A Birthday & A Wedding

Kevin turned 41 last week!  We had a fun time celebrating him with family and friends.  We had a BBQ with his family and then we headed out of town on his actual birthday for a wedding.

We divided up the menu and I decorated with red, white and blue since his birthday is so close to July 4th.  Everything turned out great!

We arrived early and Kevin's mom left the cake decorating up to the kids.  Kevin's Grandma Sharon supervised and Fletcher put on as many candles as he could fit on the top of the cake.

We think these two ladies are GREAT!  Our kids are so lucky to have great grandparents.

Presents, cake and cooling off inside.

Pre-dinner fireworks.  Leo is telling Grandpa that he doesn't like loud fireworks I'm sure.

Fletcher was very proud of this candle situation.

Time for fireworks!  Kevin loves fireworks more than anyone I know.

Leo prefers fireworks from inside - air conditioning and not so loud.

It stormed big time that night and then we woke up the next morning to head to a wedding.  One of Kevin's former students and our favorite babysitter was getting married in Illinois.  We took the whole crew and headed about 5 hours away.  We did a quick gas station clothes change and headed right to the wedding.

Congratulations Cara & Carter!  The kids adore her!

The kids loved the bubble send off and the candy bar at the reception!

Happy Birthday, Kev!!

We spent the night in IL and headed North to Wisconsin the following day.  Busy birthday weekend!

Floral Basket Wreath

I think that I've figured out a great combination for wreaths for my dark red front door - LIGHT!  White flowers and white seem to be my friend if I want my wreath to pop.  It also goes nicely with our white brick.  I picked up supplies recently when Hobby Lobby had their floral section 50% off.  Now that Hobby Lobby doesn't take coupons, it feels more important to pay attention to their sales.

I knew I wanted a basket type wreath because they're easy to hang and I like the look of them.  There were a couple of options and I liked this one for Summer.  It was around $15.

Then I picked up floral stems and added them into the basket to see how they'd look.  I intended to have blue and white flowers in the bouquet, but I didn't like any of the blue flower options.  I picked out a green filler to fill the basket and then started looking for items to layer in.

 

 Floral Basket Wreath Supply List:

1 hanging basket

1 pkg Green moss filler

4 drapey greenery

8 white floral stems

1 whimsical white floral stem

*All supplies are from Hobby Lobby recently.

I bought plenty of the greenery and floral stems knowing that I could return them if I had extra.  That's much easier to do than have to go back to the store to try to find more of the same flowers.

I like to have several different things - flowers, greenery and berry type things - to add interest.

This wreath was so easy.  Cut price tags off as you go so you can return anything you don't need.  I filled the basket with an entire package of the green moss filler.  It filled up the container really well and gave me a sturdy foundation to build off of.  Then I layered in the greenery.  I added the little white flower stems in next.  I topped everything off with the whimsical white floral stems.  The basket hangs perfectly on my door.  I have a screw in the door to hang all wreaths on.  And I'm so happy with how it turned out!  

It cost me around $50.  That's not cheap for a wreath, but I love that it's custom/one of a kind, I can reuse the basket again in the future and it was a good creative outlet for me to make it.  I'm hoping to use it again next Summer, but I'll have to wait and see how it weathers in the sun after a month or two.

I'm already dreaming about white/light Fall and winter wreath options!

 

 

 What's on your front door right now?

Wisconsin Nachos

Hey Friends!!  We're back from a fun trip to Wisconsin and I have a few Wisconsin posts planned for you.  I'm going to start out with: Wisconsin Nachos!!  

Our resort had yummy poolside food truck options for their outdoor pools and we were big fans of the nacho truck.  We ate them 3 different times during our stay!  We all agreed that we needed to recreate them at home.  I snapped a picture for recipe reference.  Then we made a list of all the ingredients and went grocery shopping when we got home.

 

Wisconsin Nacho Ingredients:

1lb ground beef (light on the meat version - you could easily double this!)

Taco seasoning

Shredded Colby Jack

1/2 a block of Queso Fresco

1 can of Queso Blanco

shredded lettuce

1 fresh jalapeno pepper

1 container of fresh Pico De Gallo - find a great store bought option or make your own!

Triangle tortilla chips

 

Directions:

Cook ground beef, drain and add taco seasoning.  Chop lettuce/jalapeno and crumble queso fresco.  Heat up the Queso Blanco.  Set out all the ingredients to build your nachos either family style or on individual plates.  Recipes serves 4-5.  

 

 

We opted to build our own nachos on our plates instead of making one big platter of nachos.  You can do these nachos either way.

Have you ever gotten queso fresco?  I found this at Aldi and it was delicious.  I sliced it in half and then crumbled it with forks.  Super easy!

Everyone built their own plate of nachos and we agreed that they were a really good dupe for the yummy nachos we had on vacation.

You can customize these a million different ways, but we think this version is pretty great.  I hope you'll give these Wisconsin Nachos with three different cheeses a try.

