allison's everyday journey

My 52 Week Project : Week 6 {culture}

2012-02-10T20:41:00.000-05:00

This week’s theme was culture. We could do anything that represented our personal culture/background, our country’s culture, etc. I chose a baseball since it’s such a big part of American culture. I used to HATE baseball until I met my husband. He has loved baseball since, like, forever and over the years has gotten me just shy of obsessed with it!! :) I can't wait for the season to start (GO Tigers!!), but spring training hasn't even started yet, so I have a while to wait!

I got this ball at a Tigers game a few years ago. The players were practicing on the field before the game started and one of them threw it up to me in the stands! (My husband may or may not have caught it for me - but I'm the one that asked the player for it!)

And, guess what? I'm a day earlier than I usually am in submitting my photo! Go me!

My 52 Week Project : Week 5 {best friends}

2012-02-04T21:28:00.000-05:00

Ugh! What a hard week for me! I won’t go into any detail, but I’ll just say this - I’m glad it’s almost over!!

Anyway, this week’s theme was “best friends” - and, really, who’s closer than PB&J? Or, in this case, PJ&fruit spread! ;)

Here it is...

See ya next week! :)

My 52 Week Project : Week 4 {bokeh}

2012-01-31T11:12:00.000-05:00

Week 4!

How is it week 4 already?! Oh my! Well, here we go!

I just got home from a little vacation with my daughter, so please forgive my tardiness! We had a wonderful time visiting her grandparents (my mom and step-dad) in Marco Island, FL. It was sunny, warm, and it sure was PRETTY! My submission this week is an image of my daughter on a boat tour at the Naples Zoo - which we went to on my birthday! The tour, which was about 15 minutes long, visited several little islands in a man-made lake. Each island had monkeys living on it and the driver of the boat gave us a little history about each species. It was fun to see them and how they interact with each other. Rylan didn’t really catch on to the fact that we were looking at monkeys, but she sure liked the water! She so takes after me in that respect! I love water (I just don’t like being in a swimsuit!)!

Anyway, this week’s theme is “bokeh”. In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image. So, the “focus” of this week’s image is not really the subject, but rather, the blurred background of the image.

Sorry if this post feels a little “choppy”! I have a lot going on right now - like trying to keep my 16-month-old from falling down the stairs and trying to get our vacation laundry washed and put away!

I’ll be back later this week with “this week’s” theme and submission!

My 52 Week Project : Week 3 {food}

2012-01-21T21:14:00.000-05:00

Ok. Let me first start off with telling you how much harder this 52 week project is than I thought it would be! Oh my goodness! I know we are given themes, but to actually take the time out of my day to get in a place where I feel creative enough to make something look halfway decent is HARD!! And it’s only week 3!!! Wow! This is going to be tough! And I’ve already thought plenty of times about quitting! Haha! Oh well, I’m going to stick with it for as long as I can because I really think it will benefit me in the end. I think it will help me to be more creative on the spot instead of having everything “staged” ahead of time. Like this week’s shot. I had some ideas in my head about what I wanted to shoot for “food”, but as the week went on, I still hadn’t taken an photos. Yesterday my hubby suggested we go check out the dog show. Rylan loves dogs (so do we!) and we thought it would be fun for her to see a LOT of “ruff-ruffs” all in one place. She really enjoyed it and even got to pet some dogs - which she loved! Afterward, we went out to lunch at Potbelly Sandwich Shop. I had never heard of Potbelly until we moved over to this side of the state. It is so YUMMY and I’m so glad my hubby suggested it because I was able to get my project shot while we were there. We walked in the door and I already had my camera in my bag (good habit to start getting in to!) and I thought “Oooh, I have the perfect idea for this week’s theme!” I’m not THRILLED with it, but I feel like it is a definite improvement from last week! ;)

BTW...I am really enjoying my photography class. This week was hard, to say the least, but things are starting to come together and that makes me feel good! It is crazy how much I thought I knew and how much I really didn’t know! I am so glad I signed up for this class and will never, ever, even for one second regret it!

