hey hey! happy friday~ i hope you've had a great week.

ours included over 3 inches of much needed rain and

i've got a whole bunch of random things i'm going to blog about today.

~just go with it k?

nothing big's been happening here, just a million little things.

 it's the million little things though that make up my days and turn into years.

it's just us~being a family. working, playing, teasing, disagreeing, figuring it out,

cleaning up dog hair and weaving our days into a life.

******************

in may i turned 58.

 that's a lot of years, but i pray that i stay healthy and get to enjoy lots more. 

one of my very best friends (who lives a couple hours away) was in

chanhassen the day of my birthday, and even though we were out to dinner

with the fam when she stopped by, look at this delightful chair full of fun

that was waiting outside my front door when we got home!

opening gifts from the kids~

and then saying what i always say: "oh hey wait, let me take off my glasses". lol

adria cleaning up something at the sink 

plus two large dogs in one small kitchen.

sarah and cole, helping celebrate birthdays~

i thought i'd show you a couple before pictures of the table i fixed up for chris and adria.

it was in really good shape overall, but i think the previous owner must have

let kids use it for crafts because there was a lot of paint smears, glitter glue

and food stuck on it. adria didn't care if i refinished it or just painted the top and

cleaned up the rest, so i went with the painting option.

there are two more leafs for the table and 8 chairs so they can entertain a big

bunch of people now.

(i used annie sloan's old white chalk paint on the top).

some long overdue yard projects are getting done this spring,

a biggie was cutting down 3 HUGE willow trees that were messy and

starting to die.

lars worked really hard cutting down about 2/3 of them and

then we called in the experts to finish and avoid limbs

falling on our neighbors garden shed.

i'm grateful that it wasn't my husband or sons perched at the top

of this tree! see how the top has just been cut and is falling?

lars starting this monster project. dude may be 60, but he can work circles

around a lot of younger guys if he wants to.

it still kind of looks like a war zone in the backyard, but we're working on it...

next up was getting a new picket fence around the back patio. we couldn't

find a wooden one like the old one, so we ended up buying the vinyl kind

that never needs painting. i guess that's not all bad huh?
*i haven't taken a picture of it all installed yet.

cole has been driving a hand me down truck for many years. it had rusted out to the

point that it was straight up ghetto and very loud. the heater hadn't worked right since before
 he got it...

 he finally decided that he was due for an upgrade and

his smile here pretty much says it all.

sister was here the day cole got the pickup, so she and cole's girlfriend

sarah (on right) hopped in to check it all out.

us girls approve.

while lars spent the day of his birthday truck shopping with cole, i got a small

party together. he loves his dog so much that when i went to get a 

60th birthday balloon and saw this huge brown dog, i knew i had to get it.

the dog broke it's leash and floated up to the vaulted ceiling and hung there

for about another 3 weeks bringing me some good joy.

: D
(you can't tell by this picture, but it's a two story high ceiling here).

salted caramel chocolate cake.

"get in my belly".

turning 60 was a bit hard for lars. 

honestly he was glad when the day came and went and 

he could just get on with it.

- his smile says it all too. haha

another good friend cooked dinner for some friends and i recently and had

us over to her new house. 

aren't these pots that flank her front door fabulous?

(she planted them herself.)

i've never had this blue plant she put in them. anyone know what it is?

here's cheri doing what she does best. cooking with love.

her new kitchen is dreamy and no one deserves it more~

while outside for a garden tour, i got this picture of the girls.

and of course, i'm gardening. what would our life be like without flowers?

really, really sad and colorless i guess. every day brings something new that's

blooming or starting to poke through the soil. i water and i weed and

i take pictures. i can't stand not to share some of this loveliness.

sister brings me these farm fresh eggs when i see her. 

(lucky, lucky us).

this might be the most random blog i've ever written, but i just had snippets of
this and that, not enough of anything to do a whole lot with, so i decided to just 
throw it all together and serve it up.

*call it my blog hotdish.
: D

cheers to a gorgeous weekend dear ones,

b.