Sunday, March 29, 2009

My Plates Made Grey's

That's right...the plates I have hanging above my kitchen cabinets are the same plates that made an appearance on Grey's Anatomy last Thursday night. I must say that my friend Lynn texted me to let me know she had seen them on Grey's, so I watched the show on Friday to see them myself. Sure enough they are hanging over a table in the kitchen of the house that used to be Meredith's mom's house. I probably wouldn't have even noticed them if Lynn hadn't told me to look for them, so thanks Lynn! I fell in love with these plates when I saw them in a spring catalogue from Pier 1 Imports. Needless to say it didn't take long for me to convince myself of purchasing myself an early birthday present ; )

What I really like about them is that they have a lot of the same colors in them as the painting Brandon's grandma gave us for Christmas (I may have hinted that I really liked this painting a few times) that we have hanging up over our kitchen window on the other side of the room. Grandma Allen is an amazing painter.

Our kitchen, dining room, and living room have arched ceilings. This is why there is only a little bit of space between the window and the painting on this side of the room, and then there is lots of space between the cabinets and ceiling around the plates.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

10 Gallon of Paint Later

10 gallons of paint later, and we had a party! It felt so nice last Saturday to celebrate our new home and the new paint with some family and friends.



Just like any good party, it started with food...

Brandon's grandparents came over. You can't exactly tell from this picture, but we have a whole wall of windows in the dining room. I love all the natural light.

Check out this line-up. We didn't have room in small dining room for the chairs with the leaf in the table, so we put them on our empty wall in the living room for people to sit in them.

Lots of aunts and uncles came over. Here is my Aunt Donna and Uncle Dennis. I didn't snap many pictures, but I got a few towards the end.

Like this one.... I will call it an action shot?!

At least Cayman knows to look at the camera : ) Speaking of Cayman, he won some awards for his artwork. We are going to Warrensburg this weekend to see his work on display.



Lauren brought her tiny little pup Brooklyn. This is seriously the tinniest dog I have ever seen. I think she said it weighed 1.8lbs. She isn't going to get much bigger either. I think she is a yorkie-doodle or something like that. She was rescued from those breeders they shut down in Missouri not to long ago.


Little Brooklyn and all the guests wore poor Cove out. After everyone left, we found her snuggled up next to her squirrel bait fast asleep...precious.

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Check out my smokin hot little sis in the dress she designed and sewed all by her talented little self for her highschool banquet (ie- junior prom).
Ok, the the bottom edge isn't exactly sewn yet, just a minor detail. I love the pattern of the fabric she picked out, so much more fun than the typical solid colored dress.

I don't know how she got the top to come out perfectly with those layers, serious skills! I also especially like her choice of shoes. She opted to purchase matching pink Converse's instead of uncomfortable heals. Why didn't I ever think of that-lol.
She is going to make one drop dead gorgeous date to the banquet! I hope she had tons of fun and takes lots of pictures...

Master Bedroom Tour

I went ahead and took enough pictures to give you the full 360 degree tour of our master bedroom. It's not much as far a size goes, but we kind of like things nice and cozy!
When you walk in the door, you see our one, small closet. Hence, this is why we have 2 dressers! Brandon gets his clothes in this closet. I keep mine in the guest bedroom closet. It works out better this way...
I love that we have our own master bath. With the vanity sink, there isn't any place for storage. We keep our towels in a large basket on the closet floor, which works out pretty nicely. The dresser by the bathroom is Brandon's.

Notice the Clean Cotton Yankee Candle sitting on top of Brandon's dresser...one of my favorite scents!


Here is our bed. I would love to have a large enough room to have a bed centered on a wall with nightstands on both sides, like this one. However, the limited space in our room and oddly places windows left us with putting our bed in this corner. Just about everything in this picture was a gift to us in some way or another including the crazy weave, headboard, comforter, sheets, and brown throw. I love just how many house furnishings we have been blessed with!

The brown chair in the corner was also a gift, from the Kinder's, for our wedding. Please note the pillows on the bed and the chair are the ones I ordered from here not to long ago. I picked the wall color (Buxton Blue by Benjamin Moore) to match the blue in the pillows. The Blue just has a nice inviting, calming feel to it...

