Beauty in Bloom

Pinned it, did it & some weekending.

How was your memorial weekend?

Ours was a mix between relaxing and a little busy.  Before I go into that, I want to share a little project I completed a few weeks back that I found on Pinterest.  I am glad I waited (or should I say sometimes being lazy pays off) because this week Alicia's Happy Day Project was to actually make something that you have pinned.

I have seen a few different ways to make your own laundry soap, but this recipe of ingredients is the one I went with.

All of these products together cost less than $20. First just shred the zote soap with a cheese grater. It is a soft soap so it will shred easily. Then I just put all of these together in a small tote and mixed them up! SO easy. I included a link below to the original pin so you can see what other's thought of the detergent. Also, if you have any questions about it, you will likely find it in her comments section.....Visit Being Creative to keep my sanity blog and you can see her original post.

I could not stop there of course. I wanted mine in a pretty glass jar too! Luckily I found a really big one at the Walmarts. It was only $9.99! Then I put my super awesome Silhouette to use and made it a pretty label.  I sort of love it. It is the only cute thing in my laundry room right now. Also, I am happy with the cleanliness of our laundry. It makes a lot and you only have to use about a tablespoon per load because there are no fillers. I think she said hers lasted about 9 months. I guess we will see!

Some other things I have tried/made.

1. Microwave brownie in a mug. Go here.  It is sooo good and easy.

2. Ranch dressing made from greek yogurt, ranch powder and milk. Go here.  I am not completely sold on this one. I may have to try one more time to make sure. I do however, like the low calorie aspect to this dressing. :) Around 250 calories for the whole jar!

3. Lastly, I pinned this awesome chalkboard. My sweet hubby helped me make it. I blogged about it already. You can find it here.  I didn't have the space that she did so I had to modify a bit. It is super fun though!

My chalkboard.

 

The original. {source}

 

Ok, I think that might be all the pins that I have actually made lately! Thanks to Alicia for hosting such a fun link party! I hope to find a few more things worth making!

 

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Some memories from the weekend......

 

On Sunday, we attended my niece and nephews birthday party. It was a hot one, but the kiddos had a blast! In the very top left pic...that is Grandma Julie getting bombed with a water balloon! She is such a fun Grandma! I love it!  Good times.

 

On Monday, we went to my Grandpa Joe's neighborhood pool. My momma and cousin Danielle and her baby met us there. It was a fun day. I always love watching my girls with my Grandpa. He loves his grandchildren and great grandchildren to pieces! We have been swimming at his pools(there have been a few different ones over the years) since I can remember. It is a fun little family tradition on my Mom's side of the family.  I wish we could do it more. I miss seeing family.  Darn busy lives!

Did you see that PicMonkey has their collage section up and running? Yay!

Hope y'all are enjoying your week!  (that y'all was for my husband, hehe. I have picked up this little habit from reading too many blogs whose authors are from the south)

 

instaFriday

Happy Friday!

How was your week? Ours was busy, but very good!

It all started with this one and her cuteness. I already told you all about it, but here is a pic from Instagram that I forgot about. 2025? That's crazy!

 

While our friends were staying with us, we took a walk up to the Robert Wadlow statue. He was a local who was known for his tremendous height years and years ago.

 

If you look close at Olivia's feet, you can see she is wearing 2 different shoes. I didn't even notice until it was too late. Ha!

 

Olivia and Thea. Little friends. They walked around the monument holding hands. I die!

 

My big girl is slowing learning how to cook thanks to her Grandma Kim. This is one of my goals this summer. I want to be better at spending time teaching my daughters how to cook and sew. You know, things girls need to know :)

 

Lunch at Wendy's with friends! I love me a frosty. All of these girls have perfected their cheesey smiles.

 

On Tuesday, I picked up our share of produce from the Godfrey co-op. I am pretty pleased with what we received for $23. If you are local, go here to check it out!

 

My girl is moving on up to Juniors. She is no longer a brownie scout anymore. {{Sadface.}} Another sign of her defiance. I thought I told you to stop growing up?! Bad girl.

 

Yesterday, we took a trip to the St Louis Zoo. We had 6 moms and like 17 kids. It was crazytown, but the kids had fun. I think every one else in the world was there too. It was soooooo busy!  This pic of Annie B was my favorite. Such Joy!

