If only....

If only....

toys picked themselves up off the floor

people were more respectful with their words

the temps would stay just like this forever

little boys would continue to love carrying their little blue Bible everywhere they go

I had my own personal photographer to capture all of life's fleeting moments

calories didn't count when you made something from scratch that was so filling and good

people respected my personal space when checking out at the grocery store

they made a pill that would prevent littles from ever getting big

friends never posted ugly content on facebook.....I guess it's called de-friending LOL

pregnancy made you feel weightless (not that I am preggo :))

Wal-Mart employees were actually availble to help you find stuff and knew where it was

toddlers were eloquent speakers and could tell you exactly what their deal is

every weekend was full of family time

all things with motors would work at the same time at our house

someone would come clean my pool and cover it for the winter.....we've had zero time to

the leaves would fall and then scatter themselves into the woods for us

I could always remember that God loves me just the way I am....He makes no conditions

I could remember that everyone with kids once had a 2 year old and they get it

I could sear the image of Jonah just as he is today into my memory forever

I cooked everything on my pinterest board and crafted everything too

I wasn't so hard on myself

I could remember every moment how blessed I am

More Fall At My Home

The pumpkin vendors were out on the side of the road and the Minninite's had their colorful mums for sale in town. So Jonah and I headed out this morning to get a family of pumpkins (and one for puppy too) and some mums.

Once we got home and I got Jonah down for a nap it was time to get busy. I wrapped the plastic mum containers in some burlap I had and tied them up. I got just one big pumpkin for now and dragged out this old crate I've been hanging on to.

It is definitely starting to look more "fallish" around here now. Next I have to start on the inside of the house.

Today has been just gorgeous outside. Not too cool and not too hot with a nice breeze. Anyone else love mums as much as me? They are so colorful and hardy.

Autumnal Wreath

While the temps are finally cooler this week, it still doesn't really feel like fall yet to me. The trees haven't started changing yet and we still haven't got our silly pool closed up yet. Not that we are swimming in it. LOL

I decided to whip up a wreath that I could put out for the entire Autumn season this year. I can leave this one up all the way through Thanksgiving, and I like that. I made this wreath using supplies I already had on hand.

Burlap cut in wide strips
Fabric strips made into rosettes (my first attempt at those).
Wide, brown, polka dot ribbon
Hot glue gun

I think it turned out pretty good but it still feels like it needs something a little extra but I'm not sure what. Feel free to give advice!

I must say I hate our front door so that is why I didn't include a wide shot. We want to change it out one day (they aren't cheap) to one with small windows at the top and a different color or wood. It is a dark blue color with a big oval window right now so anytime I hang a round wreath it just looks funny to me. Oh well....just gotta make do with you have. LOL

Without further ado, here is my wreath!

Show & Tell: High School Memories

Linking up again for Show & Tell Monday!! It's fun so you should join too! This time we are talking about High School memories.

1. Tell us what kind of student you were in high school {popular, nerd, sport obsessed, choir, etc}
Hmmm.....I am not sure I fit neatly into a certain category LOL. I played softball (pitcher) all through HS so I definitely was into that a lot. I also was in the top 10% of my senior class so I was sort of nerdy too. I knew pretty much everyone in my class (around 100) so I guess you could say I was popular, in that I knew them and they knew me. LOL I was very involved in clubs (Future Business Professionals club, FHA, prom committee,etc). 
I was the manager of our school's bookstore too so that took up a lot of extra time. 

2. Share with us some high school pictures. We know you have them somewhere.
Good grief! I have looked everywhere on my computers and this was the only one I could find. I have a bunch more but most of them are on my parent's computer. I need to get some saved to a disk so I'll have them. This is a picture from, I think my junior year with two of my best friends. Mandy is missing from it but this is me on the right with the bad perm. My friend Samantha in the middle and Julia on the left. We were inseparable in HS. I think we were eating at a popular restaurant close by. My how we have changed since then!

3. Tell us about your school. Private? Public? How many in graduating class? Mascots? School colors?
I went to a small, public, country school. The only HS in our county. My graduating class was the smallest at that time of just a little over 100 (graduated in 2001). We probably had around 600-700 total kids 9-12th grade at my school. 
The interesting thing about my graduating class was we were the last class to graduate at the old school building  (over 50 years old). The next class went to the new school building.
Our school colors were black and gold and our mascot was the Rebel. See below. There was always a little controversy over our mascot being...how shall I say....not politically correct. We are a southern TN town with a civil war battlefield....so I can kinda see that. But it stayed.
I loved my school! It was the perfect size in my opinion and I was given lots of great opportunities while I attended there. No regrets.

