Happy Fall Y'all!

October is probably my favorite month of the year. The temperature is cool but not too cold, the colors on the trees are really vibrant, and pumpkins are EVERYWHERE. I also love fall decor. A couple weekends ago, I made a fall wreath out of some foam piping insulation from home depot. I thought this would be the greatest idea because it was cheap and easy. My friend, Kara, made one as well. I have yet to see her finished project, but I sure hope it turned out better than mine did. Here's my front door with the first wreath:

I evidently loaded it down with too much stuff on it so it kind of became egg-shaped after a day. I took that puppy down and went to Michael's to find a replacement. Michael's had 18" grapevine wreaths for $5 so I snagged one up and put all my "stuff" on it and this is the result!

A zillion times better. Apologies for the crappy photo. I took all the felt flowers and pom poms off the old wreath and added them to the new one along with some extras. Here's a close up of the wreath:

I love it 65435136576435 times more than the other one! The next step in prettyfying our entry way is to get a new pot for the mum. Mums smell so gross, but I love how they look! I also love that it was only $3.47 at home depot. The pumpkins by the door are fake from Michael's. Super cheap as well becuase they were 50% off. I went with fake pumpkins so I could re-use them and so I wouldn't have a rotting pumpkin by my front door. My next BIG projects in the apartment will be to paint a wall in each of the bedrooms and maybe in the kitchen as well. I'm really looking for ward to it!!! I'll definitely keep you all posted!

How do you decorate for the seasons?

Loves,
Amy

Decor Update

2 posts in 2 days?! I must be crazy! I've been wanting to show everyone my updated living/dining room for a while and FINALLY took a picture this morning as I was on my way out of the house. Remember what my accent wall looked like when I finished it? If not here is a reminder:

I adore the wall color, but I wasn't loving the picture that I put up and I did not like the olive green table cloth. I've been seeing all kinds of cute gallery walls on Pinterest and decided to do one of my own. Here is the new area!



I love how it turned out! It takes up so much more space than the other picture and it lets me showcase many of my photos without it looking so sporadic. It was pretty easy to do. I just laid them on the ground and arranged them until I liked what I saw and then nailed those puppies up! I used toothpaste on the photo hangers to mark where I should put the nail. That saved me a lot of headaches and extras holes in the wall. I did have a whole bunch of photos of just me and Ryan and I thought I was a little too much, so I replaced some with a couple family pictures and a bird print. I also replaced that green tablecloth with a new gray one. I love it so much more. And get this I got that baby for $3.47 at Meijer! I love a good deal! It was a little long so I tied up the corners with some brown satin ribbon. I also put up a fall table arrangement. I'll post a more up close photo a little later when I've finished all my fall decorating. I'll also try to include better pictures because the iPhone pics are kind of sad.

What kind of projects have you worked on lately?


Loves,
Amy

Now you know my ABCs!

I don't usually like to do random questionnaire things, but I thought that this would be a good filler til I have time to post a real post. So for your stalking pleasure here are my ABCs!


A. Age: 24
B. Bed size: Queen. Wishing for that King size! (one day...)
C. Chore that you hate: All of them? but I guess if I had to pick one it would be folding the laundry. Just ask the hubs.
D. Dogs: none for now. maybe when we have kids and a house.
E. Essential start to your day: wash my face and brush my teeth!
F. Favorite color: anything in the mint/seafoam/turquoise family of colors
G. Gold or Silver: Silver
H. Height: 5' 11 3/4" but we'll round up and say 6'0".
I. Instruments you play: none. lame. I played the clarinet in 6th grade though!
J. Job title: Team Leader. Sounds macho, huh?
K. Kids: none for now but we want a bunch.
L. Live: Louisville, KY
M. Mother’s name: Remy
N. Nicknames: Ames, Amy Lou, Monkey (from my dad), Minnie (from Ryan), and whole bunch of other goofy nicknames from Ryan that I'd rather not say. :)
O. Overnight hospital stays: None thankfully!
P. Pet peeves: Stupid/mean comments on blogs/articles/youtube videos. If you can't be civil, please don't type it.
Q. Quote from a movie: "You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." -Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. I seriously cry everytime I watch that part. Love it.
R. Right or left handed: Right-o!
S. Siblings: 1 older brother Julius and 1 younger brother Alex
U. Underwear: I used to wear VS underoos, but now I'm cheap so I get the 6 pack of Hanes hipsters. Super comf though.
V. Vegetable you hate: peppers. I hate the texture of the peppers.
W. What makes you run late: When I try to do my hair all cute and then it doesn't work out so then I end up having to straighten it or put it in a pony tail. I hardly ever do my hair for this reason. I'm usually very punctual.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth and left arm and MRI of my knees.
Y. Yummy food that you make: my hubs loves my egg rolls and fried rice. My favorite thing I've made is chess pie and/or the pumpkin spice bundt cake I made last week.
Z. Zoo animal: baby pandas, baby lions, baby cheetahs, basically any baby mammal.