I bet your pretty jealous of our tower of electronic devices sitting on my dresser aren't ya...lol. Maybe someday we will get a sleek flat screen tv and get rid of this big clunker. Until then, we enjoy watching our late night shows too much to get rid of them. Speaking of which, I can't wait to Connan O'Brien takes over the late night spot!

And, just cuz I like my little star-shaped find, here is a picture of the cute little dish I found at Old Time Pottery for Brandon to put his pocket contents into when he gets home from work. He better not find anything more to put into his pockets, or I am going to have to find a bigger dish ; )

It's not exactly designer quality, but I tried my best to spruce the place up a bit! Let me know what you think of the new pillows and paint color...

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Words to Uplift and Inspire

No, I am not talking about my own words. If you aren't already a follower, I highly suggest you take a visit over to my friend Cara's blog, called Cara's Travels. Cara updates her blog on a daily basis with reflections on the work she is doing with burn victim children in South Africa. The stories she tells are uplifting, and the progress the children are making because of her presence, or rather the presence of the Lord in her, is inspiring. It is amazing how a kind smile, gentle touch, and small play time can be so therapeutic. Reading her blog has made me want to spend more quality time with all the people in my life. Thanks so much Cara for sharing your moments abroad with us...

Monday, March 23, 2009

Fixtures That Needed Fixing

I am sorry if you are one of those crazy people who still love these outdated, retro makeup lights in their bathrooms, but I am just not one of them. What can I say, one look at these babies makes me cringe a little inside. Thankfully, Brandon's mom gave me some birthday cash a little earlier this year, which allowed me to head straight to the hardware store to find a new light fixture. Just so you can appreciate the change, here is a picture of the old fixture:

And, here is the new fixture I picked out at Home Depot. I love the rectangular trio of lights with the sleek curve of metal connecting then. This after picture was taken after I painted last week two, so please note the warmer, inviting color in the bathroom! I would love to eventually frame the mirror, but I am afraid there may not be enough room between the vanity and the light fixture to make this possible. Let me know if you have any ideas for this dilemma.
I can't believe I didn't get a good before shot of the master bath light fixture. This is the best picture I could come up with. Just imagine an ugly light fixture similar to one above, but white and made of metal, hanging above the medicine cabinet mirror. I still posted this poor before shot, so you can see a little bit of the color change that took place on our walls over the past week. Don't worry, the laundry catcher is now in the closet, and the basket sitting on the floor resides on some shelves we put behind the toilet!

This new light fixture actually came from Wal-Mart. I couldn't help but take a peak at them when I was purchasing an extra 4 gallons of paint to compare their prices to the Home Depot prices. This one almost a quarter of the price of the above one and looks just about as nice... I seemed to be attracted to light fixtures with more squared off globes in case you couldn't tell!

This picture also provides a little sneak peak into the color of our master bedroom. The Buxton Blue didn't bring me any blues! I couldn't be happier with how the bedroom turned out. Please check back in to see the room in its entirety soon : )

Just Because There Isn't Walls Doesn't Mean You Can't Decorate

I think I have mentioned this before, but in case I haven't, our basement is a work in progress. Brandon started the task of refinishing our basement almost immediately after moving in last November. He has done most of the work alone with a little little help from his dad and Mike. Every paycheck he makes a little more progress, and I am looking forward to the day when it is finally finished. Here are some pics to track the happenings in the downstairs...

This is the little storage area he created. To be honest, most of the stuff in this area is stuff we are saving for a garage sale this spring. I just love garage sales!

This picture shows the edge of the stairs coming downstairs from our dining room upstairs. The washer and dryer we got free from Mike's neighbors when they upgraded their own set- what a blessing! This area is connected to the little storage area in the picture above.

Of course Brandon had to build himself his own little work corner. At least I know where to put the crazy things he leaves laying around ; )


Then he had to install lights....lots of recessed lighting. The old fixture you can see in the corner now resides over in the storage space.

Then he had to install outlets and electrical switches to go with the lights- note the little blue boxes. If you peak down in the far corner you can see his projector screen already hanging up in the corner. We like it in this corner, so we can see it no matter where were are hanging out downstairs.