And with that...here’s this week’s shot! A yummy smoked ham and swiss sandwich from Potbelly! :)

My 52 Week Project: Week 2 {up}

2012-01-14T21:00:00.001-05:00

Okay, my shot is super lame this week - mostly because I waited till the last day to do it! :) We live just outside Detroit and I wanted to take pictures of tall buildings for this week's theme. But I felt crappy this whole week and today, when I finally felt better, it was snowing like crazy there (not so much where we live)! Here is a shot of one of the tigers that sits outside of Comerica Park - home of the Detroit Tigers. I'm looking UP at it since it is so tall! ;) Hoping for a better week next week! :)

My 52 Week Project : Week 1 {breakfast}

2012-01-07T13:35:00.002-05:00

I’ve had an interest in photography for several years now, but feel like I don’t know near as much as I want to. I know the very basic “basics”, but I want to know more. I want to feel confident with my camera and feel like I can go anywhere or be in any situation and know how to capture a beautiful image. Or at least get close! ;) So, about a month ago I signed up for a membership to Clickin Moms. Clickin Moms is a place for women to share their photos and love of photography. They have all sorts of info, resources, and workshops to help women learn more about photography and really make the most of their passion. I haven’t participated as much as I had hoped to yet, but I am going to try to get more involved. I asked for money for my birthday this year (which is coming up in just a few short weeks!) and I decided I’d spend it on a Clickin Moms workshop (Shooting 101) and start the new year off with more knowledge about my hobby! The workshop starts on Monday and I cannot wait! I’m sure it will be challenging, but I am excited to learn! Also, since we just rang in the new year, the Clickin Moms forum has had many new photography “projects” pop up in hopes of getting people using their cameras more. One that I decided to participate in this year is a 52 week photo challenge. Each week we get a topic and have to submit a photo based on that topic. I am really excited to participate in this challenge as I really think it will help me to keep using my camera and get better and more creative with my shots. Also, I LOVE that there is a topic every week because there is no way I could think of something different to shoot 52 weeks out of the year!

This week’s topic is “breakfast”. And here is my submission!

I knew I wanted Rylan in my shot this week, so I made sure to take some pics of her eating one morning. This is my favorite one. This was the first time she’d ever eaten Fruit Loops and she liked them A LOT!! ;) Glad that worked out for her so well! And glad they kept her occupied while I took pictures of her - from ALL different angles! ;)

I’ll be back next week with my next photo. I can’t wait for tomorrow when I find out my topic!

Take care!

MERRY CHRISTMAS...a few days early!!

2011-12-21T21:46:00.002-05:00

Last year around Christmas time I was seeing all these cool pictures with Christmas lights in them and they looked amazing to me. I knew I wanted to learn how to create the look so I read lots of tutorials online about it. But, the season got away from me. Having a 3-month-old at the time, I just didn't have the energy or patience to put into "playing" with my camera. So, I vowed that next year I would work on it. Well, this year came and here we are! I wanted to share some of my ~~attempt at~~ Christmas photos with you. I know they aren't amazing, but I'm proud of what I was able to create and am excited to learn more throughout the coming year so that hopefully my pictures get even better next year. I was just thinking tonight how people say "Practice makes perfect". I have never really agreed with that saying, even as a child, because the extremely literal side of me says "No one can be perfect, only God is perfect!". SO...I always say "Practice makes better!". So, I'm hoping every year, with more practice, I get BETTER at what I do! :)

Enjoy! And hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season...and maybe even enjoying some time off of work or school!

Our attempt at a family photo!

More like her Momma than I thought! She'd much rather be behind the camera than in front of it!

My husband gave her a sugar cookie...or maybe two? Either way, she was messy...and hyper!

Decorating our homemade Christmas sugar cookies

She was clearly getting annoyed with me!

