DIM artsy fartsy project

i Did It Myself ART PROJECT!!!!!

I found this at a fun blog that I'm sure Brady is mere moments from blocking on my computer.  It's tons of fun DIY projects that are extremely affordable! :)  I've been looking for a great piece of art for our bedroom and I found this and did it myself!!! :)

Buy frames-- these are from IKEA (seriously, would I shop anywhere else) for only $14.99 :)

Take out the cardboard in the back of your frame... this will be your canvas

Pick out an awesome cool color to be your background :)  I used a sponge brush so I could minimize brush strokes.

Paint your first coat...

The cardboard SOAKS up paint, so I did a second coat pretty soon after!


Let dry overnight... then pencil in how big you want your scribbles to be-- I did four big scribbles on mine.

START SCRIBBLING!  I used MEDIUM Painters paint pens from Michaels.

Let the paint pen dry and then erase your pencil marks!

Frame and make sure moo approves!

Hang and VOILA!  You're an artist!!!!

for under $50 :)

museum bound,
jennafer

PS- We're going to a movie screening tonight.  The police will probably come find me if I tell you the name of it... so you'll have to take my word on it.  I'll blog once we get home and let you know how it goes! :)

phone call

I DID IT! :)  I made the phone call yesterday and it went GREAT!  The lady I was able to talk to was SUPER  helpful and it was so nice to have someone encouraging me!  Now, don't get me wrong... she didn't fit me for a costume or anything- but I'm confident that at least someone will listen to me during the first round of auditions when they come up! :) YAY!

She asked me to call her back in a week when she had more information, so I will post more next Monday- but as for right now I'm just so thankful for the connection that was made and that God had me in the right place at the right time! :)

Thanks for being excited everyone!  I have the best support system of anyone on the planet... I'm completely confident in that!!

***disclaimer: I had a lot of questions as to what a "face character" is.  A face character is any character at Disney that you can see its face... i.e. Peter Pan, Alice, Snow White, Malificent and so on! :)

already bleaching my teeth,
jennafer

P.S. right now I'm in the middle of an art project-- I can't wait to show y'all when it's finished!  Hopefully it will be blog-post worthy!!!

#6

My cute friend Jane just blogged "#6"... it's where you look back over your posts and post the 6th picture you posted on your blog.

Luckily mine happens to be of these two little cuties:

This photo was taken at the grand 'ol Kinney family reunion of my cousin and bestest buddy, Katie and her son, Chael :)  

I pray someday we will live next door to each other!  My life needs more of Katie in it!!!  :)  Someone who has always been there for me and can make my stomach hurt from laughter!!!  It's no secret that any part of me that is remotely cool is only because I'm mimicking her!!!

love silly internet fads,

jennafer

ying and yang

y.i.n.g.


My parents are gone.  It's such a weird and empty feeling.  They were here for a full 10 days and we had a BLAST!  I can't believe everything we were able to do and see!  I'm very thankful that I was half asleep as I was giving hugs and saying goodbye.  I think if a consciously knew what was going on... it would have been awful!  Yesterday we drove around and we went around the car making sure we had done everything that everyone wanted to do.  When it got to me I felt completely satisfied with all that we had seen-- but now I'm thinking of 100 more things I wish we would have done!!!


We didn't take a ton of pictures-- but here's some fun stuff we did:


We RODE roller coasters!   In less than an hour my dad and I had ridden, Space Mountain, Tower of Terror TWICE and California Screamin'-- after that... we had to take a break :)

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER:

The Angel's game!  A dear dear friend graciously gave us these AMAZING tickets!  We had a waitress... at a baseball game.  It was UNREAL!  How do you tell someone "Thank You" for a blessing so huge!?!?!?  WE HAD A BLAST!!!!!!

We had the best time!  Thanks for taking the time to come and visit us!  Counting down the days 'til it happens again!!!!! :)

someone please plan a trip fast,

jennafer

--------------------------------------------------------------------

y.a.n.g.

