HALLOWEEN AT OUR HOUSE

Just some pictures from around our house of Halloween weekend.

I love this potpourri with the ghost and candy corn in it. 

The table in the foyer...

Front door...

This was the first Halloween in 19 years that  I did not have a trick or treater !

So guess who was volunteered to be outfitted in costumes this year?

Little Lola was a Banana Split. 

Charlie was a hotdog. 

He was not as cooperative as Lola. 

There was a lot of wrestling going on.

That was the funniest sight ever..... a hotdog and banana split chasing and dueling all over the yard. 

Mr. Bubbles was a pumpkin again this year.

And this  perfect pumpkin...

became an awesome jack-o-lantern! 

I guess it is about time to pack all of these things away and start thinking about Christmas.

I walked through the mall last week and was dumbfounded at the Christmas decorations already out. 

Can you believe that?

SPIRIT WEEK

It was homecoming week at #3's school. Every day there was a different dress up theme. Monday was Neon Day and Tuesday was Camo Day. 

My two favorites were Fashion Disaster Day on Wednesday.....

(she slept in sponge curlers)

...... and Animal Planet Day on Thursday.

Friday was School Spirit Day which ended up being the hardest day for us because we don't have a lot of royal blue and gold around the house. 

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I had a little flashback last night when I realized what the date was. October 29, 2009 was not a good one. It was the day that I found out that my mom's breast cancer had metastasized and was in her brain and she had to begin emergency radiation that day. The Man of the House was out of town (just like he has been this week), all the way on the west coast and I sat in the emergency room until 2AM across from this.....

Even with two broken bones in her arm, she still was able to smile at me and cheer me up. She is such a sweetheart whether she is in a soccer uniform or dressed as a penguin!

PARDON MY MESS

Pardon my blogging mess, but I have been dealing with a mess here at home.

I am not even going to look at the date of the last post I made. I know it was way back in the dark ages. I have had the best intentions, honestly, I have, but just couldn't seem to act upon them. I found myself up to my eyeballs with projects and really just needing to  do some much needed work around the house. I have enforced a rule upon myself of no computer during the day because I get too lost in the time I spend browsing around and when I sit down at night I literally am crossed eyed when I look at the screen. We started some big projects, have some others on the calendar and have some even bigger ones in the works.  I have been nominated the manager and coordinator of them all.

We are redoing our office upstairs. It has always been the catch all room with left over and hand me down furniture for many years. It is the room with the Wii and other video games systems in there and when #1 and #2 were in high school, it was the hangout on many weekends. Well, no more. I am finally getting "my" space to do"my" things in. Right now at my house, there are men working up there, going up down the stairs and in and out of the house and it has been that way for a while.  All of the sheet rock needed to be replaced (which ended up covering everything in my house with an inch of dust when they sanded the seams) and there are stacks and piles of the things that used to be in that room in every other room in the house.

 I have been spending my time meeting with different cabinet designers and companies over the last weeks and looked at so many drawings and samples of cabinet doors, counter tops, hinges and so on that I finally got so tired of it and I just closed my eyes and picked things out. Now, I am just patiently waiting. The install date for the cabinets is the second week of November. I will be so glad when this project is over.

Here are a few pictures of rooms that I have used as inspiration:

I could not resist the idea of having a craft island!!

The other (even bigger) project in the works is switching #1 and #3's bedrooms around. Since #3 is the only one at home and has over four more years until college, we decided she should have the big/second master bedroom. This project involves new furniture, bedding and paint in the bed and bathrooms. They know me by name at the local Benjamin Moore store these days because I am having a hard time finding that perfect color. #3 has decided that she wants grey walls to go with this comforter she picked out from Anthropologie.....

The writing on the comforter is different shades of grey and the trim is even darker. She wants a "shabby chic meets Parisian with some peacock colored accents" look.  I am not too sure just how we are going to mix everything into one room, but we are working on it. 

Here are a few pictures we are using as inspiration:

I am not even thinking about the new bedroom for #1 yet. She is all over the place with her colors and ideas. The biggest thing with her is getting her to go through things and consolidate everything because she is going from the largest bedroom to the smallest and is being booted out of her bathroom and walk in closet. 