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday!  This week zoomed by so fast for us.  We squeeze in all the holiday fun and then enjoyed a quiet week at home.  The best parts of our week were:

1. Front Door

I'm figuring out how to decorate my red front door and it seems like anything light or white looks great on it!  Lighter rugs also seem to look better with it.  I made this wreath for July and love how it looks.  I'm already thinking ahead for Fall and Winter wreath ideas.  I've never done one of these basket wreaths so stay tuned for a tutorial next week.  It was SO easy!  I'm also learning that my front porch is sunnier than I was expecting so I'm trying to find the right spot for these shade loving ferns.

2. We made JAM!

I've always wanted to give freezer jam a try and Kevin helped me make that happen.  We did wild blackberry jam from the bushes along our property and then we did strawberry jam.  They both tasted yummy and we're eager to experiment with the recipe as well as try other fruit flavors.

3. Organizing

I'm trying hard to work on a project or two a day to get things a little more organized around here.  I worked on my accessories and some drawers this week.  Most of my projects take under 30 minutes and make such a big difference.  I'm hoping to tackle some cabinets and our garage in July.

4. Kid Art

Olive has been busy making art lately.  She painted the lemon specifically for my laundry room and the Be Kind was a neat painting that she did at art camp.  I asked her if I could have it to frame.  I got frames for both and love how they look around the house.  Frames were crazy expensive at Hobby Lobby so I checked out the options at Meijer and was much happier with their under $10 options.

5. Grocery Store Flowers

You know that Kevin loves to surprise me with fresh flowers especially when he knows we're having company over.  He grabbed these two bunches of Alstroemeria because he thought they'd look good together.  It was such a pretty color combo.  Plus these flowers last forever!!

6. Penny & Pearl

The sweetest kitty sisters ever.  They love keeping an eye on the yard :)

7. It's been HOT in the Midwest

We've been indoors more than usual this week.  But we loved the farm filled views from our backyard.  The corn is getting so high!

8. Meet Ups

We met up with a variety of friends and family this week.  We swam, grabbed cookies and had lunch out.  The kids LOVE Jason's Deli and we've recently started letting the older kids get their own ice cream.  Fletch was thrilled, clearly.  And Leo loved his pasta for lunch.

9. Wiggly Teeth

I had to document Fletcher's baby teeth while his smile was still in tact.  He's got a couple of wiggly ones on the bottom and is excited/slightly nervous to lose his first tooth.

10. Regular Days

It's just fun to hang out at home with these three.  I love when they play together nicely.

11. Cookies

These Jordan Bakery Box M&M cookies have been in high demand over here.  They just scream summer to me!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  We're excited to celebrate Kevin's birthday and head to a wedding for some of our favorite friends.  I'm taking next week off of blogging.  See you back here on the 18th!

Linking up with Momfessionals

4th of July Fun

We kicked off our 4th of July weekend a little early at our house.  We celebrated Kevin's birthday with my side of the family.  We did some yard work.  Kevin grilled several times over the weekend and put together several fireworks displays for family and friends.

I made all the red, white and blue food possible!  I love holiday themed treats so much.

Mocato fans - I found a new favorite - Sweet Tulip Moscato!  It's delicious.  It's sweet, refreshing and I will definitely be buying this again.

Is there anything better than a plate full of delicious Summer foods!?  I love trying everyone's favorite foods that they bring to share at a cookout.

Kevin is always the fun one.  Lanterns, fireworks and lots of backyard fun!

The cousin crew.

I decorated with a big balloon garland, flags everywhere instead of flowers and anything red, white and blue that I could find.

Kevin's smashburgers were so good!  This weekend he grilled two rounds of smash burgers and brats.

We picked blackberries!  Our wild blackberry bushes are just starting to ripen up.  We carefully picked a bowl full and snacked as we went.  Those blackberry thorns are tricky to navigate around.

I can't resist matching holiday shirts!

Leo can't resist berries!

We ate lots of pound cake + berries.  Did you see the recipe I posted for it yesterday?

We made JAM!!  I've always wanted to give jam making a try and Kevin helped make that happen this year.  We made blackberry & strawberry freezer jam.  It was really fun and easy to make so I'm hoping that it turns out delicious.  We would love to try other flavors.  The big kids really enjoyed helping mash the fruit and Kevin made sure we followed the directions.  Stay tuned.  If it turns out to be delicious, I'll share the details!

I asked them to pose by our new trees.  I'm going to try to take their picture by them every July to watch out they (the kids and the trees) grow!

We finished the night with a big neighborhood fireworks display + Kevin doing his own show in our driveway with friends.  I didn't take a single picture because I was on popsicle, trash and Leo duty.  He wasn't so sure he loved fireworks and clung to me like a baby koala.  We all stayed up way too late, ate Bomb Pops and had a blast.  I hope you had a happy 4th of July this year!