November - it was wonderful

Yes, I know it's December. Similar to my October post, I just have a few random pictures and some captions to try to piece together a month full of crazy beautiful wonderful stressful emotional fabulous heartbreaking - yes, heartbreaking - month (see Seminole football). That, plus the fact that I don't have a SINGLE picture from Thanksgiving, all adds up to one hot mess of a mama. Between work, grad school, Lily's activities, Jason's insane work schedule, my volunteer commitments and the holidays, I haven't had time to take a breath, much less take a picture. New Year resolution: take more pictures. I feel like I've said that before...

 

Anyway, here's a breakdown of the month (minus Thanksgiving....bad, mommy, bad!)

 



 

 

 

 

The first weekend of the month actually skipped forward a bit on the holiday calendar, as the Junior League of Tallahassee put on our annual Jingle Jubilee, our premiere holiday shopping event featuring vendors from all over the country. Fabulous shopping, performances by local dance companies and a special pancake breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus for the kids (and me...). It was wonderful.

 

 

Speaking of wonderful, I adore this time of year. Fabulous décor and pumpkin flavored goodies aside, this time of year is the best simply because it's the time of year when everyone comes home. I am one of the few who stayed here in town after high school, and one of even fewer who set up house here after college. I love seeing pictures of my friends in all of their dream-following, change of pace and place lives. Some day, when flight rates drop, I'll visit them. But for now, text messages and phone dates get me through the week. While I haven't yet regretted staying home - Tallahassee is proving to be a perfect place for our growing family - I do miss them something fierce. Come November, though, communication changes. Their voices are clear because they're in the same room as I am, not at the other end of a phone line. The sparkle in their eyes is brighter than ever because it's not being blurred by webcams. Their hugs and smiles beat a text message alert any day. I love it when they come home.

 

 

 

Kyla came home for a blink before she had to head back to NYC. No worries, though, she'll be moving back to Tally in January! Woohoo!

 

 

 

Lisa also came home along with our friend Kristen (from D.C and Las Vegas, respectively). We all met up at the FSU v. UF game to cheer on our Seminoles! Apparently we weren't cheering loud enough....I don't want to talk about it. Heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking. But it was just fabulous visiting and tailgating! #NoleFanForever

 

 

The end of Thanksgiving and the FSU/UF game mark the official beginning of the Christmas season. I met up with some Junior League gals at our local Painting With a Twist and made a new item for the house:

 

Yep - I'm an artist, now. No big deal.

 

 

The new art, plus our usual decorations, plus a whole new heap of decorations (after an emergency run to Hobby Lobby. The décor we had to decorate our townhouse barely covers a single room in our new house. That just would not do!) have all been put up, minus a Christmas tree and a few other finishing touches. Working on the tree....have I mentioned we're busy? Anyway, after the stocking were hung by the chimney with care (because I have a chimney now! How cool is that?!?!), we lit our first fire. As with everything else, it was wonderful.

 

October - all of it!

Yeah, it's December. Not even going start with the apologies or excuses. You know how it goes!Here's an October dump for ya.

 

 

Pumpkin picking to kick off the month!

 

 

 

 

 

With the pumpkins picked and carved, pumpkin spice lattes in hand, we began Halloween celebrations!

 

 

Candy Corn outfit for Halloween day. Thanks, Aunt Annette!

 

 

 

Tucker, his family, and Alisha came over for trick-or-treating! A little pre-costume photoshoot.

 

 

 

Quick costume change and some candy pre-gaming. Lily definitely has her eye on the prize!

Family pic! Happy Halloween!

The Holiday Season

The pumpkins are here! Halloween is a little over one week away and we are in full fall swing. I've been keeping the windows around me open whenever possible and today marked out first official fall activity - the pumpkin patch. Picking out our pumpkins, playing in the hay, avoiding scarecrows at all cost and watching a marathon of Halloween movies (thanks, ABC Family!) while snacking on sandwiches and laughing with friends marks the first of our seasonal celebrations. What a wonderful time of year! Here are a few shots from the Patch:

 

 

So take a look at this one from this morning:

 

 

Now take a moment and check this out from Baby Girl's first pumpkin patch visit. Now beathe deep and let it sink in. Yep, she's growing up way too fast!

 

So sweet.

Cuddles with Daddy

 



 

Posing with Mommy

The Campbells came, too! Lily and Tucker has a blast climbing over the pumpkins and then playing around in the back yard after we got home. They are so wonderful together!

 

 

A wonderful day to kick off a wonderful season. I'm sure I've said it before, but as far as I'm concerned, the Holidays begin with Halloween and end with Mardi Gras. That said, happy holidays, y'all!

A Work in Progress

I would like to start by saying that I am useless as an interior designer. I can arrange flowers and create tablescapes with moderate confidence, but when it comes to putting whole rooms together, I'm at a loss. I have no spacial reasoning skills and my eye for color is often a few shades off. But that's the good thing about owning your home, right? I can always start over if I need to. I will say, though, so far I think I'm doing OK!

