Fun Hart Family Photos

We are goof balls.  Huge goof balls.  Sometimes I can't decide if I can't wait to have kids so we can have so much fun with them (and not look like weirdo's playing) or if I'm scared to have them because then we'll have to grow up, and I never want to lose our goofiness.  (The "I don't want to grow up" Toys R Us song is playing in my head right now).  We've actually gone to playgrounds with just Kodi (our yellow lab). He may or may not have sat on my lap and slide down the slide with me.  There's no pictures, so who knows if it really happened!

Point being, we're goof balls.  So when I want to get DIY family photos, I really should expect nothing less.

Just to give you a first glipse of what our photo shoot looked like, here's Chris taking a few "practice shots".

Oops, need to re-adjust the camera angle...I chopped off the top of his head!

There we go, I got all of him!!  Love the concentration in his face too! (Isn't he H.O.T too?!?! ah hem...sorry...where was I?!?!)

I'm not normally a fan of showing anyone pics of me in my bathing suit, but I do play beach volleyball when I'm not running, so I'm not exactly not used to walking around in front of a lot of people in it either.  Everytime I look through these pictures, I can't help but laugh, and laughter needs to be shared, so I'm sharing!

Oh yes...so now that you've got a preview of what kind of photo shoot we were going for, let me tell you the deets.

I set the camera on a chair, set the timer button, pushed the take picture button, hauled bootay over to the other side of the pool, said GO, and took off.  Kodi, of COURSE, thought this was the BEST photo shoot EVER.

Here's my first shot...oops.  I forgot I had a motion / action setting on my camera.  Lets see if that helps anything!

Still somewhat blurry , but better.  Chris couldn't figure out how to hold his knees up for a cannon ball without using two hands, so he likes the smile from the side approach.  I think it's hilarious that we're both hamming it up for the camera.

We probably took 15-20 shots with me running back and forth.  Here's a blooper:

Chris kept Kodi on one side of him and the idea was that the three of us would jump TOGETHER.  Can you see how well that timing idea worked in this pic?!  Chris would say "READY?!" and Kodi would jump.  He didn't need the tennis ball to jump after (it's still in Chris's hand), he was definitely ready!  Kodi kept jumping right where Chris was supposed to jump too...this happened at least five times!!  I'd come up and find Chris dry and laughing hysterically standing on the waterfall ledge.  The above picture kind of symbolizes our family.  Kodi jumps in immediately at anything he thinks can remotely be fun, I hurry to get the finished product, and Chris analyzes stuff till he's blue in the face (Chris's Brain: wait wait wait, this picture isn't going to work...if I jump in at the wrong angle, I'm going to mess it all up...I'll just stand here, think it out, and try again next time.)

And this as the picture we ended on.  It was getting too dark after this shot, so we put the camera away with promises to have some more family fun with another photo op when there's more daylight out.  We're gonna get the shot.  We are.  And we'll both put our legs in cannon ball format, and it'll be fun and a fitting photo op for us!

Our good friends Erin and Chris actually gave me a really sweet birthday present this year of a photo shoot with them, and they're so talented, so THOSE will be our 'good' family photos.  These ones are our 'goofy' family photos!  Just keepin' it real!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!  Happy Friday...finally!  Hope I gave you guys something to laugh about!

Being Thrifty

Those of you that know me outside of bloggy world, know that prior to Chris starting school, we did everything together. We'd make breakfast and eat it together, eat lunch together at work, come home, take Kodi for a jog, make dinner together, and do some sort of house project together before heading to bed. I really miss those days, but I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel...one more semester!!! Chris is currently on his summer break before his final semester starts in a few weeks, so that's why he pops up in so many posts here recently.

Chris came home from work on Monday and told me to hurry up and hop in the truck. He found some roadside treasures that he wanted to get before it started raining. Yep, we dumpster dive, and now we take other people's garbage. (One man's garbage is another man's treasure...or something like that, right?!)

We're on a sort of organizing kick right now...I did the mail holder this week, we've got plans for our closet, and we've been trying to figure out a good way to organize our garage.  Chris saw a large bookcase on the side of the road that he thought would work perfectly for our paint cans.  Smart Hubby!

We got home and got it in the garage, and by the time I came back out with my camera, he'd already had the whole thing filled up, so all you get is an after picture!

It fits perfectly into the little nook next to our water heater, and now I have one place specific to go to when I'm looking for paint on the fly.  What a great find!

Oh, and P.S. He's the smartest husband in the whole wide world. He got an A in his Wireless Communications class this summer...go Chris!!

I'm linking up to the fun parties in my links tab, go check them out!

You've Got Mail : Holder

We have a perpetual problem with mail in this house. We can't figure out one 'drop zone' that we like to leave it at, so it winds up everywhere. I finally put a basket on top of the dryer for mail, but that really only works if we come in from the garage. Otherwise, the mail gets left in the office on the desk. And I work from home, which means that the mail gets shoved into a drawer and forever forgotten about. Not good...I think I've reached the limit on the number of times you can claim you're late for this or that because you never saw it in the mail.

And while that's a valid and true excuse, it was time for something to be done about it!

Last week, I took a scrap piece of hardwood plywood from another project I'm working on and stained it with Minwax's English Chesnut.

A few days later, I took Krylon's Spray Paint in Blue Ocean Breeze and sprayed about a million seven light coats on top until I couldn't see the brown anymore.

In hindsight, this was kind of silly.  After this was completely dry, I sanded and sanded and sanded  until I created distressing streaks for the brown to come back through.

After I had sanded until my arm felt like it was going to fall off, I applied a coat of Minwax's water-based Polycrylic Protective Finish in Clear Semi Gloss. (To read why, see my sewing cabinet makeover.)

At this point, I had also put together the shelf for the mail to sit on, but I don't have pictures of the process. I measured the length I wanted, and then cut a 2x4 and a 1x2 at that height.  I took my nail gun and attached them (along with wood glue), then spray painted it the blue plus a brown on the outside and a white plus the blue on the inside.

Here's a shot of the outside before I attached it:

I wanted hooks to hang things like keys, Kodi's leash, my purse, an umbrella, etc., so we bought hooks at Lowe's this past weekend and attached them on the bottom.  First we pre-drilled the holes for the screws, so that we didn't split the wood.

I don't have step-by-step pictures after here.  We screwed on the hooks, then pre-drilled the back of the board for the shelf, pre-drilled holes for the shelf, and screwed them together.

And here she is, all put together!

Details shot:

And last, but definitely not least, her in action.  I took a few things from my desk and put them in their new home.

So what do you think?  Do you like the way it came out?  This is my first adventure for building in seeing something in my head and creating it without any plans.  Not too shabby for my first go round without concrete plans to help me out!

I'm linking up to the fun parties in my links tab...go see what everyone else is creating!!

f you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment or subscribe to the feed reader to get future posts delivered to your reader.