Fall Father's Day Dinner

In the previous post, I told you about how my sisters and I host a Father's day dinner every year for my Dad, Bonus Mom as well as 3 other couples that they decide to invite for dinner. This year, we wanted to go with a Fall theme. Dad & Phyllis have such a wonderful house, along with a great outdoor fireplace that we sure do get a lot of usage out of, especially in the Fall, Winter and Spring! Of course, I didn't think of getting out my camera, but my older sister, Lauren did, so these are some of her pictures:

The "Guest" of Honor- Pops

About 15 minutes before people were to arrive, Blair decided to put a biscuit in the microwave to warm it up. Well, she punched the express button, (which sets it to minutes) and forgot about it. We couldn't figure out why a small drift of smoke was looming in the house, until someone opened the microwave and a huge cloud of smoke came out....- Way to go Blair!

She said,
"Not only can I not cook, but now I can't even microwave something without ruining it!"
ha Ha Ha

We set up some of my fall centerpieces along with lots of candles to give it some light after the sun went down.


Blair & I setting up the table




My older sister Lauren- A Great cook!!

Me, working on something!



Our little sister, Blair. Blair isn't a very good cook. (She will tell you that herself), so about 2-3 days before the dinner, she proclaimed that she would just be Lauren and I's "Shoe chef". I told her unless she planned on cooking up some Jimmy Choo's, I didn't think those belonged in the kitchen.. Which I then explained that it was a Soux chef. Ha Ha

Table at night

Everyone gathered around inside by the other fire for more wine and dessert!

We did a Pumpkin Pecan Caramel Cheesecake along with

Brandied Apricot Beignets with a Chocolate Dipping Sauce

Yumm!!!




The Dinner Group! and I'll tell ya, what a fun group!!

It was fun to be in the kitchen and here all the conversations going on, over on the other side of the couch. Most of the group have been people that we (my sisters and I) have known for as long as I can remember. They all host fabulous parties of their own (as well as many parties for Blair & I when we were both getting married), so we were all pretty nervous to serve food that we made ourselves, but we got great reviews! :) (Or they were just being really nice!)

On the Menu that night was:

Appetizers:

Whiskey Shrimp

Spinach and Feta Cups

Soup:
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Main Course:

Roasted Pork Tenderloin served on Creamed Corn with a Apple Raisin Chutney

alongside of Sauteed Green Beans with Toasted Almonds

Dessert:

Pumpkin Pecan Caramel Cheesecake

Brandied Apricot Beignets with Chocolate Dipping Sauce

It's SO much fun to do this every year, and my sisters and I have so much fun preparing all the food in the kitchen together in the hours leading up to it, alongside lots of wine ourselves! :)

Looking forward to next year with more yummy food, honoring such a wonderful and magnificent man/ dad that we have!!

We love you Dad!

or "Main"- as he likes to be called, since he says he's the "Main" man!

Projects Projects Projects and a Party

In the last 2 weeks, we have been very busy over here at the King household. As stated in a previous post, we have been doing a lot of projects around the house, hoping that it will sell sell sell.... Plus, these are some projects that we wanted to have done anyways.


List of Projects
#1: Clear out Basement Bedroom


- We have a wonderful finished basement in our home. One of the rooms is rather large and was currently used as an office/ holding spot of my old living room furniture that I had before John & I got married. We had some realtors mention that it could be a great Master Bedroom, & would probably show better if people could see it as a Master Bedroom. So John & I cleared out this large room. John & I both view homes differently. I can walk into a house, view a room & clear out the ugly decor, paint and see the possiblities of what it can be in my mind. John is not that way. He thinks if it has a bed in it, it has to be a bedroom, and has to stay that color, etc, etc.... So, I'm thinking that maybe other buyers have the same mindset of my husband. With that, we thought that if people view a room as a "blank canvas" it might get their wheels spinning in their heads of what they could do..... Onto the work- I never knew how much stuff accumulates, and how much stuff we neeeeeeeeeed to keep. This room has definitely been the landing spot of unused & unwanted things. We donated tons to Goodwill, but in John's eyes it wasn't enough! But Project #1 was marked off the list (of course, I have a list of all of this, you know me!)- as completed.

