Our Wonderfully Blessed Life

Prayer Requests

2012-02-08T09:16:00.001-05:00

My heart is heavy this morning for many people that have been a big part of my life for many years. These people are dear friends to me and my family. Right now they are facing giants and need more than anything to be lifted up in prayer. Will you please join in praying for these people and their families?

First, please pray for John who a gentleman my Dad's age from my parents church (in FL) was diagnosed with AML (acute myeloid leukemia) yesterday and is starting an aggressive round of chemo today. The Drs. have not given him a timeline but we know that this form of leukemia advances quickly. John has a wonderful family (wife, 3 children and 3 grandchildren) and a strong church family as well-this was his Facebook status this morning "Thank you all for the calls and prayers and concerns about me. I have been diagnosed with AML )acute myeloid leukemia) and on top of that I have contacted pneumonia, and my luck is a rare form. I would appreciate the continued prayer and support for my family at this time starting tomorrow is when the real battle starts. I serve a BIG God and I always believe and always taught that book and whatever the outcome of this I'm on the WINNING TEAM. My friends and church family are second to none. With God's blessing and marvelous grace. I leave you with this, that his grace is sufficient to me. With much love, Brother John."

I am so thankful for his strong faith in the Lord, who is obviously giving him peace with this horrible situation. Praise the Lord!

Second, please pray for a woman named Tina. She is a wonderful friend to my family in Florida and also a member of the church my family attends in Florida. She is in her 30s and was diagnosed with breast cancer a week or so ago. She has many appointments this week at Mayo Clinic with her oncologist and surgeons to determine the best treatment plan for her-lumpectomy vs. mastectomy and chemo vs. radiation. She has a husband and 2 children in high school as well. Pray for her strength and wisdom for her doctors!

Last, please pray for another member of my parents Church-Harry. He is also my parents age and has 3 daughters that I grew up with. He has many health issues, including diabetes (we share that one!). Complications from diabetes have risen in the recent months and he has been added to the transplant list for kidneys and also liver. His condition has improved since last week and he has been released from the hospital and is spending time at home and the drs. office for dialysis.

I appreciate being able to reach out to friends and family who read our blog to lift these people up in prayer and I know they and their families would appreciate it so much!

"Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."
James 5: 13-16 NIV

Please let me know if there is anyway I can lift you, your family or friends up in prayer!

Weekend Wrap-Up! :)

2012-02-07T13:50:00.004-05:00

This past weekend was a busy one around our house. Normally our weekend are laid back, and set to our own schedule with the exception of Sunday School and Church on Sundays.

Anyways...Friday night we did some grocery shopping to get some things I needed for the Mary-Kay party on Saturday. We ate dinner at Hardee's (YUCK-Stephen ended up eating his meal plus mine) and then went home to ready for Saturday. We worked together to cross things off my to-do list (of course I had a list!) and got everything done in good time! I am so thankful for a husband who doesn't mind helping me clean up the house or cook something in the kitchen. I am so blessed in that way!

Saturday I still had a few things to do to get ready for the party-like ice the cupcakes! I spent the morning in the kitchen wearing my PJS baking and decorating up a storm. Of course Louie was right there with me in his typical fashion! Our weather was quite cold on Saturday, but we didn't get much snow. Well, I guess we got a little snow on Friday night but it was all gone by Saturday afternoon. It still doesn't look like winter here! We set up for the Mary-Kay party and relaxed together a little before people started arriving.

The party went great and I had a wonderful time. I hope the guest enjoyed it as much as I did! We had 6 wonderful ladies come, which turns out was a perfect number! We all fit around our dining room table comfortably and were able to talk, laugh and really enjoy each others company. I was very impressed with how Louie handled our guests. He did not bark or growl once! He would sniff them and then move on to wherever I was...always my shadow!

The menu at the party was simple:

Funfetti Rose Cupcakes (picture below)

Veggie Tray w/ Aunt Erin's Famous (in my mind!) Ranch Dip

Veggie Pizza (Thanks to my mother-in-law who brought this!)

Oreo Truffles (AMAZING!)

Crackers & Cheese Cubes

I really enjoyed hosting-surprising since it has felt like forever since I hosted anything! Yay for a successful first party at our house!

Sunday we taught Sunday School for the 5th and 6th grade class and had 3 new kids! I really hope they come back next week :) After Sunday school and church we headed home and ate left over food from the Mary-Kay party while watching Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2. I actually like the Harry Potter movies, but the last 2 have a little to much snake in them for me so I keep my eyes closed a lot. So much in fact that I fell asleep on Sunday afternoon...it was a great time for a nap!

Also on Sunday we spent some time outside because the sun was out and that's a wonderful thing! Louie was so funny and cute running around the back yard. I think he can't wait for Spring and Summer when we can go on nightly walks again. We snapped a few pictures and a darling video. Watch it. I promise you won't be sorry!

For the Superbowl we headed to a friend and co-workers house which ended up being totally worth it for me because I got lots of baby time with her precious baby boy. I don't really care about the Superbowl (at all), but I could have watched that game over and over with him on my lap. Just precious!

