Trick-or-Treat!

Rachel was not up for posing in her cute little Cinderella costume-but her cousin was posing enough for the both of them.


Rach wouldn't pose next the the jack-o-lanterns either-because the one with a spider carved into it was "Too scary." (I think that means that the haunted house is out for her too).

We made the rounds by all the trunks in the parking lot and right when we got back to our car -and were sitting down in our lawn chairs to take a turn handing out candy...we realized that little Buzz Lightyear was pooped out and (shhh...don't tell) but we jumped in the car and headed home with our candy. I felt safe since hardly anyone in the ward knows who I am- so either I will sneak by-or I will become know behind my back as the girl who showed up to trunk or treat-ate all the food, filled my kids bags up with candy, and then took off early before handing any candy out myself. lol! I'll keep you posted.

Perfect Sisters day excursion

Perfect for a sisters day-because our husbands would not have enjoyed this outing-hitting up the grand opening of a new outdoor mall. My big sis Lacie and her kids came out to spend the day with us and after cheering Rachel on at her soccer game we headed out to the mall. It is set up more like an outlet mall in kind of a quincy market/downtown crossing kind of way (except in the suburbs instead of in the happening downtown). Overall the trip was a success-we did not get any shopping done-but sadly enough -it was energizing to just be near all those stores! ha ha!

Views of the walkways & A water play fountain, & two different play grounds

Waited in a really long line to get their faces painted-then tried to watch some STOMP-style street performers-but Rach just complained that it was hurting her ears (party pooper).

Then we got in line for some free updos at this hip little girls clothing store. Apparently-pink and purple sparkly chairs, tv screens for mirrors and TONS of glitter are the secret to getting a child to sit still long enough to attempt any 'do' more ornate than a pony tail. The line was long again-but I knew we would get out use out of it since she was dressing up as Cinderella tonight for Halloween Part I.

Gorgeous!

Definitely think I am going to steal this idea to paint Rachel's room. They even glued rhinestones in the middle of the flowers for some extra girly fun.

How else do you think we kept the little brother entertained while the girls were getting all dolled up?

White or.....white?

Here is Rach at her second soccer game -starting to figure it all out. The last one is of her pouting when it was time to give someone else a turn at being goalie.

I completed my first home decorating project-painting the mantel white. I look at it often during the day-and tell myself how cute it turned out :-)

So obviously -with all the apartment living in my past it has been a while since I have headed to the store to buy paint. I had a few minutes after the soccer game and thought I could 'pop' into home depot to buy some paint for the mantel-because it would be easy to pick out since I knew that I wanted to paint it white-unlike the colors of the walls that I have still not decided on. I am sure you can imagine the shock i experienced when I got to the paint isle to find that I would have to choose between: ultra pure white, decorator white, polar bear white, swiss coffee, cottage white, off white, table linen, snow cloud, candlelight ivory or just plain 'white'. WHAT???!!! So what did I do? One of the covers showed a mantel painted white, the fine print revealed it was "swiss coffee" -so I confidently said, "i'll take swiss coffee." At which point I was asked which 'sheen' i wanted. I know I did not want flat - however I was only aware of two other chioces (semi-gloss and high gloss) I thought I wanted semi-gloss until I was informed there was infact: eggshell, satin, sateen. Good grief! Unfortunately my little cheat sheet did not reveal which 'sheen' was used so I was forced to do 'eeny miney moe' to decide on sateen.

After all that, and then having to spend all days saturday painting this small mantle--I think the one thing that I learned was....I am definitely hiring painters to do the rest of the painting.

Day at the pumpkin patch

I have been missing Fall in new England so I was so excited when a friend called and asked if I was up for going to a pumpkin patch. Next week we may even venture a little further away from home in order to find one that is on more of a farm than ...well...a church lawn. :-) Not quite what we were expecting --is this wagon what they meant by hayride?? Oh well-we got lots of cute pictures.

Rach on a hunt for the perfect pumpkin

Proof we are fun moms -don't we look fun?

This sign is especially for you Kim. Thanks Chanda-for pointing it out!

This sign was posted as we were leaving the parking lot-

What type of church did you say this was?

Still a bargain shopper at heart

When I saw these misfits at the Roomstore Clearance center with dings and scratches (and slashed prices!!) it was love at first sight. I scrounged through them all and found a pair with matching stain colors (not an easy task) and they actually have hope for looking just fine. The end table has some "character" in the wood right on top-Right where a lamp will be going, and the coffee table had a loose leg that has already been repaired with some reinforcing screws, and just needs a little wood putty and stain to cover the holes up. They are heavy duty and thus very sturdy and were a lot less that what I was about to go get at target. Go me! ;-)

Here is our new furniture in our living room-our couch was delivered today-YEA! :-) Rachel insisted on modeling the couch for you-and since it was a nice change from her hiding from the camera I let her.

Okay so we have everything but a blasted tv stand. But we are working on it-we may have to use the coffee table for now.
I had to get a picture of my new picture frames that I found at target for my boston fall leaves. ($4 each on clearance -what a bargain!) I am currently searching many other target stores nearby in search for three more. (i have more than three favorite fall leaves)Who says you can't eat in the living room? With a table that turns into a dinner tray-how can you not??!! It just so happens that my thrifty clearance center find is also pretty nifty. I bet your coffee table can't do that.

