the fence

I realized that I have never blogged about the big change to our backyard - our fence!  But first things first.  Our patio had huge cracks in it when we moved in.  We ignored it for 2 years, but the cracks were getting worse and I was worried about the kids tripping over them.  So we had someone from our church (who does concrete work) to come and fix it!  They ended up taking the whole patio out and starting over, it was in pretty rough shape.  The great thing about this is that we were able to extend the patio by about 5 feet which, while not huge, FEELS huge.

 

After the patio was fixed, the utility people came and marked the yard for the utility lines.

 

Then, finally on May 1. . .the guys came to start.  We went with a dark gray aluminum fence.  No staining wood every few years for this lady. :)  It took them 2 days to get everything done.

digging the holes

all the supplies

 

posts are in

 

 

kiddos watching them work

Of course, we were only worried about one thing - them hitting one of our irrigation lines for our sprinkler system. And of course, they hit 3 of them.  But they made good on their word and came the next morning and fixed them at their cost.

 

I am love with this fence!  So great to be able to keep our kiddos contained. :)  Not as big of a deal for Owen as I anticipate it will be for my gregarious and always-on-the-move girl.

If you're local and wanting to know who we used, it was Main Street Fencing.  Several people had recommended them and we liked our consultation with them the best.  In general, we would totally recommend them.  A little hard to communicate with as they never answer the phone, but we were very happy with their work!

bed time fun

I just love this set of pictures from putting Owen to bed the other night:  

Touch A Truck

Well, according to all my local friends who blog, this is the event to be blogging about tonight!  Haha. 

But it IS one of our favorite city wide events.  And as Owen is into all things that go, he had tons of fun.  Probably not as much fun as some kids as he was too scared to climb in any of the trucks and had a melt down from super obnoxious army tank with loud honking.  But besides that, it was a blast!

We got there early for a good parking spot and by passed the fire truck as we had just been to the firestation.  Our goal was the city bus as he's been loving buses lately.  After the bus, we just walked around and just looked at and touched a few other trucks and then enjoyed some yummy ice cream before running into some friends.  All in all, a great way to spend a beautiful morning!

getting ready to get on

singing "the wheels on the bus"

15 more years buddy

she looks disgruntled

he wouldn't take a picture by himself

in front of the pink cement truck

going up the flat bed tow truck

it took come convincing for him to walk down

dune buggy

enjoying some ice cream

Ellie adored the ice cream

Party in 3 days!

Any guess what this could be? Here’s a hint with my inspiration picture: 

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I just took some poster board from the dollar store, cut it in the shape of a windmill and spray painted it silver. I need to attach some dowels to make it a bit sturdier to hang on the swing set.  And then we will have a windmill!

Party in 4 days!

Oops, forgot to post this yesterday. :)  So you’ll get two sneak peak posts today.  First, I made water bottle labels.  Yes, I know this might be a bit over the top, but for a detail person like me, this is what makes a theme!

I designed them in Photoshop, printed them, covered the labels in contact paper so they could survive an ice bath and then taped them on! Next, to go in front of our barn display on the cupcake table, I wanted to have a “pasture” since the cupcakes will be wrapped in cow print wrappers.  So I grabbed a couple of boxes at Aldi (they’re always free and you’re welcome to them).  Owen helped me put a couple coats of green paint on them. When they were dry, we painted on glue and stuck on green Easter grass.  I got a few bags of the paper version (not the plastic grass) at the dollar store for $.25 on clearance.  Score! Now we have several places for our cow cupcakes to “roam.”

Party in 5 days!

I found this adorable picture on Pinterest and knew it had to be the backdrop for our cupcake table.

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I bought a display board at Hobby Lobby – you know the kind you use for a school project.  I rounded off the tops on the side panels.Then I used an exacto knife to cut the middle part into a barn shape.I taped off the top of the “silos” so Owen could help me paint them black.  It took 2 coats of craft paint. Lastly, I used vinyl cut in long strips to outline the barn doors, windows, and hay loft.  Owen requested some animals on the barn, so that may happen if I have extra time this week.  So happy with how it turned out! 

Party in 6 days!

Thought you might want to see a few little sneak peaks of party things this week!  So each day I’ll post a little something I’ve been working on.  Of course, no finished products until party day!  Haha

To kick things off, here are the invites that I sent.  I ordered them from The Blue Egg Events on Etsy.  She tweaked them with the wording I made up and added the “Pool Farm” to the barn. 
And I of course, I couldn’t let such a cute invite go in the mail without a cute way of addressing it.  So this is what I did on the envelopes: