Fall & Halloween Decor - Outdoors

Happy Tuesday all...only 2 more days of September and then it's one of my favorite months of the year! Our anniversary AND Halloween...love it!

Chances are, you'll be seeing some blog posts with awesome fall and Halloween ideas and decor. Halloween is seriously my favorite non-sentimental holiday (Christmas is my favorite holiday that has some meaning behind it). I love everything about it...scaring people, handing out candy, pumpkins, the colors, the fun, pumpkins, costumes, little people in costumes, pumpkins, puppies in costumes (yes, I dress Molly up...deal with it), did I mention pumpkins??

So, here are some awesome outdoor decor pics for fall & Halloween:

(From Pottery Barn) I love this so much and wish I had a porch big enough to pull it off. I have a couple of those lanterns in my house, so I might re-purpose them as porch or patio decor. I have tons of garlands of leaves left over from our wedding, so I'll put them to good use too. And I found like 5 of the black birds the other day that I think will make things appropriately spooky.

(From here) I like this one too. I have to wonder if anyone ever trips on a pumpkin going down the steps? I'm loving the urns (or whatever they're called) at the bottom of the steps, I'm looking for something similar when I'm out yard saling. And I love the idea of the flowers in the bushel baskets...I just bought a couple of pots of mums this weekend, so I may be replanting shortly!

(From here) Just kidding, I like these urns better. And I love the hay bales, but after last year's incident with the snake, I think I might pass on hay bales this year. Though, if I just put them away in a timely manner (or had my husband take care of that chore), I may not have a snake issue.

(From Good Housekeeping) So stinking cute. Love me some pumpkins

(From Country Living) How cute is the entrance to this Halloween party?

(From Country Living) Ignoring the cheesy guy in the (very scary) clown costume, I really love the idea of lining a walkway with pumpkins. I wonder if I could pull that off on part of mine? (Without animal interference, I mean)

(From Country Living) How cute is this little vignette? One of the things on my junkin' list is a cute little table like this that I can try to weatherproof for our patio.

(From Country Living) Why on earth have I never thought of using the pumpkin stem as a nose?

(Still Country Living) All lit up at night. Very cute (+ practical for safety purposes when walking)

(From Country Living) This is a pretty little set-up. I don't know that a blanket left outside in Nebraska would fair very well, but it made for a cute photo shoot

There ya have it. Do you decorate outdoors for fall and Halloween?

Have a great day!

This Weekend

So, I mentioned that I was planning to go to the Junk Jaunt this weekend. It didn't happen, for numerous reasons.

The best way I can explain it is, I finally had to admit that I'm a grown-up and needed to rest for a day. Believe me, I was not thrilled to be staying home on a day I planned to get out of town and do some serious shopping.

The good news is, I got to spend the day with my husband, which was a really nice change. Being lazy was kind of fun too. (And I even snuck some shopping in.)

Since fall is officially here, and Halloween is sneaking around the corner, I thought I'd share some awesome fall & Halloween decor ideas with you that I love. Then I realized that all of these brilliant ideas have been moved to a different computer, and I can't share them. Boo. (No pun intended).

Instead, I'll share some of my engagement pics with you from 2 years ago (I cannot believe we took these two years ago...feels like it was yesterday). These were taken at Vala's Pumpkin Patch.. I love Vala's and it's just part of my fall routine to go check out the pumpkins and all that Vala's has to offer. When I was talking with my photographer prior to the session, I told her that we just wanted to capture how much we loved fall. I think she did a pretty good job of that.

Hello cart full of pumpkins. I love you. Will you come live at our house?

Mike & I have an odd sense of humor. I thought the idea of taking engagement pictures in front of a zombie bride was hilarious. Our photographer giggled along with me, but I secretly think she was scared for her safety with these nutty kids around her.



Rickety old fences are awesome.

Yay, pumpkins!

And some corn (not jungle leaves, as others have thought)

So, how's that for random fall-ness? Our 1-year wedding anniversary is a little under 2 weeks away, and since I never did any wrap-up posts on our wedding, I thought I might just share those on the bloggo. I know my friends from TheKnot will appreciate me finally doing that (even though everyone's already seen the pictures and heard the stories). I promise not to go wedding overboard.

Happy Monday, all! 

Fall TV

It's that time of year again...new fall TV! I'm so excited for this week. And since I use this blog as sort of a journal (more than anything else in my life), here's what we're watching this week:

(By watching, I mean DVRing, because there's no way we're home enough to watch this much tv.)

Monday:
Dancing with the Stars
Monday Night Football
(I want to watch LoneStar, but missed it last night, so I'll have to catch up online)

Tuesday:
Glee
NCIS
Parenthood

Wednesday:
Survivor

Thursday:
Nothing that I know of yet...

Friday: Blue Bloods (holy cow am I excited for this to start)

Saturday & Sunday are filled with football games and marathons of NCIS and Law & Order: SVU.

I miss my summer shows...True Blood (drool) and Covert Affairs, but this line-up will make up for it, I hope.

Who says being a couch potato isn't rewarding? :)

What are you watching? What summer shows do you miss? Are you as nutty as me and have to watch every show from the beginning or you can't go any further?

Happy Tuesday, all!