Last night I had the opportunity to serve up some tasty Barbecue Skewers to a VIP! :)  It was towards the end of the night and a cute couple came to my line and placed an order.  When I asked for an annual pass, the lady handed me a cast member ID (one that I hadn't seen before) and I asked where she worked.  She said that she used to work in Florida in the Entertainment division.  We talked a little about how magical WDW is and how fantastic the Great Movie Ride will always be--  :)  as I was getting their drinks, I realized they were pointing at me... I had no clue what was going on... stranger things have happened in line...  but when I got back and gave them their order the man introduced himself as being a part of the Entertainment Department here at Disneyland and to get a pen and paper because he was going to give me two names I needed to call.  (I'm shaking at this point)... he asked how long I had worked at Disneyland and if I had ever thought of being a face character (obviously he doesn't realize that I think about being a face character at least three times a minute!)  I wrote down the names, the numbers and tried to keep my cool as I told him I would call early monday morning!!!!!!!!!!!!

YIPPPEEE!  Please don't freak out and get all crazy excited on me.  This is FANTASTIC news-- but the reality is that probably nothing will come of this.  But I am encouraged and excited that I was noticed!! :)   God is so good at giving us little "nudges" to keep trekking on!!! :)  

I have a four hour foods class today--  excited to learn how I can be better at my job! :)  Not excited to sit in a freezing classroom!!

I'm going to clean the apartment today...  :)  YAY!  I got a new scent of pledge! :)  

I finally found my perfect work watch!!  :) 

so thankful the Lord has blessed me with "yangs" on this "ying" day,

jennafer

awaiting the guests

My parents will be in California in less than 24 hours! :)  Today we had so much fun hanging out and soaking up the fact that I will now have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off!!! :) Don't get me wrong... I LOVE Mickey Mouse and I'm becoming quite the Ice Cream snob and only eat Haagen Dazs... but I really enjoy getting a "weekend" in my work week! :)  Thank you God for inventing the 7th day (and Americans for the 6th day)!!!!!

We went to Urban Outfitters because they are having fantastic sales right now and a little birdie blessed me with some fantastic fun money (thank you thank you thank you thank you)-- so we headed to their home section... found this gem:

And how could you not love this little bird???

If shopping sales were a sport, I'd be a gold medalist!!!!!!!  (my total was less than $30... oh yeah)

Check out this super cute trivet I found yesterday-- my candles would melt every time I turned the oven on-- this is the perfect solution! :)

We ended our adventure at Target-- where we are SET for my parents to come and eat us out of house and home!!!! :)  GET EXCITED FOLKS!!!!

I also finished our bar stools today--  We bought these at Target for $19.99, put a crackling paint on them and then finished it off with a glossy sealer... they turned out GREAT!  And we didn't have to spend a million dollars on bar stools-- seriously people... why are bar stools so expensive?

What a GREAT day!  And it's not even over!!!

happy sunday to me,

jennafer

tacky sweaters

So, as I was looking through my tacky sweater pictures, I realized I haven't shared what a fun Christmas we had with my dad's side of the family!  Here are some fun pictures from that weekend in January!!!  :)  So grateful that my family is completely okay with being crazy!

We started the weekend out with a birthday party of baby Macee:

Games at night:

Woke up the next morning and opened presents:

Then went to my sister's and got really tacky:

and that moo, of course, looked super cute:

late ho, late ho, late ho,

jennafer

mom and dad

arrive here in FOUR DAYS!  Are you kidding me?  How blessed are we this month that BOTH of our parents are taking the time to come visit us!  I'm so so so so thankful! :)  The only thing that got me out of bed after Pops and GoGo rolled away was that I needed to wash my sheets for our NEXT guests!

I can't wait for them to get here!  They haven't visited since the moving van pulled away in 1992.  I can't wait for them to show us around and tell me about things I liked to do when I was little!  I want to go to the McDonalds where they held every birthday party of mine from 2-6 :)  (my choice of course), see where I did swimming lessons, took dance, their favorite places to eat, show them around Disney, and play chicky chicky. :)

Here's one of my favorite pictures of my mom and dad.  I caught this at our tacky Christmas sweater party this year! :)  So cute! :) 

daddy's girl,

jennafer

a visit with pops and gogo

It's on purpose that I haven't blogged about our time spent with pops and gogo.  I think I'm finally out of the grieving stage and now am able to come to grips with reality and talk about our experience--  I HATE that they aren't here anymore and our time was so short-- but we had the absolute BEST time with them! :) I'm so so so thankful that they made the trip out here and so so so thankful for their wonderful friendship! :)

We picked GoGo up from the airport on Monday afternoon.  We ate at Rubio's and took her to pinkberry.  We went to REI where her and Brady bought the funniest shoes!  I'll post a picture of those when I find them... hysterical!  Then we walked around Downtown Disney for a bit.

