Valentine Weekend Photos

Good Monday morning, blog friends.

And Happy Presidents Day (and day off work) to my U.S. readers!

♥

My favorite weekend recaps are the ones that are prepared on a Monday morning where I don't hit that publish button and then scurry to get ready to go to work. I'm off work today and have a few fun things planned for myself, but first I'll share some photos from our weekend. :o)

Carrie and I hosted our sixth annual Valentine crop with our crafting friends on Saturday. I'll share more about our party later in the week. ♥ Friday after work I played with flowers, getting ready for table decorations for Saturday afternoon. I may have overshot the number of bouquets, but really, can you ever have too many flowers? No. I think not.

I'm working on changing my language around being busy. "I'm so busy...I have no time for this-or-that..." Instead, I've chosen other things to fill my schedule and as a result I had time to make Aunt Helen's blueberry surprise cake instead of cupcakes for this year's Valentine party.

My friend Vee snapped the above photo before this table filled up with crafting projects and our Valentine gift exchange items. I love that she purposely included Eddie t. Elk in the background.

Every year Carrie and I choose a common crafting project for our party, and this year it was dream catchers. I used a doily from my mom's collection and love how it turned out. Ooooh...just wait until Wednesday when I share the dream catchers made by some of my creative friends. So. Fun!

For Valentine's Day this year, Doug and I decided to take the time to do a little shopping for our new house. Big things are happening in our backyard space right now, and we wanted to add trees to the mix before installing a flowerbed border around the perimeter. The next photo is of the Meyer lemon tree we purchased...

We also ordered two privet trees to plant along the back fence - they're evergreen shade trees. Um... who knew that tree guys work on commission and were so great at up-selling on tree size? The tree salesman totally could have talked me into purchasing more mature trees, but my sensible and frugal hubby wasn't persuaded by him. We ended up with a more mature lemon tree, but the privets will be a bit smaller to begin with. Doug's reasoning? We get to watch them grow! I love how he thinks. ♥

And we shopped for a new patio table and chairs and found something we both really loved. Hooray for the return of the red umbrella. Would it shock you to learn that I'm wishing for a different color umbrella now? Red seems so old-house...

Later in the afternoon when I snapped a photo of the mandala I was creating, I remembered a little downside of the red umbrella: pink hues in photos taken under it. Anyway, I really am glad to have it back and stuck smack in the middle of our new table! :o)

Our new trees will be delivered and planted a week from tomorrow and we are so excited. We had dinner outside at the new patio table last night, and Doug is drinking his first cup of coffee out there as I type this morning.

Today's agenda: yoga, laundry, pedicure, shopping, a sewing project, and a new recipe for dinner. Time to step away from the computer...

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead.

Keep smiling!

♥