Our sleepy "babies"

Playing around with the settings on my camera! ;)

And if you didn't receive a Christmas card from us this year, here you are! (Sorry, we cut back this year and just weren't able to get to everyone, but you are all in our thoughts!)

Basement bathroom makeover and our version of board and batten

2011-12-12T10:33:00.002-05:00

As you know, we moved to a new-to-us house a couple months ago. And when we bought it we were SO excited to have an extra bathroom. Several years ago, my husband and I owned a condo that had a bath and a half and we loved having that extra bathroom. Then a couple years ago, we moved into a rental house with only one bathroom. It was hard to get used to with just the two of us, but now that we have a daughter, it would have gotten more and more difficult as she gets older. So...we are glad to have a second bathroom (even if it isn’t a full bath) once again in our new house! The only down side is that it was NASTY! As in, my husband and I were actually uncomfortable using the toilet in there and the whole room just grossed us out! It needed to be updated to really be a usable bathroom for us.

So, not even two months into living here, we got going on the basement bathroom. We thought it would be a good place to start for many reasons. Someday in the next year or so, we want to totally gut our upstairs full bathroom. We thought if we did the basement bath now, we’d at least have a “comfortable” toilet to use while the other bathroom is being updated. The basement bathroom doesn’t have a tub/shower, but just to have that extra toilet will really help. Also, we are in the process of updating the basement into actual livable space and since we painted the paneling down there, it made the bathroom look even worse and we just had to tackle the project.

We are thrilled with how it turned out! It has its imperfections, but man, it is SO much better! It feels like it just got updated by 40 years! I actually WANT to use that bathroom now! ;)

So, here’s what we started with...

Even the door had paneling on it!

...And even the vanity was paneled! (Check out how big the vanity is...it almost hits the toilet!)

One last shot of the craziness before we got started!

The before pictures aren’t the best, I know. I had just started priming the walls when we were getting started on the basement walls when I realized we didn’t have any before pictures. So I quickly snapped some with my point and shoot and got back to painting. The bathroom is small and is hard to get decent pictures of, so I did my best!

Once we got done priming the bathroom and priming and painting the rest of the basement, my husband and I realized how badly this bathroom needed to be updated...and fast! We started by pulling everything out and realized the vanity was extremely huge and decided we'd get a smaller one when it came to that point. It just took up way too much room and there was no need for all that storage in a basement bathroom! Once everything was out, my husband started on the tiling. We didn't want that nasty old tile in the bathroom if we were going to update everything else, so we bought some ceramic tile on sale at The Home Depot and got started. I ~~mostly got in the way~~ helped a little bit with the tiling, but left most of that part up to my husband. I am more of an instant gratification kinda girl and that just took way too long for me! ;) Once the tiling was done, we tried to decide where to go from there. We originally were going to do this bathroom for as inexpensively as we could, but then our personalities got in the way and we wanted it to look pretty, not just thrown together.

Board and Batten

I knew I wanted to do a board and batten wall treatment in the upstairs bathroom since before we even moved into this house. I don't even know where I first got the idea, but eventually I started looking around the interwebs at pictures and tutorials on how to install it. I was really excited about putting up the board and batten in the upstairs bath, but we hadn’t planned on doing it in the basement bath. My husband and I were standing around the bathroom talking about our options since the bottom had paneling and the top was some sort of contact paper or something. We talked about just painting the paneling on the bottom white so that it would give the room a little character, but we thought that it still might look a little cheap. Eventually decided that board and batten would be a good fix in that bathroom, too. The wall was already “divided”, so we just used that as our guide for our layout of the "b&b".

The hubby actually filled in the grooves of the paneling on the bottom of the walls, so you can’t even tell that it's paneling under that paint...well except for our crappy sanding job! Note to self, next time either hire someone to do the sanding, or spend A LOT more time on it ourselves! You really can’t tell if you aren’t looking for it, but there are some high spots in the “board” part of the b&b wall treatment that we didn’t sand well enough. Oh well, live and learn. And that’s one other reason we started our reno projects with the basement bath - we figured it was a good place to learn. If we messed up, it's only the basement, so not as many people will see it! Anyway, here are a couple pictures of the bathroom after the hubby filled in the grooves in the paneling.