This was exhilarating I know. Hopefully I'll have some good stuff for you next week!

Loves,
Amy

3 day weekend!

Hey friends!

Man oh man do I love a 3 day weekend. It came at just the right time too! We've been so busy the last 3 weeks that we just needed time to stop! I got caught up on most of the household chores (still haven't completely unpacked our clothes. oops.) and got to do a couple projects I've been wanting to do since we moved in! Saturday, Ryan had to spend all day working on an assignment so my friend, Kara, came over and helped me paint an accent wall in my apartment. I've been wanting to paint for-ever. I was so tired of the bland white walls. We needed color badly! Here is the before. It's not the best pic, I had already moved the table when I remembered that I wanted to take a picture.

boring white wall.

Here is my inspiration. Thank you Pinterest!

Here is the actual paint sample from the Home Depot Site:


Martha Stewart Sea Glass

 I've been a little obesessed with this color lately. It's just so darn pretty! Here is the after that I know you're dying to see. ;)

It made a HUGE difference in the room! I already know I'm going to have to get a different picture to hang there. That one is just too small. I also know I need to get a different tablecloth. That olive green is not working for me. It's a little darker than the paint sample, which I kind of expected, but I love it! Ryan really likes it too. This whole little project cost me just over $30 ($31.11 to be exact). This was for everything as in paint, paint tray, rollers, brushes, drop cloth, edger, yeah, all of that stuff. I was very pleased that it didn't cost more. If you already have the accessories than this project would be even cheaper! I just bought a quart of paint since I was doing the one wall and it was just the right amount. The paint itself only cost $10! ($9 and some change) I'm really considering painting an accent wall in our bedroom now that I have all the painting stuff. We'll see!

This weekend I also painted a few canvases to go in this room. I'm sure they'll show up in a future post. I also baked a Chess Pie for the first time and it came out perfectly. This is seriously my favorite pie ever. I used this recipe here and made my own pie crust with this recipe here. Yummy in the tummy. All in all, this was a wonderful weekend! I got to craft, bake, spend much needed alone time with the hubby watching office re-runs, and enjoy 68 degree weather! All of my favorite things!

Happy Fall everyone!

Surprise! {not}

Hey Friends!

Last Saturday we threw a "surprise" party for my sweet friend, Kara. I put surprise in quotes because she knew about it the whole time. She's a smart one, that Kara. Her hubby had no chance when she interrogated him. We had a blast nonetheless and I wanted to share some pics from the event that were taken by another wonderful friend, Lindsay (who is expecting a baby girl any day now)! Enjoy!

Brooke, Me, Lucas, and Nikki before Kara arrived.

Since Kara knew about the surprise, we had to think of a way to throw her off. We invited them over to play Settlers of Catan and had it set up on the table. We had all of our friends hide in our bedroom so it looked like no one was there.  

Some of the men waiting for instructions. ;)

Brooke, Lindsay, Mallory, and Lauren in our bedroom waiting for Kara.



The boys were ready to come out and yell, "Surprise!"

 When it was time to come out, Ryan would text Camden to have them all run down the hall.



Camden waiting for the go ahead from Ryan.



Surprise!!! Tessa did not enjoy that part.





cake fail

Me, Brooke, Lauren, Kara holding Tessa, Lindsay (with baby girl), Bethany (with baby boy) and Mallory

We had such a fun time! Kara knew it was coming but she loved it anyway! I made a funfetti cake with cream cheese frosting and used this technique to decorate it. It was my first time to decorate a cake in any way other than just slathering on a layer of frosting! It was a pain because  my apartment was so hot. I ended up having to put the cake in freezer after every 3 rows of ruffles to keep them from melting off! At the end of the night the cake just did not want to stand up any longer and took a little nap on the table. Ryan was just glad nothing happend to the Settlers board.

Thanks to our wonderful friends for making such a sweet memory!


Loves,
Amy





Happy New Year!

