Disneyland countdown!

We went to Disneyland over a week ago!

 I decided to do a countdown for it! I made the countdown over a month ago!

Here is Ayla with the countdown!

I wish I would have taken pictures step by step but I didn't so I will do the best I can to explain how it was done.

 I borrowed some hole punches from my friend, DeeDee. I made the Mickey heads out of two different  hole punches. I also used black poster board, instead of scrapbook paper or card stock, to save on money.

I went online and found 30 different things at Disneyland, mainly rides, to put on the Mickey heads.

I scrapbooked the top. 

I wish I would have had scrapbook pages but I didn't. I didn't want to spend a ton of money either, so I made them with Internet and PhotoShop. I also used colored paper I already had.

 I made it so I can change the pictures. That way the countdown will never be out dated. 

 After all, Ashlyn hadn't been there yet, so all the pictures were of Kurt, Ayla and I.

The one with the castle was on our Honeymoon! This was the first time I had been to Disneyland and loved it! I was hooked after that! The rest of the pictures were when Kurt, Ayla and I went in February of 2010!

The actual numbers were separate Mickey heads with different Disney characters.

I went online and found 30 characters to put on them.

 This is what it looks like with all the characters on it!

 I loved that Mickey was the last to take off! Under Mickey was "Mickey's Toontown!" If you notice, above Mickey was Snow White. The number 7 was put on her by accident but I love how it worked out!

 I even did Jack Sparrow with "Pirates of the Caribbean" under him! That is my favorite ride there!

I tried to match up as many characters with the picture underneath them but not all of them were like that.

I then had the whole thing laminated and then used a small dots of velcro on one of the ears.

I also put some plastic covering (those plastic sleeves you use for paper to put in a binder) where the pictures were going to make protection for the pictures. I then punched a couple of wholes at the top and thread some ribbon through them to hang it.

I love it!

We had a lot of fun doing the countdown with Ayla! She was so excited every time to take a number off! She always wanted to see what was underneath the number. She wanted to know if she could ride the rides that were under them. She was way excited about the "Tea Cups!"

We were not going by ourselves this time. We were meeting up with our friends, Amy, Joe and their family. Their daughter is one of Ayla's best friends, so we were really excited that Ayla was going to be  with Emily at Disneyland!

So at the time I was making the countdown, I decided to make some sugar cookies for the occasion as well!

 Mickey heads!
I got the cookie cutter the last time we had been to Disneyland! 

 Ayla eating one of them!

They were pretty big! I was wishing there was a smaller cutter when I made these. But guess what?!! They had a smaller one there this time and I bought it!

I made enough of these cookies for my family, Amy and Joe's family and I also made them for my friend, Ann's family. Ann and her family were going to Disneyland two weeks before us! 

I have decided that these cookies are special and I will make them around the time we are going to Disneyland! You know, make it a tradition! :)

Ayla loved the Mickey cookies! She now always request that I cut her toast in the shape of Mickey's head! I love it!

The countdown and the cookies were a lot of fun to do!

Lots of Disneyland posts to come!

The Tents!

Kurt is really a fun Dad! The other day I walked into the front room to find...

THIS!
It was a tent that Kurt had helped Ayla put up in the living room. You can see Ayla's feet from under the tent in this picture!

The funny thing was the main thing holding up this tent were fans!

It reminded me of a bouncy house! LOL!

Well, I felt the tent was a huge eye sore. Not to mention, I was a little worried that the kids would put their fingers in the fans or have them fall on them.  Ayla kept asking for it after they cleaned it up.

I decided to get the Tinkerbell tent out so she could play in a tent.

Ayla loves to have Ashlyn in the tent with her! I know Ashlyn loves it too!

Silly girl!

Ayla in the tent!

Ashlyn in the tent!

Ayla with the tent door closed!

Ayla is happy with the tent but she just saw me doing this post and asked for the other tent again! LOL!!

Which tent do you like?

The fun creative one or the simple Tinkerbell tent!

The Creepy Tree!

We had a Mimosa Tree in our yard. This tree always kind of creeped me out because it would close it leaves when it was evening or when it got cold. It kind of freaked me out that it moved, so I called it the Creepy Tree.