By the way-No it is not a mocrofiber-it is kind of a woven fabric.

I made a decision

Well, I decided on the dark brown sectional. It is shown here with the chaise but ours will not have that--but otherwise looks the same-even comes with the same pillows. This picture helped my decision along quite a bit. When i find a picture where the couch looks good it is a lot easier to see it looking good in my house. Maybe I will just use a Khaki color for the wall like they did--it seems like it would look nice with my soon to be white fireplace. And I was also concerned that I didn't know what color of furniture would look cute, but I liked this color of dark wood next to it-and I even found a side table and a coffee table at the roomstore clearance center that I think will look great. (for a price that is cheaper than getting something at Target)wahoo!

Nicole, don't be disappointed-I seem to have gone against every bit of advice that you gave me: (Stick with the tan & stick with Microfiber or leather). It has down cusions and they are soooo comfortable-it was just all too convincing. And if I regret my decision later you will get to say 'i told you so.'

I also am feeling a little bit relieved because I got in touch with an interior designer friend of mine who is living in Arizona (some of you may know Brooklyn) and I am hoping that she will be able to use some of her expertise to make some of these decisions for me-because it is obvious that it is too much for me to handle. lol. Seriously-how long did it take to just decide on a couch-and don't even ask how long I have been deciding on whether to go with DirectTV or Cox for cable. AHHH! ha ha.

A few that were missed

First Day of Soccer practice (yes-the shin guards go all the way up to her knees--In my defense they said XS. guess we will be heading back to the store. The skort she is wearing was a compromise as she always wants to wear skirts and dresses so she can look "pretty". We are working on incorporating the word "fancy" into her vocab so that she knows she looks pretty in lots of clothes, but she looks "fancy" in her nice dresses.

I love the picture of Sam checking out her teeth after her official teeth cleaning. She did pretty good-the only thing they didn't get to do were the bite -wing x-rays, She bit down once like they asked but then she wouldn't do it any more --I think it was because it hurts (the "Dr." said they are small and didn't hurt-but they hurt me when I get them done-so I am sure I am right :-)

Inspiration

I love the white mantels and on the fireplaces and all the white moldings around the doors

This is a couch from pottery barn that I like the look of. (not so much love the price of it) but when I am looking at other couches I think this is what I am going for.

Here's what I am thinking:

1. Paint the mantle WHITE! (then I am thinking that I should paint the other built-in shelf white-and if I do that-should I go for a white TV stand to make it look all built in? I was thinking of getting a dark wood tv stand-but I am leaning towards the all white for the shelves and then pull the dark brown color in the ottoman/ picture frames etc





2. Paint the room a color that will create a nice contrast with the white... blue? I really like it-but do you think i could still change the room easily for different looks? (diff seasons etc?) I like the tan colored sofa because it makes it easy to add pillows and get a whole new look, but would it be hard to do that with a blue wall?
3. What do you think of the dark couches? Both of these are really comfortable, and I think they are nice looking...except they aren't in my vision. Do you agree with my decision to stick with a tan colored sofa? (it would be an easy to clean microfiber material--which is actually what is on the pottery barn "pearce" sofa that I like.

Decisions that i thought would be easy...but aren't!

1. Sectional or sofa and loveseat?
2. Microfiber...leather...upolstery?
3. Cox cable, Direct TV or dish network?
4. Could I pull off painting my kitchen and living room walls blue?
5. where to start??? :-)

Videos of our house :-)

So I had the best of intentions when I took these videos-but I just looked at them...and they aren't the greatest. I forgot our camera is pretty bad with videos, it is just really picky about needing a lot of light. They aren't too bad...if a kindergartner was video taping--so actually-pretend I let Rachel do the taping and then they will seem great! ;-)

So far everything is going well at our house-mostly unpacked-and now the focus is just to decide on a decorating scheme so that I can start buying stuff little by little. I will write more later-our internet should get hooked up at home today. YEA!!! enjoy :-)

All moved in...mostly

Hey -someone asked when we moved in--so I just wanted to post to say that we are all moved in. We moved on Saturday and slept here since that day. We invited Sam's family over yesterday and mine came over today to help clean-so it is looking pretty awesome I must say. it is late so i won't take any pictures -(I don't think they will turn out very well) . but i am going to try and do a little video clip on a walking tour of my house-so I can pretend you all get to walk through and see it. :-) We met one of our neighbors today-they seem relaly nice-PLUS they have a 14 year old girl who says she loves to Babysit. hmmmmmmm...interesting :-) We were outside when the husband came home so we introduced ourselves. He said "It is great to meet you, we are SOOOOOOO Glad that you are here..so glad!" (I caught that he wasn't too fond of the previous tennants). he said he would bring his family over later to introduce them. No joke- approximately 7 minutes later they rang the doorbell, and brought over a plate of freshly baked cookies!! i think they're definitely keepers!