Thursday, October 6, 2011

30 Day Photography Challenge: Day 10

Day 10: Childhood memory

I had a hard time with this one. To be honest, I don't have many memories before the age of nine while growing up in Los Angeles. I have no idea why that is. I had a great childhood. I have pictures to prove it. There are no bad memories. 

Luckily, I was cleaning out the boys closet today and found a bag of my stuffed animals and dolls. My parents have been cleaning out their house and giving my brothers and me stuff (art projects, baby clothes, toys, etc) from our childhood for us to keep. I have no idea how they ended up in the boys' room. But I'm glad I found it. Seeing them immediately brought back memories. I took a picture of the two that brought back the most memories.


Thumper reminded me of watching the movie Bambi. It was one of my favorite Disney movies and Thumper was my favorite character from the movie. I just had to have a stuffed animal of him. I have a picture of myself opening him up on Christmas morning. I searched for the photo today and couldn't find it. I know it's in my house somewhere.

The cabbage patch doll was the first "doll" I ever got. I was mostly into stuffed animals growing up but I thought they were really cute and wanted one. I don't think there was a girl born in the 80's that didn't have one. I had to have one with brown hair and brown eyes. Not sure why cause that is the opposite of myself but whatever...I was a kid.

I think they are both in amazing shape for being about 25 years old.

I think I'll make our bed (of course it's not made. Who has time for that?) and prop them up on the pillows and wait to see Tommy's expression when he comes home tonight.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Down On The Farm

Fall has become my favorite time of the year. I love the cool, crisp weather, leaves changing colors, pumpkin picking, getting to wear sweaters and boots again...ahhhh, I just love it! And Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I think it's the dressing up and getting free candy that makes me love it so much.

Anyways, one of my favorite things to do around this time of year is to go to a farm, pick out a pumpkin, go on a hayride, get lost in a corn maze, and get frightened in a haunted forest. And now that I have two little ones, this time of year is even more exciting cause they get to experience it too (except for the haunted forest. I think it's too soon to start having nightmares. Let them make it to high school at least).

Tommy and I took the boys to the Honeysuckle Hill Farm in Springfield, TN on Sunday after church. I highly recommend this place to anyone living in the Nashville and surrounding areas. It was about a 45-60 minute drive from our house in Franklin. Definitely worth the trip. There was so much to do and see. Plus, children under three are free. Here is a link if you want to check out their website.

The boys had a blast! It was difficult at times to keep a handle on Hudson (a lot of my photos of him were of his back, cause he was always running away to something else). He wanted to be and see everything...all at once. He especially loved the chickens. Brayden loved getting to play basketball (go figure...since there was a ball involved). Brayden LOVED the pumpkin patch. He wanted to take home every single pumpkin. As soon as he picked up one and handed it to me, he was looking for another one to give me. Hudson searched for a short time, picked the smallest pumpkin he could fine, threw it at my feet, and then ran off to something else. Ha! Typical Hudson.

Here are TONS (and I really mean a LOT) of my favorite shots of our visit.































Whew...that was a lot of photos. I warned you.

I desperately wanted to get a family photo of the four of us all LOOKING at the camera. A guy offered to take the picture for us, but apparently my camera was a bit too complicated for him because he only took one shot...and it was blurry.


Hey, at least we were all looking at the camera for once! Oh well. Better luck next time.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Honeysuckle Hill Farm - PREVIEW

Here is a little sneak peek of our trip to an awesome farm yesterday. Together, Tommy and I took over 600 photos, so I'm working on editing them and creating some cool collages to display my favorite shots. Stay tuned!

30 Day Photography Challenge: Day 9

Rain delay is over...getting back on track.

Day 9: Someone you love

Well, that's an easy one. ;)



Gotta love someone who always makes me laugh!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

My favorite video of ALL TIME!

This is my absolute favorite video of the boys. I think they were 8 months old when I took it. This was during the time when they were getting tired of just bottles and were trying to let me know it was time for some solid food. This is a must watch!

Waiting...

I took Tommy to the doc last week and decided to wait in the car with the boys. Here is a small taste of what it's like to be in a car with two toddlers...

Saturday, September 17, 2011

30 Day Photography Challenge: Rain Delay

Rain Delay!

