Happy Thanksgiving! This year we are celebrating in North Carolina with my family. With my sisters scattered in Kentucky and Indiana, it’s special when we can all be together. At the beginning of the month, I found a great way to express our thankful hearts. I follow the blog of  [Emily] Jones Design Company and she provided some free printables to make a thankful tree with some branches from the backyard. We’ve been writing down the things we’re thankful for and asking our guests to do the same. Today, we verbally expressed some of these things around the dinner table including the Lord’s provision and wisdom!

For Halloween this year, Vera had planned to dress as a lady bug. But when it came time for costume parade with Moms for Must Ministries  it was in the upper 70s. The lady bug had a hooded fleece, so we had to improvise and threw together this cowgirl outfit.

Catherine had given her these super cute pink cowgirl boots for her 1st birthday. They are just now fitting her and definitely made the outfit!

Here’s a few pictures from her photo shoot before going to the costume parade. I love seeing her little personality come out!

It seems every house with kids has this dilemma — Where do we store the toys?! We wanted Vera to have access to some toys in an area that we also liked to spend time. Yet, we didn’t want our living room taken over by kids stuff. The solution was to get another Ikea expedit, so Vera could access her toys and be able to put them away herself (a very important detail!).

The bins at IKEA were $5 and unfortunately come in only a few colors. So, I happened to see some at Kroger go on sale for $2 each in a lovely lime green/yellow color. (Side note: I’d like to get a little rug in go infront of the expedit, but I’m still on the hunt.)

Notice the “masterpieces” hanging from a piece of wire? (And, no, Vera didn’t color these, that would be my dear husband) The wire was an Ikea inspiration, but the official “DEKA” cost $7, whereas mine was done for free with materials on hand.

As we installed our Ikea shelf, we left the top screws out a little bit so we could wrap some wire around them. Then finished screwing them in to secure the wire. I had some mini, yellow, plastic close pins in my craft stash, too.

The framed art (actual masterpieces!) were a Christmas gift from my college friend, Janna, now an artist in NYC.

The safari-looking mug and the zebra were a gift to Vera from my college roommate, Catherine, who was in Africa last year. (And, is getting ready to go back in a few days!)

We’re happy with the result of what was once an area exploding with toys. So for, its been easy to maintain and adds a little color between our kitchen and living room.

We finally made it out to Taylor-Brawner Park where the food trucks gather every Tuesday night. Lots of kids, food, and live music. Thankfully there is a playground, so one of us could stand in line while the other played with our very active child.

We decided on Mix’d up, which had some killer fries and different types of burgers. I chose the lamb burger topped with tzatziki… yum!

Here’s a few pictures from our night out together…

we support our local artists

 

 

We counted 9 windows in our house that needed some kind of window treatment. When you calculate the cost of curtains and curtain rods – it adds up! We did some brainstorming to come up with the cheapest possible option. On average, curtain rods cost about $20, depending on the size of the window and how fancy you want the finials.

We were able to outfit nine windows for an average of $4.11 a window. The total cost us $37 – where store bought ones would have totaled $180!

How’d we do it? We found this blog with some fairly easy how-to directions. Here’s the supplies we bought:

• 1/2 inch EMT (electrical metallic tubing) conduit cut to length
• 1/2 inch conduit straps
• 2.5 inch L brackets
• Nut and bolt to attach conduit strap to L bracket
• Spray paint, optional
• Screws and wall anchors (we had these on hand)

The trip to Home Depot took a little while (especially with an animal-cracker-eating-16-month-old in the cart!). But we finally got the EMT cut to our measurements and picked out some white spray paint for some of the rooms.

Brian did a great job installing each of the sets, and I’ve been trying to find the right curtains for each room. I’m thinking of making some burlap chevron ones for the craft room… I will let you know when I get to it!

 

 

sitting with the best “mayo” picker around

One mega perk about our rental house is the amazing garden. We have fruit trees (apple, asian pear, fig), berries (blueberries, strawberries, snozzberries (jk!), asparagus, leeks, oregano, LOTS of tomatoes (cherry & heirloom, and lots of collards. Yum! I hope we can continue the planting next year, too.

What a blessing to reap the harvest. In the garden and also in this season of life. Galations 5 talks about “the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” (5:8-9. NIV) Sometimes the only “reaping” it seems I see is knowing that I’ve been obedient to the Lord through a difficult time. And believe me — God is enough! But, sometimes we reap things in this life after a season of waiting. Looking out at our garden reminds me of that — we are in a season of reaping the Lord’s blessings.