 

Perhaps the absolute highlight of my week was last night. Faith and I spent some time together shopping and eating dinner at the Bread Co. She is my heart walking around on two feet.(well all my girls are but this one is just like me)  When we were leaving dinner she said, "Mommy, this is the best day I have ever had."  It was all I could do not to burst into tears right there in the parking lot.  Thank you God for giving her to ME! (We fought later, but that's not the point of this story....remember how I told you she was like me?)

(we scored that hat for $3.00!)

 

That was our week in a nutshell. My hubby surprised me and got Thursday and Friday off! Life is so much better when he is home. Even though he is in my way and stuff :) Also, the bathroom is getting so close! The walls should be painted very soon and after that it will all go so much quicker. So yay!

Have a great Memorial day weekend!

 

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She's not a baby.

Little Miss Sunshine.

Our Annabel June.

This sweet girl of mine has gone ahead and got all big on me. It is going to take me a while to recover, but in the meantime let's take a look at a few photos of a little girl whooooo graduated from preschool this week.

Before the big show.

All of the kiddos were so cute. They sang, played instruments and sang some more for a captive, adoring audience. The Pastor of the church where the preschool is located said that this class gave the most hugs of any class in the history of the school. I thought that was pretty much the sweetest thing ever. :)

Here she is receiving what I hope is only the first of many degrees of her precious life....

The preschool had a small reception after. Cupcakes and milk of the plain, chocolate and strawberry varieties.

 

Yes indeed. Look whooooo's graduated. She was so happy that day. "Mommy, are you so proud of me that I graduated?" was all she kept repeating. "Yes baby, SO proud!" I would reply. Then the biggest smile you have ever seen would follow.  All I want to know is how I am going to ever let you go? Good gracious my girl....I refuse to even think about it.

 

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The last few days around here have been crazy fun. Well, crazy and fun. A really dear friend of mine, Heather, came to visit this week. She brought her two kiddos, one whose is good friends with my Faith, and we have spent the last two days catching up. They are staying with other friends for the next two nights, but we are all heading to the zoo together in the morning. I never realize how much I miss her since she has moved away until I see her again. We have the best talks. Love you Heather. Can't wait until we come out to the farm this summer!

In other news, I got a tee vee in my bedroom today! I have dreamed of this day for almost 10 years.  It has satellite hook-up and a dvr(that I got for freeee!).  If you are one of those people who think tv's in the bedroom are a big mistake, please keep that info to yourself and don't ruin my happiness. ;)

Let me figure that out on my own.

Catching up

I don't even know where to start. I guess I could start by telling you that I am super lazy. True story. Baby I was born this way...hehe. Most of the time when I have a lot going on I tend to shut down. Instead of working my way from task to task tackling things one at a time, I don't do anything. Blogging included it seems. Although, I must say that we have been cleaning a bit the past few days to get ready for friends arriving later today. So excited about that!

I will not be sharing every single photo I took from the past week(even though it may seem like it), just some of my favorites. Oh, and I am sorry if you follow me on Instagram. You have seen most of these. :)

Let's start with Mother's Day weekend.....

The girls were put to work planting flowers for me. I need to take advantage of this more often because they did a great job!

There was also breakfast from Bread co, antique shopping at a new favorite spot and playing in the hose.

Me and my girl. We have been hanging out on the front porch together a lot. It's our new favorite.

Here are a few more pics from that day. The girls found a slug and had some fun playing with it. Ummm, that is so out of character for the Seawright girls. I went with it though.

One last picture from Mother's Day weekend...My sweet hubs working on the dresser I found on the side of the road. Two thoughts: 1. I love him. 2. Maybe I shouldn't even paint it. I kinda like the way that looks.

 

Ok, moving on. I can't remember what night it was but my toddler chipped BOTH of her front teeth. Poor girl was dancing around the kitchen and then ran into the corner of our granite table. It was horrible. Thank goodness it wasn't worse. So ya, that night kinda sucked.

 

In other news, I found a great shade of red lipstick, finally! It is called Wine with Everything by Revlon. I was sooo channeling my inner Kelle Hampton and searching for unicorns that day. It is something she does often. The whole seizing life thing. I sorta love her. She also says that "Red is Ordinary's kryptonite."  THIS  post is what did it for me, you know, made me love her that is. You must read it. Seriously, I mean it. It's sooo good. If you already have, well then read it again. :)

 

I don't know about you but I LOVE me some Barn Owl primitives. Shop here. They have the cutest artwork but I am poor so when they announced that Homegoods would be carrying canvas prints of their work I was so happy again. ;) I have been searching for weeks and I found this one. $16.99. Much more in my budget.