4. Tell us about some of your favorite memories of high school. Or what stands out the most? Any teachers? Specific classes?
I took almost every business class offered and I was very involved in our Business Professionals of America Club, so most of my memories are from going on club trips (Minneapolis and Anaheim, CA). We also went to compete in Nashville almost every year. It was a fun club to be in and I adored my teacher and club sponsor, Mrs. Baggett. She was an awesome teacher and she really reached out to each student and tried to get them involved and learn what their strengths were and how to use them in competitions. I considered her friend and still do. 
I also remember that we got a 15 minute "social time" every afternoon before our last classes. Basically you could just hang out for about 15 minutes and do whatever you needed too and clubs would meet during that time sometimes too. I can just remember hanging out with my friends and then when I was dating a guy, we would hold hands and walk around the campus. That is what everyone did when they were dating. It was kind of funny looking back. Almost like you were letting everyone know that you were dating someone. LOL
I also remember during homecoming week we would do a lot of "airshows" as they were called. They were basically skits set to music or something that different clubs or teams would do in the gym and everyone would go and sit by grade to watch them. Some of them were pretty legendary. AC/DC's Back in Black got played so many times (because of our school colors). 
I also remember that on game days we had to wear our full uniform (softball) all day. Ugh! Sometimes it felt like I wore that outfit all week. It got old fast. 

5. Tell us a piece of advice you would pass on to your children or any child entering high school.

The biggest piece of advice I can give to kids going to HS is to not take yourself too seriously. I did and I wish I hadn't. Also, don't be worried too much about what other people think of you. Most of the time everyone else is just trying to fit in too and probably aren't even paying attention to you. LOL All of this is advice I wish I had given myself back in the day. 

I promise that once you are out of HS you will realize how petty and immature HS is compared to the big world. 

Funny Things Jonah Is Saying

So Jonah is finally starting to talk now. It's like once he turned 2 he just decided "ok I think I will start talking now." LOL He is putting two and three words together on his own more and more. Of course we don't always know what he is saying but we usually figure it out and he will just keep repeating the same word until we know what he means. LOL

I just wanted to jot some of them down to remember what he was saying and what they actually sound like to us.

Titty Tat (kitty cat)

Moan (phone)

Bekfass (breakfast)

Baar (car)

Tids (kids)

Wellow (yellow)

Nigh nigh (night night)

Tank do (thank you)

Peeees (please)

Dacter (tractor)

Ahmas (Thomas)

I mow (I mow - with his play lawn mower)

Tisses (fishes of the gold variety)

Es maam (yes maam)

Oubsibe (outside)

Dink (drink)

Onah (Jonah)

Nee Nee (his friend Neely)

Biwee (his friend Briley)

Nanny (his great-grandmother that we all call Granny)

Audee (his aunt Audrey)

Up an mown (up and down)

Bus (bus - he says that one good)

Puppie!! (he always says puppy so excitedly)

Poopie (coffee-he pretends he is making us coffee...he already realizes it's importance at our house)

Bass (bath)

Soos (shoes)

Tiyou (Caillou)


He has also started to call us Mommy and Daddy instead of Mama and Dada like he did for so long. It is funny that he just started doing that on his own even though we call ourselves Mama and Dada around him. LOL

He knows just about all his colors and can say them (or try to at least). He knows blue, red, yellow, orange, black, white, pink, purple and green. He loves you to tell him to find a color crayon and he goes right to it!!

Also Jonah is starting to identify letters correctly, which I am just astounded that he can do that already. We read tons of books every week and his Nana works with him some during the week too when she has him. It is really starting to sink in.

Last Sunday Michael had on an Aeropostale shirt and Jonah was sitting in his lap. Jonah just reached up and pointed the letter A and said it and then the letter E, O and T. And then last night we were about to read Goodnight Moon and were looking at the cover where it has the title on it. I asked him where the O was (since I knew he knew that one) and he pointed right to them. Then I asked him where the T was and he found it easily. But then I decidd to ask him where the D and G were. It took him just a couple of seconds but then he pointed right to them!!! I was amazed.

Sorry if that sounds braggy but I just think that is really good for a 25 month old to know those things already. We are proud parents of our little sponge!

Our Fall Bucket List {2012}

I am so ready for the cooler temps, smelling tobacco barns smoking, piles of leaves, jeans and hoodies, colors in the trees and fall candles burning. What about you?

This year I thought it would be fun to do an actual bucket list of what all we want to do this season. It's is such a fun time of year....dare I say more fun than Christmas festivities!?

What's on your fall bucket list?

Show & Tell Monday {Link up Part}

I decided to join in on this new link-up party hosted by Mrs. to Mama.



You should join too!

Today's topic is all about babies!!

1. Favorite baby names? Aside from your own babies, if you have them.

My favorite boy names (other than Jonah) are Silas, Tyler, Josiah, Elias and Caleb. As you can tell I like Bible names the best.

My favorite girl names are Hailey (using this one if I ever have a girl), Paige and Laney.