Here are some pictures and the video I mentioned earlier:

And that's our weekend in wrap-up form! Next weekend we will have our youngest niece overnight and be adding tile back splash to our kitchen. Should be a busy and fun couple of days!

If you have any experience with glass tiles or back splash let me know! Advice is invited!! :)

Happy Tuesday!

Midweek Randoms!

2012-02-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

It is February 1st and I am wearing open toed shoes...in Indiana. This is NOT normal. While I feel like I probably shouldn't complain about this fact, I just can't help by complain. I want winter, with snow falling, hot tea, snuggling and watching movies and sledding galore. So far this year we have had a couple snow falls, but with no opportunity to play in it :(
Last Year on Feb. 10th the temperature was -6*, this year the high is 40*...and that will probably go up before the 10th gets here!
We have family coming up on the 17th to see snow and I don't know if there is going to be snow for them to see. This is just sad! I am super excited to see them though!
I am LOVING my new car...still a little sad that I had to say goodbye to my Civic, but I know we did the right thing!
Louie has been keeping us on our toes. It is so funny when he is in a playful mood. I love coming home from work and seeing him waiting at the door for me. He is just the most precious thing...
We will be headed to Florida in 45 days for vacation-AND we are taking Louie with us! We just could not bear to leave him with a stranger or in a kennel. Given his abusive background and the fact that he was in a kennel for 5 years I just could not do that to him. Pray for us on this trip...should be fun, right?
I am already looking forward to the Vera Outlet Sale. Remember last years sale? It was so much fun and this year will be too! My good friend Brooke and her Mom are driving up from Kentucky to join and will be staying at our house. I am so looking forward to seeing them both again!
I am hosting my first party at our house and I am nervous yet excited at the same time. All week I have been thinking of creative ways to display food and different things...it's so fun! If you like Mary-Kay or want to learn more about Mary-Kay; you can shop here. Right now there is free shipping!
Did I mention we are going to Florida and I am excited? Well, I am! I am ready for some BBQ and some sunshine! Oh, and Mickey Mouse...can't forget him since we will be at Disney!
The Honda dealership where we purchased our car offers free car washes whenever you want. I can tell you that I really like that feature and have already taken advantage of it! :) I love a clean car!
I could care less about the Superbowl. There, I said it. I know it is in Indianapolis this year and that is great for our state but I don't care to be part of it. I did that when it was in Jacksonville and I wasn't impressed then either. We are going to a Superbowl party...the hostess bribed me with her son since she knows how much I love babies, ha!
We are planning on adding backsplash in our kitchen next weekend...should be fun!
We now have a lovely deep freezer in our basement. It was a lovely gift from Stephen's parents this Christmas and it will be used a lot with our little family. Can't wait to stock it full of veggies and meat!

That's really all I have to share for now...but I will leave you with some pictures taken over the course of the past week:

Above: Driving the new car on Saturday together :)

Below: The pretty blue sky and dusting of snow from Friday. It was lovely outside!

The pretty weather disappeared and left is with this on Sunday morning:

Got this idea from Pinterest and I love the way it turned out:

Louie has been snuggly this week and I love it. How handsome is he?!

Hope everyone has a great Wednesday and enjoys the rest of the week!

Weekend Wrap-Up & a New Car!

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

How was every one's weekend? Ours was WONDERFUL. I truly mean that. Let's start with Friday :

I left work early because the snow was coming down pretty steady and I wanted (needed) to get home before it got dark...because driving in the snow in the dark is 10x harder than just driving in the snow for me. Oh, and the roads looked like this:

Anyways, I headed home and even made it home in less than an hour with the snow. That was pretty good time! I think it benefited me that there were not many cars on the road...This was my car after driving home on Friday:

The last time I will see the Civic in our garage...more on that later!

Friday night the hubster and I stayed home with Louie instead of doing our usually Friday night grocery shopping. We cleaned the house a little and discussed what to make for dinner. I was craving pizza but did not want to spend the money, or have all the calories of delivery pizza so I decided to use a new recipe I had pinned on Pinterest for a pizza casserole. As usual, Pinterest did not disappoint me. The casserole was delicious and we still have some leftovers to enjoy. Maybe I will share that recipe with you later this week! We snuggled on the couch with our homemade pizza casserole and watched Courageous. Have you seen that movie? It is incredible. We saw it in theaters a couple months ago and it was just as good the second time around. Really, if you have not seen it you need to as soon as possible. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Saturday morning we woke up to even more snow. It might have snowed pretty much all night off and on...it was beautiful! Louie did not like it too much at first but he eventually warmed up I guess...he was so funny licking the snow and running around with snow on his nose. I snapped some pictures of our favorite puppy dog:

After getting ready and digging out of our garage so we could get the car out we were on our way to Fort Wayne. It took awhile to shovel out our driveway, but it was very nice of one of our neighbors to come help :) We were on our way first to Lowe's to purchase the backsplash that I blogged about here. We ended up getting everything we need for the kitchen backsplash project, so we are ready for that soon. I am excited about it even though we know it will be a lot of work and I like to think we are ready for a challenge :)

