A Fun Day with Ms. A

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying Ms. A to her horse riding lesson.  I loved spending time with her, just the two of us.  I picked her up at 12:15 p.m. and we were off to her instructor's home.

The horses were beautiful.

My main intention  in going with her was to see her ride.  The funny thing is she didn't ride this day. They learned how to clean the horse trough the right way.  Yes, it was gross.  Can you see them looking at the trough like what?

One of the last things Ms. A's mom told her was not to walk in the water.  :)  Okay, she didn't actually walk in it....she stood in it.  I took a pic of her with my phone and sent it to her mom laughing.

The students were taught how to remove the water from the trough.  They had to retrieve the fish from inside of the trough so they could scrub it down.  We were going to the mall afterwards.  Yeah, right.   Not without going by her house for a change of clothes and a change of shoes.  :)

Here she is waiting for her turn to feed the horses.

She is at that silly stage.  Everything is silly.

 I can't believe this child is 9 1/2 years old.  She is almost as tall as I am.  She will pass me up soon.  In fact, she will pass up her mom, me and Brooke.  She gets her height from her dad.

Ms. A's horse was the slowest eating horse.  It finished way after the others did.

Two little girls were sitting on the fence with their boots hanging down.  I just love the pink dirty boots.

After her lesson we went to her house for her to change.  Sweet P was home from her gymnastic lessons so she changed and tagged along with us to the mall.  Ms. A wanted a Cinnabon so I got her own big cinnamon roll.  Sweet P told me she wouldn't eat much so we could share one.  Yeah right.  I could not cut the roll fast enough for her to eat.  She ate at least two thirds of it before she was done.  She is such a hoot.  She stands up....pulls her shirt over her little belly and proclaims my belly is full and looks like a pumpkin!  Ms. A and I were laughing so hard.  She is hilarious.

From there we went to Hobby Lobby for Ms. A's art lesson.  Sweet P and I walked the store while we waited for her.  We had a very good day.  Lots of laughs.  I can't believe how fast they are growing up.

I hope you have a great day today and a wonderful weekend with some really awesome weather.  We are in for a lot of rain again this weekend.  :)  I feel bad for the trick or treaters.

Take care,

xoxoxo

Debbie

My New Home Office

Good morning and happy Thursday to you!  On Tuesday I shared with you the gallery wall I put together for my office.  Now I'd like to share with you the little things we did to make the built ins a little more pleasing to the eye.

Here is a before photo....

and here is an after photo.  We added corbels under the cabinet to give a more custom look (even though these were custom made years ago).  I ordered them from Lowe's. 

 I chose the Ekena Millwork 4 in. x 10 in. Diane recessed polyurethane corbel at $21.95 a piece.

Don't you love the new look?  I know I do.  All we had to do was paint them and adhere them to the wall with liquid nails.  We did use one finishing nail at the bottom of each corbel to help hold it in place as the liquid nails adhered to the wall.

We also added the finishing trim piece under the edge of the cabinets to give it a more finished look.  Is it perfect, no, but we are thrilled with the way it turned out.  Now the hubs doesn't think I am so crazy at least he says he doesn't for pushing forward on these ideas.

I think it's awesome that you can make a few changes without breaking the bank and get a much more pleasing look.  All in all, these two changes were under $120.00 for materials.

The original curtains I had intended for this window did not work out.  They were black with a white trellis.  I think it worked out for the best as I like the look of these much more.  And they were half the cost as I got these at Home Goods.  Oh how I love Home Goods!!!   If you've never been to a Home Goods store look for one in your area then run, don't walk, to see the awesome decor they have at a fraction of the cost.  I promise you, you will be singing their praises.

I considered getting a new desk to go along my new gallery wall and decided against it.  I love the angle this desk sits at as I am able to watch the squirrels play outside as I write posts to share with you.

This gallery wall makes my heart sing.  I shared with you how I put it together (with the help of the hubs) here.  My goal is to eventually replace these with my favorite personal photos from our trips to Disney World.

