Tuesday, November 27, 2012

We Are The Champions!

So I had planned on posting a bunch of photos from some window shopping trips to Target and possibly some other stores. But I haven't dug up all the photos. Instead I figured I would share some photos of my niece and her High School volleyball team. My niece, Jessica, is a senior at the same high school that my husband and I graduated from almost 10 years ago. This was her second year on the volleyball team. Last year she was on JV but this year she made Varsity!


So I thought we would start out with a shot where you can actually see what miss Jessie looks like. Most of the others are action shots.


Every year they have a senior night (which not to honor the elderly) to honor the girls who are graduating this school year. Jessie and two other girls were the only seniors on the team.



We went to almost all the home games and then as the team made it to ECC's and the State Championship games we did a bit of travelling. Jessie's birthday happened to fall on the same day as one of their games. So, my sister made about 90 mini Panda cupcakes. Aren't they cute? They were delicious.


This was the first time LHS has ever made it to a semi-finals game for State's. Our girls won that and went on to the State Championship game. If you aren't familiar with the scoring for indoor volleyball. Each game is best of 5 sets. A team must score 25 points to win a set and must win by 2 points. If each team wins 2 sets then the 5th game only goes to 15 points. Now that you know that let me tell you that at the State Finals we(ranked 3rd) beat the 1st ranked team in the first 3 sets. It was crazy.


That girl can really get some air on those spikes. This was from the 3rd set but she also spiked a ball during the 2nd set for the winning point. She even got interviewed by one of the local papers after they won. Yes mister tie-dye shirt is a writer for the paper.


LHS had their first State title and Andrew and I were there to cheer the girls on. My sister wasn't able to make it because she had to work and my Mom and Dad were meeting Grandma, who was in-town on a bus trip. They would have gone to the game but it was on the other side of the state.


We were so excited to be there and see our girls win. Each girl received a metal and they gave a plaque to the coach and the MVP. Then of course we had to take the obligatory #1 team photo.


Congratulations LHS Girls Volleyball!!!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving. We will be enjoying our Turkey with a few of my husband's Aunts and Uncles on his father's side this year. Enjoy your meals and remember everything you are thankful for today. And don't forget the stretchy pants.

Source
I promise I have some posts coming. I have tons of photos from a few window shopping trips that I just need to load and size. Plus a bunch of photos of my niece. She is a senior in high school this year and was on the varsity volleyball team. This year they won the State Championship. It was the first time Ledyard has ever won the State Championship.

Friday, November 2, 2012

A Fall Mantle ... Without the Mantle

So I've had this project done for a couple weeks now.I know I'm way behind with this post. Everyone else in the Blogosphere has done their Fall Mantle posts. But Whatever.

 I wanted to decorate a little bit for Fall this year. However, I've never really had any Fall decor and I don't have a mantle to decorate. Luckily, this year my loving Hubby bought me some pumpkins that I had be crushing on at HomeGoods.



I blogged about them in this post. But of course that was a month before my birthday. So when we went back to HomeGoods to pick them up they only had the Oil Rubbed Bronze one. I was kind of sad at first because the white one was my favorite. But my Hubby is a quick thinker and remembered that HomeGoods, Marshalls and TJ Maxx are all owned under the same parent company and tend to carry similar items.

So we hopped over to Marshall's which was in the same shopping plaza. No dice. They didn't have it either. So we ran a few more errands and then swung over to TJ Maxx on the way home. If they didn't have it we had one more TJ Maxx that we could check out. But lucky us they only had 2 left. So we headed home with my two new ceramic pumpkins and then they sat in the dining room wrapped up for a few weeks.

I had originally planned on putting them out on our dining room table in our new house. But that plan fell apart when we ended up not buying said house. So on to plan B. We have a cabinet in our living room. Fondly referred to a the $3 cabinet. That is because we got it for $3 a the ReStore. I love you ReStore. It is one of those cabinets from like the 80's or 90's with the big glass door that people used to put their VCR and other components in. So it had all these cut-outs in the back panel for cords and junk. We pulled that off and had my father cut a piece of wood-grain laminate, that he had in his basement, to size. A bunch of finishing nails latter we had a much better looking piece of furniture. By no means is it beautiful but at lease you can't see right through it anymore. I decided that I'm going to make the top of this $3 cabinet my seasonal decor spot. I used it last year for my Christmas display. Here is the before:


Pretty plain. Just a couple wedding photos, a wax burner, a painted pony (I collect them) and my Husband's Grandfather's flag. I started by taking everything off except the flag and the photo on the wall. Then added in my pumpkin, a Fall themed pony, and an apothecary jar filled with leaves I gathered from our yard. Add a few more leaves to surround the items and a few pine cones and it was good to go.



Here is a little detail shot of the leaf jar and my Apple-oosa pony.


I thought it was great for my first try. I did try one alternative look. Instead of my white pumpkin I tried the ORB'ed one but I think it just looks too dark and almost like a black hole in the display.


So there it is all done, or so I thought. While Andrew and I were out this weekend we found a cute little addition. He adds a little more Halloween to the display.


Isn't he cute. He was only $3 at Target. Here is a little closer look.


Perfect now I can't wait to change things up for Christmas/Winter!