I (we) have been super busy lately….

Work for me, not Mike, is crazy busy.

Cub Scouts keeps the kids and us busy.

And I have still managed to get a little scrappy busy.

Each week, the American Crafts blog has a weekly challenge.  I love American Crafts products!  So I have been playing along.  Here’s is my layout for this week’s challenge which is to create a fall layout:

Halloween Favorite
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Last week’s challenge was to create a Halloween layout.  Easy!  Here it is:

Happy Halloween
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

And the challenge 3 weeks ago was to use a black and white photo.  This was actually hard as I do not print very many black and white photos anymore.  I am preferring to see all the colors around.  Here it is:

Favorite
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Well…gotta run….I hear the laundry calling out to me!

See you soon!

This is where all the cooking magic happens………..This kitchen is truly amazing.  The cabinet space is wow!  I love all the trim!  Just love this kitchen!  I am so thankful that we found this home!

I love love love the cabinets!  I like the countertop…it’s not what I would have chosen, but I am loving it more and more.  One day we will have 2 barstools here at the counter.  We are searching for the perfect ones….

Love our stainless appliances!  The microwave is awesome.  I am not crazy about the black flat top stove…but I do love the 5 burners.

The best useful feature of the kitchen.  The garbarge/recycle drawer.

Mike’s coffee station.  Also notice the under cabinet lighting…this was a bonus.  And the pretty tile backsplash our realtor helped choose.

You can also see the butler’s pantry just past the refrigerator.  I use this as a scrapbook zone.

Opposite the butler’s pantry is our huge pantry!  It rocks!!!!

The view into the eat-in area.  I am so happy to have this stainless steel sink.  We had a white sink in our last home…what a booger that was to keep clean.

And here is our eat-in kitchen.  I love our new kitchen table.  Black on the bottom with wood which is almost the exact color as the kitchen cabinets on the top.

Side view.  I do love our new curtains.  We had to buy 95″ curtains because our windows are so tall.

This is the view from the family room.  Yes.  The big ole wall is empty….I took some photos at the farmer’s market last weekend which I plan to have enlarged and will hang on this wall.

Thanks for looking!

Wow.  Today is the  last day of September….another month has flown right by.

Here’s our month in review:

I turned 36.  Yes 36.

For Labor Day weekend, we went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord/Charlotte, NC.  Awesome family place with a rockin indoor water park.  And yes, Andrew loves loves all the crazy scary water slides.  Unfortunately Nathan got sick as soon as we arrived and only wanted to sleep.  So we came home a day early.  We did manage to squeak in a visit to IKEA to get some pretties for the house.

The boys are now signed up and enjoying Cub Scouts.  Andrew is a Wolf.  Nathan is a Weeblo.  They are super excited about going camping.

The weather has been really nice.  Our neighborhood has a great walking trail which leads all the way to the park.   We have been riding bikes and taking quite a few walks together.  The boys spend lots of time outdoors after school and on the weekends.

Work for me has still been great…busy with all-day meetings, but I am still enjoying my new job.  I’ve enjoyed 2 work parties too  - one celebrating a co-worker’s birthday; one to celebrate the successful implementation of the web application.

I also did some scrapbooking this month.

Here are my DT layouts for KMA/Scrapbok.com for September (click on image to view it large)

Dude…just pull it
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Zombie Attack
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Bugs!
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Cabin Sweet Cabin
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

And I played along with 2 of the How Much is Too Much blog challenges:

Spooky Pumpkin
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Happy Birthday Bike
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

I hope your September was half as great as ours was.

P.S. Those cute little cub scouts are selling popcorn…in case you are interested….

Our home is finally getting viewable.  HaHa.  I do not proclaim to be a good decorator at all.  But here are a few photos.

Front door – I decorate this all by myself.  LOL.  There is actually a cute little fall doormat.

When you come in through the front door, the room on the left was supposed to be the formal living room.  The supposed to be formal dining room is too small; so we switched the light fixtures/rooms.  Here is our dining room.  I have some big prints that will be hanging; one on each side of the hutch.  Every room in this house has boring beige walls.  This room will be painted first.

When you come in through the front door, the old dining room is now my scrapbook room.  Shelves/curtains/storage boxes from IKEA.  We think this room would be perfect if we closed it off with double glass french doors to so it is not out so much in the open.

Up the stairs photo wall.  We have started a photo wall going up the stairs.  We are gonna continue with the black frames.   And my friend, Joy, made me the sign at the bottom of the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, Nathan’s room is on the right.  It is so much bigger than his old room.  Same decor though.

