Fun weekend!

Here are some pics from my weekend.  Usually I have pictures of the kids but they didn't have a lot going on this weekend. Brock and Ava are starting their basketball seasons this week!  So I will have lots of pictures of them playing in the future :)

Last Friday I was asked to speak on an alumni panel Binghamton University where I went to grad school.  It was fun going back.  I was in a new program when I started (student affairs) so I was the oldest alumni on the panel :(   Jason, one of my former students attends grad school there so he was there!  Here we are with his friend Shannon after the panel.   I am SO proud of Jason he graduates in December and he has an on campus interview with Cornell University later this week. 

Saturday I went to an event called hops for hunger.  Basically we tasted all different kinds of home brewed beer and voted on our favorite.  I am not much of a beer drinker but it was fun to get together for an afternoon out with some friends. 

Sunday my friend Heidi and I drove to Albany for a 15k race. I have been sick for abut 2 weeks and because I was sick I missed our last training run last weekend.  So my goal for this race was to finish and not die on the course.

Here is a picture of our hot pink race shirts!  I love it!

I wrote the # of miles I have ran this year on my hand so I would  remember to trust my training and the preperation that I did for the race 

 and it helped me not to get nervous, scared or intimiated by faster runners. 

It was a chilly morning. I wore long pants and a jacket before the race. 

I finished in 1:47 which was 7 minutes faster than my other 15k this year! My friend Heidi finished 5 minutes ahead of me and her time was 7 minutes faster than her other 15k too!  Heidi took this picture of me right before I crossed the finish line. 

Happy Wednesday!

Ava on pointe!

Last week was watch week at Ava's ballet studio.  She is at the age where she HATES me to watch her dance.  She says it's embarrassing to have parents there and  that I make her nervous :(  I love watching her dance so I went anyway.  I had to go see her in pointe class.  Pointe is where you go up on your toes in ballet.  Her ballet teacher is very strict and she wants to make sure that the girls are ready and developed before they go on pointe because it could be bad for their little legs and feet if they aren't ready. I'm so thankful that she waits until they are ready to go on pointe. Ava is in the beginning pointe class this year and last week was the first time she went on pointe.  It was fun to get to see her in that class. 

Here is Ava going up for the first time :) 

Her teacher has them grip the bar until they are comfortable without it. 

Ava's teacher working with her feet. 

Ava's teacher is very strict and stern but she is a riot.  I am so glad that Ava finally "gets" her humor this year and isn't intimidated by her!  She told me that she loves her ballet teacher :)

In other big news Ava is starting to play basketball!  Graig is THRILLED!  He is going to be the coach of Ava's team and Ava's PaPa Larry is going to be the assistant coach.  Their basketball practices start next week :)  Happy weekend!

Election night party

One of my favorite bloggers Dixie Delights  posted some free printables for Election Night.  I thought they were adorable and planned a little family only party for our family of four.  I think it helped them get into the spirit of election night.  I took Ava with me to vote before school and I realized that Brock will be able to vote in the next election! 

I made this red, white and blue drink using a recipe from Dixie Delights.  I was able to snap one picture of it before B and A chugged it down.  They loved the combo of fruit punch, blue gatorade and sprite :)

I put our menu in a little frame.  I ordered pizza and made donkey tails and elephant ears from puff pastry.  They were really good they tasted  a little like funnel cakes from the fair. 

I printed out some info about each of the presidential candidates and we colored the maps red and blue when the results came back.  Since we live in NY the results came back pretty late we went to sleep at 10 so our maps didn't get filled in all the way. 

Brock let me take a picture of him with his map but he said Mom DO NOT tag me on facebook in the picture-ha ha!

More table decorations :)

Ava is learning states and capitals at school and she brought this map home from school so I added it to the table :)

Our little party was a fun way to celebrate election night.  Happy Thursday!

The Plague and Pinterest

I have been SO sick for about a week. I think it's just a bad cold but I have been feeling pretty terrible.   Sunday was the worst I lost my voice and I was coughing and sneezing all day and I felt awful.  I watched TV, took naps and spent a lot of time on Pinterest.  That website is my biggest obsession right now.   If I had the time I could spend hours on that site looking up all kinds of things.

This site is great for getting ideas for fun, inexpensive Christmas presents.  I have been working on these fun coasters for Christmas. Actually I started them a long time ago and I need to finish them :).  The detailed tutorial and beautiful picture are from this blog. 

