Yesterday, after going to a sip’n'see for an old friend from college, we headed out with some dear friends to the Plano Balloon Festival. We met up with Jami and Matt there, who had saved awesome seats for us. Matt and Chris play soccer every week together, and Jami and I have become friends over the years as well.
The thing is, the balloon festival is not as exciting as the state fair. There’s not as much to do there. But it holds a special place in my heart for many reasons. The first of which is that Chris took me for the first time when we were dating. Back then, it was a romantic evening that we shared and thanks to it being an annual event, we can continue to revisit the memories we made there and build on them each year.
Two years ago, I was a week away from giving birth to Asher. I specifically remember having strong contractions while walking around and having to stop during the hardest ones. It was so windy that year that much of what was planned didn’t happen according to schedule.
And last year we had the pleasure of going with Dan and Stephanie for the first time. They had just recently moved down to Texas and I became fast friends with Steph when we realized that our oldest kids were in the same Mother’s Day Out class at church and that she would also be in MOPS. It was fun to go with them again this year, celebrating a year of friendship, and making new memories with Jami and Matt as well.
Here are a few of the pictures- I’ve put the whole album up on our Flickr account. Enjoy!
Amai and Josiah, so sweet.
Chris and his little man.
Watching the parachute team come in.
Amai said, “Look, Jesus is coming!”
Next year, there’ll be five of us!
Listening carefully to instructions.
She had so much fun, jumping so, so high.
So pretty.
This really captures the emotions of the night.
The annual family “all-burn” pic.
Jami, Matt and Eisley!
All-burn.
Gettin’ their dance moves on. We had a ball!
I figured I would go ahead and feature some of the cool websites I visit each week. Considering there are so many out there, this may or may not be new info for you. Nevertheless, this should be interesting. Feel free to contact me and introduce me to more website so I can feature them in the future.
First off is my all time favorite “mom” website: Cool Mom Picks. This site is run by just a few moms who love cool kids’ stuff. They feature an item or two every day and it’s super fun to check out their site for new shopping ideas. They also have links to other cool websites where you can find other groovy kid gear. Did I just say groovy? Well, there you have it.
This is what they say about their company:
“Our focus is non-mainstream products and services, particularly those from indie or emerging designers and mom/women-run companies. We believe you can stay true to your dazzling design sensibilities and still support an entrepreneur, especially one trying to support her family through her work.”
So here’s a shout out to Cool Mom Picks! You ladies keep me inspired to be a more trendy mom. And when my ship comes in, I’ll go out and shop for all those cool things you feature each day!
Ok, today is a super exciting day for me. I just (mostly) finished making roman shades for Asher’s room. I originally made them a different way, but thankfully only had to rip one apart with my trusty seam ripper before making them like this. I finished one last night and the other one this morning. Take a look!
The stripes aren’t perfectly lined up where I’d like them, but the fabric was $40/yd. so I had to just go with it like this. I got the instructions from an old article in Living that I had saved. My mom taught me to sew years ago and though she never knew it- I’m so grateful and love the fact that I can sew fairly well.
If you have somewhat decent sewing skills, you can totally do this project too. It saves a ton of money by not paying someone else to make window treatments for you. If you go to Martha Stewart’s site, do a search for roman shades and the first article that comes up should get you started. I tried to link it, but the article wouldn’t come up just then.
I made mine to fit very tightly inside the window framing, with a blackout liner ($5/yd from JoAnn Fabrics) so that the room will be pitch black for Asher’s naps. You could do it without a blackout liner, and not so close to the frame as well. JoAnn’s always has great coupons in their ads, so I timed all of my purchases around the sales they had and the coupons they offer to get an even greater deal on these shades.
Our house finally feels like it’s coming along. I can’t explain this, especially since we’ve only painted one room completely, but it feels like it’s finally going to all come together. The kitchen and office projects are both enormous undertakings and have stalled out numerous times due to life being busy with kids. But just getting a glimpse of almost having one room completely done makes it feel like we’re actually going to get it all done.
I’ll post pictures of Ashe’s room once I finish it completely. It may take a while because we have a very eager 4 year old who wants her room painted now! I’m going to do some similar shades in her room (some sort of pink at her request) and then we’ll probably try to finish those two rooms completely before doing our room. Somewhere along the way we’ll slowly get our kitchen done and our office as well. All in time. The living room will be the last before the huge changes that need to happen in both bathrooms.
So, so exciting…
Hope you are all doing well!
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