Labor Day Weekend

Who doesn't love a three day weekend? I know this girl sure does! With David occupied in North Carolina at the beach for a wedding, I headed home for the weekend. My sweet friend, Becki's baby shower was this weekend. I enjoyed getting to celebrate her and her upcoming arrival.

{Mindy, Becki, and I}

Big thanks to my friend Johanna for taking this picture. I was horrible and didn't take the first one. Go figure!

The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back. But so perfect just being home. After the shower I took the boys down to the creek to go swim. Thanks to the super rainy season this year, they haven't gotten to go swimming all year. They were absolutely in heaven! They truly love to swim down at the creek.

Give Brutus a ball and he will swim all day. He's a weird bird but I wouldn't have him any other way.

Speaking of birds, I got to experience a phenomenon this weekend that I have never noticed. I asked my dad, and he has never noticed either. But it's one of those things that would be easy to miss. There were so many hummingbirds flying around daddy's cotton field this weekend. They were everywhere! I had no idea that they fed off of the cotton blooms. It was very awesome. I watched them fight with each other, fly across the field dipping and chirping. They are really fascinating creatures.

I got excited earlier this week when I finally spotted a male at my feeder. I have only been seeing the female and I have been patiently waiting to see if the male would show up. Guess he was trying to be all sneaky!

If I had known I was about to hit the hummingbird jackpot, I might not have gotten so excited.

Spot the hummingbird!

I also spotted old peg leg on one of my drives.

Looks like this poor fellow has had a rough life. I named him Capt. Jack Sparrow. Get it? hardy, har, har

Saturday night, we watched some football. I missed the Florida game :-( but we did catch the Clemson vs Georgia game. That was a good one!

Barrett came home with me and the next morning I helped him catch crayfish and explore outside. Poor Brutus came on one walk with us. Needless to say, he was ready to get back to safety!

I took the boys on several rides around the cotton field. JJ was the only one that didn't fall off/jump off of the 4-wheeler. Guess the other two just didn't have it together!

We rode around and checked on the bees. I didn't know they were there until I drove up on them. Thank goodness I didn't disturb them. That could have gotten ugly!

The area around the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers produces the best honey- Tupelo Honey. The movie Ulee's Gold starring Mrs. Timberlake (Jessica Biel), was filmed in Wewa, St. Joe, and Apalachicola and has a story line that involves tupelo honey production. Just a little FYI. Since it's not the right time of the year to make tupelo, the bees feed off of various other blooms for their pollen.

Anyways, it was good to be back in Calhoun County and to see my family. Hope you all had a great Labor Day as well!

DIY Collegiate Wreath

It's the best time of year! Football season, that is. To get ready for this weekend and the kickoff of the season, I decided to make a wreath for my front door.

I have noticed that when I am bored, my go-to project seems to be door hangings. Weird, I know.

This was a quick and easy project. Here are the supplies that I gathered to make this wreath:

• Foam wreath form
• Floral Pins
• 3 Burlap Ribbon Spools - I believe this is a 3-4" wide x 15 ft spool that I got from Hobby Lobby
• Burlap Ribbon or whatever you would like to make the bow
• Coordinating fabric
• Tacky Glue
• Wood Letters
• Craft Paint

Of course, use whatever your team colors are. Since I'm a Gator girl, my wreath is orange and blue, of course! 

First, wrap your wreath with the burlap ribbon. I used 1 15 ft. ribbon to cover the base. Just secure every once and a while with floral pins. 

Then it's time to start adding the "fluff" part to the wreath. This is however is easiest for you and what looks good to your eye. 

I basically just worked from one side of the wreath across to the other side. The ribbon will tell you where to go. Just secure each loop with a floral pin as you go. I think I used about 1 1/2 of the remaining spools of ribbon to finish this part. 

Now it's time to start adding your fabric flowers. I will go ahead and apologize for this part. I got so consumed making the flowers, that I didn't stop to take any pictures. But I promise, they are so simple to make. 

First, cut out a length of fabric approximately 22 in. x 4 in.

Next, glue the long sides together with the tacky/fabric glue. So now you are left with a 22x2 in. length of fabric.

Now, you will go and start cutting slits in the folded part of the fabric (Not the side you glued together).

This is where the pictures end. But the rest is super simple. Take a small piece of coordinating fabric that you want to be the center of each flower. Place that on one end of the cut fabric and begin to wrap the length of fabric around to form a flower. Use the tacky glue every so often to keep the fabric in place. Once that is finished, glue a floral pin to the back so that you can stick that in your wreath. 

For the letters, I just painted them with craft paint and then glued some floral pins in the back. Those got added to the wreath as well. 

Then just add a ribbon or bow to the top and hang it!

The beauty of this wreath is that you can add anything that you like on it. Now, go show your team spirit and make one of these today.

GO GATORS! 

