i give thanks every day.

...but every year on Thanksgiving we all seem to make a special effort to stop and give thought to the things we are most thankful for. Often it's the every day things that we seem to cherish more than anything. It can be said that most of us find ourselves thankful for the same things: family, friends, a roof over our head, food on our table, warm clothes on our back, and having memories to hold on to of loved ones we've lost, just to name a few.
I'm thankful for those things and feel eternally blessed. But, for me, there's so much more to it...

-living with two heartbeats for 9 months.
-my first kiss as a Mrs.
-the moment we welcomed Jack Trenton to our lives.
-hearing that first cry.
-a saturday morning breakfast with my boys.
-kind deeds, particularly from strangers.
-having a heart to heart talk with my best friend; my baby sister.
-the moment I realized he was proposing.
-marrying the man that refused to give up on me, even when I'd nearly given up on myself.
-watching my 'baby' learn something new and seeing the pride on his face.
-the first time Jack laughed.
-my first tattoo.
-Travis' surprise 30th birthday party.
-celebrating Jack.
-looking at my son and envisioning my husband as a little boy.
-childhood memories of an afternoon fishing with my grandpa, using anything but worms as bait.
-the moment I met my husband, and knew right then, I was going to be his wife. (true story)
-the sunday morning I got "two pink lines".

These moments are what I live for. The memories that will be as clear when I'm a little old lady as they are now, at the age of twenty-five and at only the beginning of what I believe will be the best years of my life, as I live out my dream... being a wife, and, a mother.

These are my perfect moments. These are what I am most thankful for.

What do you find yourself feeling most thankful for this year?

opinions. everyone has one, right?

Now is a time I find myself wishing I was lucky enough to have a whole slew of followers because I need opinions people! I'm so gracious for the seven that I do have and I would love your thoughts, on a few things actually.

1st.) Please take a look at the previous post and let me know what you think about the bar area. Close it in with lighted shelves for cookbooks and ironstone? Or leave it as a small 'bar/eating' area?

2nd.) We have a HUGE empty wall in our living room and want to install a photo ledge similar to this one over at The Lettered Cottage. Our dilemma is, should we install one? Or two? It, or they, would be the entire length of the wall but sans the beadboard. Unless of course within the next few hours I can convince Travis to go ahead with the beadboard because I'm all for it!

Here is the big expansive wall. (17 ft. ceilings and just over 10 ft. wide)

 

Nevermind that big (unromantic) recliner in the corner. I want to replace it with an upholstered chair or an arm chair and a reading lamp.Other than our huge furniture and our buffet-turned-entertainment center (thanks to craigslist and some RL 'roadster white' paint) our living room is a big blank canvas we're working on adding some coziness to.

We sure are looking forward to hearing your thoughts/ideas/opinions!

cotton fluff and so much more.

I've been putting off posting photos of our kitchen just yet because we still had a short list of things to finish. However, considering we added two more fairly big projects to that list just this morning, I figured I better just share the kitchen now in it's current state and look forward to a big finale later.

There are things you'll notice that still need done:

-replace the missing baseboards
-change out the existing light switches and plates/plugs for white ones
-touch up walls and cabinets
-spray kitchen/back door knob and garage door knob black

(*a surprise for later* that big oak table will be replaced with a farmhouse table with mis-matched chairs and you won't believe the story it has behind it! But that also needs sanded, primed, stained/painted)

and, as of this morning we added:

-install beadboard to the ends of cabinets and underneath bar area
-install moulding along tops of cabinets for a finished look

So, as always, we have a loooooong way to go. But, on the flip bright side of things we've already come a looooong way.

Remember this?

Builder's oak. Faux wood trim. Mustard walls.

And to be completely honest, this was even after a few updates we'd already made. The walls used to be brick red, with those oak cabinets, and a very golden laminate floor. The kitchen felt like a dungeon.

 

But now, after we:

ripped up flooring, laid new tile, painted all doors and trim white, changed out our light fixture 'globes', removed the ugly mini-blinds, painted the window casings white, installed curtain rods and the neutral striped curtains (I'm already considering raising the curtain rods to the ceiling and changing the curtains to the super long white 'Lenda' curtains from Ikea), had the kitchen painted with Behr's "wheat bread", and went through the very long, tedious and frustrating process of learning not to spray primer through our sprayer in order to get Behr's pretty shade of "cotton fluff" on the cabinets, it looks like this...

(be sure to click on the photos for a full view)

 

I am so proud of those frames! I got two packs of 2 for just $7 each. Added mats, and a photo of each of us with our birthday cakes this year, along with an internet image of a rusty old "3" in the one hanging by itself to represent our little family of three and I love love love it. Makes me smile every  morning. ...and I'm not usually a smile-in-the-morning kind of gal. ;)

 

 

Travis made the comment it was starting to look modern so I made sure to add plenty of  not-so-modern touches since that is not the look I was going for. Hope you noticed... the raw edged burlap table runner, the lovely little (and growing fast) collection of white dishes and ironstone, the mason jar candle holders, and the pretty little frames with images I've found on the internet or typed myself because after all, everything seems a little more appealing when it's FREE. ;)

Now here is where I need the help of anyone who took the time to read this post! Please please please, tell us what you think about building in that little "bar" area with bookshelves after we install the beadboard? I'd fill it with cookbooks, ironstone, maybe a few masons in a wire basket.

I know the wall above there looks so lost, but we hope once we have beadboard on the side of the cabinet and moulding along the top that it will look more 'finished'. I'm also considering a collection of plates there or art deco letters spelling out 'BAKERY'.

Let us know what you think? :)

cowboys and an indian.

I have finally gotten the pictures from Jack's Halloween birthday uploaded and am excited to share. Alot has been going on around here, i.e. kitchen is still 'in the works', Jack had his 2-year checkup and is growing healthy, strong and more lovable than ever, and now that we have the birthday bash behind us it's time for us to focus on finishing the kitchen in time for a big Thanksgiving feast with family. I cannot wait to share photos of the kitchen. It doesn't even look like the same house in here, and let me tell you my friends, that is a good thing. ;)

I am happy to report, the kitchen cabinets (after a greuling process of learning not to spray primer through the paint gun) are no longer builders oak, but instead, a lovely shade of "cotton fluff". And just as my dear blog friend Rebecca told me, it was indeed worth all the hard work in the end. Thanks for the encouragement lovely.

For now, I'm happy to share that our little pumpkin's celebration of turning 2 was sweet and exciting, just like him. I was afraid he wouldn't quite understand that we were celebrating a special day for him but to my surprise, I think he caught on. He made his mama and daddy so proud at how he showed appreciation for every toy he recieved, and even shared the new ones with his cousin Alivia, and his little friends who were here.

With all of the house projects we've been tackling this year, our birthday bash planning seemed rushed. However, I think our "cowboys and indian" costumes turned out to be adorable and so suited our personalities....

Thanks to my dear friend Carrie, who despite having three little ones of her own, a hubby who travels quite a bit for work, and a house they're doing their own work to managed to find the time to send Jack a gift to support his oh-so-obvious desire to become a rock star one day...

One of my lovely best friends, Natalie, missed Jack's party (for good reason) but was sweet enough to extend his birthday by having gifts for him to open later. One of which was play-doh. gulp. We'll open those up sometime when daddy is home to assist. :)

 And his big surprise from his Grammie was a CARS quad, with a matching helmet and knee pads. My son the dare-devil, though, would much rather wear part of his Halloween costume even days after Halloween has passed as opposed to a cool new helmet. Point in case: