What's Up Wednesday! - August

*Linking up with Mix & Match Family for this episode of What's Up Wednesday!

What We're Eating This Week…

We have a sweet man at church that has a massive garden that I'm SO jealous of! (Next year… next year…) He's been bringing in some delicious yellow squash, so I made some this week. There are so many ways you can make squash, and they're all so good! Fried, stir-fried, casserole… but you can't beat just some chopped squash cooked on the stove with onion, salt, pepper, and butter! That's how my mom always made it. :) I also FINALLY found some fresh okra in this town and our new neighborhood Kroger!!! Hallelujah! And I made some Cheesy Baked Chicken that I found on Pinterest -- I've made it several times now (without the sauce) and it's pretty yummy. :)

What I'm Reminiscing About…

I love my Timehop app this time of year because I always love seeing pictures from my freshman year of college at William Carey. I think it was definitely my favorite year of college, and I have such great memories with great people! 

Delta Omicron Rush Week -- School Spirit Day

Delta Omicron Rush Week -- 50's Day

Sweet friends Courtney and Ashley

What I'm Loving…

Hank's learned some new babble language recently! I'm not sure what Ba-Ba means, but it's the cutest thing ever! 

What We've Been Up To…

This week we found our neighborhood park!! It's literally just around the corner, and I know there will be MANY days spent here! Especially when the weather gets a little cooler. I just love our little neighborhood!

What I'm Dreading…

Cleaning out the fridge! Haha!

What I'm Working On…

Hank's birthday party! Menu, decor, games, etc.!

What I'm Excited About…

My Seminary Wives Institute (SWI) classes start back up this week, and my Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) starts September 4th! This semester at SWI I'm taking Biblical Interpretation and Biblical Parenting. I'm very excited about those! And this will be my first year doing BSF, and Hank gets to go to his own class, too! I think it's going to be an amazing thing for both of us. :)

What I'm Watching/Reading…

Jacob and I have a new TV obsession -- Call the Midwife! I've heard great things about the show, but I recently saw that Miranda Hart stars in it, so I was sold! (She's an English comedian that I LOVE!) We're almost finished with Season 2 on Netflix, and I can't get enough!

What I'm Listening To…

Nothing new lately

What I'm Wearing…

Lots of Alabama gear as we prepare for football season, which starts NEXT Saturday!!! AND we have cable this year!! :)

What I'm Doing This Weekend…

We are going to the 1st birthday party of one of Hank's fellow preemie friends, Dallas! :)

What I'm Looking Forward To Next Month…

My baby is turning ONE!!! I get emotional every time I think about it! He turns one on the 17th, and we're having a cowboy birthday party for him on the 19th. I've been obsessively planning it for a while now, and I can't wait to see how everything comes together! We're also doing his one-year photoshoot with his Jenny Lind highchair, birthday gear, and smash cake, and I'm so excited to see how that goes! :D

What Else Is New…

My family is coming to visit Labor Day weekend and I can't wait!! 

Home Tour -- Living & Dining Room

Today we have officially lived in our home for 3 weeks! It has been so refreshing to have this space for our little family, and we count it a blessing for sure. I offered to host a brunch here 6 days after we moved in, so that gave some incentive to get everything in order! *Almost* everything is complete now, so have a look around our living and dining room! :)

This near-100-year-old farmhouse table was built by someone in the Hatcher family. The last home it resided in was Jacob's Nana's, who passed last fall. His Papa refinished the chairs, which belonged to their dining room table. It will be an honor to dine here. (The frame has since been swapped around and now my DIY Hymn Wreath hangs there! I love it!)

Not the best photo ever, but I made this wreath from hydrangeas from our wedding! 

I loved refinishing the matching end tables and the desk. But the matching frames above the end tables are super special -- I gave them to Jacob as a wedding gift! We were married in the same church his grandparents were married in 60 years ago. One frame has a photo of us walking down the aisle, and the other frame has a photo of them walking down the same aisle. :) 

Sweet little rocker given by my grandparents for my 2nd Christmas. Hank's 6 month photos were made in this as well!

My great-grandma's mirror. I miss her dearly! She was a wonderful woman.

