Tis the Season

I just love this time of year! We had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on Thanksgiving day and Andy's family on Friday. Since I have a few days off for Thanksgiving break I always decorate for Christmas. This year, I started decorating on Tuesday night. I had my friend, Maggie come over and help me get my trees up and work on my mantle. I am happy how everything turned out, especially my tree! I bought some different mesh this year and wasn't too thrilled about it at first, but it definitely is growing on me.

My tree! This year, I added the large ornaments and did different mesh and ribbon. I bought the large ornaments at Holiday House and am wishing I would have bought more!

This is the tree in my kitchen. This year, I added the white balls and snowflakes. I mostly put up red and white ornaments only. 

I still did the same colors on my dining table as I did last year. Red, white, silver, and black. I added a red table runner this year that I bought from Signed Sealed and Delivered.

This picture isn't very good, I should have had the t.v. off. Maggie did my mesh on my garland and I absolutely love it!! I just wish I could have lights on it, maybe next year.

My front door. My mesh is from last year that my friend Amanda made for me. I added the ornament to the middle of the wreath! I am so ready for Christmas and I just love this time of year!

Thankful

This has definitely been a rough year for my family. My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in January and had surgery in April to remove his prostate. My grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in September and had a double mastectomy this past Wednesday. This was a first for cancer in our immediate family. I have struggled with understanding why this has happened but have realized it is not in my hands it is in God's. God has a reason for everything! This Thanksgiving is going to be a celebration for both my dad and my grandmother. We are so thankful that they are both cancer free! We are so blessed to have both of them healthy. Not only am I thankful that they are cancer free but I'm so thankful that they will be able to celebrate another Thanksgiving! My family has so much to be thankful for this year! What are you thankful for??

Murder Mystery Dinner-80's Style

Last night we went to our first murder mystery dinner. Everyone in our community group was invited and it was so much fun! The theme was 80's and everyone was assigned a specific part. I got the part of Lany Lou Metton, an Olympic Gold Medalist Gymnast who was also a kleptomaniac. I was pretty excited about this part, except for figuring out what to wear. I was hoping to find a leotard but that didn't work out. I think I found a pretty good outfit though!

I bought the shorts, tank, and flag appliques. I had a the gold medal and borrowed the flag from my parents. My good friend and neighbor Whitney did my makeup. Andy didn't have a specific part so he got to dress up however he wanted. We went for the Maverick look in Top Gun. 

I found this flight suit at Cheap Thrills and was pumped! It was a little small so that is why he tied the arms at his waist. He had the aviators and the dog tags are my dad's. Once we got to the party, we had to switch over into our character. I was unsure of how this would all work but it went really well. It was about a 2 hour party and we had appetizers, dinner, and dessert. We mingled with the other guests to try and figure out whodunit! Here are some of the other guests at the party!

Base Squealey-Rocker

Ivan Pingmold-CEO of Baqua Net Hairspray

Polly Pingmold-Antisocial Wannabe Prom Queen

She didn't have a specific part, so she was a groupie!

Cat Fenafar- Pop Guitarist

Melinda Parnile-Lead Singer of The No No's

Jamey Kakker-Television Evangelist

Kelly Goobalo-Narcoleptic Ballerina and Mogwai Farmer

Turbozone Goobalo-Wannabe Famous Break Dancer

These were just some of the guests at the party. We were given several clues throughout the night to figure out the murder. The victim of the crime was Bo Pontana-NFL Quarterback. He choked on a spoon and died. The murderer ended up being Polly Pingmold. We had a great time at the party! Everyone did a really good job of getting into their character and the costumes were great! Here are two pictures of the girls and guys. 

Chi-Town

Well, it has almost been a month since I went to Chicago with my mom. I have been super busy since we returned and haven't had time to post some pics until now! We had such a great time visiting Sarah, sweet baby Hadley, and Elizabeth. It was just a girls weekend and we had a blast! Mom and I flew in on Friday morning and went to check in at our hotel then hit up Magnificent Mile for some shopping. We went to H&M, Forever 21, Macy's, North Face, and Crate and Barrel. We ate lunch at Cheesecake factory and then decided to do a double decker bus tour. It ended up being one of the best parts of the trip.

Mom and I on top of the double decker bus

One of the 14 stops on the bus tour

The Bean..love it! 

John Hancock Tower. We went up to the observatory and it has the fastest elevator in the world. We took some great pictures but mine did not turn out very good.

The famous Drake Hotel was another attraction on our bus tour.

The famous Chicago sign..we didn't get our picture in front of it :( Those were just a few stops on the bus tour. On Friday night, we met Sarah and her mom at her apartment and went to dinner. I was so excited to see Sarah and her precious baby Hadley.

I wish this picture wouldn't have been so blurry! It was a super sweet picture. I just loved seeing Hadley and holding her, however; it did not give me the urge to have a baby! Ha! We went to dinner at Wildfire and it was delicious! After dinner, we went back to their apartment and mom and I headed back to our hotel. We got up early on Saturday and had breakfast at the Original Pancake House and went back to the bus tour. We went to Navy Pier and had a great time! We couldn't have asked for a better weekend, the weather was perfect!

