Iphone pics

Hi everyone!  Hope you all enjoyed the weekend.  Here are a few pics I took with my new iPhone.  I've decided I love more than just my ringer.  Like the camera.  And the Pinterest app.  :)  

Friday morning - getting ready for school (do you love my kids' idea of how to get ready for school?).  I clearly didn't have the focus figured out.  Plus toppling kids don't make for the best practice material.  

 Figured out the focus by the time we got to school.  Hello my sweet first grader!

 Roses by our front door.  

 Lots of decorating this weekend.  Inside my house it is officially Fall!
The weather outside my house is hotter than ever.  

Dinner with friends at Cheesecake Factory.  We went for the seasonal pumpkin cheesecake and they didn't have it yet!  BUMMER!  They get it October 1st - we were two days too early.  We had to settle for Snickers Cheesecake (poor us, right?).  It was so good I had a dream about it last night.  :)  Guess we'll just have to go back again for the pumpkin!  Until then I'll be doing double time on the treadmill.

Kenny and I stopped by Lowe's to look at BBQ grills and they have their Christmas trees out!  WHAT!?  It was still September.  I should have been appalled, but I was ecstatic.  Made me simply giddy!  I was worthless the rest of the night.  I couldn't focus on BBQ grills.  All I could think about was twinkling lights and happy mail and Chestnut's Roasting on an open fire.  In fact, it made me want to start planning for the upcoming holiday season ASAP.  I do like to be on top of things you know.  :)

Have any of you starting thinking about Christmas yet?  I have a few posts in mind to help us all jump start holiday planning.  Are you ready for that?  Or do most of you like to get Halloween behind you first?  I'd love to hear if I need to be patient or if your thoughts about Christmas line up with mine:  BRING IT ON!

And on that note... Happy October! 

The countdown begins today!  

:)

New House Update (we have stairs!)

OH my word.  This week has been nonstop!  I have been rocking a pony tail for weeks now and things just don't seem to be slowing down.  I'm feeling the need to do a time management post in the near future because I have really had to work to figure out a way to manage my schedule so that I can fit everything in.  Like time to shower.  Building a house is so much work!  My mom keeps saying "I tried to warn you...."  :)  But honestly, even though we've reached a new level of crazy around here I am loving the process.  It is so amazing seeing something that was all in my head actually come to life!  Here is a peek of what things are looking like so far...

 The gate into our little neighborhood - I was standing in front of where our driveway will be.  

Nothing to do with the house, but I think the view is pretty so I'm sharing it with you.  :)

Things on the outside haven't changed much.  I can't wait for the second floor to go in so I can start to see the personality of the house.

The window that is popping up high on the left of this picture is the window over the stairs.  We have a playroom and a "future" theatre room for Kenny that will go over the garages.  I just changed things up a bit and added a closet in the playroom.  I had to take some space out of the upstairs laundry room to do it, but I'm so excited to have a place to organize all of the kids' toys.  I'm already dreaming of storage options for that closet!  I'm going to have to spend a lot of time at The Container Store after this house is built.  Darn!  :)

This is the formal living room you will see right when you walk in the front door.

This is the right wall of the living room.  

Addison dancing around the hallway in her Smurf pajamas.  The kids clearly already feel at home. 

This is our main living area - the family room.  I'm putting in a fun oval window in that square up high and then the TV built-ins will be below with a fireplace in the right corner.

 To the left side is our outdoor entertaining area.  There will be french doors along that left wall leading outside.  I'm sure the kids will be in and out and in and out 20 times a day and I'll never be able to keep them clean.  But I bet I will be so happy that they have a yard to play in that I won't even care.  Actually I bet I will care.  Because I can't help it.  :)

Next to the outdoor space is our breakfast nook.  I debated over and over if I should put in windows along the wall of the nook leading to the entertaining area or french doors.  Windows are on the other nook walls so it would have looked more symmetrical, plus the doors will be slightly blocked by a table and chairs.  Plus we already have the doors off the family room.  But we finally decided to put in doors anyway.  We figure if we have people over it might be nice to set food up on the table inside and open the doors up outside so people can go in and out to get food.  What do you think?  Did I make a mistake?  Actually don't tell me if I did.  Only comment if you are going to say - good idea.  I would have put in doors.  ;)

Now we are entering the kitchen!  Woot Woot!!  This picture shows my bay window.  Oh the decisions that have had to be made about that one window!  We basically turned the whole house the way we did so that I could have my bay window.  And I am still debating how it is going to look because it pops out so far and didn't turn out quite the way I pictured.  I'll share more details once I figure things out myself.  Or I won't because I'll remember that nobody but me really cares about this bay window.  Or I will because Kenny is so sick of hearing about this bay window and I need to talk to someone about it!

Here's the kitchen layout.  Bay window on the right.  Oven and cabinets along that back wall.  Behind that wall you can kind of see the food pantry.  Butler's pantry to the left (the formal dining room is across the hall).  The work bench is close to where my first kitchen island will be.  We decided to go with two smaller islands vs. one big one.  I hope I like it!

