going on this week

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step"
Martin Luther King, Jr

I had yesterday off, and started writing this post then, hence the MLK quote. I didn't get a chance to finish, so I'm just going to continue working off of it!

We finally get holidays off at the hospital, and yesterday was the first of 8! I met my friend Kelley for coffee in the morning and then cleaned and crocheted the rest of the day away!

I wanted to share with you some new things around the house. We haven't made too many changes. The living room has opened up so much more now that all the Christmas decorations are down! It's nice to have all this "space" back!

Walking around some you will see that we pushed our dining table back against the wall some and added a little end table to our "entrance way" by the door



There is just enough space for this that it doesn't hit the door when it's opened.

 

I actually switched out this place mat at the last minute yesterday. I had already taken the photo and way lazy to retake it. So, this is old news already. Sorry! :D

 

 

Dressed up the bed some with a pretty skirt! I love our mattress - it's a Bob-o-pedic. But, the only downside is the height of the mattress. So, it is really high off the bed frame. So, instead of having the skirt go all the way down to the floor, we have it just covering the box spring and frame.

 

 

Bought this wine rack at Home Goods a couple of weekends ago. It hasn't gone up yet, but it's going to go up over the baker's rack. Can't wait to share pics of that!

 





We picked this up at Walmart last weekend. I don't really have a place for wrapping paper, so I always end up throwing it out. This way, we can keep all sorts of rolls under the bed!

And...I've started my spinach smoothies again. Need to bring that iron back up since I've been so great about taking my multi-vitamin and vitamin c every day :)

Oh, and last but not least...except many of you know this from facebook because I'm just so excited about it, Shane's mom taught me how to crochet. Here is what I have so far with the granny square stitch

That's all the updates for tonight! Shane and I have some projects we're working on in the house. And, I of course have a few others I want to finish. So, stay tuned for the following:

- Gallery Wall in Dining Room
- Vinyl words in Dining Room
- Exciting additions to FlashyPics
- Fireplace mantel
- Table by the door
- Painting the bedroom
- woohoo!

Enjoy your night all! :)

sunday sunday sunday

Happy Bright and Sunny Sunday Morning all!

I am sitting here, having  just finished our FlashyPics logo and anticipating an e-mail back from a fellow photographer who hopefully can give some fantastic insight how he got his roots planted in his photographer world. More posted on that latas!

Until then, we had such a fabulous weekend so far! Friday night was low key and relaxed. We went to Lowe's and picked up some wood so that Shane could fix the bottom drawer in set of 4 we have in the kitchen. It's been broken for sometime and he tried to fix it once with no such luck; the wood was just so damaged. So round two entailed him rebuilding it completely!

Yesterday we went to his parents so he could use his table saw and compressor to build the said drawer. Ahh I can't wait until we have a garage/wood shed where he can do all this at home-sweet-home! Until then, we do get to go to his parents and end up having a marvelous time visiting. He did the building with his dad. Mom and I went to Michael's and picked out yarn. She taught me (for the second time) how to crochet the granny squares. I have it home with me and now and so excited to continue doing it! Just another project!

And, today will involve doing grocery shopping, eating some food I'm sure and then watching the Patriots kick the Raven's [butt] game! If we all take a moment and recall this time last year when we witnessed this match up in the Playoffs. So, I said my peace :)

We didn't invite anyone over for the game. It'll just be Shane, Brady and I - and by Brady I mean the dog ;) We will enjoy the quite of our home after an action packed weekend!

How was your weekend and what do you have planed for the big game!?

christmas and Massachusetts

slackkker! I was supposed to post about my table and some other festive things I did. When instead, I completely became lazy and did nothing!

I did however go up to Massachusetts and enjoy a wonderful Holiday season with my family and friends! Such a great time we had!!

I didn't have our camera the first part of my trip, as I left it with Shane for him to use for Christmas (except I'm not sure that he did...) I will have to go through Jen's to see which ones I want to pilfer! In my defense though, I did take some of them ;)

I arrived at MA on Sunday, 23rd. Half way through on Thursday, Shane and Grayson arrived and we continued our stay until Sunday 30th. I have random pictures throughout the trip. I posted so many to facebook so I don't want to bore you with all of them!

We enjoyed visits with family. I got some precious time with my niece Maddie. It was the first time I met her, and of course walking into Adam's mom's house, he has her in the sink because she had a "diaper explosion!"

Love me some MA and I can't wait to see everyone again soon!

<3

christmas time!

December has just begun and it's already been great! We have had a lot of fun decorating the tree, and doing our Advent calendar! It's certainly been a blessing to have Shane's family close and also to know that mine is just a few miles awhile and will be seeing them all shortly!

The tree that is in our living room was given to me by some good friends (Jen and Craig). Before them it was passed down from Sue (thanks, Sue! :D) It's a nice tree, and certainly fills our needs!

But, I'm sadden to say that it may the last year for this tree. It's not fluffing as it should and many of the needles have fallen off. But, you know, these trees don't last forever!!

 

 

Jen also lent us the tree skirt her grandmother made. She only asked that if I ever intend on getting a new one, that I give it back. Certainly will! :D

We decided to put the tree in front of the slider this year rather than by the kitchen, because it gives more living room space. We need all the space we can get in this room! Especially next weekend when Mom and Dave come to visit! YAY!

This little boy is both excited for them and Santa to come! :D Aren't we all?

I've done some decorating around the apartment, as much as I can without overloading! I try not to do too much to avoid it looking cluttered!