Once that was done, we sanded and put up the b&b treatment. The floor is pretty uneven and the walls are all jacked up in that room, so we just started with the top board and made sure we installed that so it was level. Then we installed the baseboard and then the battens.

Top board and baseboard up. Ready for battens.

The battens were all different lengths - each one just by a little bit off from the one next to it - because the top board was level, but the baseboard was not - due to the unlevel floor. So we had to measure each one where we wanted it and then cut it to length.

Once we got everything up, I primed the walls and b&b and then painted the top part of the walls Accessible Biege by Sherwin Williams and painted the b&b Pure White also by Sherwin Williams. I used an eggshell finish for the top of the walls and a semi gloss for the b&b and trim. If I had to do it over again, I would still use the same paint, but I think I would have primed and painted everything before we installed it, and then just done touch ups when it was all installed. I think that would have saved a lot of time and stress. One of the bloggers that I found that did a b&b tutorial actually said that is one thing she would do differently next time and I DIDN'T LISTEN to her wisdom!! I should have! It takes a long time to paint all of the details of the b&b treatment. And, when you use semigloss paint, it gets a little tricky - especially with the second coat. I think it would have been much easier to paint the battens and mouldings on a flat/horizontal surface so that the paint wouldn't have run so bad. I had to be very careful and put the second coat of paint on very thin.

Here is the finished product!

And a before and after shot of the toilet area. What a huge difference!

Well, that's it. Our first renovation project is complete. Well, almost! :) We still need to add the finishing touches, like caulk! And we need to add the "pretties". Like a new mirror and some sort of art - especially to cover that hole in the wall where the medicine cabinet used to be. Don't ask me why they had a medicine cabinet there. They had the biggest possible vanity that would fit in that room and they still needed a medicine cabinet? Doesn't make sense to me! Well, they hubby and I didn't want TWO mirrors in the bathroom, so we took that one out. We just need to figure out what to put over the hole now! :)

I'll be back with that and our new mirror once that all happens!

Oh, and one last thing...if you plan on painting trim and/or board and batten, check out this post. It helped me a lot!

Take care!

My first handmade ornament...in a long time!

2011-12-06T22:41:00.002-05:00

Ok, I confess, I’ve made handmade ornaments before. I think we start doing that in preschool, don’t we? And maybe I’ve even made them as an adult (I really can’t remember, though, so they couldn’t have been that good!). So, I’m just calling this one my “first...in a long time”!

I was watching NATE the other day and it just put me in a crafting mood. So I decided to try to make an ornament with what I already had at home. I really don’t want to spend any more money than I have to right now since we are really trying to spend our money on house updates. So, I got out my yarn, glue gun, and Styrofoam ornament balls and got to work. This project is pretty straight forward, just glue and wrap the yarn around the ball. But I did learn a couple things along the way. As you, I’m sure, are well aware, I am new at this crafting thing, so I’m still learning...A LOT! Anyway, I think that I would use regular glue instead of a hot glue gun if I did this project again because you have to use a decent amount of glue and I am a little cheap when it comes to my hot glue! Also, the hot glue sets up/cools very quickly, so you have to be pretty fast. Regarding the yarn, I had to start at one “end” and work toward the middle and then stop and start from the other “end” and have them meet in the middle. If you look closely at the back of the ornament, you can tell there is a tiny overlap of yarn, but oh well. Once you get about halfway through wrapping the yarn around the Styrofoam ball, it starts to not want to stay together and it is REALLY hard to keep your lines together and not showing white Styrofoam between them. I tried to make it work, but I was getting really frustrated, so I just stopped where I was and started from the other side. I think I’d have to do that again in the future, too, because I really don’t see a way around it. The yarn has to push against each layer/line before it to help keep it on the ball. Once it gets past that halfway point, it has a very hard time of doing that. I hope that all even makes sense! Lastly, the fabric I used for the “H” I’m pretty sure is 100% cotton and once you cut a tiny letter out of it, it starts to pull apart. So, the edges are unraveling a little bit, but if you don’t look too closely, you really can’t tell! Like I said, I’m new at all of this, so I’m sure there are plenty of better fabrics I could have used, but I had leftover fabric from my chair project, so that’s what I used! :)