Basement Before:


Now the room's just empty.... Kinda sad, but we were going to have to do it anyways.....

#2: Pressure Wash the back deck, Stain & Seal it

-I loooooooove me some power tools. However, growing up, I didn't really see a lot of them.... well, unless the workers came over to fix something. My dad, bless his heart, is not a Mr. Fix-it. If something went wrong in our house, he called his handymen to fix just about anything. So when they would come over, I was always just wanting to hang around within eye sight to watch them to their thing.... Especially when it came to power tools. And when I saw a pressure washer being used, I immediately went downstairs & asked, "Do you mind if I try that thing?" Well, from that moment on I was hooked! There is just something about being able to see something go from being SO dirty to clean in a matter of just a few seconds! So, I decided that our back deck needed to be pressure washed, and then stained & resealed. It took about a day to do and wasn't hard at all! Check!
Before:

After:

I know that you can't tell a huge difference, but if you realized that in the before picture all of the darkness on the wood was due to dirt & grime is was just a tad disturbing to me. Now, it's still close to the same color as before, but it's because of the stain... :)

#3: Paint front door

-While at Lowe's a couple of weeks ago, I was looking at the paints & decided that our front door needed a face lift. This was super easy and we love the look of the front of the house from the road. It definitely gives it more of a pop!
Before:

After:

Please excuse the water on the front of the porch. I had just watered my Mums....

#4: Paint basement bathroom & update

- In my opinion, our basement bathroom could have qualified for ugliest bathroom in America. When we purchased this house, it was our full intentions to gut this bathroom and expand into our laundry room to make a large bathroom. However, since we were only in this house for 1 1/2 years before we decided that we wanted to be down in Columbia full time, it fell off that list of things to do, along with lots of other things. But while compiling my project list, I decided that I could give it a small face lift without spending a bunch of money or hiring a handyman, meaning, if I couldn't do it myself, then it wasn't going to be done. So, I painted the bathroom, refinished the countertops as well as the sink. Pictures to be posted later on this week. (I'm waiting on the paint to dry so I can tear off the painter's tape & take a pictures).....

#5: Hang storage in our laundry room.
- I hung a long 9' closet rod in our laundry room last week. They are super easy to install & this was done to show buyers that if they decided to use the Basement Bedroom as a Master Bedroom, then they would have plenty of closet space. It is wonderful!

#6: Wash interior & exterior windows.

-Ugggggh! I don't know if I will do this again. Interiors aren't that bad. Problem is it's the exterior that really needs all the washing due to the weather. And no, no, no... It's not as simple as I thought. I figured that you could just wash them the same way as I did inside. I even purchased this little device to make it easier.....

Since we have older windows, I soon discovered that I had to remove the "screens" however, they are glass, so instead of cleaning the inside & outside, it was really like cleaning the inside of the inside, then the outside of the inside, then the inside of the outside, then the outside. Needless to say, I got finished with the 7 windows in our basement & said, "never, never, never again!" John's response, "I told you that you should have just called that Handyman that your dad uses to do it, but nooooooo, you said that you could do it yourself and save money since you had the squeegee...." Yea, yea,,,, Whatever!

But now I know that when we build our next house, we will definitely have these

See, even Grandma can wash the outside windows......

#7: Decorate for Fall

-Ahh Fall! I love you! My favorite season, hands down! I decorated our Dining Room for fall. I just love it because you can decorate in September and keep it up until Thanksgiving. I've done a little more to decorate since this picture was taken, like added acorns to the bottom of the vases as fillers and such, but everytime I walk through this room, I smile!

#8: Rearrange the Living Room

-This wasn't actually on the list of things to do, but has been something that John has been wanting to do ever since we purchased our married living room furniture almost 2 years ago.....

