Friday Five

Happy Friday Everyone!!!!

One

I am so excited that in 56 days we'll be heading to Disney World!!!! This will be a first for both of the kids (we took Jackson to Disneyland last year but he's never been to Disney World) and we are taking my parents along for the ride and they've never been either!!!

Printable Courtesy

Two

My mom made this super cute wreath for our front door(s). I just love it!!

Three

Wednesday night, I took the kids to their new school for a Parents as Teachers event. They were able to play on the playground and they had a bubble bus there. They had so much fun!!

Four

A couple Saturdays ago, I took the kids for a long walk around the neighborhood and through the park. Jackson drove Avery around in his car and we all really enjoyed it. I love that we have a park with walking trails so close to our house.

Five

I recently had a photo book made from zno.com. I had seen an advertisement for them somewhere where they had layflat books for $5 if you were a first time customer. I was skeptical, but willing to try it for only $5. I ordered it on a Tuesday or Wednesday and by Friday it was delivered. So they already had me hooked with their fast turn around time. The book is really nice and I'm very pleased with it. It's very nice quality and it's something I can set out on our new built-ins downstairs. The pages are very thick (like cardboard) so I don't have to worry so much about the kids tearing it up too, which is a bonus. I just made it using the recent pictures we had taken of me and the kids. I'd highly recommend them, especially for the first time customer discount.

Here are a few pictures of it.

Have a great weekend.

Jackson's T-Ball Pictures 2016

Though the T-ball season ended back in June, we just got Jackson's T-Ball pictures back and they turned out so cute!!

Welcome Home Wednesday

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I have plenty to blog about, but just haven't taken the time to do it. Hopefully I can get back in the groove soon. 

Today I wanted to share some updates we've made this week in our house. 

My dad worked hours and hours re-doing our downstairs family room and it looks amazing!!!! I can't tell you how excited I am to have it pretty well finished (aside from decorating). He did an amazing job and we really can't thank him enough for his hard work!

Here is a before and after picture of the wall with the fireplace on it. I'll take a few other pictures once it's actually decorated, but for now, it's come such a long way and I couldn't wait to share the transformation.

We still need to add handles to the cabinet doors and of course fill those built ins with more pretty things, but otherwise it's finished. 

Some of you may wonder why we only did a cabinet on one side and not the other. When I first saw this room, I thought built-ins on either side would be so cool and a cabinet at the bottom of each side would be a great place to store all of our dvd's and them not be seen. But once my dad got to measuring and planning, he realized a cabinet on the right side would come out in front of that window and that would look silly and just wouldn't work. I still really wanted a cabinet though, so he said lets just do one and leave the other side all shelves. I was a little skeptical about how that would look, but now I think it looks just fine and I'm happy to have at least one cabinet as opposed to none at all.

The mantle is made out of cedar and stained dark walnut like our floors. I love it and am happy I pushed for the exposed beam look. We went back and forth on whether to do a white mantle or exposed beam look and I am really glad we went for the exposed beam. 

We also got my picture gallery wall hung over the couch in the upstairs living room. I've been putting this little project off for months because I just wasn't sure how to tackle it. Our walls are plaster and I haven't had much luck with the 3M hooks. I knew drilling multiple holes into this wall would be really hard because it's basically like concrete. Then I found the 3M velcro-like strips and decided to give them a try. They hold so much better and so far I've been really happy with them. So I decided to give them a try on this wall. I already had frames from our old house that I wanted to use, along with a few things I picked up here and there. I decided since our living room didn't have much color in it yet, that I'd spray paint the black picture frames some fun colors that matched the dining room plates and table runner. I tackled that little project on Saturday and then Monday while I was off work, my dad helped me hang them all up and I absolutely love the way it turned out!

The frames are all just from wal-mart and spray-painted teal, coral and navy. The "Love" sign, arrow and "&" sign are all from Hobby Lobby, the "S" is from Michaels and the "All because two people fell in love" sign is from etsy, found here. I still want to get some new, matching toss pillows, change out the lamp shades and eventually get new living room furniture altogether. We also want to sand down the tables and stain the tops the dark walnut that is on our floors and paint the bottom portions white, but I'm super happy with the way this little gallery wall turned out and it makes me happy every time I walk into this room!

So those are two pretty awesome updates we've done recently that I really love and wanted to share.

Project Life 2016: Week 23

My Project Life page for week 23 of 2016.

I used the Homegrown Full Kit Freebie from Mari Koegelenberg.

9 Years of Wedded Bliss

In honor of our 9 year wedding anniversary today, I put together a little collage of the last nine years of marriage. Here's a little look back at a picture of Jake and I from each year that we've been married. We've had lots of fun times together and I am so happy and proud to be celebrating nine years with my best friend.

Project Life 2016: Week 22

My Project Life page for week 22 of 2016.

I used the Hello Beautiful Mini Kit Freebie from The Digi Crafter.

Five on Friday: 4th of July Edition

 

 

Happy Friday!

Today I'm linking up with Christina, April and Natasha for Five on Friday!

 

 

We had a wonderful 4th of July, despite the fact that it rained ALL WEEKEND LONG!! We made the best of it and thankfully, the rain stopped long enough for us to enjoy the evenings. Sunday we spent the evening with friends at the Stanfields house. We had lots of yummy food, fireworks and time spent with friends. It was a lot of fun.

 Then Monday, we went to another friends' house for their second annual 4th of July party! They live right down the street from where their city does their fireworks display, so it's just a quick walk and you're there. We went last year and had so much fun and had just as much fun again this year. The rain stopped just in time for the party and stayed dry the rest of the night with just a few sprinkles during the fireworks. Both kids loved the fireworks again this year!