My camera battery is dead and the charger is at Tommy's work. I should get it back on Monday. Until then, the photo challenge is on pause. Bummer...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

30 Day Photography Challenge: Day 8

Day 8: A bad habit

I have many bad habits. My husband can contest to that fact. I chose one that he is at fault for too. Ha ha!


I have a bad habit of leaving clothes on the floor. Which is odd since I'm such a neat-freak. But when it comes to our bedroom, we are both guilty of doing this. I'll pick up all the dirty laundry, wash, dry, and put them away, and the next thing I see is more dirty clothes back on the floor. It's a vicious cycle. One that I stopped trying to fix within the first year of our marriage. If this is the worst bad habit I have then I'm not doing too bad. ;)

Thursday's Project of the Week

Happy Thursday!

This week's project is our stairs. When we purchased the house the carpeting throughout was really stained. I think we are the fifth owners of this house and it had the original carpet when we moved it (and I think past owners had cats and dogs). We have so far replaced the carpet in the bonus room (aka the playroom) and replaced all the downstairs carpeting with wood flooring. Now we are working our way upstairs.

Here is a before photo of the stairs before we purchased the house:


So far we have ripped up the old carpeting on the stairs and are now working on replacing each step with new solid oak steps.

Here is a photo of what the stairs look like today:


We purchased the 13 needed oak steps months ago. We have to cut each oak step to size then sand and stain the wood to match our flooring. We also have to replace the cheap pine wood of each riser (the vertical section of each step) with wood that doesn't have the wood knots. We plan to paint the risers white. 

This project is going to take awhile. Hopefully not too long because Titus is having a hard time climbing up and down these stairs. We might have to put a runner on the stairs once we finish so he has an easier time getting up and down. We'll just have to wait and see.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

30 Day Photography Challenge: Day 6

It seems that I keep picking photos of Hudson for these challenges. I think it's because he loves his photo taken and Brayden hasn't lately.

No worries, Brayden will be tomorrow's "Wordless Wednesday" photo. Stay tuned for that...and day 7's photo challenge as well.

Day 6: From a low angle


And if you would like to participate in this 30 day photography challenge, here is my original post about the challenge.

Monday's House Update: The Dinning Room

I didn't have any time yesterday to write my "Monday's House Update" post. I've been taking up random jobs here and there when possible (meaning when Tommy is home so I can leave the boys with him, or if I can do the job from home). But I'll still try to find the time to keep blogging.

So, alrighty...onto the dinning room update...

The dinning room is kinda in the same state as the family room. It still needs decorating and finishing touches but at least there's furniture in the room and it's usable.

The furniture is all "family heirlooms" (which is just another name for "furniture no one else in the family wanted"). Ha ha! I'm only somewhat kidding. The dinning room table, chairs, hutch, and Victorian chair are all from Tommy's mom. She didn't want them anymore...and since we didn't have any dinning room furniture (we sold our last set when we moved into this house) we took them. The buffet table is from Tommy's late grandmother and my grandfather built the grandfather clock (hence the name). They don't all necessarily go together and aren't really our style, but I plan to make it all work. :)

The mirror above the fireplace we brought with us from our house in Knoxville (from 6 years ago) and the rug is new. That's about all that is in the room. I still need to hang stuff on the walls, get curtains, and make a runner for the table. I plan to reupholster the dinning room chairs but I haven't found the fabric I want to use yet. I also really want to reupholster the Victorian chair in some cool, modern designed fabric to update it a bit. It's way too complicated of a chair for me to do and I don't know how much someone would charge to reupholster it. Probably a lot. I'll have to look into it.

Here are two photos of what the room looked like before we purchased the house:



I should really include some photos of the in between stages during the remodel, but I don't feel like searching through dozens of albums right now. Maybe another day.

Anyways, without further ado, here are the photos of the dinning room as it looks today:






Did you noticed the smooth ceiling? All the remodeling was all worth it just for that!

30 Day Photography Challenge: Day 5

I'm a day late in posting this. I worked all day yesterday then had family in town. Trying to catch up. Here is day 5's photo. Stay tuned later today for day 6 and a house update on the dinning room.

Day 5: From a high angle

Sunday, September 11, 2011

30 Day Photography Challenge: Day 4

Day 4: Something Green

Again, I have more than one favorite. Here are my top two. Let me know which is your fav!