Our new rug...

We found this rug at Target and got a deal on it because it had a small flaw. You can't really notice it so I'm really happy with it. I got it with my gift card Mario's mom mailed to me, Thanks Bonnie! :) I think it looks great with the colors of our furniture in our sun room. And to think a year ago this room was so UGLY, we just used it for storage. But after months of painting, laying new floor and decorating (my favorite part) it finally feels finished and we love hanging out in it. All I need is a few chairs for my table! Have a good week, we are enjoying our first snowfall of this season!!! ~Amy

More Harvest Party Fun...

Our turkey craft was a lot of fun. You just use a pinecone, acorn, feathers, red pipe cleaner, and of course some eyes... Oh and a hot glue gun for parents to use only of course!!! But the kids seemed to like putting the feathers and eyes on them. :)

I ran out of time so I ordered pumpkin cookies from our local bakery and they were so good.

Our Dining room waiting for all the kids to arrive!!!

I found these HUGE pine cones at an Antique store by our house. (Paula start brainstorming a place for a few because I'm bringing you some) They are a lot of fun to decorate with...

Our Movie, outside!

We had our fire pit going making s'mores and all the kids seemed to really enjoy the movie. We also did popcorn balls and hot chocolate. It turned out to be a lot of fun. We will have to do this again. All the kids liked their first outdoor movie as you can tell by the pictures! I think this was the best part of our Harvest party.

Harvest Party Time!!!

Emma playing the game pin the nose on the pumpkin!!! The kids seemed to like this game... Emma dressed up like Tinker Bell but took her wings off. We were lucky the weather turned out to be very nice. Especially since today we had our first SNOW!!! Just a trace but we know the colder temps are on the way. I have to say I'm a little excited. :)

Emma decorating a pumpkin with a pipe cleaner as the curly stem and rhinestones stickers for extra drama!!! And of course no pumpkin is complete without a little purple glitter glue! We had a lot of fun decorating these pumpkins.

I had the boys put bat and pumpkin foam stickers on their pumpkin stems and eyes. Ethan's finished product and he looks pretty happy with his creation.

Emma decided to make another pumpkin using a little bit of everything, looks good.

More Birthday Fun...

The kids were so nice to design a Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake for me... She was a favorite of mine when I was Emma's age. :)

My Birthday fun!!!

My friend Paula was so sweet to make these neat coasters for my birthday and I love them!!! She is so talented right down to the packaging... Thank You Paula!

The last of our Pumpkin's

Our weather has been perfect, I know the cooler weather is just around the corner so we are definitly enjoying every day. Ethan is really proud of his big pumpkin (he has his arm around it) we went ahead and cut it yesterday. It didn't get as big as we thought but he's very happy with it... We are planting our lavendar seeds this week. Hopefully next spring the seeds will grow as well as the pumpkins. Have a great week. ~Amy

Mario painting, painting, and some more painting.

We have been working on this old 1937 cottage we bought 2 years ago all summer. This house was in VERY bad shape. Our neighbors can't believe all the work we have done in such a short amount of time. It was somewhat of a "fixer upper". I don’t know if we would be able to do it again... Anyone who has taken on an old house remodel knows the dedication that comes with owning it. We have painted all wood work, built-ins, walls, and ceilings inside and now the whole exterior of the house including all trim work. I still look at it and go WOW we have totally changed the look of this house. It has been a long road but it's nice that we can say we did all the work ourselves plus all the money we saved not contracting the work out. I wish I had a before picture here of this exterior wall, but I think I was embarrassed to even take one. This side was peeling so bad that some of the wood was in very bad shape. So after doing some major work to the wood we now have finished painting the house our deep grey color and the trim a bright white, I love the finish of the paint we bought. We are so glad our painting project is winding down, finally!!! Maybe our sweat equity will pay off someday. :)

The Life of a cat!!!

Now that our black and white cat Cindy is feeling much better she is back to doing what she does best, taking care of our other fat lazy cat Anne. Anne NEVER gives herself a bath, which is a little unusual for a cat, so Cindy every few weeks will break down and give her a good bath... Looks like good cat times.

Getting ready for our Harvest Party!!!

We are hosting a Harvest Party in a few weeks so the kids decided it would be fun to start getting our sunroom ready. We bought these cute pumpkin lanterns at Michael’s and the orange tulle at Hancock's just to fill in. I got the idea out of a magazine but improvised a little. We have more to add so this is just a little preview. Have a wonderful week and enjoy the beauty fall has to offer with the leaves changing and football games to watch or in Mario’s case the Chicago Cub’s, which they lost Sat. night. :( It's a great time to enjoy with your families. ~Amy

The table is getting a little small!!!

The kids were playing with Transformers and Polly's and the bench tipped over, luckily no one was hurt! But I think we will need to invest in a BIGGER picnic table next year. We had a few days’ of colder temps so we had to break out our coats and hats. I went shopping with the kids Friday and bought some new clothes. I try to buy only sale stuff, so I can stretch my budget...

Thank You Paula!!!

My best friend from OKC made this and mailed it to me and I love it! She did a great job. The paper she made it with matches my wall color, she's so good. She should sell them on Esty. I’m looking forward to our "Paula and Amy" shopping week next month! Our husbands will have to get prepared for us to spend a little money!!!

Fall is officially here!!!

Our pumpkins are all so fun. I really like our white pumpkins. I noticed at our local grocery store pumpkins and corn stalks are really expensive. I think more people will probably start growing their own gardens next year.
Our Kale is getting so BIG. I love how full they have gotten. I can't believe its already October. Our family has been sick the last few weeks. Mario started it, then I caught it, then Ethan so we have been house ridden for a few weeks but finally we are all starting to feel much better! Yeah!
This is our last pumpkin; we are letting this one grow a little bit longer because Ethan and Emma want to see how big it will get... It has turned a nice orange color. It was supposed to grow anywhere from 200 to 500 lbs depending. But I think this one got off to a late start so I don't think it will get that big. Whew, how would we get rid of one that BIG!!!