crafty saturday

matt loves fall. and so do i. i mean i have been on a pumpkin kick for over a month already. pumpkin muffins, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin desserts, pumpkin pancakes....all things pumpkin have been made in this house already. i've tried to blame it on pregnancy, but who am i kidding, really? saturday matt requested a fall craft and this is what i came up with. (we also made a halloween paper chain, but that will get talked about in october) i got a branch from the yard, jerry-rigged it to the ceiling fan and micah, matt and i made fall leaves from a template i got on-line. it was micah's idea to make the veins and the brown spots on some of the leaves because "that's how real leaves look mama".

it was also his idea to color a falcon and add that to the branch.

it looks almost real.

friday night yard work

an outfit chosen by her

i have 4 of these tables around our property and last week i got the idea to ask one of my very talented friends Quinn, to use some tiles that had also been left here to do a mosaic. we ran out of tiles mid project, but i think it will look fantastic once it is done.

matt came home from school on friday and was itching to work in the yard. micah went to a friend's house to play nintendo for an hour and beatrix and i sat outside watching matt. he had borrowed a mower from a friend and wanted to use it again before he needed to return it. i think it was the cooler breeze in the air friday night that made us all want to be outside.

good times

{twenty nine}

and she sneaked in again.

the little stinker

anticipation

the little ones are getting excited.

they are able to feel pip squeak (what we are calling her) moving inside of me and this fascinates them both. the other morning i was laying on the bed and they both bounded in full of energy and legos. i told them she was moving and asked if they wanted to feel. quickly i requested matt to grab the camera and this is the shot he got.

so beautiful.

so full of the emotion most present in our house right now,

anticipation.

{twenty seven}

beebs wanted in on some of the shots too.

this is what you get with a timer on your camera and really bad lighting.

lots of blurry and silly moments

she seems to be understanding more and more every week that something is going on in mama's tummy.

the kids' room

the kids have a new bed. Beatrix loves to sneak up to the top bunk whenever micah is at school and play with his stuffed animals.

the green door is going to be mounted to the wall eventually. i am going to put hooks on it at kids level so they can hang some of their favorite things there. the chalkboard wall is a big hit and i would like to get a little table and chairs to go under it for puzzles and micah's legos.

the closet is ok for now too. i used some of matt's shelves that he had used in previous years at school. eventually i would like to build nice built-ins.

on the wall to my right (you can't see it in the picture but on the other side of the door) i want to build some kind of a book shelf to hold all of their books. i'm not sure how much to do in here until the baby comes. in the future this will either be just micah's room or it will be the girls' room. (i can't believe i just said girls, plural!)

our bedroom

this is our room, for now.

there are a few things that i would still like to do to it such as soft and comfy rugs for either side of the bed, hang some more pictures on the walls and figure out something for the windows above our bed.

but for now, i love the colors and it is the one room in our new house that feels homey.

this little black table was left here in the house by the previous owners. i cleaned it off and i think it works beautifully with my beloved owl lamp.

this pretty dish was also left in the house. the kids and i have been collecting pieces of coral at the beach and putting them right here. the colors of the dish look like the colors of the ocean which is just right for me.

{twenty six}

fix what???

i walked down our hallway from our bedroom three days ago and and noticed a puddle the size of a small lake forming. i had a sinking feeling as standing water anywhere inside your house is not a good sign. we had known that the air conditioner would eventually give us problems since the previous owner had jerry-rigged the pipe draining the condensation out of the actual air conditioner into a shower behind the closet. that's right, he drilled a hole through the wall and into the shower so that the water could drain causing a lovely smell to emanate from that bathroom rendering it unable to be used by this sensitive smelling pregnant lady. but back to the puddle, we knew that eventually we would have to fix the air conditioner we were just hoping for a little more time.

but no dice.

tuesday i called matt's school to ask if they had a list of recommended companies and if they had one for air conditioning repairs. they did and the owners daughter had been one of matt's seniors the previous year. i called the company and her grandma answered. when she heard who my husband was she proceeded to tell me a story. she told me that her grand daughter really hadn't liked english all that much and fought mr. harrison tooth and nail at every turn. at the beginning of the summer she had to report to her college to take an assessment test to find out her placement in college english. her grandma told me that when she came out to the car after the test she said, "grandma! mr. harrison was right and he taught me everything that was on that test!!" i could tell the grandma was smiling, she said, "i just thought you would like to know that and i hope you will pass it on to your husband." not to get off topic, but can i just tell you that i hear those kinds of stories everywhere i go! i am so proud of my teacher husband. he always says he is doing something right if they think he is too hard on them while he is teaching them and then they love him when they get to college. that takes a confident person.

so back to the air conditioner, the service man showed up and looked it over. he determined that the pipes needed rerouting (DUH!) and that it needed a new pump to get the water through the pipe and outside. when he told me the price, i almost cried....$500! what??? granted that was for two maintenance calls a year and the price of everything else, but what? really?! after we just moved in? everyone told me things like this would happen....i really didn't believe them. i called matt to talk things over and we determined that it was something that really needed to be done and that we wanted it done right this time. no more jerry rigged bathrooms, no more stink and no more lake harrison in our hallway. it did mean tightening our belts and eating lots and lots of peanut butter and crackers. ;) just kidding! thankfully, my mama raised a pretty creative cook.

it took the service man almost all day to complete it, but he did and we are up and running again, sans leak and cool as cucumbers in this very hot harrison house.