We found one of these little guys and SuperBrady came out of hiding:

I must have admit, lego land was more of a hit with the Braner clan, but GoGo really liked this Indiana Jones.  P.S. We saw a set of legos for $400.00 in there... seriously?  Thankful that Anabelle plays with tennis balls and not Star Wars legos!!

We ended this night watching Duke and Butler play--  Brady's always been a fan of Duke, so it was fun to watch them WIN! :)  And I love Coach K.  He's so cool! :)

The next day we took GoGo to my new favorite restaurant here-  Souplantation!  It's so delish.  We also went to a book store where GoGo spoiled us and bought me a couple books on the history of Disneyland and Brady a book for his bible study! :)  

We then went and watched the new Nicholas Sparks movie, Last Song.  I haven't read the book yet (let's be honest... I only read in Cabo)

The first half was a little lacking, but in the end the movie turned out to be okay!  AND I still really like Miley! :)

We then met our dear friends Kenny and Megan for dinner at BJ's and had so much fun introducing them to GoGo! :)  

Pop's flight arrived that night we came home and went to bed early because we went to Disney the next day!!

We woke up Wednesday morning and headed to Company D, a place where Disney's overstock goes for 50% off!  I'm surprised there was anything left in that place... I think they have Christmas presents for the Grandkids for the next 5 years!!  It was so so so much fun! :) 

This picture is so great at capturing the madness that was GoGo and me shopping for bargains:

We then headed to Disneyland and California Adventure!  It was the best day EVER!!!!!  I hadn't gone to the parks to play in a while so it was so so needed! :) 

Riding California screamin:

Getting excited for the ariel show:

Taking people to see It's Tough To Be A Bug is one of my favorite things to do at Disney! :) 

We ended the night riding Toy Story Mania THREE times!  My arm was HURTING after!!!  Brady finally beat me on the first round!

I'll try to refrain from telling you that I got 161,800 on the next game.  

We woke up early the next morning and Brady took them to the airport while I got ready for work.  I would be lying if I didn't tell you that I cried in the shower.

YAY for a FANTASTIC few days with our dear friends!!!!!!  We were so blessed by their visit!!!!  

Thanks for coming to visit us even though we don't have Grandkids!!!!!!!!!

my heart is still hurting,

jennafer

happy easter

The Easter bunny came!  We had the BEST Easter this year!  God is so very good! :)

We started our week out receiving Brady's VERY favorite Easter tradition from GoGo and Pop's--  Easter fudge eggs from the fudge shoppe in Branson! :)  YUMMY!

The excitement is overwhelming:

y.u.m.m.m.m.m.

Then an Easter bunny came on Saturday night while I was at work-- sneaky sneaky.  I walked in to a house full of these tickets:

On the back was something I could redeem them for-- but first I had to "earn" them by answering Bible trivia questions (a tradition at Brady's house growing up)-- I studied for a while and only lost three tickets! :) yay!

My husband is so awesome! :)  I love how cute and thoughtful he is!! :)  

Then the Easter bunny came last night and Brady woke up with this on the side of his bed:

Our house was then transformed into an easter egg hunt!  The eggs were filled with the Bunny's tips from scooping ice cream and puzzle pieces.  Once he put the puzzle together he learned his options on what to spend the money on and that the Easter bunny couldn't benefit from anything he purchased!  haha

moo's favorite thing about Easter is playing with the empty Easter eggs-- seriously she carries them everywhere!  She loves it!

Trying to talk the dad into giving her some candy:

We are so excited around here because tomorrow GoGo arrives!  We can not WAIT to spend time with GoGo and Pops! :)  We have their whole adventure planned-- remember our really awful fireplace?  well now it's a huge choose your own adventure board with magnets for them to pick what they want to do while they are here!!

I think I'm going to keep it up year round--  it is so much better looking like this!!! :) 

Hope y'all had an extremely happy easter-- celebrated that JESUS IS RISEN!!!!  and ate a ton of candy! :)  

humbled at how awesome Jesus is,

jennafer