Big Ben lamp that I got when I returned from England, refinished table, and the rocker that Jacob's mother used to rock him in when he was a baby. :)

Some favorite frames, a refinished shelf from my in-laws, some trinkets that were part of our wedding, and a Beatrix Potter collection of books from when I was a girl. :)

That's all for now but I will have more up later! Thanks for stopping by the Hatcher Homestead! <3

DIY Hymn Wreath

Because of our recent move, I've been doing a lot of crafting lately, and I'm LOVING it! Things are slowly but surely coming together and feeling like a home. I'm one of the weirdos that loves change, so all of these new life happenings are so exciting to me! 

Yesterday I worked on a project that I've been wanting to do for a while now. You may remember my post about the DIY Book Wreath. I made this out a the book Little Women for my friend Anna Catherine's literary-themed baby shower. Since then I've been wanting to make one for myself out of a hymnal! Anyone who knows me well knows that I adore the old hymns. They are so rich in theology, truth, and poetry. I jumped at the opportunity when our church was cleaning out their library and asked people to take books home with them -- including some amazing hymnals. I grabbed a Baptist Hymnal that has a copyright date of 1954. (Interestingly enough, our house was built in 1954! :D) I picked up a styrofoam wreath form, got out my hot glue gun, and went to town! I did some rearranging in the living room to make this work, and I'm loving how it turned out! I also love that we have a constant reminder of these beautiful words that have been sung for years in our sweet church. <3

"The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold." Psalm 18:2

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being.


 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord.

Psalm 104:33-34

DIY Jewelry Holder

Hey friends! Sorry for the silence recently! Last Saturday we moved to our new house, and we still don't have internet until tomorrow! I got a notification yesterday saying that we've already used 75% of our data for the month. Whoooops! 

I finished a project today though, and I thought I'd share! If you're a woman who loves jewelry, kudos to you if you've found a way to keep your necklaces untangled! It's been YEARS and I still didn't have the proper storage...which resulted in jewelry that was tangled and knotted and ruined. I looked for jewelry holders, but I never found exactly what I was looking for. So I decided to make my own! I've had this vision in my head for a while now, and I finally found the perfect piece I had pictured up in my head. At Hobby Lobby of course! ;) This whole project was less than $20.

I got this wooden shelf on sale for 50% off at Hobby Lobby and the cup hooks at Home Depot (they were $4.21 for 100 but I only used 25). 

All you need to do is mark where you want the hooks to be, drill some pilot holes (holes a little smaller than the hook), and screw in the cup hooks! 

Voila! Now you have a very pretty and tangle-free jewelry holder! 😄🎉

Life Lately...

Hi, friends! I realize I've been a bit of a slacker on the blog lately, so I thought I'd just post a little update about what's been going on in the Hatcher family as of late! As we are preparing to move (THIS SATURDAY!!!!! *Insert praise hands emoji!*), we have been tackling a lot of projects! Mainly painting. But before I get into that, I have to share this picture of Hank a couple of weeks ago at Chick-Fil-A's Cow Appreciation Day. :D 

I'm pretty sure he's the cutest baby cow I've ever seen! :)

If you remember in my last Friday Favorites post, I was trying to decide on a Feltman Brothers outfit for a contest I won. I finally decided on this blue and white smocked bobby suit, and it came in the mail this week! I was nervous he'd be in between sizes for Christmas, and I thought this outfit would be sweet for his birthday and versatile enough to wear for more than one occasion! I can't wait to see him in it!

                                               



So, we have been doing LOTS AND LOTS of painting for our new house! Furniture, walls, signs, you name it! Here are a few pieces I've been working on…..

Our new door sign! I ordered it unfinished from Etsy and painted it with my beloved Hobby Lobby chalk paint. 

I got this retro side table from an online yard sale page and painted it a light gray. I love how it turned out, and I think it's going to be great in our living room!

Before

After!

These mirrors are a project that turned out to be a LOT bigger than I thought! (I'll post a separate blog post about them later). They are vintage -- from my mother's bedroom suite as a child! My daddy and I re-stained the dresser and lingerie chest around 5 years ago, but these mirrors were left behind. I decided to tackle them for our new house. I'm loving how they turned out! (Will post more pics and info soon!)

     

                                         
                                                                         Before

After!

