{It's Fall, Ya'll}

Happy 1st Day of FALL everyone!! I love fall & just about every little thing that happens in fall.  Pumpkin patch, apple orchard, crisp air, pretty leaves, pumpkin spice lattes, the clothes, also we take our {little} family Christmas pictures, which I hope will have a new little person in them next Christmas ;)  but at least we have Calvin this year to add to the tradition that started last fall! It really is so fun to get family pictures around this time every year, so you can look back and see how your family changes through the years!


In other news, I'm so excited to finally be able to announce that I found pillows for our bed! About a week ago I bought some flannel sheets in gray....my hubs & I were talking the other day about how hard it is to get out of bed now due to our mattress pad/heated blanket/flannel sheets together.  My guess is it will get harder the colder it gets....that's what she said...I just couldn't resist. Although it probably would be the opposite...... and you thought this was a family blog. Ha!


Did you know gray pillows are very hard to come by these days? I looked and looked and looked some more and could not find ANY! It needed to be just the right shade of gray.  Guess where I finally found some.....?

ETSY!!!

To be honest, I never really understood how this website worked.  I googled "gray pillow" nothing even remotely our style.  UGH! I finally went to this wonder of a website and found just what I was looking for: Here's what I had pictured.  I just love the mixture of patterns & who doesn't love a little chev (chevron). ya know? Anyway, just thought I would post a quickie on our bed progress, which isn't much but at least we got the pillows! 

 I have a post coming up about our ugly fan.....because I bought a new one :)

I hope you all enjoy your first weekend of fall as it is supposed to be absolutely GORGEOUS!!

{Happy Friday!}

Yay!! Guess what day it is....FRIDAY! I love having weekends off! Plus having Jeans Friday's don't hurt..... 

 After a whirlwind month of travel for both Mikey & I in August, we both felt like we hadn't spent enough time together....and we didn't like it.  We've been cooking {thanks to my friend Lauren at work. She is inspiring, as she & her hubby cook together every night & she's 6 months pregnant!} full-blown meals together and taking long walks with our fur baby & just spending some quality time together. I don't like not being with my hubs!! 

Last night I made artichokes! YUM! My mama used to make these all the time when I was younger.  I can remember my aunt and cousin coming over and we would just devour the artichokes at our kitchen table! I made them not too long ago because my hubby is sort of a health nut & I thought he would like them...Well he LOVED them, so I made them again. It's so simple and filling, too.  I just do some olive oil with Italian breadcrumbs.  Cut the tips off the leaves with kitchen shears, spread out the leaves and pour as much of the olive oil/breadcrumb mixture as you can shove into the leaves. Boil some water and in go the artichokes for 30 minutes or so...and YUM! You will not be disappointed!

I also made time in the past couple of weeks to fix up my sad looking rain boots.  I got these in college and you can tell.  Yikes! These puppies have been through some muddy rain puddles in their lifetime. I can remember wearing these to the bar while it was raining, and splashing in every puddle...on purpose.  I believe there is a picture somewhere of it, actually.  

I decided to make them a little custesy with some grommets and ribbon.  I returned the ribbon 3 times, because it wasn't the right weight.  It has to be a heavier weight ribbon to work and outlast the wear & tear and sometimes you can't tell just by looking at the roll. 

Before

After {an iPhone pic of course}

This was the morning after our BAD storm! Notice our tiki torch nearly on it's side.... 

I made the holes with a grommet kit, it looks like that's the way I bought them, adorable. I also bought a gray ribbon with white polka dots for if/when I get bored of the red. 

And guess what, I have worn them many times since this picture was taken & plan to wear them this weekend as I hear it'll be rainy.  Sometimes I don't mind those lazy, rainy weekends. I have no plans this weekend except for a baby shower on Saturday.  I'm thinking some nap time and some serious fall/winter shopping is in order! 

I hope you all have a nice weekend!

{Lately & my DIY Trough}

 I'm a little behind on this one, but with my sweet new job, a new and little furry son {which BTW is the perfect pup, no potty accidents in the house and only a few poos & he sleeps through the night {sometimes...}! We got lucky, to say the least!!}, and baby/bridal showers GALORE I have been one busy lady!

My goal was to finish this project before Christmas so I could put TONS of greenery & ornaments in it, but it would have been nice to get it done before {my favorite season} fall sets in, so I could stuff some leafy garland and things of that nature in it!

My hubby left town last Wednesday to head to California to see one of his old HS buddies.  A bunch of the guys went and he had a blast, but I was pretty excited about all the free time I would have to catch up on my shows, snuggle my pup, shop, and of course a few projects!

Back to the trough box, Thrifty Decor Chick did it 1st. She is one very bright lady when it comes to home projects! Some I love, some I don't love as much, but she does a pretty great job when it comes to DIY! Another blogger Laura at Suburban Living Crafts also did it.  I liked her version as well!

My version is a little taller because it is on our mantle and we have seriously 12 foot ceilings in our living room.  I needed some height.  It's pretty bulky and I like it!

 I have to insert this funny story here: So I'm in the lumber aisle trying to decide which width to get and of course going through every piece of wood there trying to find the perfect piece.  I had been at this for about 4-5 minutes without noticing the world around me was still moving.  This little old man is standing there waiting for me to {friggin'} make up my mind, with a big smile on his face like he was just waiting to see how long I would really take to make a decision this easy.  I finally looked over and apologized for making him wait.  Then I heard the song on the overhead, and no joke it was that country song "Waitin' on a Woman".  He made some comment about the song and I had to laugh as I walked away.....isn't that a cute little story?


Mike would say that song describes me to a tee!

So since hubby was gone, & I'm not one for patience, I had to do some manual labor.  Although we do have a compound miter saw, I don't trust myself around it.....I had Lowe's cut it for me to the pre-measured dimensions that I wanted.  To get these dimensions, I basically measured across my mantle and the depth of it.

I beat it up a little bit {same as Sarah} with a hammer and then stained it with a foam brush the exact stain that I used in the guest bathroom upstairs. I then attached the three long pieces together.  First with liquid nails, then after that dried, with actual nails.  I capped the small end pieces on last.  I wanted to make it look a little more rugged so the nails on the capped end pieces are exposed. TA-DA! If anyone else would like to do this project, I would love to give you some advice! It was one of my favorites and it's the gift {to myself} that keeps on giving! Here's the masterpiece! What a versatile piece for our mantle!

You probably noticed the new trellis pattern canvas in front of the mirror....hmmmmm I did a little re-do on it.  Previously it looked like this:

I grew a little sick of it, never truly finished it, and I like the stencil pattern but did not want a whole wall of it because it's so trendy.  This is the stencil I used 

and I think it turned out DARLING! 

Guess what? FALL is on it's way! & I am too excited...Only 3 more days until Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back at Starbucks!! Yummy! I can't wait for everything fall! 

To get the long weekend started my best friend and I went to Pirtle Winery in Weston, MO.  Such a cute little winery & town! The Apple Wine is delicious!

I'm going to wrap the post up with another yes another deal with it picture of my dog son. Peace!