We love IMPACT360 weddings, especially when it turns into a reunion with other alums. We traveled to Fort Payne, Alabama, to see Haley wed Alexander on Saturday. Haley was a honorary bridesmaid in our wedding and HUGE help generating ideas and helping pull them off. It was a joy to be present at her big day, too. If you have two minutes, check out their super cute save the date video. Don’t you just love their style?

We arrived on Friday night in time for a late supper at our hosts- friends of Haley’s family. We enjoyed getting to see a bit of Fort Payne on Saturday before the wedding. Brian took Vera to the playground in town and I picked out a gift for the couple off their registry at a local antique shop, Myrtle Janes.

The Saturday night wedding was simply lovely — the ceremony was at barn and the reception was outside on Haley’s parents property.

Vera did okay at the ceremony – except for saying “eyeball” repeatedly as she pointed at Brian’s eyes. And, between eating goldfish, she was sticking them under Brian’s suit jacket lapel and saying, “bye, bye!” to each one. That’s what you want as the background music during your wedding, right?

 

 

 

Haley’s dress was hand-made and the bridesmaids all wore similar, but unique vintage-looking dresses. It’s fun to go to weddings and comment how much the event resembles the bridge and groom – this wedding was definitely one of those! Check back here for their professional wedding pictures (and note that Heather Hester Photography took the couples shot above!)

The reception was a smorgasbord of food and laughter. We loved catching up with I360 people who live all across the nation. The cake spread was impressive and we loved the homemade jam in tiny mason jars as thank you favors. Vera and Brian danced their first daddy-daughter dance together. so cute!

Confession: I have a thing against wood paneling. I feel claustrophobic. can’t. breathe. want to get out.

And, it makes me think of the 60s. A good era, nonetheless, but the design doesn’t always jive with my modern/vintage vibe. The retro stove in our kitchen? Rockin. The wood paneling room? Not cool.

One condition I had about moving forward with our rental house was painting over the wood. Thankfully, the owners agreed it was hideous. (well, they didn’t exactly use that word, but they were eager to let us do all work to paint it).

I asked for some advice on facebook – What’s the best way to paint over wood paneling? I got some great responses! In the end, we chose to put the extra effort in and sand the walls before painting them. I think this was a wise decision, even though it was a long 2 hours of both of us sanding. I walked away with blisters. ouch.

We used the same paint the owners had used on the other walls – a Behr paint and primer in one. It was expensive to buy the extra gallons, but it went on super smooth. And, we were thankful for friends Phil and Heidi, who let us highjack our evening with them and devote it to painting til 10pm. true friends, right there!

We also had to do something about the wagon wheel nights. They came down when we painted and were replaced with some Ikea track lighting.

The room is still a work in progress, but much more livable and bright with the walls painted and lights updated. My stained glass piece also fits well in the window to the sunroom.

Here’s some other purchases we made:

- a desk at goodwill for $15
- 2×3 rug from Family Dollar for $6
- turquoise curtain panels from Ross for $6/piece

We were able to reuse our barn wood shelves that we made for the Brumby. I’m still looking for a little bench or chair to go by the door to the sunroom and maybe a little table or something for another corner. But, I’m happy the room has come this far! The room has gone for being a storage room (at best) to our master bedroom. Success!

I’m so thankful we had a few days to sneak away before Brian started as operator. We went to one of the most relaxing places we could think of — Brian’s grandparent’s lakehouse in north Georgia We left after church on Sunday, and snapped a few pictures in a dress Nancy H. made for Vera. We think she’s pretty stinkin’ cute in it!

It was the perfect rainy weekend to stay inside and snuggle up with a cup of tea. We were able to do some fiction reading, play board games, watch Elmo’s world, rent some DVDs for when Vera went to bed, and color some pictures.

The only time we left the house was when we did some geocaching (in between rain showers) nearby. It was a pretty successful day – we found 3 of 3! Vera did get into a little mischief being cooped up in the house… see below!

Taste of Smyrna was the perfect way to test out the local food joints. We found a few we want to go back to, and a few that we will be staying away from. And… don’t judge… We came hungry and just couldn’t pass up the Deep Fried Brownie stand…

Vera enjoyed the live music and spent her time dancing in the grass and pointed out all the dogs and balloons that wandered by. We tried a little Cowlicks frozen yogurt – and I think Vera had more than I did!

The food was fun, but we really enjoyed spending a leisurely Saturday afternoon together. We’re so thankful to be grounded here in Smryna!