Support our Troops!

I am in a huge campaign to support our troops with Mary Kay! We're sending out care packages including Mary Kay sunscreen and lip protection to help protect those who are fighting for us! My personal goal by June 30th is to sponsor 50 soldiers! It's only $20! Who thinks they can help me Only $20!!! This is also a TAX WRITE OFF!! So if you know of a company that would like to sponsor multiple soldiers please in box me!!!

Picture Wall

Browsing through Pinterest a while back, I came across this Pin.  And I LOVED it!!  It dresses up the wall so much and is such an awesome way to display pictures.  We love having pictures of family, but eventually, we ran out of space to put them.  There are only so many tables, and shelves to put frames on.  So I loved that this idea consolidated all of the memories into one location.  Here's a picture of the idea on pinterest:

I chose to make mine a little more "eclectic" and not  have matching frames for now.  But the lovely thing about this, is that at any time, I could go get or create some matching frames for the existing pictures and layout, and it would totally change the look!  Very versatile.  Our wall is not quite done  yet as I ran out of frames.  But I also plan to put up a similar vinyl decal in the center with some sort of quote about family and friends and memories.

But here is the beginnings of our picture wall.

I didn't really lay anything out before I started.  I just started putting holes in the wall.  I would hold up a frame and move it around a little before I set the nail, but I did not have a grand scheme design before I started.  I went with random :)  I didn't want it to look too planned. Let me know what you think!  And quote suggestions are always welcome :)

Backyard Update

As many of you know, we are in the middle of our never ending backyard/back patio project.  You can see the progression of it all here and here.  We finally go the sand spread out over the gravel.  And now, as you can see, our patio looked strikingly similar to a sand volleyball court minus the net.

  The dogs loved it!  So much softer than the gravel.  I however, was not a huge fan.  With the doggie door, there was no possible way the sand was going to stay outside.  But, I digress...the sand was only their a couple of weeks before we finally got the pavers delivered (approximately 1100 regular pavers, and 100 edge piece pavers).  We won't mention the fact that Home Depot messed up the delivery date and we actually got the pavers the day before we left on vacation...But, I digress again.

Once we got back, we leveled out the sand as best we could, and got to work laying the pavers.

They have an interlocking design which makes them fairly easy to line up.

  But, those suckers were heavy, and it was a long 3 day weekend.  I am definitely pleased with the progress.  The hubs is slightly more of a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of thing, so he's less pleased, but still happy that things are moving.  I'm just happy that the dogs are no longer tracking sand into the house!

There is still quite a bit of work left to be done as far as the edging goes (it didn't exactly end up straight), and filling in the joints with the special sand.  And then of course we have the shade structure to put up.  But, all in due time.

Here's a look at the whole thing with the pavers.  Dog tested, Mother approved.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some shade structure updates!