Parade of Homes

This past weekend Dan and I went to the St. George Parade of Homes and had such an awesome time!!!  First off, thank you to my sister in law Becky & her parents for getting us tickets.  I was a little unsure if Dan would have fun walking through houses, but we both loved it!  In fact, Dan told me he wants to attend next year :).  Yay!  There were 26 houses on the list and we made it to 15 of them.  Hopefully next year we will get to see all of them.  The houses ranged in price from $150,000 to $4.5 million.  We loved seeing the million dollar homes b/c how often do you get to go in one of those???  It was also fun to see some of the cheaper homes and get ideas on how we want to decorate our home.  It really helped because after parade of homes we have completely changed the color scheme for the home we are building.  Anyway I took lots of pictures of the things I loved... here are a few.... even though it's all way cooler in person:

Cute window seat.  We are going to have one of these in our home, so I wanted to get a picture of how to make it look cute!

Wall of windows & awesome fireplace in 3 million dollar home.

Pool @ 3 million dollar home.

I just love the subway tiles in the shower.  We are considering using them in our future home.

I just thought the white sectional was pretty cute.

Amazing kitchen in 4 million dollar home.

Pretty cool back splash.  It looks woven, but they are all little tiles!

Really cool sinks.

I thought this back splash would be cute in a kids bathroom.

Shower in the 4 million home.  This only shows half of it.  It had beautiful glass and about 20 shower heads.  You enter on one side and exit on a different side.  Best shower I have ever seen!

 Ok that's all.  The homes were all beautiful and had really unique features and details.  It was also fun because in each garage there are vendors and Dan bought me a Scentsy.  I have to say, I am pretty impressed!  The kind we got smells so good and fills our whole apartment. 

We are already excited to go next year and we have even discussed going to the Parade of Homes in Utah County in June!  That's how much we loved it :). 

finished!

last week i finished the quiet book i have been making. i think it turned out pretty cute! i also gave it to my sweet nephew this weekend. i think he really liked it :). here are some pictures of the final product:
I think my nephew's favorite page was the barn w/ the animals. He loved playing with the puppets! I now have 2 more books on my to-do list. And i definitely have to give credit... some of the pages were my idea, but a lot of them i found on different blogs. Some of the blogs even offered patterns, which were very helpful! These are the blogs i used the most:

Oopsey Daisy
How to Make a Quiet Book
Serving Pink Lemonade
Homemade by Jill

v-day

my husband is cute :). Thanks, honey!

And happy valentines to everybody! i hope you all have a great day full of love!

Dear Michele,

Happy Valentine's Day! I love you so very much. Everyday I'm grateful I am with you. You make me smile just thinking about you. Thank you for all that you do, thank you for being with me, and thank you for loving me too.

Love,
Dan

Puppets & Quiet Books

So my sister in law, Tiana, found these Old MacDonald puppets on a blog called Just Another Day in Paradise and I think they are the cutest thing I have ever seen! See:

I like them so much I have decided to make them! Well... eventually. They are on my to-do list. The blog they are on even gives instructions of how to make them and has patterns for each puppet. So if you are interested, you can find them here.

I know I don't have kids yet, but I do have a sunbeam class who I'm sure would be happy to put these puppets to good use. I also plan on teaching preschool one day. These puppets will most definitely come in handy.

However, my current project is a quiet book for my nephew. My sister in law asked me to make one for him as a way to keep him quiet in church. I have just started researching and I am getting excited about making it. I have lots of ideas for different pages! I have found this blog very useful (in case you have ever wanted to make one): http://www.quietbook.blogspot.com/. This is another helpful quiet book blog: http://servingpinklemonade.blogspot.com/2011/01/quiet-book.html

And to my other sister in laws, I don't want you to feel left out, I'd be happy to make one for your kids too. I just have to see how much time this first one takes and the cost, but let me know if you'd be interested.