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House Tour

December 31, 2012

Something a little different around here this week.  I love reading home design blogs and magazines and seeing where other people live so I thought you all might enjoy seeing a little more of where we live!  I had these photos taken back in July for another project that a friend is working on.  That project has been a bit delayed so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to share them with you here now.

You might remember when I showed you some of these family photos from Lauren at Peppermint Photography…

I was about 5 months pregnant there and had her come because I wanted some good pictures while our family was still 3, but it also gave me a chance to get Lauren to take some awesome photos of the interior of our house.  Now, let me say this – I am definitely not an interior designer.  I peruse blogs, rip pages out of magazines and pin things like everyone but definitely don’t think I really know what I’m doing.  In putting our house together, I just tried to go with what I liked – and what I like is color, a few unique pieces to keep things interesting and an overall happy space.  I was working mostly with a ton of “hand me down” furniture from my parents house in Arkansas.  I put “hand me down” in quotes because it’s not like I was getting old, ragged pieces of furniture. I was lucky enough to get beautiful pieces that I could never have afforded on my own.  The trick was taking these antiques or pieces with a slightly older feel and making them more modern and young.  Fabric can do wonders for that!

Ok, enough chatting…let’s get on with the house!  Today I will share the front living and dining room.  These are the first two rooms that you see when you walk into the front door.

The couch, two chairs, coffee table and table in the bay window were all “hand me downs”.  A little bright pop of apple green really livened the chairs up I think!  The sconces are from Horchow, the lamp is from At Home, and the mirror over the fireplace is from Ballard Designs.  The throw pillow on the couch was Robert’s grandmother’s and is really special.  She passed away not long after we moved in and that pillow ended up matching the greens and patterns of our fabrics so well that we just had to give it a new home.

Looking into the dining room you can see the greek key fabric on the chair better.  You know I can’t resist a good geometric print!

I know they might be trendy right now, but that doesn’t stop me from LOVING my Jonathan Adler chippendale chairs and my mirrored buffet.  My favorite part of the room though (and one of my favorite things in the house) is the crown chandelier.  I mean…it’s a crown hanging in my dining room for goodness sake!  I’m just fancy like that!  🙂

Robert and I randomly found the two watercolor florals while shopping for outdoor furniture at Summer Classics.  Never expected to find art there but I love them for the space!  I also have to mention the painting above the buffet.  It’s an oil painting done by the amazing Rich Flynn at our wedding.  He was set up at our reception and completed the painting from start to finish by the end of the night.  It is such a cool piece and something I will treasure forever.

The geometric gold mirror in the picture above is another one from Ballard Designs.

Hope you guys enjoy this, the tour continues tomorrow!  Happy New Year’s Eve!  I’m off to pop some bubbly….

Would love to hear from you! 2 Comments
Filed Under: House, House Tour, MBB

MGM Christmas

December 28, 2012

After seeing what all Santa brought and filling our bellies with pancakes and bacon, we loaded up and drove in the rain down to Montgomery to spend the day with Robert’s family.  Maxwell had a bad cold and was definitely not feeling 100% so the distraction of playing with his cousins was nice!

Spencer was a trooper all day and loved finally getting to meet his Aunt Jenny…

Lulu got plenty of love from all her grand babies…

and I had plenty of time to love on mine…

even if one of them didn’t want to sit still!

We all had fun opening presents!

Maxwell even got this GIANT puppy from Katie and Anna!

whoa!  that puppy is bigger than Maxwell!

Maxwell did pretty good all day but, by late afternoon, he was done and melting down.

After our late lunch, we said our goodbyes and gave out some “tackle hugs”…

and headed back to Birmingham just in time to beat the thunderstorm too!  It was a fun day and I’m so grateful that we live so close to Robert’s family and get to see them so often!

ps – I made the desserts for lunch and made a Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake that my friend’s mom always used to make (happy to share the recipe, let me know if you want it!) and I also made this Apple Cranberry Cake from Barefoot Contessa (Ina never fails!).  Both were EXCELLENT if I do say so myself!  Will be making both again for sure!

pps – I hope you all have a great weekend.  I’m going to be taking the next week off to enjoy a little vacation but I’ve got some fun posts lined up.  Wanna see our house and Spencer’s room?  tune in next week!

Would love to hear from you! 2 Comments
Filed Under: Family, Holidays, MBB, Robert, SPB

Christmas morning

December 27, 2012

What a fun Christmas day we had!  We woke up bright and early on a rainy Christmas day to find that Santa had indeed come down our chimney!  The night before Maxwell had left him some cookies and milk…

and Santa ate all of them except one little bite.  When Maxwell saw that little bite left in the morning he said, “Me put that in the trash.  but first me take a baby bite!”  and then took a little bite of the bit of cookie left before throwing it away.  silly boy!  🙂

The Santa haul….

Maxwell was super excited to see that Santa had brought him a fire truck, some books, a new Alabama “butt ball” hat and other goodies…

including a choo-choo track!  yay!

Spencer must have been pretty good too because he got a school bus and a book about school, a music player and some fun rolly balls.

He was really excited!  🙂

We played for a little while and hung out…

and then had some Christmas pancakes for breakfast before heading down to Montgomery for the day.  When we got back that night, Maxwell had to put on his Bama shirt to go with his new Bama hat…

and Spencer had to get a little workout in!  Apparently Santa knows he’s a little chubbo so gave him a dumbbell in his stocking!  🙂

ha!  It was a great Christmas morning!  Pictures from Montgomery tomorrow!

Would love to hear from you! 2 Comments
Filed Under: Holidays, MBB, Robert, SPB

Zoolight Safari

December 26, 2012

Hi all! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was an adventure as always. Sunday Maxwell came down with the croup and was up barking like a seal all night long. We had him at the doctor by 8am on Christmas Eve and got some a steroid prescription and it worked pretty quickly, thank goodness. He was feeling much better by that afternoon and slept pretty good that night. Good thing because he needed to be rested up for Santa’s visit!

Despite Maxwell’s nasty cold, we had a great Christmas day and, yes, Santa did deliver that fire truck and choo-choo track he asked for! He also brought Spencer the school bus that Maxwell had requested for him. That Santa is pretty good! Full details on Christmas day to come tomorrow.

For today, a little zoo action. On the 22nd, we went to Zoolight Safari. It was really neat and really, really cold! We bundled the boys up as best we could – Spencer in a fleece bunny suit and Maxwell in his Elmer Fudd hat…

Ready for some lights!

We met some friends there and Maxwell got to hang with his new buddy, Jack.

Notice those red mittens on Maxwell (or mit-mits as he says!) – those are now his favorite things and he’s been wearing them every day, even though it’s been 60 degrees out!

We rode the train…

and the carousel…

After that, we were freezing and decided we had had enough Zoo for one night so headed out to get some pizza. A fun holiday night!

See you all later!

Would love to hear from you! 2 Comments
Filed Under: Firsts, Holidays, MBB, Robert, Story of Us

Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2012

From our family to yours…

Merry Christmas!

Our card this year…

ha!  Gotta love it!  Have a wonderful Christmas day!

Would love to hear from you! 2 Comments
Filed Under: Holidays, MBB, Robert, SPB

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