Bama Birthday Bash!

My main man, PB, had a birthday last week! 

He turned 39!  It's his last year of being 30-something.  Wow!  I can remember when he turned 20 and now he's only a year away from 40.  We've officially been together half of our lives!  Time has flown by.  He really prefers not to celebrate birthdays.  Not just his either.  He'd be perfectly happy to just say "Happy Birthday ____!" and go on about the day.  But I love to celebrate birthdays so he had not one but TWO birthday celebrations!  Isn't he special?  I think so! 

The first celebration was at my aunt and uncle's lake house. My cousin's husband, Clint, was turning 30 four days before PB turned 39 so my uncle suggested a party for both of them. PB and Clint are big University of Alabama football fans so that is where the theme of the party came from. And since it was a gameday for Alabama vs. Michigan our party decor was all about Bama football! Nothing too fancy but just right for two guys who'd probably rather not even have a party. My aunt made the birthday signs with her cricut. That thing is awesome! I might like to have one of those things some day. The other decorations were some things that I have from our tailgating supplies.

                                                         The birthday boys!

The Bama cake came from Publix and was too cute.  I made the little signs showing their ages though out of scrapbook paper just to make it more personal for them.  We ate barbecue, baked beans, potato salad and broccoli salad.  It was all delicious and PB was a good sport about it all.

Our 2nd birthday celebration was at PB's parents house.  It was also planned around a gameday event.  PB's parents are HUGE Bama fans.  They usually go to all the games but decided not to go to this one and hosted a birthday party for their only son.  They set up their backyard like the Quad on campus at the University of Alabama.  They put up their Bama tailgating tent and moved their motor home into the backyard.  The chairs were set up around the tv that slides out from under the motor home and we watched the Bama v. Arkansas game just like we would if we were in Tuscaloosa watching college football.  I was bad and didn't get any pictures of their set up.  It was very cute!  I only took a couple of pictures of PB's cake.  He's on a diet and requested an angel lush birthday cake.  Here's my cake creation in honor of my sweet hubby, PB!

I made a banner out of some scrapbook paper I had and attached it to two wooden skewers with red and white baker's twine.  It turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself!  PB was even impressed that I went to all that trouble for his birthday. 

                             Silly pose of all the girl cousins on PB's side of the family.

PB was glad to get a new Bama visor and a new decal for his truck.  Maybe he's decided that birthday celebrations aren't so bad after all???  I'm already thinking of ways to celebrate the big 4-0 that he'll be having next year.  What do you do to celebrate your sweetie's birthday? 

Loads of fun: A Before and After Story

I'm a mom.  And a wife.  And a laundry expert.  Sort of.  I nicknamed myself the Laundry Queen because some days that's all I feel like I do.  And is it just my household that likes to fill up laundry baskets just as I am admiring how nice they look when they are all empty?  PB sometimes apologizes to me when he's the first one to throw in some dirty laundry.  He knows I love an empty laundry basket.  Since I feel like I am constantly doing laundry I wanted a pretty space to be in while doing my daily chore.  The laundry room in this home is also what I call my office.  I also call it my mudroom.  It's really a catch-all room.  When we bought this house last July I fell in love with the idea of how much space I was going to have to do all my laundry in.  However, it was as ugly-as-all-get-out!  You know how ugly that is!  Take a look at the before pictures of my favorite space:

What?  You don't like 1960's wood paneling?  Hmmm.  Me either!  I had to look past all the brown and cobwebs that covered this room and think of all the fun I would have in here while cleaning my beloved husband and children's clothing.  This is the first room you walk into from our carport.  It's pretty much the only door that people use when coming to visit us.  It has to look good.  So I began to redecorate this room the week after we moved in and boy what a different looking room it became.   We decided to remove a crazy room-dividing kitchen cabinet and put in this space.  It could use some extra storage.  PB orchestrated the cabinet switch-a-roo and got my parents and our teenage neighbor to come over to help out.

                                                                      Crazy room-dividing kitchen cabinet

                                                                    PB removing the crazy kitchen cabinet!

                                                                                     In it's new home!
 
