Crafty Wednesday {Mardi Gras}

Yesterday we celebrated the last day of Mardi Gras!  I decorated the table with a few beads, and Christmas balls we had laying around the house.  The girls and I also made a king krispie cake.  I got the recipe from the Dixie Delights blog.  She has so many cute ideas!  

I also decorated our chalkboard :-). 

 

Here is our king krispie cake!  It's just Rice Krispie treats I shaped to look like a regular king cake.

 

I made the colored sugars using regular sugar and a few drops of food coloring.

 

Here's our Mardi Gras table!   I love celebrating all holidays big and little.  

 

 

I'm going to use these same decorations for book club tonight then I'll take them down and put them away until next year.  

My Mardi Gras celebration will continue until Saturday because the Boys and Girls Club in my town is doing a Mardi Gras gala.  I am on the planning committee and it has been a lot of work but it's also been so much fun.  We are going to start decorating tomorrow.  

 

Today is Ash Wednesday.  Ava and I are going to go to Mass today on campus.  I decided to give up My beloved Diet Coke for Lent.   It will be hard but it's a vice I need to get over.  I'll let you know how it goes. 😬

Xoxo

Memorial Day decorations!

I always like to decorate our dining room cabinet for the holidays abs Memorial Day is no exception.  When we got home from shopping yesterday I thought I would decorate this little area to make it festive for the weekend.  We aren't having a party but I still like it festive!

Happy Saturday

Xoxo

St. Patrick's Day

This weekend I decorated for St. Patrick's Day.  I don't go crazy I just decorate the little hutch in our dining room and the bar area in our sunroom.

This is our hutch all decked out in green and white for the season! 

I made our green monogram using my silhouette vinyl cutter. 

This Jadite cake platter is from the Pioneer Woman collection at Wal-Mart.

I hate my handwriting but I did my best to make our chalkboard festive :-) 

In the sunroom I decorated out little bar area.  I made the chalkboard myself! I didn't do much just added a little green garland and some shamrocks. 

Happy Tuesday!

Xoxo

Love

I love Mondays!  Monday is my favorite day of the week.   People get super annoyed when I say it but I love how every Monday is a fresh start.

Today was full of lots of love.

Bright and early this morning I taught my fitness class. My participants were so sweet and let me post their picture on Facebook to advertise the class.  I love how they are color coordinated that was totally not planned!

Then for lunch I met four friends and we had abrainstorming   session for fundraising events for our local boys and girls club.  We put all of our ideas on the giant post it notes behind us in the picture.   I love planning events so it was fun to work with these ladies.  We came up with some good ideas and are going to meet again soon to start planning!

I got home from work and decorated our dining room hutch for Valentines Day.

I love pink so it's always fun to decorate for this holiday!

I also decorated our dining room chalkboard.  I still have some of our Christmas cards up.  It makes me so sad to take them down :-( 

When the kids were little I put sweet treats in these little mailboxes in the days leading up to Valentine's Day.  I still love them.  

Tonight I had book club we read The Lake House.  I loved this book!

I buy books the way some people buy shoes or purses I just love, love, love books!  I prefer  reading nonfiction.  Next month I'm hosting so I brought two books to see if the girls wanted to read either of these books.  I think both of these are great but we decided they aren't great for book club so I have to choose another one this week.

Xoxo

Happy New Years!

I have been the worst blogger lately!  I am going to do a post soon of our pictures from Thanksgiving to Christmas just so I can remember what we did.

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to be a more frequent blogger.  Our days are just SOOOO busy that blogging is usually at the bottom of my to-do list. 

We had a very relaxing Christmas break.  We spent the first few days with my sister and her family and my Dad in Ohio.  My sister wrote three posts about our trip on her blog.  so you can go there to see pictures of our fun trip.

Since I have done nothing but relax over the break yesterday I had to get in gear.   I spent 12 hours cleaning and organizing our house.  I took down all of our Christmas decorations, I also organized our basement (a task that I have been dreading for months!) and took loads and loads of stuff to the Salvation Army.

Clemsongirl does these fabulous breakfast tables for her kids for special days (back to school, Halloween, etc) and I thought it would be fun to try one.  Plus it was SO easy finding stuff in my newly organized basement. 

I made Brock and Ava french toast this morning to celebrate the first school/work day of the year.  They really enjoyed a hot breakfast (usually they just have cereal or bagels) and I really enjoyed our pretty table :)  I am also going to use this tomorrow at my Chloe and Isabel party.  My friend Sabrina just started selling their amazing jewelry!