And I don't really mean rearrange, he just wanted the big leather couch (the "manly" couch) to be moved up where we always lounge to watch tv, where "my" couch (a soft cream curved back sofa)- . So one night I told him, let's move the leather couch, and then go to sleep & when we come downstairs tomorrow, see what we think. Well, for the next week I kept saying, "You were right honey (because he doesn't hear it as much as he would like me to say it....), it was a great idea to move the couch...." And I mean it. It is wonderful. We purchased this couch because of how big it was. It is a little over 8' long and just shy of 4' deep. We love it because both of us can easily lay together on the couch to watch tv, or you could fit 5 people on this couch to sit comfortably. It's a very curl up & relax couch. And surprise surprise, it is nice & we are enjoying it, along with our nights watching movies sharing the same couch & not saying, "Move over, I'm about to fall off the couch!!!!"

Before:

After:

*Note: I know my camera sucks & I'm just waiting patiently for a new camera, but I've got to do some research before I decide which one I want more!*

#9: Host Shower for our Best Friends

Bentley & Suzanne are some of our very best friends in Nashville. Bentley was one of John's groomsmen in our wedding and we just think the world of him & his wonderful fiance, Suzanne, whom we have gotten extremely close to as well! This past Saturday four of us couples hosted a "UT Tailgate Party & Shower" for Bentley & Suzanne. Mark & Emily hosted it at their house, which is wonderful and they have a fabulous deck. We had about 40-45 people attend, which was perfect crowd! The weather was a little warm, but soon cooled off and turned into a wonderful night!

The Couple of the Night: Bentley & Suzanne

Suzanne & I

Emily & Jo Marie, two of the other hostesses, and two of my very best friends!

Some of the girls of the party having a good time!

Lauren, Jenni, Krista, Suzanne, & Louise

The theme was UT Tailgating, so they got lots of fun gifts ranging from: a cooler, UT plates & platters, Coach Coasters, picnic baskets, Pyrex casserole totes, etc, etc...

Ya know, I see a lot of Moms wear this contraption & wondered what it was all about! Let me tell ya, it actually is pretty comfortable & really does the job of letting you have 2 hands free, like to hold a cup with one hand and pour a beer with the other..... Luckily, Blair & Holland (some other of our great friends in Nashville) are very laid back parents to their 4 month old sweet daughter, Mary Knox, and when I asked if I could drink while wearing Mary Knox, she laughed & said, "ABSOLUTELY!!"

We had a lot of this going on too...... drooling!

*Please note- John & I aren't quite ready for a baby just yet.... Our time will come, but we did have fun with Mary Knox during that party!

#10:

I had 2 wedding cakes due in the last 7 days, so in the midsts of all of these projects, I had to put out:

Whew!

Back.....

It's sure been awhile since I posted last..... If you forgot, I have been at a place like this all week with my little sister on a Sister Beach Trip. We sure did read a lot, get a bunch of sun, eat lots of yummy food as well as drink drink drink. But hey, when you are on vacation, "do as the locals do" and by locals, I mean fish..... since we definitely drank like them!

And after 6 full days of 85-88 degree weather in the wonderful sun, you can imagine our surprise as we stopped for gas right outside of Montgomery, AL and thought, "Man, the wind has picked up a little bit!" Needless to say, as we made our way back north, we stopped again for lunch and were freeeezzzzing in our little sundresses and shorts that we had on as the weather dropped to 67 degrees & rainy. We skipped the ice cream after lunch that we had planned on getting and opted for Hot Chocolates to go...

After this little realization, we started talking about fall and started noticing the slightest change in color in some of the leaves on the trees passing by like in the examples below....

After an evening snuggled underneath a big family quilt with my sweet husband and a bowl of Chicken & Dumplings in both of our laps, I awoke this morning and all I wanted to do is get outside and do some fall chores....

So I made a list (I love lists!!!- Sometimes I even make a list of different kinds of lists that I need to make. Yep! I'm OCD)- Anywho, I made a list of things to do around the house that would allow me to get outside, along with the necessary things that needed to be crossed off on of those lists from awhile ago.....

After an afternoon at Lowe's and a shopping cart full of different "projects" (blogs to follow this week & next on all of those projects), I headed home to begin. Ever notice that shopping for projects or certain items can be mentally draining & exhausting, especially when you don't really know what you are looking for or what all you need??? (I guess that is where another list would have been handy, but oh well...)- I think I was in Lowe's from 2 p.m. until 4:45 p.m. today....