Started with the tree! Definitely love the soft glow of the lights in the dark!

Most of the ornaments are new. They were a must have purchase from IKEA! If you remember, we went there for the kitchen shelves? Well during that trip I fell in love with these ornaments. Thought about them constantly. So, much that I went online to purchase them, but they weren't available for shipping online.

Soooo....you can imagine how excited Shane was to go back and get them with me! :) That's love I tell you!

 

 

 

I filled in the areas surrounding the boxes and stars with some plain red balls, silver bells (which I didn't take a picture of on the tree), hearts that came with the IKEA set, and of course this little guy!

 



LOVE my smooshy boy!!! Can't believe how big he is getting! Get to see him and his beautiful sister in 2 weeks! YIPPEEEEE!

The rest of the decorations I just randomly sprinkled around the living room.

I bought a snowflake table runner for our coffee table. I wanted to keep the decorations as neutral as possible, as to not overload the Christmas theme, but rather play up winter so I can keep them up longer and get the most use out of them!

This bowl is filled with the silver bells I mentioned that are on the tree, and some gold balls. I took the paper shreds from the box the IKEA ornaments came in and used that as filler :)

 

I love the look of this in the glass bowl! 

Couldn't forget to give the bar/bakers rack a little festival appeal! I think the garland is simple enough without over doing it!

 

 

Our DVD rack (which by the way, is completely filled! We need to come up with an additional movie storage solution, quick!) Just a little sparkle and jazz!

 

 

 

Without going too crazy on the pictures, because I know that posts can get very long with those, here are just a few more together to give you the idea :)

 

 

 

I have a beautiful table cloth that I bought from Home Goods last week, and some fun ideas for the dining table. So, stay tuned!!

 

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend! See ya soon! <3

pinball fun!

Well, this post is a little later than I had originally hoped. It's been sitting in my edit list too long! I had a change in work schedule at the Hospital 2 weeks ago and it has been tough getting back on track to my normal schedule. We did 24/7 support in the Emergency Room for the Physician's Go-Live of their electronic documentation. I did mainly 2p/3p - midnight shifts. Definitely not my cup of tea since my bedtime is 930pm! Which is just about coming up now!

A few weeks ago, Shane came up with a great idea to bring Grayson to the National Pinball Museum in Baltimore. I didn't even know they had one, until he mentioned it a couple of months ago.

We surprised Grayson, who when we got there was so super excited! It was a neat place. You walk through a couple of rooms filled with old style pinball machines. There were mannequins that were "playing" on the machines. There were some machines that weren't really even machines, they were more like pool tables.

Once you move past the museum portion, you can go up to the 2nd and 3rd floor where they have a ton of pinball machines that you can play openly for 2 hours! Grayson thought this was the greatest thing and we did that for the next 2 hours! Man let me tell you, you don't realize how sore your arms get after playing pinball for 2 straight hours! But, totally worth it!

 

And, here are some shots of the machines that were there. Of course I couldn't get all of them, although, there were some pretty awesome ones indeed!

The Adam's Family was my favorite growing up! Definitely love this one!

 

Grayson and Shane loved the Star Trek one!

 

 

 

Just a couple of more! Promise :)

 

 

 

 

 

With all that it was a great day and we had tons of fun!

 

It's past my bedtime now - 9:47pm!! Night all <3 

holiday card givaway!

We are hosting our first give-a-way over at Etsy's Flashy Pics!

Enter your chance to win one of our Holiday Cards!

 

There are two ways you can enter to win: 1) Visit our facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/FlashyPics  and leave a comment

2) Leave a comment here on our blog!

 

Either way, your name will be put into a drawing on Sunday, Nov 18th for a chance to win!

 

We have so many great ideas for the upcoming season...hope you come back to join us and see what we have in store! :D

 

<3

kitchen shelves

Happy Monday, Folks! It was quite difficult for me to get out of bed this morning! Certainly one of those days when I'd rather be snuggled in the blankets! But, I got up and got going!

Side note: Starting this Wednesday I will be working 2pm-12a, and 3-12a shifts at the Hospital. We are implementing Physician Documentation in the Emergency Room and have to offer 24/7 support. Tomorrow I have off, then I work 6 days in a row. Saturday and Sunday aren't as bad with being able to work 12pm-8pm and then 1pm-8pm. But, I will certainly be happy when I can get back to my normal 7a-330p!

Now, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich! :-P

After our post about the Vintage Kitchen here, we couldn't wait to get started on the other side of the kitchen!

Since our cabinets are flush against the wall, we miss out on utilizing the tops of them as extra storage. I knew right away that I wanted to hang a shelf over the cabinets above the cut through, which is above our sink. It was just a matter of finding the right ones!

That's where IKEA come in! We went there last Saturday, and found the perfect one, basically right away! That almost never happens for us!!

Image Source - IKEA.com

Equals this....

It's amazing what I difference it makes! And I love the wood that we got the shelves in too! It's the grey-brown finish. What I love most about it is, it's not just a flat stain. It has a worn look to it, and looks very homey to me!

Image Source - IKEA.com



 

Shane was such a sport in hanging it up! He ran into a few glitches, but I was so impressed with how quickly he was able to assemble and hang it all!

Which is probably a good thing on his part, because his girlfriend was itching to have it done too! Because, as you can image, I couldn't wait to have it up and ready so I could start loading up the goodies on it!

 

Hope you all enjoy the beginning of your week!

 

 





Night all! <3