Happy Fall Y'all!

Happy Fall Y'all! One of my favorite southern sayings for the season. I must admit when August hit it was all I could do not to decorate for fall. I was itching to do something different in the house. But alas, 95 degree weather and high humidity will not only melt your makeup off, it also deters you from decorating too soon. But when it was September. Game on. Plus there's nothing like throwing a baby shower featuring a ton of your husband's clients as guests to motivate a gal. 

So let's talk the simple decorations I did this year, both in and out, in hopes that it might inspire. First the outside. Because we don't have any true landscaping around the front of the house yet (we are waiting for the money tree to grow before we plant anything else), I use my pots to add color. 

I try not to use too many mums because they don't last all season but I did snag a few from Walmart for $4 a piece. Usually you can get good plants at the box stores if you grab them when they first come in. Since they were cheap, I grabbed several in yellow and deep burgandy. 

We (and by we I mean me and the boys) also finally planted the hydrangea in the corner near our office windows (pictured above). We've had it for years and it finally outgrew it's pot. But this is a perfect spot for it! 

The porch got an updated face lift with new plants, a fall sign and some faux pumpkins (in the lantern) plus I moved the wrought iron tea cart to the corner for height. It spruces that empty corner up plus it's a better spot for the cart itself. It used to be randomly under the carport collecting junk. 

My favorite pot is in front of the porch. It's a mixture of a slow growing evergreen, lettuce, kale, snap dragons, violas and some dusty miller. I thought about adding some ivy but this area gets too much sun. As it grows in the colors and textures continue to compliment. It makes me smile.

The front door got a much needed update too. My poor flowers from the summer were toast. Literally they fried. So with some inspiration from a few Pinterest pics, my mom and I created this, which I love. 

And because we had some extra pots and violas, I put a few around the driveway and front light post. I prefer violas to pansies because they don't require dead-heading and last longer. They tend to bloom much better through the winter too. 

Of course none of this could have happened without my little helpers who helped me plant all the flowers. Perhaps that's why it took us all day! A few slugs lost their life but no other bugs or animals were hurt in the making of this garden. Cole *may* have loved the slug to death. Although he still says it was just tired and went to sleep.

So let's move on in to the 'ol hacienda and see what I did in there...I won't share every detail for each room but I'll try to give you some glimpses. For the kitchen, a few glittery wooden pumpkins and some fall leaves spruced up the sink. I also have a few things along the countertop. Most of the countertop items are Halloween so those will come down tomorrow. 

The dining room is a favorite because...well it's just one of my favorite rooms. Ignore the blur on the right side. Clearly it's time for a new camera. 

A few ghosts and some fall foliage over the mirror...

I bought a fabulous tiered decorative thingy at Home Goods. It hurt my feelings at first but the possibilities for this are endless so it had me at hello-buy-me. Seriously. I'm pretty sure it said that in the store. Or maybe that was Anna M. 

Some real pumpkins and gourds, some glittery faux pumpkins, foliage and even a few birds made this a great tablescape. I made the table runner. It's just some burlap ribbon (the extra wide kind) rolled out and cut to the right length. And it was 50% off at Hobby Lobby compared to the $30-40 ones that were actual table runners. 

The living room was simple, a few pumpkins strategically placed to make it feel like fall. Again, most of what I put out will work through Thanksgiving with just a few Halloween highlights. 

The mantle was hard to capture due to the light but it's a simple mix of faux foliage and pumpkins. Certainly one of my favorite ways of dressing up the mantle. I think one of the reasons I like it so much is because it matches my colors so well. 

If you haven't decorated for fall, it's not too late! So many of the stores already have Christmas out and fall items are 50% off. Snag some faux pumpkins and foliage and you have all kinds of options. Tuck some around a few pictures on a table; swap a pumpkin where a small knick-nack might go; change out some pictures for pictures of the kids in leaves. The options are endless. It makes the house feel so cozy as weather starts to get chilly! 

I'll leave you with a picture of the food table from the shower. Why? Because I'm hungry. 

School Buses and Wreaths

You may have noticed through a few pictures on here or by driving by our house that we've been slowly trying to make some updates to the outside, also known as the-yard-that-looks-like-no one-lives-there or the-yard-where-kids-toys-grow, because that's what it sometimes feels like. We spent the past 8 months working diligently on the inside of our house and haven't done too much to the outside. Alas! That is starting to change. 

My first few updates were just to brighten up the outside, starting with painting our exterior doors a fun yellow. Daniel kindly refers to it as School Bus Yellow or School Yard Yellow. Others, who obviously have much better taste, compliment me on the brightly colored door. It was a bold choice but that's exactly what I was aiming for - something different. But first let's talk about what it looked like when we first bought the house. Yep. Pretty bad. Do you even see a door?!

The tree is removed, leaving us with a big bald patch, and the shrubs are also gone. I'll be back with more about that later, once we finish a project we've been working on for a few weeks. But I'm digressing...back to the front door...here it is with a coat of Sherwin Williams Decisive Yellow. Name sort've fits me, don't you think?  Maybe that's what drew me to it! 

I absolutely love the color and love that it's different. Not something you can see on every other house like the red, navy, hunter green, black or the other "safe colors" as I like to call them. 

But let's talk about that wreath for a moment...

I realized that after taking down my Valentine Wreath that I didn't really have anything to put up for Spring and Easter. So off to Hobby Lobby I went. I had a few ideas in mind for options. I looked up a few on Pinterest and decided to keep it simple. 

Here is how to make one of the easiest wreaths. 

Materials: 

1. straw wreath 
2. ribbon (3 spools got me around the wreath plus more for the bow)
3. hot glue

Start with your straw wreath and I chose NOT to take the plastic wrapper off. You can see it wasn't very expensive, only $4.99. 

Glue one end of the ribbon to the wreath then tightly wrap it around and around, having the edges slightly overlap.  

When you get finished with one spool, simply glue it down and then start with another. You will repeat this until the entire wreath is covered. Foolishly I thought two spools would do and panicked followed by me frantically running around Hobby Lobby until I found the last one left. So buy three spools of wired ribbon and avoid the drama and maybe even some crazy "does she have rabies" looks from other customers. 

Once that's done, all you have to do is either make a bow or buy a bow and viola! I chose to make a bow using 4-5 different ribbons so it was nice and colorful. Any florist could also help you make a bow if that's not your forte. 

The best thing about this type of wreath is that you can make one for any occasion...
       Memorial Day/Fourth of July - red, white and blue
       Baby Shower - pinks or blues
       Football Season - pick your team's colors

Really, the sky's the limit! 

Now since then my lovely friends have given me a custom monogrammed wooden wreath which I painted a watermelon color (another bold choice I'm told). I absolutely love it and now have it hung with a suction cup wreath holder (the big, black Hi-I'm-holding-this-wreath-up holder wasn't doing it for me). 

I put a grapevine wreath behind it to add depth (and to keep it from knocking on my door every time we opened and closed it.) I need to get a bigger grapevine but I wanted to test this one out first. 

Overall I just love how much happier the bright yellow doors make the house feel. 

I loved it so much that I actually painted the back door last week. It was not part of the original plan but I had leftover paint and decided the plain white wasn't inspiring or cheerful. This door is open all the time so the dogs have access to the backyard through their doggy door. It was just sort of bleh when it was open. But now...

Cheery! I can now enter the kitchen and see a happy yellow instead of bleh. Look how much happier and colorful it is now! 

(cue Pharrell's Happy video)

You may have noticed the eyesore grey concrete floor on our side porch. I have plans to paint this over the summer once I figure out the best process and materials. Anyone else painted over a painted concrete floor with any success? I'm all ears! 

It looks like this now...

Not really attractive or the best color...but baby steps. In the meantime, I'll keep smiling when I see my happy yellow doors and cheery flowers! 

Mud-tastic

Warning to my fan base of one: this post has tons of pictures. It has to in order to capture the true essence of the event.

What event you ask? The USMC Mudrun. One of the most popular mudruns in the southeast. I've done this race twice before on their old course but never done the new one (well new for me, it's been at this site for a few years but I was rather occupied having babies during that time). So a few weekends ago I took on the challenge.

I apparently had a moment of insanity back in the spring and asked if anyone wanted to join me (you have to have a team of 4). We signed up...we paid...I was locked in.

The race is 6 miles with 40+ obstacles. I was locked in and panicked.

Why the panic? Well we happened to be going through a renovation, have two toddlers, work full-time, have what seemed like a 1,000 cold viruses hit our house (I was on a Z-pack just 1 week prior to the race) and life was just plain busy. I was convinced I couldn't do the race but am too competitive to back out.