Stitch Fix

I decided to give Stitch Fix a try and I have to admit, it was fun! The older I have gotten, the more I hate to shop. Which is weird, because I used to list shopping as a hobby! I just don't have the time for it {ok, I don't make the time for it} and I usually shop more at places like Lowe's than I do at Banana or JCrew. It's so bad that I drove down to Old Navy the other day and I was shocked to see that an Ulta had opened right next to it. I had no idea. And don't get me started that the last time I went to the mall, a stand alone Sephora had opened, and again- I had no idea because I never go shopping!  So that shows how long it had been since I had been to the mall! But in my defense- I work on one side of town in Tallahassee and the mall is on the complete other side of town- so it's just a hassle to go!

So when I heard about Stitch Fix, I figured that I would give it a shot. A stylist picks out clothes for you and sends them to your house? Yes please!

I got my first "fix" yesterday. Overall, I liked what I got. However, I am only keeping one thing they sent and that is the necklace pictured above. Here is some other stuff I got:

 The first top was cuter on- I have to admit. But the Eiffel Tower thing it had going on was a little too "young" looking for this soon-to-be 32 year old. Plus, the off-white coloring did nothing for my skin tone. Moving on.

 I really liked this top. It was SOO cute on. I really wanted to keep it. But I couldn't justify the $78 price tag on it. Come on- it was 100% poly and looked like I could have got it at Forever 21 or something. So, back it went.

The last two items were this cardigan and a pair of charcoal pants? leggings? Not really sure. I liked the cardigan, but I already have a bazillion cardigans {one in that color, i'm sure} so negative. I might would have kept those pant things because they were super comfy and I could see me wearing them in the winter with a sweater and some boots. But they too were $78 and mama don't spend 80 bucks on a pair of pajama jeans.

What is nice about getting the clothes is that they give you styling suggestions. Usually it is a casual look and then a dressier look. That was pretty fun to look at!
I will probably do another one in the next couple of weeks- just because it kinda feels like Christmas when the box arrives!

Oh- if you want to give Stitch Fix a try use my code to sign up and hook a sista up with some credits :-)
http://stitchfix.com/sign_up?referrer_id=3092624

Surprise, Surprise!

Ok, this really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point. But David and I checked out yet {another} wildlife area this past weekend in Savannah. This one I was really fond of, because you drove through. So no walking needed. That's my kind of wildlife refuge! It is the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and it's actually in South Carolina.

I won't bore you with all the details, but it was beautiful! We saw tons of gators and some birds of course! I'll just let the pictures do the talking.



Anhinga aka snake bird



Black bellied whistling-ducks (a rare sighting for this area!)

Great Blue Heron

American Alligator

Two {love!} doves

The rarest species of them all!

Green Heron

Wood Storks

Purple Gallinule

Belted Kingfisher

Tri-Color (formerly Louisiana} Heron

Thankfully the weather held out and we were able to get out of the house a little bit. I couldn't convince David to go up to Hilton Head to the outlets with me, so I guess the Wildlife Refuge was a good compromise.

Maybe one day I will update the blog with something other than birding pictures :-D

Labor of Love

I have been working on a {not so small} project for my family. I have been patiently scanning, editing, and uploading a lifetime of recipes from my grandmother's recipe box.

One by one. Precious word by precious word. The tastes of my childhood all written down. Old recipes that are hard to come by. So I am diligently trying to capture all of my grandmother's beloved recipes all in one place where we can all enjoy them. To enjoy the memories we have of each recipe that was made with love. Each card is aged and well-used. And each one is so special. Written down for many more generations to use and pass on.

It's been a tedious project, but worth the effort once it is finished!

My sweet cousin, Gary Wayne scanned a ton of old photos for me as well and it is fun to look at my grandparents so young! So, little by little we are capturing a lifetime of memories and it is nice to know that we can all look back on those old pictures and marvel at the lives of our grandparents.

I really loved this picture of my grandfather during WWII on what appears to be a ship {He is the 2nd from the left, standing}. It's just neat to go back and look at all of this kind of stuff.

Oh and to find cute pictures of my daddy <3 nbsp="">

It's truly a labor of love and time consuming, but its always worth it to help and preserve your past!

Here's to a Neverending Weekend!

This post is brought to you just because its Friday! Happy weekend everyone!

You're welcome :-)

Quick Door Hanging

My front door was screaming for a wreath or something to spruce it up. So, I decided to do a quick little DIY door hanging.

I've seen several versions of this around the interwebs, so I knew it would be an easy project to tackle. On the way home, I stopped by Hobby Lobby and gathered some supplies. Here is what you will need:

Once you have everything you need, it's time to get started! First, I simply outlined my letter and then cut it out.

The paper wasn't quite big enough to cover the letter, so I had to use two sheets. After everything was cut out, then I covered the letter in mod-podge and placed the paper on to let it set. I started with the smaller piece first so that the bigger piece could overlap. Once the paper was glued in place, I did a couple of coats of mod-podge over the top to seal it all in.

After the letter had dried, I simply attached the bow that I made to the back with some super glue, then hung it on the door. Told ya it was simple!

I wished I had picked different paper, though. The letter looks great by itself, because the paper gives it the illusion that it is real wood. However, I forgot about my slatted door, so it looks a bit off. But from afar, it looks great! I almost went with a black and white polka dot, but it would be super easy to change down the road!
There you have it folks! And all for {well} under $15!!