Autumn Touches

As promised, today I have pictures of my fall decorating for y’all.

My goal this year was to keep things simple.  I’m starting to realize that I really appreciate clean, simple, uncluttered décor (although you’d probably never guess it by looking around my house), so a bunch of Halloween doodads are not for me.  Just give me a few dried leaves, some acorns, and a white pumpkin or two and I’m happy.

I’ve been inspired lately by a blog I recently discovered called Farmhouse 5540.  I love everything about this lady’s style.  Everything!  I wish I could bring her home with me and let her work her magic in my house.  There’s something about her simple, farmhouse style that makes me happy.  So as I was adding autumn touches to my house this year, I was trying to keep her rustic style mind.

It is going to take some practice before I’m able to replicate this style, and I find myself changing and rearranging things every day.  So what you see in these photos today may not be the way things look in my home tomorrow.

First I’ll show you our breakfast room.  I guess a more accurate name for this area would be school room, since we always do school here and never eat breakfast here.  But that’s another story.

I’m a big fan of the nontraditional pumpkins, particularly the white ones.  Like I mentioned the other day, orange is not my favorite color, and orange pumpkins just scream Halloween to me (which is not the look I was going for).

I love to decorate with pieces that can easily be used year round – like this lantern. I can pop it open and fill it with whatever seasonal item I want.  Right now it’s filled with green raffia and a ceramic pumpkin that I bought at the dollar store.  I also added a brown, silk ribbon to warm it up a bit.  In a few, short weeks I’m sure I will be stuffing this lantern with some shiny glass ornaments.

I’ve had this metal watering can for more than a decade.  It’s lived in various places over the years, mostly on my back porch, but I decided to move it to the breakfast room for now and fill it with dried cornhusks and artificial wheat stems.

Ah, mantel!  I always have such a hard time deciding what to do with you.  Since the mantel is the focal point of the living room, and quite possibly of the whole house, I always feel a lot of pressure to get it right.  Honestly, I was not entirely satisfied with the way the mantel looked in this picture.  This area always feels too dark to me.  To help brighten up the space, I recently commissioned Lucy to find a few sticks in our yard and paint them white.  Then I laid the sticks, somewhat haphazardly, across the top of the mantel, and they do help brighten up the dark wood.

This wooden sign was a clearance item from Hobby Lobby.  Originally it was reddish, pink and said something about “lake living.” Not my style, per se, but at less than $5, I couldn’t pass it up.  I painted the sign white as soon as I got it home, but I never could decide what to write on it.  It’s been stuck in a drawer for about 5 years (no exaggeration) until last week, when I finally pulled it out and added the word, “Gather.”

These white pumpkins and Indian corn are certainly my favorite part of the mantel scape.

Behind the living room couch, I replaced a vase of flowers with these preserved leaves.  Oh, how I wish I had some lovely, natural fall foliage in my backyard that I could cut and bring inside, but alas!  What few leaves in my yard aren’t brown and crunchy with drought are still bright green.   (By the way, maybe the 8” of rain we got yesterday will solve the drought problem!)

The bright fall colors are lovely, but I do find them a little too intense for my taste.

The last stop for the day is our console table.  Here lies a beautiful, two-toned pumpkin, and even though it’s not white, I absolutely love it!

At the other end of the console I stuffed a metal crown with a few pinecones, and I also added another natural element with the tree slice.

And here’s my only official Halloween decoration.  It’s a jack-o-lantern I made probably 10 years ago from an old paperback book.  I know I said I wasn’t into using Halloween decorations this year, but this one is so subtle I’m ok with it.  (If you’re observant, you may have noticed that I actually have one more of these book pumpkins on my mantel.)

That’s all the photos I have today.  I’m going to try get a picture of our backdoor all dressed for fall and maybe a few of our dining room table.  Hope y’all enjoyed the little tour!

Fall Blessings,

Lindsey

A Frock for the Fourth

This is the blog post that almost wasn’t.

I’m finally getting to sit down to the computer after spilling 100% of my lunch in the middle of my living room rug, including a full glass of ice water, which shattered upon impact.  Grrrr.  And wouldn’t you know that after cleaning up the enormous mess and preparing myself a new lunch, I had to stop eating to change a stinky diaper.  So much for my “lunch break.”  Now you know why I was beginning to think I might never get around to blogging today.

