Yard Work: Burning Tree Stumps

One of my least favorite things in the whole house-owning-journey is yard work.  I love a beautiful yard just as much as the next gal, but I just have no clue what I'm doing when it comes to gardening and lawn care.

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(oh, how I wish this was actually my landscaping)

Just like everything else, it's a learning process and it too, must get done.  Part of what we were working on to prepare our yard to obtain a perfect green (ya, right) was to get rid of those tree stumps from our Lumber Jack Party.

Finding Fantastic Food in Florida

Well, we recently got home from a trip to Pompano, Florida for my husband's grandmother's 95th birthday celebration.  She and her husband spend the long winter months down south and are lucky enough to have a beach right across the street from them.  We were lucky enough to visit her & the beach, too!

Our youngest had his first trip on a plane and his first visit to the beach. He enjoyed the plane a lot more than the beach.  We have a theory that babies don't like beach since their skin is just too sensitive still.  Or, maybe our babies just don't like the beach until they're about.... almost 3?  Our oldest was in heaven.  She couldn't get enough of it.

So, instead of going on and on about about the beach, I'd like to share three of our favorite places we visited for grub.  If you find yourself near Pompano and Fort Lauderdale, I'd highly suggest going to these restaurants.

Specimen Cloud Art

Specimen art may or may not have been "so yesterday" but I have a perfect frame to use and I still love it.  So here we go!

Friday Find

Hello! And welcome to Friday! Finally! I mentioned that my mom and I ventured to Ikea.  One of my goals was to find (nonexistent) spice racks. I was planning on putting them in the big girl room for her books, but apparently that was just not in my cards.  Back to the drawing board... (or Pinterest board).

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Boston

Yesterday was a sad day for the running community, the United States, and the world.  My heart and prayers go out to all that are in physical and emotional pain from this terrible act.

Even though some weak soles succumb to the shadow of evil, they are just a minuscule fraction of people compared to those who do good for our world.

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Be kind to each other.  Show love always.  Believe there is still good in the world.  Be the good.  

Trip to Ikea

 My mom, the kids, and I made a trip to Ikea.  232 miles round trip.  My kids may be the most incredibly patient kids, ever.  They may also never willingly step foot into a vehicle ever again.  I feel guilty even telling you that the kids were on their very best behavior throughout the entire store.  Even when we went for a 30 minute wild goose chase for spice racks that did. not. exist.  Yup, not a one in the store.

Aaaaanyway, here are a few treasures we came home with.

Pillow covers, dish towels, a roll of paper, and some frames.  Separately all of these things look pretty boring.  Well, and they might be.  But I certainly do have some big plans for those little frames (I'll share that soon).  Unfortunately, there's always use for dish towels, too.

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Spring Cleaning: The Garage

We carried our productivity from the lumber jack party into our week and knocked out the garage.  It definitely needs more work to make it pretty, but the purging and general "this goes with this so this should go there" kinda stuff is almost done.  It was just clean enough to be able to pull our car in there.  Okay, so here's our before:

Homemade Baby Food

We had wild caught sockeye salmon, sugar snap peas, & sweet potatoes for dinner.  It's one of our favorite meals and our little girl loves all of it.  I've never seen a toddler eat like she does.  Our baby boy was running low on his frozen baby food I made a few weeks ago so I was sure to make a little extra of everything to make him a small batch of food, too.  It's super simple to do.  I have a Cuisinart Mini Food Processor that I use all the time.  It's especially good for baby food.

Lumber Jack Party

Oh, this weekend was a long one.  My husband and four of his buddies took down ten of our trees that became infected by the Emerald Ash Borer and died.   

Dinner's Ready: Big Don Pizza

Just popping in today to tell you about what we made for dinner.  

Spring Cleaning: Touching Up Baseboards

Nap time was good to me.  I managed to get both kids down around the same time so I would be able to tackle the baseboards.  There are so many dings and scuffs that it was beginning to drive us crazy.

I gathered my supplies, vacuumed the floors and around the baseboards while the kids were still awake eating breakfast.  Once they went down, I couldn't have opened that can fast enough.  I knew I had a set amount of time for that paint to dry before I had a curious toddler and newly (sorta kinda scooting) mobil baby discovering what white paint looked like everywhere.

Our Cleaning Lists

I've been using a cleaning list as a guideline for a couple of years now.  My first started out in a 1/2 inch binder and I would print out new sheets every week.  Well, I got tired of dragging out a binder and printing out lists.. Or just ignoring the cleaning when I didn't feel like printing things out that week.  True story.  I'm pretty terrible at getting my to-do list done unless I have a checklist goal right in front of me.  Even truer story, I still like to ignore certain things on my checklists that I just really don't want to do.  I know I'm not the only one.

Well, in order to avoid making more work for myself each week, I made myself a cleaning list that's reusable and readily accessible (to all family members).  Maybe they'll help out?

Hawaii 2013: Photo Book

Once the kiddos got to bed, I spent the majority of the night working on our Hawaii photo book.  My mom gave me a code for $20 off a photo book.  Score! Thanks mom!  I try to never pay full price for these little gems.  I love using photo books over printed pictures for so many reasons.  The cost is significantly less per picture, and the organizational factors are above all else.

We do any major vacations as a separate book but then also make a "Family Year Book", too!

Here are a couple high lights from our vacation in photo book format: