Punkin' Pie

Happy Halloween from our sweet, little Pumpkin!

One of our nick-names for Evelyn is "punkin' pie". So we thought it fitting for her to be a pumpkin for her first Halloween. I wish she could wear this everyday. It is so stinkin cute! It's stuffed and puffy so when she crawls around it has a waddling effect. Love it!

We needed to get some mileage out of her costume so we went to visit daddy at work this morning. His crew dressed up as Harley dudes. This was Mike's first time wearing a du-rag. I was surprised how cute he looked!

The Ambassador

Several months ago Mike came home from work and told me he was asked to be an ambassador for the Chamber of Commerce. I was like, "Wow honey, that's great." I asked him what an ambassador does. He told me they welcome new businesses into the community. Again, I was like, "Huh...that's cool, honey.". Then he proceeded to tell me he gets to go on these calls in a RED sport coat. Finally, he had my undivided attention. "A RED sport coat?!", I exclaimed. It's not everyday you have a reason to wear a RED sport coat!

Mike came home for lunch today sportin' his RED sport coat. He had an ambassador call this afternoon.  I just had to take some pictures so we could show off his hot new look to all of our loved ones. You're welcome.

The best part is the gorgeous plastic brass buttons. Don't be jealous.

Spaghetti Face & A Floor

I made Ravioli Lasagna (thanks Meagan, for the idea!) for lunch today. You could say Evelyn enjoyed it thoroughly! This is the first time she's had anything spaghetti-like in nature. You know, saucy and messy. She managed to somewhat control the mess. And thank goodness for that...I had just given her a bath this morning.

It's been a while since I've given any Evelyn updates. She is almost 10-1/2 months old. She is growing like a weed. She has 4 teeth on top & 2 on the bottom. She is starting to copy every noise we make! She fake sneezes, fake sighs, she "blows on her food"...it is SO much fun to play with her! She pulls herself up onto everything (including the dog) and cruises the furniture. She plays "SO big" and cheers and claps her hands after she does 'so big'. And she is liberal with her kiss-giving. You can really see her starting to remember how things work. We have always loved her to pieces, but she is getting to be a lot of fun now too.

We were able to re-do our kitchen & dining room floor this month as planned. We chose to go with vinyl tile. It is easy to install and very forgiving, which is nice with a big dog and baby in the house. The results are fabulous!!! Drum roll, please............................................

I can't believe how much it warms up the room. It makes the right things pop and tones down others. Now I can't wait for new counter tops. That won't happen until next year though. We are done spending time and money on the house for a while. Now to enjoy the work we've done!

The shadows make it kind of hard to see. But you get it, right? . I am looking forward to getting a rug for under the table. But again, that will have to wait. However, I do have the supplies to re-do our kitchen chairs. I am both looking forward to and dreading that project at the same time. But as always, it will be worth it.

Here you can see how the linoleum and carpet met up in the doorway. You can also see the white door, which I painted red.

*Sigh* I'm just so happy with it! It pulls the rooms together and has a nice, finished look to it now. Not to mention that your eye now goes to the color on the walls.

Here is a shot of the fabric my mom and I made kitchen curtains out of. I LOVE them! We decided it has a 1940's flare to it. It's bright and colorful. Just my style.

Here is both an after and before shot. The door is now a nice, warm reddish color with more curtains made by my mom. We have yet to paint the trim white. That will happen tonight or tomorrow.

Remember how I said we were going to paint the trim in this room white. Well, it's been done for a while now but I finally got around to taking pictures of it to show off.

We think it looks awesome now. Although we do still need to paint the baseboards.

