Thursday, October 27, 2011

Pregnant in the Pumpkin Patch

We visited the Missoula Corn Maze and the Great Pumpkin Patch in the last week, to get in the Halloween spirit.  Parker had a lot of fun. He loved the big hay/corn maze and the mini Parker sized maze!  He is so busy, its hard to get a picture of him standing still.  He gives you about a half second, then says "Got it" and takes off.

Thatcher & Parker
Cutest pumpkins ever!

Running away

Going through a mini obstacle course

Going through the mini maze


T & P

Pumpkin belly & baby belly

Daddy and Parks

Mommy & Parks

Family Picture
(Really wish that tarp wasn't there)
Check out some of last years pumpkin patch pictures here.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Champagne Thursday!

Cheers!



Monday, October 24, 2011

Oh, The Places You'll Go

Parker's room is a work in progress right now and I'm not sure when it will be complete.  Probably not anytime soon.  Sorry little guy.  I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted to do with his room and then, thanks to Pinterest, I saw this and I fell in love with it.  I love this Dr. Seuss book and thought it would be a fun theme for Parker's room.

I already had a large canvas, so all I needed was some yellow and white paint and letter stencils.  The canvas was painted red, so it needed a couple extra coats of yellow paint, but other than that it was pretty easy.  I painted the canvas yellow, then stenciled the letters on with chalk and then painted the letters white.  I love it!  Now, I just need to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of his room.




Cheers!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Nursery Progress: Part 2

Here are a few pictures of what our nursery looks like now.  It's not complete, but it has basics, plus some extras.  If you can't tell, we have a Surf/Hawaiian theme going on.  It's the same bedding we used for Parker.  I bought it from Pottery Barn Kids and I'm pretty sure I promised my husband, I would re-use it if we had another boy, since it was more than he would have liked me to spend.  We (mostly Chris) also, made the surf board hanging above the crib.  I helped paint it.

The blue walls are a little darker than they appear in the pictures.  I'm still looking for some new curtains.  I already had the blue ones that are hanging up, so they will work until I find something else.  And I have a little book shelf that I would like to move into the room, but its coming from Parker's room, so I need to find something to replace it.  

We're getting close, only 22 more days and still no decision on a name.  I have a feeling we won't decide until he's born.  Wish us luck!







Happy Champagne Thursday!

Cheers!


Thursday, October 13, 2011

Fall Centerpiece

Here's a Fall Centerpiece that I put together pretty quickly.  I layered split peas, white beans and coffee beans in a large vase, around a smaller vase in the center with a candle.  I covered the smaller vase with plastic wrap, while I was adding the peas and beans, so I wouldn't spill any in the smaller vase.  I re-used the split peas and white beans from last year's centerpiece and the coffee beans are left over from before I got pregnant.  I already had the vases and candle, so this was a free project.  I really like the brown, white and green colors together.  I hope everyone is enjoying their Fall!




Happy Champagne Thursday!

Cheers!


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Baby Bump

For those of you wanting to see the baby bump, here are a few pictures we took a couple weeks ago.  I really don't enjoy being the only person in a picture, but since we took pregnancy pictures with Parker, I knew I had wanted to with this one too.  The oldest kid usually ends up with the most pictures, most entries in their baby book, etc., so I wanted to start on the right track with this baby.  Hopefully, we can keep up with all the pictures we took of Parker.  

One more month to go!

















Cheers!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Sapphire Mining


About a month ago, we met my parents in Philipsburg, MT to do a little sapphire mining at Gem Mountain.  We had a lot of fun and it was a great family activity.  Parker loved playing in the dirt!  I would highly recommend it for anyone in the area.

You can buy a two gallon, gravel bucket for $20 and search/mine for sapphires.  Gem Mountain provides all the tools and equipment you will need.  After you get your bucket, you dump some of the gravel in a screen and head over to the gravel wash, where you do a combination of bouncing and rotating the screen in freezing cold water.  This was my least favorite part, the water was so cold.  I only did it a couple of times and then I had my dad do the rest.  He offered and I wasn't going to say no.  The sapphires are heavier than the gravel so they end up in the middle, on the bottom of the screen when you do the gravel wash.  Once you flip your screen, which you have to do quickly, you find most of the sapphires right away on top.  This was my favorite part.  Then you can sort through the rest of the gravel.  We spent quite a bit of time going through our gravel, because we didn't want to miss any sapphires.  After you are done going through your buckets, you can take them inside to the store and have them checked and weighed.  We found 76.47 carats in our four buckets, around 19 carats per bucket.  I read on their website that the average bucket has 12-14 carats of rough sapphires.  They offer heat treatments (to improve color and clarity) and faceting for large enough stones.  We had a few that we could have had faceted, but chose not to at that time.  We always can later.


Gravel Wash

Searching for Sapphires

After flipping the screen

Parker helping Grandpa wash the gravel




76.47 carats!

Our Sapphires and one Garnet


Happy Champagne Thursday!

Cheers!



Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A Little More Contrast

Can you tell the difference between the first two pictures?  There are a few, but I'm looking for one particular answer.

We painted our porch railing white to match the rest of the trim.  It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but trust me, it looks much better.  It adds a little more contrast to our beige house.  I don't know why it wasn't painted that way in the first place.

Since our interior paint was purchased from Home Depot, I assumed our exterior paint was also from there.  So, I grabbed a few paint samples from Home Depot and color matched the samples with the rest of the trim on our house.  Behr Powdered Snow was the winner and seemed to be the closest match.

I want to paint our front door at some point.  Probably won't be happening any time soon though.  Any color suggestions?

Before


After

And for anyone who is interested, here is what our house looked like on the day we moved in.


Cheers!