Ashley's Bridal Shower

Today was my little sister's bridal shower. It seems a bit odd to even be typing those words. Is my little sister really old enough to be getting married? Guess so!

We had the shower at her fiance's grandmother's church. The room we had it in was fantastic. I really loved the ceiling. Thanks to everyone's hard work, it was a great shower.

This was the bright & festive set up. My mom and I spent a weekend last month making all of the favors and then my mom planned the rest around those. She has such great ideas and I think it all came together so nicely!

Here's a close up of one of the favors. Inside was OPI hand cream, Bath & Body Works antibacterial hand gel, and 3 pieces of Hershey's chocolate!

These pots had price tag stickers on it that were a beast to get off. We decided to make these labels at the last minute on the day we were assembling all of the favors. I think it turned out great!

The prize table:

Fruit and chocolate fountain table. YUM!

The delicious cake!

Dessert table - my favorite!

Food table, not completely set up yet.

The overflowing gift table. I'm actually surprised how quickly she was able to open everything!

Can you tell we're sisters? Someone says they are taking our picture while we're eating and we automatically cover our mouths!

There we go! Much better!

A shot from the front of everyone.

Ashley had a great turnout and had lots of happy helpers. Between Drew's family making the food and my mom and I handling the decorations, etc., it was great!

Shopping without spending lots of money!

I love bargain shopping. I love to see an item on super clearance and have a coupon that makes it even cheaper. I think that bargain shopping is good for the soul! I also really enjoy seeing an item that I like when it's new in the store, and then continue to check on that item and wait patiently for it to go on sale, then clearance. When I'm able to buy items that I've been wanting for a long time at a fraction of their original cost, I'm always happy.

Today Peter and I bopped around shopping for a while. I made some great purchases.

This tunic was only $0.44 from JCP. 44 cents for a shirt?!

I'm really into the fashion jewelry lately and found this great necklace at JCP as well. Total cost?A BUCK!

This super cute scarf was only $2 from Kohl's.

And this one was only $3 from Target!

I've been needing a new black purse. I really like the one I have been using, but the outer pockets don't close so things often fall out of them. For a free, yes free, my old purse wasn't bad at all. I got it for free because Target messed up my online order and then ended up sending multiple items multiple times. I returned the originals for what I paid for them, and could keep any duplicates for free. Not bad! This purse was only $23, but I wasn't as thrilled. After a free purse, how could I be? This purse from Kohl's doesn't seem as well constructed so we'll have to see how it does. It zips closes everywhere so that's good though.

I also picked up these sunglasses at Kohl's for $9.

This book was only $5 at Family Christian. I've heard good things about it so I'm looking forward to reading it.

I also stopped by Ikea to continue building my free dishes set. Thanks to Social Media Saturday and the $20 in Ikea bucks that I get monthly, I'm getting a great dish set. So far, I've gotten 8 of the big plates that are more like pasta bowls. These are quickly becoming my absolutely favorite dishes. They're great for pasta, salads, etc. I've also invested in the small matching bowls. I only got 5 of those so far. In the coming months, I'll get 3 more and some regular plates. This is one of those times I just have to be patient and go back the first Saturday of each month so they'll be free haha.

Total spent this trip: $43.44. For everything that I got, that's not bad at all. Considering the purse was originally $57. :)

Springtime

The tulips and azaleas are starting to bloom in our front yard. The splashes of spring are much welcomed after the long winter we had.

We finally dug up this huge area of thorns, trees, and other random plants. We've planted the grass and it's starting to sprout! So exciting! By this fall we should have all lawn on that side! The front is almost done! :)

The beautiful pink phlox in our garden:

This side of the front yard is mostly finished. We just have the small patch of grass to plant that can been seen in the lower left of this picture. Hopefully we'll tackle that this fall and be done with the front.

Our house looks so different than when we first moved in and only gets better with each passing season.

This rhododendron blooms an amazing pink color, but this is its last year in our front yard. It's too big to transplant and just in an awkward location now that we got rid of that flower patch. We figure we'll enjoy this year's bloom and then hack it down- haha.

Last year after Easter I got a bunch of tulips that had already bloomed for about 50 cents - $1 each. I planted them and hoped they'd return strong this year. So far they are doing great!

This year we also decided to try our hand at vegetables. We started with lettuce since lettuce likes the cold and is pretty easy to grow. We got these plants for a few bucks at Home Depot and they've really been taking off. We have tried the lettuce and it's delicious! We'll definitely be doing this each year.

I love each of the seasons, but am always glad for the changing seasons. I don't think I'd be able to easily live somewhere where it was typically always the same weather. Unless maybe that weather was Autumn. :)