An Amazing Young Lady!!!!

Look how beautiful my blog looks!!!! I am totally and thoroughly in love with the new look. So here is the story.

When I posted that I had messed up my blog I got some offers to help and one from a very nice person named Ashton. Well, Ashton turned out to be a 7th grade girl whose family had adopted her little sister from China about the same time we adopted Mia and she and her family had been long time readers of my blog. She offered to help make my blog cute again so I shot her a quick email--- THIS MORNING-- telling her I would love her help and she immediately responded and pointed me to her blog design site. This is a 7th grader who designs blogs-- just for the fun of it and because she loves doing it!! She offered to design my blog-- FOR FREE-- and would not accept money because she does it because she loves it. Well let me say, this girl is as good as any professional out there. We emailed back and forth probably 15 times and she was awesome to work with!! I had to keep reminding myself that she was a 7th grader-- you never would have known she was not an adult. Anyway, after a bunch of emails, my blog is here-- as beautiful as ever!!!!!

I want to sincerely thank Ashton for her loving and giving heart. She is an amazing and beautiful (if you look at her blog you will see how beautiful she is) girl and her parents clearly did a phenomenal job at raising this girl. She is tremendously talented and will go very far in life. She told me that she can design any ones blog and she would be happy to do any of your blogs out there. Take a look at her site here and you can email her at princessblogs@yahoo.com. She does this for free and loves to do it so let her make your blog as amazing as she did mine.

Thank You SOOOOOO Much Ashton!! You Are AMAZING!!!!

And, just to add a bit, I wanted to include this picture of Mia and I-- there are very few because I am always taking the pics.

I also thought I would let you know about a project we are in the middle of (that is a project besides the torn up front yard--which is in process). When we poured the cement pad on the side of the house for the basketball court and teatherball court and just flat play area, we realized there was not a natural way to get to that side of the house so we thought we would take out one of our windows next to our fireplace and turn it into a door. We special ordered the door at Lowes and it is now in. It is no done as it still has to be painted and the mouldings and all sorts of little things, but these pictures will give you an idea of what it looks like before and after.

The pictures are washed out because I took them with my little camera and the flash and sun in the background messed with the color. This is the before.

More before.

And yet more

A before from the outside of the house.

This is the basket ball court and the window you see is the window that is now a door. There is another identical window on the other side of the fireplace (part that jets out) and also a window right by the little table. KEvin is building a little fence to define the basketball court area and if you look at the far left by the basketball hoop, you will see park- like poles with big lights on the top. Kevin's dad made these while we were in Hawaii and put them in (there is also one on the far left bottom of the picture just outside of where it was taken). They are amazing and have electrical plugs in them and a switch turns them on. They are soooo cool!!! We have not "furnished" this side of the house and I plan to do some cute things but am not 100% sure what I'm going to do. There are still a lot of little things that need to be done before I can decorate.

And here is the after-- remember moulding isn't up and the door has not been painted.

Now I need top figure out how I am going to arrange the furniture. I'm going to get rid of the green couch because it is old and kind of left over from old furniture sets. I just don't know how I'm going to do this room because it is kind of lopsided now with the door. Any suggestions?? I was thinking of maybe a very small sectional (to make it more cozy and maybe we will actually use this room other than Christmas morning to open gifts) that would run along the french doors and then opposite the fireplace-- get it?? Then I would use probably only one of the chairs and a little side table and put them opposite the french doors by the new door. I probably would not be able to use the leather ottoman because it is pretty big but I worry a sectional will make the room feel lopsided and heavy on one side. I know we will have to get a new rug as the one that is there is beautiful but it is a square and I don't think the shape will work anymore. I may have to go with just a smaller rug in the middle of the seating area where the furniture sits off the rug. I don't know-- confused-- what do you think??

The view the other way. What do you think about the furniture arrangement. I am just confused.

Anyway, lots of work going on this weekend on our house so I should have more pics soon.

Also, my cousin races tomorrow (really late tonight our time) in the Olympics-- cycling track. I cant wait to hear the results and I will for sure let you all know. Remember-- SARAH HAMMER--GO SARAH!!!!