Happy Halloween

The start of Halloween...

And the end of Halloween...

I have to say, I'm sad to see October go.



Pumpkins!

It still amazes me that we've been in our home for over a year.  We carved pumpkins tonight and I could so clearly remember carving our pumpkin last year in this very same room. 

Narls was insistant that we carve a devil.  Turned out pretty good huh?

The kids seem pretty happy with it (well Narls certainly does at least).

Much like last year, Em's not exactly sure of it.

I love fully experiencing an event, through all of my senses, and I’ve been known to slightly prolong the starting of something because we didn’t have the exact drinks or the just-right CD mix. We were in luck for our pumpkin-carving party as we played Halloween music through Pandora and Clay & I drank rum-spiked cider. I initially planned on making homemade Pumpkin Spice Lattes, but the cider won me over. I’ll save the latte for the morning.

Drool-Worthy Shelves

I know I was supposed to be focusing on organizing this month but I gotta tell ya, it's just not there for me. And instead of forcing it, I'm going to embrace it and hope that maybe November is a better month for that particular area of decorating and home improvement.

Today? I'd much rather drool over these shelves.  I've been thinking about the teal wall in my family room and I'm going to attempt some diy floating shelves this weekend.  Here is my inspiration, enjoy!

Halloween Decorations Are Up!

We've actually had our Halloween decorations up since late September, but I just got around to photographing them.  We'll start with our front door...

First impressions are everything right? Well I was hoping to make a strong one and thanks to some leafy garland around the door, a rich harvest wreath, and lots of pumpkins, this was achieved.

The console table helps keep the Halloween feeling going strong because it's the first piece of decorating you see as you enter our home.  Our bat cake stand is put to good use holding some pumpkins and there is Halloween candy to sweeten you up :)  Plus an adorable shot of my babies in their costumes from last year to add to the cuteness.

Clay and I stuck on some bats & spiders that Narls and Emerson made last year (and few from the year before that!). The kids loved seeing how much their feet and hands have grown since last year.

And we finish the Halloween decorating with some subtle touches in the family room- some gourds and leaves (which can be left up through Thanksgiving) and a couple ghosts and a pumpkin.  Halloween is my very favorite holiday so I tend to decorate the most this time of year. What do you think?

Spooky Ghosts

My kiddos and I had a fun afternoon of decorating for Halloween. 

With a few sheets of felt, clear wire and some crumbled up newspaper we created ghosts to hang from the tree in our front yard. 

So cute! And entirely too easy and the best part? FREE! We had all the materials already on hand. I love afternoons like this :)

Operation Bathroom Closet, Phase 1

First thing I did was remove every single bottle from the closet. I need to assess my space and it's easiest for me do that when the space is wide and open. Plus I know I have to finish this project because there's no way I can leave all this stuff all over just waiting for the terrorizing hands of my toddlers.

Next I grouped things. I coupon so I have multiples of many things, like a dozen tubes of toothpaste. And ten bottles of shampoo or conditioner. Six bottles of febreeze. Five cans of bug spray. You get the picture. After everything was grouped, I made a list of how many baskets I'd need so that each group would have its own basket.

Now usually Target is my go-to store but for just the toiletries and cleaning supplies I needed ten baskets. So that means this project is starting at the dollar store. They had a ton of various shaped baskets for only a dollar a piece but I was limited on my color choices. Red and blue was not exactly the color palette I was hoping for but whatever, each basket was only a buck. At least they match and come on, you gotta admit it's fun. It'll be like a fiesta every time I open the closet door.

So the toilets and cleaning supplies are grouped, basketed, labeled (yes with masking tape, don't judge) and put back which brings us to Phase Two of Operation Bathroom Closet, which involves the arranging the towels and sheets which I hope to get to in the next couple days.

The towels are big enough to where I don't think they need baskets; they can remain neatly folded on the shelves.  The sheets though, they could use some organizing. Especially since we have king sets for our bed, full sets for Narls' and crib-sized sheets for Em. My next phase of action is to pick up three larger baskets to house each size of bedding sets. And I'd like one more smaller basket to hold wash cloths.

Phase Three (right now Clay is reading this and thinking "Jees lady how many phases are there??") involves wallpapering - or stenciling - the closet. It needs a little something on the walls. Some pizzazz.

And lastly Phase Four will conclude our project with the organizing of under the sink. Stay tuned; I know this project has you on the ends of your seats.

Organizville, Here I Come

I love organization. Me and systems and arranging and classifying and a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-it's-place are best friends. Best friends forever best friends.

I'm really kinda shocked that more of my house is organized. I blaming this on the blissfulness of that first year in our house and how my focus was on all the fun decorating stuff. But I'm at a stand still with that (read: decorating budget is maxed out) so it's the perfect time to tackle the ugly messy stuff (it's free to organize right?) that's hiding in drawers and closets and omg the basement.

So I'm going to spend the majority of October working on getting our problem areas organized. I don't think it's realistic that they get completed this month (but my god, how amazing would that be?) but I am giving myself a December 31 deadline. Casa de' Clami (you like what I did there? Clay? Ami? Clami? Oh whatever, it's cute) is starting the new year out completely organized.

The areas I'll be working on:

1. Basement

2. Computer Desk

3. Kitchen Pantry (and under the sink)

4. Bathroom Closet (and again, under the sinks)

5. Bedroom Closet (and hopefully, maybe, please please my shoes)

6. Spare Room Closet

I'm a little on the fence about the organizing my shoes and the spare room closet only because I know both of those projects are going to involve an organizing structure of some sort and I know those aren't free. We'll see.

And now some proof just so we're all clear that it can indeed be done (because we all know it didn't happen unless there are pictures):

via Young House Love

This is actually their basement and it looks amazing. Very inspiring.

via His and Hers

via Martha Stewart

via I Heart Organizing

I can I just say I LOVE THIS all loud & proud like because I totally do.

via Young House Love. Again.

These two have done everything, I swear.

via Better Homes and Gardens

And if that wasn't enough to get an organizing fire started under your ass then go sign up for Martha Stewart's Organizing Tip of the Day, delivered bright and early every morning thru the interwebs and into your email.  You can thank me later.

'Tis the Season

Tonight we will be busting out the Halloween decorations. Ok, so I actually busted some of them out a couple weeks ago but Halloween is my favorite and I couldn't resist. And Target has had Halloween decorations up since the beginning of September so I'm actually late to the party by their standards.

Tonight will be the official Halloween decorating party at our place though. I got four Pumpkin Spice candles burning, some cider and rum ready, and a mix CD of fun Halloween songs for the kiddos (ok, for Clay and I, sheesh) to rock out to. FUN TIMES FOSHO.

So in the spirit of the season, here are some fun inspiration to get the decorating juices flowing.

via Family Circle

via Good Housekeeping

I can't remember where I found this image; sorry guys.

via All Hallows Design

via Pottery Barn

Wallpaper- It's Not Just For Walls

So yes, back to decorating. We have a built-in entertainment-type center in our family room. I'm thinking about wallpapering the back of the book shelf for some added pop. How can I not consider the idea after seeing these fabulous examples?

via Better Homes and Gardens

via Ideal Home Magazine

via Get Blinds and Design

Good Riddance

We've had a lot of dragonflies in our yard lately. I wasn't sure if I should be nervous around them because they do contain the words dragon and flies in their name so like I would any new friend (or insect) I encounter, I googled them.

Turns out they are indeed a friend because they eat mosquitos.  Carry on with all that eating dear dragonfly, carry on.

But this dragonfly raised a good point. You know it's time to cut down the dying flowers when a dragonfly can land on a weathered shell of one.  So that's what we did this past weekend- cut down the flowers.  And I have to say, IT FELT GOOD. 

Until next year I guess.

Read here, here and here for more on the pain in my ass hydrangeas. Oh alright, since I'm fair, here too.

Happy Anniversary

Narls just entered preschool; his first day was last week. Em's still getting up and going to daycare like she always does, but I still put a special first-day-of-school outfit on her too. As we were leaving, I thought it'd be a sweet tradition to get snap their picture on our porch the morning of each of their first day of schools...

So here is 2010's.

That got me reminiscing about all of the great memories we've made on our front porch during our first year in our home.

Memories of Clay & Ami date nights.

Chubby babies in undies waiting for me to get the mail.

And afternoons of new shoes.

And now a memory of us, celebrating our first anniversary in our beautiful home.

Hard to believe THIS was only one year ago.

A Year's Worth of Finished Projects

We've been working hard at our casa this past week, getting our garage ready for winter and also completing our last project of our first year owning our home. If you'd like to see other projects we've finished in the eleven months and two weeks that we've owned our house, then click here to see Narls' bedroom, here to see Emerson's nursery, here to see the kitchen & dining room and here to see the main bathroom.

 

Sadly I don't have any before pictures of the garage, but the whole back wall was filled with boxed that we still hadn't unpacked from when we moved into our house almost exactly one year ago (the boxes you see in the picture are unopen beer from Clay's beer-of-the-month club). We unpacked the remaining moving boxes- using the three pile method consisting of Put Away, Throw Away and Give Away -and moved the majority of the kids' playthings and bikes into the shed for the winter.

We've had this old beer fridge in our garage since we moved in and we've never used it. So we put an ad in Craigslist saying it was free if someone wanted to come get it and it was gone within the hour.

Our next plan of action is to move the deep freezer down into the basement and we'd have the entire garage to house both cars all winter (which is nice since we just traded in our minivan for a Ford Edge).

Next summer we hope to get the garage walls dry-walled; right now I'm just thankful to have the last of the boxes unpacked and put away.

Happy Birthday's

This post has the same general topic as my last, a year of memories and entertaining also means we've celebrated a year of birthdays!

Clay's birthday rounded up the last of my small family's and we helped him celebrate turning 34 a couple days ago. Good thing Narls was there next to him because that's a lot of candles to blow out ;)

Last January we celebrated my 31st birthday and Narls' 3rd. March was dedicated to our baby girl's first birthday and what a special event that was.

A year's worth of Happy Birthday's sung and a year's worth of birthday cake ate. Here's to hoping this next year is even half as wonderful.

Party at My House

Only two weeks left in our first year as new home owners.  Today I want to talk about one of my most favorite things about owning our home- ENTERTAINING.  I love hosting gatherings and in this past year alone we've had countless dinner parties, a Christmas-cookie-decorating get-together, many many game nights with friends and we've been the go-to spot for out of town loved ones.

Like my bestie Misty who visited from Arizona.

And my true love Mary Anne who loaded up the kiddos and traveled all the way from Wisconsin.

And my bff Tearah who was home from Texas.

And my dad and his wife Kat who came from Missouri.

I know that we'd be able to entertain guests no matter where we lived, but it's especially nice to do it in our home.  A place where we are constantly creating memories and I love that so many of our friends and family members are creating memories here too. A place where I'm worked my tail off to create a comfy and inviting space; I think it's worked too because that's often what I hear from the people who visit our home- that it's so comfy and cozy and they don't want to leave.  I wish they didn't have to.

Lesson Learned

I've been posting some of my favorite memories in celebration of our upcoming first anniversary of new home ownership. Today I thought I'd share one of the hardest lessons I've had to learn.

I am the daughter of an extremely clean mother. At any given time you could visit my mom's house and find her refrigerator sparkling and her floor gleaming. There are no cobwebs in any of her closets and no dust bunnies under the bed.

I was taught to make my bed every morning and to wash out the sink after doing the dishes and when I rented my first apartment I took great pride in my detailed cleaning schedule. I've since moved from that apartment into other apartments and then ultimately an apartment with Clay where we shared household chores, a habit that proved very valuable when the babies started arriving.

So I've always had cleanliness under control. But now we're in a house, a big house with lots of rooms and space and things to clean. And our babies are toddlers now- one just out of the terrible twos and one teetering on the brink of them. Within a matter of minutes our house can go from clean to a disaster zone and this is very hard for me to accept.

A whole roll of toilet paper unraveled in thirty seconds.

There's nothing neat or tidy about the way these two play.

The normal state of Narls' bedroom.

Tiny cars and planes on the bathroom rug at 6am, laying in wait for an unsuspecting foot to step on them.

I could spend all day every day cleaning and at first I tried to. But then I started missing the funny things Em would say as she learns to talk. And I would miss the hilarious stories Narls invents as he plays in his room. And I would miss wonderful moments of cuddle time with my handsome fiancé on the couch. A house that is always clean isn't worth that price.

So I've learned to relax a bit. And I've gained so much.