2. Show your "dream" nursery.

I am not showing Jonah's nursery because, while I love(d) it for him, I have seen so many really great nurseries on pinterest lately. Here are my two favorites for boys and girls.

Love the colors which are similar to Jonah's room and the airplane theme.

Love the colors again and the vintage look.

3. How many children would you like to hav? How far apart?

Well with already having one precious little boy, we know we do want to have another child. We will be stopping at two though. I don't think I can physically or mentally handle more than that. Jonah is a great child (most of the time of course) so I know that God has a sense of humor and the next one may be all we can take. LOL! Ideally I would like them to be 2.5 to 4 years apart. I know that is a wide spectrum but basically we are ready whenever God is ready to give us another gift. :)

4. What do you think the importance of parenting is?

You mean this is supposed to have importance??!! LOL! Well I feel the most important part of parenting is to get your child to heaven. How do you do this?? I think it is done by showing how much you love and respect God and how you put him first in your life. Whether that is by praying around the dinner table and before bed, or listening to Sunday School songs and singing praises each day, or by just making sure they have a church home and go to church every week. I feel that is our calling as parents is to show the love of God to our children and speak it to them and make God a part of our everyday life.

The secon important part is to raise your child to one day leave you. They will be under your roof for a very short time in all reality and you must prepare them to be able to navigate in this world one day. Right now for me that means letting Jonah know that sometimes we have to hear the word "no" and we don't always get our way. Also that we have to be polite to get the things we want in life. By saying "please" and "thank you." We have many more lessons to go in this deptartment but that is where we are starting.

5. Favorite newborn picture.

I love these pictures that were captured by my talented cousin when Jonah was about 6 weeks old. I will cherish them forever.

6. Things you promise to never do as a parent (and if you are a parent, did you stick to it?)

Michael and I always said (pre-child) that we would never be one of "those" parents that has their child out at Wal-Mart at 10:00 at night just shoppping while the child obviously looks tired and cranky. You would not believe how many people like that we used to see before we had Jonah. It was crazy!! And we have never had any reason to have him out and about that late at night. Usually we are in bed at 10:00!! LOL!



This was fun! Looking forward to next weeks link-up!

What I'm Loving Wednesday {9.5.12}

Yay for a 4 day work week! Sure it feels like Tuesday, but it's actually Wednesday!

I am loving lots of stuff right now. Here are few of them.

I am loving that I FINALLY got started on this furniture painting project. I had been spinning my wheels trying to decide what to do and finally got going. The backstory is that I bought this gigantic wood hutch at a yard sale for $25 and the hubs had to haul it home for me. To say it was heavy is an understatement. I got it so cheap because it had been sitting on someone's front porch for 2 years. Mind you, the porch was very deep and it had been completely covered from the elements, but still it was in rough shape. It was filthy too with pollen dust and dead bugs in it. But I cleaned it all up.

Michael and I had a date night last Friday and we ended up eating in downtown Clarksville. I happened to remember a little home decorating shop close by and poppped in. Just so happened they had the whole line of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I had already been researching it some and new that you could use it without sanding and priming. So after talking with the lovely shop keeper I decided to spring for it and brought the Pure White color home with me. I got started painting on Monday morning and got the whole bottom part done. I love this paint!!!

Here is what it looks like now but I still have to wax it and paint the top part of the hutch. But what a difference!

I was amazed at how much it covered of the dark wood with just the first coat. It is the most forgiving paint I've ever used. I only had drips a couple of times. It is super thick but it coats so well. The second coat made all the difference. I can't wait until this piece is all done. I plan to put it up in our living room to use as additional storage and to display seasonal items.

Also, I am loving the new Fall catalog from Thirty-One! I want to host a party this time (I never have) so I can get some good stuff and buy Christmas presents.

I am also loving my wonderful hubby that listens to all my ideas about the house and lets me buy expensive paint. LOL I love my little stinker too! He is still coughing and has this stupid ol' cold. But he is happy as ever! Love my guys to pieces!

More Pages From Old Magazine Ideas

I knocked out two more scrapbook pages using old magazine cut-outs from my old Simple Scrapbooks editions. I miss that magazine a lot, by the way. The magazines that are out now are still great but they don't have the simple aspect to them that always drew me to Simple.

Anyways, here is the picture I took of my two layout ideas. Love that they are minimal photos and really almost look like one photo on the one with three bunched together. I also loved the journaling and themes of each of the inspiration pages, so you will see I used those in mine too.

And here are my pages. I used a kit from My Memoires for this one that is sadly no longer available for purchase. It has a lot of really bright colored embellishments. So cute for kid pages and summer pages.

I have been wanting to do a page about Michael for a while but could not come up with anything on my own. So I was so happy I found that idea page for Dads. It would be great to use for sisters, mothers, and children too.

Hope you enjoy them and get some ideas too! Anyone else like copying magazine ideas as much as me?