These are a few of our favorite chairs - IKEA: Part 3...

Jimmy's ratty old desk chair...

Jimmy's new IKEA desk chair...

These are a few of Zack's favorite things - IKEA: Part 2...

When you first go upstairs at IKEA, you enter the Living Rooms showrooms, but there's a little shortcut over to the Children's IKEA. If you have a child with any kid-stuff sense, you will be taking the shortcut before heading on to the Ektorp sofas. Trust me.

Go ahead and purpose in your heart that a stuffed animal will come home with you. They are soft and squishy and perfect little cuddly souvenirs. "Golden" the golden retriever hopped into the big yellow bag at the start of our journey and got the VIP tour of the showrooms, courtesy of Zack.

Right across from the Children's IKEA is the cafe. We missed the .99 breakfast by about five minutes or one trip to the bathroom. So Golden, Zack and I headed to the cafe around 11:30 for an early lunch. I got the traditional Swedish Caesar salad. Zack got the traditional Swedish meatballs. Grandma Ida immigrated to the US from Sweden when she was a little girl. I think Zack was feeling his Scandinavian roots from the way he inhaled the meatballs.

At the IKEA cafe, they serve children's meals in colorful bowls and plates. Which are readily available in sets of six across the way in the Children's IKEA. (BRILLIANT MARKETING!) Here are three of the six we came home with. The other three are getting cleaned. EVERYONE (who is not at camp) has gotten to eat off the IKEA dinnerware this week.

After you tour the showrooms upstairs at IKEA, you can head down to the Marketplace and the Self-Serve Furniture Warehouse. Of all the areas in the Marketplace, I was most excited to head toward Home Organization, Home Decoration (where the lanterns and candles live), and Lighting. What I didn't anticipate was Zack's excitement too as we made it to Home Organization. He found the clocks. I had no idea that the boy loved clocks as much as he apparently does, but he has quite the affinity for wall-mounted timepieces.

We searched and searched before selecting the perfect (cheapest @ $2.99) navy blue-rimmed wall clock. Zack has become the resident town crier, letting everyone know what time it is (and how long he's been downstairs before a grown up woke up) ever since our trip to IKEA. Bless his heart.

You know, yes, bless his heart; he endured a 2 1/2 ride each way on our IKEA odyssey. We traveled there, just the two of us. Kelsey and Zane are at camp. Jimmy was at work. The little guy spent 3 1/2 hours wandering through Swedish paradise. He absolutely loved it and wants to take the rest of the family back as soon as we can go. I explained that we have to save some money before we go back, but he and I both have a head start on the list.

These are a few of my favorite things - IKEA: Part 1...

100 tealight candles. Yay!!! But they were only $3.99. Hah! And let me tell you, the red candle... oh. my. word. One of the best smelling candles ever. Wish we had scratch-n-sniff gadgets here on Blogger. The red is a mixed berry candle. The green, green apple.

This may be my favorite thing we brought home. I go back and forth. They are indoor/outdoor lanterns. I bought four and got some black decorative chain and hung each one from an eye hook that the previous owners of this house used for gorgeous ferns. I would love to have gorgeous ferns, but I am an unwitting plant assassin. I can't kill lanterns, so I love them on my porch. They have brown coffee-scented candles in them. Perfect for a late evening on the front porch.

I saw similar lanterns at Lowes the day after we got back. Lowes price: $26 each. IKEA price: $6.99 each.

Did I mention how much I love IKEA?

To the "I" to the "K" to the "E" to the "A"...

FINALLY!!!

Harris Teeter Happy Birthday...

Ummm... yeah... I posted this earlier this week. Maybe...

Happy days...

Happy birthday to my baby girl, Kelsey! I can't believe that you are growing up so fast. I remember the days when we weren't sure we'd even be able to have children. Little did we know that while we sat in the office of a world-renowned fertility specialist who told us we would have, at most, an 8% chance of ever having biological children, you were being formed, skillfully wrought. You are a miracle. I love you.

Happy Father's Day, Jimmy! On the day our sweet Kelsey was born, she wrapped you tightly around her little finger and there you have stayed. She is our princess, isn't she? You are a wonderful dad. She is blessed. So am I. I love you.

And to my own Daddy... Happy Father's Day! I missed you when I called, but I wanted you to know how very much I love you and appreciate the road you traveled in parenting me.

Happy special days! I love you all!

Life in the candy store...

The traditional way of saying that you are joyously overwhelmed at all the possiblities is using a simile (a literary device making a direct comparison using like or as): Norma is like a kid in a candy store seeing the potential for all her summer projects.

Only my first real life "candy store" was actually K&W. Now it's a K&S... good ol' cafeteria eatin'. But back in the day it was the K&W and we would head there or the Piccadilly for Sunday dinner (which was always at lunch time, which is a whole 'nother blog post... lunch vs. dinner vs. supper). I can remember walking through the line and piling my plate... nay, my tray, for I had to annex space for the additional little dishes of jello salad and baked apples and strawberry shortcake...so full that I could barely balance it to carry it from the silver tray track over to the table. I always had to go back and get the drink. I can hear my parents now, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. There's no way you'll ever eat all that." And I never did. Of couse, it never went to waste either, as a very wise parent would hold back on getting a lot of food, knowing there'd be leftovers on the kid's plate.

Waxing a little Forrest Gump here: Life is like a K&W. You always pile more on your tray than you can actually eat in one sitting.

Well, my eyes are still the biggest part of me. I look at the blank canvas (literally) and see so many possibilities. I look at the old nightstand at the Goodwill store and see so many possibilities. I look at the beads at Michaels and see so many possibilities. I look at the fabric at Mill Outlet Village and see so many possibilities. I look at the magnetic paint, wood trim, and dry erase paneling at Lowes and see so many possibilities. Sometimes I just wish I could see things as they are and not as the could be because for me, the biggest rush comes from imagining how things could be and not so much in the actual process of making them that way.

Ask my mom about the shutters. I start. I hit a little glitch. I stop. It never gets finished.

So it's accountability time. Here's what I have on my plate now:

...the (now) unfinished nightstand is becoming a side table in the family room...

...the stairway to the playroom that I want to paint with magnetic paint so I can display artsy-craftys...

...frames to finish painting black and nail on the wall to display stuff up and down the basement stairs...

... canvases that need to become artwork for display in the basement rec room...

...basement storage that needs cubbies/shelves to get whipped into shape...

... the cave - paint apple green; make window treatments; put weather-stripping under the door to the "basementy" part...

... and I STILL need to decide what color to paint the columns and paint them!

I'm kinda thinkin' that no one's holding back on their own projects so they can come in and rescue me. I'm either going to have to get to work bigtime or get my fanny out of the candy store.