The Title Fits

It really is Three's Company at our house. Franklin does everything with us. Including helping rake the massive amount of leaves that have fallen over the past week or so. He is such a big helper trying to chew on the rake during mid-raking motion. We decided to have a little fun with him and play in the leaves. I think Andrew had just as much fun as Frank did.




He just doesn't know how good he's got it. :)

Still Adding!

Andrew and I are constantly adding new furniture and decor to our house since we at least doubled our living space when we moved into our house from our small apartment. Our latest additions:

1. Finally, finally got our TV stand from Nebraska Furniture Mart. We picked it out months ago and then didn't actually order it until a few weeks ago. That was dumb. We had been using our coffee table until we got the TV stand. The TV stand fits better into the corner by the front window since it's narrower. Definitely an improvement. Would love to jazz it up a bit...
2. Now that we aren't using our coffee table for our TV we can actually use it for its original purpose. Still looking for fun ways to spice it up, but I'm really glad I finally have a place to put our coffee table books, including our wedding picture book!
3. And, as you can see we finally settled on an area rug for this space to cozy it up and add color. I didn't want to spend a ton of money on rugs this first time around since we have Franko. This is called Garden from Target. Love it!

4. Andrew finally got his man chair. Bllleeeeehhhhh. I guess every boy needs a recliner, I just hate that his is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door, and that it's in the same room with all of our other nice furniture. I guess he wins this one. Until I find a pretty chair and ottoman set and his man chair gets moved either to the family room...or the basement. Hello! Whatever happened to the man chair in the man cave??
Even though the man chair is in the living room, I've still managed to add some fun pretty things to try and distract from its bulge. :)

5. New accent pillows - finally more color!
6. Found this really pretty square vase in - surprise - Shenendoah, IA when visiting my parents a few weeks ago. So random, but I just loved the texture. Once we got back to Wichita I picked out a few fall faux twigs/branches/berries and added it to our entryway table. I love how it turned out, and I think it will be fun to update with seasonal colors.
Still on the lookout for a large focal piece for the wall behind our couch, but I feel like things are starting to feel more cohesive and not so bare.

Back to yard work...and cleaning out the gutters.

I See London...

Franklin pulled my pants down for the world to see in front of our house a few days ago. And my underwear. Thank goodness no one saw...that I know of.

I was holding him up against my right hip with one arm, and he started kicking his back legs to try and get down. His foot got caught under my pants and as he kept kicking my pants kept slipping to just above my knees...with my underwear.

No harm, no foul I guess. Maybe it's time I stop carrying him like that. Or time to start wearing pants with suspenders. :)

The Incident

Today will always be referred to as the day The Incident happened. I won't go into details, but the results were:

1. Hosing out "dirty" towels in the backyard.
2. One load of laundry.
3. Franklin getting a bath.
4. Hosing down his kennel in the front yard.
5. Cleaning our entire house.
6. Me taking another shower.

He says he's sorry...

Busy Bees

I feel like I haven't posted in a long time, but with good reason. Andrew and I have been finishing up several project around our house...and have been out of town for the past three weekends.

So without further ado, the rundown of our free time long gone:

Project #1. Our house was considered move-in ready when we bought it at the end of July, and it was, but there have been so many little things we've added to our to-do list to improve. Many of which have been painting. You may remember a previously posted picture of the front of our house and the green shutters and door. I like green, and there are several houses in our neighborhood that have red brick with green shutters/doors, but our green seemed to be a little off. There's nothing wrong with it, but I never would have picked it out. And, I really really wanted a red door and the green shutters and red door just weren't going to happen.

So, before:

And, after (also with Project #2 - new solar panel sidewalk lights):
Not a huge difference, but we like it better so that's all that matters. Here's a close up of the shutter color:

And, Franklin modeling the red door (and the new fall welcome mat from Target and his new purple big boy collar):

These painting projects were super easy. Andrew had to sand the side of the front door a bit because it must have swelled or something and was hard to close. We primed both the shutters and door, and then slapped three coats of paint on each. A few days later, ta-da!

