PIC OVERLOAD!!!

That last 2-3 weeks have been NON-FREAKING-STOP for this little family! Although, I welcome the craziness, my body is paying for it dearly. I am tiiiiiiiiiired. From parties, to all of the Fall festivities, award shows and dinners for my husband's job, and a toddler....whew! We are about a week away from my husband ( and us girls) going back to the "road life". Tour season starts, and I am just trying to get my mind in the right place. We are just soaking up each day together, I am enjoying an extra set of hands around the house, and I just love the comfort of him being home. We always trudge through each season, and come out the other side though!

Anyway....I have taken so many pics over the last few weeks and don't really even know where to begin, so here are just some random bits from our past couple of weeks.

We hosted a mini pumpkin decorating party for Amara and a few of her friends. Chili, cupcakes and some interesting looking pumpkins ;) So fun!

I helped my sweet friend, Holly, from high school host a mini class reunion brunch at her family's farm.

I have known these girls for over 10 years.....still blows my mind! 

We had a family photo shoot. Happy to check that off of the list! My old roomie and dear friend, Shara, took our pics! She is amazing!! I haven't gotten all of them back yet, but she sent me a few via text because she is awesome. I was DYING to see how they were turning out! These are unedited, but I wanted to share anyway. I know photographers hate that ;)

^^ Tour kick off dinner ^^

                   

 ^^ Trips to the zoo ^^

 ^^ Tickles in the bed^^

 ^^ Painting....every. day. painting. ^^

 ^^ Swinging at the park... something she requests often. ^^

 ^^ attending birthday parties ^^

 ^^ My bestie had a baby^^

 ^^ LOTS of snuggles ^^

 ^^ Dove Awards. My Mother - in - law headed up an AMAZING show, and I was so proud of her! I didn't have a pic of my husband and I, so this one will do! Two ladies I love!! ^^

^^ We have watched Clark swim...fascinating! ^^

This about sums up our life recently....in photos at least. Hope you are having a good week so far! 

I am putting some final touches on Amara's room this week, and hope to have some pics of it up on the blog by the end of the week as well as some more of our family photos!

xo!

Organizing my LIFE.

I have spent most of this week just trying to get a grip on my life. I will be the first to admit that I don't take Mondays very well. I just don't have the motivation to tackle the things that I need to. I think it is usually because our Mondays are like Saturdays around here. It is usually our family day since Gabe is usually gone on the weekends. Our world stops when daddy comes home :)

 Anyway, Monday I decided to get up and get going. Gabe had a busy day starting around 11:30, so I got up, made a grocery list, went to the grocery ALONE ( much faster), made some appointments, made some calls, had a couple of allergy attacks. By 2 pm, I was ready for a nap. I took a midday shower and nap I did! Then, I was ready to tackle the rest of my day. I made dinner for the family ( big deal....really, it is!), bathed Amara then had a client come over for a late night eyebrow waxing before her lead role in a music video! So excited for her!! 

With a productive beginning to my week, I have tried to make an effort to stay home more, and get some organizing done around my house! I am on a mission to completely redo this house of mine. I am soooooo tired of little things just laying around. They either need a designated space or they need to get out of my house. I think I have had the same dry cleaning pile for 2 years straight. Just take them already, Jenni!!! Things just have to change....period. 

Here are some before an afters.....nothing special....no fancy bins or things that look pretty, just good ole fashion organizing and purging. I TRULY believe that life is easier when you don't have as much stuff. My house feels bare compared to most, but I go through a major purging phase at least every 6 months. I don't hold on to much! I was able to make space for some of Amara's craft stuff as well as throw expired pantry items out. I have a plan to make more use of my counter space in the kitchen by removing my endless mail pile that makes it way out of the actual mail holder. Again, this just all has to end! I will post pics when I tackle that.

^^ Is it bad to keep potatoes on the ground? I am planning on purchasing a three drawer tupperware from Target to store them in along with snacks. I think it works for now.^^

^^ This is our "junk drawer"...we all have them. I just need it to be a more organized junk drawer.^^

^^ I have just had these items sitting on top of my buffet for weeks. I finally cleared room in my "placemat/charger drawer" to store craft supplies for Amara. Feels so good to not see them lying around. It only took two trips to the drawer for Amara to now go on her own and ask to "cull"                ( color).^^

^^ I actually ( FINALLY) wiped all of the dust off of our bottles. I mean, if you want to have a bar cart of some sort to display these gorgeous bottles, they should be sparkling....ting! Right?!

I also threw out anything we don't drink, and added a tumbler to hold stripey straws. Why? Because they make people happy! ^^

^^ So, we keep a coin sorter in our coat closet. It is where my husband dumps all of his change so that it can go back into our pockets. We just let the full coin rolls wiggle their way around the shelf, so I finally decided that they needed a home. It just got annoying. :) ^^


Thanks for checking in! Sorry there is not much going on over here this week.....not on the blog anyway! :) 

DIY terrariums

I have about 10 minutes before my sweet baby wakes up from her nap, but I wanted to get this post up because I am sooooo excited to have FINALLY planted my little succulents that I bought about a week ago. I just let them rest on my window sill until I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. I decided to use the vases and pots that I already had on hand. For me, this meant that I had to do a few separate plants instead of planting them all in one giant pot like I had originally envisioned.  I am so glad that I went in that direction because I change my mind A LOT. This gives me the freedom to move them throughout the house if I want or just rearrange them where they are.

 I grabbed a basic terra cotta planter that I had in the garage and spray painted it in "lemongrass"so that I could add a touch of color to our very "woody" and white dining space. It is my kind of yellowy -green, and I love it. I covered each plant with some potting soil, moss from JoAnn's fabric store, and some river rock from JoAnn's as well. I am in loooooove! They just brighten up our space so much!! Not to mention, I am not the best at keeping things alive....plant wise. I mean....I really suck at it. I am hoping that these little guys stay around for a while. Fingers crossed!

DIY felt ball garland

We got two packages in the mail today. One was a Netflix dvd that my husband requested. The other.....beautiful, handmade felt balls from Germany! Sounds fancy, huh? Well....mine does, not the Rambo dvd that is sitting on my dining room table right now. 

 I searched and searched and searched and searched for the best deal on felt balls or felt ball garland ( already strung). For ME, this seemed to be the best route. I ordered 50 felt balls from Etsy. The best part is that you get to pick your colors. Perfect for a control freak like me! They took a couple of weeks to arrive, but the shipping was cheap!!! It was worth the wait. I opened the box, and I was so pleased with the quality and the beautiful colors. 

Gorgeous, right!?!

I laid all of my colors out in the order that I wanted them strung.

The pictures below aren't the brightest, so you can't see just how amazing the colors look. It just the time of day. I will post better ones when Amara's new room is revealed! 

I am one Etsy print and a couple of framed photos away! :)