Emskyrooney

Phew!  The past two weeks have been pretty hectic and LP and I are just starting to recover!  We started last weekend with a big bbq bash at our house.  We had about 30 people over (about half were under the age of 3- yikes!) and made a ton of food.  Grillmaster Paul smoked 3 racks of ribs, made pulled pork (which he started smoking at 7 a.m.!), grilled chicken wings, and made all of the various rubs and sauces to go with each.  DELICIOUS.  Unfortunately, I only got one photo of the whole thing: A few days later it was Paul's birthday so his parents came over to celebrate over a big meal of Paul's favorite pasta dish.  It's a dish he ate while we were on our honeymoon- the restaurant chef was nice enough to send me the recipe so I could recreate the meal for our first anniversary and it has since become the go-to dish for Paul's birthday every year.  Yummy smoked gouda, pancetta, and artichokes tossed with pasta- delicious! He blew out 9 candles on his cake (I didn'

After our patio project we were left with several wood pallets that the pavers were delivered on.  We like to reuse materials as much as we can so we leaned them up against the shed figuring we'd use them to stack our firewood on or something. When we planted our vegetable garden Paul painted one in our trim color to act as a trellis against the side of the shed.  You can see it in the background of this photo- it does a great job holding up our tomato plants and also adds a little interest to the side of the shed: Since then I've been brainstorming and google searching and came across a whole slew of people who are using pallets to make fabulous things like coffee tables , plant stands , and outdoor furniture .  And so over the weekend I decided to try my hand at a little pallet refashioning! My first project was a little crate to hold all of LP's toys and things that usually end up strewn all over the yard by the end of the day.  I basically cut the two ends off a pallet

So, did y'all think I'd fallen off the Project 365 wagon?  Well, I kinda did.  I'm still taking the photos (most days!) but hadn't put together a weekly spread since the end of April.  Well, you'll be glad to know, I'm all caught up.  In case you were worried, here are weeks 17-25: Week 17:  Missed 1 day.  Oops. Week 18:  Yay, 7 pictures, 7 days! Week 19: Hmmm.. Think I take too many photos of LP eating.  The dining room gets the best light in the house though so I tend to take a lot of pictures in there... Week 20: Week 21: Missed 2 days as we were all caught up in Project: Patio Week 22: Week 23: More patio work = only 5 pictures Week 24:  I love my photos from this week- I think they really captured the week well (rather than just being all photos of LP!) Week 25: Again, only 5 days worth.  No excuses for it, it just is what it is.

I know, I know, I said that our patio project was finished.  But you know how it is, things are never REALLY finished, at least around here (I'll admit it- we still have one or two pieces of molding to put up and a little bit of painting to do in order to "finish" our kitchen, you know, the one we renovated more than three years ago , and my sewing room still needs a drop ceiling installed!).  Since we finished all the patio grunt work though we've been spending some time spiffying the space up a bit so I wanted to share how it's looking these days along with some details. First, we picked up this great little conversation set of 2 chairs, 2 ottomans, and a table at Kohls (love those 30% off coupons!).  Then I snagged the adorable blue and cream outdoor pillows on deep clearance at Target.  Once I bought those great pillows I decided that our color scheme for the patio would be dark blue, cherry red, and neutrals.  We already have a whole set of red, white and blu