Fa-la-la-la-la

We've been busy decorating for Christmas around here! And I love it!! On Monday, we went and picked out a cute little tree... I wanted to get one from one of those adorable stands popping up on random street corners in the city. But they all only take cash, and we didn't have cash :/ so Home Depot it was. Which was fine because they always have a good selection for a decent price, and I was just excited to get a tree!! On Tuesday, I decided we needed a tree skirt and a tree topper. So I went to West Elm {love that store!} and found a perfect tree topper on sale for $15! The tree skirts on the other hand were like $50... no thanks. So I decided to make one ;) I followed a diy tutorial for a no sew ruffle tree skirt. I used painter's drop cloths {again} and hot glue, and I think it turned out pretty cute. Just a few hours and about $15... love! Z helped me decorate the tree Tuesday night. I also put a few other small decorative items around the apartment. We don't have a fireplace, so no mantel for the stockings. But I really love our stockings, so I wanted to display them anyways. I used clear command hooks and just hung them straight on the wall, ha! I did see a cute idea on Pinterest last night to hang stocking from twine if you don't have a mantel... hmmm.. maybe next year. Anyways, here are a few pics of our festive decor...

Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year!

Post Thanksgiving

You guys.. we had such a wonderful Thanksgiving!! It was a great week celebrating with family, visiting with friends, and being reminded of ALL that we have to be thankful for. We are SO blessed!!! We drove home for our Thanksgiving trip, and let me tell you, it was a loooong drive! But I really did enjoy the time spent with Z, not to mention the $$ we saved ;) I am already counting down til we head back home for Christmas!

Headed home! I think we had about 500 miles to go at this point ;)

We were SUPER excited to see this sign!!!

While we were in Ttown, we ended up getting some tickets for the Alabama/Auburn game! We had such a fun day tailgating with my family and then going to the game with my brother and his sweet girlfriend! And Z's sister even got to sit with us for a while too! 

So happy to spend some time with sweet friends!

LOVED some family time at the quad!

 I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well! We already have been decorating for Christmas around here... I'll share some pictures soon!!

Just hanging with a million of our closest friends...

Last night was the magnificent mile lights festival, and it was cah-razy!!! There were literally a million people there. So crowded. But it was pretty {what I could see at least!} and felt very festive! Here are a few pics Z took {this girl was way too short to take pictures, ha!}

 Okay so those two were actually taken on our street after the lights festival... once we were out of the craziness that was Michigan Avenue! ;)

 You can kind of see just how crowded it was!

 So that might not be our new Christmas tradition or anything... but it was fun and we did get to see what all the hype was about ;) I'm pretty determined to take part in as many Christmas festivities as we can here in Chicago!!

Oh yeah... and I might have a job?! Just say a little prayer for me if you think about it ;) I'll share any new developments as soon as I can!

Can't wait to head home in TWO DAYS!!!

So.Random.

Warning, this is SO random... and I don't have that much for ya tonight... but I haven't posted in a few days so I wanted to write something! I've been subbing like crazy, which I LOVE... but I've kinda neglected the ol' blog {and my house, and the laundry, and the gym...} so there's that :) On another note, we are heading home in exactly one week from today! Wahoo! So excited. I looove Thanksgiving, and I'm especially looking forward to this year since we haven't gotten to see our families much the last few months! And there's also the delicious food to look forward to! Can.not.wait. Oh yeah and we're driving this time, ha... should be interesting ;) Oh and another completely random thing... we woke up to a little bit of snow this morning! Not much, but I'm sure there's more coming soon enough... plus I think these southerners were about the only ones excited to see some {very little bit of} white stuff, ha! Okay that's really all... Hopefully I will have something more interesting for you all tomorrow!

A Quick DIY

So I shared about our new dining room table {love!}... and mentioned that I was planning to recover the chair seats. Well, I had no idea just how easy this project would be! I started out by looking for fabric at JoAnns... but had no luck there. I knew that I could order fabric... but was feeling impatient, ha! Then... I was in West Elm {love that store!!} and I found these adorable cloth napkins. And guess what... they were the exact size that I needed for each chair seat! So I bought six napkins {on sale for $4 each} and got to work. The best part was that I didn't have to cut or measure any fabric... so easy. I used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the bottom of each seat. {I didn't remove the original fabric or add more foam... they were still in great condition. I just used a screw driver to take each seat off} Seriously easiest update ever. Only took about an hour for all 6 chairs!! Here's the finished project...

Gotta Love Craigslist...

How is it already Monday??! Weekends go by way too fast!

 We had a great weekend. Maybe the most exciting part {besides the amazing end to Bama's football game!} was our little Craigslist find! Right before Z and I got married, we found our couch set on Craigslist for $300... Both the couch and loveseat were in mint condition and probably would have cost at least $1,000 if we had bought them new! Well since we moved into our condo here in Chicago, we have been talking about buying a dining room table. I found a few that I liked... for pretty good deals... but once you added at least 4 chairs the price seemed to sky rocket :/ So fast forward to Saturday morning...  I was scouring Craigslist again and saw an add for a Crate and Barrel table with a leaf and 6 chairs for $150!!!! I immediately contacted the seller and arranged to see the table in person. We were both quite sceptical... definitely seemed too good to be true. Plus, we were pretty sure the photo was a stock photo. Turns out, the table was as advertised and the photo was not a stock pic... their house was just that nice! And the table only had a few very minor scratches and a few stains on the seats {which I plan to recover anyways} so we bought it!! Another amazing Craigslist score! The only obstacle was the fact that we don't know anyone in Chicago with a truck :/ but thankfully, you can rent a truck from Home Depot for less than $30. Anyways, long story but here is our new table...

Super excited about it!! I can't wait to recover the chair cushions. Here are a few fabric ideas that I'm loving...

                    

{all of the swatches are from fabric.com}

Hmm... going to be so hard to choose!! 

Pumpkin Party

Z and I had our own little pumpkin party... {not sure if two people can qualify as a party?!}... we started it off with a little Starbucks. What's pumpkin day without a pumpkin spice latte?? Plus I always love a coffee date with Z ;) Then we had some crazy good chicken tortilla soup... y'all have got to try this recipe. It was so simple and oh my, so yum! Last, we carved our pumpkin. {Earlier I painted a small pumpkin with a little roll tide theme} We were undecided about what to carve. Should we do a classic jack-o-lantern or something more creative... 

we went with more creative...

-1- my painted RTR pumpkin  -2- delicious chicken tortilla soup  -3 & 4- our political pumpkin ;)

I think our Republican pumpkin turned out great! And now we have a reason to keep it for at least a week or so {since we were a little late in the carving game!} 

By the way... how is it already November???! Can.not.believe.it. Won't be long until we head to Alabama for Thanksgiving!!