New Patio-2012

Before.  Nice, huh?  The part that has no grass is where Ralph stands and barks at the other dogs when they get ready to go inside…

It’s a great base for a patio though.  Bill and I have been wanting to put in a patio since we bought the house 6 years ago. 

We have 3 teenage boys in our house.  And they all helped out .  The one that isn’t ours actually did the most work…imagine that…

This guy was worn out. 

So I “made” him take me out for dinner

Then put them all back to work on Sunday morning.

Can you say LOTS OF SAND?

Many trips were made back and forth to Menards to pick up sand. 5 trips in all, I think.  The allroad hauled most of the sand.  

A boom truck delivered our pallet of block on Sunday along with our 17 additional 1/4 circle blocks.

Shocked that this kid helped out.

Finally laying blocks. 

And leveling.

They called in the project engineer after I caught him laying the blocks out from the wrong starting point…

This kid mowed the front yard while they worked on Sunday.

After two days off (well…2 days off from the patio, since he had to work) on Wednesday he was ready to finish things up.

Laying the last of the blocks.

All cleared off.

Tiggy is enjoying the patio when it FINALLY warms up a little on Saturday.

I decided that I could handle putting the table together myself today. 

And this is what it looks like now. 

I LOVE it.  So AWESOME!

I haven’t quite decided on all of the landscaping yet and we still have a few more things to do, but it is looking good and I CANNOT wait to have people over to enjoy!

Happy Saturday!

Shopping Weekend/Bryan’s B-day

We celebrated Bryans’s Birthday on Saturday March 17.

He had requested the cake wording, but didn’t think that we would actually have it put on the cake.  (We also apologized to William, who has suspected that he was adopted, and told him sorry, but he really does belong to us )

Getting ready to leave to go shopping.

New clothes afterwards.

So cute.

Brotherly love.

My

William got a new tennis racket and a case to carry it in.

And he likes to mess with me. 

Here’s to kicking off what I hope is a very productive weekend!

Happy Saturday!

Tulips

I know.  I am totally behind on my blogging. 

But the patio is almost done. 

In the meantime, enjoy the beautiful tulips I bought a couple weeks ago at Target. 

They didn’t last very long, but I love the colors! 

Happy Friday!

Sketching the backyard

So after the art journal page that was in the last post, I started working on our next project.  I started sketching our backyard while I was sitting outside. 

Then I started sketching the “soon to be patio area.”

Then I started making stuff up and figured out how to incorporate the pea pod that Junelle had in her project.

And then I sketched a portion of the drawing and added color on a piece of watercolor paper. 

I can’t wait to take a photo of our new patio when it’s finished! 

Happy Thursday!

Love this Class!

So, I am loving the Art of Wild Abandonment. (Sign up here.) On Sunday, I watched some videos and started following the sketches. 

Then I started cutting some papers that I had on hand. 

And then I followed a lot of what Junelle showed for the first Art Journal Project.  I LOVE how it turned out.

I’m always a fan of banners…

And aprons…

Added a laundry basket.

And of course the rubons.

And some Tulips. 

Which I just happened to have on the table!

Happy Friday!  I am looking forward to spending some time creating this weekend too! 

I’m loving the Art of Wild Abandonment.  I’m loving the sketching and the painting and the fun.