Christmas a week away!

We have had a great Saturday!  Today we braved the mall, Costco and the Post Office.  They were crazy!  We waited in line at the post office for 45 minutes to mail gifts to my family.  Then, we went to Ballard Design outlet and got my Christmas present, three stools for our kitchen.  Now, they in no way match our kitchen, and our counter top isn't even designed for stools, but I have always wanted them and they were 75% off!!!  We paid $90 for all three!!!!!  One day when we update our kitchen, they will match and look perfect.  For now, I will enjoy sitting in them as David makes dinner:)

We also opened gifts from my family, since we will not be celebrating Christmas with them this year.  I feel old, suddenly I get excited over gifts I would have had no clue about when I was younger.  Some of my highlights were my new lunch bag, label maker, a velor sweat suit, and laminator.  David got a Best Buy gift card, pajama pants, and a cookbook.

On another note, last weekend we ran a 5k, the Jingle Jog, in Dunwoody.  David of course finished before me, but we had a great time.  Then, Saturday night we had some people over and we all (well most of us) wore ugly Christmas sweaters.  It was a lot of fun, and the first time we entertained in our new house!



It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We have a fake tree...well two fake trees, and I miss the smell of real trees.  Today I bought an air freshener that smells like a real Christmas tree.  It's amazing to me how one smell can make my mood change.  I have been walking around the house spraying it and singing Christmas carols, I think there are few, if any, things that can change my mood during Christmas time.  I put up some Christmas decorations in the house this weekend, and I think the only thing I have left is to finish the outside of the house.  Hopefully I will be done tomorrow.

The Christmas Tree in our Family Room

So excited I have a chimney for Santa!

The Christmas Tree in our formal living room

Nativity Scene in Dining Room

We saw THE best Christmas movie this weekend "Arthur Christmas".  It was great, and even though some people don't like animated movies, I highly recommend it. 

Giving Thanks!

We went to my parent's house for Thanksgiving.  We had a great time, and I did most of the cooking, with the help of Jill and David.  We missed my two brother n laws that celebrated Thanksgiving elsewhere.

About to eat!

I made my first turkey!  Although, it was a little too dry.

David made his own dessert

My 97 year old grandmother was able to come up for the day.

David did a lot of this while we were there!

Yes, we did make a gingerbread house.  I can't understand why David didn't want to contribute, so he took pictures.

On Thursday night, or Friday morning, at 12 am, my dad, David and I went out to some black Friday sales.  The stores were INSANE.  It was impossible for us to find parking and every store was so crowded it was uncomfortable.  We went to Wal-Mart, Target, Kohls, and drove by Best Buy.  Even after opening at midnight, Best Buy was so crowded that there was a line around the entire outside of the store. 

As always, it was hard to leave.  Holidays go by so quickly and it's always hard to say goodbye.  We had a great Thanksgiving!

It all went down!

We finally got our wood floors installed on Saturday!  They are in the formal living room and dining room.  We were not sad to see the carpet go. 

Here are some before and after pictures of the formal living room.  This room will eventually be our office, that is why there is nothing in there, because we have nothing to put in there yet:)

The wood was delivered on Wednesday



Starting to remove the carpet!



What a difference!

I can't wait to get furniture in this room!

On to the dining room!

Almost all the furniture is out!

Carpet is gone

New Floors!

Ready for Thanksgiving!

My First 5k!!

I ran my first 5k this morning!  My time was 34:37, which I realize for "runners" isn't great, but for me it was!  It was so cold outside this morning, but as soon as I got going, I warmed up.  The race was for Girls on Track.  David was a good sport and got out of bed at 6:30 to go watch me and take pictures.  I feel inspired now and can't wait to run another race. 

                                                                       Before the race

I did it!

Just finished!



Go Hokies!!!

Last night we went to the Virginia Tech vs. Georgia Tech game.  We had such a great time, but it was FREEZING.  The hokies won, which made it even more fun.  After taking the Marta downtown, we ate the Varsity, which was packed, and then went to the stadium.  Our seats were decent and luckily in the Virginia Tech section.  The final score was 37-26.  We got home around midnight, which for me was late, seeing as I am usually in bed by 9pm;)  But, the hokies don't play in Atlanta often, so the lack of sleep was worth it.

The Hokie Bird!

Soooo Cold!



Players after the game

Fall

Yesterday we went for a hike up Kennesaw Mountain.  We have been there a few times before, but it was so pretty with the leaves changing colors.  It was perfect weather for a hike!

There is a house in Buckhead that we saw last year that goes OVERBOARD with the Halloween blow-ups.  This year they did the same thing, so I stopped and took pictures on my phone.  These pictures do not do the amount of decorations they have justice.  They do the same thing for Christmas.



Work to be Done

Our formal living, which we plan to make the office, is finally painted.  David had a few days off work and painted it.  We chose a gray, but it turned out more blue. 

We also got some quotes this past week on plantation shutters, wood floors and painted trim.  Everything was actually reasonably priced.   The carpet isn't in bad shape, but we prefer wood floors.  The trim is beige, way too dark for us.  We could paint the trim ourselves, but because there is dental molding in the living room, dining room and foyer, that would be a LOT of work.

We decided we are going to get the hardwood floors, trim and plantation shutters done in living room, dining room, and foyer first.  After that we will move to the back of the house.  We will also be getting plantation shutters in the laundry room since that window is in the front of the house.  Our goal is to have all this done by Christmas!

Ghost

Today was perfect!!  The weather was so nice that we spent the afternoon doing things outside in the yard.  If you are facing our house from the street, on the right side are massive azalea bushes.  They take up so much space, and are so big that we had difficulty trimming them this summer because we couldn't get to the middle of them.  We knew we wanted to get rid of them, but every time we started working on it this summer it was too hot to get much done.  Today we started hacking away.  David worked for about an hour and a half and got most of the bushes that were against our house taken down.  However, he probably only removed 1/5 of the bushes.  Our plan is to work a little bit on them each weekend. 

While David worked on getting rid of the bushes, I decorated for Halloween.  Can you find the ghost in my picture?  (Ignore the dead bushes on the right hand side, that is part of the ones we removed today.)

Step by Step

So the progress is...not much.  The good news is the bathroom is painted, oh and the mirror is painted, but the bathroom is not 100% complete just yet.  But let's revisit some old pictures..by old I mean pictures of the house when it was on the market, this was not our furniture.

The family room with the previous owner's things

Now onto our room:

The color change makes such a difference!  We still obviously need to get the wires from the TV taken care of and moved.  We also need to hang some stuff up on the walls. 

Here are some before and after pictures of the mirror in the bathroom.  Here is what I started with, a gold oval mirror.  The color did not match the fixtures, instead of buying a brand new mirror, I brought spray paint.  The longest part of the process was covering the mirror with newspaper.

Here is the final product, I realize it is hard to tell what it looks like with the paper on it, but it looks good.  AND, it was only a $5 makeover!  When I post pictures of the completely re-done bathroom, the changes with the mirror will be more obvious.

Fingers crossed that my next post will have my new bathroom reveal!