Exterior Paint {End of Day 2}

These pictures are for Steven. Poor guy had to work a double shift at work and hasn't seen the progress here on North Street. The foreman for the job informed me today that he has bought every wire brush in Livingston, Texas. I laughed and he said "I'm serious." When I asked if he needed anything he said "well, just a big ole' bucket of patience." It's really HOT, hard work scraping the exterior of an old house when it's 95 degrees out. SO GLAD we are paying him to do the work!

 
 
 

Goodbye Old Paint {Time for Some Curb Appeal}

Four men have surrounded my house armed with paint scrapers and electric powered wire brushes. The scraping and banging is like beautiful music. “Goodbye Old Paint….”

Adalyn's First Birthday {The Party}

Adalyn's first birthday party was on Mother's Day. Don't ask me why I thought that was a good idea. Everything came together beautifully and all of our family was there, but it felt almost like a blur. I just tried to cram too many things in one very special day I guess.

The theme for Adalyn's birthday is depicted in the following two photos. SHE LOVES GLASSES but, isn't allowed to play with them. So what would be better than celebrating "your special day" by playing with everyone's glasses and not be scolded for it!




I purchased the polka dot, paper portion cups from In The Clear an Etsy shop with a unique selection of party supplies and filled them with red, green, blue and yellow fruits.

My friend Melinda had a stock pile of Starbucks cappuccino bottles that she let me borrow for the party. I used colored electrical tape around the tops of the bottles for people to write their names on and found color coordinating paper straws at Garnish.

Guests were asked to wear glasses to the party and if they forgot a jar full of plastic party glasses were available with a sign that read: "Make this baby smile. Wear glasses."

These traditional sweet shop paper bags came from In The Clear as well. I folded them so that they mimicked a party hat and designed stickers to seal them closed.

The cake was my design, but was executed by Bonnie Baxley of Livingston, Texas. The design was based on the party invitation and I think Bonnie did an excellent job! I made the paper faces and the tiny felt hats for the top and we used an extra pair of the glasses to accent the top. The faces were printed on edible paper at Walmart (gasp). They charged me $6.50 for a letter size sheet.



Adalyn wasn't quite sure about eating the cake and probably had more fun mashing it with a plastic spoon. After a bit of coaxing from Daddy and Aunt Christy she ate a little.

The party hats were the economy paper hats from Party City embellished with tissue paper pom poms that I made using this fabric flower pattern. This photo of Julia and Marin is one of my favorite photos from the afternoon. TOO CUTE!

Can you tell we were having fun?



Baby A and her new caterpillar from Aunt Leesa.

And finally my crazy family who enthusistically made the theme come to life. It was a VERY HAPPY birthday party for Baby Adalyn.

FREE Download: Glasses Sticker I designed for the Party are here.
I printed these on Avery 8165 full sheet lable paper and cut them out (just follow the grey outline). Enjoy!

Adalyn's First Birthday {The Invitation}

In brainstorming ideas for Adalyn's first birthday I tried to think of things that she loves. Most things that came to mind were, digging in the trash, unrolling the toilet paper and loud squealing sounds. None of which inspired a party theme...until....I saw her reaching for Granny's glasses and the idea hit me, a "Baby Loves Eye Glasses" party. What would be better on "your special day" than being allowed to play with everyone's glasses and not get into trouble! Perfect. I found plastic party favor glasses from Party City in the 25cent party favor bin and the invitation design began to evolve.

The words around her face are lyrics from the song "Glad that You Were Born" from the play "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." The lyrics made the theme come to life by putting emphasis on her eyes and the celebration of her birth.

The top inside panel reads: "Silly or serious, shiny or flat wear glasses to the party and we'll provide a hat!" The invitations made it through the mail and yes I did have to pay a bit extra for the postage, but it was worth the effort to have something so unique, fun and colorful.

Summer Fun

Yesterday evening the girls and I spent time outside. I cleaned up in the yard and watered while the girls enjoyed a little water fun for the first time this season. Marin is much more interested in the sprinkler this year and actually jumped over it without my coaxing. And even though the pictures don't seem to show it, Adalyn doesn't mind water in her face at all. Have I mentioned that my girls are totally opposite of each other? A few pics from our evening.

 
 

Washgravel Paver Patio

Our friends had 80 wash gravel pavers that they were getting rid of and offered them to us. We've always envisioned a small patio just outside the backdoor. We've never been successful in getting grass to grow well there and also thought our summer al fresco dinners might be more enjoyable if we didn't have to trek to the front of the house and were able to go from the kitchen to the back patio in just a few steps. So my handy, talented husband borrowed his dad's tractor and spent a couple days working dirt around to fill this old hole and leveling out the patio site!

Over the next few days he loaded and unloaded the pavers, leveled and smoothed, tweaked, stood back and stared, adjusted and tweaked (did I already say tweaked? well, it's appropriate to list that twice because boy did he TWEAK).

He finished the last of the sand Wednesday just before a nice rain. All that tweaking paid off, because today, it's perfect.

Now for the fun part. Shopping for an Iron bench, planting something new in the flower bed and smoothing out the dirt around the patio so that the grass grows up to it. Looking forward to enjoying this space during the summer evenings that are upon us. Thank you, Steven. and Thank you, Ricky and Dana for the pavers!

Flower Show and Tasting Tea {Family Tradition}

The Annual Polk County Garden Club's Flower Show and Tasting Tea were in April. Attending the event together has been a tradition Mom and I have held for years. I'm now sharing the outting with my girls. This was Adalyn's first time and Steven joined us too. Below are photos from our outting. And here is a link to Marin's first Garden Club Tasting Tea in 2009. My how much she's grown. And this year she was just as excited about the butterfly stamp as she was the first time.

 
Granny's arrangement. She got second place for the room her arrangement was in.

Angelina College Nursing School Graduate {My Brother Daniel}

I took photos of my brother Daniel for his graduation announcements. My family and I are super proud of his accomplishment and are excited to see what the future brings for Daniel. Pictures of Daniel at this stage in life wouldn't be complete without his faithful companion, Flea. You wouldn't believe the noises I had to make to get that Dog's attention for photos. If you thought taking pictures of a kid was hard, try a dog!

Love you Daniel!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Easter Sunday

Scenes from our Easter Sunday. Family photos in Granny's backyard. (Thank you Katherine!)

 
 
 Bunny's third birthday. For a flashback moment visit this post of Marin and Bunny, Easter 2009.

 Bunny cupcakes complete with cotton candy tails. Inspired by One Charming Party's Bunny Party.

 
 
Such a beautiful, blessed day full of music, worship, sunshine and family. Thank you Jesus.