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Thursday, February 27, 2014

TBT: House Edition - Front/Back Yard

Last week I showed you the outside of our house.

This week we'll keep with that theme and I'll show you the front/back yard, it's s doozy.

Since our house was a short sale the yard had been neglected for over a year, so things were a bit over grown.

Let's start with the front yard:

You could barely get to the front door. The only reason the grass is semi short was that our neighbor across the street just got tired of looking at over grown grass and would cut it every once in a while.


Yep you could barely get to the front door without being attacked by the plants


The front door was this lovely burnt orange/brown color


We took most of it out, as you can see, doesn't it look so much prettier? 

Now onto the back yard, that's where it got REALLY messy!

Let's look at the palm tree in the center, do see those little berries on the ground, they're not that little and they are SUPER annoying!


Here's a close up in case you wanted to see the sheer volume of those things.


Here's a close up of the back part of the picture above.


Here's the middle left of the yard. See those two palm trees on the right of the picture?


That planter - yep it's actually a planter, is show below, the fountain is in it.


 A picture of the back part of the yard, I'm standing in those berries, looking parallel to the house.


This is the left side of the pool area, there was barely enough room to walk on that side with how overgrown the plants were.
 

A close up of that area


The second thing we did after hiring the painters for the outside, was hiring a place that would clean this up. In case you didn't notice there are approximately 427 palm trees of all different varieties, and we took most of them out. We did keep those two palm tree in the fountain planter (not sure why, we would later regret this decision, mostly be because apparently that tree grows berries too, but just didn't have them when we moved in).

And here is the after pictures:

So much better right? We did keep 3 palm trees out of the 20 that were there (yes there really were 20)


Now onto the side yards:





Mostly we just cleaned it up and of course got rid of most of the plants

This is standing at the pool area looking forward

This is standing at the gate to the front yard looking back, now that it's all cleaned up it looks nice, look how nice those rose bushes look (this picture as actually taken about 3 years after we moved in, so we didn't even know the rose bushes were still alive)
 Other side yard

Look at that ivy, totally out of control, growing on the ground!


All cleaned up and looking pretty.


So there you have it, our yard space. We ended up completely remodeling our back yard about 3 years later, but that's for a different post.

So what do you want to see next?


Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Cute Fox

Nope not talking about my kids, but the fox on my sweater. I love pairing a sweater with a skirt, I get the warmth of the sweater, and the coolness of the skirt. Perfect for those office days when they (the building people) can't quite get the climate under control.

Sweater - Old Navy (old), Skirt - Loft (old), Tights - Target, Shoes - DSW, Necklace - Francesca's Collection
I really need to wear some make-up, look at those bags under my eyes! Yikes! Anyone have a good under eye concealer they can suggest?


I wasn't going to post this picture, but had to post my little cute Baby Fox photobomber in the background, do you see him? He's drinking a yogurt, in case you wanted to know, which you probably didn't.

And here's some random thoughts for the day (in bullets, cause I like bullet points):
 
  • Yesterday when I got home from work Baby Fox wanted to paint...wait for it...without pants, I think he didn't want to get paint on his new shorts, but who knows why.
  •  I got my order from Loft yesterday, this is what was in my package:


1 / 2 / 3 / 4/ 5

          What do all of these shirts have in common? Yeah they're all black and white, but I really did
           love every single one, so I'm keeping them, and I guess I'll have to add some color with 
           jewelry and pants, oops! I guess I'm out of the market for black and white things for a while, 
           or until my next shopping adventure.
          note: 2 ($17.99) ,4 ($7.72), and 5 ($5.92) are all on clearance!
  •  I just discovered this girl, and am obsessed with her make-up tutorials. Like I went home and tried out her techniques after the kids went to bed. So I'm gathering the supplies and want to try and maybe wear a little make-up each day (especially after seeing my picture above). We'll see how that goes, waking up at 4:30am, not sure if I want to stick something semi sharp next to my eyes. We'll see. Go watch some of her tutorials, she has great ones for "monolids" like me (You know doesn't have a crease in their eyelid).

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Mini Fox's Baptism

As I said yesterday we were getting ready up to the wire before Mini Fox's baptism. She usually naps about 1 and wakes up at 3ish, but with the baptism being at 2pm, that was going to work, so I put her down for a nap right after eating at noon, luckily she was tired and it worked. We woke her up 5 minutes before we left, she was not happy about that choice.

We get there and almost everyone is there and things are about to start.


We great our family and friends and find our seats, my parents are no where to be found. The priest starts talking, my parents are not there, I look around, and suddenly the door open and half of my family walks in. I guess the priest started a few minutes early and they were all talking in the parking lot. Oops.


