Fall-ified

I don't really consider myself to be a seasonal decorator.  I mean, I decorate for Christmas of course, but that's pretty much a given.  The only other time I really decorate for a season or holiday is if/when we're having a party of some sort.  That said, yesterday I brought home some pumpkins and added a touch of fall to our house. My mom helped host a couples' shower Saturday night and she was in charge of the table decorations.  Somehow that meant that I was also responsible for the table decorations.  Huh.  We procrastinated until the very last minute but finally settled on a pumpkin theme late Friday night.  That's how I ended up with decorations for our house - they're leftovers from the party.

Here's our newly fall-ified (fallized? falled?) dining table.

This is pretty much exactly how we decorated the tables for the party, minus a few votive candles.  The tables were outside and we had three of them to do (plus a food table inside) so we needed something that wouldn't get too expensive.  We bought our pumpkins from Home Depot for about $4 each.  The mini gourds came for the grocery store.  They were 3 for $1.

Like my dining table, each table at the party had three main pumpkins - one white one, one large orange one, and one funny shaped orange one that we laid on its side.  I didn't get a picture from that angle but this one kinda looks like two pumpkins stacked on top of each other with just one stem.  For the white pumpkins, I pulled out my Silhouette machine and and cut out a fancy G (the initial of the soon-to-be-married couple) out of black vinyl and just stuck them on.  While I had my machine out, I went ahead and cut out an E for me and an S for my mom so we could use them at our houses afterwards.

The big orange pumpkins all got carved.  My mom left me to do this part by myself and I thought my arm was going to fall off!  I had six pumpkins to empty and as I got my work area set up, I realized I've never really emptied a pumpkin by myself.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I guess I figured it out ok.  Getting all the guts out is hard work!  Then, once they were all finally empty (and I had broken a good sweat), I grabbed the drill and got to carving polka-dotting.  The drill bit went through the pumpkin really easily, so it wasn't hard to do at all.  My problem was that I was using a re-chargeable drill that had a heavy battery on it, and it seriously got heavy after a while!

It looks ok during the day, but it really looks cute at night when its lit up.  I tried to take a picture of it, but I couldn't really capture its cuteness.

I know my burlap needs a little fluffing.  It's not arranged very well yet, but I didn't feel like fixing it for the pictures.  I'm lazy like that.

I put another polka-dotted pumpkin on our kitchen table.  Much plainer, but it works I guess.

I did crank out one tiny craft project too.  After cutting out all the monograms for the pumpkins, I had a small strip of vinyl scrap leftover that I didn't want to just throw away.  So I cut out "give thanks."  I grabbed a scrap piece of wood and painted it brown then yellow and sanded it down.  The letters were easy to stick on and I just added a piece of wire we already had to hang my new little sign.  I didn't have the raffia bow on it at first, but I think it gives it a little something extra.  Total cost?  Zilch.

My new little sign is hanging on the china cabinet for now, but that could change.

The last fall decoration that I put out is my set of wooden pumpkins that I made last year.  I still love them.

I also have a bowl of candy corn sitting out on the coffee table but I didn't think I should take a picture of that.  I'd hate for someone to come over and expect to see it because it won't be around much longer...

Ramer's First Photoshoot

Here is where I pretend I'm a photographer and post the pictures from my photoshoot with new baby Ramer.  Here is also where you laugh in my face, sigh, and think, oh, she has so much to learn.  I know these are far from perfect; I have not mastered exposure and composition and softening a baby's skin in photoshop, but Ramer is perfect and so that makes them worth sharing. These pictures were taken on day 3 of his new life, the day he came home from the hospital.  The daylight was quickly slipping away and all I had for props was a basket and a couple of blankets.  He was sleeping soundly and I just laid him in the basket and wrapped him up.

I love this profile shot with that upper lip sticking out.

Whew!  Taking photos is hard work and can wear a little boy out.  And look!  His daddy's already taught him how to throw up deuces.

We tried to go for more poses but I got the hint that he didn't really want to do that.

My dad was not happy that I was snapping pics while Ramer was crying, so he scooped him and said the photoshoot was over.  It didn't take him too long to snuggle in and fall back asleep.

Just for good measure, here's a picture of big brother who was being entertained by Doc during the photoshoot.

