Hello Fall.

I hope it is safe to say Fall is here.
There is a few warm days in the forecast over the next few days, but overall cooler weather seems to be here.
Which means it is time to bust out the fall decorations.
I don't have a lot of decorations and I don't go too crazy-- although my living room does look like Fall just threw up in there, it is the only room I decorated. My kids call it the spooky room. I don't see it...
So without further ado my Fall decor. My kids helped me decorate while the dishwasher was being installed. They added their own touches, which I can't help but leave.

I love that little scarecrow lamp/night light. He is just so cute. The spray arrangement {if you can even call it that} behind the frame came from a centerpiece at a wedding I believe--who's I don't know??!

 My living room is still a work in progress since this summer when I got a wild hair and decided to get rid of everything {decor wise} in my living room and start over. Well, may not everything but pretty close. I am still working on the pillow situation, but for now I am loving those orange tone pillows from Target and my placemat pillow {in the dark teal}. My goal is to put the word HELLO on it in gold, but just haven't taken the time too. 

A little closer look at the faux mantle. I made those tiny little jar arrangements many moons ago from stuff from Micheals. I scored the Harvest sign from Goodwill 5 years ago and the little broom came from my mom's box of decor that I raided. 

 I have a problem when it comes to picture frames. I love them. If they are on sale and under $3 they will come home with me. However, I seldom find photos to go into them in a reasonable time period. Such as this one that has sat empty for 5 months. Lo helped me out by making a pumpkin to put in it. Thank you girlfriend you just bought me 2 more months!

 I am a fall baby...as in my birthday is coming up...soon. So I get these type of decor things a lot as gifts. My sister Meg, made me a snowman pumpkin {combing my two loves!} Hers was made from real pumpkins, and well those don't keep...so one year we went to Micheals and got craft pumpkins and re-created it! He is my favorite.  The witches hat is from Target's dollar section 2/3 years ago?!? And the broom again from my mom's old stash. Thanks mom!

I had grand plans to each year get a new Halloween frame for the kids, but I stopped after 2 years. HA! Mom fail. The weird white thing in the middle of the garland is Lo's ghost. He is the Head ghost and takes care of the little TP roll ghost sitting next to Pum-laf {Get it Pumpkin +Olaf}.

 This is just a little nook in my kitchen that flows from the Living room. Kid made candy corn banner and a little boo sign again from the dollar section at Target.

 Piano.

 This I got last year from my grandma. It is actually for Lo when she is grown, but for now I display it. It is so precious and a sweet gift from  my grandma to her. Pretty sure it is from Hobby Lobby. The meca of holiday decorating. Have you been in there lately...Christmas is in full swing! I mean seriously slow down HL! HA.

Well that wraps up my fall tour.

Happy Fall. The best time of the year, until Christmas. :)

First Day of MDO for MW

Last Tuesday it was Micah's turn to go to "school."
To say he was a little excited is an understatement. Just watch the video clip below to see.


IMG 3813 from Michele Keethler on Vimeo.

This kid is so full of life, it is contagious. He has been begging and begging to go to school for a year now. I was never one for Mom's Day Out and Lo certainly never went, but he wants to go. I tried to talk him out of it, but there was no changing his mind. Every morning he asks if it is MDO day.

I will say it is kind of nice to have 4 hours to get things done or just let the voices in my head talk to one another without being constantly interrupted by a need to be fed, wiped, helped, dressed and so on.

He was so excited to pick out his lunch box and he loves that they go swimming every time. I am glad he loves it and I am glad it is flexible. If it stops being fun or life gets in the way then we stop for a month or two and start back up later.

I am a strong believer in just letting kids be kids. I don't do pre-K, simply because they have their whole lives to be in school, so why start at 3. MDO seems like a happy medium. Only one day/week full of mostly fun and play with just a bit of learning tossed in = perfection.

Here is his chalkboard print. I love that he wants to be a Helicopter Driver. :)

FREEDOM!!

I am going to miss my little buddy though. I am trying to soak up this last year with just him at home all day. I miss Lo, but she had my full attention for two years pre MW and now it's his turn to get all my focus.

The things he says to me. For the record I wasn't sad and didn't cry because it was only one day.

He is incapable of taking a normal picture.

His first craft an Apple for the letter A.

This was from my time hop this past week. I was sort of feeling like a mom failure because MW has zero interest in writing and learning letters. Last year I tried and tried but gave up making him trace letters, one year later he comes running out of his room exclaiming MOM! Look I wrote my name all by myself. {albeit out of order, but hey that is a start!!} I was reminded that not all is lost he will and can learn.

So what did mommy do while MW was gone?

Painted the fireplace. AH!

BEFORE

AFTER

I thought about doing a vlog about this, but maybe when it's all done.

I have been slowly redecorating the living room over the last 6 months. And I have been dying to paint that fireplace for.ev.er. Chad was not on board. And well, something that permenate I needed him to be on board. So I did lots and lots and lots of pintrest-ing and researching on this. I finally wore Chad down with my incessant talk about it. He caved. He really just wanted me to shut up about it. Whatever I will take it. 

Except. Then I couldn't pull the trigger. 

So of course I continued to go on and on about it and lost countless hours of sleep over it.

Finally on the day of MDO I just went for it. I was so freakin nervous. I was having heart palpitations the entire time. 

I kept stepping back thinking dear Lord what am I doing?!!? But there was no turning back. I finished and texted a photo to Chad he said it looked good. I of course then shared the photo to Facebook because where else do you get validation from? HA!

I didn't love it at first. I didn't hate it. But I most certainly wasn't sure I did the right thing.