After Lowe's we grabbed some food and went to our first car dealership. We were not pleased with the customer service or friendliness offered at the VW dealership in Fort Wayne and ended up at the Honda dealership where we traded my 2006 Civic. We test drove a CRV at both dealerships but ended up getting a much better deal and warranty through Honda, so that's where we ended up. It took hours to sign everything and get out the door! I will say that it was hard watching the Civic drive away in the end and I might have teared up a little. It was my Grandpa's last car and he loved it. There was a story behind that car. Actually, there were a couple funny stories behind that car. And I loved the car too. In the end, I know it is only a car and that we were making the right decision because the Civic was just not safe enough for me with the ice and snow we deal with in Northern Indiana. The CRV is much safer and has 4WD. I asked Stephen to take some pictures of me and the Civic for the last time:

Then we went to take pictures of the new car:

We ended up with a 2009 Honda CRV that's silver with black leather interior and 4WD. We were leaning more toward Honda when comparing small SUV's simply because I have always driven and loved a Honda. In the end, the CRV got better gas mileage, had more storage room (72 sq. ft), and better crash test ratings than most other small SUV's. It was an easy decision for us and we are so pleased with the outcome. I love the car and how it drives! I also really like that it is the same color as Papa's civic was, I think he would like that :)

Sunday we taught Sunday School and went to late service-then we met Stephen's parents and his brother and his wife for lunch before going grocery shopping. We spent the rest of the afternoon at home. Stephen watched some football and hung this lamp:

It's a well lamp that I ordered a while back and it finally came in. I love that we have some light near the sofa now so we can actually read in the living room. There was no room for a small table or even a floor lamp before, so this is perfect!

While Stephen was watching football and hanging the lamp I was baking up a storm in the kitchen. Pinterest had me going...I think I made 4 or 5 different things that we will eat all week long for breakfast and snacks. It felt good to be back in the kitchen cooking because I feel like it has been awhile!

And that's pretty much it. A great, blessed, productive and loving weekend! :)

Oh, and the only picture of us all weekend:

Have a great Monday, y'all!

Random thoughts for this Tuesday:

2012-01-17T15:41:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: All of the pictures used in this post are cell phone pictures. Please excuse the poor quality!

1. We are having some weird weather here in Indiana. Well, at least I think it is weird. Let’s just say that we had snow but it is all melted now and last night we had thunderstorms. Thunderstorms in January! I even had to wear my rain boots to work today because of all the water. Is it not spring, it is winter! Oh and our high today? Yeah, it’s in the 50’s.

2. Our high on Friday is 23 degrees. In the 50’s on Tuesday and in the 20’s on Friday, that’s totally normal, right?

3. We finally got our Christmas gifts put away and/or hung up this weekend. The pile if gifts that was neatly stacked in our bedroom was driving.me.nuts.

4. Speaking of hanging things, several new things are adorning our walls at home and I love it.

This is our new gallery wall by our staircase. Mom & Dad got us these great frames for Christmas. Love!!

These new sconces are from Kohls and they are in the library-where up until last weekend we had nothing on the walls! I am working on a painting that will go in between them!

This puzzle was a gift from my Grandma this Christmas. It looks very good in our library and I think it will be something we treasure forever. She even wrote a note on the back of it!

5. I got a lovely Christmas gift from my sister-in-law that I can’t wait to use. She got me the Baby Cakes Cake-Pop maker, which is essentially a Easy Bake Oven for adults. I am so ready to put it to use. Maybe this weekend! J

6. Louie has been acting like he feels much better, even running around with energy. I want to teach him how to play but since he never has he just doesn’t get it. We have a couple toys that he will sniff and just walk away from. What toys do yours dogs love? I need some ideas for something he will actually use!

7. The hubster and I picked out what tile we want for our backsplash last weekend at Lowe’s. I think it is perfect!! Just waiting for our 10% off coupon to arrive via email and we will be purchasing the tiles for our spring project!

What do you think?

8. Last weekend we also did a little car shopping. My car is just not safe in the winter with snow. We are comparing the Honda CRV and other compact SUV’s that offer 4WD or AWD. Do you have any recommendations or reviews to offer from personal experience? We have heard wonderful things about the CRV and are leaning in that direction. Probably going to test drive this weekend!

9. Getting a new car means getting rid of my old car which makes me sad. My Honda Civic was my Grandpa’s last car and I took over his payments when he became too ill to drive. It breaks my heart that it won’t be staying in our family. L I might cry when I give over the keys…

10. A new aquatic and fitness center just opened near our house. Read: about six blocks away. Every night I drive by it and wish we had a membership so I could get some exercise and work harder at losing weight. A 12 month membership for me and the hubster is $400. I think it is time to sign up!

11. I have not had a gym membership since I was in high school and worked at the YMCA. Membership was my only benefit and I loved going to work out…hopefully I can find that love again! Maybe paying for the membership will actually motivate me to go! Ya think?