I owe a giant thank you card to my super generous and thoughtful sister Meagan. She bought these pictures for us and sent them all the way from Chicago. They are kind of hard to see, but they could not be more perfect for this room. And considering she has never even been in our house yet, I'd say she did a fantastic job picking them out. They are perfect! She also sent me a hoard of barn stars that you see through out the room. Gotta love a sister who loves to decorate (both her home and others' as well ; )

We have some fun things coming up. Tonight the family we bought the house from is coming over to show us how to start up the wood furnace as well as show us (well, show Mike) how to clean the chimney. I am excited for them to see what we've done. We have a load of wood being dropped off tonight as well. I can't wait to start using our wood furnace. Then this weekend my favorite little sis Emily is coming to visit with her two kidlets. I am anticipating an amazingly fun weekend! As always, stay tuned for pictures.

Family Photos!

We had our very first family photo shoot yesterday. I have to say that I am VERY happy with the results. I can't thank our friend Mattie enough for taking time out to do this for us. All of the pics were taken in town in Chariton and just outside of town. Here is an obnoxious amount of pictures for you to look at. I cannot decide which ones I like the best.  So I posted all the ones I like. Enjoy!

 

I love this one of us.

 

Hmmm...I think I like this one better though...hmmmmmmmmm.

 

*Sigh*...this is one of my favorite pictures of us ever.

 

I think this is 'the' picture. Going on the livingroom wall, perhaps. Or maybe a Christmas card?

Among many other things, Evelyn learned how to clap this past week. She's so stinkin' cute!

I didn't know Mattie took one of all of us clapping. But I love this picture!

It was a long day (for Evelyn) but definitely worth it. Now to decide which ones to order...

The Visitors

My parents came for a long weekend. It was SO nice to see them! We had such a good time together. My dad had tickets for three nights of racing in Knoxville...for the 'late model' something or other. We didn't see much of him (well, Mike did. They went to the races together). But my mom and I had lots of fun girl time together.

We were all glad that Evelyn doesn't seem to have any stranger anxiety. She was happy to see grandma and grandpa.

My mom and I gearing up for a whole lotta sewing.

Daddy & Evie

Evelyn loves to drink water from our cups. She's actually pretty good at it.

Friday afternoon my mom, Ev, & I ventured up to Des Moines to go to JoAnn's. I needed lots of curtains for our house. It was quite a trip and tons of fun. I picked out all the fabric I'd need for every project on the list. Little did I know my mom (who brought her sewing machine) was planning on a sewing marathon. She made EVERYTHING in less than 24 hours! She is amazing. We did the bedroom curtains Friday night. The she sewed from about 10am to 10pm Saturday. I started to feel like I was running a sweat shop. But she insisted that it "was fun for her". She loves to sew & she said they were simple projects. I took pics of some of it. But I still have to hang most of what she made.

Amos is such a pal. He was also very happy to have grandma and grandpa around.

Here is a picture of our bedroom re-do in progress. We painted the walls a silvery gray color already. But this is a 'before' shot of the trim.

Here is an after of the room (before curtains). We {L O V E} the wall color and white trim. The gray was a stretch for us. It's not a color we normally would have chosen. It is the result of being burnt out on picking out paint. It turned out to be our favorite room!

Here is the room all finished with curtains and pics on the wall.

Since we did a cool neutral color on the wall we wanted to warm up the room with some colorful curtains. We wanted them to only cover 2/3 of the window. The windows are so long that we have complete privacy but still get in lots of light at the top. Plus we love that when laying in bed at night you can see the stars and in the morning you can see all the trees around the house. It's very soothing. I love cafe style curtains and these are absolutely perfect!

I spray painted the white tension rods a bronzy color to match the rings. I can't believe what a difference that made in the over all look of the curtains.

We bought a new couch and it came with 4 nice quality, but very ugly pillows.......

....So we covered them up! They turned out awesome! I love them!!!

I will take more pictures once the rest of the curtains are hung (and the lighting is right...it's hard to photograph a window in the daytime).

We had so much fun with my parents! Aside from races and sewing we cooked several nummy meals, my mom and I had a spa morning and did facials, we watched general conference, and did lots of visiting and laughing. It was hard to watch them pull out of the driveway when they left. We won't see them for a while now. But we have lots of great memories from a wonderful weekend visit!