Our front entryway is the only space in our home that feels "finished" to me, and even then, I feel like the table top could use some styling help. You gotta start somewhere! I've been on the lookout for an affordable front entryway table for years now. I haven't been interested in dropping $500 on one, no matter how much I like it. I finally, finally came across an unfinished, solid wood table from Target. Once it arrived, I assembled it and stained it, using leftover stain and poly. I'm confident staining and applying coats of finish after we stained our daughters' bunkbed. I worked on it over a couple days in the garage (having a garage is the business!). It's nice to have a play to drop keys when we come in, and our kitchen counters are a lot less cluttered. Of course it's another surface to keep tidy (not my strength with two littles!), but Conor's the man and he's always so great at picking up after me. I'm really proud of this little project. It was worth the little bit of time and effort. 

The art we hung is kind of a nice, "Hey, this is who we are." First is a hand-calligraphied piece by my friend, Melissa. Then the art progresses through the three places we've lived. Grain elavators for Alberta (this piece was my grandparents. They are the grain elevators from my Grandma's hometown, Delia), a letterpress piece of the centennial state, Colorado, and last, a commissioned piece of the beach for California. Each piece was collected independently of the others, however we somehow still managed to come up with 4 pieces of blue-green. On the opposing wall, we have the Oakland temple and a mirror. Simple, simple. Hopefully we can pull together the other areas in our home soonish....

Quiet moments like these remind me that it's all so, so worth it...

While Holly is at preschool, I've been trying to do something with Greta. It's hard because she plays on her own so well that it's easy for me to have some me time. But, I'm really trying to improve and focus on my girl. This past week, we met some of our favorite friends at the park - nothing like digging in the sand and burying little dollies. I haven't taken nearly as many photos lately, so I brought my camera along. 

Moving into our duplex on the block we currently live on is one of the best things we've ever done. We were instantly apart of a really great community and there's a ton of kids, 3 Holly's age, one Greta's age and a bunch of babies. It's so fun to live here! We carved pumpkins with our neighbors one afternoon. The kids were only interested for so long and then they were off to play and left us Mommas to all the hard work. I am so grateful to live where we do!

Each year, our church does an all out Halloween party and dinner, and after the kids have had so much fun playing, we all head outside to hand out candy from the trunks of our cars in the parking lot. It's a lot of fun! I think every year there's more and more kids. Holly "gets" Halloween and Greta is definitely catching on! I think I have them convinced to trade their candy for a toy. I have mixed feelings about this sugar-rush holiday.