12. We have been watching Mary Poppins and it is such a fun movie! A spoonful of sugar… J

13. Oh, we also watched Mr. Poppers Penguins last weekend and LOVED it. A must see!

14. I LOVE after Christmas sales! We found some cute (and cheap) stuff last weekend at Kohls. This included the perfect ornament for Louie to remember his first Christmas with us. We I was so excited!

15. I could keep going and thinking of random things, but I thought maybe I should stop. Don’t want me readers to get bored!

The rest of Mom, Dad & Hunter's visit {Part 2}

2012-01-17T07:02:00.000-05:00

I realize this post has taken me forever to get published...can't say I really have an excuse. If you didn't read or don't remember Part 1, get caught up here.

While Mom & Dad were here we headed to Amish Country for them to get a taste of it all. We planned on doing the tour at Amish Acres, but unfortunately they close for the winter so we were not able to. I was a bit disappointed by this, but we didn't let that stop us. The restaurant was still open (it is closed now though) so we did get to enjoy an Amish Fest. It was D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S! Seriously, if you ever have an opportunity to eat at an authentic Amish restaurant, DO IT!

After lunch we strolled around some of the property and took a couple pictures:

We stopped at a couple antique stores on the way back home and had a great time doing so. Stephen and I enjoy places like that! We had been in these antique stores before, so it was nice to show them to Mom and Dad. Hunter was not too thrilled about the shopping for "old crap", but he put up with it pretty well! Maybe it was because we promised to go bowling with him that night? He rarely bowls in Florida, but loves to bowl up here!

That night can you guess what we did? If you guessed we went bowling, you are correct! The bowling alley in our town is small-about 6 lanes I think. We bowled there last year with Hunter and ended up going to a different, bigger bowling alley in another town. This year we tried it again and stuck it out. We were the only people in there each night (we went 3 nights in a row). It was awesome!

I loved the big tree they had inside:

We bowled and bowled and bowled. Hunter improved some each night, which was nice to see. Now he loved bowling even more and I know he has gone at least once since we returned home. Stephen and I have thought about going bowling since they left but it just seems weird to go without Hunter, ha!

Hunter also like "ice skating" in our yard. The snow was pretty icy to begin with, so that made some pretty icy tracks going into the garage. It was funny to watch him tackle the graceful job of ice skating on this "ice". He totally provided us with entertainment! I will say thought, that he did not fall once. Bravo, Hunter!

Another day we headed north, almost to the Indiana and Michigan state line for some shopping. We first went to my Dad's favorite store; Bass Pro Shops. It was cold outside on this day. Like freezing. It was nice that we were all bundled up close together in the back of Dad's truck:

While Dad shopped, we spent time looking around the store. Have you ever been in one of these? They are incredible and all different. So very cool! Hunter and Mom had an impromptu photo shoot when they did the exact same thing unknowingly, ha. Love that they think alike so much!

We ate at Quaker Steak and Lube, which was pretty amazing. Hunter had hot wings that he talked about all day long, and I had a hot wing salad that I would order again in a heartbeat. I really like trying new places and finding out they are delicious. It is not so much fun when you hate your food and leave hungry, you know? After lunch we stopped at the outlet mall and I stocked up with some new jeans that I desperately needed. It was another fun (but cold) day in Indiana!

Mom, Dad & Hunter left for Florida (via: Georgia) dark and early the next morning. It was quiet in our house and seemed so odd! We really enjoyed the time they spent here with us and hope they come back again soon!

The rest of Mom, Dad & Hunter's Visit {Part 1}

2012-01-09T05:44:00.000-05:00

The day after Christmas we had some shopping to do. Well, I had some shopping to do. :) I have for years always bought wrapping paper for next year on the day after Christmas. It is cheap and always on sale, so why not stock up for next year? I love saving money!

I also wanted to get some more Christmas decor type things for the house. I wanted some more wreaths and ornaments this year, but since it is silly to pay full price for these things...I tried to wait patiently. I can tell you now that we scored some super cute and very affordable Christmas wreaths that will adorn our doors next year. Each door should have a wreath on it if all goes as planned! We also got some ornaments for our silver and green tree, since next year it will be much taller. Taller = bigger and bigger = it will need more ornaments. Agree? Okay, great!

Moving on...

The next day we woke up to snow. Actually, I set my alarm for 4am (when the snow was supposed to start falling in our area) and had promised Hunter that I would wake him up if it was indeed snowing. Well, sadly at that time it was still raining so back into bed I went. When we woke up around 8 that morning though, it was snowing and the ground was already covered.

Everyone was SO excited!

We got ready and headed to Warsaw for some walking and shopping. Mom wanted to eat at The Boathouse, but Hunter really wanted to eat at Long John Silvers because they closed in Florida...in the end Long John Silvers won. I forgot how greasy that place is!