I adore the eighteen25blog.  They have SO many creative projects.  I really like these gift card holders for teacher and hostess gifts for the holidays. 

Here is another Christmas gift I want to try. It's from this blog that I am going to start to follow.   I think this is so cute and useful!  I think the red is cute but I might leave mine white instead of coloring it red. 

I re-painted Brock's room a couple of months ago and I think putting his old shirts on canvases like this would be so great.  He has SO many old shirts from baseball and basketball.  Isn't this a great idea for a boys room?  They are old shirts wrapped around canvases. 

Pinterest is also full of fashion!  Sometimes (OK most of the time!) I feel like I am in a fashion rut.  I always wear dark jeans, a black shirt and flats.  I really like like this outfit.  I am going shopping this weekend and I can't wait!  I really need some new fall/winter clothes. 

Tonight we are going to watch the election results on TV.  I love watching the elections coverage on TV.  Happy election day! 

Hits and misses

I feel like we eat the same things all the time so I have been trying out some new recipes.  Some my family loves and I will be adding them to our meal rotation and some have not been so great.  Graig and Brock are SO picky about what they eat so when I look at new recipes I always look closely at the ingredients to see if it's a dish they will actually eat.

I made goulash a few weeks ago and it was a big hit!  I got the recipe from this blog and it's really easy to make.  It also freezes well so next time I make it I will make two batches and freeze on for later. 

Thank goodness Hurricane Sandy missed us last week.  We had all kinds of watches and warnings and the weather forecasters said that our area was going to get hit hard.  Thankfully we had no damage from the storm!  I am so grateful.

Wednesday night we celebrated Halloween by trick or treating.  Ava dressed up as a hot dog.  She was a hot dog last year also.  She loves that costume and thankfully it still fit her!  She also won second place in the costume contest at the boys and girls club so she was thrilled!

Here is Ava with her friend Nadia.  Ava is holding her winnings from the boys and girls club. 

 Last Sunday we went trick or treating at the mall with Sabrina and Eliza.  I love this picture of the two of them. 

Next week is a big week for both Brock and Ava.  Brock has basketball tryouts starting on Monday and Ava is going on pointe for ballet.  We went a few weeks ago to have her fitted for pointe shoes.

Ava is constantly putting on her new shoes and going up on pointe. 

I hope you have a good weekend!  We have a weekend without any plans-whooooo hoooooo!!!

Babies, babies :)

It has been the week of the baby at our house!  My niece Ainsley turned 2, my nephew Gabe is visiting from Colorado and my friend Sara just had her first baby on 10/11/12.  Isn't that the best birthday? 

Last week was Ainsley's birthday.  I sent her a gift in this pink box.  My sister Shelby said that Ainsley loved the box and she kept wearing it on her head.  She texted this picture to me. 

Here is Ainsley opening up her card from us.  She is getting SO big I can't wait to see her at Christmas! 

Ainsley also got to eat Red Velvet ice cream on her birthday.  That sounds really good!  Obviously she enjoyed it :)

Graig's brother Garth and his wife Jill and their baby boy Gabe are visiting NY for a few weeks.  We are SO glad they are here.  Everyone loves Gabe!  Brock and Ava (and me!) fight over who gets to hold him.  We are going to spoil him while he is NY! 

Last week we went out to dinner at Brook's with him.  Isn't he the cutest baby?

Here he is on Brock's lap.  He has the sweetest blue eyes.  I want to kiss and hug him about 1000 more times before he goes back to Colorado!

My friend Sara had a baby boy Lachlan on last Thursday. Poor Sara was a week overdue.  We are SO happy that he is here and that he is healthy!

Sabrina, Melany and I went to visit Sara, Josh and Lachlan in the hospital on Saturday night.  He is such a good baby he just slept the whole time we were there and we just passed him around.  We also took some gifts and flowers home for Sara and Josh because they got so many things at the hospital. 

I loved holding that precious baby boy!

Wednesday randomness

This week has been SO busy.  Graig has been gone (he's at a conference for work) and I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get all the things that I need to get done during the day and at night at home.  Graig does SO much for our family and things run much smoother when he is home.  I will be so happy when he is finally home tomorrow!

I don't think I posted a completely finished picture of our dining room table.  I had it refinished and it took 3 loooooong months but it was worth the wait.  I love it!  It's stained a dark walnut.  I wanted the darkest stain possible so our refinisher stained it a dark walnut. 

