Nearly completed pool post!

I've shared some pictures of our new pool, but since then, we've had a few things done to nearly finish the project.

Our pool guy installed a marble slab at the spot where the hot tub spills over to the pool.  This made a huge difference since now instead of just flowing flush to the ledge, there's a waterfall effect & I love the noise & ambiance it gives!

 

Our yard is definitely not complete but we've made a TON of headway by tackling the landscaping around the pool cage.  What a job that was!  I was exhausted with just going to the nursery & selecting plants in the sweltering sun & that was just a tiny piece of the puzzle!  I don't have a green thumb in any way shape or form & I know little to nothing about plants, other than what I like the look of.  I had an idea in my mind & it ended up being very easy to pick what & how many plants we wanted to surround the cage.  It took us two days working for many hours in the insane heat to get the job done, but it really looks great, minus the dirt beyond.

 Lord knows we don't need it right now, but we also put our fire pit back up in anticipation the the colder months that will eventually come.  Our vacation put a hitch in our work, so this weekend we're going to level out the ground with a rake & put down grass seed.  In a month or so, our yard should finally, hopefully be back to normal.  It probably cost us about $300 in landscaping, but had we done it professionally, it would've been more than $1000.  As we were pouring sweat & nearly keeling over from heat exhaustion, I wished that I had endless money with no budget!!  

Our cats have been absolutely loving the outdoor lifestyle!  We leave our slider open a crack while we're home so they can come in & out as they like.

Mike wanted to get an outdoor pet bed for the animals & so far we've only seen K.C. (above cat) in it twice!  They'd rather be lounging on the hard concrete than this nice hammock!  As you can see from the stack of rafts strewn in the corner, we need to get something to contain them.

I had this in mind from Amazon.

A bought a few inexpensive terra cotta pots from Walmart & spray painted them to add a pop of color to the patio.

We ran to Lowe's, had them cut us a board, picked out some hooks, gave it a quick splash of turquoise spay paint & Mike drilled it into the wall for a DIY towel rack.  Love it!  It was Mike's idea that the two hooks on each end be dragonflies. He's crafty like that!

In the circle above, you can see that they extended the pavers beyond the screen so that we'd have a pad to put our grill & smoker.



I still pinch myself every time I sit out here or jump in the pool... I cannot believe our dream pool has come true!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

As of Monday night, we're officially done with Christmas shopping & wrapping!  What a relief.

I do 95% of my shopping online since I loath crowds & shopping in general.  But, each year around Christmas, Mike & I take a day off to get the last minute, random items I'm not able to get online.  After we finished Monday, we celebrated over a couple of delish margaritas.  It's a fun way to be productive & to actually get some time together alone while the kids are at school.  I look forward to it each year.

I picked up some pre-made gingerbread houses at Walmart for the kids to work on while we watched the Bears game Sunday.  I must be honest, they did a pretty pitiful job, randomly sticking a few gummies on each house, here & there. 

Since I like to display them on our fridge, I put a little elbow grease into them & finished them myself.

I keep this little tree in our living room as a way to separate our gifts from my immediate family's gifts.  We host Christmas Eve each year & exchange gifts between the grand kids, nieces, aunts, uncles & Grandma & Grandpa.  My own family of four wait until Christmas morning to do gifts & a couple of years ago, I kept our gifts under the main tree & they were a huge mishmosh mix up when my family arrived Christmas Eve.  This little tree keeps them nicely divided.

I decorated this plant with festive ball lights & ornaments & every time I pass it on my way to our bedroom, it makes me happy.

Our family room makes me the happiest though; it's so full of lights!  At night when the kids go to bed & the house is quiet, I love just sitting & enjoying it.  I'm going to miss all these lights when Christmas is over!  Hard to believe that Christmas Eve is a little more than one short week away.

I assembled teachers gifts on my day off today.  I made a German chocolate cookie recipe from the Food Network & my super easy, standard pretzel turtle.  Nothing like a dessert that takes under 10 minutes from start to finish (other than unwrapping each Rollo).  Click here for the cookie recipe & here for the turtle recipe.

This fat little ba**ard of a cat thinks his lounging area is our kitchen table.  I may call him names, but I do love him so!  Random story, but in the thirteen years of owning pets, we were struck with fleas.  When I first saw the dogs scratching, I joked about it while my sister was over, thinking it was nothing.  Lauren said that if it was fleas, it would be awful since she dealt with them, but I totally blew her off, thinking she was exaggerating.  Wrong.  It was AWFUL.  Luckily I vacuum & do laundry constantly, so they never got to be a problem around the house, just on the pets.  Casper (the cat above) licked himself so much that he ended up having a raw backside & losing a ton of weight.  No topical flea treatments helped, but luckily the vet prescribed each pet a pill that killed every flea within four hours.  GOOD RIDDANCE!!! 

Anyway!  We have one more weekend before Christmas & the big day will be here!  The weather will finally, finally be cooler this weekend; it's been hot, humid & quite yucky here in Florida.  I hope to fill the weekend with outdoor activities during the day & Christmas light exploring at night.  My number one favorite day in the whole year is December 24th.  It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!!

Playroom update

I haven't done all that many house posts lately, so I thought I'd do a playroom update.  I'm such a house junky; I love seeing other people's homes, how they decorate, organize, utilize their spaces, etc. I'm constantly watching HGTV, browsing Pinterest & even stopping at model homes for inspiration.  I'm big into maximizing the way we use our space so I hate the idea of useless rooms for sitting or dining while no one is actually sitting or dining in them but maybe once a year.  With that being said, we did away with our living room/formal dining room & made it into a big playroom that could be used for crafts or homework. 

The previous owners used it as a dining room & painted it a basic brown. 

We chose Green Tea Leaf by Porter Paints & swapped out the chandelier with a light fixture from IKEA.  Very inexpensive changes that made a quick difference.  The picture above is our mid-way point.

This is what our playroom looks like today.  My mom bought the little craft/homework table for Reese's 2nd birthday from Walmart.  For being under $100, it's very sturdy & has withstood daily use, even with my big butt sitting in it to help Cam with homework.

The chalkboard my dad made also gets plenty of use!

To give you perspective as to where our playroom sits in our house, this is the view from our front door.  Mike's office is immediately off to the left as you come into our house.  As the kids get older, we eventually hope to morph the space into a swanky lounge/bar & possibly get a pool table.  Our dream is to install a swimming pool in the near future, so this would be a great space to entertain!

Otherwise the three of us have been enjoying our Wednesday home together.  Since the kids keep so busy at school/summer camp the rest of the week, I try not to feel too guilty about having a lazy day at home while I organize/clean.  Last week we hit the movies to see Inside Out but outings can be so incredibly expensive & it's way too hot to do outdoor activities.

My little guy is just lounging in "Grammy's room," playing the WiiU... it's like his private frat house back there.  He even has his own bathroom (which he rarely flushes!)  Hope you are all having a great week!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Gosh how I love, love, love, love, love Christmas!  I wish I could bottle this season & hold on to it just a little longer.. I always try to cram as much holiday spirit into one month as possible!  Now that we have kids, it so much more fun & Cameron has been so incredibly excited about Christmas this year.

 The night we got back from North Carolina, Fella, our elf, was back in town with presents in tow!  He got the kids matching elf pajamas & a Santa cup.

This is Fella's fifth year with us & we absolutely adore the little guy.  He doesn't get into any shenanigans like some elves do, he just goes back to the North Pole each night & moves to a new spot each day.  He's such a busy elf that he doesn't seem to have the time for mischief!  ;o)

Our house was completely decorated the day after we got back from our trip.  We bought a real tree at Home Depot & it was an excellent price... now I can understand why.  It's not even mid-December & the stinkin tree is no longer accepting water & shedding needles like nobody's business.  We buy a tree every year & this has never happened.  I am not happy about that!

This blue-eyed cutie broke more ornaments than she put on the tree this year!  But at least she tried...

Before our tree wore the star, Cam insisted that Casper wear it.  I think he kinda dug it!

Things are looking pretty cozy & cheerful around here!!!  Happy Christmas!!

DIY Halloween wreath on the cheap!

I love putting wreaths on our front door for each holiday, but because they're so darn expensive, I don't have any for Fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving.  Most run around $50+ a piece & we have 2 front doors, so that just ain't happenin'!  I am by absolutely no means a crafty person since I lack the patience, time & skill, but when I was browsing Pinterest one day, I noticed a simple DIY Halloween wreath & decided to give it a go!  Click here for the site I referred to.  I hit Hobby Lobby & it ended up costing me about $12 total for the orange burlap, 2 straw wreaths, black mesh backing & large rubber spiders from the dollar store.

Lauren came over to make one too, we had a glass of wine & got our craft on!  If you decide to make one yourself, I have a few tips.  #1 Leave the plastic wrapping around the straw wreath or you'll have a major mess on your hands.  I learned that the hard way.  #2 Burlap is very messy so there was orange fuzz all over myself & the carpet.  #3 If you live in a very hot climate like me, don't hot glue the spiders on because they will melt off.  Again, found out the hard way.  I ended up sewing the spiders onto the wreaths.  

But, they ended up coming out great & I love the finished product!  Now that it's officially October, I busted out the rest of our Fall decorations.

Our Fall leaf runner is on our kitchen table,

I picked up this skull runner for only $2.99 at Ross & added it to our kitchen island.

I picked up this hurricane glass from Pottery Barn many, many years ago & change it up depending on the season.

I created scary pictures of each of us on PicMonkey & popped them in to $0.95 4x6 frames from Walmart.  I know, I really splurged on that one!

Last year Grammy made us these pumpkin place mats to represent my little pumpkins, Cameron & Reese.

And I put fake pumpkins & leaves that I bought a couple of years ago up on the fridge.  All of my decorations are extremely inexpensive & I reuse them year-to-year to save money.  Making your house festive for the holidays doesn't have to break the bank!

Hop over to Cam & Reese's blog to see pictures from Cameron's SpongeBob party Sunday.  We all had a great time!