 

How about some more randomness. My bathroom is moving at a snails pace. Many unexpected issues have come up. Thankfully, I have a patient and talented husband who has worked through most of the problems. So far, we have drywall, and a tub & shower. Yay! I can't wait to take a bath in my new soaker tub. :) 10 years I have been dreaming about this. Ha!

 

So that just leaves me with the weekend. It was good. Real good. Friday night I went to a super late 10:30pm movie with my friend Lara(HI LARA!). She is awesome by the way. The movie was too. We saw What to Expect When You're Expecting. So funny! I recommend it.  Saturday morning was graced with fresh donuts. After being up until 1am what else was a Mom to do?? I was tired, so no cooking for me! We woke up and jumped straight into the car in our pj's.

(by the way, they will only eat chocolate long johns. Maybe they do want to be like me afterall! hehe)

 

My mom came over for some jewelry making. She has been hoarding supplies for months and wanted my help with a few pieces. It was so much fun. I even played around and tried to come up with a few pieces from odds and ends that I had on hand.

 

Here is my owl on a branch necklace. I kinda like it. It was kind of random that I even had a bead that was the shape of a branch. Why even fight it, I say :)

The pink earrings were Faith's design. Annie wanted ladybug earrings and that is all I could come up with. The eiffel tower necklace was for Faith. I was literally just piecing random things together. I think it turned out cute though.

Saturday night was our annual progressive dinner for my moms group. This years theme was Around the World. The first stop was Mexico(aka..Margaret's house) where some yummy layered taco dip was served. Next up was Greece(Kathy's house). Where you guessed it, Greek salad was served. Again, very good. The main course was at Lara's house. She did a beautiful job with the food and decor. Italy was captured for sure. We had eggplant parm. My first time and I loved it! Dessert was also had at Lara's(Alyx had to bring it there because her poor son had a fever). It was Jamaican. Ginger carrot cupcakes with coconut flavored cream cheese icing and some sort of chocolate cake. So yummy, but by then I was dying from being SO full that I was only able to take a bite or two of dessert.

The decor.

You see those sunflowers? I got to take them home! Lucky me :)

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It was a great weekend. Nothing crazy or particular busy about it. Just life passing by us too fast. Annie graduated from preschool Sunday. I may have cried before she even walked in. But, I will share more on that tomorrow or the next day. She is my sunshine girl for sure.

To to end this long long post I will leave you with the theme song from Phinneas and Ferb....there's a 104 days of summer vacation.......

SCHOOL IS OUT!!!! YIPEEEEE!

Highlights from our week.

Hello. It's Saturday afternoon. I wanted to have this up early Friday but oh well. Such is life. I did however take a little extra time to make this snazzy little collage. I am loving Photoshop Elements! Thanks again St. Hubs.

1. Annie at ballet class.  2. Lollipop gerber daisies that I coveted on a trip to Lowe's BY MYSELF.  3. A trip to the new self serve ice cream shop. It is always a big deal when something new opens up in our small town.  4. Playing around in a little community garden connected to one of our favorite parks.  5. Olivia loving on her baby doll.  6. A free printable I created. (find it here.)  7. Picnic under the Ampitheater.  8. Me having a good hair day.  9. Liv swinging at the park.  10. A gorgeous sky.  11. New shoes I found at Goodwill for $10! I wasn't sure if they were cool until the young male cashier was jealous :) Score!  12. A gift for mother's day from Faith...chocolate covered stawberries made at Girl Scouts.  13. A trip to Steve's Antiques. Junk galore!  14. One of my favorite's. Hope Floats.  15. Playground down by the river.  16. The bridge in the community garden with friends.

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I also want to post some pics from our riverbank outing on Wednesday.  I packed a lunch and picked Annie up from preschool and we headed downtown.  As much as I complain about our town, it really has some beautiful things about it too.  I just wish our house actually overlooked the Mississippi.

 

The sky that day was breathtaking.

 

Lunch under the Ampitheater. In the summer the fountains come on down here and you can play in them. They were not open yet on this day. :(

Sandwich stealer!

 

(The fountains shoot up from the ground....its really fun! Can't wait until they are on.)