Then of course we needed an electric fireplace to keep us warm downstairs in the winter. In case you were wondering about the title of this post, I was referring to our LESLIE pictures already sitting on top of our new fireplace. My creative little sister, Kara, took pictures of random things that make the letters of our last name and gave them to us for Christmas. She came over last week and helped me frame them in frames I found half-off at Hobby Lobby. Once we get the stone work up behind the fireplace I will eventually hang them up on the wall. But for now, our unfinished basement has a little bit of decoration to spruce the place up!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

My Crazy-Busy, Productive Week of Spring Break

This title is about the best description I can come up with to describe how my week of week of Spring Break was for me...well technically over a week. Since I only have classes 3 days a week, I got a whole week and a half for Spring Break this year- wahoo! Unfortunately, the time flew by way too fast, and I am sad to say I am back in St. Louis again getting ready to hit the books for a therapeutics exam on Wednesday ) : Looking on the bright side though, here is a quick run down of all the things I was able to accomplish on my spring break:
Decide on colors to paint our master bedroom and living room/dining room/kitchen area
Paint, Paint, Paint all these rooms plus 2 hallways and 2 bathrooms
Cooked dinner for my parents and Grandma Leslie (luckily they still ate even after I spilled the entire taco bake onto the stove door as I was getting it out of the oven...they are way too nice!)
Finally frame the LESLIE pictures my sister gave to us for Christmas (picture coming soon!)
Eat lunch with the Dad or Mom or Dad&Mom just about every week day (Mom and me managed to get Chinese twice!)
Spend lots of time playing with our loving puppy Covey and even taught her how to catch apple slices in her mouth...we our working the way up to her catching frisbees
Got my TB test required for rotations...negative once again-praise!
Made it to a wonderful church service where we got to catch up with an old friend from high school
Replaced the 2 ugly light fixtures in both of our bathrooms with much more modern/trendy ones (pics coming soon!)
Made a trip to St. Louis to move the majority of my furniture home to put in the guest bedroom
Got the ever cool UVerse installed in our house the day after it became available to our neighborhood thanks to my dad having a little inside push ; )
Made it to my own birthday party over an hour late...oops. The cookie cake was delicious though!
And finally, held an Open House for family to see the newly painted walls- this was the first time most of my family had even seen our house...

So here are some pics to get you started with the painting progress:


These are 2 colors from Benjamin Moore (Edgecomb Gray and Shaker Beige) that I thought would look nice for the living area. I decided to go with a lighter color than either of these called Elmira White...then after painting a bathroom and hallway decided to go with an even lighter color from Dutch Boy paint called Whitetail deer (My husband and my father in-law who are both deer hunters loved the name...I love the color!)

And these were the colors I was trying to chose between for the master bedroom. I ended up going with the top one, again from Benjamin Moore called Buxton Blue. I went great with the pillows I told you guys about earlier that I purchased from Etsy...pics coming!

And so the taping and painting began. We started Sunday night and didn't finish painting till Friday afternoon. Boy did my back start hurting by Friday! I had no clue what a job I was in for. It didn't help that our textured walls required just about 2 coats of paint to finally fill in all the little holes with color.... Luckily Wal-Mart can match any paint color, so I was able to get the colors I wanted at much cheaper prices than the hardware store, especially after my good'ole discount!

Of course, I took any help I could get. There would have been no way I could have finished everything I wanted to get painted in 1 week without all my helpers. This is my dad touching up the Whitetail Deer color in our living room. In case you are wondering about the desk, we use Brandon's computer as our tv in the living room....it's our sweet flat screen tv...kind of lol.

My mom was a huge help. She was over every day helping tape and edge...sweet thing! This picture helps show the subtle difference between the new paint color and our white trim, which is just what I was wanting. It makes things a little bit more home-y, yet keeps it feeling bright and open...

