Breaking Ground!

We have a hole!  Yay. It finally feels like its really going to happen. On Thursday night the excavator was delivered to the lot and so we went over to see it and take a few pictures.

Richie had to get in it of course and pretend like he was working it. I think he would have loved to have actually started it and driven around the property. 

Do you love our hard hats? As soon as we got our building permit I ordered these hats on amazon... because we will need them to be safe of course (or I really think they will just look cute in the pictures). :) Richie was hesitant at first but he decided on the blue one so he could make it a Seahawks hat.

On Friday afternoon I met Richie out at the property and they had been digging away. So exciting to see a big hole and finally get to see and think about where things will actually be. 

 They are digging down a little deeper than we had thought they would need to. We have also realized that until we can get the house built and those two (or more) trees out that the stairs we have going down from the bottom floor deck will be going to nowhere or into the trees. So we are thinking for now that we might not build the stairs and we can add them later when we decided to take the trees down and work on the yard space.

 Richie had to get close to really check out the hole. It's so dusty out there so his nice black work pants and shoes weren't so black anymore. 

On Saturday morning mom and dad came over for breakfast and then we went out to the lot with them to check on the progress. 

Dad and Richie talking about the trees. 

The hole continues to get bigger. 

It's going to be so big.

 This is the worker, he uses a laser and this pole to make sure he is digging correctly. :) I think this would be a tough job...and a dirty one. 

He should finish with the dig today. We are leaving for a wedding so it will be fun to stop by and look at it on Sunday. Next step... the footings. :) 

Mandy's Bridal Shower

Last weekend I hosted a shower for my wonderful friend Miss Mandy...the soon to be Mrs. Gallanar. We had the shower at Katlin's mom's beautiful home and had such wonderful weather, and great company. It was a beautiful day. :)

I ordered the invitation and framed signs from the Etsy shop DesignOnPaper 

On the menu....caprese skewers, steak bruschetta, pasta salad, mini chicken salad croissant sandwiches, and a cheese and cracker spread. Yum! One of my most favorite parts of hosting parties is cooking the yummy foods.

For the favor I made cherry cheesecakes in mason jars. They were so easy to make and so delicious. Here is the link to the recipe... berry cheesecakes. For the cherry topping I purchased frozen cherries and added sugar. 

I baked strawberry flavored cupcakes and topped them with a delicious vanilla butter cream frosting. 

 Oh the mason jars wrapped in lace with a pink bow turned out to be my favorite. 

 I made these little flags, the I DO flags, and the cheesecake labels on the computer to go with the signs that I had ordered. 

I used stencils to paint the letters on the flags. 

 We all wrote Mandy a wedding wish or advice that she will add to her wedding scrapbook. 

And lastly a large cardboard glittered letter G for Gallanar. 

Dinner Date Night Jar

After summer school ended last week I have been busily trying to get everything done on my summer to do list...mostly this list contains things like cleaning out the closet, organizing my file cabinet etc. but there are a few fun craft projects on this list and the Dinner Date Night Jar is the one I worked on yesterday. I love craft projects!  Richie also loves that I'm so crafty but usually it means it's going to cost him....he says "that's a great idea....how much is it going to cost me" either because the materials of the craft or the result of the craft activity. Even though he always asks about the money I know he enjoys these crafty ideas as much as I do. :)

So anyways Richie and I love to eat yummy food and love to try new restaurants. I've had an on-going list for a long time now of restaurants I want to try and we just never seem to get to this list, mostly because all of these incredible restaurants I want to try are in Seattle and come on, when it comes to dinner it's a lot easier to just end up at one of our favorites in Kirkland (like Cactus). So I decided to fix this by making a Dinner Date Night Jar!

I'm so excited about this Jar. :) The plan is to choose one of these cards at the beginning of each month and whichever restaurant is on that card is the restaurant we will try. I looked at many lists of the best restaurants in Seattle, on yelp and urbanspoon, and also took from this list. I tired to add variety, there is... Thai, Mexican, French, Italian, BBQ and maybe a brunch or two.

 I went into my scraps of craft papers and chose to do a mixtures of greens and browns. I wrote one restaurant on each paper, rolled it up and tied a bow. We have a lot to choose from, we better get started. :)

 I kept some wine corks in the bottom so the jar so it wouldn't seem so empty, and tied a bow of green tulle around the jar for "cuteness". Since this picture I added a small gold ribbon on top of the green to make it stand out a little more.

And here is right where it will sit...on our dining room table. Can't wait to pick our first one.