outdoors

I hope you get to enjoy some food and fun outdoors this weekend!

all here

mom and dad meet max and erin

Sorry for the blurry photo, but see the man in the light blue shirt and the woman to his right? That's my mom and dad. Yesterday my mom and dad were on Good Morning America! They were able to meet all the Dancing with the Stars finalists, including Max and Erin. Check out the Max and Erin Samba dance video on the GMA website. You'll have to scroll down some to find the video. My parents had some good face time:)

roygbiv

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deck update

I hope you had a nice weekend. Mine felt longer than normal which was great. It was relaxing and productive and those kind of weekends are rare. We (and by we I mean Paul) have made some progress on the deck. All we have left to do is to put up the railings and stairs.

While taking some pictures of the deck, I noticed this beauty that is blooming.

Here's the new ride in case you were wondering. We're really enjoying it. I think Paul enjoyed driving the Edge a little too much this weekend;)

Sorry for the kind of random post. I hope your Monday was a happy one!

I'm going on a picnic...

and I'm bringing these,

this,

and this,

a few of these

and these. What are you bringing?

hello, hello...

... I don't know why you say goodbye, I say Hello!

After lots of saving, we decided to put Paul's Jeep up for sale and buy him a new car. We are both really excited about it, but he's even more excited because he will finally have cup holders and a working radio:) Goodbye Jeep Cherokee. You've been good to us and we will miss your gray tweed seats. Hello new car! It's going to be a fun journey!

coral

I'd like to incorporate some coral in my home. So pretty.

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letter wreath

As promised, here is how you make the letter wreath. This was not my idea, but I found out about it over at 'a pretty cool life' and thought it was a great idea.

What you need:

letter from Hobby Lobby (they were half off when I got mine)

1 bag of moss (at Hobby Lobby)

glue gun and glue sticks

ribbon

Take your letter and begin hot gluing pieces of the moss on the letter. I believe over at 'a pretty cool life' she painted her letter green first so the gold wouldn't show through. I didn't even do that and I didn't see any gold coming through.

It's up to you though!

Once your letter is covered in the moss, then it is time to add the ribbon. I took the ribbon and hot glued the tip to the back of the letter and then wrapped the ribbon around the top of the letter twice. I then hot glued the ribbon to the very top of our door (let it dry before you shut the door).

If you have a nail in your door, then you can tie a bow and hang your letter on the nail like we did with my sister's wreath.

It's a fun little project. Enjoy!

home addition project and mother's day

Well, we've officially started our first home addition project. After talking about it for over a year now, we have decided to add on to our deck. Paul and I love to entertain and we really want a deck that can fit more than just a small bistro table and two chairs. I'm pretty excited about this project, but I'm even more excited and grateful that there are 'handy-men' in the family (which means FREE labor:). The boys started working on it this weekend and made good progress.

I'll be sure to post 'before and after' pictures when it is complete.

I'm switching gears a bit now, but as you know, today was Mother's Day. Paul and I really celebrated all weekend long. We celebrated on Saturday morning with Paul's mom and then had dinner with my grandma Saturday evening. Today though, we celebrated with my mom. We all went to church with my sister and brother-in-law and then headed to M5 for brunch. If you live in Charlotte and have never been, I definitely recommend it. After brunch, we went to my sister's house to honor the two mothers in the family.

As I mentioned here, I made gifts for all the moms in our life. I made letter wreaths for their front doors. Everyone seemed to really like them. Tomorrow I'll share with you how I made them.

My sister and I also went in together to buy our mom a pair of TOMS. She was thrilled!

We always save Dad's gift to mom until the end. He went ahead and bought his Father's Day gift along with mom's Mother's Day gift. He bought them matching 'his' and 'her' bikes. Don't they look so vintage? I just love them.

And boy do they look cute riding them.

While mom and dad cruised around the neighborhood, I took a couple shots of some of my favorite homes. I thought you might enjoy looking at them too.

Hmmm. Maybe one day.....

I had a wonderful day with my mom. I hope you did too!

mom

Mom,

I am truly blessed to have you as my mother. You inspire me in so many ways and one day I hope I am half as good at being a mom as you are. I love you!

Happy Mother's Day to all!

cinco de mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I'm going to pretend that I am at this house today eating chips and salsa and sipping on sangria. Have a good one!

all from here

I'd be more productive if....

... my office looked like this. Too bad my grey cubicle doesn't come with a big window. It sure would help stimulate creativity. Oh well, thank goodness for the blog:)