OK.  Pity party over.  Time to move on to the topic of the day.

l Fun Fourth Frocks  l

I got the idea for this top from, you guessed it, Pinterest.  I knew Lucy would have a blast making this personalized patriotic shirt.  It was super easy to create and cost me less than $4.  Best of all, it’s truly one of a kind.

After washing and drying the shirt, I created a stencil for Lucy to paint the stripes.  I love using the freezer paper method for painting on fabric.  I won’t go into the details here, but if you are curious about the process just search online for a tutorial.

Lucy did a terrific job stenciling the stripes.  The only thing she had to remember was to tap straight up and down, no brushing side to side.

After she was done with all the stripes, we peeled the freezer paper off the shirt, and I brushed some dark blue paint onto the palm of Lucy’s hand.

Then I helped Lucy carefully stamp her handprint in the top corner of the flag.  This was the trickiest part of the project, since there was no “take two” for the handprint.  If you don’t get it right the first time, you don’t get it right.

Luckily, we got it right!

There you have it!  A fun, personalized, flag T-shirt.  After waiting a few minutes for the paint to dry, Lucy was more than happy to model her new frock.  Isn’t she a cute Lady Liberty?   Now to make another shirt for Tacy Mae.

“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”   2 Chronicles 7:14

Happy Independence Day everyone!

Lindsey

Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

Hope y’all had a wonderful Christmas last week.  Our family sure did.  The month of December was a whirlwind of activity at our house.  Dinners, parties, shopping, wrapping… Throw in a couple of weeks of school and you’ll know why I’m excited that the holiday season is behind us.  I’m pooped!

Today I selected a few pictures highlighting some of our Christmas activites.

First, Chrismtas Eve…

After reading the Christmas story from the Bible, the kids selected some tasty Christmas candy to leave by the fireplace for Santa.

“All I want for Christmas…”

How many kids get a visit from both Santa and the Tooth Fairy on the same night?  Lucy lost her second front tooth on Christmas Eve, so she stuck it in her stocking and received a $5 bill from the Tooth Fairy in addition to all of her Christmas gifts.

Speaking of gifts, the monkeys were in hog heaven with the mountain of presents they received Thursday.  It really was a ridiculous amount of Christmas booty.

Here’s a quick run-through of some of the kids’ Christmas gifts.

Fron Santa Ty received walkie-talkies, Zoobs, a Squishy Human,

a kitchen science experiment book, an architectural style desk lamp, Hex Bugs, a Drinking Bird, and a necklace.  He also received a mini mummy excavation kit, which he ranked as the best gift of the morning.

Lucy got My Little Pony pajamas, Sleeping Beauty DVD, Leap Pad Ultra, pink hair color, Hex Bugs, and a Thermos Funtainer (which I would highly recommend to anyone with kids.)  Her favorite gift by far was the American Girl doll Isabelle.

Miss Tacy Mae got some fun things too (once she finally woke up.)  However, she really couldn’t have cared less about the gifts.  The first thing we pulled out of her stocking was a bag of Goldfish.  She wanted them opened immediately and expressed zero interest as Lucy tore through the rest of her presents for her.  Among Tacy’s gifts were a baby Cinderella doll with matching dress-up clothes, Crayola Color Wonder markers and coloring book, Jesus Calling Storybook Bible, a Thermos Funtainer, and Leap Pad Ultra.

When I was a kid Santa sometimes left special gifts for me and my brother behind our couch.  It was so much fun for us to peek behind the couch to see what awesome things might be hiding back there.  This year Santa was back to his same old tricks.  He left each monkey a fun chair behind our couch.  Ty got a gi-normous, foam-filled bag.  Lucy got a comfy, red bean bag chair for her room, and Tacy got a red and aqua Sweet Seat.

After all of the Santa gifts had been opened, my dad, mom, brother, and his family came over for Christmas breakfast.  We had a delicious spread of biscuits, sausage and egg casserole, fresh fruit, and rosemary polenta.  When we’d all eaten our fill, the kids enjoyed showing their new toys and games to their grandparents.  Then Ty sat down with Uncle Jude, and the two set to work excavating the mummy.

It didn’t take the too long for them to chisel through the plaster and make a tremendous mess on my kitchen table unearth the sarcophagus.  While the boys were honing their archaeology skills, Lucy and I played beauty shop and added a pink streak to Lucy’s hair.

