Fire Circle Update

Last Weekend we finally got around to clearing our fire circle (which tends to get totally overgrown in the Summer) and we added some much needed improvements! This year Eric put down weed stopper gardening fabric and gravel around the pit, giving it a much more finished look and hopefully cutting down on the amount of clearing we have to do next year. Here are some pictures of the updated look.

Eric working on spreading gravel

Echo supervises the work

Finished and our first fire of the year!

After these pictures were taken we added more gravel and border bricks. It is already a much more pleasant place to hang out. We have plans to put in benches and fix the death trap of a staircase that leads down to the back yard at some point but that might have to wait until next year. In the mean time it's nice to have the back yard transformed in to a more usable space.

Re-wearing Your Wedding Dress

For our anniversary Date this year I decided I wanted to try to wear my wedding dress again. Now that I've lost all my baby weight it seemed like a good time to break it back out and get at least one more use out of it. I am seriously so in love with this dress, It makes me feel beautiful and comfortable and elegant all at once (which is how all brides should feel in my opinion!).

When I got engaged 4 years ago finding the perfect dress was of course on the top of my to do list. I knew I didn't want a "wedding dress" per se and I absolutely cringed at the thought of going to a bridal salon. I looked in to a number of short options that in the end just didn't feel special enough to me and then I came across my dress at a Nordstroms in the mall. It was perfect, in my price range, beautiful, comfy and fit me like a glove. I snapped it up that day and never looked back. It was also a great shopping experience with no pushy sales people hovering around me, no standing on a pedestal in the middle of the showroom and only my most trusted fashion advisor (my Mom!) was in attendance.

Your wedding dress is probably the most expensive item of clothing you own. For me it certainly is and mine even came in at the bargain price of $360, which is expensive for a dress but a steal for a wedding dress. I always thought it was such a shame to spend so much money on this beautiful, perfect dress that you love and then never get to wear it again. While my dress is definitely formal, found in the evening gown department, I felt like it was simple enough that I could style it in such a way that it would be appropriate for a date night.

For our date we were headed to The Family Dog , a bar in Virginia Highlands for drinks and appetizers, afterward we headed across the street to Rosebud, a more formal restaurant owned by the same people. The whole experience was fairly casual since we aren't really good at being fancy people but it was a nice step up from the kind of places we would normally go out to eat and a nice break from cooking at home which we do 99% of the time. To dress down my wedding gown I paired it with brown leather boots and belt, a denim jacket an owl necklace and a brown feathered headband. You can see how I styled the dress for my actual wedding day in my previous post.

The whole outfit came across as a nice kind of bohemian ensemble and I actually got quite a few compliments on it. It felt great to get to wear the dress again a relive a few of my warm and fuzzy wedding memories as well. I feel inspired now to try to find other ways to re-wear my dress. Have you found a way to wear your wedding dress again? I've had this idea for ages to host a wedding dress party for all my married girl friends where we would all get to wear our dress again. Who wants to do this with me? Come on, it'll be awesome! :-)

3 Year Anniversary

The moment we were pronounced man and wife :-)

We started dating 6 years ago after meeting at a swing dance in Buckhead. 4 years ago he surprised me with a proposal in front of a waterfall in the North Georgia mountains. 3 years ago today we stood up in front of friends and family and make our commitment to each other official, legally and emotionally bonded to one another for life.

So much has happened in the 3 years since we married. We bought and fixed up our family home (still a work in progress!) we decide to have our first baby and welcomed her in to the world just over a year ago. We've had adventures together but more importantly we have cared for each other day after day, putting the needs of the other in front of our own and loving one another even on the tough days.

Happy anniversary to my amazing husband. Thank you for helping me build the life I've always wanted and sharing in it with me. 3 years and it just keeps getting better!

Crock Pot Marinara Sauce

Home made sauce with pasta and goat cheese crumbles

A little while ago it occurred to us to look at the list of ingredients on our pasta sauce jar. I can't remember why we were looking at it but what i do remember is that we came away from it feeling shocked by the amount of sugar that was in store bought sauce. It's not that I am against sugar per se (it tastes sooooo good!) but I really don't feel like it has any business being in my pasta sauce. I decided it would be cheaper and healthier to make sauce on my own and this is a recipe I came up with by combining a number of different recipes I found online. It's so easy because you can just put all the ingredients in the crock pot and leave it all day and it has a wonderful fresh taste. I find that the balsamic vinegar gives the sauce just a hint of sweetness without having to add any sugar at all. It should keep for a week or two in the fridge or you can freeze it for later use. This recipe makes the equivalent of  3 jars of store bought sauce.