I am really enjoying learning more about crafting and doing little DIY projects. It is fun, especially when it doesn’t cost much money! And I figure, if I already have the supplies at home, I’m not really losing anything (other than a little time) if I try something and fail at it. I can always just throw it out and try something new! I know this ornament isn’t perfect...but I think I’ll keep it! ;)

Bite-Size Apple Pies

2011-11-23T22:47:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post from me tonight. I wanted to share this recipe that I made for Thanksgiving tomorrow. We are visiting with my dad, brother, and half-sister on Thanksgiving, but we are just having dessert and keeping it casual. I’m super excited because I don’t get to see that part of my family very often and I love dessert! Win win! ;)

I volunteered to make the desserts since I’m kind of into baking these days (crazy, I know!). These bite sized apple pies are one of the desserts I made. I tried these a month or so ago and really liked them, so I thought they’d be fun to make again. AND...they are super easy to make! Way easier than a whole apple pie! (I would assume...never made one before!) I got the recipe from Taste of Home and followed it exactly.

Bite-Size Apple Pies

Ingredients

1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 pkg. (14.1 oz.) refrigerated pie pastry
3 Tbsp. butter, divided, melted
2 medium tart apples, each cut into 8 wedges

Instructions

In a small bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon; set aside 1 Tbsp. On a lightly floured surface, unroll pastry. Brush with 2 Tbsp. butter; sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture.
Cut each sheet into eight 1-in. strips, about 8 in. long. Wrap one strip around each apple wedge, placing sugared side of pastry against the apple.
Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Brush tops with remaining butter; sprinkle with reserved sugar mixture. Bake at 425° for 13-15 minutes or until pastry is golden brown. Serve warm.

Here they are all rolled up

...and here they are with the butter and sugar on top!
All ready to pop into the oven!

YUMM!!

A couple tips about this recipe...

Definitely try to serve warm, if possible. They taste even better when they’re a little warm!

Serve with ice cream! Yumm!

Like the recipe states, use tart apples. I don’t even know what kind of apples I used the first time around, I just picked them up at a farmer’s market. They didn’t have Granny Smith apples at the time and I don’t know my apples, so I just picked ones that were described as tart. Unfortunately, I didn’t think they were that tart once they were baked. This time, I used Granny Smith apples. I tried one out after they were baked ~~because they looked really good and I couldn’t resist!~~ to see if there was a difference, and there was definitely a difference! I liked them even more with the Granny Smith apples...they just differentiate the apple from the pastry a little more. So, I guess I would suggest using Granny Smith apples - not just any “tart” apple! :)

And on a side note...I have really been trying to work on my photography skills and have been enjoying food photography a lot! I'm having a lot of fun with it! So, I hope you enjoy the pics, too! ;)

Hope you enjoy the recipe and especially hoping you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

Project number one ... and what I learned

2011-11-12T22:29:00.001-05:00

Well, we’ve moved into our new-to-us house! We are so excited to no longer be renting! Although we rented a great house, for a great price, we were definitely ready to be homeowners again. There is just something about owning a home that you can take pride in. And, having a couple design/decorating bones in my body, I am thrilled at the fact that we can do whatever we want to this house! We can paint the rooms, rip up the carpet, renovate the bathroom. Whatever we want to do, it’s up to us!