The marina.

 

It was a good week. I was so happy that the weather cleared up. We needed it.  I am looking forward to tomorrow. My family has instructed me not to worry because they plan on pampering me. Good to know!!!

Happy Mother's Day sweet friends!!!!

 

 

 

Rise and Shine {free printable}

As a crafter with ADD, I often see something and then say to myself..."Self, I can make that."  Often, it is a curse because I think I am getting away with making it cheaper but then end up spending way too much time and money. Do you do that?? Anybody? Bueller?

Anyway, I was reading Meg's fabulous blog, Whatever, and I saw this(click on the link and it will take you to the post) print. I thought it was so cute. She did not say where it was from and I could not find it online anywhere. My hubby bought me photoshop elements for Valentines Day so I gave it a try.

 

I think it turned out pretty cute. I want to share it with you!

(I believe if you click on the link it will come up on a different screen and then just right click and save it.) Can you tell I have never done this before?  If you have an issue, just leave your email in the comments section and I will email it to you!

Here she is in her new home! It makes me smile :)

 

Enjoy friends!

The weather is absolutely beautiful today! We are headed to the nursery for some garden supplies and flowers. Have a great Wednesday :)

 

linking up:

Weekending

It's still raining here. Don't get me wrong, I like rain. Just not day after day after day. Especially not when I have to grocery shop. The kids need to get out of this house too. We are driving each other b-a-n-a-n-a-s! (said like Gwen Stefani, the original Hollaback girl)  At least it is cooling back down though. Over the weekend it was already 92 degrees. Sheesh!

So this weekend we.......

.....went antiquing again. Well, not we, but Annie, Liv, and I. Faith was at a birthday party so I needed to kill some time. I went into this one shop that I have not been to before. It was a gold mine. I wish I had more money. However, I did find matching frames to use for bathroom mirrors. (Which I will post pics of as soon as it quits raning!)  They are a deep teal color. I may be a little more excited than I should be. I hope mirrored glass isn't too expensive.

....worked on a project. I got out the Cameo to make some vinyl for my homemade laundry soap jar. It took forever. I guess next time I will read the directions. Ha!

 

....celebrated Cinco de Mayo with some dear friends.  Saturday evening we decided to head to our favorite mexican restaurant. Cristalle texted me asking if we wanted to meet her family there as we were walking in the door. Lit-er-a-lee.  I thought about having a margarita, but I am scared of tequila. True story.

 

....went bowling!!!  It was so hot that we didn't know what else to do. It was fun, and we even ran into some cousins too!

 

...gazed at the moon.  Or should I say 'I' gazed at the super moon. Bob was snoozing in his chair and the girls had been in bed for hours. I went outside alone and like a nerd I took a bunch of snapshots of myself with the moon.  I wonder if the people driving by thought I was crazy.

(I have no idea how to take a picture in the dark)

other weekend activites include: Church, lunch at McD's(oh joy), dance, last minute shopping for a birthday present and our missional church group meeting. Not in that order :)

Ok, gotta go. Kids are fighting.....Tout à l'heure!! 

 

 

 

instaFriday

Hello Friday! I am still in love with this phone app. I didn't take too many photos this week. Mostly because there was not much happening. It just keeps raining! In fact, it is raining right now as I type this. Poor Faith has a field trip to the Zoo today. I hope they don't cancel it!

We shall start at the beginning....Monday morning. This is my kitchen table the day after Faith's party. Truth be told, half of that junk is still sitting on top of it!

Next up is sorta my favorite. My Annie snuggles. Pretty much everyday while Olivia is asleep, we sit on the couch and watch for Faith's bus. She is a sweet girl, that Annie.

Bathroom progress. It might not look like much but we have plumbing for TWO sinks. Happy dance!  The drywall starts on Monday!

 

Late night computer session with my new favorite ice cream. Or Gelato. Fancy. I found it at Target. If its banana flavored. I eat it!

 

I made my first iced coffee. To die for.

 

Wednesday, after I picked Annie up from school. We went down to the dance store. They didn't open until 12:30. SO we killed a little time in the antique shops. NO strollers are allowed, but to my surprise Liv did great!

 

These next four pics are of my two dancers getting their dance pics taken. I secretly love putting mascara on a five year old. So much. ;) Don't shoot me.

 

Last night, we ended up at Amarillo Tex's. I just did not feel like cooking.  Good dinner, but we should have saved the money. Oh well.

