blast from the past

Throwback Thursday....Halloween through the years!

The college years...

Homemade costumes Sophomore year! All by hand!

cop-out costume...kitty cat!

PERFECT timing...Sarah Palin in 2008, just a week before the election!

night #1 of 2009 as "Tay" from Rachel Zoe Project

night #2 of 2009: Ballerina #2! (homemade again!)

2011 as Amy Winehouse (post-mortem)

The golden years...

Josie and the Pussycats (I think?) Freshman year of high school.  THERE are those natural curls I tell everyone I used to have!

Minnie Mouse

Kitty Cat #1

Ballerina #1

Cowgirl

Cheerleader!

Happy Halloween! Have a safe but spooky night! 

A belated weekend recap

It's going to take my body a while to realize that today is NOT Monday. I had planned to post on Monday this week but time slipped away from me. I was one of the lucky ones to have the day off of work as Columbus day and I just couldn't get myself to my home office to sit down and write a post. So, I'm a day late! 

Even with the day off, the weekend went by way too quickly, which is almost always the case. We filled it with napping and sports events and unfortunately I wasn't able to get anything on my to-do list done (which mostly consisted of outdoor things). It has been muggy, misty, or rainy since Saturday evening and is supposed to continue for most of the week. We'll take it though!

Mark and I headed to Fort Worth at noon on Saturday to meet my friend Kelly and her fiance Kyle at one of our favorite spots. If you live within 100 miles of Fort Worth and haven't been to Joe T. Garcia's, you're doing it wrong. It is an area staple and speaks so much of Fort Worth culture. 

I went back and in about 5 minutes found pictures from over the years enjoying a meal at Joe T's...go back in time with me...

Me and my friend Katie circa 2007

My cousins Kendall and Adrian enjoying a meal!

We had a design trip to Dallas so I brought the whole crew (Carlye, Jory, and Jody) over for some Mexican food!

The company and the food were both GREAT, of course, and it was another beautiful day at Joe T's. 

After a stop at Dirty Dillard's (if you don't know that secret, than you're REALLY doing it wrong!) we headed home to get some more yard work done while the weather permitted. Mark added mulch in the front beds and it seriously looks 100 times better. I wasn't able to get photos of the final product but I'll include them soon. I took a few action shots:

Later that night, Terra and Daniel picked us up and we head to Frisco for suite seats at the FC Dallas game. They lost, but again - good times and good company!

On Sunday we stayed in due to the rain and mugginess, but headed out to Arlington in the afternoon to meet my parents for the Dallas Cowboys game. My dad's company draws for tickets every now and then and he happened to win! They typically play favorites and give the tickets to my sister and her husband, but luckily they asked us this time and we didn't pass it up!

It was my first Cowboys game and it was about what I thought it would be. I'll go into more detail in another post...Here are some photos from our seats:

Bye!

Monday was another rainy day spent sleeping late, shopping, and cooking. I made some YUMMY Mac & Cheese and Motley got an early birthday present PLUS her very first Halloween costume. She had us cracking up!

And just like that, the weekend is over. 

I'm busy this week with a co-worker visiting from NY and then the weekend is being taken over by my girlfriends! You'll be lucky if you hear much from me. Happy Tuesday!

Hocus Pocus - a story of decor

It's Friday and I'm ready to share my Fall decorating, so it's a good day all around!

Over the years I've come to really enjoy Fall and Halloween. I don't remember Halloween ever being a favorite holiday, but I've never been a fan of scary, gory, horrifying things, so that makes sense. Over the last couple of years, though, I've found myself getting giddy over the thought of Halloween. That being said, I've started my own collection of decorations. 

This year I didn't buy anything since our house isn't 100% set up yet. I don't really decorate private areas of the house and I scatter just a few things around the kitchen, so there is only so much decor that can fit in these small 1200 square feet. 

First off, here is our entry. 

(edit: I was looking back on old posts and found this guy below. Look at what a difference about 2 months, some black paint, and decor makes!)

I'm so glad I got the black door and trim painted before this holiday. I cannot imagine this looking good with a maroon door!

All of the orange pumpkins are real pumpkins that Mark and I picked up at Home Depot last weekend. The white one is a fake I got a few years ago. I don't remember buying that galvanized witch thing...Kelly, is that yours? If not, I probably picked it up at HomeGoods.

I found the skull and the black jack-o-lantern at Target and we picked up those mums at Home Depot when we got the pumpkins.

I had an extra strand of leaf garland (snagged at Joann's or Hobby Lobby on sale one year) that I couldn't place anywhere in the house, so I literally just rolled it up and stuck it in the middle of my burlap wreath (seen here). Also, that "B" came from the wreaths I made for our wedding and it fell off in the move.

(there's the original B's location at our old apartment)

It was just lying in our front closet so I grabbed it and stuck it right in with the leaves! So, yeah, DIY cheat, none of that is actually being held in place. Less work for me! :)

I ended up moving this scrolled side table into the entryway to serve as a semi-entry table when we got the new couch. I'm still working things out as far as layout, since the space is a little odd! I have the same cheery books (Blink and The Happiness Project) all together with a glow-in-the-dark skull, purple glitter "EEK!" and a Yankee Candle Company "Autumn Festival" candle. I highly recommend this candle, by the way! Plus, I LOVE the spooky shadow it casts on the "EEK!" sign! 

I have a never-ending assortment of pumpkins, so these are just scattered around the living room. My favorite is still the wicker pumpkin and its slight chevron pattern. :)

Kelly calls this orange and black pillow my 'Halloween pillow" and while I have it out all year, it definitely gets moved to the front in October. Also, I picked up that pillow at the very back from Target a few years ago. On one side it has black and white stripes and on the other it has words like "spooky" and "scary". It's a favorite! As you can see, I laid my other leaf garland here on the windowsill.

I re purposed the $20 TV stand I bought at Wal-Mart a couple years ago into a lonnnngggg end table by the sofa, and I really like it there so far! Mark has a war plane book entitled Ghosts and it works perfectly with book 7 of the Harry Potter series to give a spooky backdrop. I throw in a mushy photo, a glitter pumpkin, two fake baby pumpkins, and a raven and we've got ourselves a vignette! 

I'm a sucker for seasonal candy (even though you can't tell - that sunlight in the back made for a washed out photo!) so I always fill glasses and vases with seasonal M&M's. They don't tempt me much (I'm more of a cookie/cake type of girl) but Mark already warned me that they would be gone soon. I think they are about half of that now. Also, I scored this SWEET little vulture baby at Joann's a couple years ago. It sits appropriately by another glitter sign, "BEWARE". I got it and the "EEK!" sign in the dollar section at Target when I first moved to Dallas.

So, that's my decor for this year! I'm proud of myself for not buying any new items and just working with what I've got! Does anyone else LOVE Halloween out there? Do you decorate your house to the max, or just here and there? I'd love to hear!

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One more thing - I still haven't done anything with this mirror but I'm hoping to use my weekend to get something done. I'm taking votes! Should I paint it? Leave it natural? Distress it? Give it a wash? Give me your thoughts!

Have a happy weekend!