This post is full of bull. . .dog!!!!

Hello there my lovelies!!!  I thought I'd pop in quickly to give you the following public service announcement:

BULLDOGS. . .especially Miniature Bulldogs. . .are the best (and cutest) dogs ever!  Best and cutest ever I say?

Want proof?

Yeah. . .I totally want another one!  I'm smitten!

A busy night with a little time for a celebration!

11-11-11. . .how cool that such a monumental "number" date turned out to be Veteran's Day!  I just love seeing all of the Patriotism that comes with this day! 

What might be a little less known is 11-10. . .the Birthday of the United States Marine Corps!  Seeing that we have a fellow Marine in our family, we always have to do a little something special!!

Chuck. . .many moons ago!

So. . .last night. . .I set out to fancy up our dinner table in honor of the 236th Birthday of the USMC!!

It wasn't much really. . .just a little flair of red and yellow, and a stout "Devil Dog" statue watching over our every bite!  The boys had fun drinking their special lemonade cocktails as well!  We piled our plates high with cheese and mushroom stuffed chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, and green beans!  A hearty meal for my group of little Marines!

After dinner was cleaned up, I set out to finish up a DIY project that had been rolling around in the back of my mind for the past few weeks!




Pottery Barn Wine Basket

 Growing up, my sister and I each had a favorite color.  Hers was pink and mine was purple!  Needless to say, we were always receiving "color coded" items for gifts!  A couple of weeks ago, my Mom came across my old purple Easter Basket!  She brought it over to me hoping that I could breath a bit of life back into it!!!

I got to work!  This past weekend I took advantage of the warm weather and spray painted my purple basket with som oil rubbed bronze spray paint we had in the closet!  I set it aside during the week to make sure it was nice and dry!  I measured out some burlap trim and some hemp twine. . .warmed up my hot glue gun. . .and bam. . .I created a nice little Pottery Barn "wanna-be" wine (or anything) basket for that matter!

I think I'm going to give it as a Hostess gift to sweet Holly on Thanksgiving filled with all kinds of special treasures!  I'm pretty excited with how it turned out considering I used things that I found in my craft drawers! 

Happy Veteran's Day!!

It's Christmas Card time again!!!!

I can hardly believe that I just used the word "Christmas" in a blog title before Thanksgiving!!!

Me, the queen of complaining that stores need to enjoy Thanksgiving before overloading shoppers with Christmas, blogging about Christmas while the Halloween pumpkins still adorn my front porch!

The reason?

Christmas cards of course!!! 

Here is the flip side to my Christmas before Thanksgiving conundrum. . .my wonderful husband is a photographer which means that, for the past few months, I have been helping capture everyone else's Christmas card moments! 

I'm feeling like I need to get cracking on ours!  This year, I've decided to use Shutterfly!  Time and time again we have been completely satisfied with the quality of Shutterfly products!  So much so that our "professional photographer" family chooses Shutterfly over all the other companies out there!  The quality and price can't be beat!

Now, put on your winter hats, sweaters, and scarves, and get smiling!  There are many family moments to be captured and time is running out!!!

Do you blog?  Would you like a chance to win 25 Christmas cards from Shutterfly? 

Click here to find out how!

Pottery Barn Wannabe - DIY Glitter Hanging Bats

I am a Pottery Barn junkie!  I get excited when the new catalogue comes in the mail every. . .single. . .time!  I, unfortunately, am not a millionaire, or even a thousandaire for that matter, and do more Pottery Barn shopping in my mind than in real life!  With all that being said, a few of weeks ago I came across this adorable display on the Pottery Barn Kids website.  Now, even though Fall is my FAVORITE time of the year, I am more of a harvesty. . .burlapy. . .gordy kind of decorator as oopposed to a Halloween kind of gal!  Diva, I know! 

But. . .when I saw these I just HAD to have them to work into my decor!  When I saw the $9.00 price tag though, I decided that I could probably make my own!!  Imitation is the best type of flattery right? 

So, I set out to make some fake Pottery Barn Bats!

From Hobby Lobby I purchased the following supplies:

          * Glittered black sheets of felt (1 sheet made 3 bats)
          * Glittered white sheets of felt (1/2 sheet made 4 stars)
          * Roll of 10 g Cotton Perle embroidery floss
          * Small bottle of Sobo Premium Craft and Fabric Glue

From the Internet:

          * I enlarged the above photo until I had the bats the size that I wanted them.  I then printed out  the picture and cut out the bats to use as my templates.

From my own pool of resources:

         * I have a die cut machine at the school I work at so I found the perfect size star, cut it out on a piece of scrap paper, and used it as a template.

I'm thinking that telling you how to assemble the bats would be a waste of my time since I am confident that you are all smart people!!!  In a nutshell I. . .cut out the bats and the stars. . .cut my string to length and glued everything together.  I then stuck them under a few really heavy books until the glue dried! I did make my bats double sided so they look the same from both sides as they twirl around. . .and it made them really sturdy. . .and it was an excellent way to hide the string!  Three bats. . .one stone!  Bam!

What do you think?  Pretty close right?  My cost?  About $3.00!  And, I still have enough supplies to make 3 more bats! 

Next up to create. . .Pottery Barn Garden Wine Bottle Basket !

I'll keep you posted!

I'm not missing. . .I'm just BUSY!!

Please forgive me. . .I mean, really, really, really. . .please forgive me!!!

We are in the process of a HUGE home renovation. . .Like gutting our entire home, adding an addition, etc!  And, did I mention that we are living there while doing it all?  Yep, we are!

And. . .we have another little something in the works. . .more on that later!

I miss you!

Be back soon!

We have 3 boys. . .my 3 sons if you may!

 Jared

 Connor

Nolan



The majority of the time, Jared and Connor get along something like this:

(Wow, this picture was taken a few years ago on Christmas. . .boy howdy have they grown!)

Every once in a great while though, my heart is blessed when something like this comes home from school:

It's so sweet to know that even through the frustrations and arguments, and all the brotherly stuff. . .that deep down, they think the world of one another!

It felt like we were getting engaged all over again!

CJ and I headed out yesterday evening with some coffee in hand to do a little sunset photo shoot!!!  I had my doubts as to how things were going to turn out since I had just come from a dentist appointment where half of my face was numbed up so I couldn't feel the two cavaties being filled!  I told CJ to make sure he captured my "good side". . .ie. . .the one that wasn't drooping!

We had the BEST time!!  It was like we were 20 years old again and celebrating our engagement!  All that fun and I was still in my work clothes!!!

He even squeezed in a couple pretty decent ones of me while testing his focus and lighting!

Ahhh spring!  Drink it in!