Woodstock Brown

What color are we painting the outside you ask? James Hardie Woodstock brown with Cobblestone trim and black accents. Coming to this confident decision was a long time coming and NOT and easy one to make. In February of last year when I went to visit Tasha in Virginia I spotted this house and fell in love with the color.

Tasha and I tracked down their mailing address and when I got home I composed a letter to the home owner asking if they would divulge the color of their home. Well, the letter came back as "undeliverable." So, I held on to the note and when Tasha came to visit Texas in October, I asked if she would just drop it in their mail box. Then one year later in March of 2011 the home owner responded and shared with us that it was a James Hardie siding color called Woodstock Brown! Thrilled that we had solved the mystery I requested samples of the siding from James Hardie. Lucky us, the paint our contractor is using (PPG) had code numbers on file for this color. After a color match to be sure it was what we liked a decision was made!
Here is the same house in the summer. Note the color changes depending on the lighting.

And finally the drawing I did of the outside of our house so that we could play with color combinations and accent color ideas. Do you approve? Hope so, cause we ain't changin it! What if I hate it?! Yipes...

Exterior Paint {End of Day 9}

Brace yourself for the UGLY (wonderful) progress! Nine working days into the project they are STILL scraping and grinding. The dentil has been added to the gable ends and Steven has finished 90% of the exterior washing. Plus he's removed all the ornamental brick from around the base of the house to help with ventilation. The custom lattice work we ordered from Acurio Latticeworks will ship on Thursday and arrive next week.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Senior Portraits {All Boys}

I rarely take photos of boys. Most often it's families, pregnant women or my little ladies. So when I had three male, senior photo shoots and my brother's nursing school graduation shots I was out of my comfort zone. All that said, I think the photos turned out pretty good and I had a lot of fun with these crazy, creative seniors. A few of my favorites below.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Featured! {Sara's Party Perfect}

Adalyn's first birthday party was featured on Sara's Party Perfect! So excited!

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!