Locker Baskets

Have you gotten in on this trend yet? I love it. I've always been a fan of industrial type things (though they don't exactly fit into my decorating scheme). I love going into garages and outbuildings and asking, "what does this do?" Locker baskets fit right into this. Plus I love to organize. Don't do it very well, but the idea of it is nice. If I had all the money in the world, all the baskets you saw in my craft room post would have been locker baskets.

Here's some cute ones:

From Country Living. How freaking cute is that room? It wouldn't be remotely functional for all my stash, but my goodness, I wish it was.

How about these wire baskets at Pottery Barn? I have a shelf like that, how cute would it be to have this whole setup somewhere in my house? (Don't ask me where)

Love these from Etsy seller FrenchByDesign.

This is a little too industrial for my personal taste, but I love the look. Love it!

So, Mike & I are taking next Friday to go to the Junk Jaunt. You can read more about it here. I'm so freaking excited to spend the day junking. Top of my shopping list: locker baskets. :)

Calm After the Storm...

A strong storm came through our area on Monday evening. I haven't actually heard for sure if a tornado touched down (I avoid the news most of the time), but it wouldn't surprise me. 75-100 mph winds were reported. It was kind of crazy to watch.

Here's some pictures after things had calmed down...

I'm sure this picture is technically awful, but I kind of like it :)

Thank goodness no one around us was injured and everyone seemed to only have minor damage. We lost some trees and had some damage to our barn, but nothing major. A tree branch did slice through one of my pumpkins. Saddest part of the whole day for me.

Things in my life are kind of stormy now too. Not enough hours in the day for everything I'd like to get done. Who needs sleep, right? :)

I Am No Longer Young

This week has been about teaching me this lesson, apparently.

I don't know about you all, but when I was in high school and college, I was always busy. I had a packed schedule, always had somewhere to be and not enough time to sleep. And I loved every second of it. I'm sure there were times that I was frustrated and exhausted, but I really don't remember those times. I just remember loving everything I did and not wanting to give any of it up.

Fast foward 10 years since I graduated high school and 6 or 7 since I left Ames...I can't do that anymore. Why not?? There are so many fun things going on right now and I just want to be a part of them all, plus live up to my responsibilities, plus focus at work, plus, plus plus...

Guess what? I'm not a kid anymore. That's not realistic. Unfortunately.

Doesn't mean I haven't had a blast this week, between Mike's birthday, football, volleyball and more football to come, eating out at great restaurants, and seeing great people. I just really need a nap.

I'm getting past the exhaustion with a lot of laughter now. Some of it may be exhausted giggles, who knows. But, here's what's making me laugh currently:



Every. Single. Time.

Have a great weekend! Go Huskers!!! :)

Runners and Patios and Birthdays, Oh My!

Are you sick of the aisle runner yet?? I'm not :)

Marcia, my fabulous day-of coordinator for my wedding, featured my aisle runners over on her blog today. Check out her post here.

So guess what I didn't get listed on Etsy last weekend? More wedding stuff. I did make some things though, so as soon as I get the whole package put together, I'll photograph it and get it up. I got some note card sets up though, and I'm still loving those pretty roses I posted last time.

In other exciting news, my brother-in-law has been working so hard on our patio the last couple of days. I can't wait to see the final product. You can read about this never-ending project here. I say never-ending because we haven't even thought about it since I wrote that post...between rainy weekends and blistering heat all summer, we couldn't touch it without risking drowning or heat stroke or both. Not worth it, in my opinion. Thankfully, my BIL is a worker bee and has been going non-stop the last couple of days. On the agenda for tonight: shopping for new patio furniture. Woohoo! (Can you tell I love fall? Who else finishes a patio project in the fall, buys new furniture in the fall, and looks forward to sitting outside as it gets cooler??)

And the most important thing for today is that it is my super awesome husband's birthday! In honor of that, I'll tell you how great he is :)

He has a fabulous sense of humor. He's always willing to let me take pictures of him. Oh, and he loves football, especially the Huskers (I could never marry someone who didn't love the Huskers like I do).

He's the polar opposite of me as far as interests and hobbies go, and I love that. We challenge each other and learn from each other, and have a lot of fun together. And he's exceptionally talented at spotting cows wherever we go (this is at the top of the Hancock Tower in Chicago on our mini-moon).

He appreciates good food. And again, he's willing to let me take any picture of him. And he makes me giggle without even trying - here, he ordered a "Holy Cow Burger." He saw the burger and said, "Holy cow!" For some reason, I couldn't stop giggling.

He's very dedicated to his family, and loves kids. He's going to make such an awesome father someday, and already is a great uncle :) 

I'm so happy I married this guy. I couldn't imagine someone more perfect for me. He's my best friend and I'm so lucky to have him in my life.

Happy Birthday, Husband!! (Please don't kill me for posting all those pictures of you on my blog...but to my credit, I got them off your Facebook account, so you can't really get too mad. Love you!)

It's Fall!

How do I know?

I walked outside earlier and literally wanted to cry because it was so beautiful out. I love fall air.
The colors are starting to change
Pumpkin spice lattes are on the menu at Starbucks (I managed to resist, but that won't last)
Husker football starts in 2 days (woohoo!!)
I actually have to urge to spend time outdoors (I'm definitely an indoor girl, normally)
Pumpkin and apple decor is popping up everywhere (speaking of pumpkins, my impromptu pumpkins out front are almost ready to pick)

Love, love, love fall. Can't wait for more :)