Welcome, Fall!

So I got a little bee in my bonnett and decided to get started on some fall decorating today. I was merely planning to spruce up our entry room and then one thing led to another and I started perusing through my Fall tubs. Oh, Fall. Glorious Fall. I LOVE this time of year. Caramel apples, hay rides, corn mazes, FOOTBALL, candy corn, kettle corn, pumpkins, pumpkin spice lattes, fudge, pumpkin fudge. I mean, I could go on for days....Oh, and who could forget fall attire? Soooo much better than trying to camoflauge residual baby flab with summer garb. Whoops, I've said too much. Anywho, fall is just around the corner and we are geared up for apple festivals, pumpkin festivals. You name it. We're ready.

Alrighty, so to welcome Fall, my son and I hung this garage sale beauty on the front door.

Then I moved a full size dresser that had been collecting all kinds of junk, out to the garage by myself. I think I'll recover. In its place I put this antique radio cabinet I found at a garage sale for $5.00. Some garage sale baskets fit perfectly on the 2 shelves. I'm pretty certain I will paint this piece but I haven't had time and I was ready to get some things organized so for now, it is what it is.

The "welcome" wording is from the Dollar Tree.

The "G" towel is a garage sale find. I think it was .10.

The fall floral arrangement was a freebie from a previous rental.

I've had the sunflowers in the Mail container for years. I think the flowers are from Hobby Lobby? One good  thing about moving so much is you don't grow tired of your decor as quickly. It all seems "new" when it's in a new spot :) But that's hardly worth moving 9 time in 9 years. So I think we'll stay put for a while.

 

I found this clock today at a yard sale for $1.00. I thought it just looked like fall!

Pay no attention to the mess behind that glass door, by the way.

My other find of the day is this lovely chair I bought for $5.00.

I had initially planned to put a bench in this corner to sit down and throw your shoes on, but after looking in the stores and finding out they're around $100.00 or more, I decided this will work just fine. I now just need to decide what to do about that pesky alarm thingy that I can't get rid of but want to disguise.

I'm thinking a shelf with a key rack or something along those lines, so we'll see how the hubby weighs in and go from there. Hope you're enjoying a little fall weather, whever you are!

Bookcase Dilemma: To showcase or.....what, exactly?

Hello y'all. Yesterday was "mission organize the family room". Our family room is over the garage, on its own level so it's fair to say it gets a bit neglected. If someone drops by, it's no big deal if it just so happens that it looks like a bomb when off in that room. What? You don't have rooms like that? Well, that's how we live. There, I said it. We are trying to do better though. I finally feel like I have some room to breathe and just a bit of time to organize and even more importantly, decorate. Yay! We even have some resemblance of a cleaning routine going on, and I've started to make it a habit not to go to bed before all those darn toys are put away every night. Things are looking up! The family room has a really great set of built ins that are 6 ft wide and I think about 8 ft tall. Great storage, right? Well, one would think, but man I have a hard time knowing what to do with open shelving. I'm not a collector. I do not like clutter. I don't have any knick-knacks.

So the dilemma lied in what to do with all of that space. It was becoming a frustration to me, to say the least. So I finally decided to embrace the fact that we have small children in the house. We are going to for quite a while. So rather than try and hide or camoflauge their toys, I cleared the shelves and started sorting. I picked out my favorites of their toys. But before I filled the shelves back up, I lined several of the shelves with a gray and white chevron shelf liner. That alone changed the whole feel of the room. I love it!

I moved their table and chairs from the other side of room and it works so much better. They can see their cartoons while they are having a snack, which I don't let them do that often but when we do, it's nice.

I found the Chevron shelf liner at TJ Maxx for $5 for 2 rolls. Definitely a cheap makeover.

I displayed the Golden Books (most of them from when I was young) between 2 antique irons from my Mom's house. I let the kids pick which 3 they display in the frames and told them they could change them everyday. That's the first thing my oldest did this morning, change them around :)

I always pick up wooden toys at yard sales when I see them. They definitely add a whimsical touch to the room.

Baskets are one of my best friends. Children dump out. Proceed to make a mess. Mom picks up at night and dumps everything back in. Go to sleep. Repeat.

A few more of the wooden toys displayed.

 

Yes, it is possible to have a multi-purpose room and have it look somewhat decorated and pulled together. So now we'll see how long we can keep it this way :)

 

I've added some Chevron in other parts of the room, and I'll try and get pics up of that soon. Have a happy Wednesday, friends.

Comfort Food

So once again it is a rainy, dreary day today. And quite chilly, I might add. I suppose some part of me will always feel a bit homesick, but today I was feeling particularly that way. I don't know if it's the weather or what, but I was in desperate need of some comfort food. Growing up, I could count on a multitude of things, one of them being a home cooked meal just about every day of the week. With 5 kids in the family, we seldom ate out. From a financial standpoint, it obviously makes sense to eat at home. And now that I have kids of my own, I realize it's not only a financial decision. It's a strategic move to try and keep your sanity. I was reminded of that today when I took my 2 kids to Cici's for lunch. Seriously, why do I keep doing that to myself? What's that definition of insanity.....doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Mmmhmmmm.....insane person on this laptop here, y'all. So to combat those Northern Blues I whipped up a recipe of mine that I haven't made in a while. It's a recipe that has came about from trial and (not much) error, but rather refining a host of different recipes until I came up with one that I love and all 4 of us will actually eat. BINGO.




So here is what you will need for Fiesta Potato Soup:

8 potatoes, cubed (or one large bag of frozen Hashbrown potatoes if you're in a hurry)
1 box chicken stock
1 packet Hidden Valley Fiesta Ranch Seasoning
1 large onion, chopped

Cook above ingredients in a large soup pot over medium heat for 1-2 hours, or until potatoes are tender.