I have about a billion more pictures that I just haven't edited yet.  I really don't know how some people edit every picture on their blog before posting them...it takes forever!  I think we're going to try another shoot this weekend so maybe I'll get some better ones!

New Baby: First Meeting

The truth: these pictures aren't from my first meeting with the new baby.  They're from my camera's first meeting, which was day two for the new baby.  Yes, I stupidly forgot to take my camera with me to the hospital the day he was born.  But I made up for it the next day by snapping 3,284 pictures.  Ok, slight exaggeration, but there are a lot of them. Before we jump into the day two pictures, let me back up to day one.  Erin (my sister-in-law) was scheduled to be at the hospital at 3:45 am to be induced.  My parents kept Parker (Ben and Erin's 3-year-old) Friday night and the 3 of them picked me up on their way to the hospital.  Anna spent the morning using her Easy Bake Oven to make a birthday cake for the new baby (she was so sad she didn't get to go to the hospital, but when you're 10, sleepovers with friends come first).  Throughout Erin's pregnancy, Parker has insisted that his little brother's name would be Target.

She decorated the cake like the Target bullseye.  Hilarious.

My parents didn't tell Parker what was happening that day until they left for the hospital.  He had on his Big Brother shirt when they arrived at our house.

You can't have birthday cake without singing the birthday song and blowing out a candle, so we let Parker do that for his baby brother.

After the birthday party, we grabbed the cake, loaded into the car, and hit the road.  And my poor camera was left sitting there on the counter...

Now we can get to the Day Two pictures!  Doc and I went to the hospital after church and walked in right as the rest of my family arrived and pictures were being taken of the new family of four.

Parker was so excited to see "his baby" again.

I think he's gonna be a good big brother.

The first person the baby got passed to was Jett.

Sweet cousins!

All the little people (our kids had already gone home).

We got kicked out of the room for a few minutes while the nurse came in to check on mama and baby.  While we were waiting out in the hall, I snapped this picture of Bren.  I'm afraid my 3-year-old niece might be more stylish than me.  And I would kill for her hair.

Back in the room, I was finally able to get some good pictures of the man of the hour!  At this point in the weekend, he was still nameless.  I'm happy to announce, though, that at 3:30 Monday morning, his name was officially decided.

This is David Ramer.  He'll go by Ramer, my mother's maiden name.

I had to unwrap his hands so I could see his little fingers.

And his little feet!  His daddy said his anklet was because he was on house arrest.

Brennie was too shy to hold him, but she did spend a few minutes petting his little head.

Look at those cheeks!  Right now we think he kinda looks like my brother, but that could definitely change.

Doc love, love, loves holding babies when they're this little.  If he could get paid to hold newborns all day, he'd make a career change.

I finally got a turn too!

Beth saw a few sleepy grins while she held him, but I couldn't quite catch them with my camera.

Aunt Elizabeth and Ramer.

Beth and her two sweet babies, who look like giants now compared to Ramer!

Wait, did I say sweet?  I meant wild and crazy!

(Kidding - they really are sweet peas.)

After we'd all had our turns holding Ramer, we said our goodbyes.  Brennie gave Parkie (that's what they call each other, no joke) a hug goodbye.

We left the baby in my dad's hands, still asleep and completely oblivious that he'd just been held by a swarm of new people.

I went back the next day for more snuggles and had a mini photo shoot.  Pictures coming soon!

Halloween Wreath

Ok, I promise I'm not purposely putting off posting pictures (hello, alliteration!) of the new baby.  I'm uploading, resizing, and editing pictures right this very second.  I just thought that, in the mean time,  you guys might enjoy seeing the Halloween wreath I made. I actually bought the supplies for this wreath the same day I bought the supplies for the fall wreaths I made.  I made this wreath that same week too (Woah, wait.  Was that just last week? Seems like forever ago...), I just haven't gotten around to writing about it.  But today's the day!

This is another easy one that can be knocked out in no time.  My inspiration came from here and I pretty much copied her directions exactly.  They look different, though, because we used different types of wreaths.

Ok, let's get to it.  Here's my short list of supplies:  wreath (I used styrofoam), black duct tape, candy corn, and ribbon to hang the wreath (can be any color, obviously).

First step:  wrap wreath in duct tape.  You can see I stepped outside for this.  That's because my styrofoam wreath was shedding.