And "Oh the possiblities.... you can find at Lowe's "

(at least that's what the commercial says)

I know this little product below has been out for a couple of years now, and I just never had the urge to purchase it. But today, Lowe's had it on Sale, so I thought, "Oh what the hell"-

4 little sponges for $3.50- not bad

<

>

We have lots of marks on our walls as well as smudges around the house, especially on stairwells, from moving in, rearranging furniture, carrying luggage & groceries that bang against the walls, etc, etc.... As well as the usual oily hands along the walls and doors and cabinets.
I started gently rubbing these marks with this Magic Eraser and all I could think of is....

"I think I love you!! I think I love you!!! I think I love you!!"
(sung from the David Cassidy Partridge Family clip
you tube it for the full effect, if you can... )

I was quickly jumping from room to room looking for more things to clean and magically erase....
John thought it was hysterical as I was singing the song above as I erasing all the dirt & grime. I just love love love it! He was pretty impressed too, (with the eraser, not my singing)

I just love little discoveries like the one today...... So I urge all of you to try it out, and you might just fall in love with Mr. Clean's eraser like me....

Mums the word......

Yes, I said this to Mr. John King & we both got very excited! He thought I was talking about babies, which was immediately followed by a disappointed frown when I told him that I was talking about potted Mums for our front porch. Which didn't seem to excite him as much as it did me after my little explanation on how mums can be so beautiful!.... Oh well.... Onward! I say......

I went to Costco yesterday.... Oh, Costco! I love you, Costco! (I sure do hope there is one in heaven! Along with those people that serve you all those free samples.... )- I'm getting my usual stockup on household supplies, food, and of course, my baking stuff- when I saw Costco has brought in their mums for the season! I immediately grabbed 3 of these beautiful babies up! Lowes sells some pretty mums too. They are about $10 each (same as Costco) but they are about 1/2 the size..... Yet another reason why Costco is on my "love you" list.
*Note- When purchasing Mums, you are probably automatically drawn to the Mums that already have some buds that have bloomed- but I was informed last year to make sure that you purchase Mums with not a lot of buds that have bloomed (if any)- this will insure that your Mum will start to bloom a little bit later and you will be able to enjoy it longer....*

While setting out my Mums on our front porch, I started thinking of all the beautiful fall decoration pictures that I have saved in my little file on my computer for future ideas..... These pictures sure do give me some inspiration to decorate, enjoy the seasons as they come, and save our $$$ to one day have front porches like these..... I decided that I would share some of my favorites to hopefully inspire you to enjoy such a gorgeous season heading our way!

Note- I am not digging this witch with a broom on the front door....

BUT, I do like the pumpkins & mums and ferns.....

And I saved my favorite two for last......
I have had both of these pictures in my "Saved file" for about 3 or so years....
I just love them!

Dove Shoot

This past Saturday was the day of our 2nd Annual Dove Shoot out at our farm. It ended up being a beautiful day with some cloud cover, so it kept some of the heat down and the wind blowing.

We did a big BBQ spread with some sides and, of course, sweets! We had about 50-60 people come out, which was a nice small crowd. The doves were a flying and John said that everyone hit their limit.....

It was a busy busy busy morning and I was really bad about not getting any pictures, (shoot y'all!) but below are some pictures of the Dove Shoot from this year as well as a couple from last year.....

Some of the girls sitting around while all the men were in the field

Sweet little Annabelle is the daughter of one of our friends. She just loved being around all the labs that were there to help hunt. She was convinced that all dogs favorite food was Cheetos.

Annabelle wasn't so sure about me after I told her that Cooper and the other doggies were full of Cheetos.

Picture from last year with some doves....

A great surprise was that Bill Haslam stopped by to the Dove Shoot....

This is a horrible picture of me, but great of Haslam & John. I had definitely been sitting close to the keg all day, and this was getting pretty late in the afternoon........

All in all it was a great day! Long, but great! We can't wait for next year as more people are invited and the dove shoot just gets bigger and better with every year passing.