Few, Quick Updates

I'm feeling way too lazy right now to do a whole two week belly update {plus I haven't had Kurt take any pictures for the last three weeks...oops!}, so I thought I'd share a couple things that have been going on around here lately. 

I got a call last week that our glider/ottoman had arrived at Buy Buy Baby. We were really excited to pick it up but knew it wouldn't fit in my car. Friday night we asked my brother and Quinn if we could borrow their car so we could go pick them up. We stopped by their house and ended up hanging out with them {minus Julia who went to Yuletide with my parents} and eating dinner. We eventually made it to Buy Buy Baby around 8:30. They had it ready for us, so we put it in the car and headed home. Josh helped Kurt bring it upstairs. We probably shouldn't have ordered both the ottoman and chair, but the ottoman came with this particular one so we figured we should go ahead and get it. There really just isn't a ton of room. We'll keep the ottoman off to the side for now and we'll move it more towards the middle of the room once we are really using it. The color looks great with the bedding and it is SO comfy. I can already see many late nights spent half asleep feeding and rocking Baby W...!

{This picture doesn't really do it justice since I took it on my phone. But, you get the picture! I wish you could see the cute Boppy cover that is already for the baby...my friend Anne got it for us and we l.o.v.e it. It's covered in dogs. One looks like Coop and another looks like Olive. Perfect.}

There are TONS of Christmas parties going on right now. We had three two weekends ago and were invited to two this past weekend. We ended up only going to one. Here's a picture we took from the one we went to this weekend...while we didn't dress the part {ugly xmas sweaters}, we still had a good time. I didn't get to participate in the Dizzy Elephant gift exchange....guess I'll have to wait until next year! 

I'm feeling pretty good. Only 6 weeks left {hopefully} AND I only have 15 days of school left before I begin my maternity leave!!! I have my 34 week appointment on Wednesday. We'll see if the doctor still thinks the baby is breech or not. I'm not really sure anymore. I absolutely cannot believe that Christmas Eve is a week from today. I can't wait for school to be over so we can spend time together and celebrate our 10th Christmas together! Enjoy the week. Hopefully I'll be back sometime to share more of what has been going on around here. 

tv stand {3...finally!}

I know, I know, I've been away forever. I was actually thinking of giving up blogging/reading blogs for Lent, but decided against it. So, that's why I haven't been posting lately. We've been taking a break from house stuff lately, so I really don't have many updates. Here are the pictures of the t.v. stand...finally!!

Remember how I told you that I started buying stuff instead of trying to find stuff that all fit together?!? Well...it worked! We are using almost every single thing we bought in the living room area! Check it out...

Warning -- although I wish {a lot} I would be good with photography, I'm really not! So, sorry. These pictures aren't very good....best shots I could get... :)

Very top right. My favorite part!

{Coral - Z Gallerie}

{Blue Vase - IKEA}

{Red Dish - Crate and Barrel}

 

Top Right Shelf

{Z Gallerie}

 

Middle Right Shelf

{things we found around the house}

Bottom Right

{Z Gallerie -- Sale!}

Very Top Left 

I know the picture is the wrong way...we had it in a different spot. We tried it vertically and liked it...we still need to find a picture to replace it...oops!

{Yellow Vase - Crate and Barrel}

 

Top Left Shelf

{Blue Vase - Crate and Barrel}

 

Middle Left Shelf...another favorite!

{Lantern thingy - Z Gallerie}

{Little Birdie - Crate and Barrel}

 

Bottom Left

{found around the house...my favorite book...Marley and Me!}

Can you tell we really liked the white look? I like it even more when you see it all together because the white really pops on the dark wood. I'm loving all the bright colors together...they're fun! Here's the whole thing...

 

color pop

I've recently changed my decorating mentality. Since we've moved into the house, we have spent hours running around the city, shopping, browsing magazines, etc. looking for things for our house. We never seemed to buy things because we {I} wasn't sure if it would fit, how it would look, if I'd like it.....

So, I told myself if I see something I like, I'm going to get it, try it out at home, and if we don't like it take it back! And, it's working!! We've added lots of new accessories to our tv stand that look great {and wouldn't have been anything I would typically throw together in my mind}. Here are some recent purchases we bought from Crate and Barrel.

{Glass Birdie - $7.00}

 

 {Lula Vase $9.00}

 

{Yoko Vase $8.00 -- we got blue one}

One of my favorite things about buying stuff I like when I see it.....we have a few extra things that we've stored away. We have them close by for whenever we'd like to switch things up a little bit! I'll be sure to show you the finished tv stand when we get it complete!!

Have a GREAT weekend!!

Thanksgiving Break - Night 5ish

Saturday night was technically 'night 5,' but I don't really have anything to share from Saturday. Kurt played golf and I spent some time with my mom and Julia. We did go to Brugge {an amazing restaurant in Broad Ripple} with some friends on Saturday night. Other than that, a pretty relaxing day...

Sunday was the last day of break {and it came WAY too soon}! Before we could watch the Colts game and relax, we wanted to get our Christmas lights on outside. It took us awhile, but the house looks great!!

It started out pretty chaotic....

We slowly, but surely got in a groove and got the lights up...

That's not to say that we didn't have to take down many things and redo them...

...for example this tree.

Kurt really wanted some colored lights {I'm a white light girl}.

His dad gave him a whole box of old colored lights for us to use.

We tested all the strands before and only one worked.

So I put it {really well} on our little tree outside, but decided I needed one more strand to finish off the top.

Before we went and bought a new strand of lights, we wanted to see if it truly did need more.

And when I plugged it in, only HALF of the tree lit up!!! AHHH!

So, I had to take it all down....maybe we'll have some color next year!

We added a nice little Boy Scout wreath.

And waited patiently for it to get dark enough to see the lights...

The final product!

Like it? 

We're finally done decorating for Christmas. Now we just need to finish our shopping {and wrapping} and we'll be able to relax and enjoy the season.

Thanksgiving Break - Night 4

The Friday after Thanksgiving, my mom and I always go shopping. But, we're not those crazy {sorry if you are!} early shoppers. We like to sleep in and head out to the stores what some people might consider 'late.' Anyways, we found lots of great presents and spent some quality time together.

The original plan was for Kurt and I to put up all of our Christmas decorations on Saturday. But, all the men in my family decided that they are going to start a new tradition of playing one last round of golf on that Saturday. Kurt really wanted to play, so we decided that we'd put our tree up on Friday night and finish the decorations on Sunday.

So, after shopping on Friday, I met Kurt at the Christmas tree place. We picked our tree, stopped at Target to pick up a few more lights, and headed home to get started. {Oh, I forgot to tell you about the new pj pants that we bought at Gap on Wednesday. We decided we wanted to have a night where we could just lounge together in our new pj pants. This was the perfect night! Maybe another new tradition for us?!?}

Putting up the tree didn't go as smoothly as last year. I think we rushed a little in the buying of the tree because we bought a crooked tree {or the guy drilled the hole a little crooked}!

We twisted, turned, and finagled the tree as much as possible, but it continued to be crooked. Kurt decided to take a string and tie it to the trunk, pull the tree straight, and tie the other end to the tree stand. For the most part, the tree straightened up! We had some more issues with the lights, but eventually they were on...phew.

 

{Much straighter, huh!?!?!}

Then the fun part....the ornaments! Each year, I buy an ornament for us at the Holiday Mart and get it personalized. This year I decided to buy one to remember our new house. This was the first ornament to be put on the tree.....

{Kinda hard to see, I know. Do you see Cooper in between us?!? Cute, no?}

It didn't take too long to put up the ornaments. After we cleaned up, we decided to lounge around in our pjs. I really wanted to watch a Christmas movie together. We decided on Love Actually {he vetoed The Holiday}. We searched everywhere, but quickly realized that my movies have been misplaced at some point during the move.....that's how much I watch movies!! So, instead we watched Santa Clause.

 

{Trying to get a picture of our pjs and the tree....not so successful!}

It was a nice little evening spent together. I love Christmas time so much!!

Thanksgiving Break - Night 2 {part 2}

In case you were wondering, our room is still orange....

But, our Christmas decorations downstairs make me happy! :) So, back to the DIY project for all those materials I showed you.

I broke our one hurricane that we brought from the apartment. I knew I wanted to get a couple more anyways so this was the time to buy them all! I also knew I wanted to use different 'decorations' inside of them for different seasons/holidays. So, in came the idea for jingle bells, snow, and cranberries. Wednesday night we wandered through Michael's and found everything we needed....sorta. Instead of cranberries {or fake ones} we found a very long strand of red beads that look just like cranberries. All we had to do was snip the string and we had our cranberries!!

At first, we thought we wanted to put snow at the bottom of all three hurricanes, but shortly after I did the first one, we decided that wasn't going to look right...

So, we finally decided on the biggest one having the jingle bells, the short one with cranberries, and the tall/skinny one with snow on the bottom and a mixture of bells and cranberries on top. We found a few things we already had and put them all on top of our TV stand. It's really hard to tell, but here is what it looks like all together.

Here are the pictures of what each side looks like close up...

Like it? We really love it!! And, it'll be easy enough to bag up all the things and switch to something new in January.

Oh, and remember that green 'bowl' I showed you? We wanted to jazz it up a bit for Christmas {and we plan on doing so for each season}. So, we went to my favorite store, Target {!}, picked up a tube of silver ornaments, and popped them in the bowl. Check it out...

Hope you like it!!

Have a great weekend!

{mild} panic attack

Yes, we're crazy and we began a big project last night. We have decided to begin tackling our house going room at a time. Don't ask why, but the laundry room is the first....

We started a little of this last night....

With one coat of paint, I'm really starting to regret the decision. It's supposed to look like this mauve-ish/red-ish color in the kitchen.

You might be thinking that we picked a different shade that we thought would match, but NO it's from the exact same paint can!!! Currently, our laundry room is somewhere around the shade of Burnt Orange straight off of the Texas Longhorn's football jersey....oh no, what have we gotten ourselves into!

Keep your fingers crossed that another coat and drying time will dramatically change the color!