After eating we headed to Winona Village to walk around the boutiques and do a little shopping. Here are the pictures from that trip:

Once we made it home, we changed clothes and packed up to head to the park for some sledding and snow fun! Hunter got to wear his new snowboarding pants, so he was thrilled J We all bundled up and hit the road…since the hubs, Hunter and I had on layers and layers of clothes we decided not to squeeze into the back of the truck but rather to ride in the bed of the truck sitting on saucer sleds. Disclaimer: the park is only a couple blocks from our house so we felt we were safe going that short of a distance. The bed of the truck had a bit of ice and snow in it, so we kind of slid around whenever Dad turned. It was pretty fun, but I was worried about the dangers of it! Here are some pictures of us headed to the park:

And sledding:

Then the guys started building a snowman. It was pretty awesome. Dad and Hunter even used their pocket knives to help shape the snow ball. Pretty funny! I didn’t get a finished picture of the snowman because my camera battery died (poor planning on my part), but just try to imagine a snowman with wooden arms, 2 eyes and a camouflage baseball cap. Have that picture in your head? That’s their snowman!

Mom and I decided the snowman building was a man’s job, so we sat pretty and took some pictures:

All in all, it was an amazing day in Indiana. We prayed for snow and we got snow…enough to play in while my parents were here. It was beautiful outside, too!

God is SO good!

Stayed tuned for Part 2!

Christmas Morning & Day!

2012-01-06T05:14:00.000-05:00

{Picture heavy post-consider yourself warned!}

Our first Christmas in the new house was pretty wonderful in my opinion! We started the day out not too early, at around 9am. We cooked breakfast, ate a little, then started opening presents. The morning was perfect for me. Here is the breakdown in picture form:

The tree on Christmas morning...

Breakfast waiting to be eaten. Hashbrown casserole (old family recipe), cream cheese and sausage pinwheels, and sticky bun breakfast ring. All so delicious!

Mom & Dad starting to open gifts :)

One of the nice gifts I was so excited about. I love Wood Wick!

For a Florida boy, Hunter was pretty excited about opening snowboarding pants as a Christmas gift!

The hubsters big gift was this saw. I was very proud of myself for not letting it slip to him and also for hiding it so very well. Fun fact: I actually ordered this online and had it delivered to his sisters house so he would not see it! He was excited!

After opening gifts and trying to corral the wrapping paper to one area, we had a little photo shoot:

Louie on Christmas morning. He was not too sure about all the noise and commotion but he did really well!

He got so many nice gifts from Santa and other pups in our family in Florida. This sweater was the first one we opened. So cute!

Look at his brown eyes, I just love them!

"Please pick me up, Mommy!"

The whole family :) The little white dog belongs to my parents. His name is Bristol. Lets just say that he and Louie did NOT become friends over the week.

Our little family on Christmas morning...

Me & Mom in our Mickey and Minnie Santa hats, love it!

We spent the rest of the day cooking and mostly eating...we ate so much delicious food! Our menu included ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, baked macaroni and cheese and corn. Desert was a delicious key lime pie. After eating half our body weight we went for a little drive to see the covered bridge in Manchester. We did a quick tour of our town that included a stop at Stephen's sisters house while his parents were there. After that we returned home...can you guess what we did?

If you guess EAT, you are right! :) We ate again and finished the night with a family Christmas movie and Louie snuggled up between me and the hubster:

So sweet!

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”-Luke 2: 8-12

Happy New Year & Christmas Re-caps!

2012-01-05T13:11:00.001-05:00

First and foremost, we want to wish everyone of our readers a Happy New Year. We pray that 2012 blesses you beyond measures! I can sometimes get sad over the ending of a year and starting of a new one, but this year I have challenged myself to look at 2012 as a positive change! 2011 was an incredible year for us; it was our first year as a married couple and we bought a beautiful home. If 2012 even has half the blessings that 2011 did, we will be good! :)

Secondly, I have so many updates that I need to get out. With the business of the season AND a winter cold I am feeling pretty behind the 8 ball on this one. Sorry about that! I seemed to catch a cold last weekend, and it hit suddenly this week. I actually stayed home from work yesterday (which is unlike me) to rest and hydrate. Today I am back at work, and feeling much better-but still not good. I pray that this cold leaves quickly and soon because we have another family Christmas celebration this weekend. It would be wonderful if I didn't have to worry about spreading germs and was able to enjoy the time with family celebrating the birth of our Lord! Please pray for that, will you?

Now, I will talk about Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas with my parents and brother in Indiana. It was the first time I was not home in Florida for Christmas. While I expected it to feel weird, or something-it really didn't. It felt right. Not that I did not think about or miss my family in Florida that we would have spent the day with; because I did. But it was nice to spend Christmas in our home, in our state and with my parents. By the way, this was their first trip to Indiana!

