Fall Hike

Of course the rest of the weekend ended up being beautiful.  Oh well.  I am off to Nantucket with my bloggy friends on Thursday, so no complaining from me!
We set off yesterday morning to meet up with my sister and her family and go here. What a great day it was for a hike!

My parents and the four grandkids.  Everyone has their trail maps and is ready for a climb!

 C found a place off the trail to have a snack.

 The boys and their cousins.  They led the pack the entire way up the mountain!

 I was behind my sister (the one taking the pics) so she kept taking pictures of me :)  And C was nice and came to hike with me for a bit.  He does that skiing too.  He will ski ahead (because both boys are way better skiers than I am) and then wait and ski with me for a bit.

Me and J.  It wasn't really cold enough for his hat, but he was excited to wear it again after spying it in the bag of winter gear.

(We saw great views by the way, just no pictures of them.  We could see Boston, New Hampshire and Stratton Mountain in Vermont!) 

We headed to my sisters after the climb.  The boys collected eggs (my sis has chickens) and had fun playing with their cousins.  Then we were treated to a yummy lasagna dinner.  Mmmmmm!!

Much better!

I went ahead and added Rs :) I'm glad I did!

Fall Weekend

 We were supposed to head to Nantucket last night, but the weather forecast looked a bit iffy, so we made the call not to go. :(  Woke up to a gorgeous day here, so off to the farm we went to pick out pumpkins and go apple picking.  I think J tried to pick the absolute biggest pumpkin there was!  It weighed in at almost 30 pounds!  C went for the roundest. :)  

 I started decorating for Halloween.  That fabulous ghost is an actual gourd.  And he lights up.

 and now I need to figure out what to do with 2 pecks of apples.  Think I am going to make the caramel apple dip from Southern Living.  Looks yummy, and we have some friends coming over for the game tomorrow, so I think that will be a good football app.

And here are the pumpkins in their new home.  I also found two little round ones for my urns.  I think I still need to add some moss or hay.  Any suggestions?

Basement Redo (otherwise titled how many things can I paint with a quart of black enamel paint!)

One obligatory before picture...
Oh, and a reminder of the before of the chairs (and you can see the table in the background...)

You can see more before pictures of our basement here.  I have been working down in the basement a TON!  First we cleared almost everything out and then painted.  SO SO happy not to have the yellow walls anymore.  Don't know WHAT I was thinking 6 years ago when we first painted!!  We also finally painted the windows and actually cleaned them.  What a difference!! Then we had the carpet cleaned (need to remember to schedule that once a year...)  My mom has been coming up and helping me with sewing (i.e. ironing!!)  We still have one set of curtains to hem, but love love how it is all coming together!!  And very much enjoying working with my mom.  She has Alzheimer's so this time together is just very special to me. (Thanks to my Dad for providing transportation!!)

 

 I got this storage idea from Dixie Delights (ahem, among other inspiration!!  LOVE her style!!)  Please ignore the need to be painted adirondack chairs in the background.  Sigh.  Another project!

 The Lego storage/buffet set up.  Works great for putting the football food out :)  Heading over to HomeGoods to look for a bigger bin for the arsenal. ;)  Ah, boys!

 Another area for food.  Plus game storage.

 The poker corner.  So pleased with how the chairs and table came out.

Cozy area for movie watching and football game cheering!  Do you think I should add some R's on the red pillows?  I have enough navy and white chevron to do that...

(I just added the Patriots "art".  Found it at HomeGoods.

Eventually we will replace the ceiling, but we need to recover from our bathroom projects first!! ;)

Room color: Benjamin Moore Sand Dollar

Fabrics: Premier Prints from various online sources

Things I painted with ONE quart of black enamel paint:

6 Poker Chairs

1 Poker table

1 Island (now bar area)

Lego storage table

2 sofa side tables 

and 2 mirrors for the boys bathroom (obviously not shown here!)

Linked up to Positively Splendid, and Homemaker on a Dime

The First Day of School!

Today was (finally) the first day of school.  Honestly, I could't sleep last night because I was so excited!!  I am meeting some great friends for lunch soon, but wanted to post our annual pictures ;)
You can see previous pictures here.

It was totally thundering and lightening out, so we had to do our pictures in the family room, instead of our traditional pose on the front stoop.

I CAN NOT believe that J is going into 6th grade!!!  How is that possible?  Not really sure what is up with the knee high black socks, but I wasn't going to fight it!  He just got his haircut yesterday and looks SO much older to me.  He will be taller than I am by next year I bet.  Crazy!  And J did ask me if he really had to hold the sign.  I said "Of course.  You will be holding a sign on the first day of college!" ;)

They are good sports for putting up with their mother!

One of my basement projects

One of the items John received from his family home was a bumper pool table/poker table. (you can kind of see it a little in the back ground)  He and a group of guys play poker in our basement about once a month.  Pretty soon after we moved into our current home (almost six years ago!!), a friend of his called and said he needed to come right away, there were six chairs on the side of the road that matched the poker table.  Off he went to pick them up!  And yes, they did match the table perfectly.  I have always thought they were the ugliest chairs ever, and couldn't even believe they were in my house!  But they never came out of the basement. ;)

Well, as part of my basement re-do project, I working on painting and re-covering the chairs.  Finally!

The 2 arm chairs are finished!  Here is a picture of the finished product:

Everything is a little better with a monogram!

I still have more fabric on its way.  I am going to make a small pillow for each of these with a coordinating red fabric.  Hopefully I will have the finished basement pictures ready to share soon!

And a shout out to Dixie Delights for introducing me to Premier Prints fabrics :)  Love.

Basement update

Here is the messy before.  Ugh, I was really hating that wall color down there!!  The room has been cleared out and painted. (Benjamin Moore Sand Dollar) and I have rearranged the furniture and ordered some fabric!

 Here is the lego storage unit now :)  I already had the paint and ribbon and ordered the burlap for under $2 a yard.  I just need to find some lamps for on top...So pleased with how everything is coming along so far.