The American Dream

The other day Larry, Jeff's step-dad and our realtor, called me and asked me how I was feeling. I thought he was talking about my pregnancy and told him I was tired. He responded, "You guys are two college graduates, with two kids and another one coming, you're living in a brand new house in a nice neighborhood...how does it feel to be living the American Dream?" It never struck me until then that we really are living the American Dream. Everyday I count my blessing and give thanks for all I've been given! And now I'll share with you a little of what we've been up to while living "the dream".

Carson LOVES to ride his bike everyday. We are outside a ton and play with the neighbor kids a lot. The boys are both enjoying the yard and garage. It makes me wonder how we survived the summer in an apartment...oh yeah, there was a pool. Jonas playing with our "digger" collection.

Meet Kitty. We adopted her from an animal shelter. We're hoping that she takes care of the mice outside. We built in what was a farmer's field a year ago and we've had some mice get down into our window wells and chew on our screens. We decided a cat would be a better way to control them than poison. I DO NOT like having a cat in my house, but since she was a stray, we are keeping her inside for the first little bit so she doesn't run off. She spends most of her time in my basement or garage as I can't handle the "cat smell" that some houses get. YUCK!! Occasionaly, I'll let her come upstairs for a little bit. We're going to slowly start giving her more outside time...hopefully she'll be catching mice for us soon and staying out of my house. The boys adore her, but they keep asking when we are going to get our dog.

Jeff has already torn into the front yard (of course!)...he can't stand the landscape and is very eager to change it. He hated the grass line on our front planting bed and decided it had to go.

BEFORE: (well, before we added more mulch, but you can still see the original grass line and how wavy it was)

My three landscapers.
We even used Carson's gator to haul in some mulch.

AFTER: Now I need to go get some more plants!

I found my fall decorations the other day.

I made these cute lil pumpkins the other night out of some fat quarters, batting, ribbon and buttons.

I know there's been a serious lack of photos of the inside of the house. I am having decorating blahs right now and just can't get things to look how I want them to. Here is my "plant shelf" . It needs something but I'm not sure what. I'm not a fan of fake greenery as I think it looks old fashioned...unless done appropriately. I might do more red berries as I think the red and aqua look awesome together. Any suggestions? Don't look too close at the paint job! Its a long story but I made Jeff suddenly stop painting as I hated the color. Now its growing on me and when the boys and I are in Idaho next week, he's going to finish it up.