Christmas vacation started Thursday night for me because I did not have to work on Friday. The hubster did have to work, but his day ended up being short enough that we were able to get lunch together at Cerulean's and do some shopping, too. What a blessing that was! After shopping the afternoon away, we headed home for what I thought would be a relaxing evening. Well, it wasn't. I was taking a bubble bath when Stephen started yelling about something with Louie. I got out to find that Louie was doing something that looked like a seizure, foaming at the mouth, and unable to control/move his back legs. We panicked and called out vet. Thankfully our vet has an emergency line at all times, so we talked to a Dr. right away and he met us at the clinic in about 30 minutes. I was able to calm Louie down, get some water in him and convince myself that everything would be okay. By the time we went the vet he was walking and using his back legs-thank the Lord! The vet said that after that long if we still was not using them it would have been a bad, bad sign. As it turns out, Louie had a pulmonary embolism (blood clot) from his heat worm treatments. He was treated at the office Friday night with several shots and we were under strict orders to watch him very closely and keep him calm. I set my alarm an got up every 2 hours Friday night to make sure he was okay and breathing steady. It was such a scary night for all of us!

Saturday, we stayed home and did things to tidy up the house before my parents arrived.

We planned on going to church for the Christmas Eve service but I was worried about my parents arriving while we were there. Mom, Dad and Hunter had left Florida around 3am, so they had a ETA of 8pm...which was right in the middle of our church service. Regardless of timing, we decided to go to church :) We snapped some pictures before leaving:

You can't see the tree behind us, but this was our Christmas Eve in front of the tree picture!

As it turns out, God had other plans for our Christmas Eve. Mom & Dad did make it to our town while we were at church and they killed time by stopping at McDonald's for dinner (it was the only place open). All the while, we were at church but I started feeling bad. I checked my blood sugar before going to church it was good, but when we got there it was much lower. About 20 minutes into the service it dropped even lower-to the point where I was seeing spots. I let the hubster know what was going on and he said we should leave. Focusing on getting to the car where I knew we had glucose tabs hidden in the glove box, I didn't even realize what time it was. We headed home and got there about 10 minutes before my parents pulled up.

Had we not left church early because of a low blood sugar they would have been stuck sitting in our driveway waiting on us...after a 16 hour drive. Had I been in their shoes, I would not have been happy about that. So, see how it all worked out? God knew what he was doing!

After greeting my parents and introducing their dog, Bristol to Louie-the men started unloading the truck. What a load they had brought up with them! Along with their luggage for the week, they also had gifts from them ("Santa"), other family members, friends, a antique chair that was my great-grandma's, a 9.5ft artificial Christmas tree for us to use next year (YAY!), and a few other things. The truck was FULL! After all the unloading, Mom & Dad went to bed pretty quickly. Hunter stayed up with us while we rearranged the gifts under the tree so it was pretty (my idea), and caught up a little before going to bed.

I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve again because I could.not.sleep! I was just so overjoyed with my parents being in Indiana and guests in my house and the fact that the next morning was Christmas morning!

Childlike joy is an awesome thing!

Christmas Morning/Day coming up tomorrow!

Our 2011 Christmas Card

2011-12-22T09:23:00.003-05:00

Berry Merry Christmas

Send Christmas cards personalized with your family photos.

View the entire collection of cards.

With only days until Christmas I thought now would be the perfect time to share our Christmas card with all of you! I wish that we could send a card to each and every person we know, or who reads our blog but unfortunately we can't. I hope that this is the next best thing! Our Christmas cards were ordered from Shutterfly, and just like years passed we were not disappointed. They have the cutest designs and really affordable prices, too.

We have received so many beautiful Christmas cards this year from family and friends and I LOVE it. I really look forward to coming home everyday in December and seeing if we got any cards in the mail. It is one of my favorite things about this season! I hope that Christmas card giving never goes out of style...

I have noted to purchase more cards next year...hopefully we will remember to up our order so we can send out even more!

What about you, how many cards do you usually send out? Do you love receiving them, too?

a much needed update...

2011-12-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

Hi y'all! December is a busy month, yes? I feel like we have been going, going and going. I could not imagine how tired I might feel if we had not been done with our Christmas shopping and wrapping 2 weeks ago. Thank goodness all of that is already done! I have many things to share with you, including pictures from the past couple of weeks- get excited!

But first, I want to start this post off with some bulleted points-because sometimes, it is just easier to get things out that way!

I am so excited that it is only 4 days until Christmas. I kind of can't believe it.
My parents plans have changed and they will be here on Christmas Eve, instead of the day after Christmas. I am excited about this too!
Actually, I am just excited about everything Christmas. This is an incredible season!
Our live Christmas tree is still green and going strong. Think we will be able to leave it up into January?
I thought I had all my grocery shopping done for the rest of this year, but things changed as of this morning and it looks like we will be having ham instead of enchiladas for Christmas dinner. To the grocery store I go!
I have baked and prepared some meals ahead of time for next week and now my freezer is stock full. I don't know if I could fit another thing in there!
Speaking of the above, we could really benefit from having a deep freezer or even an extra standard fridge/freezer in the garage.
Also speaking of the above, I REALLY could use some more Pyrex dishes because they are all occupied right now!
We have had some snow in our area, but it has all disappeared pretty quickly. I am not too happy about this. The white Christmas I was dreaming of doesn't even seem like a possibility now.
Louie's fur is growing in after his grooming a couple week ago, I think he looks so cute!
Speaking of Louie, we go to the vet this afternoon to get re-tested for heart worms. Please pray that he is heart worm free. I don't think his little body or our wallets could handle more treatments.
I got new low lights in my hair last week and I went redder than I ever have before. I have to say, I kind of like it!
My cell phone battery will not charge. It is getting really old having to take a charger with my everywhere and plug it in constantly. Thankfully, a new battery is on it's way and should arrive very soon.
We have SO much food at work. It is crazy...no wonder people gain weight during the holidays!
I look forward to getting the mail everyday in December. I love getting Christmas cards. Our display is currently out of control and I LOVE it!

