Ady's Birthday Party Recap

The colorful decorations weren't matchy matchy and not worthy of pinterest pinning.
The delicious drinks weren't served in special cups with cute straws.
And the fun activities didn't cost us a penny.

But it was perfect. Just perfect.

Derek and I didn't do anything for Drew's 1st birthday except have a small celebration while we were in KC. We hadn't made many friends in Cleveland yet and just enjoyed his birthday as a family of 3. But with Ady I knew I wanted to have a get together with our friends and some good food. The MAIN thing I wanted to spend money on was the BEST barbecue from Kansas City; Jack Stack. Derek's parents were driving up for the week and brought the 10 pounds of burnt ends and 2 gallons of cheesy corn bake that we ordered. We then also prepared a couple other food items, ordered cupcakes, loaded up on beer and I made 3 batches of Summer Brew.

Our friends have this awesome water rock wall and slide and that was a HIT with the bigger kids. The babies hung out around the baby pool, water table and sprinkler, but really just enjoyed trying to pull each others bows off.

Then it was time for Ady to dive into her birthday cake. She was dainty and meticulous but absolutely loved it and would have eaten for hours had we let her.

The cupcakes were a much easier idea than cake in my opinion! No slicing and serving, just take and go! And yes, that's my kid first in line for one....

It was a fun time with good food and good company. Just the way I like it!

Wanna See Some Boring Concrete?

We're working on a new patio and the first step was to tear out the tiny slab and build a larger patio floor. So, yeah, it's kinda boring to look at but whatevs. We still have to purchase a new table and chairs, build up some mulch beds around the curve drop off, decorate with flowers and more, but I had to at least show off the newest piece!

Here's the boring builders stock slab. (Ignore the ugly patio furniture, it will be gone soon)

The slab didn't even stretch all the way to the house and the dogs would dig in those straw/dirt areas. Drew's toys did not fit with our table and chairs, grill, plants, etc and it was just plan boring and ugly.

Here are some mid-construction pictures:

We choose not to do stamped concrete as it was another $1,000 that we didn't feel was necessary. (Has anyone ever gotten concrete torn up and re-poured before? ...it's pricey!) Instead, we added a border, rounded the edges, added colors and more than doubled the square footage that we had from the builders slab. The color in the main area isn't quite what we wanted but our contractor will be staining it darker for us soon.

View of the shape from our bedroom:

Now just picture it with a 2 foot mulch bed around the rounded part, some cute furniture and tons of plants/flowers!

We are most happy with the amount of room it gives us now and love the rounded edge. Can't wait to get it all finalized!

Now the countdown begins for how many days left until I can enjoy some summer brew on an adirondack out there! 

Fun on the Fourth

We've had grandparents in town for each of Drew's July 4ths and this year it was Gramma and Poppa's turn to visit! We did what probably 95% of Americans did yesterday which was watch a parade, grill out, drink some Summer Brew and watch fireworks. It was perfect.

And what fun is the 4th without sparklers?

God Bless 'Merica! 

Summer Brew

So for Derek's birthday a few weeks ago, we had a backyard get-together and I made my friend, Collette's, Summer Brew. Everyone, like usual, loved this stuff and therefore I'm passing on my recipe to you! I know there are several variations out there, but here is hers....

Enjoy!