Ava's photo shoot

We just got back from a Halloween Party.  It was fun!  I went with Sabrina and Allison.  I dressed up like an 80's girl, Allison went as a cheerleader and Sabrina was a Greek goddess.  I will post pictures from our fun night soon. 

Today I wanted to show some pictures of Ava. My friend Rebecca is a photographer. She is SO talented. A few weeks ago she asked me if she could photograph Ava and of course I said yes.  She takes amazing photos! 

This one is my absolute favorite!

This blue ballet costume is from Ava's dance recital two years ago.  I love how it brings out the blue in her eyes. 

Ava looking sassy in her red jazz costume. 

I love the way she looks in this picture. I'm going to have this one blown up so I can put it in a big frame.

These are just a few of the images that Rebecca took at Ava's photo shoot.  I can't wait to see the rest! 

Happy Saturday!

Friends and Fiestaware

This has been a VERY busy week with work for our family I felt like we were on the go all week.  This weekend we don't have any plans so I have been happy to relax and just enjoy being at home!

I did manage a couple of very fun nights out with friends this week.  Wednesday was the monthly wine night.  There were 5 of us that went and we had a great time!  All of these ladies are in my running group.  We usually see each other at 5:15am so it was nice to get dressed up and go out with them for a fun night.

Last night Ava and I had a girls night.  I didn't take any pictures of the grown up girls but there were 5 of us including Sabrina and Melany.  We went out for Mexican food and the mall.  We ended the night with ice cream at Friendly's.

In other exciting news I added 40 pieces to my fiesta ware collection today!  I am SO excited! 
 
My Dad's lovely girlfriend Vicki bought them for me. Dad and Vicki go to a lot of antique stores and I told them to look for fiesta ware and if they found any to buy it and I would pay them back.  My Dad face timed us tonight so I could see all of my pieces.  She got me tons of plates, small plates, bowls, a pitcher, cups, and a platter in lots of different colors.  I can't wait to get it when I visit at Thanksgiving. 
I want to display it all in our house.  I found these two inspiration images on pinterest tonight. 

I love the fiesta colors in this picture and I love the shelves it's displayed on.

 I would LOVE to have one of these Hoosier cabinets in our house.  I'm not sure where I would put it but I think it would be a great place to display my fiesta pieces. 

Here are the two pieces that I have now.  This radioactive red bowl which looks orange to me but fiesta calls it red and it was made with uranium!  So I only use it for display -ha ha!

I also got this light green fiesta ware plate a few weeks ago in Vermont.

I hope you are having a good weekend!

Halloween Hutch

Every season I decorate the hutch in our dining room.  Last weekend I decorated it for Halloween!  I love the turquoise and orange colors that I used to decorate with this Halloween.  Ava painted a turquoise pumpkin on the top shelf.  I kept a lot of my milk glass out too and I love the white pumpkin that I found at a farm stand!

My friend Sabrina made this subway art for the craft show last weekend.  I was excited that it didn't sell because that meant I got to bring it home!

I added halloween pretzels to our candy basket.  I hope this helps us to eat less Halloweeen candy this year!
I got this cute basket at Wal-Mart and added the orange ribbon.

This cute happy Halloween sign is in our living room.  I spray painted the frame orange.  I really like the way it turned out!  I got the Halloween sign from this blog.

I have one last Halloween decoration to show.  I made this adorable rag wreath for the craft show.  I can't believe it didn't sell!  I'm sort of glad it didn't because that means I got to keep it for my house!  I love all the different colors in this wreath!

Happy Tuesday!! 
  

Our weekend!

This weekend was busy, busy, busy!  I'm exhausted I'm ready for the week so I can rest-ha ha!


As part of my job I coordinate a craft show during our homecoming weekend.  My talented friend Sabrina had a table in the show and I added a few things that I made.  I thought our table display was so pretty! It was fun putting it all together.  Sabrina made that Halloween subway art sign.  I'm so glad it didn't sell because after the show I bought it!  It looks adorable in our dining room. 

