It's Fall, Y'all.

Now that October is nearly history I finally drug out some fall decor. You could say I was having a bit of trouble getting inspired this year... Due partly to the condition of my fall stash. I found a box of white styrofoam balls, and pondered them for a while, wondering what exactly they were, until it dawned on me that they *used* to be my faux pumpkins. It seems squirrels find faux pumpkin skins to be a tasty treat and they stripped them clean. Pesky little rodents... I lucked out and found one bag that had been overlooked, so we at least have a little sprinkling of fall decor on display this year...

 Not much fall stuff in the kitchen, but I wanted to sneak a pic in because I just love my "old" cup rack :) Found it for a steal!

 This is the kitchen fall decor. One scrawny pumpkin. Yep, that's it, folks. 

 My little vintage chair looks nice and festive!

 I jumped on the burlap wreath bandwagon and made one for myself. It was a super easy and fairly quick project - pretty cheap, too! 

 I had a birthday this month, yep - I'm gettin' old. I had seen a frame I wanted in a local shop ($165.00!!!) and hubby seemed to think he could build one. So he did. Because he's just awesome like that. This baby is HUGE. The photo inside is 20x20. I think it's even prettier than the one in that fancy shop. What an awesome Birthday present!

 Mine and Jackson's Birthdays are just 2 days apart - he turned 10. I still can't wrap my mind around that one. In 3 years we'll have a teenager in the house! Oh dear... 

Woops... sorry for the pic-happy post. I guess I really should post more often, huh?!? 

Happy fall, y'all.

The little monkey is ONE!

 It's SO hard to believe my little guy is already a year old! 

Thank you Jeannie for the ADORABLE birthday shirt and the darling little party hat! We tried absolutely everything to get a piccy of him in the hat. They *all* looked exactly like this:

So he's not into hats, obviously. 

At one point he yanked it off his head and crammed it onto the monkey's head and then gave us a "take that" kind of look.

He has definitely developed some rather strong opinions in his first year. 

 I think this age is my favorite! He's so much fun. Yes, he's into *everything* and you can't leave him alone for even a split second... but it's still my favorite. It's so fun to watch him learn new things, try to do things for himself, hearing all those first words, and watching that little personalty shine through. He's no longer a little helpless newborn, but a miniature little person with his own personality. He provides a huge amount of entertainment around the old parsonage!

 On the day of his party, the weather decided to climb up to a scorching 101 degrees. Let me just tell ya, that's not exactly good for cakes. Before very long it starting to lean toward the left, so we had to hurry up and eat it!

  It *would* have been a very fun cake to make, had my heating element not decided to conk out right in the middle of it! Out of desperation, I ended up cooking the smaller round layers in my toaster oven, and I don't recommend it. It actually tasted just fine, in spite of it all. 

 He had a hay day with that smash cake. I think he liked the smashing more than the eating! 

We ended up hosing him down with the water hose when he was all done and putting him in his swimming pool. ;)

Happy Birthday little monkey, Mommy loves you!

 

Porch Redo and a Lego Birthday

I've been pondering the idea of painting my wicker porch chairs black, and it finally got the best of me. I took the plunge, and now I'm wondering why I waited so long. I'm really loving it with the freshly recovered houndstooth pillows. The Alabama fan in me is subtly popping out. Ok, that word, subtly, just looks so weird. That IS the right way to spell it, right? Or did spell checker just fail me... 

Anyhoo...moving along.

Here's a shot of the porch before I got the itchy spray paint finger...

And here she is now.

I was tickled pink to find the porch swing on craigslist for a mere 30$! My hubby was less than tickled about hanging the said bargain swing. What started out as a simple hang-up-a-swing project turned into a discovery of lots of rotten wood, pulling it out, and repairing it project. Good times, I tell ya. 

 The newly painted chairs are *subtly* sporting a touch of Alabama pride, too. 

I'm well aware that the wicker is totally falling apart. But a few cans of Krylon fit in the budget much better than new porch furnishings at this time. Maybe next spring...

Those of you that know me, and my flip-flop-wearin' summer-lovin' self, will be so proud to know that I actually planted some fall flowers. Go, me! Baby steps, people. Soooo hard to let go of warm weather...

 After a trip to the pumpkin patch, we brought home our pumpkins and had a paint party. I painted mine white to go in the ORB planters.

We got a little more creative with some of the others...

Thanks to pinterest for the fun idea!

 Jackson and I had birthdays last week. We celebrated with a little lego party, per his request. He wanted lego star wars, but we made a compromise and settled for just plain legos instead. Whew. I had a hard enough time making a regular old lego cake - not so sure how I would have fared with the star wars. 

He was pretty happy with it, so it was worth the effort ;) Actually, I kinda had fun playing with the fondant. It was my first time, and I must say it's rather addicting! All I need is another hobby. You know, for all my spare time...sigh...

Jackson turned 8, and Mommy turned thirty-something. 

But who's counting?!?

My Little Birthday Boy

The sweetest little boy in the world just turned 4 years old! It just doesn't seem possible, and his Mommy is more than a little sad to see him growing up so FAST!

The balloons were all his idea...but I grabbed my camera and got in on the fun, too!

Happy Birthday, Carson! And you're still Mommy's baby no matter how much you're growing up!

The parsonage in the works...

Yay me! I remembered to take some pictures for you. Sunday, we had a beautiful sunny day, perfect time to snap a few shots...

Come on in and see what we've done so far...

This is the living room "before".

I LOVE the mirror, but it seems a touch too big for that spot, it overwhelms the fireplace. I think I'll hang it over my piano eventually. And here's the new color...

It's called muted gold, and I looooove it. I also love that antique fireplace! Here's another before shot in the living room...

And another "after"! The drapes look way more red in this picture, they're actually a tad darker.

It's amazing how just a simple coat of paint can really bring out the woodwork. One room down , and ooh, I don't really wanna think about how many more to go. I've started painting the den, but I'm not 100% satisfied with the color. I may change it before I go any further with it. I'm trying to find a pale aqua blue, and on the walls it looked baby blue. It's a little too much, so back to the old drawing board...

A very frightening thing happened over the weekend. My first baby boy turned 6 years old. How could he do that to me?! I mean, I'm still so YOUNG! OK, so maybe I'm not... Boy, time is going by way too fast! He's pretty happy about it though :) Since our birthdays are 2 days apart, we celebrated them together. I always said he was my birthday present.

My Mom made cupcakes for Jackson, and Dave surprised me with a strawberry cheesecake ice cream cake from DQ :) Yummy! What a "sweet" hubby!

Happy Birthday Carson!!!

My baby is 3 years old today. He may be growing up, but he's STILL my BABY. He'll be my baby when he's 27...whether he likes it or not. It seems like yesterday we brought our little peanut home from the hospital. He wasn't even as big as the head support in his baby seat. At 5 pounds, he literally swam in his preemie sized hat and sleeper.

A happy baby at 5 Months

Then at a year old...

Almost 2


And now he's getting all grown up. I can't bear to watch...




So what's the Birthday boy doing today, you ask?





He's NOT partying by any stretch of the imagination.

Poor little guy is stuck at home with a fever, chills, coughs, etc, etc. It near breaks my heart in two just to look at him. He's quite pitiful.

Bummer. What a way to spend your birthday.