{Sorry about the short break from the Thanksgiving updates!}

Thanksgiving Break - Night 2

I wish I could say that we woke up early on Wednesday and had a really productive morning {like we'd planned}, but we didn't. And, it sure felt great to sleep in! Kurt's dad came over shortly after we woke up. We've been planning on doing some upgrades to our laundry room, including adding a counter top above our washer and dryer. Kurt's dad is a home builder so he hooked us up with a 'counter top guy' to find a cheap and perfect match for our tiny little room.

We had planned on buying any remaining Christmas decorations for the house so that after Thanksgiving we wouldn't have to fight the crowds to find what we wanted/needed. In order to do that, we needed to pull out all our decorations and make a list of things we needed to pick up. Getting our decorations out was somewhat of an ordeal....

Our coat closet has a great {finished} storage area behind it/under the stairs. There are a few minor problems with getting to the things stored in that area. Why you might ask?

1. The door is all the way at the back of the closet. The cleaning supplies and Cooper's food has to be removed to get access to the door {and the coats!}

2. The closet is an odd shape. There is only one rack for coats and that rack is smack-dab in front of the door. So....all the coats have to come out.

3. Once everything is sprawled out around our house, we can finally see the door. BUT, we have to unscrew it before we can get in!!!

Once all those steps have been completed, we're able to find all our things we've neatly stored away. {Major plans are in the works for making this closet and door more functional!} Needless to say, we only get in the storage when we really need to and make sure to put everything away before closing it up!!!

Here are a few decorations we already had.

 

 

 The Santa found a new home {and I can't wait to show you!}

The Cooper-look-alike will stay on the stair landing and the red and green candle has found a great spot on the window ledge above the sink. 

The remainder of the afternoon was spent running errands. We did some damage at some of our favorite stores! We knew our house would be very festive this year!

Remember this picture I shared yesterday?

The first thing we started to do was this...

Wonder what we did with the rest of the stuff?

I can assure you that all these things put together make up my favorite decorations in our house.

I'm running out of time, so I'll have to share the finished product tomorrow.

But until tomorrow, check out this picture...

...the green 'bowl' was one of our purchases of the day.

We added some umph to it to make it more festive.

Can you guess how?!?

tv stand {2}

Remember the long beginning process of our tv stand? Well, it took even longer because we had to wait for the piece {that Kurt accidentally broke} to be shipped. Once it finally came, Kurt decided to put it on himself before I came home from work....

...In the process, he dinged another piece! He got back on the website and ordered the new piece. So, we had to wait for that, too! Finally, we were able to put the new piece on, hammer on the back, and finally put it to use.

Here's what our room looked like before the rug and tv stand --

The room now looks like this --

 

 

I know these pictures aren't the best, but they give you an idea. Do you see that yucky blanket that Coop is still using as a dog bed? Hopefully that will be switched soon. And we're looking for lots of cute accessories to adorn the tv stand. Any good ideas or places to look? We'd love to hear from you!

tv stand {1}

I can't tell you how long it took us to find a TV stand that we liked. It was a painful process and we're very glad that the continuous searching is over. But before we were able to enjoy it, we spent four days waiting for it to be shipped, six hours putting it together {on multiple days}, and waited for two separate pieces to be shipped {due to user error....} Phew!

Because the process took soooooo long {and I took pictures all along the way}, I thought I'd only share with you the first half.

Because we didn't have a TV stand, our TV and things were being temporally housed on our {pottery barn} coffee table {which was damaged in the storage shed...ugh!!!!!}. It looked really lame, but was doable until we found something we wanted.

And so it began...

We spread all the pieces out on the floor so we could easily find them.

Cooper didn't really understand why we weren't playing with him and what all the stuff was on 'his' carpet he loves so much! He decided he wanted to help!

It took f o r e v e r to put the main part together. Of course there were a few pieces we put on the wrong way, so we'd have to take a bunch of stuff apart and do it over....

We really didn't want to stop, but we had to take a quick break for dinner. Then, our first 'bump in the road.' I heard a loud 'snap' and then Kurt yelling. When we were laying all the pieces out, he had set one of the long skinny pieces {that goes in the very front of the stand} on the couch. After dinner, he went to sit down to figure out what we needed to do. You finish the story.....

Oops! We didn't really know what to do! Kurt decided he'd call the place where we bought the stand. They let him know that pieces break all the time. All you have to do is go to the website, fill in some information on what was broken, and they'll send it to your house asap. So, back to work we went!

Well, some of us....Cooper was really bored and tired from watching us work so hard!

After about 4 hours, this is what we had.

We thought we were getting pretty close to the end, but we were wrong. It seemed that the further along we got, the longer things took. Maybe because things at the end are so detailed and tedious! Finally, at 11:30 {on a Thursday night} I decided I was done for the night. It took me SO long just to put one door on, I was so over the whole thing! When I went to bed, our room looked kinda trashy....

 

Ha ha!!!

Guess you'll have to wait to see the finished product :)

Have a great weekend!

{Maybe we'll find some accessories for the TV stand this weekend?!?}