He got right to it, no wasting any time.




Us with Mini Fox's Godparents

Mini Fox with her Godparents (they are close friends of the family. Mini Fox's Godfather's dad was my Dad's best friend growing up, and had known each other since Kindergarten, he passed away a couple of weeks before Baby Fox was born)


Picture with my Godfather, my Godmother lives in Florida

Now onto the party details!

This is the invite I sent out:


I decided to have little name cards of the food, so I actually went to Vista Print (where I ordered my invitations from) and pretended to order the Thank You cards, and then instead of writing Thank You I just wrote out the name of the food. The great thing about Vista Print is that you can rearrange the words and graphics, make them smaller or bigger, add text where ever you want, it's a great site and relatively cheap too! Go check it out.

Party food - 
  • I tend to get fruit that I can eat as left overs and since I am allergic to melons I mostly stick with berries and grapes
  • Mr. wanted to do meatballs and BBQ sauce, you can see it in the background in the crockpot. It was a huge hit and every since meatball was devoured (we got the Costco meatballs and BBQ Sauce, pour together 3-4 hours before event start, done)
  • Mr. was also in charge of the cheese and meat tray, he got everything from Trader Joe's
  • We also did these chicken salad croissant sandwiches, always a crowd favorite. I tripled the recipe and we didn't have much left over - Mr. and my dad were sad, they wanted more leftover
  • We also bought the veggie tray from Costco, put in own server bowls/tray and you're done and it looks better then that plastic thing, easy.
  • Lemonade - I just bought the Country Time Lemonade, made it before we left, minus some water to account for ice melting. When we got home I poured ice in and put outside.




Tip: Cut the croissants sandwiches in half, that way people don't have to take a whole one, less wasted food





Of course had food for the kids too:

Uncrustables and fruit pouches
Tip: If you are going somewhere before your party, i.e. a Baptism, and need a quick set up, have everything ready to go. We had the sandwiches on the platter in the fridge. Our fridge didn't have enough room for all the other platters, so I put everything in Ziploc baggies, so when we got home, I just pulled out the baggies and poured the food on the platter at the table, took less then 3 minutes and I was done.

Party Decorations -

I decided Friday night that I wanted some poof balls hanging everywhere outside, so my Dad went to Big Lots at 7pm, and bought me tissue paper so I could make them. I used my tutorial here. The small ones I did like the big ones, except after I fan folded it, I cut it in half, it worked out perfect!




This is walking into our house, view from the front door


The dessert table, before the cake got there


The cake, my parents wanted to contribute to the party, so they bought the cake, everyone could not stop talking about how wonderful the cake was. It was Lemon Bavarian Cream. I loved the design, simple yet elegant.



We are so blessed to have so many wonder people in our lives, willing to drive all the way out to our house to celebrate the welcoming of Mini Fox into the Catholic Church. It was a perfect day and I think everyone had a great time.

The guest of honor got tired pretty quickly after getting home and made her rounds and then went to bed, almost a 3 hour nap, totally unheard of! We love you Mini Fox, and feel so blessed that we are your parents. Welcome!


Linking up with Glossy Blonde & Karly Kim

Monday, February 24, 2014

Party Weekend

This weekend was full of parties. Saturday we went to a racing birthday party, it was so much fun/funny to watch the kids race around.

The invitation told us to bring a power toy vehicle. We don't have one, so we had brought my son's bike (see him in the back?). He came in second, woo hoo!


The second time around, Baby Fox wanted to ride with someone, so he jumped into that jeep in the front. Let me tell you, that Jeep had some go! They were done with the "race" before the other kids even got down the first straigh-away.

Finally someone gave up their car and gave Baby Fox a turn to drive. If you see him on the road, get out of his way! Mostly cause he has no control and will just run right into you.


Then he decided to take a shortcut, yep, right up and over that curb.


I have to say it was hilarious to watch all of the kids. It was nice to celebrate our friends birthday and get to drive a car, let's hope he doesn't ask for one! Where do you store something like that?!

Sunday Mini Fox got baptized, so Friday/Saturday was spent prepping for the big day. We finished getting ready at 1:30pm, baptism started at 2. Oops, that was cutting it close wasn't it?

I'm not sure she even noticed that she was getting water poured over her head.

Us with the priest and Mini Fox's Godparents

And here's some pictures of food, cause who doesn't like good food, more pictures of the party to follow this week. We were so beat from yesterday, it was all I could do to muster up there few photos.







Linking up with Faith, Sarah and Heather