Happy Halloween!!

Oh my goodness - where the HECK did October go???  Pretty sure this might be the least amount of blog posts in a month since my wedding month in April of 2010.  Wow - talk about busy.  However, with Halloween being tonight and the Halloween cards out and doing some trick or treating with some of our nieces and nephews - I will tell you that in our house we are more than excited for November to arrive for hopefully less craziness!!!

Here are the pups costumes this year - went very low key - as you can tell from pretty much everything, this month is nuts!  Hope everyone had a great October and cheers to November!!!

Here is our Halloween card photo session - haha - it was IMPOSSIBLE to get a good picture of all of them together.  Obviously.

 Jimmy trying to put Toby's "costume" on which was a ghost and really just a white pillow case that I cut eyes and ears out of.  Toby was not so thrilled.

Haha - "Dad what did you do to me???"

And then the depression sets in as the little dogs wonder what he is supposed to be??

Ok here are the individual shots we ended up using for our Halloween card.  The really cute striped pumpkin - now skinny enough to wear the stripes!!

Our little witch.  But literally - she really is one.  Maybe with a b instead of a w, but we love her.

And Toby - the ghost - who is still invisible to the other pups.

And a cute one of Willy tipping his head!!

Making laundry more efficient...

I'm all about efficiency.  It's just something that I like to be and strive to make lots of parts of my life.  It's weird.  But the truth.  So after living in our house for two years - I got sick of the way I had to do laundry.  I mean it obviously wasn't the end of the world, as we are very lucky to have a house with a nice washer and dryer, but carrying 2 adults dirty clothes down two flights of stairs, opening 2 doors, through the garage and FINALLY down to the basement - well, yes, that got old week after week.  So what was the first step??  Build a hallway that makes that trek down to the basement all inside - obviously I still had to keep those steps due to our side-by-side split style house - but I think the hallway turned out AWESOME!!!!!  Not sure what I'm talking about?  Check out the step by step process of making our basement entrance inside here, here, here and here.

OK - so what was next?  Well,  had a few things in mind, mainly from my favorite furniture building website, Ana White.  The first I decided to build was a laundry basket dress from this plan.  It seemed pretty easy - well once we got the plywood in and out of Jimmy's car (oh jeez - that was sure a test of our marriage....) - and it really was very easy.  What I have determined I am the worst at in the furniture building process?  Finishing it off - aka painting and sealing.  It's for sure my least favorite step!!

Now let me show you what I did!!  So the first step was obviously cutting the plywood - which that is always done in our garage with 2 people and safety glasses and a circular saw.  We are all about safety here!!  But once I got those cut, it was time to get them together.  Have I mentioned that I couldn't do ANY of this on my own without my right angle clamps?  See them in the picture below - well they are life savers!!

The next step, I just measured the 1X1 wood that I cut to act as the top of the "drawer" and drilled those in.  See how the 3 laundry baskets fit so nicely??  That's one for Brittany, one for Jimmy and one for.....oh no, no one else - just the towels.

And here is a picture of my last and least favorite step - painting.  Haha, wondering what the heck that black sheet is doing hanging there?  That was our "photo shoot" area for the dog's halloween costume shoot.  We are weird.

But something I did learn the hard way. Don't be an idiot and paint inside on carpet.  Obviously I did already know this, but figured I could make it work and not spill on the carpet.  Well, I did spill a few drops, but then after I was "finished" and had put the polyurethane on it....well Willy decided to knock that over all over the carpet.  Good news is?  That carpet is SICK and we have hated it since we moved in, so maybe that will encourage us to finally replace it.  Trying to see the good side of spilling it EVERYWHERE....

Oh, the other purple thing in the background?  That project post is coming up....I was a little into multi-tasking that weekend, can you tell?  2 furniture projects going at once and then a photo shoot - ah!

So after it was painted, sealed and dried - it was time to put it to use!  Check it out in our basement laundry room area.  I love it and caught it mid-laundry time, as you can see some of our clothes folded in there.  Makes it so much better because before I was leaving our hampers downstairs until laundry was finished and taking the clothes back up in them.  It was OK, however, if laundry spilled over into a 2 or 3 day process (yes I will admit it sometimes we start it and forget about it....), the dirty hampers were still downstairs so we had no where to put our actual dirty clothes.  Well - when you have a nasty dog that likes to destroy your underwear, do that too many times and you are really starting to lack in the number of undie options that you have.  Hence, my frustration and this project....

So there you have it.  What is the second project?  It's a wood replacement for the laundry pedestals!!  We contemplated buying the ones from Samsung when we bought our new washer and dryer, but at $400 a pop, I figured we could do without.  So that is where this other solution comes in handy.  I'm making one for myself and my mom......

I wish this was my job!!!

Sectional is complete (almost)

Hi - I'm back.  And since I should be studying and have a test tomorrow night - why not blog right??? Oh how we all love distractions...

So I first told you about the beginning of this outdoor sectional that I planned to build and then the SLOWWWW progress....but now I'm proud to show you the final version of the sectional.  Check.it.out.

Oh, and it's not painted yet, but as you can see, I did find some cushions on end of the summer clearance at Wal-Mart.  That's right.  Wal-Mart.  I almost used this cushion sewing post that I found from a brag post on ana-white.com and literally after I had ordered the foam from joanns online and was on my way to buy this awesome outdoor fabric I had found at Hancock fabric and when I thought to stop by Wal-Mart to give it one last try.  And at $13 per cushion - I couldn't pass it up.  With the time that I would have spent making them, yet these will do.  And they are pretty freaking comfy too.  

Here is the catch - I found 5 at one Wal-Mart and then all the back cushions.  Well, I quickly found out I needed 5 more.  I had Jimmy stop at one and he found one and then asked them to look up the inventory at other Wal-Mart's in KC.  And then....get ready....I drove around for TWO AND A HALF hours looking at like 5 Wal-Mart's and ended up with nothing.  I was pretty upset, but then my brilliant husband realized that I could probably get them online.  He was right - just for a $7 up-charge ($20 each vs. $13)...but it was worth it to complete the set.  

I would say it was a huge hit.  All the dogs LOVE it a lot.  They are pretty cute and comfy on it too.

I did have a plan and bought 2 of these - but then after the online find.  Done.

And as a side project - I spray painted (yep, still in love with spray paint) the white patio furniture.  Because guess what the next step is?  Paint the wood sectional black and weather proof it.  Jimmy was sick last weekend and on Friday night we started a fire in the fire pit and relaxed outside on the sectional.  I fell asleep - so I was either (a) super exhausted or (b) the sectional is really comfortable.  I'm going to go with both.

As an FYI - I'm now officially obsessed with building things.  I'm like a crazy builder person and I love it.  I can't stop thinking of projects - and guess what?  I already finished 2 more?

That kind of week...

With a crazy week and an even crazier weekend under my belt - I found this and had to share.  No, I don't have a pintrest account yet...but this did a good job at convincing me why I should.  This is my new motto for life....

found via pintrest

Happy Monday - lots of fun posts to come!!  Hope everyone had a good weekend.

TSwift - 2011 at Arrowhead!

So Taylor Swift decided she liked Kansas City so much that she came back in 2011- but this time it was to Arrowhead Stadium.  Pretty cool and it turned out on September 24, it was perfect weather - not too hot and not too cold (well in the beginning).  My sister bought me these tickets what seemed like forever ago as my birthday present - awesome present!!  We went out to dinner before and then were off to Arrowhead.  

Walking in was funny because the demographics are mainly girls that are with their mom's or teenagers.  A few 20-somethings, but not that many. However, I think if you know the words to every song on her albums - it should be normal that you are there, right?!?!?  Well, my sister and I do - so we were excited!!!

Check out Arrowhead when it was still light outside and people were still filing in.  Love T-Swift on the big screen!!

And my niece, Libbie, was there with my sister in law Shellie and another mom/daughter pair.  It was Libbie's first concert ever (how fun - don't you remember your first concert?!?!?), so she was really excited!  Even better, when I asked Shellie where their seats were, they were just 2 sections over from us, so before the concert, I went over to say HI to her!  They were SOOO excited!!!

After 2 opening bands (not the best....), it was TIME - for the SPEAK NOW tour!!!!!!!!

Oh boy - my sister and I were so so so so so excited!!!  We couldn't wait for it to start.  As a flashback - and a reminder that this was my fourth time seeing TSwift!!!  But do you remember that we went to the concert together last year??!!?  Well here is a picture flashback.

 How funny because we pretty much look exactly the same (same pose, both have different hair), but really not much has changed.  Except in the 2010 picture, I was a Bruns, in the 2011 picture, I was a Carter (hint: I got married a week after the 2010 picture).

But anyway, the concert was AMAZING.  I'm not even kidding.  What amazes me the most about Taylor's concerts are the fact that she is involved in all of it.  Like she wrote the song, plays the song, sings the song and also coordinates the entire concert.  The detail that she puts into each stage change with each song is just amazing.  No one goes to school to learn how to put on a concert - and she has quite the talent.  It's so fun to see what she will come up with for each song.  And also the way she interacts with the crowd.  It's pretty awesome.  She's awesome.  Haha - I really like her.

And on with the post so I don't sound creepy....

My favorite might be the bottom right picture above.  See the bride????  She staged a wedding to go along with the Speak Now song where the girl in the song stands up in a wedding and tells the groom to not marry the bride, but marry her.  She claims it was about a friend and not her, but who knows, right??!

And then the encore was Love Story - and she floated through the crowd - ummm...so awesome.  I cannot imagine being in the front row and having her float over me!!!

And at the very end - lots and lots and lots of fireworks!  Something that cannot happen in the Sprint Center and only at an outdoor arena.  Pretty freaking cool!!

Overall it was a SWEET concert, but it was freezing cold.  I totally should have listened to my sister when she told me to dress warmer because the dress with a sweater didn't cut it!!! The traffic was horrible getting out of the parking lot, but still it was so fun hanging out with my sister and getting to talk and most importantly, see T-Swift!!!  Until next time....