Well, this tree always struggled. This last spring Kurt notice some strange bugs on it. It was a bug I had never seen before.

They are called a Red Headed Ash Bore!

They were super creepy! They moved super fast!

I googled the bug, found out what kind of bug it was and then called the exterminator to learn more about them and how to get rid of them. The guy told me they don't sting or bite but they infest and they feed on weak trees. They bore themselves into the tree (that is where they get their name.) He said people spend thousands of dollars trying to save a tree, when the only way to get rid of them completely is to cut the tree down.

So we decided to cut the tree down. 

Luckily it was a small tree!

Kurt cut it down with some clippers.

We had Ayla help clean up the branches.

Cute girl!

Check out how tall this weed was! 

Ya, I stopped pulling weeds around that tree because I wouldn't go near it with those crazy, creepy bugs! If you know me, I am not a bug person, at all! I am sure there still would have been weeds anyway around the tree, just not so big. If you read the previous post you would know I have had a hard time keeping up on the yard. The yard still looks okay just not beautiful.

Almost gone!

Cutting the base!

Cutting it up!

And it is gone!

The tree always creeped me out in the first place! I was actually excited to get rid of it but when Kurt cut it down, we didn't see any bugs and I felt bad. Though I am sure the bugs were probably inside the tree itself. We would have kept the tree if it were not for the bugs. It really was a pretty tree!

So long Tree!

Now I have a lot of weeds to pull and clean up the area! I might plant a snowball bush in it's place to match the Lilac bush we have in the opposite corner of the yard.

Before and after pictures of small changes at our home!

First, Kurt got a new desk and chair!

Here is the desk and chair he had before.

We had to put the new desk together.

It took a couple of days.

And here is the new desk and chair! Pretty nice huh?

Next, our upstairs bathroom.

We had the pink shower curtain the lady who lived here before us left, so I hung up the flower towels to at least go with it until we got a new shower curtain.

Here is what the other side of the bathroom looked like.

And now this is what it looks like! My sister gave us one of her old curtain and I bought towels to match it! I also bought a new bathmat!

I also bought the hand towels to match and I bought a flower to sit on the counter!

It is amazing how just a curtain, some towels and a flower make this bathroom look so much nicer!

We got different couches!

The lady that lived here before us left these plaid couches.

They were not my taste but they worked.

Well my sister got a new couch and gave us her old ones!

I put the coffee table away because Ayla kept hurting herself on it. Not to mention Ashlyn will be crawling before we know it and I would have to put it away for that anyway.

Last, I wanted to share our yard. 

I took before pictures of our yard before I did anything to it. It was a mess. I was excited to make it pretty again. At first I had a love relationship with my yard but then it changed to a love, hate relationship and then it turned into just a hate relationship. Our yard is a really pretty yard but I just can't keep up with it. The weeds grow so fast. I feel like I pull a million a 2 million more grow in their place!  Kurt can't do the yard work because he get horrible allergies. He gets them so bad that sometimes his eyes can swell shut so I have to do the yard work. It has been hard with having Ashlyn so I do the bare minimum. At first I spent 2 weeks, an hour a day to clean it up and it looked beautiful but I couldn't keep up with it! It still looks okay but not beautiful.

I had to cut down all the bushes from the year before.

Before picture.

Before picture.

Look at how dead this part of the yard looked like.

This is how big that first bush grew this year! It is huge! I think I will cut it more next year.

After picture!
It looks better, I wish I would have gotten pictures of it at the beginning of the summer because it was beautiful.

Same with this picture!

And this picture!
At least the plants are not all dead!

This is what the front yard looks like from afar!

I love how Ayla jumped in all my after pictures!

I had to get one of her standing on the rocks in between the sidewalk and the curb!

Now for the backyard!

Pretty bad!

Luckily, I took after pictures of the backyard at the beginning of the summer!

Our yard looked so beautiful!
It still looks pretty nice when it is meowed.

I had to share this picture! I had bought me some Gerber Daisies for the yard because I love that flower. This one had a Siamese flower, two peddles were conjoint!

Now I got to get the yard ready for the winter! Wish me luck!

And that is going to be a lot of work! Thanks for listening to me vent about my yard!