And here is Brandon's hard-working Dad. He did all my top edging, and let me tell you, this was one tough job having textured walls AND ceilings. I tried to edge the hallway ceilings and he had to come over and fix them! He has an amazingly steady hand.
Thanks so much to all my amazing helpers who came over to paint or clean this week (Mark, Jacque, Dad, Mom, Kara). I couldn't have done it without you.
For those of you who haven't seen our house, sorry these pictures aren't much help in showing you what the finished walls look like. You will have to stay tuned for future posts. Don't worry, I won't keep you hanging too long! I am calling it a night tonight though; I am going to enjoy what is left of my birthday today by going to bed early ; )

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Man of the Hour

Check out the newest addition to the Heegn side of my family. He just happened to make an appearance at my Uncle Dennis's 50 something birthday party hosted at the good-ol fish fry! Connor is a Christmas baby, born in Christmas day a little love a year ago. I couldn't help but post these pictures of him, cuz I love pictures that make me smile everytime I see them...Here is Connor looking a little mad cuz he wanted to get his dad's shrimp on the fork and Vinnie stopped him- precious!
And here is the little guy being fascinated with my dad's pen in his pocket. He would pull the pen out, put it back in, pull it out, put it in...you get the picture. I was so fascinated with how fascinated we was with putting that pen in Dad's pocket.
Connor is just so adorable I may just have to borrow him for an indefinite amount of time. I mean, not that Vinnie and Kelly would let me... I would settle for baby sitting though!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Oooh La La

Instead of studying for my Evidence Based Medicine midterm tomorrow, I have been clicking through my favorite online source for cute, creative things to buy, Etsy. Good thing too, or I wouldn't have happened upon these beauties. How cute are both of these purses! I especially love the inside pockets with the matching/mismatching lining. If either of my bffs from St. Louis are wondering what they could go in and get me for my birthday...here is your hint ; ) You can find them here.
I am always a fan of yellow, but this one with the blue is super cute too! Decision, decisions.
Now, back to studying....maybe.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

She Gets It From Her Momma


I thought this picture captured Cove's love for the sunshine perfectly. Just like me, Covey loves to lounge in the warm sunshine coming through the window. What is even cuter is that she actually picks up her bed in her mouth and pulls it over to where the sunshine is. I must admit that her bed is not the only thing finding its way into her mouth lately. Let me say that the puppy chewing desire in her is definitely in full force here lately. We have been able to detour her from damaging our furniture though with that Sour Apply spray you get at the pet store. I highly recommend the spray to anyone out there getting a puppy! We also use it to spray in her mouth when she starts to chew on our clothes. Now when Brandon picks up the spray bottle she knows exactly what is coming and stops chewing... well, sometimes she likes to test us and will give it one more chew....cantankerous little lady! I still love her little chompers though : )

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Frozen Yogurt For Lynn

So this has been quite the evening if you ask me! After an exciting therapeutics discussion over hemodynamics, shock syndrome, and stress ulcer prophylaxis Lynn and I headed to the grocery store to purchase the ingredients we needed to make this. Thank you Joi for the passing along the delicious recipe! Emily came over for dinner, after all it was her brilliant idea to make the taco bake...yum. Then Lynn and I headed to Pier One Imports where we both treated ourselves to some cute wall hangings for our new homes- pics coming later for my purchase! She needs to start a blog so you can see hers....no pressure Lynn. And the finally we stopped at a new frozen yogurt place on the Loop that she has been dieing to go to ever since she went to one in California (speaking of which her friend Erin in Cali needs to start a blog so we can keep track of her new almost married life). Here is some pics I snapped with my phone:
I took the above picture because the light reminded me of Joi's super cute light fixture in her dining room. If you have never been to her blog I highly recommend going. Not only does she have great recipes, but even better she has great decorating style!
This was our yogurt mixtures. You get to pick out any flavor and toppings you like, then you purchase your yogurt by weight. Mine is on the left. I had strawberry yogurt with bananas, mango yogurt with blueberries, and some crazy flavor I can't remember the name of with shaved coconut. All these wonderful flavors came for the reasonable price tag of $3.28
Just to show you how delicious the frozen yogurt was, here is a picture of Lynn with a brain freeze she got from scarfing down her whole bowel within minutes...hehe. Thanks for finally making us go to Fro Yo Lynn!

Sewing Skills

Check out my sister's latest creation with the sewing machine...super cute if you ask me! And the white belt she has on she found at a resale shop here in St. Louis when she was visiting me : ) So here it is from the front:

And from the back:
I am guessing she sent me these pics from the school locker room at school after sewing class- silly girl. Just wait till you see her next creation; it is a dress she is going to wear to banquet. I went with her to pick out the fabric last weekend- vibrant pink and black knock-out pattern! The dress is going to be gorgeous, especially on her. I will be sure to post pics as soon as it is done...