Which leads me to my first project. Project number one! I have been so excited to move into our own home the past month or so. I had been collecting pictures online of design ideas that I liked enough to somehow implement in our new home. I was armed and ready! And then I got here. And the fear set in. What if I do something wrong? What if visitors don’t like my “improvements”? What if I don’t like my “improvements”? I was paralyzed with fear. And, with all the projects I had in my little brain, I did NOT know where to start! I was feeling overwhelmed and scared. Mind you, we’ve only been moved in for a week now, but I am just so anxious for this place to feel like “us”.

This weekend I bought a chair that would be my jumping off point. I was so excited when I saw it. I thought “I can do something with that!” My husband’s family was in town to see us this weekend and we decided to check out Repurpose, an amazing reclaimed antiques/consignment store located in downtown Northville, MI owned by Cari Cucksey of HGTV’s “Cash & Cari”. We loved looking around the store! It was so cool to see it in real life since I had seen it on tv! We didn’t find anything to buy there, but we did notice that Cari was having a sale at her warehouse in Canton, so we decided to take a little drive over there and see what we could find. And, that’s where my first project and I met! And, I got to meet Cari! Well, I didn’t actually introduce myself and say hi, but I saw her! (Must work on that shyness!!) Anyway, I got the chair home and immediately wanted to work on it. But since we had company, we had to wait a day! GASP!! :) My husband, daughter, and I went out to the fabric store the next day and picked one fabric after narrowing the hundreds of patterns down to three. Once we picked out the fabric, it was off to get paint. I wanted to keep it simple, since this was to be my FIRST project, so we just went with spray paint. And the fear set in again! I was stuck! I stood there in front of the plethora of spray paint colors, just staring. I couldn’t do it. I had my fabric in front of me so I could match or at least coordinate a color, but I just didn’t know what direction to go! Thank goodness my husband was there! He was able to calm me down and remind me that I can do it over if I get it wrong the first time. And, guess what? I did get it wrong! I picked out a light gray color that day and later that night, once I had seen the fabric, chair, and paint all sitting nicely together, I decided that I wanted something different. So, back to the store we went. Well, I decided on DARK gray (I know, not a huge difference!) that actually has a little bit of a steel blue tint to it, and I am really liking the end result! It is not as “crazy” as I thought I would have ended up with, but I love it just the same. Okay, so I went a little safe with the choices, but at least I made decisions and completed the project!

Now, for what I learned from this experience!

I learned not to use spray paint below 50 degrees! I primed the chair (after giving it a good sanding) just before the sun went down, and it was just too cold. The primer didn’t come out of the can worth crap and it was SO frustrating! I actually came inside pouting to my husband and swearing that I’m no good at anything! (Yeah, there was a minor meltdown there!) But he told me that it was probably the temperature outside and not to worry. So, I ended my painting efforts for the night and moved on to the reupholstery...much warmer! :)
When cutting foam for your padded seat, make sure to cut it evenly and straight! I cut my foam with a scissors, not really thinking that it would matter if the edges were a little tattered. Well, I was wrong! When I stretched the fabric over the foam, I could see that it was uneven. You can’t really tell by looking at the chair now, unless I pointed it out, but it annoys me, since I know it’s there! I’m not really sure how I am going to improve this for my future uses, but I have read a couple ideas online. One is to use a straight edge (scrap wood or a ruler) and a razor blade. Another idea is to use an electric knife. We’ll see by trial and error which I like better...or if I find another idea in the process.
When doing your first reupholstering project, be sure to pay attention to how it was done the first time. If you like how it looked, it is good to imitate that “style” as best you can. Then you have an idea of what to do. Doing that really helped me decide how far staples should be apart and how to fold corners, etc. It really made me feel more confident about what I was doing!

I hope you all enjoy my little project and maybe even get inspired to do a project of your own!

Finishes/materials used:

fabric: “HS Strobe” / Strobe Citron/Grey - Home Seasons

paint: Rust-oleum Painter’s Touch Ultra Cover Gloss dark gray

{up} ... new camera strap cover!