Ingredients
2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
1 6 oz can tomato paste
i onion, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, diced
1 tbs oregano
2 bay leaves
1 tbs basil
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
fresh ground pepper to taste
1 cube beef bullion

Toss all the ingredients in a crock pot and cook on low for 6 hours. Carefully (it's hot!) transfer to jars and allow to cool before refrigerating or freezing.

October Photos

I think October has been our busiest month in recent history. So much so that I had to do a separate post for photos just from the festivals and events we attended! Here are the rest of the photos from October including a visit from and old friend and a mini road trip!

 First up we had a visit from our good Friend Neil and her baby Isaac! It was such fun to have them with us for the week and for Echo and Isaac to bond. Of course we visited the botanical gardens because we pretty much live there these days :-)

This is just a cute picture of echo passed out on her daddy's lap

 Next we took a short road trip up to DC to visit my brother Logan and do some sightseeing along the way. We stopped in Asheville on the way up and then in Charlottesville on the way back down where we got to visit Neil again.

Logan and Echo got to reconnect which was awesome :-)

Riding the metro

Eastern Market

Eastern Market

Just no

The Navy Yard

Sacked out at the hotel after a day of sightseeing

The children's museum in Charlottesville

 Back in Atlanta we got to socialize with friends and get the babies together for the rest of the month, it wa great seeing all the little ones in their Halloween costumes!

Joanna and Milo

That's it for October. I'm sure we'll have lot's more fun happening in November to share soon :-)

Beeswax Candles

With the colder weather we've been having I've been getting in to making beeswax candles at home. This is such a great, easy project and it conjures up all kinds of good childhood memories since this is something I did a lot of as a kid. I absolutely love candles and I usually have at least 2 burning in the house on any given day. There were easy and inexpensive to make and the beeswax gives off a lovely, sweet smell.

I purchased my beeswax from the honey people at my local farmers market (much cheaper and better quality than buying it from a craft store) and I ordered the wick from amazon. The glass containers for the candles I picked up at a yard sale, paying $2 for 8 glasses. I melted the beeswax in a double broiler and hung the wicks above the glasses by tying them to a bamboo chopstick which I rested on the top edge of each glass. Then all I had to do was carefully fill each glass with melted wax and allow to cool before trimming the wick. So easy and lovely! This will be a great project to do with Echo when she gets a little older too and I'm thinking these would make wonderful homemade gifts :-)

Happy Halloween!

Things have just gone from Busy to Busier this Fall so I have been really sporadic about posting. Sorry about that! I wanted to make a point to share our Halloween Costumes from yesterday while it was still timely so here it is! Echo went as little red riding hood and Eric and I were the Big Bad Wolf and the Woodsman respectively. First some pictures of Echo in her costume...

 The hood I made from an old Shirt my brother was getting rid of I used a red ribbon to tie it around her neck and embroidered a wolf silhouette on the back (my embroidery skills are improving!). The rest of the outfit was made from clothes we already had or were able to borrow from a friend.

She looked so amazingly cute in this I could just die! She got to wear it 3 times, once for a baby meet up, once for story time at the library and once on actual Halloween. Speaking of actual Halloween...

I made Eric's wolf costume out of old sweater scraps I had leftover from a blanket I made last year. The mask had a paper baking and I just sewed the scraps on top of it. The paws were old sweater sleeves with felt "claws" sewn on. For my costume I just used a flannel shirt, jeans, boots, a belt and hat I already owned. I used eyeliner to draw on a  beard and borrowed a hatchet from the garage to complete my Woodsman ensemble. All of our costumes cost us basically nothing since we had all the pieces already.

It was really fun dressing up as a family and we had a great time taking Echo trick or treating for the first time. We only went to 3 houses but we scored tons of candy and Echo is turning in to a chocoholic already! We are looking forward to the many years of trick or treating we have coming up, having a kid is so much fun!