Trip To Wonderland

We made a small getway to Dallas this past weekend, where we enjoyed time with our dear friends and celebrated a birthday. 

Friday night we all attended the Mad Hatter's Tea Party at the Gaylord Texan resort.

We had a wonderful time!

Wedding Shower Details

We have had a fun filled party packed weekend at our house. As I mentioned a while back, I have been planing a tropical themed wedding shower, with a fellow co-hostess, for our dear friends. Everything came together to form a multicultural tropical  party and fun was had by all. 

Let's start with the inspiration board for the party.

The main colors were pink and orange.

 Welcome to Paradise!

Dining room

Paper lanterns were hung from green ribbon all throughout the house.

For the guest book I printed 1 Corinithians 13:13 in all the different languages that represent the couple. Guests were encouraged to write a message to the bride and groom on the mat board surrounding the print.

sign-in table

Guests wore Hawaiian leis

The dessert and coffee table

 

Drink area (before the ingredients were added)

Congratulations to the happy couple!

Follow The Bouncing Ball

We are starting a new year of teaching the bible to two-year olds, and I wanted to make our praise and worship time even more interactive, so I thought of this...

Using a bouncy ball from Target and a permanent marker, I transformed this into our sing along ball.

It is so simple, but received rave reviews from our sweet girl, who found it and squealed with delight upon finding the new ball.

Linking here at Blue Cricket Design

Writing On The Wall

The chalkboard wall project is complete and is already getting a lot of use. We added another element to the board by priming it with a magnetic paint before painting over it with chalkboard paint. 

Before

After

Linking here at Domestically Speaking
and Sixty-Fifth Avenue

Chalkboard Wall Coming Soon!

Stay tuned for the final result!

Good Food, Good Company

Dinner Before

Hubby sneaking an olive!

Dinner After

On the menu: 

Asparagus with Tortellini topped with a Carrot and Cheddar Cheese sauce (aka: Ferrer Carrot soup).

Hubby enjoying the olive!  

(sorry honey, I could not resist! ha! Love you.)

Story Time with Gigi

Elise and I took a trip to our local Christian bookstore after school, for a special present. We are in the midst of potty training. Today at school she used the potty twice! This may not seem like a highly sucessful potty day, but for our sweet girl it was big. She had a hard time adjusting to her new school, especially with the potty training being done at school too. Today was cause for celebration and for her potty present she picked out lamb stickers and a wonderful little book called "Gigi, God's Little Princess".

If you have not been introduced to this lovely book, you are missing out! We read it tonight and Elise loved it! It kept her attention and she enjoyed the illustration. 

Here is the summary from Sheila Walsh's website. "Parents and children alike will be won over by the lovable innocence of Gigi, a little girl who just knew she was a princess. But where were the castle and royal jewels? With a little help from Mommy and Daddy, Gigi realizes that she is not just any old princess—she is the daughter of the greatest King of all" 

Gigi is a keeper in our house! Happy reading.

Dining Room Wall Makeover

See how I used these five items shown below to create a new look for our dining room.

 By using the needle, thread and small paint brush, I was able to create the large circles on the wall. Thread the needle and find where you want the center of the circle to be. Once you pick the spot, push the pin into the wall, just enough so it is secure. Extend the thread out to the desired width of the circle and tie the small paint brush to the end of the thread. 

Next is the tricky part. (It helps to have a partner holding the paint can)

Dip the brush into the paint. Stretch the string out straight and close to the wall. Hold the paint brush perpendicular to the wall and draw the circle. You will need to reload the brush several times, this is why it helps to have a partner holding the can. Repeat until you have all the circles you want on the wall.

I wanted the lines to be thicker than the results I saw from the small paint brush, so I went back over all the lines with a 2" angle brush.

Last I wanted to add a few small circles and did this by using the red charger plate shown above. Simply trace the plate on the wall and go back over the lines with the 2" angle brush.

 Not having internet at home for the past two weeks got my creative juices flowing. Happy painting!


linking here

I'm Back!

Hello dear friends!
I have been out of pocket lately, but I am back and have so much to blog about.
First, you may be wondering where I have been. Well for nearly two weeks now, our little family has been trying to get our house back in order, after a near miss at our home. Monday, July 26th my sweet girl and I arrived home, to find our neighborhood without power. It had been storming all day with harsh lightening. The garage door would obviously not work, so we parked in the driveway and made our way to the front door. We open the door to a powerless house and the alarm on it's back up battery. I disarmed the alarm and we proceed to walk further into the house. It was a few seconds after we got into the house, when I noticed an odor. The smell was distinct and it was everywhere, it was natural gas! Remembering that one should leave the house to call for help, we quickly went back outside. As we waited outside for the fire department, the power came back on in the house. I was so worried that any moment the house would blow. I have never had anything like this happen before and have to admit, aside from knowing to leave the house to call for help, I did not know how else to handle the situation. Meanwhile Husband arrived home along with the fire department. We could smell the gas as we stood on the neighbors front porch. The firemen enter the house and quickly turned around for more gear. They located the problem and put an end to the looming tension. So what happened? Lightening hit our house! Due to the builder using an electrical contractor, that obviously did not know what they were doing, the so called grounding feature to the home was compromised. When lightening struck, the gas line leading to our stove top was hit causing a hole in the line, resulting in the gas leak. Most all the electrical, including the AC components were fried as well. Angels were watching over us on that day. I still get emotional thinking about what could have been, then overwhelmed with how protected we were. It has been a difficult few weeks. So glad to be getting back to normal.

I hope all is well with you!

All best,
April