30 minutes before serving, add:

1 pint half and half
12 oz evaporated milk
1 can cream of celery
1 can cream of mushroom

Top with:
Cheddar cheese
Croutons

And this is what you will devour! :)

I even served dinner in the soup bowls I grew up with...I was feeling much better by the time dinner was done. My family and I like this soup because it not only is very filling, but it has a bit of a kick to it. Tonight my 4 year old asked if he could eat this soup everyday, forever. Thanks for the complement, son.

China Hutch Tweaking

So I discovered something about myself; I do not like cabinetry/furniture with glass doors. I always thought I wanted to display our wedding china in a china hutch, but turns out I did not. I've been looking for a hutch for several years, but honestly never had a very good spot for something that size in any of our previous homes. So this past summer I found an antique china hutch at...you guessed it, a garage sale for $125. It was a great price for the piece because it is in near perfect condition. Didn't stop me from trying to talk the lady down, but she was firm on the price so ya know, you win some you lose some. Anyway, we have the perfect place for the hutch in our kitchen so I was really excited to get it all set up and display our beautiful china. Wellllllllllllllll, I changed my mind. Shocking, I know. I just don't like the clutter I guess. So here is what I did to remedy that problem:

I found this modern print wrapper paper at Target. It is a brown and white graphic and I really like how it added some clean visual interest to the hutch.

I initially had plans to paint this piece, but honestly it is in such good condition I couldn't bring myself to do it. In fact, it is almost the identical color of the kitchen cabinetry so for now it will stay like this. My Dad even said he thought it tied the whole remodel together :) Thanks, Dad.

These plates are fine here for now, but I'm kinda looking forward to getting out the fall decor in a few weeks.

So total cost to revamp the hutch was three dollars and some change. And when I get tired of it, remove the tape and the paper and try something else. Alright, time to get outside and enjoy this absolutely gorgeous day! I was beginning to feel like we were in London instead of Indiana....



Sunday Fun-Day!

Whew, it's exhausting having fun, isn't it? :) No, seriously it is. We decided to take a break today from any home projects and just spend some time with the kids, and it was SO nice. The blueberry festival just happened to be this weekend up in South Haven, Michigan and I had been wanting to check that town out since we moved here so off we went for an afternoon of fun. If you're ever in the Southern Michigan area, you have to check out South Haven; we will definitely be going back! The beaches are nice, which is a requisite for us, and the town is simply charming. It is a bit more "touristy" than St. Jo that we frequent, but I still love it. It's also a little more hilly, so that was a bit of a challenge with navigating the stroller, but I only dumped the girl out once so that's a win in my book. We didn't bring our swim gear with us this trip so we just walked the beach this time around. The weather was perfect and the kids were....well, not perfect exactly but pretty darn well behaved. All in all, it was a great day. Here are a few snapshots I took from our outing....

These 2 go hand in hand just about everywhere....sigh.

Few things are as good for my soul as running with my kids on the beach.



HollyWOOD

Exploring down town South Haven

Watching the tractor pull

We did a lot of boat watching today; the kids loved it.

I have a strange affinity for signage...

These are funny, right?! Well I thought so, so I stopped to take a pic. This guy with a thick Northern accent stops and tells me, "only a Southerner would be interested in something like that". So I responded "Is that right?" in my somewhat Southern drawl...the dude rolls his eyes and continues on. Northerners....good grief :)

And of course no visit is complete to a blueberry festival without bringing home some blueberries! I came home with a measley 10 lbs. These are like 1000 times better than those store bought ones. For real.

And if you haven't tried blueberry butter, you are missin' out folks. This stuff is D-licious.

So that wraps up our trip to the Blueberry Festival. The day was filled with kettle corn, sno-cones, lots and lots of walking, and of course a load of fun and memories. Hate to say it, but summer is drawing to a close up North so I am soaking. it. in.

Rainy Saturday Success

Happy Saturday to ya! It's been a wet and rainy morning here in Indiana, but we have made the most of it. I was tempted to stay at home in my jammies all morning, but there were a few moving sales I wanted to hit. Garage sales have been on the back burner all summer, trumped by the home renovations. But we're FINALLY getting past all the major projects and are starting to have some free time. Can I get a Halleluia?! I loaded up my wild child while the hubs stayed at home building a sandbox with my little engineer in the making. For those of you have ridden in the car with the monkey, you understand why I'm always skiddish to take her anywhere. Just this past week, I was running errands with the kids and she got so mad in the carseat she threw up. She has done this more times than I can count, and I'm starting to think she really does get car sick. The girl has a temper to boot, but the only time she pukes is in the car, so perhaps there is something to it afterall. Anyway, I decided to take her with me and it actually went well. We hit a couple of garage sales that were a total bust, but on the way home I happened upon the motherload. That's what I love about garage sales, you never know what you're gonna get. Well here are some pics of what I got this morning: solid wood Amish made kids chairs, for $1 a piece. SCORE! :)

2 of the chairs are weathered like this one and 2 are in their original state. The weathered chairs were kept on a front porch for 7 years and the other 2 were kept indoors. I actually like that they are different colors; keeps things from being too matchy-matchy.

You can see in this pic what the original color of all 4 chairs was. I've put the table and chairs out in the sun room, and the kids are loving it. They even had their lunch at the table today; something I would have loved when I was a kid. It's like you're outside, but you don't have to worry about bugs in your food. Perfect combo.

The kids enjoyed some finger painting during the rain. I also found a new Wonder Color set, unopened, for .50 this morning. It was a jumbo set which I've seen for around $15 in the store. 

My oldest artist

My youngest artist

Considering I didn't get out and about til 10:30 this morning, I was pretty fortunate to find the chairs. Sometimes a rainy morning works out in your favor :)