september: hello & goodbye

wow. the month of september flew by. it was here and gone in no time and most of all it felt like this because Garrett and I were extremely busy. The first week of September we spent the week preparing the house for the new carpet. Everything, yes, everything was out of the house when I returned to the house Saturday night after being gone for a day preparing for the Oehm wedding. So, for 3 days, Garrett and I slept on a mattress setting directly on the floor. I didn't leave the house very prepared for everything being thrown around, so the next work was a crazy mess. I found my pants downstairs in the storage room, a shirt in the garage, underwear in the tub and socks in the dryer. Let's just say it was a task getting ready, or at least finding things to wear in the morning. But, after a week of craziness, the new carpet was installed and it looks AWESOME. What a difference brand new carpet makes! Love it!

A few days later our furniture was delivered from NFM (the furniture we had picked out in July when we made a weekend trip to KC). The house is really starting to come together and we're getting so excited to bring Baby K into our 'new' home!

before carpet!

still not a good picture of Baby K's room, but it's a glimpse - before carpet

my life for one week. mattress on floor, no carpet. fun stuff.

new dining area wood floors thanks go G baby and Steve O

Uncle Dennan and Hadley enjoying the new carpet!

dresser i bought at an antique store - this weekend I'm going to paint it for Baby K's room!

downstairs with carpet!

new carpet & furniture downstairs

bar cabinets and tile

downstairs

ignore the bedding... downstairs bedroom

upstairs with new furniture

On September 17 we celebrated Amber and Pat's wedding. What a beautiful wedding it was! After a scare of rain (and an outdoor ceremony) the weather turned out to be perfect and the night went on without a hitch! Amber did a great job planning her Day and the night couldn't have been more perfect without the help of Ashley Moore with Events by Ashley. If you are planning an event and need creative and professional help, be sure to give Ashley a call! She's fabulous! It was my honor to be a bridesmaid in the Oehm wedding and I even had the opportunity to design the save the date, wedding invitations and other print materials used at the wedding! So fun!

Mr. & Mrs. Oehm

the wedding party

the girls getting ready for the wedding

On the 22nd, Dad turned 54! I cannot thank him enough for being such a great teacher, dad and coach to me. Lately, he's helped us so much on the house - painting the entire inside and outside and helping Garrett with whatever he can. Love him. Happy Birthday, Dad!!

Then, on the 24th, my cousin Christy and Aunt Lynette threw a great baby shower in McPherson! We are so blessed to have such great family and friends to help us welcome Baby K! We now just have a few items to buy to complete Baby K's nursery!

At our last doctor appt. Baby K measured one week big (hoping this means maybe one week before the due date - I can dream, right?) and had a heartbeat of 166. Let's just say this baby LOVES to dance and kick and roll and go crazy 24/7. I think I can say that I'm officially uncomfortable. We are going on week 7 of our birth class, and learning a lot. I was a bit nervous for the last class as I sat in a room with 8 other guys and watched a birth video. Needless to say, G said it wasn't nearly as bad as he was expecting (YES!!! This is good news to me!). So, I'm feeling a little more confident we can do this! We're almost 32 weeks, and 58 days away from the due date! Go us!!! We even made a run to Carter's this week and purchased everything neutral we could find, and even snuck in a few boy this and girl that things :)

So, September was good to the Konen's, it just all went too fast. October we welcome you. This month we plan on finishing the details on the house, especially the nursery, packing THE bag for the hospital, taking part in another great friend's wedding (Miss Alli Klein) and just living our simple life which we love so much. One reason I love this blog - it keeps me grounded. I'm constantly reminded that there is nothing crazy, out of the ordinary about our life. It's simple. And I LOVE it. We have great friends and great family. We are so blessed.

