Project Playhouse

We have been wanting to get one of these great, cedar playsets for the kids ever since we moved into this house... well, really, I've been wanting one ever since Emma was born. But we thought this visit home was the perfect time to get one for the kids.


It was quite the undertaking, let me tell you. First of all, we went last Tuesday and found the one we wanted. It was so awesome, it had two slides, one of which was a big, winding tube slide, the other one was a shorter slide, perfect for littler ones. And it had lots of other cool accessories too, so we pulled the card out of the little slot... the inventory card... with the price. We figured since there was a card in that slot, that must mean they have the item in stock. Is that too much to expect? Evidently it is. Which was really great, when my dad drove thirty minutes with his truck to pick the thing up for us, only to be told they didn't have any of those and not only that.. they had no idea when they would be getting that particular one in.


I was TICKED!!!


So, back to the drawing board we went. We started really studying the different sets available and we realized that there was another set exactly like the one we wanted. The only difference was that it didn't have the smaller slide and the winding slide was not a tube slide, it was just a regular slide. But other than that, they had all the same accessories. And get THIS... this one was $800 CHEAPER than the one I had originally wanted! Can you believe that?!? I couldn't. So, we bought the cheaper set, which they did have in stock and just got Noah a smaller, individual slide that was only $35.


*JACKPOT*


Well, this was Wednesday when we picked it up, we figured no problem.. we'd definitely have it done by the time for the party Friday night. Tony's Mr. Handyman and my dad was here to help, so surely, it would be knocked out in no time.


Yeah. RIGHT.


Wednesday was super windy out, so when they got the playset home and unloaded, they decided they would just wait until the following day to start putting it together.


So, now we're at Thursday... One day and some odd hours until our big birthday luau. I was feeling the pressure.


I was telling Tony he better get that thing done, or he'd be sleeping in Emma's playhouse. ;)


So, here's the beginning...

After I took those two shots, documenting the beginning of the project, I took the kids and went to town birthday shopping. We were gone for several hours. Several hours.

When we got home, this is what I saw. I was worried.

But before the day was over, they did manage to get together the rock climbing wall and the staircase...

I think Emma was starting to feel some of her Mommy's anxiety. She decided to step in as foreman of the project.

My dad and Tony worked until well past sundown that night and the next day, the day of the party, this is what Tony was working on when I left to go to town for the finishing touches and food and party wares.

And honestly, it didn't look a whole lot different at party time. I think he did have the roof on the clubhouse part, but other than that... no different, so I just had to get over it and come to terms with the fact that things weren't going to be perfect for the party, but it was okay! The kids had a blast and all the parents completely understood, as their kids have the same or similar sets, so my anxiety subsided and I got over it. :)

Then, Saturday was the Dogwood Festival and we ended up at Urgent Care with Emma and the nasty spider bite ( which I still need to blog about), so it was an off day for the Arnold family project.

Sunday, however, the fun resumed..

Here's Emma sitting on the seat of what would become her new favorite thing in the world.. the glider.

And Noah loves his new swing. Can you tell?

And he loves his daddy....

Here's Emma on the completed glider...

Look at that bonding going on...

Can you feel the love?

Sweetest big sister in the world!

Tony getting the long-awaited slide put together..

Installing the slide...

Hard workin daddy!

Emma's first slide!!!!

Noah's first slide. He was a little sketchy at first...

And Monday, while I was gone, Tony did the finishing touches... installed the window frames, the shutters, and put together the picnic table... so cute!!!!

Now you get to see it from all angles...

Oh, the bottom rectangle part under the clubhouse is a big sandbox, we just haven't gotten the sand yet...

Isn't that the cutest little picnic table you've ever seen in your whole life???

Now I really can't wait for our next party! It's going to be so much fun for the kids... Oh, and we're going to have a big bounce house here for Noah's birthday!!!

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!

What a Day!

Yesterday... Wow... Yester-DAY!

Okay, let me begin at the beginning...

The day began by waking up way too late. This is always a nice stressful way to start the day. So, up we flew (thank goodness we have two children who love to sleep in) and got our day started. We slept til almost 10:30 and I had to leave at ONE for the whole day... leaving the daddy with the babies all day long. This was quite an adventure for him. He was smothering me with hugs and praises for what I do all day long when I returned at 9:15 last night! I was gone from Noah for 8 hours... phew.. that was a hard one.

Okay, so I went at one to Dunn for my sister to chop my hair before the photoshoot with Amy. This just slightly tore my nerves up. A brand new... super short hair-do right before the most exciting photo session ever. My sister rocks, though, so it worked out well.

After that, I had tons of time to kill before meeting Amy, so I went shopping. I got Emma and Noah some cute clothes for next fall on the 75% off rack at one of my favorite children's boutiques, Snapdragons, then I went over to Belk's, where I got Noah and myself some cute shoes on sale.

After this, it was time to head out to meet Amy in Warsaw, which is half-way between her and me.... forty-five minute drive for us both.