2011-05-20T22:05:00.000-04:00

I think I found the perfect way to keep my husband from stealing my camera!!

This is a pic of my new camera strap cover that I ordered from Eclectic Whatnot. It should be here any day now! I can't wait to get it! And the best part? It was "free" b/c I bought it with some left over Christmas/Birthday money (my birthday was in January)! Yeah, I spend MY money very carefully (not so careful with OUR money, though)!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!! :)

fun-filled weekend (lots of pictures in this one!)

2011-04-26T23:26:00.000-04:00

Yep! It’s me again! Finally! After a long hiatus, I’m back! I have decided that I really enjoy blogging and want to start doing it again (how many times have I said that?!). I have had a lot of changes since I last blogged - like, I gave birth to my daughter last fall! That has definitely been the biggest change. The catalyst to every other change, I think! And I’m so happy about it. She has helped me sort through what is important in my life and what doesn’t really matter. It’s still a work in progress, though...I think it always will be.

So...for my first blog post back on the “scene”, I thought I'd write about my Easter weekend. My husband, Travis, had the week prior and the weekend off from work, so I took the week off, too, and we went “down south” as we call it, to see family. (Living in Ludington now, “down south” is also “back home” about an hour and a half drive south of Ludington.) We stayed at my in-laws’ house for a few nights and got to see Travis' uncle who was in town from Minnesota. It is always fun to see him and we had a great time visiting!

Rylan and her Nana

We also went to Ann Arbor to see my best friend, Rachel, and her family. Her son, Jonah (5 months), is recovering from his second HLHS surgery at the U of M hospital. The surgery went amazingly well and he is recovering very quickly. And I just found out today that he should be able to go home tomorrow which, I’m sure, the whole family is excited about! While we were there, Rachel and her husband, Joe, showed us this really cool outdoor play area for kids right at the hospital. It is actually on the 8th floor of the hospital and over looks the surrounding area. It was very cool. Rylan got to play with Rachel and Joe’s oldest son, Noah, while we were there. Rylan has never been to a playground before, so this was a new experience for her...and her parents! We had fun watching her as she tried out all the new toys. Her first ride down the slide was so fun to watch! And she wasn’t scared at all! Such a brave little girl! :)

quickly taking the pic before she falls off!

Rylan and Noah on the slide

Having way too much fun!! :)

After we spent some time with our friends, the three of us headed for Detroit to go to Rylan’s first Tigers baseball game! The weather was gorgeous! The gametime temp was 72 degrees and it was sunny out (a huge difference from the gloomy, cold, rainy weather we had been having). Rylan did really well at the game, too. She was pretty content the whole time except for a little fusiness here and there. She’s such a “trooper”!! Haha! :)

sitting in a "big girl" seat
(no, we did not buy her a ticket, the seat was open!)

The lady messed up Rylan's "certificate",
but it's the thought that counts, I guess! :)

Lastly on our crazy run-around weekend, we had Easter dinner at my mom’s house. We had a nice time eating and enjoying everyone’s company. And watching another Tigers game! It’s good our families love the Tigers just about as much as we do! :)

My brother, Alex, with Rylan on Easter

cutie in her Easter dress

Oh, and randomly, I got my nose pierced (again) this weekend! (You may be able to tell in one of the pics if you look closely)

Lip Care Stick - LOVE it!!

2009-11-04T12:26:00.009-05:00

Here is a link to one of my FAVORITE products EVER!! It's Dr. Hauschka Lip Care Stick. I have always had problems with chapstick...never able to find something that doesn't make my lips peel even more. Until I found this! I know...it's a little pricey, but totally worth it to me! :) Where to buy: https://store.drhauschka.com/b2c/ecom/ecomEnduser/items/itemDetail.aspx?&page=&store=&itemNum=LCS&siteId=1&bulkexists=0