Happy Birthday Gabriel!

Happy 15th birthday to my son Gabriel!
He sure seems older to me than 15 at times. What a wonderful son he is and a lot like me in many ways ~ a no nonsense, keep to himself kind of guy, but with such a funny, witty, entertaining side to him. I love his impressions that he does of people, they crack me up so bad! I wish so much he'd let me get them on video because he is so good! My favorites are George Bush and Jesse Ventura, oh yeah and the British rocker character that he does is pretty hilarious, too! But no, he doesn't like his picture taken and rarely let's me record him, oh well.
Gabriel always likes to debate me on politics and I have to say that he is better than me and usually knows more than I do. I know that's pretty bad, but I'm not good to keep up with politics as well as he does. I guess I should work on that.
When he was little we could always find him swinging a stick, a sword, or a light saber, and he still loves all those weapons today. He even took Fencing for awhile when he was younger. You ought to see his sword collection! He has the best speaking voice, too. We always tell him that he'd be a great DJ.
These days, I can usually find him on the computer either gaming,watching movies, on Youtube, or writing his news blog. Anyway, I'm lucky to have such a great son~ don't know what I'd do without him! I'm sure if he reads this he'll be grumpy at me for doing a post about him, but oh well, he'll live! Happy Birthday Gabriel!

My sweet boy~

With Paige when he was 5 ~

5 years old at the Missouri Botanical gardens in St. Louis ~

With Ty from Trading Spaces ~
Holding his cousin Sami~
A light saber fight with his cousin Patriot~
At the World Series parade in St. Louis when the Cardinals won ~
Just one of his great Halloween costumes~
July 4th 2008~
Christmas 2008~
Gabriel with his shotgun he got for Christmas last year~
A very big, dramatic smile for the camera. I told him he looks like a salesman or a politician in this pic! :-)

Goodwill Makeovers, My Bathroom, and a Great Place to Live

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted. I guess I've just been busy with other things and just a lazy blogger. Must be the summertime making me lazy :-)
My mom and nephew, Patriot spent 5 days at our house about a week ago. We had a fun and busy time. We went to Pizza Machine like we always do when Patriot visits, Coco Key, some movies, the pool, and the Jonas Brothers concert in Omaha. Click here to see pictures of our visit. I sure wish my family lived closer to us. I'm starting to realize what a great place this is to live. I love all the open space, never any traffic, plenty to do, wonderful shopping, low crime, and such nice people. Who knows, maybe we'll just stay here when we retire from the Air Force. Papillion even made number 3 on Money Magazine's top 100 Places to Live. So, now my family needs to move here, too!
We've had such beautiful Fall like weather the past few days and I love it! Yesterday morning Paige and I decided to go walking through Fontenelle Forest. It is such a beautiful and peaceful place. I can't wait to go there in the Fall. It will be gorgeous! I love that this place is less than 10 minutes from our house. Here are a few pictures from our walk~
Then after we got home from our walk I decided that I was in the mood to fix up the master bathroom. It is such a tiny bathroom and I just never have done anything to it. It almost felt silly to put work into such a little bathroom that only my family ever sees, but yesterday I changed my mind and got to work. There are some things in this bathroom that I can't change, since this is not my house~ like the cabinets, and lighting, and the mirror over the sink, but I did the best that I could without spending much money at all. I made a quick trip to Gordmans, Michael's, WalMart, and Goodwill. At Gordman's I found a cute Bath sign to hang from the peg rack that I planned to make. I also bought a Fall stitchery that they had just put out. Isn't it cute? Don't worry I'm not displaying it in my house yet. I'll wait until the end of August or maybe September 1st to do my Fall decorating. I was happy to see all the Fall goodies in the store and it made me even more anxious for Fall to get here! At Michaels all I bought was a cheap $5.99 Pumpkin Spice jar candle. I'm not waiting till September to burn it, it's for right now. I love that spicy pumpkin smell! At WalMart I found a plain tan shower curtain that I thought would work just fine in my bathroom. Then off to Goodwill to hopefully find some things to makeover. I found a tacky looking shelf with a teddy bear on it, a gold wooden sconce, a cutting board , and a candle holder. So, I headed home to get to work. First I painted all of the Goodwill pieces and a piece of wood to use as my peg rack. Then I made my own cinnamon soap using plain, white ivory soap bars, my Pampered Chef crinkle cutter, mod podge, cinnamon, and cloves. I sewed up a couple of little cloth bags to hang from the peg rack, and I stenciled the bathroom. I kept things pretty simple with not having much room to decorate. It looks so much better. I'm so glad I decided to fix it up. I had trouble taking pictures in such a small space, but here they are ~

The Bath sign from Gordmans~

Goodwill sconce~
Goodwill shelf and cinnamon soap~


Stenciling~
Sink area~

Goodwill cutting board in my kitchen~

I thought I would show you a picture of my naughty Chocolate Lab named Ranger. He loves to steal tissues and last night we caught him. He sat nice and still for me to take some pictures. Patriot calls him the naughty chocolate dog :-)I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!