 

It's a work in progress, but here's a quick update! We've been in the house for a few weeks now, and with me working all day and Jason working nights, it's tough to make a lot of progress during the few hours between! But it's definitely coming along. With the new space, the rooms are still looking pretty bare, and since painting the walls took about 2 weeks (again, we didn't have a lot of time between job shifts), I am 100x more hesitant to start putting things up on the wall than I have ever been before. I feel like every nail I hammer into the wall needs to be a certainty, like putting an unnecessary hole would be an insult and an injury to all the hard work!

 

But, after all is said and done, it is truly starting to feel like home. The furniture is coming into place, and Lily and Mowgli have found their own separate world in our new backyard. There is really is no place like it!

 

 

OK so a few before-and-almost-after pictures!

 



 

 

 

This is the living room before. The walls and mantle were a blue-gray with a red accent wall behind the fireplace.

 

This is the painting in progress. I had a little too much fun putting the monogram over the mantle!

 

Almost finished product! The walls are Hazy Sage from Glidden and the mantle is now a true white to match the baseboard.

 

 

This is the dining room before.

 



 

Dining room almost after! It's a rich blue with warm woods, jewel tones and brass accents (chandelier and switchplates). We are in the process of putting the paintings on the walls and finding a piece to store our china and Waterford. Definitely the most dramatic room of the house - more pictures of this one to come!

There's No Place Like It...

 

 

Color me happy and just call me Susie Homeowner! After several years of saving and planning, we finally did it. We have our own home! No more white walls, thin walls and noisy neighbors. No more fighting for parking spots and paying for laundry. We are now the proud owners of a roomy abode with a huge backyard complete with oak tree and swing. The kids are thrilled. A few snapshots of the past two weeks:

 

 

Closing! We worked out seating arrangements so we could sign at the same time. We're very efficient. 

 

Family photo! Lily loved that sign - but I think we did more!

Over the threshold.

 

 

Boxes are packed and are slowly, but surely getting moved. I have paint practically tattooed on me for as hard as I scrub, I can't seem to get it all off! We've made a ton of cosmetic changes to the inside - before and after pictures coming soon!

 

We are just so excited to have a place to call our own. Holidays, showers, parties and family gatherings just got 100x better; Mowgli has a yard to play in and we all have more room to spread out! We're all breathing just a little bit deeper, with smiles just a little bit wider. Such a happy time! 

Unknown Territory

 I think I've lost my mind. Not only have I cooked a healthy meal for dinner (healthy meaning, not meat and butter based), but it's also all 100% organic. I don't know whether this is a cause for pride or a therapy session as I'm obviously smack dab in the middle of an identity crisis. I'm all for organics and natural ingredients, but I've never gone out of my way to acquire said materials. However, when my mother presented the opportunity to take part in a produce co-op, I had to give it a try.  In our first share delivery, we received a random sample of berries, tomatoes, fruits, and one giant enigmatic gourd. So what is the mystery veg? Ladies and gents, I give you, the spaghetti squash!

Here's how you rock a spaghetti squash:

OK, so first you cut the thing in half length ways. This recipe is fabulous because it gives you two totally legitimate excuses to avoid the gym: 1, as previously stated, this is a healthy meal (that means you don't have to work out, right?). 2, it takes every muscle in your upper body to wrench the sucker apart.

Then, you gut it like a pumpkin, removing all the seeds. Put it, cut side down, on a lightly greased (OK I had to use SOME butter, but it's not butter-based, and that's what makes this extraordinary). Roast it at 350 for 35 minutes.

While the squash is a roastin, saute a small onion, three small tomatoes and garlic (all organic, bien sur!) in some olive oil.

When the squash is done, scrape out the insides with a fork into a bowl. Here's the nifty part: the insides form the shape of a spaghetti noodle! No kidding! A spaghetti squash produces spaghetti shaped squash meat! Mind blown.

Empty the shavings into a bowl and toss with tomato mixture, some feta cheese, fresh basil and spinach. It looks, tastes and feels just like pasta. It's pretty and delicious and fabulous and it won't clog your arteries.

To make things even better, the portion you see above is only half the dang gourd! I shaved the rest and popped it in the freezer (it apparently freezes beautifully) for future use - more than likely the next time I get a group of those fabulous tomatoes.

While I'm thrilled with this whole new world of healthy fabulousity, I'm still not feeling right about all of this no-meat-barely-a-hint-of-butter recipe thing. I'm thinking a batch of sugar cookies will restore balance to my world...

Hooray for Daddy!

Happy birthday, Daddy!

Today, you are officially closer to 30 than you are to 20, and you've never looked better!

We celebrated with a fantastic breakfast in bed, lots of fantastic video games (still such a kid!) and a fantastic dinner at Hurricane Grill with lots of friends - we took up the whole porch area! Drinks, wings (extra spicy for the birthday boy), and all the fried pickles I could eat - it was a fantastic day! Lily got into the celebrations by dancing for our group to the music being played outside - sweet tea in one hand, crayons in the other. Such a party girl.

Tomorrow, Mommy goes back to work and Lily goes back to school. Happy birthday, Jason and bye bye, summer. Bring on the cooler weather, tailgating, pumpkin spice lattes, boots and chunky sweaters!