Before leaving Dunn, I noticed that my gas needle was getting a little low, but I was eating chicken wraps and talking to Amy on the phone, so I figured I'd just pull off on an exit along the way and fill up.

Thirty minutes later, I was still on the phone and had forgotten all about my low gas tank that was needing to be attended to. I was quickly brought back to reality by the bright red shining light and the needle that was sitting directly on top of the empty line.

I started to panic a little.

I was on a stretch of I-40 where the exits are nothing but farmlands. No gas stations in sight.

I relay this panic to Amy and she starts making plans to come rescue me on the side of the interstate. Then, thank goodness.... I saw an exit advertising a gas station, so I pulled off and it said the station was 3.2 miles to the left, so I took a left and kept talking to Amy.

Well, about FIFTEEN MILES later, I still had not come across this gas station and now my gas needle was below.... well below the empty line and not only that, I kept feeling like my car was hesitating.

So, I really started freaking out. If I ran out of gas now, Amy was not even gonna know where to find me. She's horrible with directions. So, I was close to tears on the phone with her. I rolled down my window and started trying to wave down the people passing me, hoping they would stop and tell me where the nearest town with gas was. No one did. So, I kept driving. Finally, I saw a huge Wal-Mart sign towering above the tree line.

A town. A blessed town.

So, I coasted into the Hess station on fumes and twenty gallons later, I was on my merry way.

Now... the real fun begins.

Amy and I do not know anything about this little town called Warsaw. We only know this is the point that I get on the interstated when going to see her and she gets off the interstate to come see me. So, we left my car in the parking lot at McDonald's and set off to find the perfect spot in her car.

After driving around for a long time on lots of roads we didn't know... hoping we'd be able to find our way back to our starting point, we rounded a bend and there it was. The perfect spot.

Up on a grassy hill was an old broke down house with opens fields and an equally broke down barn. We turned onto the dirt driveway. I noticed this sign at the end, nailed to a tree..

...but we ignored it because I read the sign as saying, "No Tresspassing at the POND.... not the HOUSE". Plus, we're two nice, sweet girls... who would care if we were taking pictures here?

So, we pulled behind the house, up on the hill, got out of the car, stripped down and started picking out our outifts, fixing our hair and make-up, and spraying layers of OFF on us. The bugs were horrible!

Next thing we know, this creepy old man pulls up in his little car and gets out, staring us down (We were dressed at this point, by the way). He has this huge smile on his face and he's chuckling with every mean word sputtered. He starts telling us how we're tresspassing and he has got the cops on the way.

We were all... "You're kidding right?"

HE was all.... "Absolutely not. You girls are tresspassing on private property and you're gonna learn your lesson. I guess you'll learn it when that door slams behind you, WON'T YOU? I'm gonna go ahead and go now so I can meet you in Kenansville (where the jail is) and sign the papers to have you prosecuted.... YADA, YADA, YADA."

This MEAN man let this go on for ten minutes or more. NO JOKE. And what was so flippin creepy was that he was smiling and laughing the whole time, but being TOTALLY serious. This man was a FREAK.

Amy's getting really mad. Her nostrils are flaring, she's pacing.

I was getting really scared. I was thinking of all the Forensic Files I've seen. I was picturing this man whipping out a gun and forcing us into the old house and... well, you can just use your own imaginations from here...

So, I started begging. "Please, just let us go. We'll never come back. We'll never do this again. WE are SO sorry! I've got two babies at home waiting on me. Please. Please. Don't do this. We are SO SORRY!!!"

I don't know how many times I said this. I was truly more terrified than I have ever been in my entire life.

Finally, after this devil-man had let this go on for what seemed like forever, he gave in and told us it was fine, that we seemed like nice girls, we could stay there and take pictures for as long as we wanted, but that we should really not do this again.

Fine by me!

Amy was PISSED. Sorry to use that word, but nothing else can describe it. Then, the man, on his way back to his car, turned to us and said, "Are you familiar with the gospel of Jesus Christ?"

Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!?!?!! You are going to preach to us about Jesus. The most kind, generous, patient.. and every other good word... Saint to ever walk this earth after you just tortured us and made us think you were either going to kill us or have us in prison for parking behind a old, broke down house for the last.... TOO MANY minutes!?!?!!?!

WHAT. ever.

Amy was even more pissed. Amy is the most religious person I've EVER known, so this just did not go over well with her. She kept giving me looks while this man was preaching his gospel to us. Her nostrils were flaring, she was not enjoying this impromptu Sunday Service by the devil himself.

So, when this man finally left us alone.. he had wasted about thirty minutes of our good afternoon/evening sunlight. We were not pleased.

We did stay there and do our pictures, but not without feeling totally creeped out the whole time. Amy's pictures are GORGEOUS!!! Go see the preview of them here. There will be many, many more to come.

