Five on Friday!

Yay for it being Friday and for another 5 on Friday Link-Up with the lovely ladies above!!

1.) I've been thinking about what theme to have for Jackson's 2nd birthday party in October. I had been thinking cars/trucks because he loves them so much these days and then yesterday I thought of the perfect party theme... a "Little Blue Truck" party! It's Jackson's favorite book and I thought it would make such a cute party theme. So I went to Pinterest (of course) to see what I could find and found a few super cute ideas.

Ideas found here, here, and here.


2.) Yesterday, my Mom and sister brought the three boys down to the City Garden (just a couple blocks over from the building that I work in downtown) to play in the sprinklers. The boys had a blast and I enjoyed seeing them in the middle of my work-day! :-)

3.) We're only 2 weeks away from our Gulf Shores Vacation and we're starting to really get excited! I can't wait to take our first family vacation with Jackson. Its going to be so much fun!

photo via


4.) How adorable is this cute little kitchen that I found on Pinterest?? I can't find a website for it, but I just love it and I know Jackson would too.

5.) I'm so happy its Friday and I'm also happy I have a 3 day weekend coming up... enough said. :-)

Enjoy your weekend!!

Throw-back Thursday: A Year in Review {2011}

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As I've said in previous posts, before I got pregnant with Jackson, I used to scrapbook all the time. This blog actually started out as a scrapbooking blog. Then once I got pregnant and then had Jackson, my time for scrapbooking diminished greatly. 

I've started Project Life for 2012 and 2013, but didn't scrapbook anything for 2011, other than the pregnancy album I made through shutterfly.com. So when I saw Rebecca's (Simple as That Blog) Monthly Memories pages, I really wanted to try making monthly pages to have something to look back on for 2011. I thought this would be an easy and quick way to get my 2011 pictures organized and in an album of some sort.

So I spent some time this week going through my pictures for 2011 and making monthly pages using Rebecca's monthly pages as a guideline. I used picmonkey to make my pages using their collage templates. I tweaked a template to fit the amount of pictures I wanted on a page. I'm not sure if I'll print these out, (Rebecca uses Costco to print hers and then puts them into a 12x12 binder) or have them printed in a book using mixbook.com or shutterfly.com.

I would really recommend this method for anyone that wants a nice, easy and quick way to organize a years worth of pictures into an album you can look back on one day.

Here are all 12 of my pages for 2011. It was so fun making them and going through all my 2011 photos. :-)

Now it's your turn. Link up your Throw-back Thursday posts below.

Slippin' and a Slidin'

Every year, our church has their church picnic the Sunday of the 4th of July weekend. We always eat yummy BBQ, sides and desserts. Our Pastor and his wife live on the church property and have a pool. So we always swim after lunch. For the last several years we've also had a giant slip n' slide for the kids as well as the adults! Its always so much fun. This year, Jackson was old enough to try it out and he LOVED it! We first took him down on our laps, but it wasn't too long and he was doing it all by himself! He flew down the hill and loved every minute of it. I think we may have a dare devil on our hands. :-)

My dad would get him ready at the top of the hill and push him down. Then Jake would stand at the bottom to catch him. :-)

He would even fall off the ring, but that didn't stop him from getting up and running up the hill to do it again. :-)

Needless to say, he was pretty tuckered out after all that fun. We went back in to dry off and eat some seconds. While we were getting things cleaned up, he came over to me and got his binkie and blankie and climbed up on my dad's lap and went to sleep. ♥

I'm linking up here:

and here:

Project Life 2013 - Week 27

I had a lot of fun with this layout! I love using the 4th of July themed kits!

Week 27

I used several different kits for this layout: the July 4th Mini Kit Freebie from Loucee Creations, the Independence Mini Kit Freebie from Jane Scott Design and the Celebration Full Kit Freebie from Word Art World.

Farm House Fun!

The day after the 4th of July, Jake's Aunt and Uncle had a party at their new farm house. This home was built in the mid 1800's and its absolutely gorgeous. The party was catered and even had a petting zoo! They invited lots of friends, neighbors and family. It was a fabulous party! 

Here are just a few of the pictures I took that night. 

The back of the house.

The front of the house.

Jackson enjoying a Patriot Pop! 

A yummy and patriotic adult beverage. :-)

Jackson checking out the goats at the petting zoo.

My niece Sophia on Uncle John's tractor.

Jackson petting the snake they had from the petting zoo! 

My nephew Brandon holding the snake. (This picture gives me the willies!)

We did a lot of running around with Jackson! He loved it.

5 on Friday!

Happy Friday Everyone!!

Today I'm linking up with the lovely ladies above for their 5 on Friday Link-Up!

1.) This past weekend, I did some swimsuit shopping for our beach trip next month. After trying on about 50 swimsuits, I ended up with this one found here! :-)

2.) I'm in a contest for the Circle of Mom's Top 25 Photographer Mom's. I would love it if you would take a quick second, click the link below and vote for me! I would really appreciate it. ♥

3.) I had the privilege of taking some photos for a sweet family on Tuesday night. I think we got some pretty cute shots so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you. :-)

4.) I'm excited that tonight, Jake and I are celebrating our 6 year anniversary. Our actual anniversary is Sunday, the 14th, but we are going out tonight for dinner and a movie to celebrate. My parents are keeping Jackson all night for us, so thats an added bonus! I think we are probably going to see World War Z. Has anyone seen it and did you like it?

5.) I'm loving that my favorite show is back on... So You Think You Can Dance. They just finished up the 3rd week of the competition. Anyone else love SYTYCD??

 And thats all the randomness I have for today! Have a great weekend!

Throw-Back Thursday Link-Up

Welcome to the Throw-back Thursday Link-Up. 

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This past Friday, Jake and I had our "dating anniversary". We started dating July 5th, 2001! So crazy that we've been together for 12 years! So I thought I'd share a photo from our first year together... way back in 2001.

To give a little more detail on how we got together, I was working at a local grocery store at the time and actually had been dating a co-worker of mine for a few months. It wasn't real serious and he was going to school about 2 hours away, so we didn't see each other a lot. That summer, he went away to Basic Training camp and while he was gone, Jake and I spent more and more time together. Jake and I had the same friends and we went to church together. We had known each other for years and basically grew up together. Several of our friends were dating and they were all trying to get us together.

So needless to say, the boyfriend I had earlier that year, quickly became my ex-boyfriend. I didn't waste anytime letting Jake know that my dating status had gone from "in a relationship" to "single". That night, He and I went to play mini golf with my sister and her boyfriend (who is now her husband) and Jake asked me to be his girlfriend there. ♥ 

Now it's your turn. Share a photo or a fun story from the past! Can't wait to read all about it.