Southern Living Idea House

Saturday afternoon, Brent and I visited the Southern Living Idea House in Dahlonega. This was my third attempt at going, so I was very excited to finally get to see it! The boys were with Nana and Pop-O for the weekend, so we had a nice date that afternoon. After we went to the house, we ate at The Smith House in Dahlonega. Then we finished a little Christmas shopping at the outlets. Here are the pictures from the SL house. Warning, there are lots of pics!


The house is in the Achasta neighborhood and is in the craftsman style. It's now decorated for Christmas.


great room

master bedroom

master bath - You would not believe the shower in this place. I felt a little funny taking so many pictures, so I skipped the shower.

This was a really great idea. There is a little "breakfast kitchen" in the master bedroom. It has closet style doors that close and hide everything.

The veranda outside the great room and master suite. We both loved these outdoor living spaces.

the dining room - It's between the kitchen and great rooms with a big pass through window to the kitchen.

The kitchen has electronic doors that open onto the veranda. They completely disappear into the walls, and the bar pulls up to make it an open air kitchen. Might be very handy if the cook were to accidentally "blacken" dinner one night!

the kitchen

gorgeous Viking appliances

This was my favorite space. The laundry/mom's office area. Brent saw it first and came to find me in the pantry. He said, "You have GOT to see this. You will love it." He was right.

the upstairs sitting area/study

downstairs in the children's room

downstairs living room

guest room downstairs - I could not believe wallpaper was in so many of the rooms. I guess it's a coming trend.

the back of the downstairs living room - That man would not move for me to make a picture! I waited and waited and finally walked outside. Then, he went into the next room. When I came back in to make the picture without him, he stepped right back in when I snapped the camera. Good grief!

I know that was a ton of pictures, and they really don't do the house justice. I made a bunch more, but these turned out the best. You can see a professional slide show at the Southern Living website.

Okay, here's a funny story I have to share. After we left, we went to The Smith House. It's a family style restaurant in Dahlonega that is yummy! You sit at big tables with lots of people you don't know and the server brings all the food in bowls. You pass the bowls around and visit with the people at your table while you eat. It's really fun.

So we were seated with two other couples. One couple was from Elijay, and the other from Roswell. The server brought out all the food. Ham, roast beef, fried chicken, fried okra, sweet potatoes, peas, collards, slaw, mashed potatoes, all kinds of good stuff. As we are starting to pass the food, I hear the man from Roswell pick up a dish and say to his date, "I believe this is what they call creamed corn. I think that's what it is." I almost laughed out loud! Instead, I asked him, "So where are you originally from?" He was very nice and laughed and said, "Northern Ohio. So I'm not just a Yankee, I'm a damn Yankee." Everyone laughed at that! He was very nice to talk to and said he did enjoy the creamed corn, and even the collards!

Flashback Friday

Next week, I'll be posting pictures of Jonathan's nursery. I thought it would be fun to see these again. Here are some shots of Andrew and Brent putting Coleman's dresser together two and a half years ago. You'll see Monday that the "handy helpers" showed up again to help Daddy with Jonathan's dresser.

Wordless Wednesday

Read This

This is a Friday's column (11-6) from a blog I read quite often. She's a mother of five boys, with a new baby coming in April. No announcements yet on the gender of the newest one. Her blog is titled, "Testosterhome," which I find hilarious. Especially considering this is what my life will be like on a slightly smaller scale someday.

http://www.testosterhome.net/

Volcanoes!

From time to time, Brent and the boys will do a science experiment together after supper. Last month, Chick-fil-A gave science lab tools in their kids' meals. The tools also came with an instruction book full of experiments to try using that piece of equipment. Not all of them were exciting enough or appropriate for preschool, but the volcano was a hit! Brent does a really good job of explaining what's happening and getting Andrew make predictions about their experiments. Here are some pictures of their volcano experiment. I love their expressions as they watch.

Halloween

I do not remember a Halloween that was as much fun as this one was. Despite the yucky weather, we had a blast with the boys and their grandparents Saturday evening. We started off at the neighborhood party at the clubhouse. Then we came home, fed the grownups, and sent Thing 1 and Thing 2 off to trick or treat.

Walking into the neighborhood party

Coleman was not fond of his wig at the party. He would not leave it on. I was able to get a couple of shots with him fully dressed, but not many. There were nuggets, chips and cookies for the kids, and upstairs was a chili cookoff for the adults.

Waiting for the costume parade to begin. You can see Pop-O trying to sneak Cole's wig back on.

Back home, after supper, fixing to go out trick or treating. Please notice that in all of the remaining pictures Coleman is happily wearing his wig. That's because we told him to go trick or treating, he had to wear his blue hair. He did not try to take it off once.

They hit the neighborhood with Daddy, Pop-O, Gigi and Papack. Thank you to Papack who was the family photographer. Mommy and Nana stayed behind to give out candy at our house. Brent said the boys were pretty funny throughout the evening. And thankfully, they remembered to say thank you at each house.

These are our new neighbors. He came out and sat down to trade candy with the boys. They talked all about The Cat in the Hat and Dr. Seuss from what I hear.

They even got to trick or treat at home!

When they came in, they got to choose one piece of candy to eat. Coleman was so excited! Andrew chose a big chocolate marshmallow sucker thing, and Cole picked a pack of baby m&ms.

After the grands left, we got baths and the boys helped hand out candy to our trick or treaters. They had as much fun doing that as they did getting their own candy. Every time the doorbell rang, they would run for the candy bowl screaming, "Trick or treaters!" The whole night was so fun for them. The next morning at breakfast, Brent asked Andrew what his favorite part of Halloween was. He said, "Giving out the candy to our trick or treaters." This was the first holiday that Coleman has really gotten into. I can't wait to see what he does with Christmas!