totally psyched!

The little things tend to make me REALLY excited and a bunch of little things happened this weekend.

First, my fabric FINALLY came in the mail and I LOVE it! I made the curtains for the kitchen on Saturday night and they turned out really well. We are narrowing down the paint choices for the kitchen and hope to paint soon. We are hoping for a labor day sale to buy the new storm door...otherwise, we'll just buy it in September.

Second, and probably even more unexciting to anyone else than the first, we found this great wood floor cleaner. Carl cleaned the dining room, stairs and upstairs hallway with it and the floors look great! I am totally loving it!

Third, Carl finally caught the mouse living in our house last night. There is construction behind our home right now, which has caused an influx in critters which are trying to come indoors.

Finally, I bought two organizational bins yesterday afternoon at Target. Now all of my workout stuff (and Carl's) is organized in our foyer closet with all of the other things that need to be stored there as well. The closet looks great!

Oh, and the weather feels fallish outside! I even have my heater on in my office. We slept with our windows open AND Carl said I could make pumpkin pie for Dan and Mindy's this weekend. I'm psyched.

Last but certainly not least...my baby girlies start school tomorrow. We went on Friday for parent/student orientation. It went relatively well. The girls' teacher, Ms. Bennett is super sweet and I think the girls will really enjoy her. They were sooo excited to paint and check out all of the different activities available to them in their classroom! I of course am having some mixed feelings about this whole pre-school thing. I'm excited that they will be learning new things and making new friends, but I can't believe that my little tiny 4lb babies are so big! Wish us luck that my girlies make a smooth transition into preschool!

Fall

I'm sure I have a post like this every year, but I love fall! I can't say it enough. It is my FAVORITE season. Its filled with crisp air...windows open, sweater weather, warm drink weather, snuggle under a blanket weather. I love how the leaves change colors on the trees and then fall to the ground. I love pumpkins! I love pumpkin foods and comfort foods and food that you eat when its chilly outside. I love eating chili and drinking beer and watching the ravens. I love piling the fam in the car and driving on beautiful brisk (or sometimes rainy) days down to Dan and Min's to eat fried chicken, have girl-y snuggles on the couch and hear manly yells coming from the chairs while watching football. I love apples and back to school (this year, I even have two little school bound loves!) I love snuggling under all of the covers in my bed. I love long sleeved, long pant pjs! I love jeans and socks. I love love love love love fall!

And now, I'm officially at the point of rushing it. After leaving the pool on Saturday, we stopped by JoAnns for some crafting supplies and I ended up purchasing another favorite of mine: Brach's candy corn/pumpkin mix. As it turns out, my lovely little ladies love it too! We have been eating it ever since we hopped back in the car. I am making myself hold off for fall decor until after the labor day party at Dan and Mindys. I will officially allow myself to decorate on September 12th...maybe on the 11th if the girls feel inspired to help me. I'm trying to enjoy some late summer favorites to tide me over...baked peach desserts anyone?

School days

We're quickly approaching the first day of school for my lovely girlies. I have to admit, its a bit harder than I initially imagined. Last Friday, we headed to Target to pick up the items on their school supply list. It seemed easy enough, but then we realized that there were TONS of back to school products there. We needed "large crayons...at least an 8 pack". Well, there are "large" crayons and then there are "jumbo" crayons. We went with the "large" since that's what the list said, but i'm pretty sure we should have gotten jumbo. The girls needed 2 large glue sticks (each). Again, we weren't really sure which size was large. They will both be bringing 3 kind of large glue sticks. Who knew that the school supply list was going to be so hard?

AAAGGGHHH!!!

Its almost that time again...the end of the summer or more commonly referred to in the world of admissions counseling, "travel season". I am the travel coordinator. I maintain the travel binder, update the travel calendar and assign fairs if a counselor is double booked. On top of this, I arrange my own travel. Travel has been stressing me out this year, bigtime! One of our counselors turned from a regular counselor to a transfer only counselor (which totally pisses me off, but that is a completly different post) creating not only more travel for each counselor, but more overlap travel that I need to deal with. In addition to this, one of my dear friends is leaving our office and moving to CT. Since we are in a hiring freeze, this necessitates a counselor in the office at all times (as if we didn't all have high school visits, evening fairs, etc. that we need to plan around as well). With everyone out of the office, I'm not sure how folders will be read until November! New transfer counselor of course is escaping all of this stress because she of course only does transfer work now. Nice!

After the beginning of September, please don't plan to talk to me until I return from Disney World. Because of course, I won't even be home for the two weeks prior! Excuse me now so that I can figure out how close two night fairs are.

Exciting news...if you're me!

My fabric is scheduled to ship August 15th! I have been waiting anxiously for this fabric since I ordered it last month. I am making curtains for my kitchen with it and I can't wait! If you've been in my kitchen you will clearly be able to see how it fits in.

Check it out: http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/Item--i-M-11412-11
and http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/Item--i-M-11416-11

I love this designers fabric...beautiful bold colors and fun shapes!

Back from the beach

First, Happy Birthday to my "baby" brother who turns 25 today!

Second, we're back from the beach and it was awesome! There were 28 (yes, 28) family members staying in the house, all at once and I think we all managed to have an amazing time. Laney and Alie LOVED playing with their cousins, especially Danielle. I know they really enjoyed the attention from their aunts and uncles and older cousins. It was wonderful to be in such a relaxed environment, spending time with people we love and people we haven't seen in such a long time! It did rain pretty much all day on Thursday, but that didn't dampen the fun. Mindy and I made an outlet run in the morning. After lunch, many headed to the beach (in sweats) for some sandcastle building and football. Friday turned out to be an absolutely perfect day...filled with lots of beach time at a wonderful national park in Dewey. There was lots of swimming, sea-creature finding, sandcastle building, skim boarding, frisbee playing, eating, chatting and most importantly laughing! Glen and family served dessert first for dinner that evening, a delish chocolate and strawberry cake, followed by lasagna, salad and bread. Carl and I took the girls to the rides..and they had a blast. We rounded the evening out with some wine and banagrams play with Dan and Mindy...it really was such a wonderful day!

I must mention how beautiful and absolutely perfect the house was. It was beautiful, less than a block from the beach and the boardwalk. It slept all of us quite comfortably and has some wonderful ammenties and areas for socializing. It had two HEATED outdoor showers and a pool table in the open family area. There was a huge dinner table and a number of stools around the kitchen table, allowing everyone to sit down to breakfast and dinner together. There was a wonderful screened in porch wrapping around one side of the house with lighting and fans which was great for afternoon drinks and conversation or late night game playing.

We are so lucky to have been included in this wonderful getaway. We are hoping to plan another big family getaway in two years or so. It was so much fun to have everyone together!

Going..

We're going to the beach on Wednesday! Counting down the days, hours and minutes...can't wait! Enough said....