Fridge/freezer and cabinets along the left wall.  I am still debating minor kitchen details.  Like how many clear cabinets vs. closed cabinets, what the counter tops will be (leaning towards quartz), etc.  I can't wait to be hanging out in my kitchen!  Toasting Eggo waffles and microwaving frozen pizza for all!  ;)  Speaking of microwaves, we are leaning towards getting this built-in microdrawer:

Do any of you have a microdrawer?  Love it?  Hate it?  I would love to hear what you think if you've used one before!  Because I never have.  And the microwave will be the most used appliance in our house so it's pretty important.  :)  

We have stairs!!   

View from the top.

 The girls were so excited to finally be able to walk up the stairs and see where their rooms will be.  

The girls' rooms are connected by a bathroom they will share.  Their two rooms have french doors leading out onto a balcony.  They haven't put the floor down, but in this picture you can see how the balcony is framed.  We have such pretty views so we included balconies on the front and back of the house.  Kenny felt like Kole wasn't getting a fair deal since his room is on the side of the house without a balcony with views.  Clearly he forgot the cardinal rule: girls always come first.  (You would think my husband would understand this by now.)  ;)  So we added a fun pop out window that will have a bench seat for Kole (with organized baskets below for me! - ha!)  

Hot air balloons are always flying by our house so we thought it would be fun to have balconies to sit on and watch them.  And I could write posts all day long on how I'm planning to decorate the front balcony for Christmas each year!  Building the house is only the beginning!  :)  Now if I can just find time for that shower...

Everyday pics

The girls and their "friends" enjoying afternoon pasta and tea.  

More friends making themselves at home in my closet.  

And in the bathroom.  

And in the backyard.  

 Guess those trucks come in handy after all!   

What my trash looks like after a trip to the grocery store.  

Ditching the bulky boxes and tidying up my pantry always puts me in an instant good mood.   

Girls headbands were driving me nuts so I moved them to a new location.  

Temporary fix.  

The new house stuff is completely taking over my current house.  

Every where you look there are plans and brochures and sketches and samples.  

I need an office!  So I'm designing one.  Hence the mess that is making me feel the need for an office.

  :)

My boy is up to his usual tricks pulling everything out of my cupboards.  

Bowls are always a hit.  

Moving the pillows all on one couch never gets old.  

 And pausing only briefly for a favorite part of Toy Story 3.  

There is just something about a sleeping toddler.  PEACE.  :)  Kole cracks me up.  Every night I go in to check on him before I go to bed and every night he is in this same position - sideways in his crib with his feet on the wall and one arm over his forehead.  And yes I know he is getting too old for his binkie. It's not a crutch for him.  It's a crutch for me.  :)  With everything going on lately, I just don't have the strength to deal with taking it away.  When Ellie was 2 1/2 we tossed all of her pacifiers and told her that the binkie fairy came and took them and left a toy instead because she was such a big girl.  Worked fabulously.  One tough night with a few tears and she was over it.  I have a feeling things might not go so smoothly with my little buddy so I'm admittedly procrastinating.  And yes, I know he is in Christmas pajamas in September.  I just couldn't resist.  :)

 But I'm not completely overlooking Fall.  Picked these up at the grocery store yesterday.  

The mini white pumpkins are my favorite!  

 I'm going to use them for my hutch like I did last year.

Kenny bought me the new iphone 5.  I've never had an iphone before.  I got this phone and started a Facebook page for my blog all in the same week.  I feel so...  2012.  :)  

I'm sure it's amazing but I haven't had two seconds to play around with it.  

Kenny asked me how I like my new phone last night and I said "I love my new ringer!"  He said - "I buy you the iphone 5 and your favorite part is the ringer?"  

But it's the song Call me Maybe! 

"Hey I just met you... and this is crazy, but here's my number... so call me maybe...."  

 Perfect ringer, right!? 

Kole loves my ringer too.  Whenever the phone rings we both get so excited and start to dance.  

But then I answer the phone and the music stops and the party's over and mom's occupied and Kole is NOT happy.  So we turn the song on my ipod after my call and dance some more.  I'm tempted to give all of you my cell phone number so Kole and I can dance the day away.

But for some reason I don't think Kenny would be as amused as Kole and I would be.

:)

 The girls currently have secret "pass codes" on their bedroom doors.  You have to place one hand on the hand drawing and type the code in with your other hand to enter their rooms.  

Not just anyone can enter and I had to block out the code to post these pictures.  

It's top secret.   

I'd share it with you but then I'd have to kill you.  

Love my girls.  They're always good entertainment.  :)  

Kenny took these before church one Sunday.  He said "smile" and the girls both popped their knee up in an identical pose almost as if it had been rehearsed.  I swear they share a brain.  

Let's hope it's their daddy's.

:)