Happy... almost.. October!

one, country couple's shower.

one of my very good friends, amber seglem, is getting married! it's right around the corner, and to celebrate we threw her and her fiance, pat, a couple's shower.

the shower was complete, with a country chic theme, hot dog bar, beer, gift opening and the best game of them all - the coconut game. if you've seen 'just go with it' you'll get the idea. it was definitely the highlight of the night. here's a few pictures from the night's activities.

congrats to the both of you - we can't wait to celebrate the BIG day!!

the gift table

table decor

invitations that i made

the bridesmaids, minus keesha

way- too- big furniture store.

overwhelming. that is the one word i would use to describe nebraska furniture mart.

garrett and i traveled to kc last weekend in search of furniture for our newly painted basement. don't get me wrong we still have a TON to do downstairs before it's livable, but yes the walls are painted thanks to my awesome painter of a father. g and i left the grandparents to dog-sit and paint while we attempted the unknown- furniture shopping in a way-too-big furniture store.

After the first 5 hours of shopping, garrett made one huge mistake - he let a salesperson into the picture. if you've never been to nfm, let me just tell you there are about 3 salespersons for every 1 furniture shopper. yes, you caught me, i work in sales, but, definitely not this type of sales. the lady asked us 3 times where we were from, and told us that she was a interior designer, not a salesperson. wrong. after garrett told her what we wanted (brown, tan, budget, size, material) she continued to show us just about everything that was $1,000 over our budget in bright red and the exact material we were trying to stray away from. at this point, i took control. yep, i told her we were done shopping and we could call her if we needed anything. thanks, but, no thanks. and then we left.. empty handed. this pregnant lady and this unborn child were hungry. so, after checking into the hotel and eating dinner we decided we really needed to narrow down our choices before sunday. we managed to do so, and even found the perfect entertainment center around 8:30pm (nfm closes at 9). I knew there had to be a catch. Yep. Sure was. It was the very last entertainment center of that kind, which meant buying the display, or bust. I'm always leery of buying displays, especially spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on one. I insisted that we ask the not-so-pushy sales guy to put it on hold for us until the morning so that we had time to think about it.

 In Garrett's exact word, "Tessa, there is no way they will put the display on hold. That's stupid. Don't ask, because he'll think that's  a dumb question and there's no possible way that they would do that."

Thank you Garrett for the extra boost of motivation to prove you wrong! :) So, there I went. I walked over to the sales guy asked for an extra discounted rate, and to put the piece of furniture on hold. Check. Check. After the sales guy gave us an extra $60 off and told us we had a 24-hour hold on the beloved piece of furniture, we left nfm after store hours. Boy, was I proud.

The next day, we finally decided to go ahead and buy the piece we put on hold, along with a sectional for the basement, a couch for the living room, a custom glider for the living room (baby K will love this!) and a rug. I'm so excited to begin designing our perfect little house!

nfm - we definitely have a love/hate relationship.

entertainment center

living room couch

basement sectional

headed out the door to kc!

IDEAl decor.

So many rooms to paint, re-paint, furnish and decorate. Even our small, but to us, a perfect home, overwhelms me with decisions. I've become an Internet fanatic lately looking for baby room, living room, bar, bathroom and bedroom ideas. There is so much stuff to choose from. With a budget of well, as cheap as possible, it's sometimes difficult to put together an idea without spending a fortune. I found a website this week - decorpad.com  - and have fallen in love with some of their ideas, especially their "Look 4 Less" ideas. Below is one of the great ideas I found! It might be a bit cheesy, but I thought it was unique and cute!

So, for the baby room. My, oh, my! I never thought this would be this difficult. Since we are not finding out the sex of the baby, the room needs to be neutral, to some extent. I'm not a big pink person, so this is perfectly fine with me. I've come up with a few color palettes to choose from: 1) red, teal, gray and white - OR-  2) burnt orange,  pear green, yellow and teal.  I did come up with these palettes with the help of a few inspiration pieces.

We did decide on baby furniture this week and we LOVE it! Here's a sneak peak without the bedding or room design :)