I was doing back flips after I saw this thing hanging up in my freshly painted laundry room.  It looks right at home in here.  I knew immediately we made a good decision in putting more storage in here.  Plus, it hadn't cost us a dime!  Yeah!  So I broke out some more paint and started painting the cabinets.  Guess what color???? 

Black!  I love, love, love how they turned out!  I couldn't be happier with my new Laundry Room/Office/Mudroom!  I think it may be my favorite room-makeover of all time!  Also, I made a little area for the children to place their backpacks and lunch boxes in here.  It's very to similar to what we had in our last house but has a different feel to it in this house.  This is what makes up the mudroom part of the room.  I love how organized it makes me feel!
 

It's a great place to have so that the floor can stay clear of all their stuff that they come home with every day during the school year.  The two pictures above the hooks are the kids self portraits that they did in pre-school when they were 4 years old.  So special to me! 

I'd still like to get a rug to go in this space and I'm thinking about covering up the water heater with something to make it less of an eyesore.  I thinking about a curtain or some sort of a room-dividing screen could do the job in concealing it so it's not quite as noticeable.   We'll see what I come up with.  But as for today, I'm just having loads of fun doing my family's laundry! 

 

1 Down!

I mentioned a few days ago about my to do list that I was needing to work on.  Well, I am happy to report that I can scratch through one of those items.  I finished up the trim paint in my master bathroom.  Yeah, me!  I had originally painted the walls in there a little over a month ago and just never got around to painting the trim.  This is a pretty small space so it really wasn't going to take much time.  Yesterday, I finally broke out the paint brush, ladder, and paint bucket and got to painting.   Here are my before pictures: 

The walls were a lovely mint green and there was also a very functional glass shower door.  The wall color wasn't the worst in the world but I really wanted something a little more "me" in here.   PB removed the glass shower door and now I am able to use my "B" monogrammed shower curtain that I ordered from Ballard Designs catalog four years ago.  I still love it! Plus, I was getting tired of trying to keep the track to the glass shower door clean.  I was fighting what seemed to be a losing battle with it.  Now I can just clean the tub itself and not have to worry about trying to scoop out the gunk that always seemed to hunker down in the track.  Yuck!  I know, I know...TMI! 

Are you ready for the after pictures of our newly finished master bathroom?  Here ya go:

 

I love how it all turned out.  This color is called Wicket and is a nice greenish-gray color.  It compliments the tile floor in here and looks awesome next to all the white trim. 

After looking at these pics I'm thinking I might need to paint the chair that goes in between our sinks.  Hmmm...maybe I need to add that to my never ending list.  What do you think?  Should I paint the chair or leave it stained?   

Biscuits

 

No, this is not a post about the breakfast bread that everyone loves.  It's about a different kind of biscuit.  A ball team.  Our hometown has a minor league ball team called the Biscuits.  At first, it seemed crazy to name a team after a food that is so popular in the south but after a while it has really become quite catch-y (pun intended). 

See the cute little biscuit logo...that's Monty, the biscuit.  I don't believe that I've ever seen another biscuit with eyes and hands before.  Anyway, PB got us tickets to go a game a few weeks back and we were so happy because it was Family Fun night.  That meant the kids would get to run the bases after the game was over.

                                                                             Ready to head inside the stadium!

One of the kids favorite things to do at Riverwalk Stadium is to play at Big Mo's Dugout.  Big Mo is the team mascot.  He's kind of like a biscuit-loving anteater looking creature.  He has this cool playground area at the end of the third baseline that is just for kids!  Our girl and boy love to play here.

They also love the inflatables.  You can purchase a wristband for $5.00 and have fun up until the end of the 7th inning. 

                                                                     PB is the #1 Biscuit fan! 
After the kids played at Big Mo's Dugout for a while, we headed to our seats.  PB's dad was joining us to watch the game.  Now we are ready for some Biscuits Baseball action!

                                                             Enjoying their pre-game snacks!

                                                                      Papa and PB!  

Our seats were pretty great.  They were right behind homeplate!  We saw lots of scouts sitting around us checking out the pitchers for both teams. 

After the game was over the kids lined up to run the bases.  It was pretty exciting for them both.

 

                                                Big Mo met all the kids at homeplate for a High-5!

