Thanksgiving Thoughts & Our Outdoor Makeover

Happy Tuesday! Just one day of work, guys. One day of work stands between us and the best day of the year. We can do it.

I've been loving every second of this week counting down and looking forward to the holiday weekend. I just love Thanksgiving. It's always been my favorite holiday and always will be. A day just for family, food and celebrating all we have to be thankful for? There's really nothing better.

We're staying in town this year and spending Thanksgiving at Jonathan's parent's house. I'm bringing dessert, obviously. I'm planning on a pumpkin bread and need to decide on one other option. Breakfast in bed on Thanksgiving morning is a given. We're seeing the new Hunger Games movie on Friday and plan on spending Saturday with my parents. I'm planning on squeezing in one or two long bike rides or runs with my man. The weather here has finally cooled down just in time for these few days of complete joy. Gosh, I can't wait. I'll leave work tomorrow afternoon and probably cry happy tears because I look forward to this holiday so much.

I know I'm all over the place, but believe it or not, I came here with a purpose and that is to show off our completed patio and outdoor space. It's safe to say I'm going to be spending as much time out here as possible this holiday weekend.

The farm house table is a dream come true. It's one of those things I'd pin on Pinterest thinking to myself, "maybe someday...." and here it is on our patio in all its glory. Jonathan knows a guy from high school who has started his own business making this kind of stuff. I sent him a few photos of what I liked and told him my main concerns were that the table seat 8 people and for it to be so that there isn't a bad seat at the table. You know how there's always a seat or two that gets stuck with the leg of the table in the way and when you sit there you have to kind of straddle the leg? I wanted to make sure no matter where you sit at this table, it's comfortable. This is why I had to get that last photo of the table legs. It's perfection. I wouldn't change a thing about the way it turned out.

I was a little concerned buying chairs for a table we were having custom-made. I was worried what we chose wouldn't end up matching or would be too tall or too big for the size of the table but I absolutely didn't want to end up with uncomfortable chairs just because they looked good. I love these chairs from Home Depot - they ended up working perfectly with everything.

This patio has been a work in progress for a while. We've tackled it little by little and slowly, we've figured out exactly how we want it. When I'm back here swinging on the hammock, there isn't anything I would change and it feels good to have it finished and to be so incredibly happy with the outcome.

Life Lately

Well, hello there. I can't seem to slow down and/or remove distractions long enough to get a few simple thoughts written out. Anyway, as usual, life has been full of excitement lately. Here's a little peak into what we've been up to.

The work we've been doing on our yard and back patio is complete and it was so absolutely worth the wait because as I sit out here on this beautiful Saturday morning, there isn't a thing I would change. Well maybe I would have Jonathan out here with me instead of working, but that's a given. I can't get enough of this space. As every weekend approaches, I am already trying to figure out how I can spend as much time as possible out here. More photos of this happy space to come later this week!

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I just finished my second week of Couch 2 5k. I kinda stopped running a few months into this year and then after breaking my toe in July, it absolutely wasn't going to be an option for a while. While I've stuck with my boot camp routine, I wanted to ease back into running because while I love boot camp, I was sort of missing the additional cardio I used to love. I've never tried using a program like this but it was just what I needed to get back into running at a healthy and safe pace for me. Even though the impatient side of me feels like I should be doing more, It feels good to be following a plan. I'm certainly not the fastest I've ever been, but it feels better than expected to run again. The time outdoors is good for me after being stuck at a desk all day and I'm fairly certain it does wonders for my sanity. On my run last night, I felt an overwhelming amount of gratitude for running at all, no matter how slow. A few months ago I couldn't walk without intense pain because of my injury and knowing it could have been so much worse makes me extra thankful to be running again.

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We hosted some friends for dinner last weekend and it's worth talking about for a few reasons:

One: Life is chaotic for all of us but when the six of us get together I am so grateful for these friendships. These friends are two of Jonathan's best friends and their significant others. I love that meeting Jonathan brought these great guys into my life but even more so, I am lucky to call their better halves my very good friends. These girls support me, lift me up and give me so many reasons to be thankful for them.

Two: The boys prepped dinner while the girls chatted which is worth celebrating.

Three: I made this picture perfect pumpkin cream cheese bundt cake and in my humble opinion, it tasted just as good as it looks. It's funny because I'd been so focused all day of prepping our dinner menu and getting the house ready for guests, I hadn't even thought to whip up something for dessert. I like to think I've built a reputation at this point when it comes to having homemade goodies ready for all occasions so I tracked down this super easy and delicious recipe at the last minute and I'm sure glad I did. 

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After church last Sunday, we found ourselves with a whole day ahead of us with no plans. We didn't know what to do with ourselves so we started throwing ideas around since there were a few things we both wanted to do. Jonathan wanted to shop for new sneakers and we had a few other stops we wanted to make and of course, I suggested, "Let's go to Target" to which Jonathan replied, "Why? What do we need there?" I laughed, obviously because you never need a reason for Target. The joy of Target is grabbing a coffee and wandering around a bit. Whether you go there for something (and leave after buying 6 other things and forgetting that one thing you needed) or you wander around for a bit and leave empty-handed, it doesn't matter. It is time perfectly spent either way. He wasn't sold, but into Target we went and it didn't take long for me to see that he was finally getting it.