The Man of the House has been traveling A.L.O.T. and I have been dealing with these things on my own. He was in Las Vegas last week and all he brought me back were detailed stories of the wonderful meals he ate while he was there. He didn't even bring me back any winnings. He came home with less money than he went out there with! Bummer! As long as it doesn't come out of my decorating budget, I guess I won't complain.....

this time. 

SOUTHERN HEAT

Have you ever been to North Carolina in July or August?

Believe me, our state is beautiful and a wonderful place to visit, 

BUT

you might just want to wait to visit us here any other time other than the summer. 

It is hot, still and humid.

This year has been no exception and in fact I think it has been awful.

We haven't broken a lot of heat records, but the humidity has really been unbearable.

I usually am pretty tolerable and I know how to grin a bare it, but even I couldn't stand it this year.

A few weeks ago I was outside tending to the pots I had planted for #1's sorority, weeding and/or watering one the 100 pots that I said I was not going to plant this year. It was so hot and humid and I cannot even begin to describe it well enough to do it justice. I had to keep popping inside to cool and dry off. I just might have bumped the thermostat down a notch or two every time when I went inside, maybe. 

On one trip into the house, I was summoned by these two. 

"Mom, are you crazy,  it is soooo cold in here, can you make us some hot tea?"

"No, I am not crazy, but I know how you can get warmed up. There is load of clothes that finished drying in the dryer. You two need to fold them while you are just laying there doing nothing."

That usually knocks the smile off of them every time!

TWO FACED

I have to tell you that I am proud of myself....

here is the second post in just a short amount of time.

I am on a roll!!

Saturday, the Man of the House and I were two faced.  We did something not many people do around here, especially in one day. We donned both the University of North Carolina's colors in the afternoon and then hurried home to switch into our North Carolina Sates colors for the evening. 

In the area that I live in, you are either a State fan or a Carolina fan and you support your school all out and despise the other.  Well, we had to be a little two faced on Saturday and seeing that we support both schools financially through #1 and #2's tuitions, I think we were fully in our right. 

#3's soccer team was asked to be the ball girls for the UNC's girls soccer game. If  you know anything about girl's soccer, you probably know that UNC's girls soccer is the best program out there. There record speaks for itself.......

They are the #1 ranked team in the country as of right now. Being asked to be the ball girls was a little bit of an honor for a team of 13 year olds, not to mention it was such an awesome experience to stand right on the sideline and watch how the best players in the country play your position. 

Everything on campus is "Carolina Blue" from the track to the trashbags in all of the trashcans. 

(You can see one in the bottom left corner.)

I wonder how much of money goes to buy those specially made trashbags? 

#3 was excited and charged up after standing beside the goal the entire game. She got to see some awesome defensive plays - that is what she plays.  She is the one with the yellow penny and white hat on  the far right. 

After the game was over, we had to hurry home to get ready for a cook out at a friend's house. We have NC State football tickets and tailgate with a big group of people. Last night we had a preseason tailgate 

practice. So we changed from our Carolina Blue clothes into our State Red. 

Our friends Pat and Don did a WONDERFUL job and their yard was amazing! 

Around here, they are called ITBers because they live Inside The Beltline, where the deer do not set up camp in your backyard. Their yard was so full of everything I love and everything that my deer love too, so I spent a lot of time walking around and drooling. 

I also spent a lot of time wondering if I could talk any of my girls into wearing a smocked dress just one more time....for old times sake. Since I knew the answer would be a  "no",  I took a picture of this cutie so that I could pretend.

There were way too many desserts to choose from, but I did good and stayed away....

until I saw this one.

I could not resist because it was an old fashioned chocolate layer cake, 

just like my grandmother used to make. 

It was almost as good as hers!  ;)

We had a great time Sunday.

 We  even got to drop by #1's apartment to take her a few more things and give her a hug before she had to be at Rush practice. 

Go Pack!

Go Heels!