Mom and I decided to rent a quadcycle to ride around the lake. It was pretty fun but it showed us how out of shape we were! We spent a few hours at Navy Pier and met Sarah for lunch at Genos East Pizza. Mom had never had Chicago style pizza before. After lunch, we shopped some more on Michigan Avenue and called it an early night. We went non-stop all weekend! On Sunday, we woke up and walked down State and then met Sarah at Tavern on Rush for brunch. We got to eat outside and enjoy the fresh air. We then went back to State to do some last minute shopping before heading to the airport. Mom and I had a great time and miss them so much! Sarah and Riley will be moving closer in December and we can't wait to go see them in Little Rock and love on that baby! 

Lake Ouachita

This weekend Andy and I met up with our friends Carly and Dustin at Lake Ouachita. Dustin's parents have a place on the lake so we headed down there for the weekend. We got there late Friday night, built a fire and talked on the deck. We woke up on Saturday and went and rode four wheelers around the lake. We rode for about an hour then went back and watched the Razorback game. We were about to turn it off after halftime but thought we would keep watching. We were so glad that we did! It was a great game in the second half. After the game, we went and rode some more. We decided to find a trail that went by the lake, we thought we found one and decided to try it out. We get close to the lake and realize that we are going to have to cross a little bit of water to get across. I am a little nervous because in my mind I'm thinking...we are going to get stuck. Sure enough, we got stuck! Literally it sunk in the mud. I jumped off and my shoe sunk in the mud as well. I wasn't too thrilled about that. Dustin gets to the other side and is going to try and pull Andy out. Well after 3 or 4 tries I'm really starting to get nervous. It ends up taking all 4 of us to get it out. Dustin and Andy are pushing from behind, I'm pulling from the front, and Carly is gunning it on their 4-wheeler. Finally, it was a success! The girls (I) decided to not ride too much longer after that incident. We went to Cajun Broiler in Hot Springs! It was really good. After dinner we watched the Florida/Alabama game. For some reason, I got really tired after dinner. I watched a little of the game and then fell asleep at 9:00. We woke up this morning packed up and drove home. We had such a great time with them at the lake! Hopefully we can go again!

Fall La La La

This past week I started decorating my house for fall. I know its pretty early but I just couldn't wait! We are going to be out of town for 2 weekends in a row in a few weeks so I decided that I better get to decorating before we leave. I have decorated the inside but not by my front door yet, I will hopefully get to that sometime this week. I wish I could say all of these ideas were my own, but unfortunately they are not! There are a few that are but a lot are from the website, Pinterest. If you have never heard of it you should check it out! It is awesome! Here is some pics of my decor:

All of these pictures were taken with my Iphone so they aren't very good. This is on my entry way table. I made the burlap banner.

On one of my side tables. I love the frame with the verse: In all things, Give Thanks! That was a free download on Pinterest.

On another side table, the pumpkin has a sign that says Autumn Welcome

By the fireplace

My mantle! I love love how this turned out! Sorry it is so dark. I have 2 large clear vases filled with pumpkins and sticks and just leaf garland in between them. The vase idea is from Pinterest.

My kitchen table

Close-up of place setting

Tray on my ottoman. I put burlap in the bottom of tray to add another texture. Love this too! That is all for the inside of the house. I will post more pics when the outside is finished! 

Finally

Ever since we bought our house I have wanted cabinets in our laundry room. I don't quite understand why the builder didn't put any in when building the house. There was definitely plenty of space for some. So last weekend Andy and I made a trip to Lowes to look at some cabinets. We found some unfinished ones that we liked and they were on sale, so I pushed a little harder to purchase them! I know he was tired of hearing me complain about not having any, so he gave in. :) Since Andy is so handy I knew he could paint and hang them in no time. We bought two cabinets to put on the ends of the wall and some boards to put in the middle for shelves. Andy finished it today and I am so excited. Who knew I would get excited about having cabinets and shelves in the laundry room! Here are some pics of the process:

Here is the cabinet before painting them 

Cabinet painted white and ready to be hung

Before shot of the laundry room..

Almost finished!

Here it is! I'm going to get some baskets to put on the shelves for storage purposes. I'm kind of wishing we would have painted the walls :( Oh well! I'm so glad my husband can and will do anything for me. I sure do love him a lot! 

DIY

Last night I helped a friend with a craft project. She had bought an old window and wanted to put fabric in the glass part. I loved this idea but wasn't sure how we were going to make the fabric stick to the glass. We first tried to staple the fabric and that didn't work so then we tried hot glue. It worked really well! Maggie and I both helped Lauren pick out the fabric to use and I love love how it turned out. I'm really wanting to do one of these in my living room. It wasn't a very expensive project and not very time consuming. I may be hunting for a window! Here is the final project:

I just love all of the colors and I think they all compliment each other really well! This was a super fun project and I am so glad I got to help Lauren with it!

In one month...

In one month I will be going here:

CHICAGO!!! I am super excited to get to return to this fun city! My mom and I are going to fly up to Chicago to see one of my good friends and her sweet baby girl! I went to Chicago a few summers ago with Andy and we had such a great time. It is by far one of my favorite cities! My mom has never been so she is even more excited! We are going for a weekend so we are going to have to pack in a lot of things in a short amount of time. I'm sure we will do some shopping, eating, sightseeing, and loving on Sarah's sweet baby girl Hadley. I am already counting down the days!