For the 4th of July party, our friends supplied the meat and soda and we each brought a side or dessert. My mom found this super cute and yummy recipe on facebook. It's a taco dip. The bottom layer was re-fried beans, then a layer of salsa, followed by a layer of shredded cheese and then the top layer was sour cream. Then for the flag you use black olives, cherry tomatoes and then Tostito Rolls. It was super easy and a crowd-pleaser for sure. :-)

We finally got our flag pole hung, just in time to hang our new flag for the 4th of July!

 

  And since the rest of this post has been about the 4th of July, I'll share these super cute pictures I took of my nephews for the 4th.

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July!

The Tarr Family | St. Louis Family Photography

In years past, Spring and Summer have been pretty slow when it comes to my Photography Business. Fall is always my busiest time and I'm sure that won't change this year. However, this Spring and Summer have been my busiest yet and I'm loving it. I've always thought Spring and Summer would be so pretty for family pictures and I'm so happy to have gotten some past and new clients who've decided to have Spring/Summer sessions. One of my very favorite and repeat clients recently added to their family and decided to get some family pictures taken last month. It was a hot Saturday evening, but they rocked their session and we found some beautiful backdrops for their pictures!

Such a sweet big sister!

The new baby was a perfect angel. She slept the entire hour we were together! Isn't she precious?

Welcome Home Wednesday

I haven't updated you all on any of our recent home renovations but it's not because there hasn't been a lot going on. There definitely has been. These are just cell phone pictures, I'll take some better pictures when it's all finished!

Our most recent project has been the downstairs family room. It started out looking like this when we bought the house back last September...

Then we tore out the wall in-between the family room and the downstairs bedroom. We also tore out the paneling around the windows and tore out the bar and used that space to turn the 1/2 bath into a full bath and that's where it stayed while we gutted the kitchen and rehabbed it.

Once the kitchen was done, my dad moved the door going into the bedroom down closer to the stairs so that it wouldn't be right in the middle of the family room. Re-drywalled the wall into the bedroom and replaced the outside door. He also foam insulated around the windows because there was 0 insulation, you could acutally see clear to the outside around the windows. He also added can lights and then gutted the basement bedroom and re-did it and also gutted the half bath and made it a full bath (which I still need to blog about soon.) And then it became a catch all room for all the tools and stuff we needed to work on other projects around the house. That is until about 2 weeks ago when he started framing in the wall of windows and around the fireplace!

He then dry-walled around the windows and fireplace and then mudded, sanded and painted all the walls in the basement to match the gray we have upstairs! He also stippled and painted the ceiling. Then he hung the t.v. over the fireplace and built a new hearth on the fireplace. Monday, we moved the sectional in and yesterday my dad painted the fireplace insert black, as you can see in these pictures above, it was a bronze color. Today he's laying tile in the hallway that leads to the bathroom, laundry room and garage.

The short term plan for the rest of this space is to add built in shelves on either side of the fireplace, add an exposed beam style mantle and tile over the brick around the fireplace and on top of the hearth. We will also be laying ceramic tile from the outside door, over to the stairs and down the hall to the bathroom, laundry room and garage door (which will hopefully be done soon since he's starting on it today.) Then eventually we want to tear out the carpet that's in there now and add something else whether it be new carpet, carpet squares or tile we aren't quite sure yet and of course new baseboards. I'd also like to add a plank wall or ship-lap to that back wall and we'll need new faux wood blinds up on the windows for a little privacy. I imagine we'll have them open most of the time since the windows give us so much natural light and such an open, airy feeling. They look out onto the patio so it's nice to have them there. We will also get a sofa table to go behind the couch and an end table at some point soon too.

So that's what we've been working on lately. I haven't really updated much because it's a little overwhelming with all the work that is going on. I'm hoping to do a post about the downstairs bathroom next. It took on quite a major transformation and looks really amazing now!

152-181 of 365

June was another fun month! We started the month out with a trip to the Magic House with friends, we went for a hike at Castlewood State Park, we did a little neighborhood scavenger hunt, started work on the basement family room and spent many evenings outside playing. Avery got her first haircut, Jake and Avery went on a Daddy/Daughter date night and we did some bird watching in the backyard.

 We spent a fun day at the community pool, celebrated Father's Day at Busch Stadium, the kids started another gymnastics class and we saw Big Foot smash some cars. We also had our church picnic and enjoyed more evenings outside playing!

It was a great month full of Summer fun and we're already off to a good start with July!

Five on Friday

 

Happy Friday!

Today I'm linking up with Christina, April and Natasha for Five on Friday!

 Avery's new favorite toy is her Doc McStuffins stethoscope, aka her "check-up". You rarely see her without it around her neck these days! She calls the doctors bag her "doc stussins" which is really cute too! I really want to find her a Doc McStuffins doctors coat to dress up in. She would LOVE it!!

This past Saturday, we took the kids to see Big Foot at a local car dealership. They had old cars set up for him to crush! The first thing Avery said when she saw him was, "it's Blaze"! Ha. 

 For our Fellowship Sunday at Church this past Sunday, I made these adorable 4th of July themed kabobs. I just used watermelon cut into the shape of stars using a small star shaped cookie cutter, angel food cake cut into cubes and blue-berries. :-)

I've had several cute photo sessions lately. I'd love to share a few of them in the next few weeks. Here's a little sneak peek of one of the most adorable photo sessions I've ever had the opportunity to do. Meet Page. This was her 2 year old session and it was at an ice cream parlor!! Such a cute idea for a photo session for a 2 year old.

Finally, Happy 4th of July! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend celebrating America!!