Perhaps the biggest project of all was painting our living room! The former owners of our house chose some very vibrant colors for the walls… all which I can live with except for the crimson living room. I felt like it made the room a lot darker and smaller, and it definitely didn't match some of our turquoise decor! After a coat of primer and a coat of Sherwin Williams "Agreeable Gray," I am LOVING the way it looks now! The color we chose is a gray with brown undertones, so I think it's the perfect neutral! I'll have better pictures later, but here's a couple of the progress. 

That's all for now! Hope yall have a wonderful week! :)

Friday Favorites!

Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you all have had a great couple of weeks! I've been MIA and busy packing and moving things to the new house! Finally able to do a little updating, and I'm pretty exciting about this one! Linking up with Andrea for Friday Favorites again this time. ;)

One.

As if we needed more mess and chaos in our apartment while we're in the midst of a move, I decided to do a furniture project in the little walking space we have left. I am SO glad I did, though, because I love how these end tables turned out! A girl at the seminary was selling these end tables for $10 a piece, and they needed some work. I loved the shape, though -- especially the curved legs! I spent a few days painting and waxing, and I got some new drawer pulls at Hobby Lobby. I think they're going to look great in our new living room!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

(We're also going to be painting that poopy brown wall! That lamp is also one of my new FAVORITES! Half off sale at Hobby Lobby! Woo!)

Two.

While I was picking out drawer pulls at Hobby Lobby the other day, I walked by this sign. I feel sorry for the people that were near me because I turned around and went back to look at it while doing an ugly-distorted-face cry. Jacob, Hank, and I spent some time in Alabama and Nashville over the past couple of weeks, and we both got a little homesick being in our childhood homes. There were tears shed on my end. It wasn't pretty. All those emotions came flooding back when I walked past this sign, but it was a great reminder that "home" is where my two favorite men are. Crap, I'm crying now as I type this!! 

In the cart it went!

Three.

So this week I WON A CONTEST!!! I entered a giveaway on the Feltman Brothers' instagram page, and I WON a free outfit!!! (Side note: I *thought* I was winning four outfits, but it turns out it's just one. My misunderstanding. But one is still awesome!) I'm having trouble choosing!! I wore Feltman Brothers home from the hospital, and I LOVE their timeless, classic look. (I know some people don't, but I do, and I will have totally sacrificed things for myself to get a precious smocked outfit for my child. Not even a little sad about it either!) Most of their boys' outfits for Hank's upcoming size are in the Bobby Suit style. The royal family loves this style too! :))

Sweet Prince George in his bobby suit!

These are the two I'm trying to decide between right now! A precious all occasion smocked bobby suit or an adorable embroidered Christmas bobby suit!!! I love them both! 

Four. 

My *favorite* book right now is "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" by Marie Kondo. This book is so necessary in my life right now! I'm only a few chapters in, but I've purged about 6 garbage bags and boxes so far. Mess and clutter can be so stressful, and I want our new home to be a stress-free place to be. I am SUCH a sentimental pack rat, so it took some self pep talks to get rid of so many things, but I feel so much better about it!

Five.

Last but not least, my *favorite* show right now is Mr. Selfridge. Honestly, it took a little bit to get hooked, but we're on Season 2 now, and I'm loving it. I LOVE British period dramas, and this one is definitely keeping me entertained while I wait for Downtown Abbey to return for the last season. (Still heartbroken about that). Mr. Selfridge is about Harry Selfridge, a Chicago native who runs and owns a department store in London. I recommend it!!

Have a great weekend!!! 

Easy DIY Book Page Wreath

This past Sunday I had the pleasure of being a hostess at my college best friend's baby shower! She is due August 31st, and sweet baby Edley Catherine is going to have a literary-themed nursery! How precious is that?!! So we decided to go with that theme and host a classic literary-themed baby shower. :) More on that to come…

One of the things I did was some DIY decor, including a wreath made from pages of Little Women. This turned out to be SO easy and so cute, if I do say so myself!!! ;) (I plan to make one out of a hymnal for our house at some point). I had several people ask me how to make it. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics during the process, but I thought I'd share the tutorial I used on Pinterest! Check it out -- it's super easy and is a great touch for an event or your home! :) All you need is a styrofoam wreath, a book, and a hot glue gun!

Here's how mine turned out: