Appetite Crush: Fall Boots

For the love of all things fall.

Yeah, I pretty much love boots.
Tall boots.
Short boots.
Suede boots.
Leather boots.
Brown boots.
Strappy boots.
Red boots.
Dairy boots.
Rain boots.
Cowboy boots.
Fall boots.

#29 Redo the Kitchen Floors

Imagine this.

A typical errand to a home improvement store for something as miniscule as screws to hang these shudders.

Where we happen upon the flooring department for no other reason than just to browse around.

Realize there is this really good price on 3/4 inch real wood birch flooring.

It's distressed.

Rustic.

Affordable.

And the sale ends... today.

No time to think.

We just grabbed about twenty boxes and some quarter round, and headed for home.

We decided the kitchen would be a good place to start.

And then maybe do the front foyer if we had enough left.

{And by that, I mean patience people.}

The previous kitchen flooring was a delightful laminate style that had a nice hollow sound as you walked around on it. Especially with shoes.

With ripples in the seams, and scratches on what seemed like every panel.

Which is the style choice of some...

Just not the rustic, distressed feeling I was going for.

So about two weeks ago, on that Sunday evening after buying all those boxes of wood, we began removing the old laminate.

And the dining furniture.

And the appliances.

We put a week turn around on the project.

Given the fact that the Hub had to work throughout the following week.

Fast forward two weeks later.

After 63 hours.

12 boxes of birch.

5 pieces of quarter round.

7000 nails.

And a couple of unforeseen obtacles in between...

The floors are finally in their final resting place.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, we returned the remaining eight boxes of Birch to the store and decided to live with the "slate" tile we currently have in the foyer.

At least for now.

Or until the Hub's back is realigned and pain free.

Each piece was pain stakingly hand laid.

Anyone else have a spur of the moment spending spree recently?

The GREAT Revelation

So...

We had a sex party this past weekend.

And lets just be honest, it was a lot of fun.

It is the up and coming thing to do, you know.

Invite your closest friends and family.

Ask them to dress accordingly.

Play some sort of game.

Enjoy some food.

And then, you know... find out the sex!
Which for us, happened to be in the form of some cupcakes.

We actually had our Ultrasound done on Friday. And I brought along an envelope to hide the gender from both myself and the Hub. But, the Hub decided to just find out then. So he teased me all weekend with rediculous clues about what I thought it might be.
{as if there are any other guesses besides a boy or girl??}
And, I read into every one of them. Overanalyzing. Prying. Staying awake at night thinking about what he had said.
It drove me crazy not knowing. More so because he did know.
But it was also really fun to wait until Sunday.
I had been anticipating this party since I first sent out the invites.
I made some pom pom decorations and set up a seperate room for food with none other than pink and blue napkins, plates and plasticware.

We made brats, pork tenderloin and had apples with PB dip, fruit and veggies, and some chips to nom on while everyone talked about their guess at what was being harbored in my belly.

Upon entrance to the party, they were given the option to vote for the gender.
I made a "clue" board to give voters a better idea of this pregnancy.

It included information like the heart rate {160bpm at 10 weeks, 155bpm at 19 weeks}.
The Chinese Gender Chart prediction: which happened to be Girl.
And some Old Wives Tale findings like crabbiness=Girl, sweets cravings=Girl, and Dry Hands=Boy.
The ratio of Girl to Boy findings was about 9 to 3. With an obvious GIRL baby being favored.

But I went with my instinct anyhow and voted for BOY, along with 13 other attendees.
The final result for the vote ended up being 15 GIRL votes to 14 BOY votes.

After everyone had lunch it was time for the GREAT reveal.
Via these cupcakes. Which were guarded as top secret.
{we only had to slap Grandma Sweetie Pie's hands twice}

The instructions were simple:
Attendees were supposed to pull the "baby pin" out of the top of the cupcake to reveal the color of the baby by way of some frosting my sister added to the top.

I, along with the rest of the family, pulled the pin... and found out we are going to be having another sweet little GIRL in January!!

That's right. These kiddos are getting a sister!!
 

The inside of the cupcake. With just enough pink.

We adorned the voting board with the contents of the TOP SECRET envelope.
And ended the party by giving away goodie bags that read:

"What A Sweet Addition"

Which is exactly how we all feel about this baby already.
She already fits so perfectly into our family, and we can't wait to see her face and hold her in our arms.

Next on the list is to find her a name.
Nolan.
Nevaly.
N?

Wish us luck!

#22 Sing Loudly in the Car with the Windows Down

Lets just be honest.

This probably happens more often than not.

{to the best of my ability}

The challenge here... was to sing with the windows down.

You know, like at a stop light.

With other people around.

And act like I don't notice them cringe as I hit the high notes.
Or any note for that matter.

I recognize that I do not have an angelic voice. Or a rock and roll set of lungs.
But still, I love to belt out the lyrics to some of my faves all the same.
Even if the kids hollar at me to turn it down from the back seat.
Or the Hub changes the station mid tune.
{thats always pretty embarassing}{cough}

Lets just say, the best versions have been done solo.
And that is just what happened recently, to make me want to finally cross this one of my list.

I had the rare opportunity to make a grocery run sans children.
It was a quick stop for ingredients to make monster cookies.

It was roughly 7:50pm and the sun was lowering. The breeze was getting cooler.

I rolled down all the windows and hit the gas.

Turned on the radio to some country.

It was an okay song, so I didn't change it right away.

 

I breathed in through my nose the cool country air that we had been missing due to a heat wave all through July and part of August.

 

And thats when it happened.

The last song ended, and one of my faves of the moment {Dirt Road Anthem} began.

Ummmm, hello Jason Aldean.

Don't mind if I do.

 

I cranked it to an obscene volume and chimed right in.

 

...Yeah, I'm chillin on a dirt road

Laid back swerving like I'm George Jones

Smoke rollin out the window

An ice cold beer sittin in the console

 

Memory Lane up in the head lights

Has got me reminiscing on them good times

I'm turning off a real live drive, and that's right

I'm hitting easy street on mud tires, let's ride...

 

I was speeding down the road when I came up to a red light.

One car rolled up slowly next to me.

Their windows were up.

 

Then another car slid beside me in the turn lane.

Their windows were down...

 

I would normally lower the volume until the light turned green and I could speed away to finish my song, but not this time.

I just let it go.

And sang the 3rd chorus again as proudly as any choir lady would.

 

I can't say I looked to see their faces. Because I didn't. I couldn't.

I just watched as they turned their car down the street, away from mine.

And I was smiling inside.

It felt good to let some stranger hear my shower voice.

{I actually do NOT sing in the shower. But if I did...}

 

The song of course ended shortly after the light turned green and I did turn down the radio after that. Pulled into Kroger and bought some baking soda and the M&M's I needed to make the cookies.

 

But I put a DONE IT stamp on another 30 Before 30.

And that my friends, is how it was done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#10 Grow and Eat My Own Food

I was expecting to have an abundance of fruits and vegetables to talk about with this post.

But unfortunately, the green thumb I thought I had... turned out to be a little brown.

Okay, very brown.

I have been a city girl my entire life.

I can't expect a country garden the first year... right?

But I was still hopeful for the first couple months.

Until we realized that most everything in the garden got washed out in April when we had pounding rain for weeks straight.

Some of the remaining seeds got scattered to new places to mingle with other growing vegetables.

I was not trying any new hybrid form. It just sort of happened that way.

To put it plainly... my garden is quite the hodge podge.

With a ton of weeds wedged in between.

Every single plant.

I am going to be honest.

When I fugured out that most of my seeds where gone, I abandoned my responsibilities to weed the garden.

But somehow, we still got some vegetables to erupt.

Like fifty tomatoes. That are just now turning a shade of red.

Zucchini. That grows overnight.

Yellow squash.

A row or two of baby carrots. That are still half the size of store bought baby carrots??

About twenty yellow onions.

Seven mini stalks of corn.

And a lonely sunflower.

The blueberry plants died in the heat wave.

The raspberries never made it past their March planting.

And the strawberries were small. And mostly green the whole season.

I will research better for next year.

But to put this 30 Before 30 to rest... I grew and ate my own food. Okay.

Not a whole meal or anything.

But a pleasant side dish of zucchini and yellow squash from the garden, steamed with some broccoli and baby carrots, that were both store bought.

That qualifies.

Right?

Have pity.

I was picking from a pitiful garden.

 See?

But we grow 'em pretty good.

{The yellow squash too}

R is for {W}Reath...

Just another little item I crossed off my list this past week.

This wreath has been a spring project that I finally finished Friday evening.

Perfect timing since summer is now ending and we are rushing into fall, right?!

Anyhow.

I started with a straw wreath that I wrapped in yarn.

{any color and size will do}

Next, I painted a monogram letter.

It was pretty easy to pick an R since it was a {w}Reath... and happened to be the first letter of our last name.

Then I sprinkled the ends with black glitter to add a little visual interest and contrast.

Then it was onto making these flowers. Which all happen to be made of felt.

{Mmmm. I heart felt.}

I cut. I glued. I sewed buttons in the center of some.

Then it was just time to arrange.

And find the time to arrange some more.

Then I hung it proudly on the front door. That needs painted.

And I love it.

Presenting, our welcome mat.

In the form of a circle with flowers.

Don't look at the door. Just focus on the wreath...

A closer look at some of the felt flowers.

Shudder Me Timbers!

Finally.
We have a little curb appeal.
And it only took three months, four days, seven hours and twenty three minutes.
{might be slightly exaggerated}
But seriously.
I think we bought the cedar to make these rustic, cordovan brown stained side boards back in May.

For some reason last week, the hub came home and ate dinner as usual.
Then went out to the garage instead of sitting down to relax in front of the TV or wrestling the kids before bed.

And soon after I heard the circular saw...
so I threw open the door to the garage and had a peek at the noise.
There was a big cloud of saw dust.
Then I saw them.
The boards I had stained/painted almost three months prior.
Being sliced and diced.
I was convinced he was cutting them to a size that would fit into the garbage bin to be hauled away that Wednesday.
Since he had complained of their existence in the driveway for the last two months alone.
But then I noticed he was using a tape measure as his handy assistant, Nolan would drag another piece into the garage to be cut.

They were making my shudders!

I was going for a rustic, board and batton look for the front of our house...
and that is exactly what I got.
The hubs did such a good job of precisely measuring each piece.
Cutting them.
Screwing them together.
And then hanging them up.

Shudder me timbers!

As the sun was setting... we were still hanging.

 The next day with all of the shudders hung.

Next on the to do list {for the exterior}... paint the front door.
I strongly dislike the streaking red paint the previous owners so lovely left us with.
I am thinking a shade of green.
Until next time...

Ketchup

This is going to be my Ketchup! post since I barely updated in the last month...

So lets recap a little something we call July.

Where everyday was hot.

We spent almost everyday of it outside.

In some kind of water.

{Nev on the shore}

{Jumping off the Raft like he's been doing it for YEARS}

{Loves}

 

We visited the lake.

Buckner Splash Park.

{My Green Goblin}

 

{ Nev and Memaw}

 

And the pool.

Not to mention the hose in the backyard.

And the pool at the Y.

{Notice anything?}

{Sweet as the slice of watermelon}

We got patriotic for the Fourth.

Had an annual shindig with fam and watched the fireworks in our small town that eve.

{Just smile for one more...}

 Happy Birthday!

We celebrated the Hub's 30th Birthday on July 15th!
The kids and I tied balloons and an oversized party hat to his car at work and expected to have a big gathering at our house that Saturday... instead we had a small {the party, not the cake} birthday cake party on Saturday the 16th, and spent the weekend on the 30th with all our friends at Lake Monroe in Southern Indiana.
I think he is still trying to embrace the number...
{Excited to see what his next thirty years have in store}



Hung out with family.
My grandma stayed the weekend we went to Lake Monroe, and did all my laundry!
{if any of you know what a trecherous mess my closet was... you would understand this woman is very brave!}



Spent some time with friends.

{Missing Alicia, Taylor and Laura in this pic of the girls at Lake Monroe}

{Cousins!}

 

{Jahani! Was soooo close to us! He wanted to nibble on Nev.}

{My Little Roos}

 We visited the zoo!

{Samson~ the One and Only}

Relaxed. 

{Bottoms up}

And refreshed ourselves.

It was a pretty busy month.
But I think that brings us up to speed.

Checking in again soon, with some 30 Before 30 business to take care of.

Until then...