I still split up my year into semesters and breaks. Thanks school for messing up my calendar. Even though it is August, it feels like a new year because everyone is going back to school now. I really enjoy this time of year. Mostly because school supplies are super cheap and I can stock up on my crafting materials! I took some time yesterday to think about the last year and how much has changed. August 9th marked our 1 year anniversary of moving to Louisville. We've lived outside of Arkansas for a WHOLE YEAR. Crazy. I remember last August and how stressed we were from the move and applying for jobs. I remember how lonely we were because we didn't have many friends here yet. I remember the fun long drives we would take exploring Louisville (we still do this on occasion). Today, we have a wonderful new apartment and great jobs. We have AMAZING friends that are practically family. And I think I know Louisville better than I know Little Rock! Thank you Lord for so many blessings!

Ryan will start his second year of seminary tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited! He is doing so well in his classes. All A's so far. I am such a proud wife! I took a break from taking SWI classes last sememster so that I could take a women's systematic theology class through Sojourn with some very lovely ladies. This semester I will be resuming SWI and taking a parenting class with some of the same girls. I'm very excited about this upcoming class. I'm so thankful for Southern Seminary!

This is a pic of the library on campus last fall. SBTS has an amazingly beautiful campus.

I did some fun craft projects this past weekend as well. I plan on posting one super easy project that I did in my next post. I hope to do many more projects that I find on Pinterest. I'm kind of addicted to that site. I've gotten so many ideas for decorating our apartment and I can't wait to put them in motion! We've had family in town since we moved into our new place (for the last 3 weeks) so I haven't been able to do too much as far as decorating goes. I'm actually still trying to unpack all the boxes! I'm very close to getting all of our junk belongings put away so hopefully I can start "prettifying" everything soon!

I'll leave you all with some pictures of our recent excursion to Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN. We took Ryan's little sister, Amber, there as her birthday present from us. We had such a great time!

For the record, Amber is not grumpy, that's just her default silly face. Ha!

Hope everyone has an amazing week!
-Amy

Updating for the sake of updating.

Hello world,

Boy have I been doing a horrible job at updating! My last post was in March. Yikes! Since then there have been so many changes! Ryan has finished his first year of seminary at SBTS and did quite well! I'm so proud of him for working so hard and still making time for me. He's such a wonderful husband! My brother, Julius, and my SIL, Wella, had their baby girl, Genevieve, on April 25! She is just precious and already growing like a weed.

Here's my mom holding her right after she was born:

Here is a current pic of her:

MOHAWK BABY! And look at those chubs! So cute. I still haven't gotten to meet her in person. We did skype with them after she was born and I just wanted to snuggle her up! Thankfully, our fellow community groupers, Bruce and Chinh, had their twins, River and Rayne (a boy and girl) on March 17 and Kara and Crockett had their baby girl, Tessa, on May 16 so we've had a lot of snuggle time with babies to ease my baby fever. Ryan even babysat Tessa BY HIMSELF one evening while Kara and I went shopping! Can you believe it? He is so great with babies. :)

On April 17 we celebrated our first anniversary! I can't believe it's been more than a year since we got married. Since Ryan was in the midst of school, we decided to celebrate our anniversary at the end of May and take a trip to Chicago. Ryan had never been and I hadn't been since 9th grade. It was a fantastic trip even with the sore feet. Here we are at the famous Cloud Gate scuplture in Millennium Park:

On July 4, we had a community group cookout/block party in the neighborhood where we meet. We had a great turnout and got to meet a lot of neighbors. We're praying for God to do great things there! Here's a few of us from the party:

I love our community group! This was also the first week that Ryan and I officially became the community group leaders! Our former leaders, Matt and Lauren, have become coaches and we have been apprenticing under them. We were so thankful for this opportunity to be able to minister to the body and continue building strong relationships with other believers. Soon our group is going to multiply, meaning we are going to basically split in half and form another group because ours has grown so much. It is a bittersweet time, but we are excited about making room for new people to join!

We just moved (and by "just" I mean 3 days ago) and we're loving our new place. I'm so thankful for Village Manor and it was a great first home in Louisville. We just needed a little more space and I really wanted a dishwasher. I will never take that machine for granted again. We moved out to the east end of Louisville and our new community group will meet out there. We're excited to be able to meet new people in the community and hope to further the gospel there as well.

I'm sorry this is such a long post! I really need to get better about updating. I'm planning on doing a lot of new craft/home improvement projects over the next few months and will try to blog them in hopes of inspiring others to try them as well! Thank you so much for reading and hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Peace,
Amy