Kitchen Re-Do

Ok, so I randomly decided to re-paint my kitchen this past weekend. If you have never lived with me, you may not know how I decide to change things up with furniture/decorating in a matter of a few minutes. (Lisa is probably the only person other than Kyle who has witnessed this since she shared an apartment with me at Harding).

I originally thought that this project would only take a couple of hours. Well, that was when I thought I could paint over the wallpaper, which I have heard you can do. I did paint over about 1/2 the wallpaper with primer when Paula came in to check on my progress. Needless to say, she told me that I needed to strip the wallpaper, which I wasn't happy to hear. However, I am SO THANKFUL for my mother-in-law's honesty because I am very happy with the finished product! So Paula ended up staying to help me strip wallpaper, mainly because I think she felt sorry for me. Even Kyle helped strip. In my opinion, Kyle & Paula are excellent strippers, wall-paper strippers, that is! We ended up stripping 2 layers to get to the drywall.

Amanda & Paula both were lifesavers at helping me get the kitchen painted on MOnday. Overall the project that was supposed to take 4 hours in my mind took 16!

What did Kyle do for a weekend project? Well, other than help me, he filled in the rocks/fire pit area in our back yard with sod...it looks great! I think his project was more of what should be considered a "weekend" project!

I took pics of the kitchen, but I think most of you have seen them, especially if you have facebook, which is where I am putting most of my pics now. It is much easier to upload them there than blogger. I am kind of annoyed with the way blogger posts pics at the moment...I guess that's what you get for free!

Mom & Dad Visit our TX home!

Mom & dad made it to our new home in Arlington, TX! After driving all the way from Ohio to Arkansas (to take Kristen to Harding) then to Texas, they were glad to be here.

We had a fun weekend hanging out at our house, doing some shopping, eating some good food, & enjoying being together.

Billy, Paula, Brett & Amanda came over for dinner Saturday night. We played the game "Things" together...lots of fun! I think we also learned a lot about each other as well.

We also enjoyed some corn hole in the heat on Sunday night. Pepper enjoyed having both sets of his grandparents to play with him & give him attention.

These are the times I look forward to the most....times to plan yummy meals and spend time together as a family. We are so thankful for the blessing of our home. I'm excited for many more family gatherings to come in our house and all of the memories to go along with them.

August has been a month of both KYle & I working a lot with not much else going on, which is why there
hasn't been much new posted on the blog. However, I am going to try to keep up with the blog better in the future. We'll just see how that goes.

Please continue to keep both of us in your prayers as we continue to seek & do God's will daily in our lives. Love you all!

1st Family Meal

When Amanda asked "are you going to put this on your blog?" last night, I told her "sure, it's been a while since I did a post." So here y'all go, for those of you who are regular readers of this blog. Oh, Ohio family, is anyone reading this? All of the Texas family wonders since there are never any comments from y'all. I guess we'll find out. :)

Anyway, last night we had our immediate Texas family over for the 1st family dinner at our house....BBQ ribs, which were very yummy!

After dinner, we played corn hole in the backyard. For those of you who don't know what this game is, you see the pics. It is basically a piece of wood with corn filled bean bags that you try to get in the hole. We have been looking for this game since we moved into our house to play in the yard, but haven't had much luck here in Texas. It must be a Midwest game. So last week we got really excited when our next door neighbors the Harris family had a corn hole game in their front yard! We asked if we could borrow it for the family meal yesterday and they were kind to share it with us. Kyle has already researched corn hole games online (y'all know how Kyle likes to research things) & one is on the way.

Feel free to come by & play corn hole anytime!


If y'all have never heard the song about corn hole on you tube, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io8X4pz_QJ0

It's pretty funny! Have a good one! Stay cool in all of this heat!

Happy 90th Grandpa Herd!

Last weekend the entire Herd side of the family celebrated Grandpa Herd's 90th birthday in Alabama at Kay & Elliott's house.

This was a special weekend because EVERYONE was there, which was really awesome. Relatives from Texas, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, & North Carolina all were able to be there to celebrate. Grandma & Grandpa Herd really enjoyed seeing all of the family together. I could tell that they didn't want the night of the birthday party to end & that the time of everyone together was a happy memory for them.


The 6 of us Rhodes' flew with Grandma & Grandpa Herd on an airplane to Alabama, which I can say was a definite experience in the large DFW airport. The biggest hangup that we experienced was in the Birmingham airport on the way home. The security guy was giving Grandma Herd problems because her drivers license had expired in 1999 & she had no other form of identification. Somehow Billy & Paula were able to talk with them to get that figured out. It's crazy the stuff we all go through in airports these days.


Here is a group pic of the entire family in Kay's backyard. We gave this pic to Grandpa Herd in a special frame.

Happy B-day, Grandpa Herd! We love you!

All Moved In!

We are now official home owners! The last weekend of June was very busy moving from our apartment in Bedford to our home in Arlington. Pepper the dog didn't know what to think about the moving boxes. However, he LOVES the fenced in yard at the new house!
Our apartment was pretty packed with boxes. For this move since it was local, we opted to hire movers....it was well worth it!
Kyle has been trying his hand at lawn care. In this pic he was trying out the new weed eater with his personal protective equipment of the ear protection & the goggles. Isn't he cute? :)
This is a picture of our new kitchen table. It expands into a larger circle to fit more people around it. I'm excited to have normal sized table! The one we were using was a hand-me-down from my parents, which was great. However, it was too small to fit tablecloths, placements, etc. I'm having fun fixing up the new table & eating at it!
This is a picture of our new bedroom furniture, thanks to my parents as a house warming gift. Yes, it is a KING and we are loving it!

As for anything interesting that has occurred as new homeowners, the weirdest thing to us is an invasion of lizards. They are small geko (spelling?) lizards & can fit under the baseboards to get in & out of the house! I see at least 5 per week and have made Kyle kill them all. This week I did get brave enough to try to kill one on my own, but they still give me the creeps. I'm just thankful that we don't have cockroaches,ants,mice or other more annoying pests.

This house has been a huge blessing. We would love for any friends/family to come & see us whenever you are in the DFW area!