I probably pushed my luck by making him take a selfie of us on top of this but I had to capture the moment.

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At the end of October, we hosted the most fun adult field day and after party for my sister's birthday. This super fun day deserves a post of it's own but for now I'll leave you with this:

It's certainly my favorite time of year and we've got some exciting things going on. I can only hope I get a little better at documenting all of it over the next few months!

Weekend Snapshots

Happy Tuesday! Just popping in to share a few snapshots from our weekend.

I've been suffering from major baking withdrawals so on Saturday, I picked up a bag of pretty spring M&Ms and baked my heart out. This is my all time favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe because they always come out perfectly soft. The only problem is that I can't resist sneaking one of these babies every now and then so I've been bringing a bag of cookies everywhere I go to get rid of them!

Jonathan promised he would help my sister and her boyfriend re-landscape the lawn in their new house so on Sunday, we all met up at the nursery to pick out a few plants for them. Let me tell you, this was a great place to be first thing on a Sunday morning. The sun was out and I was a happy girl wandering around looking at the beautiful plants and flowers. 

We wrapped up our weekend with a quick shopping trip to find the perfect sunburst mirror to finish off our front entry table makeover. I thought I had found the one at World Market, but we popped into Kirkland just to be sure and we laid our eyes on this beautiful piece of work and knew it was the one. I've been promising some home makeover photos but we still have a few small things to finish up before I share those. In the meantime, I can't hold back on you guys when it comes to our entry table makeover. I need to see if I snapped a before picture of this because this whole space has been so completely transformed. It's brighter and more welcoming with a few pops of color -- it's exactly what I envisioned! It was fun (and a little bit tricky) to decide what pieces to include but I think we've got a good balance now.



Tell me -

• Did you do anything this weekend to celebrate the arrival of Spring? 
• What are your tips for the perfect entryway decor?

Our Happy Home Gets a Makeover: Part 1

Hi friends! Happy Monday. I started this post at 10 a.m. and it's now 4:30.I'm not going to lie -- I am struggling today. Lack of sleep after a weekend of home improvements will do that to a girl, I guess!

I mentioned a few weeks ago we were planning on getting hardwood floors installed and once we decided on the floors we wanted, we didn't have to wait long to get moving. We scheduled the installation for this past weekend and in the meantime, we decided to also repaint the living room, kitchen and master bedroom while we were at it. We knew replacing the carpet with wood floors would make the space feel so much brighter, but switching it up with lighter paint colors would really transform our home. We've spent the last few weeks adding paint samples all over the walls and at this point, we'd only settled on our master bedroom color.

We were up bright and early Saturday morning to prep for the flooring installation and it didn't take long before our home was a mess of dust, noise and complete chaos:

The good news is that the guys who installed our floors are awesome. They arrived at 8:30 a.m. and when they left 12 hours later, we had beautiful wood floors in our bar, foyer and living room. They even helped move all of this out of our kitchen which was great because I was a tad stressed out by the chaos. Seriously, props to those of you who take on large renovations. Between the dust and the mess, I couldn't imagine this being a long-term situation.

With the guys coming back first thing Sunday morning to install the floors in our master bedroom, we spent the evening drinking wine (me) and moving everything out of our bedroom (Jonathan). We ended the day camped out on our bedroom floor watching Friends and soaking in all the fun of being in this together.

I was pretty eager to get back in the kitchen Sunday morning. While the guys got to work installing the floor in our master, Jonathan starting painting the base boards and I went to my happy place which is making Sunday breakfast and prepping some meals for the week. It was glorious. Our master bedroom was finished by noon and with the flooring installation complete, we were able to focus on putting our house back together. In the meantime, we decided to go ahead and paint our master bedroom. We had planned on saving the painting for another weekend, but since our bedroom furniture is so big, we figured we should paint that room while it was still empty. Plus, we already had our color picked out. We went with Sherwin Williams Winter Wood and I just love it. We are quite the painting duo and despite the ridiculous number of times I leaned on and/or bumped my butt against the wet paint, I think I was still a big help!

Okay, yes I am taking a break in the above photo but in all fairness Jonathan turned on Friends so he basically asked me to take a break and I couldn't help but sit back and watch him in action.

I'm glad we did because our bedroom looks amazing. With a lighter, soothing wall color and new wood floors, it feels like a totally different space.

We still have quite a bit to do including repainting the baseboards/doors throughout the rest of the house, painting the foyer, kitchen and living room and changing up the decor a bit, but we're hoping to finish all of that within the next week or so. When we're all done, I'll do a full post of before and after photos so for now, I'll just leave you with a photo of Taylor cat from yesterday afternoon. She found a peaceful place to sleep away from the chaos on a mattress in our living room. She was clearly less than thrilled with all the activity going on in our home this weekend.

It was quite a weekend! It was loud and it was messy but also absolutely joyful and exciting. Such is life, right? A sometimes messy, always beautiful work in progress. Hope your weekend was wonderful in its own way!