Beautiful, isn't it?  But I feel like it's missing something...

I didn't take play-by-play pictures of this next step, but it's real easy to figure out.  Just arrange your candy corns however you want them and then hot glue them down.  Yes, you have to place glue on each piece of candy and stick it down.  It doesn't take as long as you might think.  Like my inspiration wreath, I did mine in rows, with each row alternating the way the candy corns faced.

Here's my wreath after I'd gone through one full bag of candy corn.  Pretty good coverage!  Probably could've covered more if so many hadn't been eaten...  I pretty much made it a rule that if the tip was broken or it had any other kind of imperfection, it had to be eaten.  Hey, anything to make my wreath look good.

I tore open another bag of candy and kept going.  As you can see, my wreath is squared off and has a definite front and definite sides.  I contemplated covering the sides with candy corn too, but eventually decided I liked the way it looked with just the front done.

My last step was just to add the ribbon to hang the wreath.  I just wrapped a wide ribbon around the wreath and secured it to the top of the door.

Here's a view that shows the sides.  The black tape is what makes me think of it as a "Halloween" wreath instead of just a "fall" wreath.

Upclose so you can see my alternating rows.

That's it!  I told ya, super easy.  The wreath is now hanging on our back door in kitchen and it makes me happy every time I see it.

The best part?  I totally overestimated how much candy corn it was going to take, so there's a full bag left over that I guess I'm just gonna have to eat.  Darn.

Hullabaloo

Woah, I'm really behind on posts.  There's so much to share (like my new nephew that was born yesterday!) but in the spirit of keeping things chronological around here, I'm going to start by finishing up the events of last weekend.  So, to recap, Anna and I made fall wreaths for my mom's front doors Friday night, and then we all got up bright and early Saturday morning for Wyatt's football game. After the game, and a quick shower for Wyatt, we headed to the church for the annual Hullabaloo.  It's our church's biggest fundraiser and it's chock full of activities.  There's a rummage sale, silent auction, country store, food, games, pony rides, train rides, and a bounce house.  I'm sure I'm leaving something out, too.  We arrived right at noon and were all pretty hungry, so we started with the food.  The men of the church spend a good portion of the week leading up to the hullabaloo smoking barbecue butts, and the end result is usually pretty tasty.  We all enjoyed barbecue sandwiches or barbecue nachos.  Yum!

It's funny how much more I like hullabaloo now that there are so many little people in my life.  I love getting to see them take in all the excitement and participate in the activities.  The first little person I ran into was Jett.  I'd heard earlier in the week that he'd lost his first tooth, so I asked him if he needed me to come help him find it.

He said we wouldn't be able to find it because the tooth fairy took it and left him five whole dollars.  Five dollars!  I'm pretty sure back when I was losing teeth, the tooth fairy just left what ever spare change my dad had in his pocket that day.  I never got folding money, especially a five dollar bill!  Jett lost the tooth right next to that one this week, too.  I might have to borrow some shopping money from him now that he's getting so rich!

Parker and Bren were there too, but they were way more into the ring pops they had just scored than my camera.  I couldn't get them to take a good picture at all.

  

After lunch, our kids ran off to play games.  I finally caught up to them when they were painting pumpkins.

I made it over to the pony ring just in time to see Miss Wesley finishing her ride.  She may have on a ballerina-esque outfit, but I think she's got a little bit of cowgirl in her.  She was a natural up there!

Little Alice (in her AR cheerleading uniform!) rode a neigh-neigh too.  I'm not sure that she was thrilled to be put up there, but there were no tears and she stayed on the whole time!

After one lap around, she was an old pro, holdin' on with just one hand like it was no big deal.

The bigger kids were too fast for me to catch on camera.  By the time we left, they had bags full of candy and several inflatable toys. I think they had a pretty good time.

It was announced in church the next day that the silent auction portion of the event brought in over four thousand dollars.  I wasn't there when the auction ended but I did check the bids before we left.  From my estimate, the tents that Mom made along with the few things Beth and I donated accounted for at least a tenth of that total.  Yahoo!

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful.  We had a low-key night at home Saturday night and Doc left town for a work trip Sunday after church.  I think that gets us all caught up, so now I can go upload the pictures I took of a sweet baby boy!