Yesterday during the craft show two of my former students Jackie and Junait came to visit me!  I was SO happy to see them!  Jackie was Ava's babysitter one summer.  They dated in college and got married last weekend!  They are both teachers now and came up from NYC to visit during homecoming.  It was fun catching up with them!

 Ava was sad because she didn't get to see Jackie and Junait.  Ava is going to be in the Nutcracker ballet in December she was at her first Nutcracker practice on Saturday!  

Last night Brock had four of his friends sleep over.  I know they had a good time because our basement was a mess and all of our snacks are gone.    Boys are loud and stinky but I know in  four years Brock will be away at college and I will wish that they were still hanging out at our house playing basketball and eating everything in our fridge! 

This afternoon we watched Ethan and Eliza for Sabrina.  We put Eliza on our lazy susan on our table and spun her around.   She loved it!  I love this picture of the two of them!

These two girls are growing up WAY too fast too! Here is one of the first pictures of the two of them together. I love how Ava doesn't have any front teeth in this picture.

I hope you had a great weekend!

Our fall mantle!

I love decorating our mantle for the seasons.  Fall is my absolute favorite time to decorate our house because I love the deep fall colors like orange, red and brown.  This year I am also mixing in my favorite color-turquoise!   I tried to keep things really simple this year.  I am starting to hate things that look too cluttered.  Of course my scale, birdcage and Ballard apothecary jars are things I use year round on my mantle.  I love the old window but Graig doesn't get it.  He always asks me why we have an old window hanging in our living room-ha ha!

In other exciting news Brock and Ava had their open houses last week at school!  Brock started high school this year!  I still can't believe it Brock is in high school!  We got to go to each of Brock's classes to meet all of his teachers.  Ava's school does looping which means they have the same teacher for two years.  Ava is in the second year of her loop so she has the same teacher this year that she had last year.  Ava LOVES her teacher so she's excited that she gets to be with her for another year! 

This past weekend I went on a girls weekend with my friends.  We had so much fun!  We went shopping and antiquing. I got some cute things that I'll show later this week.  Our new friend Melany took this and put it on facebook.Melany has the cutest blog which you can find here.  She is  a talented seamstress  and she features a lot of her projects on her blog. Aren't the mums in this picture beautiful?

Happy Monday!

 

Our weekend!

This weekend started for me at Ava's school.  Her elementary school mascot is the purple panda and on Friday Ava got to dress up as the Purple Panda at their afternoon assembly.  She was SO excited to be in the purple panda costume. Her friend also named Ava was the other Purple Panda. This is the best picture I got of them in their costumes.   

Yesterday I worked on this cart that I got at at yard sale.  I LOVE the way it turned out!  I put it in the corner of our kitchen.  On the middle shelf I put snacks and on the bottom shelf I put some of my white serving dishes.

Today was the Pit Run!  Sabrina and I have been training for this race since March. It was a hard race.  I keep wondering when running will get easier.   I'm not sure it ever will for me but I think I'm hooked!  I'd like to do the 10k next year.  My time this year was 36 minutes not great but my goal was to finish!

Here is our running group.  We met and walked to a coffee shop. I'm in the back with the black hat.  This is an awful picture of me but I do love our group so I wanted to put it on here. 

Here is a picture of Brock and I before the race this morning.  Please excuse the terrible lighting.  This is the only picture we got we were running out the door when I told Graig to snap this picture of us.

Brock and Graig ran the race today too.  Graig wanted to bet because he loves to bet on everything and of course Graig lost the race.  Brock's time was 24 minutes! I am so proud of my boy!
So after the race Brock wanted to spend his winnings so he bought a flat screen TV for his room.  I don't know if he'll ever come out of there now-ha ha!

My friends Sara and Allison got these flowers for Sabrina and I after the race.  They tied a  shoelace around the vase isn't that cute?  I thought that was so sweet of them!

Also congrats and good luck to my sister Shelby!!  She started the couch to 5k program this morning and wrote about it on her blog today.  You go girl!  I am SO proud of my little sister!

Tonight we ordered pizza and wings and watched TV and relaxed.   I hope you had a great weekend!