On Christmas afternoon we moved on to the Tool Man’s parents house.  For lunch we had the traditional Christmas fixings:  turkey, ham, dressing, sweet potato casserole… you get the idea.  Yum!  Then it was time to open more presents.  Lucy got tons of new clothes for her doll Isabelle.

Ty, who loves putting things together, got a model engine to assemble.

 

Tacy got her very own American Girl Bitty Baby doll.  Even though she’s still a baby herself, she knew just what to do with the doll – love it and rock it.

As if we hadn’t had enough food and gifts for one day, on Christmas night we drove to my parents’ house for more!

Of course the kids were just as excited as ever to open presents.

By the time Christmas night rolled around, Tacy finally decided to participate in opening her own presents.  However, her participation was limited to pulling the tissue paper out of gift bags and immediately shoving it back in.  I don’t think she ever realized there were toys in the bags.

My uncle and his family also drove up for a visit on Christmas night.  Lucy had a blast playing with his 3 teenage daughters who catered to her every whim.  She even got into a little mischief using one of them as a makeshift step stool. 

Well, that about wraps it up for Christmas 2014.  Hope y’all had a wonderful holiday too.

Happy New Year!

Lindsey

No Tricks, Just Treats!

Hey, y’all!  When I sat down to blog this week I didn’t quite realize how long it had been since I last posted something.  I know you poor dears must be brimming with anticipation, waiting for the latest news from down here on the creek!  (At least that’s what I’d like to think.  Wink. Wink.)

So what’s been going on with the Allen’s these last couple of weeks?  Lots!  Of course you know school occupies the majority of our time, but we manage to squeeze in other things too.  We’ve travelled clear across the state to business meetings, visiting family while on the road.  The kids and I toured a historical cotton plantation.   Inspired by the cooler temps, the Tool Man and I have completed various home improvement projects.  I’ve begun a furniture makeover of my grandmother’s old bookcase.  (Which, working at a rate of one hour per week, could take 2 years to complete!)  My dear, sweet mother graciously came over and spent 7 hours helping clean out and organize the monkeys’ closets.  Whew!  And last but not least we’ve dipped our toes in the lake that is politics, spending election night at the headquarters of a local candidate.

Oh, yeah.  I almost forgot about Halloween.  The monkeys would die if I didn’t share their Halloween pictures with y’all.  Both Ty and Lucy knew months ago how they were going to dress up.  Ty chose to be sorcerer Mickey from Fantasia, and Lucy wanted to be Rainbow Horse from the Baby First TV channel.

I’m a little confused about something.  Somewhere between my childhood and present day, Halloween morphed from Tootsie Rolls and lollipops to entire gift-wrapped packages of toys, candy, and cookies galore!  Is it that way in your neck of the woods, or have my kids’ grandparents just gone nuts?  It’s almost like a mini Christmas!

I’m pretty sure Ty received the most annoying gift from his Pappaw.  It’s called, “iFart.”  No further explanation needed.

Rainbow Horse got a slightly more sophisticated present in her bag – DIY stained glass ornaments.

Don’t worry.  I haven’t forgotten about Tacy Mae.  She dressed up in purple and gold as an LSU cheerleader.  Go Tigers!  Here she is with her mermaid bath toy.

Over at Papa’s and Sandy’s, Lucy hit the jackpot with an entire bag of Oreo’s.  Double Stuft!

Ty’s wishes came true with this Magic 8 Ball, which quickly became the second most annoying toy ever.

Tacy Mae got an old school See ‘n Say.  I love these!  However, I was perplexed to find a rabbit pictured on this thing.  Apparently the See ‘n Say people think rabbits say, “Boing, boing.”  I think that’s a stretch.

Cousin Caroline came over dressed as a bumble bee.  She was so good to leave her antennae on all night, but Tacy Mae found them terribly distracting.

Lucy was kind enough to give us a side view of her costume.  I know Rainbow Horse is not a well-known cartoon character, but Lucy couldn’t pass up the opportunity to wear both pink and rainbow!

Here’s a quick flashback to last Halloween.  My, how the babies have changed!

And here’s the whole gang this year.  What a treat!

Now that Halloween is behind us I’ve officially begun decorating my house for Christmas.  No, you did not read that wrong.  I said Christmas, my favorite time of year!  I figure it will probably take me weeks to get my decorating done since I can’t work on it for more than 20-30 minutes at a time.  I don’t want to be decorating last minute – it makes me crazy!

