Bluebonnet Pictures

We found a great field on the side of the highway on our way home from the Blue Bell Creamery Tour so we decided to stop and snap a few photos of the girls. It was not my best photo shoot for several reasons.
1. it was smack dab in the middle of the day so it was extremely bright. We got lots of squinty eyes, if I could even get them to look up.
2. it was ridiculously windy! I was wearing a sun dress so I was praying I wasn’t flashing the cars driving by! lol
3. being after the creamery tour, they were tired, so they were not in the most “smiley” mood.
I did my best and got a few cute ones but nothing award winning. I plan to try again when I can plan better.

I even found a white one!! I loved it and it was killing me that I don’t have a micro lens to get super close up. Maybe one day.

Blue Bell Ice Cream Creamery Tour

I pity anyone in the country without access to Blue Bell Ice Cream. It is honestly the BEST!!
Since we live in Houston, we are only about an hour and a half from the creamery in Brenham, Tx so a friend and I decided to take our girls out to see it. They had so much fun and really loved watching the big machine make the ice cream, fill the tubs, and make popsicles. They especially loved the free scoop of ice cream at the end! I know they wont remember it so we will have to go back (darn) but I love taking them on special outings like this!
Cameras were not aloud on the tour but I was able to snap a few with my phone on the grounds and in the parlor. What a fun day!!

Design Delima!

I found this beauitul bed frame for sale for a steal! I love it but it is not what I had originally intended for Norah's room. Do I go with "Exhibit A," the cheap unique steal that I will have to get creative with and figure out how to make it work, or "Exhibit B," the one I had planned around and I know will go perfectly??
Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Strawberry Farm

We went with some friends to pick some fresh strawberries this week. I absolutely love getting fresh fruit!! It is so much better than the stuff you get at the grocery store; huge, juicy, and very sweet! I really miss when my dad grew fruit and veggies and had fresh eggs at home. Maybe one day I will have time and space to be able to do that.
For now, we find farms to go to for fun and make a little outing out of it. I didn’t have enough hands to take my good camera :( so I had to use my phone. At least I can get decent pictures on my phone these days!! Jeff is working weird hours and days right now so we were pumped that he could join us!! I think he had a lot of fun too ;).

That night we (actually Jeff did all the work) made some amazing ice cream. I am so very thankful for a husband that not only can cook but also loves to do so!

Here is how big and juicy these bad boys were! YUMMM!

Wilton Bake Even Strips

I don't remember where I heard about these first, but I ordered these about 6 months ago and I am in love!! The do exactly what the name states, they help the cake bake evenly and most of all it keeps the cake from getting that "dome" shape on top. This is immensely helpful when you want to stack layers and ice them; there is no need to slice the dome off, loosing yummy cake, and then creating a ton of crumbs that get all in your icing!
All you have to do is soak them in cold water and wrap them around the cake pan, pin them with the pin it comes with, bake the cake and Voila! a perfectly flat cake that is ready and easy to ice. I have no idea how it works, but it does!
There are several sizes for different cake pan sizes but I just have the small set; perfect for 9" cake pans which is what I normally use.
I am currently making my Banana Chocolate cake for a friend so I snapped a few photos of the cakes when I pulled them out of the oven. Proof that it works!

Buy them Here

Repurposed Screen Door

My in-laws were remodeling a lot of their house and getting rid of their doors. When I heard this, I jumped on the chance at getting their screen door. I have seen lots of repurposed screen doors around lately, on Pinterest and at furniture stores, so I thought it would be a blast to make my own!
Well, it sat in my craft room for months because I just could not get in my head what I wanted to do exactly. If I have inspiration for a project, I can get it done fast and I dont have any problems started. However, if I can't find that inspiration or know exactly what I want, it can take me forever to get going!
I finally decided what I wanted to do and got started this weekend. I was able to get a lot done but I needed my husbands help holding things up and screwing the shelf, etc. This was our brief conversation:
after going to the store and getting supplies,
Me: "Can you help me screw the shelf onto the door? I have it marked and ready to go"
Jeff: sitting on the couch playing on his iPad watching some graphic movie, "now??!"
Me: "That would be nice, yes."
Jeff: "you know you dont have to finish a project in 3 hours. You can take your time."

No! I am so impatient! When I want to get something done, I want it done NOW! lol The absolute worst is when something happens during the DIY process, like running out of supplies or something breaks, and I can't do anything until that step is completed but it is either too late to go to the store or it is closed. WORST FEELING EVER!

Anyways, so back to the door. I decided to put a handle back on it. I wanted to put hinges too but I couldnt find any I liked so that didnt happen.

I also added a shelf. I had some scrap wood from our playroom shelves so I had Jeff cut it the length I needed and just stained it and screwed it on from the back.

I then got glass cut to fit the large openings in the door. The top one I used the mirror spray paint I mentioned here and the bottom I added a decal that says "There's no place like home." That decal took 2 tries... oops! The first one I added before putting the glass on the door and then realized I didnt account for the corners so the decal was covered. The second one I cut up and added each word individually. If you think wall decals are hard enough, try getting 6 pieces to line up with each other without being able to mark the material it is going on to! (not to mention 2 toddlers insistent that they need to help).

I then added 2 decorative corner brackets to act as feet to the front. This gives it some stability from falling forward.

Since it is fragile it was a MUST that I attach it to the wall. I can't risk one of the girls bumping it and it falling. That would be BAD!

All in all, it turned out really nice and just like I had pictured (which is really rare! lol)

How to Add A Signature To Your Blog Posts

This took me FOREVER to figure out!!! I was about to pull my hair out trying about a thousand different online tutorials to do this. You would think it would be easy....no! Well, once I found one that actually worked, it was. I thought I would share how I finally got it to work so hopefully someone out there doesn't have to go through that I did!
Here's the steps:
1. Open a tab and go to your settings page. This is what mine looks like:

2. click on Settings on the left column

3. Click on “Add” just to the right of “Post Template” (see above image)
4. A box will pop up and add this code:
<img class="centered" alt="post signature" src=”Image Url”>
5. Now, go to photobucket and upload the image you would like to use as your signature. I used Photoshop. Save it as a png file.
6. Once the image is uploaded into Photobucket, select the image and find this screen.

7. To the right are some options to different types of links for this image. Copy the “Direct Link” one
8. Now, go back to the code you entered in the box in Blogger and replace “image url” with your image link. Mine looks like this:
<img class="centered" alt="post signature" src="http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc140/jessicagribnau/Signiture-2.png">
9. Click on “Save Settings”
** the signature will not appear until you create a new post
10. Create a new post and title it “test” and type something in the post box just to test it out.
**If the signature appears huge just click on it and options will pop up to choose the size you want. I like “small”
11. If  you have a border around the image of the signature go back to your Blogger Template Designer and choose “advanced”
12. Click on “images” and make sure the background and border colors are transparent. This should fix that problem.
This is the easiest way to add the signature I could find without having to go change the HTML stuff, which I find extremely confusing and dizzying looking at all that computer language. If you erase one little character, your whole layout is messed up! If you are not a computer guru like me, do it this way!!
Good luck! I really hope this helps anyone looking for a way to do this. If you have any questions, just comment and I will do my best to help you out!

**Tip: If you like to blog using Windows Live Writer (which I normally do) the signiture will not show up automatically. The only way I have figured this out is to publish the post when you are done writing.
Go into Blogger and edit that post.
Click on "HTML" on teh top left and add the code above to the bottom of all of the text (the same one you put in the box with your image url).
Click on "compose" and then the image should be there and you can resize it.