We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a Merry Christmas! This week is going to be so busy I thought I should do this now while I have a moment. Cooper is so excited by the Christmas Tree lights and all the presents. He may not understand the whole Christmas thing yet but he knows that something good and exciting is going on. Last Saturday December 13th he finally started wearing my name out like he was doing dada. He usually only said mama when he was mad. But now everything is mama mama mama...I have to tell you that I am LOVING it!! He is such a sweet angel and really is the blessing of my life. A friend of mine from high school died last week after a long battle with cancer. I know that she is in a better place now and her pain has finally ended but all I could think about was how she will never know the love of a child. Believe me I am thankful that she didn't leave behind any little ones but what a horrible thing not to ever get to experience! So I am thankful everyday for my health and that of my family and my children. So everyone enjoy this Holiday season, hold the ones you love close and be thankful for every moment that you are allowed to spend with them while they are here. Life is way to short. Bury hard feelings, forgive even those who don't deserve your forgiveness...If nothing else it lifts the burden from your heart! Merry Christmas to you all! I love you and cherish each and every one of you this holiday season!

Busy Couple of Weeks

I know it has been a while since I last posted. Forgive me!! But with a little one that has gone mobile I have not a minute of time to do anything. The last six weeks have been a blur....First, Cooper started crawling and he does the combat crawl, not your typical hands and knees kind of crawl...haha...It seems like after crawling he immediately went to pulling up and we have been pulling him out of everything since. I look for him to start walking any day now! Also about two weeks ago we had our first tooth come in and we now have 2 little teethies on the bottom and he is just the cutest thing you have ever seen when he gives you one of his big smiles! He also is broadening his vocabulary...We now have dada, mama and nana (He loves his Nana) down and he also says what sounds like Hi at very appropriate times. I can't believe how fast he is growing. He was 9 months old this past Saturday and it seems like we just brought him home from the hospital. But it is so rewarding to get to see all of these little firsts. I honestly don't know how these mom's go back to work and leave their little ones. I wouldn't trade this job...no matter how exhausting, for all the paying jobs in the world! I will update with pictures soon but my other computer here at home is acting up and it has all my pictures stored on it. We are also planning on having our 9 month pictures made this next week and possibly our Christmas picture..So keep a look out for those! Love you all and hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

A Final Farewell

It's official, I give up and surrender. I surrender to baby gates, jumperoos, exersaucers and everything else that comes with having a little one. I mean he is totally worth it after all. I just wanted to take the time to say one final farewell to having a nice, clean and perfect house. Being an Interior Designer it has been very hard to let it all go. But go it must!! To all of you who I have planned on having over and you haven't made it, here is what I spent years decorating and this is the only way that you will ever see it. At least for the next several years, then maybe I can have nice things again and put out things that little hands don't want to grab or pull over!

This our main living room right off the front door. I guess you could say it is also our foyer since we don't have one. I painted the wall black just to create a seperate spot marking the entrance area. I hope to eventually create a tone-on-tone diamond (harlequin)pattern on the wall just to create some pattern and interest.We are also planning to repaint the living room a richer color of tan but for now that is on hold.

This is our kitchen. We don't have a formal dining room in this house. I made the window treatments and the chairs were given to us out of an assisted living facility in Gallatin where my mother-in-law works. They are great chairs but they needed some serious TLC. So Jason stripped and refinished them and we had them reupholstered. I love taking old things and making them new again.

This is our Master Bedroom

This is our Downstair's Guest Bathroom

This is our Half-bath for the Bonus Room and Design Studio

This is my Design Studio/Office Area

Jason built this shelving unit for me custom with sliding drawers to hold drawings and project boards. Above I installed a wrapping station for gifts.

This is our Upstairs Bonus Room. We finished this entire part of the house ourselves. I think it best shows my true design style which is a more transitional style of design. My downstairs is much more traditional.

Jason also built in the window seat. It has tons of storage in the bottom of it and I made the window treatments, the boxed seat cushion and most of the pillows myself.

This is Leah's Bedroom. We decided to go with a Bohemian style for her room since she is a teenager. Her headboard is an old 5 panel door that I found at a salvage yard and stripped and painted chocolate brown. The message board beside her bed is an old shutter from a house that I also found at a salvage shop. I cut out the top slats and covered a piece of plywood with corkboard and then upholstered it. This way she can hang pictures and cards and I made sure that the bottom slats were turned up so that she can slip magazines over the slats and they would be held in place.

Our First Halloween

Our Little Pumpkin


Our first Halloween went by in a flash! Jason and I made the 45 minute trip to Gallatin after work and took our little Pumpkin to see the Grandparents! We had so much fun getting him dressed up. He still had a little bit of a cold so we made sure to keep him out of the cold October air as much as we could. We stopped by Sharon and Seth's church for a trunk or treat and a hot dog roast first. All the kids were having so much fun but it was really cold. Lexy was a witch this year and Mallory was a flower. I called Lexy early on Halloween morning to see if she was exited...Hello...She is 4, so of course she was excited! She told me that Mallory was going to be a flower, so I asked her if I needed to bring some water so that I could water the little flower and she told me..."No Meme...She is a pretend flower!", then she told me that she was going to be a witch but that she didn't have a broom. I said, "Why not?" and she told me that she didn't want one because she would be too scared to fly.....hahaha. She is so funny! I can't wait for Cooper to start talking because it is amazing what they come up with! Leah stopped by later on and was dressed up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. She was off to meet up with friends....Oh, to be young and 16 again! Hope that you all had a fun and safe Halloween as well!









Cooper and Big Sister Leah




Aunt Sharon, Papa, Lexy, Cooper and Mallory


Cooper and Nanny


Cooper and my friend Katie


Mallory fell asleep


Aunt Sharon and Cooper






Cooper and Granddaddy Conley



Cooper and Leah with Granddaddy and Grandmother Conley

Pumpkin Patch

On Halloween we finally made it to the Pumpkin Patch at Walden Farm. We had planned to go with Lexy and Sharon the previous week but Cooper ended up with a terrible cold and it was just to cold that day to get him out. Then another time we had scheduled Sharon got sick and then the next time Lexy was sick. I really didn't think we were gonna make it this year but we decided to just go to the one down the road from our house and Cooper and Mommy had fun seeing all the animals. Cooper really liked the goats but I don't know if he was scared of Pumpkins or what but when I put him down in the middle of a couple he came unglued..It was hysterical!