And here are a few of me! She took them with my camera, so the first one is a little blurry (she was still getting used to the camera), but she's absolutely amazing, so I LOVE them!!! There will be many more of me to come too, but these were just a few of my favorites. If you'd like to see more of her photography, go here. She's incredible. I love her.

So, today's lessons learned:

1. Always fill up gas tank BEFORE getting on interstate, especially if the needle is anywhere below half a tank.

2. Never go on property that has any kind of NO TRESSPASSING sign posted, regardless of how you interpret it.

3. Always carry something to protect myself with when doing shoots on location, you never know when a crazy person might come to greet you out of nowhere.

Just a few more from the party

I forgot to post a few and a few were cut off in spots that just wasn't okay to me. So, here are some more pictures from the party!

My handsome birthday boy... I love the way the night sky looks here!

Another of the handsome birthday boy...And Heather was cut out of the picture in the blog below...

My mom and Uncle Curtis... my mom was cut out below..

And this is one of my favorites, so I couldn't have it cut off..

And today is going to be such an awesome day! I'm going to have my sister do my hair around one today and then I'm off to meet Amy for our big photoshoot together that we've been planning for more than a month now!

So, Tony is playing super dad today to our babies while I'm off playing with one of my bff's. Isn't that fabulous?

Oh, and the playset is basically finished, minus a few finishing touches, so once it is 100% complete, I'll post the complete photo documentary for your enjoyment.

Have a great day!

p.s. after I posted this, I went and fixed my template, so my pictures are no longer cut in half.. so now they're just on here twice.

Tony's 30th Birthday Luau

When Tony first got home, last Sunday, we immediately started trying to figure out what we were going to do for his birthday. This is a big one. THIRTY. I wanted it to be special, but I just didn't know what to do. So we thought. And thought. And thought a little more. And finally, on Wednesday we decided what we were going to do for his birthday, which was Friday.


We decided we'd have a cook-out and invite everybody that we know and expect them to show up. Wasn't that considerate of us? I thought so.


Thank goodness, we're well-loved, because most of the people we invited were actually there... with bells, I mean lei's, on.

I thought we were just going to have a normal cook-out with hamburgers, hotdogs, and the stereo blaring, but when I walked into party city to get the party wares.... I saw it. A whole aisle dedicated to having a luau. This is when I knew... we were destined to have a luau for Tony's thirtieth birthday party. So, a pile of money later, I was home with everything I needed to throw the perfect birthday party.

And boy was it! I am such a lucky girl. We had the best time EVER!


So much fun, in fact, that we've decided we're doing the exact same thing for Noah's first birthday. This way I can re-use my luau decorations that I spent waaaay too much on and this time I'll be even better prepared! I'm thinking.... everyone should come in Hawaiian shirts and we're gonna grill some pineapple and whatever else I can think of that is very luau-y. We're doing Noah's luau on May 16th, Saturday night, at 6 o'clock. So, I hope everyone can come!

Now, here's a ton of pictures from Tony's luau. The pictures are dark, grainy, and lots of them have an orange glow in the background. This is from the tiki torches we had lit up all over our yard. I hate the camera's pop-up flash, though, that's why the pics are dark, but I love the dark and grainy texture of them.. so, ANYWAY.. ENJOY! :)

Oh, but before I start with the party pictures, let me just ackowledge that Tony spent the first 9 hours of his birthday... day working on building our project... the cool new cedar playset. It was supposed to be done by the party for the kids to play on, but it wasn't... but he did try to get it done...

Now for the party pictures....

These are our future in-laws. Garrett's parents, Allison and Collins, and his little brother, Jack!

My handsome Daddy

Sweet little Bradon



My Aunt Dawn talking to my Mama.


My Uncle Curtis and Aunt Dawn

I think Granny was still talking to them even though they were posing for me.

Allison and Jack

The girls talking.... see the cute margarita glasses I bought for the luau!! And the Strawberry Margaritas were to die for!!!

My mom rode all the kids around on the golfcart. It's what Noah wants for his birthday. Everytime someone took him off it, it threw a fit!

My handsome baby brother, Jarrett.

My Mama and her brother

Ron and Heather

My mama

Noah was fussy, ready to go to bed...

How funny is this?!?! LOL...

Miles is 2 1/2 and he swings a bat like a pro. I couldn't believe it...

Isn't he the cutest?!?!

Michelle with her drank!

Now, I have to add a disclaimer here.... I am so disappointed in myself. There are so many people I did not get pictures of that were at the party. For the first two hours, I was so busy making drinks, food, mingling, laughing, entertaining, etc. that I completely forgot my camera even existed. So, by the time I started taking pictures, there were some party goers who had already left or who were just m.i.a. from the frame of the camera!

I cannot wait to do this again for Noah's birthday. It was definitely in the top five of best parties ever. So, you need to make sure you reserve the date.. May 16th for partying at the Arnold's!! :)

p.s. half my pictures are cut in half because I uploaded them from flickr. Sorry bout that. It's irritating, but they upload from there so much faster!