Fortissimo Happiness

I'm in nesting mode. I thought that was only supposed to happen when you're expecting a baby, but apparently not. I have been arranging and organizing at my house, and now every time I go to Joshua's house I make him nest right along with me. We've reorganized rooms, shelved books, hung pictures, and most recently installed my new/used piano that my dad got for us! It's electric, so it's much lighter than a regular piano. That is going to be handy since we'll be moving a lot as a preacher's family. Now I just need to go hunting for a bench to go with it.

I'm not sure why this homemaking phase has come on in full force, but I'm just enjoying it while it lasts!

Fall Bucket List 2012

Here is our list of things we want to do this Fall:

• Go on a hay ride
• Play in the leaves
• Go camping with friends
• Enjoy a bonfire with s'mores
• Go to a pumpkin patch
• Hike- a lot!
• Learn how to carve cool jack-o-lanterns
• Burn lots of fall smelling candles (R)
• Go on a picnic
• Bake a pie (J)
• Visit the mountains and view the fall foliage
• Celebrate Rachel's birthday!!
• Participate in the Color Run in Nashville (R)
• Go to a football game, AU or UA (or even UNA or high school)
• Continue wedding planning, but don't let it take over our lives. Spend time together every week without talking about wedding plans.
• Spend Thanksgiving with our families

and last, but certainly not least:

• Celebrate the marriage of our sister Rachel to Joseph Kirby!

We're excited for our favorite season of the year!! 

Fun Vacation Photos

Here are some pictures from the Sparkman family vacation. There was a wonderful surprise at the end! Isn't this better than the old slideshows on the wall...maybe?

Click here to view this photo book larger

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A Story of Asparagus and Seaweed

Huzzah for our first blog post! This will be our wedding website when I get around to making it, but for now it's just a blog. We've been engaged for a few weeks, and I have officially caught the wedding planning bug. My Pinterest has exploded, we've been on venue hunting trips, and I've already got an awesome designer friend working on the invitations. Nothing is final yet, however, so I don't have anything to show you about the wedding. 

However, you might know that Joshua took a church appointment back in June. His new church, and consequently new parsonage, is in Houston, AL, a tiny little town on Smith Lake. He's loving it so far, and since I get to move in there in 7ish months, he's letting me do some decorating! We needed to paint the master bedroom so he could move his stuff in there, so we started our first home project together.

I don't know why that's so blurry, but they're just plain white walls.

I went looking for color palettes, and found this one that I think is really supposed to be for a kids' room, but I like it!

Beautiful, right?

I love color, but I am awful at picking out paint. My eye is drawn to the most beautiful colors on the cards, but I can't seem to picture what they will look like on the wall. Joshua didn't know that about me yet, so he let me pick out the paint color, Wild Western Asparagus, and it. was. awful!! It was a really light pastel green that glowed like it was radioactive when the sun hit it. On top of that, it's nothing like the green on the color palette, so I'm not sure why I even picked it.

You can't tell how much it glows from this pic, but it's burned into my memory.

SO, once we got the first coat on and figured out how much we hated it, we headed on the 30 minute trip back to Lowe's in Cullman, on the search for a prettier green. We found lots of them, and I got overwhelmed with all of the choices, so I let Joshua pick. He picked the two he liked, and we held them up to the pillowcase that will be in the room. Then I picked the one I liked best, Seaweed wrap! I thought that was pretty good cooperation for our first big project together.

Lovely! Finally!

The last part went really smoothly, and I think it looks great! It's a little darker than the color palette, but I think it makes it look more adult. We'll have a blue bedspread and brown, cream and orange accents throughout the room. I can't wait until I get to move in!

The comforter that I already own.

Maybe with some curtains and/or pillows like this?

Or this...

What do you think of our new master bedroom?