Finally got our Project #3 - K-State flag up permanently! Woohoo!
And, just in time for the a-mazing game last night. It's so hard not to get swept up in the hype - Bill IS BACK! :)

Project #4 - Andrew and I bought a $50 table off of Craig's List before we bought our house with the intentions of painting it after we moved. I was either going to use the table for it's actual purpose (depending on what house we bought and if it fit appropriately within the dining room) or as a desk because of the nice solid big surface area. Well, it made sense to keep it as a dining room table. We've just been busy painting almost every room in the house that this project got pushed to the back burner. But, we finally finished it up!

Had to get rid of the 1990s hunter green (just starting to tape and test out the paint color at this point):
And afters!
We sanded down all of the green areas before we painted them white. I don't think we did our best paint job ever, but this isn't going to be our table for the rest of our lives so we'll live with it. I'm just glad it's done. :) Or, as Andrew always says, "good enough for who it's for..." Whatever.

Project #5 - I can't take credit for this idea...I will absolutely admit I stole it from Vanessa. She has this cute, cute old glass-paneled door that she uses for a pictures frames. I found a similar looking window at an antique store in Wichita and thought it would be a great accent in our house. We finally got it hung up in the guest room.
We have a couple of new pieces of furniture coming on Tuesday morning so I'll have more pictures then including several of new fun accessories we've added in the living room!

Back to yard work as soon as the Chief's game is over. :) We've got to finish raking up the piles of leaves that are floating down from our street's beautiful trees...... and clean out our gutters...and wash our windows.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, especially Sarah Rizzo - happy belated birthday!

Franklin Love

Franklin is almost four months old now and getting friskier every minute. He is more popular than Andrew and I in our new neighborhood. Everyone knows his name. People have stopped me on the sidewalk to meet Franklin because they've heard of this "Cottonelle Puppy" as our neighbor Anne calls him. She and the rest of the block. Little children have chased after us to pet Franklin. He is an icon. And, he is awesome.

Down on the Farm

Andrew and I took last Thursday, Friday and this Monday off to use up some of this year's remaining vacation time. And, to go to the farm. Andrew was so excited to get home to help his dad with harvest. We drove to Hiawatha on Wednesday night after work, and met Butch in the field where he was picking corn. With his combine. Andrew was so pumped and that was the last I saw of him until Sunday afternoon.

Franklin and I spent the weekend up at my parents in Iowa, or God's country as the residents refer to it. My parents live in the middle of nowhere so there's not a lot going on for entertainment. My mom used the chance to try and domesticate me. I think Andrew told her that I haven't been cooking for him, which is completely untrue. Nevertheless, I am officially Susie-Homemaker now. I can make fried chicken with gravy, a pie crust (from SCRATCH!) and various other yummy meals we fixed while I was there.

Franklin had a fabulous time playing with my parents' black lab, Gracie. They are now best friends, and we can't wait for them to come visit us over Thanksgiving!


On Sunday, we spent the day traveling back to Wichita and drove through Kansas City. My sister Rachel watched Franklin for us while we went furniture shopping at NFM. Andrew has been wanting a man-chair-recliner forever now, and I've been trying to put off this purchase since I just know it's not going to look good with our current living room furniture. But, his mind was made up, and after we debated for way too long about several chair-and-a-half with ottoman combos, he ended up getting the recliner. Yay. We also bought a much-needed entertainment table for our TV since we're currently using our coffee table and want it back for it's original purpose. Both get delivered a week from today. Pictures will be posted soon!

Now, I'm on the lookout for the right chair/ottoman combo to replace the recliner. It WILL eventually get moved into the family room. It just doesn't know it yet. :)

Shameless Work Plug

Happy hump day all!

The past many months, my life has been consumed with getting this year's holiday campaign off the ground. Last Friday, we finally launched our holiday sites! Check out honeysucklewhite.com or shadybrookfarms.com to find out how many people you turkey will feed this holiday season.

Hint: If you buy a HSW or SBF turkey this year, you can feed one million!

C Kells Inspiration

Courtney posted a hilarious link to funny roller coaster pictures. If you haven't read her blog yet, you definitely should - http://ckells.blogspot.com/. She's one funny gal. :)

She inspired me to share a link passed on to me by a coworker during a recent video shoot. Word of the wise, don't get caught at Walmart, at least not like this.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/