Happy Mother's Day!

To every mother out there...Happy Mother's Day!

Today we celebrated my fabulous mother and g-ma because they are incredibly fantastic women.  I am a lucky girl to have them so close AND to finally have my sister home from Spain so we were able to spend the day together...of course my dad tagged along too:)!

We went to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences which just recently opened in Downtown Raleigh.  In the pic above we are standing outside of the museum by the giant globe.  Good job Raleigh for putting in this new museum because it is fantastic.

Show Off. Fish in Aquarium.
I should have thought to bring snacks to the museum because everyone started getting really hangry (hungry-angry) so I knew after like an hour and half at the museum that it was time to go start cooking!  

I had already set the table before my fam (yes, I like to abbrev) arrived.  I really don't have a lot of matching items because everything was handed down but I believe it all comes together...Mason jar glasses, blue wine glasses from a coworker, grandma Barber's old plates and silverware (how hip), an African table runner from my mom, director chairs from the Barber garage :), my mom's old sheepskin rug (on an antique church bench to the left..can't see the church bench), and a gold spray painted chair that my dad snagged from a garage sale.  This sweet little space is in my hide away sunroom area which you may remember I blogged about earlier after I'd finished my picnic inspired table.  

Sary bought these beautiful hydrangeas from the store and they sat on my tea cart for some extra color in the corner of the room!  Love this flower and love the colors.  For some extra decoration, I went and bought little daisies and repotted them in my chalkboard paint covered pots so then I could put a cutesy reminder of what we were celebrating:)

After a day at the museum, too much lasagna, a french baguette, an Olive Garden inspired salad, strawberry shortcake and lots of wine, we were all tuckered out.  It was a wonderful day spent together in Downtown Raleigh celebrating the most important woman in my life, Mom!

.Happy Mother's Day.

   

Hola Espana!

So obviously I have been on hiatus from our precious blog.  I visited my sister in Spain at the beginning of April and just have NOT been able to get myself back to writing.  Since I feel like passing on the title of laziest blogger ever, I wanted to share some of my Spain photos.  We obviously had some super cheesy awesome family photos but what I really enjoyed seeing throughout many different parts of Spain was the history in rich colors and patterns that exist. 

Family Photo....future Christmas card?

Soooo excited to be in Spain!....Retiro Park. Madrid.

To give a little background, we arrived in Madrid and then rented a car to drive to Cordoba, Sevilla, Rhonda and Marbella.  Every city had some amazing historical sites to share and I captured too many not enough photos of the entire trip!  Look at my dad workin it in front of our sweet ride (Spain's version of a mini van?)!

.Cordoba. & .a really awesome garage door.

.love the walkway designs made from pebbles.

Cordoba was a pit stop on the way to Sevilla and we didn't stay long because the weather was terrible - POURING down rain and freezing.  Once we finally get to the  main attraction of the city (the Mosque) we quickly realized it was closed for the holidays.  Semana Santa was occurring while we were traveling through Spain so it did mess up a lot of our little trips.  The holiday is very interesting in itself, it seemed like a huge celebration with floats, food, parties and parades - ya can't hate that!  Check out more about the holiday here.

.Sevilla. city view.

.Semana Santa procession about to begin. 

.My parents. Lovebirds.

.Sister love.

Look at all of the fabulous natural chevron patterns that I found on the sides of buildings, the brick walkways, ancient tiles and cathedrals flooring.  Love the ombre shading...courtesy of Sevilla.

We stayed in Sevilla for a couple of days so we really were able to explore what the city is known for.  To name a few, we went to Plaza de Espana, El Real Alcazar, and La Catedral.  Everything was so gorgeous and so different from anything we have in the States.

.Plaza de Espana. Did you know that this site was in a Star
Wars movie?.  Check is out!

.Plaza de Espana. up close.

Love the colors. flowers. design.

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Super cool tile mosaic.

---------------------------->.tree eats fence. !?!

After Sevilla we drove through several winding mountain roads to arrive in Rhonda.  A beautiful city that sits on a canyon and overlooks surrounding farmland from high up above.  It is crazy to see how this city was built and these houses/apartments have some breathtaking/really scary views with no backyard!

 

.Rhonda. insane. can you see the white winding stair case? sleep walkers shouldn't be allowed to live here.
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.help a sister out. stealing street oranges.
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Our last little adventure through a winding road lead us to Marbella.  It was a quiet little beach town where we were able to relax and walk around.  It was still quite chilly so we didn't do much swimming but there definitely were some brave Europeans taking in the sun by the pool!  When we were in town, I saw this old window and fell in love with it.  I know it is falling apart, but who cares?!

.colors. iron work. vintage.

Well that's about it!  I hope you enjoyed the few pictures I've decided to include from Spain.  It was an amazing trip and I most definitely hope to return.  Hasta luego!

'Spare' Some Birthday Fun

Pun intended.  Completely.
My big bro just recently turned the Big 3-2 and my sister-in-law threw him an adult themed bowling party at Sparians here in Raleigh.  It was great fun and the perfect place for a fun birthday party.

My contribution to the night was the dessert.  I wanted to go for a bowling theme so I opted for rice krispie treats in the shape of bowling pins.  They were so simple to do - I just picked up some of the old school plastic bowling pins from Toys R Us and cut them in half with a serrated knife and scissors.

I made the rice krispies according to the box directions and used the bowling pins as my mold (use lots of PAM cooking spray!).  Once they had cooled, I popped these babies out and wrapped the necks with twizzler pieces for the red stripes.  I think they were a success - super yummy!!!

New Paint Beginnings for the Mailbox

Well...maybe not new beginnings, but a fresh new coat on the mailbox is a new beginning for our curb appeal!  The Spring Link Party we've been crashing got me inspired to fix our mailbox that looked like it was rotting away to a sad death.  Since Spring is about new beginnings, I couldn't have our mailbox giving up on its life.  That would be no way to start this new season.

Since the last installment of the link party is spring paint projects, I'm linking up to Sarah's blog to join in on the fun. Kim is also linking up her fabulous David Bromstad art she debuted here since it is all sorts of fun Spring colors so check that as well in case you missed it.  Remember the awesomeness she created on canvas....

I also had promised an update when I shared the plants I had chosen to go around the mailbox earlier so here you go....

I would say this is a hot mess of mailbox plants.  You can tell that the warm weather we experienced during our winter just helped all of our plants explode!  And peeking out of the back is that rosemary plant I told you the plant guy promised me would survive the winter and the summer - well he was correct.  I went to work on this area and cleaned it all up so that we can get our spring plants put in the ground soon.  That will be another post - this one is all about the slender mailbox beauty that needs a makeover - STAT.

Here is the mailbox post that hasn't been touched since we moved in:

I tackled the post by first removing the numbers and then scrubbing and cleaning the entire thing.  I scraped off the wood where it was coming off and stripped it so that I could apply a clean coat over it all.  I also used a liquid deglosser for this process.  The numbers on the mailbox were also removed so that they could get a fresh coat of paint and so that I could paint the post behind the numbers.  See how the black paint has bled onto the white?  And see how the rosemary is dominating the numbers - yeah, they got a fresh chop!

I bought a small amount of white outdoor paint from Home Depot and used a 10% off coupon so it was only $7.

While I waited for the paint to dry I painted the numbers ORB so that they would stand out more and not look so ragged.  I also took the numbers off of the house and painted them ORB to match and plus I HATE brass.  I'm sorry - not my cup of tea.

I decided that I wanted to add a little pizazz to my mailbox post - you know a fresh beginning.  I also wanted the mailman to have something that was aesthetically nice to look at.  Since we have homeowners codes in the neighborhood I knew I had to keep the post white and couldn't do anything drastic.  So I decided to do a subtle pattern on the bottom.  It wouldn't be too noticeable but people out walking their dogs could see and admire it and it wasn't screaming HOA penalties.  I used one of Marta Stewart's stencils from Home Depot for the task and just taped up the stencil and painted over the white.  I actually had Ben do this part because he loves stencils.  He just sprayed a metallic silver spray paint over the stencil in light layers.

I love how the stencil sort of looks like ivy or plants going up the mailbox.  And it is subtle enough since it is at the bottom but adds a little eye candy for walkers! I think it is just the right touch!

And now the mailbox has a Spring paint makeover.  Don't you love the subtle pattern?  I think the mailman will be pleased that the mailbox went from this...

to this.....

to this....!

Thanks for letting us participate in all of the link parties.  We certainly enjoyed it and I hope you had fun popping in.  Happy Spring!  And if you missed the three earlier Spring Link parties we joined in on, see our Spring mantle here, our Spring craft project here, and our Spring door decor here!

We're also linked to: