Wednesday, September 26, 2012

let there be photos, lots of photos

i'm so tired of bare walls! with our house on the market, i'd really done a lot of packing up and de-personalizing our house so buyers could "picture themselves living" in our house. well, now that we can picture ourselves living in our house for a few more years, i'm very excited to get to personalize our space again!

i've had issues with what i wanted to do for the staircase wall every since we moved in back in 2007. i had continuous searched for inspiration and ideas and finally, i found this courtesy of Pinterest....


this inspiration comes from the cutest blog, forevercottage--check it out here. i love the personal aspect of this gallery. photographs mixed with memorabilia and family touches. so, i took this to heart and started digging my packed away personal items. i gathered and hunted for about 2 weeks. i repainted frames, bought a few new ones and distressed some old one's. i found some of our wedding photos i'd never hung, one honeymoon room door key from the tutweiler personalized with our names and wedding day, a old photograph of my grandparents and lots of other great items. here is where my gallery wall is right now....


i love the lab bust on the wall instead of picture of our lab--although, when i find a good one it's going in a frame to be added too! i still have some room to add more items as i continue to unpack all the personal stuff in the attic. for now, i'm most happy with where the gallery is and i'm working on  few more. glad to have my house back! Pin It

Monday, September 24, 2012

Back to School, Blogging, and a Contest....

There has been a LOT going on in the Carle house. We have taken our house off the market, done some personalized decorating and DIY projects, have made some new friends, lost a friend unexpectedly, acquired a cat & decided to keep the cat, have a Kindergartner in our midst, and many, many other things I want to share with you. I'm going to try to do better at posting consistantly--I really have missed it!

On that note, I wanted to share our First Day of School photograph which won us a $100 gift card to PearTreeGreetings.com, one of my favorite sites. This is a photo collage I did of Jackson's First day of Kindergarten using InstaCollage....

How cute is he?!?! He is attending Southminster Day School in Vestavia and it has been AWESOME! His teacher is Mrs. Crowson and he has 15 classmates. The monkey was a gift from his teacher on "meet the teacher" night that is his friend to ease him into his new room and school. He really does love it and I LOVE having him ride with me everyday.

I'm super excited that we won the contest--I was very surprised when I got the e-mail. They are announcing all the winners soon and I'll be sure to post on the announcemen so you can see all the other cute Back-to-School pictures. Pin It

Monday, July 30, 2012

Little Sluggers

Each Monday night for the past 6 weeks, we have spent an hour and a half at the boys T-ball practice/game and I must say, it has been some of our funniest (& hottest) times spent with the boys. They enjoyed hitting, running, and fighting over which child would get the ball. At times, they enjoyed either picking the weeds while standing in the field or kicking the dirt awaiting the ball. And, at each game they have absolutely LOVED shaking hands with the opposing team and having snacks with their teammates. Jackson has taken to T-ball more than Macklin, but I think that can be attributed to age. He has been focused and really determined to get the rules down and do a good job. Macklin has enjoyed being in the mix and all the snacks! It has been a really fun time and I'm looking forward to many nights of T-ball (& baseball) in our future. Tonight is our last game so I wanted to share some of the cute pics from our first season of T-ball....




Go A's!!
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Monday, July 23, 2012

Green Thumb

Confession--me and plants just don't get along. I buy them with the best of intentions (i.e. keeping them alive) yet, I never seem to succeed. So, I've grown accustomed to the artificial kind that I can use to decorate--just dust and forget about for a few months with no water needed.

Recently, while on one of our weekend trips to Lowe's, we thought it would be pretty neat and educational for the boys if we grew a vegetable & flower garden (as I stand in the aisle laughing uncontrollably on the inside). I admit, all the cute little seed packets absolutely appealed to me and although growing something myself seemed like an enormous task, I was game for the challenge.

Rather than an in-ground or a raised bed garden, we opted to start small and assess our progress. We purchased four Jack Daniels whiskey barrels and selected our seeds. We decided on cantaloupe, carrots, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, green beans, green onions, radishes, Roma tomatoes, squash, sunflowers, tomatoes, and zucchini. We planted and waited. And waited, and waited all while remembering to water our seeds (HUGE accomplishment). Here is a picture of one of our garden barrels....

How awesome is that?!?! We are more than excited as we actually grew something we can eat and use in our house. Here are some of the Instagram photos I took of individual vegetables and sunflowers....


Aren't these super cool?!?! We've successfully grown cucumbers, grape tomatoes, radishes, squash,  sunflowers and zucchini. Some of them aren't quiet big enough to share in a photograph just yet, but I will share as soon as they are bigger. So, the point of my post is that even when you face something you've never ever been successful in doing before (keeping plants alive), try it in a different manner (growing a vegetable & flower garden) with a new outlook (teaching the boys the importance of growing something); you just may surprise yourself! I know I sure did!!

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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Gift of Time

Birthday gift to myself--the gift of more time. How does one accomplish such a task? Well, for me the first step is letting go of the long hair! I've had enough of the 2 1/2 hours needed to wash, blow dry and flat iron my hair each time I wash it (who has that kind of time, especially for hair)! So, I did a bit of research and decided to donate my hair to Locks of Love. One of the teachers at the boys daycare did this a few years ago and I thought it was the neatest thing. It requires a ponytail at least 10 inches long so it can be processed and turned into a wig. I admit, it took me a bit of time to make the appointment, but I'm so glad I did it! I've needed a change for sometime and with some twisting of my stylists arm (she loves long, curly hair because she doesn't have to fix it everyday), but I finally convinced her to put my hair into 2 ponytails and cut it off. It was liberating! I will work to get some better pics, but here it is. Happy Birthday to me!!

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Sunday, July 1, 2012

Best Friends






Meet Emma, Jackson's very best friend. She recently moved to Georgia and even though they are in different states, they remain best friends. We took a trip up to Gadsden yesterday to visit with Emma, her daddy & grandparents and these 2 had the most fun. We went to Tigers for Tomorrow (great habitat for wild animals), swam, enjoyed lunch and riding on the 4-wheeler. It was hard to leave since they had so much fun. We miss our Emma, but know that these 2 will be best friends for a very, very long time!
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Friday, June 8, 2012

DIY--Retro Travel Bag

I have been assembling a collection of sewing projects I'd LOVE to tackle sooner rather than later. One of those is this really chic Retro Travel Bag featured in the latest edition of the AllFreeSewing.com courtesy of Riley Blake Designs Blog. I know so many of you are sewers so I wanted to share this with you in case you are looking for something new and fun for your next Summer project. Get the full instructions here. Pin It