We did have one original team member have to back out due to an injury so I begged asked Lisa to join us (she trains with Daniel and I knew would be the anchor to our team). Thanks, Lisa, for caving saying yes!

Before we proceed to the main event, I must call out Missey. In fact all of us called her out on race morning. Of all the people to have a little make-up on before the race, you'd think it'd be me. Nope. It was Missey.

We might have teased her for a few minutes.

And as you go along viewing these pictures, please note Dana. She will ALWAYS have this cute little smile on her face. Never left. Me? Not so much.

So let's get started, shall we? Here we are happy at the venue, nice and clean.

Perhaps even feeling a little spunky. Go team "14 kids and counting" AKA #662

 

I distinctly remember at the start line shaking. Perhaps some would call it a tremble. Asking myself "why did I sign up for this!?" If you're asking for words of encouragement at the beginning of a race, don't ask me to be on your team. The six mile distance was what was intimidating me. I had been so busy it was all I could do to make it to the gym 2-3x per week much less fit in any runs. 

 

Off the races we go, ladies and gentleman. Well we weren't really racing, we signed up for the "just want to finish" category, but you know what I mean.  

My sweet husband volunteered to come take pictures. He worked his way back to the middle of the course and literally ran beside us the rest of the way (sans muddy obstacles). Husband of the day week. He caught up with us just after we had come from a thick, muddy obstacle where you climbed under logs in a pit. (Thanks, Lisa, for suggesting the side that was the thickest, nastiest pit) Can't even tell I have a pink shirt on can you? Yep. We were covered. So much so that we all felt we had at least 10 extra lbs on us.

Thankfully several obstacles later we came to a more watery obstacle to rinse off.

Lisa was our pacer. Can you tell?

There were plenty of difficult obstacles and some fun ones. It took lots of team work the entire time, especially for a team of all girls who don't have the upper body strength to pull ourselves over most of the obstacles. And teams helped teams as well. At one point I was on my hands and knees helping a team of guys over a wall (I was their step ladder)  #GIJane.

The inverted wall:

More tall walls (as in really tall):

 

 

The rope ladder:

Over/Under Logs:

A disgusting black tar mud pit. Pretty sure it had more than just mud in it:

 The tires:

 

There was a long (and I mean long) creek we had to walk through with tons of logs, stumps, etc. to trip over. Just ask Lisa. Her face says it all. 

 

 

We did have fun, despite what my face may say in this picture...

And a few hiccups along the way. The tall sets of logs were troublesome until we figured out the best team approach. At first it went like this...

 

"Just step on my leg and hop over."

"Wait I can't get all the way over! It's slippery. Can I get a hand!?"

(screaming) "I'm stuck!"

Splat.

She wasn't the only one to have a spill...

 

 

But way to get back on that horse, Missey!

 



In the end we figured out a system and were able to fly over the rest. Figuratively. Not literally. We're not that good people.

At each obstacle there were Marines who monitored. If you didn't complete the obstacle you could take a time penalty or their penalty. There was one obstacle we didn't even try, the Tarzan Swing. So instead we had to do all sorts of fun things (squats, burpies, push-ups, etc.) until they said otherwise.

At one point I'm thinking "like, can we be done?!"

And Dana's still smiling...or perhaps laughing at me. I'm not sure which.

Perhaps one of the tougher obstacles was the rope over the water. You had to climb on and cross the huge pit of water just on a small, wet, muddy rope. Here's me thinking "Now how in the heck am I going to do this?"

I did manage to get myself up on the ropes and go a short distance (that's me on the second rope and Lisa is closest to you). But then I fell because my ankle was stuck and it happened to be on my bad knee. Wasn't worth the injury so I dropped to the pit.

This picture gives you better perspective (this is Dana in the pic).

 

Towards the end the obstacles are created just to torture you. One in particular only I seemed to hate, were the hills. You had to run up, run down, run up, run down. The following pictures say it all. Words are not necessary.

 

Dana

Lisa

 

Missey



Me

Proof positive that pictures speak a thousand words.

The last obstacle was the fireman's carry. Essentially two team members had to carry the other two team members. Because you know, carrying your own body weight wasn't enough.



I have never been so excited to see a finish line! I was so tired I could barely even smile.

We were battered and bruised but in the end we were proud of our accomplishment. And a few of us might have been shaking from exhaustion.

 



I swore on the course I wasn't doing it again, but I've already been trying to persuade my friend, Jaime, and her sister, Mandy, to come down and do it with me. Come on girls!