What I did on my Vacation...

I decided to take the week of Memorial Day off and get some stuff done around my house. We had finished up the patio but still needed to put sod down around it to really finish it. I also wanted to do some cleaning and organizing and then have a yard sale that Saturday. I am happy to say I was able to get it all finished, thanks to the help of my parents. The week went like this... Monday was the holiday and also my Uncle's birthday. So Jake and I ,along with my parents and grandparents, went to my Aunt and Uncle's house for a BBQ. Then Tuesday, my parents came over and helped me go pick up the sod from the sod farm (my dad has a pick-up truck) and then they helped me lay the sod. I also wanted to add a light outside that would shine on our updated playground. So my dad helped me do that as well. He's very handy and can pretty much do anything when it comes to home remodeling. Here are a few pictures...

The sod all layed around the patio.

The sod all layed around the patio!

I also layed some bricks to make a separate little patio for our trash-cans. I still need to get a couple more pieces of sod to add to this project.

This is the light my dad added to the outside of the garage so that the playground will have some light.

Then on Wed. I thought it would be nice to go do something fun and take a break from working at home. So my Mom, Sister and I took my nephew to see the Dinoquest Exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It was so much fun!! I hadn't been to the garden in several years. My nephew is really into dinosaurs right now, so we thought he would really like the exhibit. Here are a few pictures. I took a ton, but these are just some of my favorites.

My nephew Landon, looking up at the T-Rex in the Dinoquest Exhibit.

Landon, posing for a picture for us.

Some of the dinosaurs in the exhibit.

Landon looking down at an aquarium, from a bridge made from bamboo.

Gardenia... it smelled sooo good!!

Landon in the children's garden.

Landon in the children's Garden.

Landon playing in one of the many water fountains at the MO Botanical Garden.

Landon smelling the Hydrangeas.

A mama duck and her babies in a pond in the Japanese Garden.

A bridge in the Japanese Garden where you can feed Ducks and huge Koi Fish.

A zig-zag bridge in the Japanese Garden surrounded by Iris flowers.

A close-up of one of the Iris flowers. So beautiful.

Landon holding his hand under a fountain in the Japanese Garden.

This is probably my favorite part of the Botanical Garden. Its a drum bridge in the Japanese Garden!

Water lillies in the Japanese Garden.

A black petunia. I had never seen one of these before... very cool.

Lillies. One of my favorite flowers.

An Orchid. Orchids are my favorite flower!!

Beautiful pink roses in the rose garden.

Thursday, I cleaned and organized the storage side of our basement. I'm so glad to have that finished. Then Friday we got ready for our yard sale and Saturday we had the sale. My mom, sister and I all had stuff to sell. It turned out great and I made about $70. Then Sunday we went to the zoo, but I forgot to put my battery back in my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. :-(

So all in all, I had a GREAT week off and got a lot of stuff done, so I just thought I'd share! :-)

A couple more pages for my Mom's 50th Birthday album.

I made these two layouts for my Mom's 50th birthday album that we gave to her on her birthday back in December. I've been working on pages of her party that we gave her. The first is of some of the guests sitting at the tables and of her cake that my sister made for her. I used a sketch from Practical Scrappers and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I used my Make the Cut software for all the cuts.

The Sketch.

This second layout is of my mom with the birthday cake my sister made for the party. I made the layout look like the actual cake. Just wanted to try something different for a change.

Our back yard.

I've spent the last couple weeks working in our back yard and trying to get some things done that have been needing to be done. When we bought our house 3 years ago, one thing it didn't have that I wished it had, was a patio of some kind. With all the remodeling on the inside, we just didn't have the money to put in a patio or deck of any kind when we bought the house. Well last year my aunt and uncle put in new landscaping and had over 600 gray landscaping bricks they wanted to get rid of. Well I was so happy to take them off their hands. :-) We were finally able to get the patio put in this past Friday. Its nothing big, but will be nice to put a couple chairs out there and a little table, a great place for the BBQ grill and definately great when its nasty out and I have 8 muddy paws to deal with. Here are a few pictures of our new patio!

The hole dug out for the patio.

The gravel that goes in before the sand and bricks.

The finished patio.  Ready for dirt and sod around it.

The patio with the dirt all leveled up and ready for sod.

The patio all finished with the grass growing all around it nicely.

Our house came with a wooden playset, that we hadn't really done anything with, due to not having kids nor money to really do anything with it. I was sick of the weeds growing up in it and figured it was time to get it looking nice. Though we still don't have any kids, we do have 9 nieces and nephews that will enjoy it now that its in working order. It was just basically the wood and one swing when we moved in. So we added another swing and slide that I got on Cragislist for only $35!! :-) Here are some before and after pictures.

The playground before. Lots of weeds and no slide.

Digging out the weeds, old mulch and plastic.

Our playground all finished up and looking nice! :-)

My nephew Landon, enjoying the new slide!

One last thing I wanted to share was a couple pictures of some hummingbirds at my feeder. I put it out for the first time a week or two ago and got 2 pretty good pictures of 2 different hummingbirds. Thanks for looking!!

Some layouts from my mom's 50th Birthday.

Now that I've finished up my halloween layouts, I've moved onto finishing up the album we made for my mom's 50th B-day. Here are some layouts from her B-day dinner and party. I have a few more left to do, but this is what I was able to get done this past weekend and the weekend before. Thanks for looking.

The last few layouts for Halloween 2009!

I was able to get a few layouts done this past weekend and the weekend before. I'm happy to say, I'm now caught up in my halloween/fall album. These are the last few layouts. Thanks for looking.

Practical Scrappers Buttons Challenge

For this weeks challenge over at Practical Scrappers, we were supposed to used buttons. So I made this little birthday card for my nephew, whose birthday is actually today. Thanks for looking!

My "Twilight" Themed Birthday Party

For the past couple years, my Mother in Law, Sister in Laws, and I have had a tradition that for each of our birthday's we plan a surprise "Girls Night Out". My birthday was on the 12th of April, but with Easter and everything, we pushed our Girls night back to the 24th, which was this past Sat. Well, I'm sure you know by now that I'm a huge Twilight fan! And for my b-day this year they planned a Surprise Twilight Party for me. They decorated my MIL's kitchen with a Twilight theme and we had Italian for dinner. My presents were mostly Twilight themed and they bought Twilight themed tattoos for us to put on. They even bought me a cardboard Edward!! :-) For our entertainment, we watched both Twilight and New Moon. It was such a fun night! Here are a few pictures from our party.

My MIL, SIL's and I with Edward!!

The table decorated "Twilight" style.

Chips, dips and cupcakes.

My gifts.

Me, opening my gifts.

My Twilight tattoos. One says "I love Edward" the other is bite marks.

Twilight cupcakes.

Edward and I!!! I doubt Edward appreciates standing next to me in my Team Jacob attire. ;-)  I am more Team Edward I guess than Team Jacob, however I love them both and since my husband's name is Jacob, my MIL and SIL bought me Team Jacob stuff.