Seeking some Help

Michael and I have slowly been trying to decorate our little house. I've run out of budget friendly ideas for decorating our living room. Here's our color scheme: brick red, earthy sage green, taupe, and burnt orange.

Problem 1: There are too many red tones in the living room. I want to add more green some how.
Problem 2: The couch floats in the middle of the room, so I can't add any lamps because the cords would be exposed.

Problem 3: our fireplace is ginormous! The mantle is really skinny, so you can't set much on it. But mostly, it's just HUGE!

Question: How do I add color to that wall of the room with such a huge brick fireplace?

Question: What can I put behind the TV stand so that it doesn't look so awkward?

This picture (below) didn't turn out.. too much light coming through those windows. But that reminds me of a problem...

Problem 4: Our ceilings are pretty high and they are paneled with a reddish, orangish wood. Sometimes the room seems heavy.

Question: How can I lighten up the room and make it look like a young family lives here?

Let me know if you have any brilliant ideas. In a couple weeks, Momma Bruce is coming to visit and we will be shopping like crazy. That's my chance to really search for problem solving items.

Thanks in advance for your advice!!!

Our New Patio Furniture, ahh...

When we moved into our house, we knew that eventually we would NEED to get a comfortable set of patio furniture. We've got a great veiw and now we can take advantage of it. We got the set at Home Depot a few days ago and put it together ourselves. I love it!

Since the cushions are a light color, I made sure that they were thoroughly ScotchGuarded before hitting the elements (even though they are on our covered deck.)

This is a picture of part of our veiw. On clear days, you can see all the way to downtown Sacramento. It's pretty cool, I think.

A Nice Surprise... not!

Michael and I were out late this past Friday. When we got home, I rushed inside to let Cooper out so he could go potty outside. When I opened the door to the bathroom, this is what I found:

This picture does not give the mess justice... little cotton balls were everywhere!

When we're gone for more than 3 hours we leave a potty pad out for Cooper (which he uses quite nicely, and keeps our bathroom floor clean). Apparently he got bored and shredded the potty pad to peices... "Thanks, pal!"

This picture was taken later that night... an angel right? He knows how to work it.

I'm Getting There

It's been a slow start for me and this blog. I'll try to do better. Here's an update on what's happening at the Dressers.

Michael just finished another season of coaching his nephew's basketball team. He just started a city-league team with some buddies he plays with at the gym. They won their first game tonight. This picture of him is from the Basketball Hall of Fame playing on a peach basket.

I've been working at Rocklin Academy since March in 2nd grade. It's been really fun, but even more fun because I'll be teaching some of these 2nd graders next year in the Third Grade at Rocklin Academy. It's like a sneak peak for next year. Cool!

Cooper's started his puppy school at PetSmart (Michael and I needed some training ourselves). He's picking it up quickly. He's a happy puppy. Doesn't he look like he's smiling in the last picture?

Cooper's first swim.

He wanted out of that water! He seemed pretty scared, but a good, fast little swimmer.

Our EAST Coast Trip

Michael and I know that a day will come when traveling will not be so easy. So we started taking advantage of not having kids by taking our first big vacation. We started planning this trip back in January. Michael planned just about everything including the 8 ball games we went to. That's 6 baseball games and 2 basketball games. But since the vacation was almost two weeks long, that's not the only thing we did. We started out in New York visiting the major sites: Times Square, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, 5th Avenue, Central Park, and lots of other places. Then we road a train to Massachusetts to visit the Basketball Hall of Fame and Boston. Another train ride later, we were in Baltimore for an Orioles game. Next was Philadelphia where we ate as many cheesesteaks as we could... yum, yum. For fun, we hopped over to Hershey, PA to visit the Chocolate Factory. Finally, we cruised around D.C. We did so much and had so much fun... too much to tell!

Here are only a few of the hundreds of pictures we took.

Central Park

On the field at Yankee Stadium

Where everybody knows your name, Cheers in Boston

Liberty Bell

Rocky Statue, where we got hustled into taking these pictures. One dollar well worth the laughs.

The Mall in D.C. taken from the Lincoln Memorial

D.C. Temple

Surprise! We Added a Puppy to our Family!

Surprise! It was a surprise to even us, we got a cute little new puppy. After a few comments like "Wouldn't it be fun to have a puppy?" and "If we had a puppy, we could do this...." Michael and I started looking at the newspaper posts on line. At first it was just for fun to look at the cute puppy pictures. Then we saw a picture the cutest puppy and Michael made the call so we could just meet the puppy. After the "meeting" we went home with puppy.




Cooper is a spunky little guy. He's always surprising us either by how quickly he learns new tricks or by escaping from his playpens. Most of the time, Cooper is happy just chewing and playing with his toys around your feet. But when he gets tired he loves to curl up in your lap and go to sleep. When we're sitting in bed, he'll use his nose to push the sheets out of the way to sleep under the comforter.

He is almost potty trained. He knows how to tap a little bell at the door when he needs to go outside. But he still has accidents every once in awhile which frustrates Mike SO much. Shortly, Cooper will be enrolled in Puppy School. Thank Goodness!

We love our puppy!

Finally Starting My Own Blog

So many of my friends and family have adorable blogs. I love reading about what's going on in their lives and especially seeing the pictures of the latest family events. So, I'm going to join the club.