Totally Random Tuesday

I cannot believe it is the last day of September!  Where did the month go?  It has flown by!  Fall started last week even if it doesn't feel like it.  I was looking on my phone and noticed I had a bunch of random photos I needed to post so I thought the last day of September would be a good day!

Kate has really gotten into painting and writing the last few days.  It is fun to see how creative she is.  She enjoyed painting on our wedding napkins.  We have several boxes of them so they are a good thing for her to paint!

 Kate's school picture turned out really cute!  Love her sweet smile!

The kids have been asking to jump in leaves.  Our trees are not really that big so I didn't think that would be an option.  But thanks to very little rain and very hot conditions one of our trees started dropping its leaves.  I racked them into a little pile and the kids enjoyed jumping in them.  Such a fun fall thing to do!  Love that our sweet neighbor Anna came over to join in the fun!

 Matt joined me to pick up Kate from school today.  They just looked so cute together and I had to take their picture.

 Today was taco Tuesday!  We had the best night at the dinner table.  Lots of laughs and great conversations!  It made my heart smile.  I love our sweet little family.  After dinner Ben wrote a list of everything he was thankful for.  Talk about making my heart smile even more.

 Kate and I enjoyed stopping for frozen yogurt one day last week.  I fell in love with caramel pretzel cheesecake yogurt.  I mean it is awesome!  I have even been dreaming about it.  I must go back and get some ASAP!

 Loved seeing my kiddos working hard in my office last week while I was working.  I am so thankful they are flexible and adaptable.

 I was able to get decorated for fall last week.  It doesn't feel like fall so that always makes it hard but I did it anyway.  I decided to add a little extra fall fun on the mantle.  I printed out pictures of the kids in all their Halloween costumes through the years and put them in my open back frame.  So cute!!  I love seeing the fun we have had through the years.

I guess that gets us all caught up!  Can't wait for tomorrow and October!  It is going to be a great month.

The New Music Room

Time for another blog reveal of one of the new rooms...  the new music room.  It has always been the study and I am having a hard time calling in the music room but the kids jumped on that.  They are always calling in the music room now.  This room turned out pretty much like I planned (unlike the dining room) and I love it!  It is actually the room that is getting the most compliments when people come visit.  It looks so different than it did before so I think that is why.  Here is the view from the foyer.  

 We kept the 2 chairs as a little reading/sitting area.  It was a long, hard search but I finally found the perfect curtains at Lowes.  They are a navy and cream geometric just like I wanted.  I found the little navy garden stool at Target on the clearance rack.  It is perfect for holding our books.  I still need to get some orange pillows for the chairs.

 We moved the bookcase over to the wall opposite of the doors.  It has become the perfect focal point of the room.  We put our Auburn diplomas and Auburn artwork up around the room.

 My favorite part of the room in the navy accent wall.  It is awesome!!!  The piano is perfect in the room along with our other instruments.  My next project is to work on the gallery wall to go above the piano.  Can't wait to do it!

 We were able to get rid of the carpet in the room and extend the hardwoods.  They are beautiful!  I was so excited when my mom found the perfect rug for the room!

The room turned out pretty much like the project board so that is good!!

Half Day Friday!

Friday was a half day of school for Ben (random I know).  I love getting to spend extra time with my little guy so we planned a fun outing after school.  We went and got Chic fil a (along with half of Huntsville).  Then we went to the Botanical Gardens to check out the scarecrows.  We had a BLAST!!!  It was still a little warm but not unbearable.  We met up with some of our life group friends and just had the best time.  Fall at the gardens is such a fun time!

 Frozen was of course a big theme among the scarecrows.  I think there were 4 Frozen ones.

 We wondered through the sorghum maze.  The kids loved it and I was nervous trying to keep up with them.  

 The Friday fun continued with dinner with the Wrights and a relaxing evening on our screened in porch.  Thankful for sweet friends who we can call up last minute and just hang out with.  It was the perfect evening.

I was really bad the rest of the weekend and didn't take any pictures.  Oops.  Oh well.  That's the way it goes sometimes.  We had yard sales, soccer games, Auburn game, church, life group and packing.  We are going to have a crazy week leading up to an amazing week!!!

