Life Snippets #18

It's June, (wow), which means, another round of photo purging. We celebrated a couple birthdays, made a trip to the Rock Farm, and went on a hunt for cool old wood.

I'll start with my niece's 5th birthday party.  She had a ballerina themed house party, and my brother-in-law busted out another homemade pinata.  A ballet shoe this time.

I repotted her planter, from last year's birthday, with shade lovers this year.

In addition to family, she had a few neighbor friends, and her bff from preschool, helping to celebrate.

It's not a ballerina party without a tutu, right?

Even Daddy wore one.

You're welcome, Uncle Sherwin.  

My sister made cupcakes and a banana cake, with pink frosting and a ballerina silhouette on top.

While we were there for the party, I took some pictures of their living room that they just finished making over.

New wall and ceiling paint, a new couch and curtains, and a new configuration of everything.

I got to help move some of the stuff around, one of my most favorite things ever.

The paint color alone made a HUGE difference, but all the bright colored accessories make it such a happy room now.

Mom's on the mantle.  :)

I'm gonna throw in The Girl here.

How is she almost a 2nd grader?

Our next birthday party was celebrated at the Rock Farm for my step-dad.

My mom picks a theme every year and this time we did Mardi Gras.

I made a cinnamon roll bundt cake, in lieu of the typical braided yeast cinnamon rolls.

FYI, it's impossible to make purple sugar with liquid food coloring.

We knew they were making something, but I saw it for the first time on this trip.

Maddie Girl has an official grave marker, given to us by my aunt and her boyfriend.

It's beautiful.

They even made the stake special, so we can lift the cross off, and store it inside over the winter.

The night we got home from that trip, we were sitting down to eat dinner, and The Girl was scrawling on the kitchen chalkboard, Beautiful Mind-style, refusing to stop until she was finished.

I heard a couple days later that the real life man portrayed in the movie had died.

Bizarre.

I have to say, I was super impressed with her spelling.

And last, I took some photos at the wood salvage place the other day with my girlfriend.

She and I both are trying to convince The Dad that he needs to build us a table.

I want one for the patio, she wants one for her dining room.

As it turned out, the prices were out of our league, but the wood was sooo pretty.

The lady working was very, very nice and helpful.

The whole experience actually reminded me of that Portlandia episode, where they go to the restaurant and order the chicken.

I'm pretty sure she knew exactly where every board came from.

Look at these beams.

Drooling.

A giant piece of glue lam.

They also had a separate space with examples of things they had built with the wood.

This table was similar to what we're thinkin'.

The coffee table with metal legs was fun.

They must make a lot of custom screen doors.

They had a ton of them in the workshop area.

I REALLY want one for our kitchen door, but these were way too rich for my blood.

Pretty, though.

Behind the screen doors, there was a giant table top, that had already been built, all ready for legs.

It was beautiful, but again, super spendy.

They had framed panels on the wall, showing examples of different woods, I'm assuming for people custom ordering.

Did you see that piece of furniture in the middle?

Beautiful.  

How awesome would that be as a kitchen island?

It was only $700-something, which seemed fair-ish.

I wanted the brackets on the top for bathroom shelves.

$75 bucks a pair.

Um, no.

The mantle beam was gorgeous.

Not so sure about the baby head planters, though.

Super fun place for ideas, and ogling at pretty wood, but not where I'll be going to make a purchase.

So that's it for random May photos.

I've got more backyard photos and another party post coming up this week.

Until then...