Pismo Beach

Last week some unfortunate circumstances led us to take a trip down to Pismo Beach.  My mom's cousin and uncle both passed away and since my mom was already at our house helping us move, Landon and I drove her down to Pismo to be with family.

L and I kept busy by being the errand runners - food, clothes, what have you.  And we also played at the beach (get ready for picture overload)...

I love Pismo because the sand is so soft and doesn't get stuck in little toes.  Plus there are swings EVERYWHERE.  And if you know anything about The Wombat, you know he loooooves swings.

And we visited Dinosaur Caves Park, which is pretty much the cutest park ever.  It has a random mix of dinosaurs and sea animals.  I love finding unique parks like this!  It's nice to switch it up a bit from the mundane play structure you see park after park.

Takin' a ride on the USS Imagination.

 

And a ride on a dolphin:

 



We even braved a ride on the tire swing:

My offer to drive sort of just fell out of my mouth before I had the chance to think about the potential disaster this sort of trip could be with a one year old who just learned the word "no"  but a few hours later we were all packed up and on the road. I didn't have time to count all the things that could go wrong.

Which is good because nothing went wrong.

We spent 20 hours in the car in a four day span and this kid maybe cried for 10 minutes of drive time and slept straight through every night. He was quite the little road trip trooper.  I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to show our support to our family and to spend some quality time with my mom (it's not often we get to hog her all to ourselves). 

Roadside Rescue

Shut the front door!  Look what I found on the side of the road!!!!!!!!!!!!!  A perfectly good Little Tikes Big Digger Sandbox just sitting out on the sidewalk waiting for someone to save it!  It was in SUPERB condition, just a little dirty:

These suckers retail for 48.22 on Amazon!  All it needed was a good scrub down and it was good as new!  I never find anything worth saving that's been dubbed free on the curbside so I was pretty darn excited about this.  And The Wombat is just in heaven over it...

Who would have thought that I'd pay more for the sand than the actual sandbox?!

Diaper Cakes & Baby Showers

Just a couple of diaper cakes for some showers....

This ultra girly one for my friend Karyss:

And this fire fighter diaper cake for my friend Holly's baby shower. 

I also strung together a little garland of firefighter onesies. Her husband and her dad are both firemen so it was the theme of the party.  I helped host with two of her other good friends and everything turned out super cute!  Check out these sweet favors and amazing cake my co hosts made:



Goodbye, Little Rental House

Well, we are officially out of our little rental house.  It was a little bittersweet for me.  It was our first real home as a famil and we were so excited when we found it. It's in a cute neighborhood only two miles away from Ben's work and I'm really going to miss his short commute.  And I'm going to miss some great neighbors.  And I'm especially going to miss the parks.

We have three really great parks within walking distance.  The closest has tennis and basketball courts and a small playground.  We have done MANY laps around this park in the stroller.

The second park has Landon's favorite swings, some great slides and a tunnel that he likes to poke his little face out of to make sure I'm watching him :)

This next one we actually drive to because there is not a safe trail on the busy road that leads to it.  There are the BEST slides at this park.  Also a little lake where we can feed the ducks and look for bunnies.

We brought Landon home to this house and it has been a great place for us to live.  I will always cherish all of the memories made at these parks and I'm sure we will be back to visit often :)

Moving progress!

The next few weeks we are packing/cleaning/renovating/moving into our new home! Which is part of the reason I have been MIA lately.  Here are some of the accomplishments so far:

The old house is all packed up and cleaned!  This little kid helped me label all the boxes.  He took his job very seriously :)

And I used this brilliant packing tip I found over at The Frugal Girls via Pinterest:

The nasty carpet and tile at the new house has been disposed of.  The hubby gets all the credit here.  He saved us thousands of $$$ by doing it all himself. 

This was the only section I worked on:

We Ben filled a TWENTY YARD dumpster with all of the carpet, tile and CRAP that the previous owners left us.  We found lots of little treasures while cleaning out the house: a used shower cap, a used band aid (vomit) and a rubber lizard, to name a few.

I'm going to have some spectacular before and after pictures if we ever get to the after, but these two just sort of make me laugh.  I mean, REALLY?  WHY?!?!

A huge thanks to the many, many friends and family who have lifted heavy things or watched Landon during this exciting new chapter.  We are so blessed!

"Swee, Swee!!"

At the moment we are in the middle of a packing, moving, renovating, cleaning whirlwind and so The Wombat has basically been living in the garage swing lately.  Good thing he loves it,  he runs to the garage door and yells "Swee, Swee!!"

And then every once in a while, it puts him to sleep.

So precious :)

DIY Glazed Frames

My mom brought some boxes of old stuff for me to go through and try to sell back when we had our garage sale. I uncovered these pictures frames she used to have hanging in our house when I was growing up and I found myself getting nostalgic.  I put them aside and decided to re purpose them. 

When I finally got around to it, I first gave them a good scrub down and primed them with Kilz spray primer.  (oops forgot a picture of this step)  Then I spray painted them with Krylon's Ocean Breeze.  It was a night and day transformation but I wanted to add some sort of distressed look.

So I glazed them with Valspar Black Glaze, using the technique from All Things Thrifty. The old wood and the grooves were PERFECT for soaking in the glaze.  This is only my second attempt at glazing something and I am so pleased with the turnout (to see the first glazing attempt click HERE).
 

I filled the frames with some of Landon's newborn pictures, which were taken by the very talented Christina Harrison. 

I bought a wooden "B" at Michael's for $1 and painted it gray. 

The mirror is my high school sweetheart. I found her when a neighbor was having a garage sale.  She is legit, super old, weighs like 10 pounds and it was love at first sight. The neighbor gave her to me for free and I have been hauling her around to various homes since my college days.

And so my wall is complete!  I don't think I will toss out old frames ever again :)

Linking to: I Heart Nap Time, Snips & Spice, Nifty Thrifty Things, Not Just a Housewife, Kammy's Korner, The DIY Showoff, The Tidy Mom, The 36th Avenue, Tatertots & Jello, A Diamond in the Stuff, Whipperberry, A Lived In Home