The hubs picked up some new dummy handles for the closet doors so they will blend in with the new hardware I ordered for the cabinet doors and the drawers.  They will take 10 days to come in.  They are very pretty.  I can't wait to share them with you.

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you enjoyed your tour of my new office.

I want to give a "shout out" to my wonderful partner in crime, the hubs!!!  I couldn't do this without his continued patience and commitment to get it done.  I believe two heads are always better than one when working on projects such as these.

Take care and have a blessed day!!!

xoxoxo

Debbie

P.S.

The next time you see my office it will be decorated for Christmas.  It is a "hot mess" right now with decorations laid out all over the counter!  Gotta get busy!!!  See you soon!

Nottoway Plantation House

This gorgeous oak tree was outside the window of the solarium where we ate breakfast.

WARNING!!!  Lots of photos ahead. 

On the morning of the LSU Tigers vs. Florida Gators, we had breakfast at the Nottoway Plantation House located in White Castle, LA.  White Castle is 28 miles from Baton Rouge.  It took us about 45 minutes to get there.  Our reservations were for 8 a.m.

Grab a cup of coffee or your beverage of choice and come along with me as I take you through the Nottoway Plantation House.

We were blessed with awesome weather the entire weekend.

There were two options for breakfast.  You could order off of the menu or you could go through the buffet.  We all chose to order from the menu.

Here is a photo of the dining room.

A few photos of the buffet.  Everything looked so good.

Oh my, just seeing this moulding makes my heart sigh.  The detail was incredible.

I ordered the Pain Perdue.  Pain Perdue is a New Orleans style French toast.  It was so delicious!!!  It reminded me of how my dad used to make it.

Such a lovely idea to serve syrup in such a sweet dish.

We ordered some beignets for everyone to sample.

This beautiful mural was located in the bar area.

The grounds were very pretty with lots of beautiful flowers.

Here is a side view of the beautiful home.

After breakfast we walked the grounds while waiting for our tour to begin.  We walked across the street and climbed the levee to see the mighty Mississippi River.  Back in the day there were no levees to obstruct your view of the river.  Only the wealthy lived on the Mississippi River.

This was our view of the house from the levee.

Nottoway Plantation House is a Greek Revival and Italianate-styled mansion built by John Hampton Randolph in 1859.  It is the largest antebellum plantation house in the South with 53,000 square feet of floor space.

John Randolph commissioned renowned architect Henry Howard of New Orleans with the task of designing the grand mansion with the intention that no expense would be spared in the construction.

The Mississippi River was so calm.

The Nottoway House was built off location for eight years.  It took the builders an additional two years to complete the construction on site.  The construction of Nottoway was completed in 1859 at an estimated $80,000.  Mr. Randolph destroyed the architect plans to prevent any duplicate homes from being built.

The oak trees were beautiful.

The double curved granite staircases were built with the left side intended for the ladies and the right side for the gentlemen.  This was so the men could not see the ladies ankles when they lifted their dresses to climb the stairs.

The details were beautiful.

This room was used as a ball room.  It was beautiful.

This room was for the gentlemen to discuss topics they did not want the women to hear.

Note the drapes bunching on the floor.  This was a sign of wealth.

The drapes are all beautiful with each room having a different style or design.

This was the dining room.

The crown moulding was different in every room.

The china was beautiful.

Our guide was showing how the lumps in the mattress were rolled out by using a part of the headboard.

The music room.  Notice that the chair was stuffed with moss.

I believe this was a sitting room.

We stepped out onto the balcony through this large window.

The iron work was all made in New Orleans.

There just so happened to be a barge passing through as we were out on the balcony.

So many more photos......

I love the details in the drapes.

I thought this room was the prettiest.  I liked the combination of the color of the walls and the richness of the bedroom set.

This little room was used as a nursery.

We had a great time taking the tour.   I hope you enjoyed your little tour!

Take care,

xoxoxo

Debbie