So far, Lucy and I have set out a few mini trees, added some sparkle to the dining room, and replaced pumpkins and acorns with glass ornaments and glittery pinecones.  It’s baby steps, I know, but our home is gradually transforming into a winter wonderland.

I suppose the big Christmas tree will be the last thing I tackle.  I’m more than a little nervous about how Tacy is going to react to the tree (meaning I think she’s going to climb it and pull down every last ornament.)  I sure do wish there was some way I could install an electric fence around the tree!

Lindsey

The Last of Christmas Past

With the end of January quickly approaching, I have to say that I’m not really into sorting through Christmas photos.  But I promised you more pics, so here they are.  (And when I say “few” that’s exactly what I mean.  Sometimes I get so caught up in all the Christmas activity, that I forget to take pictures, so the pickings were slim this year.)

First are a few pictures from Christmas night with my parents.  In recent years, we’ve tried to take a family picture on Christmas night.  Next year we’ll have one more person in our picture.  Ty and Lucy are getting their first baby cousin on my side of the family.  Lucy is some kind of excited.  Almost everyday she wants to know if the baby is ready to come.  Patience, Lucy.  We still have four and a half months to go.

And now, may I present to you, what I like to call the Whitehouse Christmas Tree!  I call it that because that is where a tree this size belongs.  Last year, my mom decided it would be a good idea to purchase a 12 ft. tall tree on clearance after Christmas. Oh, I’m sure she got a really good deal and all, but it’s freakishly big!

B. I. G.

Even the roughly half-million Santa ornaments that my mom owns were barely enough to fill the tree.  She’s having second thoughts about putting the tree up again next year, but it does make for a nice conversation piece, don’t ya think?

Once Ty got all his packages arranged just right and so, it took him approximately 2.3 seconds to tear through them all.  This year Ty made several requests for Legos, and he received a few different sets which he thoroughly enjoyed assembling.

My little baby girl is as girlie as they come.  There’s no doll she doesn’t love, no princess dress she doesn’t try on, and no fingernail left unpainted.  But of all things, she is super excited at the possibility of playing softball one day.  Uncle Jude seized the opportunity and bought Lucy an SEC themed ball and bat combo.  We had a little batting practice right there in the living room that night, and Lucy really surprised everyone with her mad skills.  She’s got a pretty accurate arm, and she even made contact with the bat a time or two.  Lucy will only be 3 at the time of baseball season this year, so I’m not sure if she will be allowed to sign up.  Boy, am I going to have one disappointed little girl on my hands if she has to wait one more year to play!

I always have a hard time deciding what to get my dad for Christmas.  I usually rely on the Tool Man to fill me in on what kind of hunting or fishing gadget my dad “needs.”  But this year was different.  By some miracle I remembered him mentioning several months back that he wanted a panini press.  You know, a sandwich maker.  So I took a chance and bought one for him, and I think he really liked it.  I have since been blessed with a panini maker of my own, and the Tool Man and I have enjoyed using it.  About once a week we pull it out, stack up some amazing sandwiches, and press away!  Yummy.  I will have to share some of our creations with you someday.

On to some Christmas pictures with the Allen’s.

Did y’all see the Elf Yourself app that was popular this Christmas?  Well, the Tool Man had quite a blast entertaining himself this season at others’ expense.  Christmas day he took some photos of his grand mother and great uncle and elfed them.  Then he played it on the big screen TV for all to enjoy.  You can tell by the look on everyone’s faces that it was pretty funny.

And speaking of elves, here’s another pretty cute one!

It was like pulling teeth, but I finally got my monkeys to pose in front of Grammie’s tree.  Not nearly as big as that other tree, is it?

Y’all remember the Mario costume Santa brought Ty, don’t you?  Well I told you that he wore it a good part of the day, and here’s some proof.  Ha ha.  These two cousins are nuts!

So that’s all of the Christmas pictures I have to share.  I’m really hoping to get back into blogging on a regular schedule this year.  I just killed my Facebook account which should free up some time, and I’ve decided not to take as many cake orders.  The cakes were really becoming too much for me to handle, especially since the Tool Man is working more hours.  Cake is not worth my sanity, right?  So check back in soon to see what exciting adventures we’re up to!

Lindsey