I kept out some silver and gold Christmas balls to go along with my New Year's theme. 

Here is a close up of the subway printable.  I found it on pinterest but I don't remember what blog it's from. 

I also updated our hutch using all white milkglass and dishes.  I like the simplicity of white after all the colors of Christmas. 

In very sad news my good friend Heidi lost her father and Ava's BFF Anika lost her grandfather last Friday very unexpectedly.  He was shoveling snow and suffered a heart attack they took him in for surgery but sadly he didn't make it.  Please keep Heidi and your family in your prayers.  His funeral is tomorrow. 

Here is a picture of Heidi and I from earlier this fall. 

Our weekend and fall decor!

I can't believe it's already Wednesday!  This week is flying by. Tonight we have Brock's 10th grade open house.  We get to go to his different class rooms and meet his 10th grade teachers.  It should be a fun night!  I felt so connected to his elementary school teachers because I saw them almost every day.  Once he got to middle school and now high school I don't know most of his teachers so I look forward to this night to be able to meet them and to see what Brock's day is like in high school.  

Speaking of Brock he made a little money over the weekend by umpiring two little league baseball games.  He was in the field and Graig was behind the plate umping.  It was SO cold.  Poor Brock had about 5 layers on :( 

Ava had a soccer game on Saturday and she played goalie.  Thankfully she stopped about 3 goals from being scored! 

I have been doing some more fall decorating at home. 

These two little fall touches are on the top of my dining room hutch. 

Here is a picture of our whole hutch.  I LOVE my orange (fiesta red) pitcher. 

Here is a close up of my fiesta pitcher.   Love, love love it!!

I love the fall garland that I use every year in our dining room light.  I leave it up until Thanksgiving.  I really like "fall" decorations instead of Halloween or Thankgiving focused decor. 

This is the shelf in our living room.  I always try to do something to spice it up for the holidays.  I made that rag wreath last fall and I added a subway art to a frame that I already had. 

It is suppose to turn chilly and rain this week. One thing I want to try this week is the broccoli cheese soup recipe from Panera that is on pinterest. I found this recipe and I can't wait to try it!

Touches of spring!

It has been SO nice here lately!  The temps have been in the 70's which is unheard of at this time of the year for upstate NY.  I have been decluttering and organizing using this book that I got last fall.  It has so many great tips and ideas.  I am doing just a little bit each day so I don't get overwhelmed.  So far I have worked in our bedroom, kitchen and basement!  It feels SO good to get organized!

I added this little owl plate I got at TJ Maxx to the wall in our living room. 

I also added some touches of spring to the table in our living room. 

Here is a close up.  My plants love it on this table since they get so much natural light.  The candle is pink tulip from Bath and Body Works.  The plate is from TJ Maxx.

A few weeks ago I went to Homegoods and got these bird canvases.  I LOVE them!  I put them in our dining room and I think they look so spring-y and fun.

Happy Wednesday!

St. Patrick's Day hutch and a surprise party

I thought I would show some pictures of our St. Patrick's Day hutch!  I used my green and turquoise fiesta ware and my milk glass.  I wanted it to look spring-y and green without going overboard with leprechauns and shamrocks.

Here is a close up of my middle shelf. My Dad got me the green fiestaware plate for $1!  I love it even though it has a chip on it at the bottom. 

Here's a close up of some fiestaware plates and bowls and some of my milk glass vases.  I love how all of the dishes look together.   

I love these numbered jars I got at HomeGoods!

I got this bowl at TJ Maxx.  

Last night we had a surprise 40th bday party for my  friend for my neigbor and good friend Heidi! Graig and I got to bring her to the party so that was fun!  We told her we were all going out to dinner but Graig had to make a quick stop at the Elk's club.  When we got there all of her friends, co-workers and family was there!  Here is me and Heidi with our friends Courtney and Lesley. 

Heidi and her husband Brett have 4 kids!  Here is the birthday girl with her four adorable kids!

This week Brock and Ava are on winter break so today for lunch I took Ava and her friend Marty out for Mexican food.  It's Ash Wednesday so we can't eat meat but it was still good!  I have decided to give up diet cokes before noon (I always drink one for breakfast it's a terrible habit!) and sweets for lent.  Brock and Ava are still deciding what they are going to give up. 

Tonight is the monthly Wine Night so I've got to get going to that event. Happy Wednesday!