This monogram project is something that I want to work on this weekend.  I got fabric at my friend Melany's store and I am going to staple that to canvas paint our monogram black and hot glue it on the fabric.  I just need to have time to put this together!

Here is my little display of pumpkins and mums outside.  I covered the pumpkins with dish soap because it keeps the squirrels from eating them.  Squirrels eat my pumpkins every.single.year so I read about the trick on pinterest.  I hope it works!

Ava took this picture of our puppy Lilly to text to Graig because she thinks that he is really missing Lilly.   She is the sweetest dog and she is getting so big!

Our weekend!

We had a fun fall weekend full of friends and all things fall! 

On Saturday we went to a Cider Mill with our friends.  We brought home apple cider donuts, apple cider and lots of apples!

I only took one picture during our trip but we had a great time.  Here is Ava with her friends Anika, Ava and Elle!

Saturday night we celebrated the birthday of my friend Melany. 
Melany moved to our town last year with her family and she is one of the funniest, most creative people that I know.  I am so thankful for her friendship!  She has made so many friends since she moved to our town and  and over the summer she opened up her own fabric shop on our Main Street. 

Here is a picture of some friends that came to her party.  Her sisters and Mom also flew up for her for the party which I thought was really sweet.  It was fun getting to meet her family!

Me, Sabrina and Sara at the party.  Sara is pregnant and she is going to have her baby any day now!  We are so excited and happy for her!

Sunday I went with some friends to a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins and mums for our house for the fall.  We had 11 kids in our group at the pumpkin patch.  The poor kids were looking right into the sun in this picture that is why they are all squinting and have their eyes closed.  Anyway it was a cute little pumpkin patch and we got some good pumpkins for the fall!

Today I FINALLY picked the fabric to re-cover our ottoman.  Melany has SO many cute fabrics in her shop so it was SO hard for me to decide.  I decided on the same fabric that is on this chair that it in her shop.  I have always loved it and I think it's really pretty and I cant' wait for it to get done.  It seems like I am always doing something to our house!

Tonight I am helping Brock study for his first high school biology test and Ava finds out what part she got in the Nutcracker.  Happy Monday!

Dream Kitchen

We are taking our house off the market this week.  I am thrilled!  I am SO sick of showings and all of the other stress that goes along with trying to sell a house.  When the house that we wanted to buy was sold to someone else I pretty much lost all interest in moving.  We put a lot of work into getting it ready to sell so Graig wanted to keep it on the market and now he's sick of having it on the market too. Thank goodness!

One of the main reasons that I wanted to sell our house is that fact that I HATE our old, ugly outdated kitchen. I have tried to make the best of it for the past 8 years by painting our cabinets (twice!) and getting new appliances but we still hate it. 

We have decided to put in a new kitchen! I am SO excited! My friend Stephanie is a kitchen designer so she came over last week and took measurements and is coming up with a plan for our new kitchen! 

I wish we could do this right away but we have decided to save all of the money first and then start the work.  Graig and I talked and worked out a budget and we have decided that we are going to save, save, save and start this project next Septmeber so for the next year we will be saving up money for our new kitchen. 

I gave Stephanie a big list of things I wanted in our new kitchen.  Here are some things on our wish list:

-white cabinets

-white subway tile backsplash

-stainless appliances including a range with a double oven

-farmhouse sink

-a mudroom/entrance area in our kitchen

-open to dining room

-open shelves to display dishes

-new lighting

-breakfast bar area

She wanted me to show her some pictures of kitchen that I liked to give her an idea of what we were looking for.  I got all of these pictures from pinterest.

This is perfect.  I love everything about this picture.  I want everything to be white but I don't want it to look sterile or cold. 

I love this little mudroom/sitting area.  Sadly our kitchen is teeny, tiny (10x12) so she is going to design a small bench area for us. 

Love, love, love these open shelves

I love the open cabinets in this picture and the farmhouse sink and the light countertops.  I am not sure what kind of countertops I want but I do like these. 

I like the light fixtures and simple cabinets in this picture. 

I love the colors in this picture and the cozy, lived in feel of ths kitchen.  The island is beautiful!  Sadly we don't have room for an island but I like the overall feel of this kitchen. 

We haven't seen Stephanie's first design yet.  I can't wait to see it! 

I have been looking at all kinds of kitchens online because I want this kitchen to be perfect.  I have already told Graig that I am not moving out of our house ever because it's SO much work trying to sell a house.