More Family Pictures

Wordless Wednesday

A Night of Soccer

I know I have been posting a lot about soccer these days but that is what we seem to be doing most nights.  I have been looking forward to tonight since I got their game schedules.  They both had a game so I could a picture of them together in their uniforms.  So cute!!  Both the Fireballs and Red Bulls did awesome tonight.  Proud of my little soccer players.  

Dot Mom

This past weekend was the Lifeway Dot Mom conference.  I have been lucky enough to attend 2 other times so was super excited to get to back again this year.  LeeAnn, Ashley and I have been planning to go back since last year.  It is such an encouraging conference.  We got to sit under some amazing teaching and participate in wonderful worship.  I learned so much and came home so energized to be a better wife and mother.  Angie Smith was one of the main teachers and she is just awesome!!  She taught on letting go of the control we have as mothers and letting God have control of our children.  A message I needed to hear!  

 We also got to see some of our favorite other blogger moms.  We might have slightly stalked Kelly from Kelly's Korner and her best friend Laurie.  They were super nice and talked to us.  That is the back of their heads because we weren't brave enough to ask for a picture with them.

 Besides the conference, the best part of the weekend was hanging out with these girls!!  I am so thankful for our very special friendship!  Not many people are still best friends with their high school best friends 20 years later.  We can go from uncontrollably laughing one minute to crying the next to encouraging one another in our relationship with God the next.  It is so wonderful.  We enjoyed eating out with no kids and staying up late.  Love these girls and so thankful for some time together.

 Matt did an amazing job of holding down the home front while I was gone.  So thankful for him allowing me to go.  Sounds like him and the kids had a great time.  They watched movies, ran errands and went to parties.  My mom was sweet enough to take Kate (along with Paige and her grandmother) to see the play Pinkalicious.  Sounds like they had a great time.

I loved getting home yesterday to be with "my people" again.  I always enjoy a little time away but am thankful when I get home!

Dining Room Redo

I know it has been a while but I finally am getting around to posting some pictures of our new dining room.  I am so excited at how the dining room turned out.  I never really loved our old dining room.  It just didn't fit our style and the colors just weren't us.  The new dining room is beautiful and calming and fits well with our family.  It turned out nothing like I thought/planned it would but it is so much better! Here is the view from the foyer.  I don't have much up on the walls yet but I still love it.  

 I painted the small antique sideboard.  It was a dark wood before and I thought it would look good with a little update.  The cream looks really well.  No one ever noticed the piece before but since I have painted it everyone that walks in the room notices it.

 I took the chair covers off the chairs and let the beautiful wood and scroll work show.  Our table is from the 60's we think and I love that the design is now back in style.  We looked high and low for the perfect fabric to recover the chairs.  Nothing was just perfect until I found this fabric on fabric.com.  It was not at all the colors I was thinking but I just loved it.  So I totally changed the plan and decided to paint the walls gray.  Gray was the one color I said I would not do.  I really do love it though.  It is cool calming.  I also got a new rug since I totally changed up the colors.  I found this perfect one at Target for a great deal.

 My splurge for the room are these lamps.  I did get them at Home Goods so they weren't too expensive just more than I would normally pay for lamps but I do have to say that they make the room for me.  I love how they are glitzy and fun.  I still need a few more things on the sideboard and on the walls around the mirror but I am loving how this area is coming together!

 I spent literally hours searching for curtains.  It is really hard to fine 108 inch curtains that are not crazy expensive.  I thought I might have to get them custom made.  At the last minute I found these beautiful cream faux silk curtains at Pier One.  They are perfect.  Just what I was looking for.  They make the room seem bigger.

 As we were putting the finishing touches on the room I remembered a really special picture that I had that would look great in the room.  When my grandmother passed away last year, I got this picture of my great grandmother.  It was taken around 1900 and this is the original.  The colors could not be more perfect for the room.  It is a beautiful picture with great history.

 And one more view of the whole room.  I just love it!!!  Still lots more stuff to go up on the walls but even without it it is great!

 And just for fun this is what I thought the room was going to look like.  Ha!!  Doesn't look anything like this but I'm so glad as it is way better!

Family Pictures

We got together with Kelly and Andrew and got my mom some new family pictures made for her birthday.  It had been almost 2 years since we had pictures of all of us (and we have added a new family member).  We had a friend, Ashley Turnbull, take them and she did an amazing job!!  They turned out awesome.  There are quite a few of them so I will take several posts over the next few weeks to share all of them.  They make me smile just to look at them all!