Fall Tables

This table setting has been out at my home for about a month. I've liked it... but I was ready for a change.
Sorry this picture is crooked. I found these brown plates in my brother-in-laws home. He bought his home from a hoarder "as-is." We took out 8 gigantic dumpsters of junk, but among the junk was some cool stuff. Like these plates, only 4 of them. I took them. He didn't even notice.

Time for a change...

I found this awesome idea to make a runner out of vintage doilies. I would connect you to the blog where i found it, but I forgot what blog it was. Just so happens that my great-grandma made tons of doilies and my mom had them. So she sent them to me! and now I have them! In the blog DYI, she sewed them together. I just laid mine on the table so I can rearrange or reuse later.

The other blog also had them on a hard wood table which looked awesome! Our table does not look awesome and must be covered at all times. But they still look really nice on this yellow cloth.

A whole mixture of size and patterns, some ivory, some white.

The whole table!

Love the pumpkins!

I think the table is missing something (besides tall white candles in the candlesticks)

I think it will look better with my china plates or some white dishes. so I may change that tonight. But I am pleased with the overall look.

Oh and I traded out the big wooden candlesticks for glass ones... I think they look more dainty with the doilies

Maybe if i had some crystal stemware out that would help too.

Suggestions??

I'm in Trouble

I got an email from an angry mom the other day...

Dear Mrs. Sawyer,
I appreciate all that you are teaching my son. But I believe he is taking it too far.
Tonight as the Rangers lost to the Yankees, he informed me that we needed to be happy for the Yankees and cheer for them too because that is nice.

Sincerely,
Angry Mom

Okay- so she wasn't seriously angry, but that is funny.
So I did spend ALL week teaching the kids that we ONLY like the Rangers and ONLY cheer for the Rangers. We practiced all of their new team hand signs (the "deer" and the "claw").
We talked about some of the players and how Josh Hamilton is a Christian and will be speaking at our church.
We did many cheers and chants for the Rangers and even pretended to throw and bat.

hopefully tonight he will show his mom all that he learned this week.
even if the Rangers lose.
Which they won't.

Cherry Pie and Blueberry Pie Cupcakes

One of the most talented ladies I know made these adorable cupcakes!! and they were YUMMY!
They are just normal chocolate cupcakes. But she mixed the icing with yellow food coloring and a little bit of cocoa powder. Then she covered the cupcake with the icing, layered on some M&Ms and piped on the criss cross pattern. So cute!!

Go make these right now and smile as you do it!!

Pizza Sauce

So the other day at lunch... the kids were being so NEEDY- and I stupidly brought a frozen lean cuisine pizza for lunch. I say stupidly because when you have 30 minutes to help 17 four-year olds open their lunches, clean their spills, tell them to take "3 more big bites," and clean up, you barely have enough time for your own lunch. Much less time to heat up a FROZEN lunch.

So, I stuck my pizza in the microwave and started helping the kids.
I came back to check it, and somehow the microwave cart had rolled into the power strip and turned the power off. So my microwave quit working half way thru.

So I turned it back on and started eating some carrots, while cleaning up spills and seeing who needed to eat more.

I come back and it looks like the cheese is not all melted, but by this point I have less than 10 minutes to eat so I decide to eat it. (Mom- this is why I am a fast eater.)

As I'm carrying my paper plate with my pizza in my left hand, a little boy bumps into me from behind and knocks me. I stumble and start to drop my precious pizza. So, with cat-like instincts I reach out with my right hand to grab the pizza.

Saved it!!!

but it was BURNING!! Even with the cheese not all melted, the sauce was HOT!!

I wiped off some, but decided I needed to go to the sink for cool water.

I wash off my hand, and return to the lunch room to find a little girl throwing up in the trash can. I call the nurse while eating pizza CAREFULLY.

I wolf down the stupid pizza in less than 4 minutes.

My hand is STILL BURNING! In class, I put some neosporin and a bandaid on it. I email the school nurse.

She informs me neosporin will trap in the heat because it's petroleum based and make it burn more. I quickly scrap it off and she comes to my class with loose bandages and an ice pack and ibuprofen.
It blistered up by the end of the day.

Two days later and after the blister popped... here's what it still looks like...

It's a little hard to tell in the pictures. but let me just say, I hope it doesn't scar because it is UGLY!

and also i will never eat a frozen pizza at school again.

then end.