                                                 Everyone got a cool drink after running the bases! 

Even though our kids don't play baseball or softball any more they are still fans of the game and they think it's pretty cool to get to go out onto the field.   I think PB was a little disappointed that he didn't get to run the bases, too.  He's the real baseball fan in the family!   :)  It was a great night of Biscuit Baseball fun!  Go Biscuits! 

A "To Do" list

Do you like to make lists? 

I do. 

I like to make all kinds of lists.  Grocery store lists.  Christmas gift lists.  Birthday gift lists.  Party planning lists.  Right now I am making a list of things to do to our house.  When we bought this home a year ago I wanted to paint every room.  It was begging to be painted.  So I started out painting every. single. room.    It feels good to say that I have painted every wall of every room.  (Minus the closets and interior doors.  But I have plans for those!)  Today my list looks like this:

• Paint kitchen pantry.  It's in a place where lots of people can see it from our family room and I don't think it's been painted since 1990.  Maybe even before then.  It's time for the pantry to meet my paint brush and my roller cover.   It's pretty small and shouldn't take too long.  I'm thinking I might tackle this next week. 
• Finish painting trim in mine and PB's master bathroom.  It needs it.  I had intended on finishing it right after I painted the walls about a month ago but just haven't. 
• Add decorative molding to interior doors and paint them.  Here's an inspiration photo for you to see what I would like for them to look like.  Not 100% sure about what color though...

                                                                            Source

• Paint PB's barn.  It's not really a barn.  We don't live out in the country.  It's really just a storage building that was rotting away in our back yard.  My stepdad helped him replace all the rotten siding on it this past spring and someone was supposed to paint it.  That someone would be me.  I've been meaning to do it all summer but kept finding excuses not to.  They were perfectly good excuses, too.  Things like the kids are at home now and need me.  It's too hot. It's too hot. The kids need me.  I really don't even know what color I want to paint it but I should just pick something out and cross it off the list.  Maybe I'll put it off until it gets a little cooler outside.  :)   
• Find a rug for the foyer.  Enter picture of ugly green, gray, and white tile floor in foyer: 

              

So that's about it for my to do list as of today.  It's not too overwhelming.  I hope to cross off all these things soon because I love seeing a list that has been scratched through letting me know I've accomplished my goals.  What do you think will get done first?  Or do you think I might find some more excuses to delay me from getting my to do list done? 

 

First Day of School

Yesterday was our children's first day of school.  They are now officially in the 6th and 4th grades.  I really don't feel like I should have a child in the 6th grade because I remember so much about my own 6th grade experiences.  Where has the time gone?  Guess that means I'm getting older too.  Pooh Bear! 

Our morning routine went well and they were both ready to go really early.  So that meant I had extra time to take lots of pictures.  I love to take their pictures on the first day of school and they LOVE to have their picture taken.  Well, not really.  I just LOVE to take their picture.  But I caught them somewhat happy this year!  Yeah me! 

I always try to take it in the same spot every year so I can see from year to year how much the children have changed.  Last year was our first year in this house so I can't really compare their height as much from the previous years.  Here was last years picture... 

They both have matured so much.  I will say the boy was also somewhat happier yesterday than he was at the beginning of school last year.  We had only lived in this town for two weeks when school began last year and we had lots to adjust to. 

For the first day of school, my girl wanted to have a special back-to-school manicure.  Lately she has been obsessed with painting her nails.  I mean OBSESSED!  She sometimes paints them twice in one day.  She loves to watch tutorials on youtube of different designs and tries to copy a lot of them.  Here is what she came up with for yesterday...

APPLES!  She only did the apple design on her ring fingers and just did a french tip on the rest of them.  She's gotten really good with her polishing skills.  Of course, it helps with how much practice she's gotten over the summer.  :) 

I'm extremely happy to report that they both had a great first day of school.  The boy was really happy that he didn't have homework for the first day but that I had homework.  You know the drill...sign this, fill out that, and give me $100.00 for this and $200.00 for that.   Fun times!  I really think this year is going to be a good school year for both of the children and can't wait to see how much they learn and grow.  How did your children's first day of school go?  Did you have any parent homework to do? Or are you still relishing in the last few days of summer?