SEPTEMBER PHOTO DUMP

I can't believe it is the last few hours of September and October will be here! I am so excited I love fall, but I wanted to put all of my pictures up of September that I took. Most of them are of crafts. I have been feeling very inspired by blogs and pinterest and therefore leading myself a challenge to almost craft daily when I get home. Sometimes my school work gets pushed to the way side, but I feel like it's not going anywhere so I'm going to do something I like. I get kinda stubborn like that sometimes. :-)

Anyway, without further a-due...

Putting our bikes back in the garage after a wonderful bike ride. :-)

Walking by the river. :-)

Kirbster is a little scared to venture any further. :-)

Rearranging to the laundry room, it now serves 3 purposes... laundry, craft, computer. :-) 

Hunty's new work area. :-) 

My new work space. :-) 

The book page wreath!!! :-) I love how it turned out! It just got really big! :-) 

I think this picture does the wreath more justice!! It is huge!! 

My dollar garage sale "Welcome" sign plus I cut out in a heart our hometown on the state map and glued it on fabric then had put a frame around it. Super cheap and easy!! Didn't cost over 2 dollars!! My favorite types of projects are cheap and easy!! :-) 

Since my first wreath I made was too big to fit on the front of the door I made another book page wreath but a little different variation. I added those stickers on strands of ribbon!! I really like how it turned out! :-)

The other project that I should be documenting and am not is a new dining room table. It has been in the garage for almost 2 months trying to get sanded and we have put several layers of varnish remover on the base and let me tell you varnish is hard to remove! It is a process! Hope to be done with it this month!! :-)

I have been feeling very motivated to make pillows... I don't know why I get these craft urges, but I do and Jo'Ann's sucks me right in!! :-) I found this fun fabric and bought cheap pillows at garage sales for a buck and then took all the stuffing out of the old pillow and shoved it in the new pillow covers I sewed. I just finished another big brown one tonight before grad class and I really like it on our bed, but I like the leaves on the couch!! Super fun!

You probably can't tell from this photo, but we had our carpets cleaned this month because having a dog really does wonders to your furniture carpet.. anything! So we got 4 rooms cleaned for 100 bucks and I was excited about that  and I just feel so much better about the carpet it feels brand new!! YAY for carpet cleaning! 

Much love friends!! I promise to get better at not letting whole months slip by with out updating! Happy weekending!! Do something crafty!!! :-) 

Exposure

~ The act of  revealing or unmasking in a public manner~

Two rooms I'm loving right now are about to be revealed!!

Living room.

Classroom.

Loving school and students!! Looks like safari-jungle/middle school right?!?! Day 2 here we come! :-) 

Have a great night!

Sunburn Earth

The summer came and went and tonight my mind sits wondering of what tomorrow will bring. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a fresh start for me only teaching 6th grade! I wonder how many things will happen tomorrow after a stressful two days??

How is it possible that this is my fourth year teaching? 

In the blink of an eye... summer is extinct..... the "real world" continues....

I'm going to post a lot of summer pictures, so this post may be boring but we had a lot of good times I want to remember.

We began the summer with a family trip to Galena, Illinois!! It was wonderful! I hope we go back next June 2012!

We also had the opportunity to work more on completing our living room. I don't believe  a room is ever completely finished, but getting there! 

Also my very talented mother-in-law painted some leaves on three canvas' above the couch! I love it!

Moving on to July!

I did little projects from blogs I read on different ways to display pictures!

Purchased a new vehicle in July, to save money! WAHOO!! I think I was more excited than Nolan, but he LOVES the car, don't let him fool you! :-) 

We spent the 4th of July at some good family friends cabin and went wake boarding, knee boarding, tubing, took the boat out, and ate good food! This was also the time I stayed back the last day to write a final paper for my first class this summer and got an "A" so I think we need to go more often!! :-) 

Me knee boarding for the first time! I loved it!

Beautiful sunsets!

Fireworks on the river 4th of July! 

Nolan wake boarding! He is very talented!! :-) 

We also took a little date night to Winterset!

Then, July ended and grad classes were done for the summer and August started!

My MIL and I took a trip to a craft show!! We had a blast, but were ready to be home!

