Happy New Year!

Okay, okay! I remember writing a post like this a year ago and yet it doesn’t feel that long ago. This year went by so fast for me and my family. Looking back I really wished that I had handled a few things differently but there is no point at looking back.

 

Also the first few months of my pregnancy were miserable as in I had to take Zofran everyday, twice, to get me through the day. Here and there I have the random “not feeling good, I need to vomit look” but for the most part I am feeling good now…well other than the no energy thing. For some reason I cannot sleep between the hours of 2am and 6am. You would think that I would be able to get things done then but have you noticed how quiet usually at night is. I can’t even get a glass of water without waking up the family. Okay, this was long!

 

 

This year I decided not to make any goals since in the end they were a glorified to-do list. I was visiting one of my favorite blogs today (I am slowly getting back into blogging and the whole blogging world) and I loved how she had used a word to define the year ahead. The word was MAKE!

 

 

To me the word MAKE made perfect sense! I know that in 2012 there were a lot of things that I wanted to get done but one of the biggest obstacles for not getting it done was me. So in the year 2013 I vow to MAKE things happen, to make mistakes!

 

 

Have you set goals for this year?

 

 

The backyard makeover

I think we are far from done on working on the back yard of my mom’s house but we have made such tremendous progress that I couldn’t wait to show you. As you remember we re-did the front yard a couple of months ago ( you can read about it here), then we decided that we should get going on the back yard.

 

We started with an overgrown with weeds lawn full of small rocks and a touch bit of trash. As you can also see there was plenty of plywood screwed onto the fence that we were really afraid to look behind. The previous owner had two dogs that resided in the back yard for the most part of the day so you see our worry was that the fence behind the plywood was destroyed and we had to replace it. Something that we weren’t looking forward to!

 

 

Little by little the debris and trash were taken out. Then my husband started taking down the plywood and to our surprise, a good surprise, the fence was in great condition.  Yay! We took practically all of the plants there except the small palm tree.

 

 

With a blank canvas my parents, the owners of the house, decided to put sod instead of trying to grow grass. After all it’s Southern California and in some areas the water companies will charge you for overwatering. I have to give a shout out to my husband and brother who installed the sprinkler system in the backyard.

 

       

     

     

 

Then after the grass was all set we installed rocks on the pathways. As you can see the yard is done for the most part. We are going to plant more flowers/palm trees and of course we have the other part of the backyard to work on. Unfortunately the other side of the yard will be left for next year. Currently there is a built in barbeque that we are going to re-do and fix up a few things here and there but as I said this is going to be next year. So many projects so little time!

 

             

So what do you think?

I think we did a pretty good job!

The best part …it feels like it was like it has been like this all along.

No one can remember the old nasty backyard.

With a little bit of sweat we did this in no time.

We love it!

 

Summer Nights

I love summer nights! They are usually lazy, family spending nights! True to that and keeping up with our summer to-do list we decided that after a long hot day to cool off by the pool and make smores (#22). This was Madison’s first time making and tasting smores and she loved it. She loved it so much that we made smores for the past two nights.

 

This photos is of my daughter occupying herself while her daddy was barbequing some chicken.

 

 

Smores making time….

 

 

Happy Monday!

I should have an update on my resent projects this week! Stay tuned!

Our Summer List Update

Good morning! Hope everyone had a great weekend and a good start to their week! We had a fantastic busy weekend. I got to see a movie with a friend, get some things done for my daughter’s upcoming party and the best of all hang out with my husband and daughter.

 

You might remember our summer list that I created last month. Well this weekend we were able to get a few things crossed off our list.

 

#15.  Watch the fireworks – So far this year we have enjoyed two firework shows: 4th of July and Disney. We love the fireworks show at Disney: it is so entertaining since they have the fireworks matched to different characters. You get to see Tinker Bell and Dumbo fly as well. I do admit I am not the best at taking photos of the fireworks.

 

 

#46. Go to the local fair – The local fair is a big thing around here unfortunately not in our daughter’s eyes. She liked the petting zoo but that’s about it. Less than hour into it she decided that it was time to go to Disney. As the good parents we are we obliged and went to Disney. Who doesn’t love Disney anyways?

 

 

# 50. Ride the carousel – Since Madison rides the carousel once a week we decided to change this one to ride anything that she hasn’t been on before...So we took our daughter on her first rollercoaster and her first Farris wheel ride. She had a blast on both.

 

 

Happy Monday!

 

A day in LA and meeting Amy Atlas

A couple of weeks ago (actually right before 4th of July) Amy Atlas came to town to discuss and sign her new book, Sweet Designs.The book is fantastic and I have decided to implement some of those ideas for my daughter’s upcoming party.  Amy is such a down to earth girl. Amy went to each individual person before the meet and greet, shook their hands and ask them to tell her a little bit about themselves. She even gave Ryan some brown points for coming with me. She said that spousal support is everything in the key to success. Amy gave great pointers during her presentation. She talked about party planning and some of her favorite party products.

 

Unfortunately the battery of my camera died so my photos of the event are not the greatest. Like this one below is blurry.

 

Now you will not believe how excited I got when I saw Mindy Weiss in the crowed. I got to talk to her but I felt weird asking her to take a photos with her. Mindy is down to earth as well. As soon as I introduced myself she gave me a big hug. Just like Amy she is such an inspiration when it comes to the party world. Mindy had mentioned that she loves interior design and that if she wasn’t doing party planning that’s what she would be doing. We both admitted that we are design related magazine hoarders.

 

 

Here is the party spread from the event.

 

After the even my family and I decided to stroll down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. This is where the photos get even worse since I had to use my phone so I will share only this one with you.

 

 

My parents and daughter at Rodeo Drive

It was such a fun day that we decided to come back and do the tourist thing in the fall when it’s a little cooler. LA can get pretty hot in the summer which makes everyone a touch bit cranky. There are a few sites/attractions that we would love to visit like the LA Zoo, the train museum, the Griffith Observatory, and I would love to visit the design center (it’s been a while since I have been there).

Are you doing anything special this summer!