The boys’ bathroom upstairs:

We converted the 4th bedroom into a bonus room.  We got a new tv cabinet.  We already had the red boxes and they fit perfectly inside the tv cabinet.  We love this pull out couch….I guarantee that if you plop yourself down on it, you will be asleep within 5 minutes.  The exercise bike is up here too.  The first photo is as you are looking into the room.

The next room that will be ready for your viewing pleasure…….kitchen, eat-in, and family room.  Stay tuned.  HaHa.

We moved into the new house July 31st.  And we finally got cable Friday evening….oh how I am so happy to have cable tv and General Hospital and DVR and HGTV and Nickelodeon for the kids.  And the internet now works too…yeah!

Can I get a Yeah?  Yeah!!

Don’t worry.  We have been plenty busy.  Slowly emptying all the boxes.  Buying a few new pretties for the house.  Loving our new kitchen.  The boys are now tracked out for school, which means they are “off” for 3 weeks (aka going to the YMCA).

I must share this photo of the boys on school picture day.  Andrew wanted to wear his suit.  But it was over 90 degrees.  So I convinced him to wear shorts.  He still insisted on wearing the cowboy boots.

I am sure all the teachers and kids were fully aware that he is not from the big city….You can take the boy out of Fuquay..but you can’t take the Fuquay out of the boy.   HaHa!

House pics are coming soon.  I promise!

Another month that I am thankful to be a part of the Keeping Memories Alive (scrapbooks.com) design team!  Click on the images to see the layouts larger.

I completed this layout and these 3 cards before we moved into the hotel.

Water Balloons
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Friend
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

You Make me Happy
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Smile
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

And I completed these 2 layouts in the hotel….which explains the not so great photo of the layout.

Totally Awesome
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

This look
by Michelle StClair
Scrapbook.com

Amidst all the craziness in July, I was also the guest designer for GCD Studios.  I really really like their pattern paper! Love that they are 2-sided!  Love the colors!  Oh and their rubons are fantastic fantastic too!

This first layout I created for the How Much is Too Much challenge blog.  The challenge was to use red.  I used red as my accent color.

This next layout actually uses the same blue paper that I used int he first layout.  And I used both sides of it.  And I used a cute little piece of the GCD Studios chipboard.

This 3rd layouts documents Nathan’s love for music.  All the papers, rubons, and letter stickers are GCD Studios.

And just for fun, I created 3 cards!

Thanks GCD Studios for letting me play this month!

All the bedrooms are on the 3rd floor.

Here’s looking into the master bedroom from the closet.  It looks bigger in real life.  There’s a small closet on the right.

And the other door leads to the master bathroom.

Love this tile.  I love it.

The master bedroom closet is awesome!  Mike loves the wood shelving.  I love how big it is.  Here are a few views.

Here’s the boys’ bathtub.

There are 3 other bedrooms upstairs.  All bedrooms even have these ceiling fans.

We are very happy with our new home.  We were very lucky to find this new home.   And we can’t wait to move in.

Kitchen and eat-in area from a few angles.

The floors have been sanded.

Nice large pantry.

And a butler’s pantry between the kitchen and the formal dining rom.  The under the cabinet lighting is under all the kitchen cabinets too.

Formal Dining room.  The chandelier is okay.  Not quite big enough.  We’ll replace that  one day.  We saw one on clearance at Lowes today that we love.

There is also this formal living room across from the dining room.  We will close this room off a littlebit and make it an office/scrapbook area.

Here is the family room:

Our piano will fit nicely to the left (area that you can not see.  Our couch will face the fireplace.  So the piano will be behind the couch.  The door to the right leads to our tiny porch.

I was wrong AGAIN.  There are 4 5 homes in this building.  We are the home on the right.   Drive past the bottom end of the building and turn right.  This leads to parking behind the townhomes.

Our front door will be painted soon.

Back view.  The driveway was fixed.  Now the van does not scrape.  Garage doors were installed this week too.  We are the 1st two garage doors.

Our garage is huge.  Notice there is plenty of room in here.  The door in the middle leads into the house.    The other 2 doors are storage areas.  There is also another huge storage area to the left.

Our laundry room is on the bottom floor.  Here is the entry way.  Love the tile floor.  And straight ahead is where I envision my handyman building a cool coat storage area.

Our laundry room is huge.  It is not easy to get a good photo of the room.  It’s very long.

Here’s that other storage area which you can get to from the garage or inside the house.

I’ll get to the next floor later…..