We have nothing planned this weekend so maybe I will get something done around here. Cleaning or some creative time. You know which one I would prefer.

Happy weekend friends!!!

The party.

Get ready because I am about to show you a bunch of pics of Faith's birthday party on Sunday.

Let me start by saying that it rained all day the day before and there was a 60% chance of rain the day of. I was a wreck because I did not want to have to move the party indoors because I had no activities planned for the kids. That was what the playground was for! Luckily, it stopped raining the morning of the party. The weather was chilly and the playground was a bit flooded but overall everything turned out great.

The girl had a blast and collected a lot of food for the Hope Center.  Misson accomplished.

The food table centerpiece. Notice that the jars with (fake) strawberries in them look like the invite I sent out. :) You can see those here.

 

All set up under the pavilion at Glazebrook. A favorite park in town.

That is what 14 dozen cookies looks like.

Donation table...before.

Donation table...after. More came in as people showed up.

Guest were able to keep busy by writing Faith a note or a doodle. This is Aunt Billie Jo and Aunt Lynn.

The cake. I usually like to make our cakes but I was trying to keep it simple because we were expecting over 80 people and I did not want to make a cake that big. I did, however, add the sprinkles and the tiny mason jar with the carnation ;)

It tasted great too!

It was so windy. The candles would not stay lit!

Faith opening cards and presents. Even though guests were instructed to not buy presents, some did anyway! She was not expecting it! But, she was very excited!

This owl rag quilt was made by my super talented Mom. I think it took her only 4 days or something. She may have pulled a few late nights ;) Faith told her that she wanted one too after seeing Annie's butterfly quilt at Christmas. Thank you Mom! She loves it! It is purple and it's an owl. Perfect.

Faith and her best friend from school.

Annie had a blast too. I think I took this picture after she had just fell though. Poor thing.

The only picture obtained of Olivia was from Aunt Lynn's cell phone. She only left the playground to snag a cookie! Ha!

See the puddles under the swings??

All the food that was donated.  We had lots of generous friends and family show up to support our Faithy.

I want to thank everyone for braving the weather and coming out to celebrate with us. Faith is a special girl with a kind heart and you helped continue to nurture that within her. She truly had a great time.

Annie told me today that she wanted to have her 6th birthday party here and do the same thing(her favorite thing to be is like her sister).

On a side note...Faith stayed home from school yesterday because she wasn't feeling to well when she woke up. It worked out though because she was able to go with me to drop off the food. She got to see first hand where it went and who will be receiving it. It was very humbling, but she did great. We also met the director of the Hope Center. He gave her a big hug. It was something I won't soon forget...Her little shy face...with that sweet shy smile.

Be still my proud Mama heart.

 

Pinned it, then made it. {chalkboard}

So, I think I mentioned that we were making a chalkboard over here.  I stumbled across THIS awesomesauce chalkboard over at Just a Night Owl that I pinned on Pinterest a while back.  Darcy has a complete tutorial over on her blog, by the way.  I loved the planks of wood behind the chalkboard, so off to Lowe's we went.  I painted it, the hubs did the rest. Mine is a bit different because I went with cedar fence planks(because it didn't feel like staining).  Also, I had to modify the measurements for the space we had.

I bought the crochet heart garland on etsy from here.  I love it so much. I want to add something above it since we left off the top and bottom planks, but not sure what yet. I will know it when I see it.

The finished product:

 

 

The little ledge even holds the chalk. :)

My kiddos are dying to draw all over it. I have had to tell them NO for a few days. Sorry kids, mommy has to blog about it first. HA! 

Thank you Bobby for being willing to do whatever crazy thing I ask of you.

Check out how messy that kitchen table is....before I cleaned it off for pictures, of course. :)

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Faith's trip to American Girl was so much fun. That place slays me. We went on the third day it opened in St. Louis.(which also happened to be her birthday) Sister Annie wanted to go but she surprisingly didn't throw a fit.

It was nice that it was just the two of us.

 

I felt like a kid all over again. I may have even shed a tear. It is fun to take her places like this because she is not a greedy kid. She knew what mama was willing to get and was just fine with it. I swear that girl thanked me a million times. "Best birthday ever, Mom!!"

Her big party is this weekend. We are hoping for lots of food donations!

The party is outside so I hope it doesn't rain!