Are you ready for some pictures?

Well, here goes:

This picture was taken in the car on the way to my department Christmas party. We were waiting on a very long train that was going super slow. Don't you just love that? 12/9/2011

One Sunday we watched our nieces while their parents did some Christmas shopping. We had made salt dough ornaments weeks before so they were excited to paint them!

Hadley was a speed painter and finished all hers pretty quickly. They were all a mixture of every color paint we had-fitting for a 3 year old! Emma was careful and spent some time working on each of hers. They turned out beautiful!

Stephen was a great helper, especially with Hadley.

Louie wasn't sure about the painting, but he did look super cute in his sweater! :)

The girls with their finished ornaments and smiles. Love them!

Saturday 12/16/2011 we woke up so snow. I was SO excited! It was all gone by Sunday afternoon, but it was so beautiful while it lasted. This day was also the Christmas gathering for Stephen's extended family. We ate, and ate, and ate all while watching different basketball games. Delicious and fun! :)

Snow and new red hair, you can really notice it in this picture because of how it stands out against the white snow. Love it! :)

We tried to get some family pictures in front of the tree...I guess we were successful. I am hoping for a round two sometime this weekend though!

Look at those brown eyes! Oh how I love them! :)

That is what we have been up to in a nutshell these past couple weeks. Well, that and trying to relax and trying to remember the true meaning of Christmas. I am so thankful for this season and for the love of Jesus. What an incredible blessing!

I plan on taking pictures and posting a Christmas tour of our house tomorrow. The pictures may not be that great though if I run out of daylight today. Pray for a good, fast and easy vet visit for me and Louie. I really hope that he is heart worm free! That would be the BEST Christmas present!

Have a great day!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Isaiah 9:6 NIV

Weekend Wrap-Up, Mid-Week Randoms & Louie!

2011-12-08T12:57:00.000-05:00

So this is a little late...I am sure everyone can understand schedules being delayed and messed up with the busy Christmas season :) So yes, that is my excuse!

Last weekend we...FINISHED OUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! I don't know if I have ever been done this early, but it feels so good! On top of being done buying, everything is also wrapped! I feel like it was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders when everything was done. I love wrapping, really I do-but from now until the end of the year our weekend calenders are full. That would leave no time for shopping or wrapping. See?

We hit two malls on Saturday and they were already a little too crazy for my taste. Both were offering gift wrapping though, so it was very nice and convenient. At one mall, Habitat for Humanity put together a wonderful display of Christmas houses and villages for you to walk through. The tour ended at a gift wrapping counter where there were sweet ladies ready to box, wrap and tag gifts. It was a huge blessing to get that done right there at the mall. Brilliant I tell ya, BRILLIANT!

Here are some pictures I snapped of the villages:

They had a village set up that looked exactly like the set from A Christmas Story. We really enjoyed that because we just watched the movie last week AND it takes place in Indiana. I loved that they had a life size leg lamp on display too!

On Sunday we went to church and our niece's basketball games. In between church and games we had a snack at home, wrapped the remaining gifts that did not get wrapped at the mall and watched a new Christmas movie that we picked up; The Christmas Hope. I think this movie was originally a Lifetime movie, but they have released it to DVD now. Stephen and I both enjoyed it and thought it was a good $4 purchase from Family Christian Bookstores!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty usual days...nothing out of the ordinary.

Wednesday I took Louie to the groomers for the very first time.

We snapped a before picture in the car:

See how furry he is? Well-not anymore! It was difficult leaving him at the groomers because I could tell how scared he was. I can't imagine how I will feel when we need to leave our child with someone one day...my heart might not be able to handle it. Anyways, I worried about him most of the day until Stephen picked him up and told me he was okay but that he looked like a girl. Ha! I begged Stephen to email me a picture and this is what I got:

The groomer said that he did really well-especially for it being his first time. He was not matted at all, so we are doing a good job brushing him out a couple times a week. Thankfully he does not fight us when we try to brush him, so it's pretty easy. The visit only cost $25, so I was thrilled about that too. I was expecting a higher bill!

When I got home I went to town taking pictures of the little guy and getting the bows out of his fur. I have NO idea how they tied the bows in, but I ended up cutting them out. I agreed with Stephen that he looked much more "manly" with his hair bows in the garbage. Here are some of the ~~many~~ pictures I snapped:

Whats the verdict on the groomers? We will be going there with him again, but not often. I really like him fluffy and furry, so I think I will just trim this cut around his face as it grows out but let his body curl again. I am thankful that I can see his pretty eyes now since his face has never been cut or groomed professionally. I think that having a cut to follow will be easier for me to maintain than starting from scratch with him. Did he like it? I am not sure he liked the groomers. He was jumpy last night...it was quite funny!