I would go back to Lake Superior in a heart beat!! It is beyond words beautiful! Which doesn't even do it justice! 

I even went swimming!! :-) I won't tell that someone left the car door open during this time... :-) me :-) 

My MIL's sweet booth!!

As soon as I got back, Nolan and I headed to family camp! I am disappointed to say that my camera is screwed up and would not let me upload my camp family pictures from the big swing, which makes me very sad. I am very frustrated that my camera does this sometimes, but that's life right!

Anywhoo...... the students come tomorrow, ready or not! Pray all goes well!! :-)

Blessings!! :-) 

The Warm UP!! :-)

Two years ago, I was house hunting. I was stretching my budget and myself for such a big investment. Updating your home is a never ending process. We continually are generating new ideas to make things better. Painting the living room has been a discussion that has occurred several times and taking down the flowery curtains was something that just needed to be done. (This made my husband very happy.) Flowers are beautiful but we needed an update and thanks to my GORGEOUS Mamacita, who pushed me to start the project we did!  I couldn't of done it without you mom! Mom, I love you so much thanks for being my loyal blog commenter! I LOVE YOUR comments! I also noticed I have a new blog follower, thanks so much for coming along on this journey of life! I hope you all enjoy! 

School has ended and summer is in FULL swing and so is Grad School! I have 3 papers due on Friday, that I just found out about yesterday, and yet I am blogging, but I figure this is fun and will help my brain ease back into the formality of papers, yet once again. I honestly never thought I would go back to school after I finished my Bachelors in Elem. Ed./Early Childhood/Spec. Ed. I mean seriously those 2 majors and minor took me 5 years and I student taught in 3 different places. The good Lord knew just what to do with me though I don't regret where I am for the world and am so eager to get back into the swing of writing. Writing is soothing for me, and though I will never be published in the New York Times, being able to get my thoughts out is soothing! 

 June 4th the living room went from this look...

To This!!!  Do you love it? Can you see all the differences? 

What do you think? Mom and I found the leaf pillow at Target and just couldn't resist! And then I recovered all of the white pillows and went to Jo-Ann's to pick out fun fabric!

The pillows aren't done yet but there is another fabric for the valance in the kitchen and another brown for smaller pillows which I picked up for a quarter at a garage sale and took the cover off and just used the batting. I will post those pictures once the pillows and valance are done!

Kitchen! :-) I love green! All of the dishes are from dollar tree! :-)

Now we own baby gates because I am so protective of the living room. Kirby is now allowed hardly in the living room without me getting after him to get off the couch. Mom bought us beautiful new slip covers for the couch and love seat and I just love them! I don't need Kirby hair on them!!

Needless to say, he isn't quite sure about the gate thing yet! He keeps trying to push them down with his nose.

Before the spray painting of the coffee table and recovering pillows. 

What a difference little things make! 

It all started on Saturday night... the taping was the longest process and needed almost 3 rolls since we had to go around so much!

Here we go the before and after...

 Another update is the new work bench my husband built! I'm so proud of him! :-) 

** Changing topics***

Beautiful baby shower for Ann and Amanda!

Molly, Me, and Theresa!

Beau was zonked out! :-)

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We now have a place to keep out shoes organized and I love it! :-)

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The garden is growing beautifully and we are excited to see what it produced. We have planted too many tomatoes so let me know if anyone wants tomatoes because I'm sure we be giving them away very shortly! :-)

Can you see the peppers!! :-)

This past weekend we went on our date night for June. We try to have a date night at least once a month. We ate at Joe's Crab Shack and loved it! The waitress brought Husband a bib for his steampot and she really listened to him. I cracked up because if you know Nolan this is what he always says and the waitress wrote it on his bib! 

Then we went to the movie Super 8, which I highly recommend, very good! The day we headed to  Shellsburg, IA to go to Nolan's cousin's wedding! We had a blast! Congrats Jesse and Danielle!

The Benge Clan at the wedding!

A 4 generations photo! :-)

Us!

We are off to go on a bike ride in this beautiful weather! We are warming up Ragbri! No.. no.. no just kidding, I could never do Ragbri! I hear it's a lot of fun though! I'd rather just stick to my Yoga! Now my fingers are all warmed up and ready to do a lot of typing!! ;-) haha