baseball is our life

When I say baseball is our life, I really do mean it. We are eating, sleeping and playing baseball seven days a week up in here. It's crazy goodness. We are having a ball even though our Saturdays are spent entirely on fields all over town.

So life has been hectic ... running here, coaching there ... postings have been sparse.

Soon, I will get my thoughts organized and come up with a meatier post. Until then, enjoy some highlights of the fun we had last Saturday.

T-Ball Angel.

This little chickadee actually caught a throw at first base and if outs were called, she would have so had herself a force out. 

AA Cardinal.

Being the only girl on the team doesn't phase this gazelle. She bosses the boys around and keeps them on their toes.

Coast Yankee.

He doesn't swing often but when he does, and connects...the ball goes flying and the runs start coming.

annie sloan

Very recently, I stumbled upon a few blogs chatting away about this Annie Sloan chalk paint that is told to be a miracle. Frankly, I'm not a great painter of furniture, even though I love the look, because I lack the patience for sanding and priming pieces. Mr. Hawthorne on the other hand rocks it. For the most part I decide what color I want a piece and wait impatiently for him to actually paint it. Which might be why we have several dressers in our garage as I type. But, this Annie Sloan paint declares no priming, no sanding, no preparing. A girls' paint, if you will. One just needs to grab a brush and paint to one's little heart's content.

After some searching, I discovered I could buy Annie Sloan's paint at a very cute shop a few towns away. Haley's Cottage is not only an adorable store with lots of fun home decor, but the staff is quite friendly and very helpful.

I rushed home, already with a project in mind, to test this paint out for myself. I've been wanting to paint this bench from my porch for ages. I drug my feet because who wants to sand all those nooks and crannies? Not me. However, as Annie Sloan promises, I didn't have to do anything but paint. And, that is just what I did. I love how the paint covered right away. I only did one coat because I liked the look so much and feared a second coat might mess up my genius. You have to wax after you paint, and if you want that more distressed and/or French Country look, the dark wax is then applied as well. I did both because that was exactly the look I wanted.

I painted and finished this baby in barely an afternoon. It really took no time at all and I couldn't be more please. There is some balking around the interwebs about this paint being costly which was my least favorite part about Annie Sloan. With that said, a can of this paint could literally last a gal forever. I barely made a dent in my can and I'm already scheming about what else I want painted red.

Before

During

After

Close Up

here comes the sun

An amazing thing happens to Washingtonians when the sun peeks out. It doesn't even have to be warm, just sunny and dry. We tend to sluff off any responsibilities we might have, dust off the mildew and run outdoors as fast as we can. Windows are opened, shorts go on, convertibles get driven. We bask our white flesh and soak up as much vitamin d as we can for who knows when we will be graced by some good ole fashion sunshine again.

Someone must have put in a good word for our little corner of the country; the ones left behind when it seemed like majority of our neighborhood fled to Hawaii. We ended up with an entire weekend of sunshine when the weatherman kept reporting rain and more rain.

My wee family (one of the ones left behind) wrapped up our Spring Break with some cheap entertainment.

We colored Easter eggs with Kool-Aid.

Took the pups on many walks.

After my handy hubby built a fire pit in the backyard, we spent evenings around a fire and/or playing hide & go seek for hours outside.

And we broke out the bbq too.

Baseball practices weren't rained out!

And, free furniture was adopted.

(just say yes to free dressers)

I made my favorite cupcakes ... Chocolate with cherry frosting. Yum!!

Then this morning, the kids 'hopped' out of bed what seemed like as soon at the Easter Bunny just tucked it's fluffy tail under the sheets.

And, what do you know, that Easter Bunny was very busy hiding eggs all over the house.

Then when the kids sat down to take stock of their loot and turn into sugar high feens, Mr. Hawthrone and I 'hopped' ourselves up on caffeine.

Hope your weekend has been sunny and enjoyable.

Happy Easter!

hey kool-aid

Found a fun way to color eggs for Easter via pinterest of course. And, I must say, not only did this colorful creation of many flavors smell great but it really worked great too.

One Kool-Aid packet and 2/3 cup water is all you need. No really, that is all you need. Best to mix over the sink though so you don't turn your counter tops into a rainbow of many colors.

The best flavors for coloring turned out to be orange, strawberry, mixed berry, peach mango, lemon-lime and cherry. I added a little black cherry to the pink lemonade and it worked out so-so. I much more preferred the bold colors. Blue was is my favorite.

I'm thinking I won't go back to those boxed kits and vinegar after using this Kool-Aid trick. This was really simple and the colors turned out much better.

Happy Easter!

march