Near the Canadian Border

A few weekends ago, we traveled to Canada. Not really, but basically. We were in the state of Washington, in a town a mere 4 miles from Canada. It is GORGEOUS up there! I mean seriously gorgeous.


And then we went to this house... (I want to move into this house)


To attend this...

No no no... not a play... a WEDDING!! Both Matt and Chelsi are actors and so their wedding was not lacking in drama! LOVE the PLAYBILL! (program for the ceremony)

So the owner of this home has extensive gardens. I took MANY pictures and made a LONG to-do list for our garden. I think Ty deleted some of my pictures so that I couldn't try to make him replicate it. Just kidding, I have all of the details to show you! Allow me to share my To-Do list...

# 1 Plant HUNDREDS of flowers in rows.

See that tree line? that's Canada. I think. It's that close though. Look at that lighting. So COOL!

#2 Move to a farm. Near Canada.

#3 Build a magnificent trellis and cover it with gorgeous purple flowers. Do this next weekend.

#4 Get a cute bird bath near the trellis so people realize how GIGANTIC my trellis is

#5 Plant LOTS of COLORS! Tonight.

#6 Figure out the name of this flower. Do this yesterday.

#7 Sit and enjoy the garden.

#8 Have ZERO weeds anywhere.

#9 Make fake windows and fill them with cool grass plants and put on my deck.

#10 Act like that is super easy to do when you're friends ask about it.

#11 Pretend you came up with this idea on your own.

#12 Make AWESOME walk ways with stone and moss and plants spilling over the edge.
(This is my favorite part) (well, after the gi-normous trellis)

#13 build a wrap around porch and hang HUGE baskets of trailing plants from it.

#14 surround your house with more great walk ways.

Well, that's the end of my to-do list. I think we (I mean Ty) can accomplish that by the end of the month! Want to come and visit?

On to the wedding details...

This cute wagon holds the gifts as you walk up (on the cute walk way)
(If I put a cute wagon in front of my house, will people just randomly fill it with gifts? Note to self: try this next week)

LOVE the "parasols" to shade you (even though we were 4 miles south of Canada, it was HOT at 2:30 pm)

GORGEOUS!!

LOVE this!! I want to use cute baskets filled with glass beads and white roses at a dinner party soon. I LOVE THIS!

WOW. Stunning

Here comes the bride!!

I did not watch the bride enter, I watched the groom's face. and I took this picture. It was VERY obvious when he first saw her at the end of the aisle. I LOVED that!

Husband and Wife!

Matt and Chelsi!!

Ty and Matt grew up together and we spend every holiday with Matt and his family here in Texas. Now Chelsi gets to join in the fun!! I am always thankful for another girl to join our party!

On to the reception!!

In the back of the house they have a huge airplane hanger decked out like this...

They do weddings each weekend.

Very Unique.

Very cool.

The table setting.
I love this. So simple. I'm thinking of replicating this for a vintage Christmas table.

Oh- and just in case you thought we weren't there... we were!

No worries, we decided at NOON on FRIDAY to leave at NINE pm THAT NIGHT! and head to Washington for a wedding the next day.

SO out of our box!
And SO tough to figure out in less than 9 hours what you are wearing to an OUTDOOR wedding 4 miles South of Canada.

This is what I came up with straight out of my closet.

Shockingly, I was the only one in cowboy boots.

weird.

The Bride's Bouquet

Don't you adore the pearls and sparkle? you could see it sparkle across the room. So neat!

The guest book... they had a book made with their engagement photos, but they left all of the background white and had a lot of background space. Very neat.

Cutting the cake... which was VERY yummy!!

First Dance.

Her hair was SO unique! She used a bird cage veil turned sideways. Don't worry- I took pictures of both sides of her head for you :)

Like I said... not lacking in drama

The music throughout dinner was show tunes- from musicals and old time movies.

Very neat and fun!

Suddenly, all of the guests raced outside....

So did we....

James Bond had arrived!!

Okay, kidding. But this guy did just land the plane RIGHT there and then hopped out and joined the party!

And when it got dark out...

they left to sparklers....

The Top Gun theme song started playing...

and they hopped into the plane and took off!

With fireworks shooting off around them.

They only made one fly by.

and nobody spilled their coffee.