garage look neat, organized, and attractive. However, we want our garage to make a good first impression since our friends and family use our garage entrance 95% of the time. Plus, it makes us happy to come home to a beautifully organized garage!

Girls Day

Today Savannah and I celebrated her last day of track-out (vacation) by having a girls day! We dropped off Hadley at her sitter's house, and then Savannah and I spent some special one-on-one time together by going out to eat, shopping at several stores, and going to the spa. I loved spending the day with my favorite 1st grader before she goes back to school tomorrow!

Savannah and I ate breakfast at McDonald's and lunch at Moe's:

We read and checked-out books at the new public library in our neighborhood:

When I asked Savannah what she wanted to do for girls day, she repeatedly said that she wanted to get a pedicure at the salon. Savannah and I only get pedicures once or twice a year, so we enjoyed relaxing and getting pampered at the spa today.  The massage chairs made Savannah giggle!

Savannah loved her pink and purple rainbow toes!

Savannah's First Library Card!

Savannah got her first library card today (although we go to a public library every few weeks)! We visited our new public library, which is located across the street from our school and 1 mile from our house. The library is a positive presence in our neighborhood that gives our family and my students' families (I'm an elementary school librarian) access to over a million library items!