minnesota love

For Sara and Lisa's birthdays this year I invited them out for a Barnwood Birthday Bash. I had no idea what we'd make, but knew we'd come up with something clever because these ladies are clever. Two days before they were to come and I still didn't know what we'd make until I saw this blog post by a new-to-me minnesota blog I'm following called apartment wife. It was there that Jennifer showed a picture of her own Minnesota with a heart and I finally had a plan. Because it was adorable. Thanks Jennifer!

And I'd like to include a special shout out to the guy at Menards who helped me find everything I needed for this project. I had both kids in the big basket of the cart and 20 minutes to find my supplies. I could tell the guy didn't enjoy helping me shop one bit, but I kept on enthusiastically with my list, "okay! now nails! where are they?!!" "And next, I need little metal things the size of my finger that will connect my wood with screws. The ones I saw on this blog I found this project on had holes in them..." He was happy to see me go.

We started out the morning pulling a bit of barnwood off our barn. Just the part that is falling down. And surprisingly, for how fragile the structure looks, the barnwood was hard to get off. Once we had our wood, we figured out how to use the circular saw. Which was awesome and empowering. We used safety sunglasses and were very careful of our fingers. Then we used the drill to screw in the metal things that held the boards together on the back side. Power tools are awesome.

Now back to Sara and Lisa. The best part of having these two ladies as my sister-in-laws is how inspirational they both are. They each live full, intentional, beautiful lives. I feel empowered when I'm with them and that is a sweet, sweet gift in this sisterhood.  I'm so glad we live so close to family in this lovely state of Minnesota.