It took about 24 hours for me to fall in love with it. I think simply because it was such a stark contrast to the original, but now I am so happy I did it. I love it. The room no longer seems like a tomb. 

So there you go what I did on MDO.

Thanksgiving + Deck The Halls + Fa La La La

And boom goes another month. Gone. Just like that.
Here is part 1 of November, although most of it occurred in part 2...don't judge my methods. ;)

So shockingly we got snow one weekend. Snow. In November, not unheard of but not common. Of course the kids were thrilled. And I love having wet soggy clothes and boots on my landing for a week. It is fun though watching the joy it brings, you forget so much about childhood and re-living it with your kids gives it new excitement all over again.

It's no secret that Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday. I do love the whole gratitude attitude thing, but November in and of itself is blah and the turkey is extra blah. However, last year we started the Tree of Thanksgiving. Each day {well most days} we all try and write 1 thing we are grateful for and hang the leaf up. MW still doesn't fully grasp the concept as he choose random things to be thankful for--like his truck book, but it is still fun to hear. Lo's heart is very sensitive to needs of others and she really chooses deep things--like clean water. Some days I find it astounding that they came from the same gene pool.

Lo was so ready to set up the tree and decorations this year. And because I find it exhausting we broke it into days. Everything out one day, fluff tree branches the next, wait for our rotating tree base to arrive, put tree up with lights on another day followed by trimming the tree on Thanksgiving day.

This was the year MW could finally put the star on and as soon as daddy tried to lift him, he FREAKED OUT.

So Brave Betsy did it. This girl fear nothing. Makes for a great gymnast.

The aforementioned tree trimming process.

Our tree rotates. I can not tell  you how cool that is. Lo begged for a rotating tree last year, but the tree was already up and I didn't see the point in buying a rotating base. This year I remembered and made sure to order one in time! Fun to see all the ornaments and as Lo says "I won't break my arm again trying to see the ornaments in the back!" {to clarify she only sprained it falling off the couch last year looking at the back of the tree.}

Another little tradition we have is family Thanksgiving Day pictures. Something magical happens on this day each year and we get good photos on a self timer in one take.

MW is just all Chandler Bing when it comes to taking photos...so excuse his random face. But I have learned to just appreciate that as who he is and embrace it. :)

The last tradition is to read the Christmas Nativity story as we put up my beloved manger scene.

I try so hard guys, I do. I want to be laid back but it's hard. Each year my face looks slightly more relaxed than the year before. HA!

A mini tour of the decor.

Ah, and then Izzy the elf has returned with donuts. Lo's face nearly exploded when she saw he was back. Then she yelled Micah come quick Izzy is back! That boy nearly tripped on his own feet {which really isn't all that crazy for him} trying to see Izzy!

And to wrap up this installment of November pt 1 that happened during pt 2.
THE CAR.
Micah and Leighton come on down....you've won a CAAAARRRR!
Not really, but that is what it felt like.
Yesterday I swung by goodwill to look for a mini Christmas tree for MW's room. And what should we see when we walked in, but this car. We meander around goodwill, found a tree and while I was checking out MW hopped in the car and tried to drive out the front door with it. As we left he begged for it. It was only  $60 and we have ALL wanted one of these for years. I told him I wasn't sure, I mean if I bought this thing I want it to be a Christmas gift...so I called daddy. Daddy the gift giving fool of course said YES! So we walked right back in and asked to buy it.

HOWEVER. part of the tag was missing and they refused to sell it to me because they weren't sure it wasn't already sold. They have a-mazing record keeping at goodwill...I mean it gives Hobby Lobby a run for their money.  ::insert SARCASM:: So frustrating. All I could do was come back tomorrow and hope it was still there. MW actually left really well--no fits, crying, whining etc. I was proud.

I told him we need to all take this as an opportunity to trust God. It seems silly, but God does care about little things like this, because they are big things to a little 3yo boy.

So we showed up as soon as they opened today and lo and behold the car was still there! It was ours. MW was thrilled!! He kept patting the car the whole way home. Of course when Lo got home she couldn't believe we got it! I told her to keep her hopes low.

And that is the story of the early Christmas present that is the car. Man the joy these two have, makes it all worth it. Even if it only last 6 months...it was $60 well spent!

Silhouette Wall Collage

I have these large walls in my basement that were in need of some love.

I love collages, but every time I try it is an utter failure. I would stare at other's collages and wonder why do their's look good?! 

Here is what I figured out:

1. Balance. Get a few matching shape frames to weight the collage.

2. Create a center line. While some of the frames are ON the line there is still a symmetrical line.

3. Colors. Make a scheme.

4. Lay out your collage, then take pictures so you can see it in a new way. 

5.  Cut out paper to match your frames exactly so you can tape them on the wall and tweak as needed. This is the most important step. Less nail holes in the end. 

{too high, BUT the center lines are marked so tweaking was a breeze-ish}

     Ex. I measured, did math, and hung up all the little papers and when I took 4 steps back realized the WHOLE collage was way too high. While annoyed, at least there were no nail holes and 3 tweaks later it was at the perfect height.

6. Shop goodwill for frames. All of these frames were goodwill or garage sale. Who cares what the ugly picture inside is, look for shape and lines. Pictures can be ripped out and replaced. Cheap!

And while those aren't riveting ancedotes, maybe other people who are scared of collages or OCD may find this helpful.

This whole thing came about because I am in love with silhouettes. It borders on obsession. However, I don't want just any silhouette I want my family. So we took photos and I lovingly turned them into my favorite silhouettes.  

 

I really love how it all turned out and it is the first collage I haven't torn down 3 days after putting it up.

Up close look at their silhouettes.