Spooky!!!

I've been holding off on posting until I had taken some pictures to illustrate what I have checked off my to do list. That hasn't happened yet, so we'll just hold off on that post shall we?

I will try my best to keep my fashion opinions to a minimum in this post, since as we are well aware I am no fashionista.  In fact, does anyone else have the problem off all your clean shirts actually being dirty? I went through 3 shirts (all "clean") on Saturday night before I found one that didn't have any weird random stain. Went to work yesterday with a white t-shirt on only to realize i had dried up neon green play dough on it, then today found what I can only assume is toothpaste on my sweater. Is it just me with this issue? I do laundry like it's my job. Maybe I need a new detergent...or a maid. Advice?

Fall is in full swing in my house. We decorated the last weekend of September for Halloween and have already had some fun fall/Halloween activities including Davis Farmland and Canobie Lake Scream fest. Both of my kids REALLY wanted to go into the haunted houses. If I didn't have to be the one to deal with their nightmares, I totally would have let them just to see how they react.

horsie's at davis farmland

not scary at all!

i went on this. amazing

hello mr. alpaca

visiting sweetpea

Up next for our Halloween spectacular is visiting Escobar Farms in RI for some pumpkin picking and maybe the corn maze and then the RW Zoo Jack-O-Lantern Spectacle  this weekend. Let's hope we have some good weather!!

Can anyone else not believe it's already October? I may have started my Christmas shopping already though. HA!

Holiday Scrapbook

Consider this a Christmakuh miracle...picture from the holidays already uploaded. I should have made that a resolution for 2013.....uploading pictures quicker. Anywho. Here are a few of my favorites from the holidays. I think you'll notice a distinct difference from the pictures with my trusty point and shoot and my new fancy grown up camera :)

x-mas with my family at the clubhouse

auntie coco

santa replaced the train table with a lego table :)

sizing things up

santa was here!

annual family photo at auntie donna's

So, for whatever reason they didn't post in the order I wanted them too, but I think you get the picture. ha!

december photos

much, MUCH better than my feeble attempt at my November instagram photos if I do say so myself!

I really need to get better at instagraming my pictures...should have added that to my resolutions!!! Speaking of which..I am totally kicking a$$ on my spending fast. I totally did NOT buy Taylor new boots yesterday (they were $13!) and did not get a new lens for my camera. nope. definitely not here. I was told by And Then We Saved to stock up before the spending fast begins, which I didn't have a chance to do because of the holidays, so I'm just calling the 1st and 2nd days of this year my stock up days. I'm done. Promise.

I was thinking too that I didn't really come up with any household to do's for this year. I do want to paint the bathroom and need to rearrange the bedroom. Also really want to get some new art for the living room and above the dining room table.  I have a few ideas (where the heck did I put those snapstagram photos I got right before X-Mas???) and will DIY both projects, so that way I can stay within my spend fast!!

okay, so back to my photo's from last month. I think my favorite is the one of Taylor taking a picture. She does this all the time. I actually have a few on my real camera of her taking pictures of things like her rocking horse and princess tent.  Everytime I try to get her to hold it the right way she just turns in around. Silly thing.

You may also notice some pretty kick a$$ hats going on up in here. The cabbage patch hat is from Kelly. I told Taylor it's a princess hat so she's all about wearing it.  The other amazing hats we have are from my cousin Kaitlin. Seriously, this girl can knit. Like, I have no idea why she doesn't have an etsy shop yet.  The hat Jackson has on is a Christmas Tree with lights. LIGHTS!!!  It's a little big but I love that because we can definitely use it for the next few years. It's all packed up with my Christmas stuff so I know where to find it for next year. So awesome.

Lot's of fun stuff coming this month too!! One day (soon I hope) Liss will reveal more of her nursery projects! I will figure out my camera and become and instant professional photographer, and I may or may not be turning another year older. Let's do this January!

finally....some #$@#$ pictures!!

These pictures are going to be crap quality because I took them at night, with my iphone...but crappy pictures are better than no pictures right?

Let's start with IKEA. IKEA is evil. it's like Target but more expensive and you need a truck. Liss and I headed down to IKEA last weekend so she could buy her bookcase that she's turning into a window seat in BP room and I went to get the TROFAST and turn it into something like this:

http://ericandlydiasfamily.blogspot.com/2010/05/lego-my-messy-legos.html

Bye bye big bulky train table, hello sleek awesome lego table.

I also wanted to get some new shoe storage. I was over the bench that we had in there since we moved in. It always just collected crap, and I was sick of shoes everywhere.  Because I'm so original, I went right over to YHL to look up the shoe storage they had done in their laundry room. IKEA being so smart decided to discontinue Retur and re-market it as shoe storage and sell in a three pack. Very tricky IKEA.  They are now called TRONES.

I had a list. A very strict list of what I needed at IKEA. We walked in and decided to look around even though we both knew what we needed. Bad idea. Very bad.  The first or second living room we walked into I exclaimed "this is where I want to live!" it was so cozy and warm and inviting and had a cute little corner with a desk very similar to the one I had purchased there before and turned into a chalk table.  It also had a roll of paper hanging near it.  I was inspired.  To be honest, I had seen something similar when MODG revealed G's big boy room and loved it.

I also found frames for $1.99, and since pictures of my kids in frames is pretty much a Christmas gift staple, I picked up a bunch of those. Oh, and a tiny stuffed moose. But I digress. Here are the pictures!!

So I had to do some maneuvering to bring the kids table into the living room, but I have to say I love it. For some reason when the couch is up against both walls, it just seems so much more cozy and open.  Here it is with our new "snow" pillows as Jackson lovingly calls them.

So to the right of the couch is the new kids corner:

Please excuse the super safe exposed electrical outlet. I have a cover for it..somewhere..

Here is the new entryway/shoe storage (or shoe dispenser as Michael calls it)

Also, there's our Christmas tree!! So, there'a  quick update for you of what's been going on.  I have like 2 bagillion things to do before Christmas, so wish me luck!!!

child labor

Lot's has been going on at casa de kenney, but due to lack of time I've (as usual) not been great about uploading my photos. I definitely need this, like yesterday:

Moving on..

I've tackled a bunch of projects over the past month or so. I updated our throw pillows to be more wintery, moved around the living room a bit, decorated for x-mas, made a new "kids corner" in the living room, and changed our coat hook/shoe storage situation.  I also FINALLY painted the IKEA chairs from the chalkboard table I made for the kids a few months ago.

I picked out two paint pods over at Ace Hardware, one in red and one in aqua. My goal in all of this is to start bringing in pops of red, and I'm considering painting the bookshelf in my kitchen red, but not sure if it will be too much.  I later read online that you probably shouldn't use paint pods for real painting, but I did it anyway. Since these were just cheap-o kids chairs, I wasn't really concerned with the quality.

Biggest mistake I made was telling Jackson about the paint on our way home. He wanted to see it so I pulled the pod out of the bag and showed him. This of course led to him having to hold the paint all the way home, then Taylor of course needed her paint. This all turned in to me getting home, setting up two paint stations, and letting a 4 year old and a 21 month old paint furniture. Pure. Genius.

This is the only picture I have as you can imagine attempting to take "in process" photos of two young kids painting furniture wasn't happening. Jackson actually did a pretty good job. Taylor was a mess and gave up after about two minutes (thank God!). I went over their work and smoothed everything out. It took 2 coats of the aqua and 3 coats of the red, but I'm happy with how they came out. More pictures of my new kids corner and all the other fun crafts soon. I also need to get my  hands on baby shower pictures (LISS!!!) so I can post about the craftiness of that.

peace!

UPDATE: I came across an amazing blog  (Mama's Losing It) and she does this really cool writer's prompt link thingy..so I'm linking up with her today for# 3 What's the last thing you bought.  duh. paint pods. Hoping to do this every week. so fun!!



 

Holiday Photo Shoot

it's Monday, and while I had a very exciting weekend I will share with you later all about that.  Instead of a deeply meaningful blog post, I will just throw a bunch of pictures of my kids from their photo shoot with Allison over at Twice As Nice Photography.
:)