On a positive note: he lots so much fur that we have 2 sweaters that were too small for him, but they now fit! Our next Louie adventure will be on December 16th when we go back to the vet to re-test for heart worms. Pray that his treatments worked and that he is heart worm free! :)

And last but not least, we have this cute video of Louie. He gets so excited when we come home that we thought we should video it. I am so glad we did-it's my favorite time of the day!

This was taking on Sunday, so before his grooming!

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...everywhere you turn!

2011-12-01T06:55:00.000-05:00

Well folks, we finally got our first snowfall this season! I had been waiting anxiously for quite some time, so I was maybe the only person who was actually excited about it. Seriously, I ran to the window at work with excitement and was met with grouchy, bah humbug comments from co-workers. Apparently people do not appreciate the beauty of snow!

What's not to love!? Well, I learned driving home Tuesday night, that driving is what's not to love. The roads were HORRIBLE in my opinion. Since I am a Florida girl and have very little driving in snow experience I thought that it might just be me, but no. Many people reported horrible roads and had serious problems commuting home. I can't even remember how many cars I passed that had slid off into ditches or fields.

It was scary!

It ended up taking me almost an hour in a half to make it home (about 25 miles), and it was dark. I was so thankful to finally be home, safe and warm. I will tell you that I prayed a lot on the drive home Tuesday night!

We snapped some pictures on Tuesday night while it was still snowing and I took some Wednesday night too. Louie is not a fan of the snow yet, but I hope he comes to like it. If he doesn't-it could be a very long winter for him!

Here are some pictures:

The flakes were big, heavy and wet. They stuck to things like electric poles, wires, trees, fences...you name it. It was beautiful!

Louie in his winter coat...poor pup was not happy!

Isn't he cute!?

These were taken on Wednesday:

Louie was so excited to see me when I came home. He was running and jumping and it was so cute. I tried to capture some pictures of him, but it was difficult! I love the above picture though...

He had to take a break and do some licking, this just cracks me up!

And of course I had to take some pictures of the glowing Christmas tree :) Have I mentioned that I love this time of year?! I do!

See that ruffle tree skirt? I made it and I love it with our tree!

LOVE the reflection in the window on this one!

Has anyone else been hit with snow this week? I am sure ours will melt because it doesn't look like we will get anymore for about a week. I do hope that we have a white Christmas for my family from Florida. I have been praying for that everyday! Have a great Thursday everyone!

Thanksgiving and a weekend re-cap! :)

2011-11-28T14:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it is back to the grind today. Let me tell you that my body is not with it. I so wanted to sleep in this morning! I am thankful for the break Thanksgiving provided and thankful that I have a job though, so there will be no complaining here!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and 4 day weekend! It all got kicked off when we found a box on our porch late Wednesday night. I was not expecting anything, so I was totally surprised. All I can say is that I am incredibly blessed with some great friends. I am very thankful for the friendships that have survived me moving to Indiana and still continue to grow. Well, the box was from my friend Vickie. A true friend! She was planning on joining us for Thanksgiving but plans were cancelled due to flight schedules and costs. Since she couldn't be with us she said she wanted to send "a piece of Florida" to Indiana. That girl touches my heart!

Here is the package:

And the contents of the package:

Yep, those are Pilgrim Mickey and Minnie salt & pepper shakers to add to my collection. I LOVE them. Really, I think I squealed and danced when I opened the box. Stephen will vouch for this!

Thanksgiving morning we were up around 9am to watch the Macy's parade in our PJs. We also prepared the things we were taking to the family Thanksgiving dinner: mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Yummo! We ate at Stephen's parents house and had way.too.much.food-as always! For some people their favorite thing about Thanksgiving is probably the food, or the turkey. Not for me. My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is family coming together AND spending hours looking over the sales ads. I love it!

After feasting on the traditional Thanksgiving dinner; cranberry sauce, stuffing, turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, green bean and corn casserole...and spending much of the afternoon browsing the sales ads, we made our way home. I had to change quickly and pack a bag for our Black Friday shopping trip. Us girls pulled out around 9pm and headed to the outlet mall! We had made a hotel reservation...well, I had made a hotel reservation incorrectly so it was not actually close to the mall. We decided to head to the mall instead of first checking in at the hotel. In the end, it all worked out! We shopped until we dropped. Literally. We left the mall and decided to skip the hotel and just head back home at some hour early in the morning. Seriously. The sun was coming up. It was daylight and sunny when I made it home. I was pretty exhausted after shopping all night, so I took a shower and then a 4 hour nap. It was lovely!

Shopping at the outlet was not bad at all. I think maybe it is calmer there because their are no outrageous electronic sales or anything. Regardless, I like it and I think we all had a great time! Most of the things I purchased have been wrapped by my Santa (read: Stephen), so I will have to wait until after Christmas to share them with you! The other things I purchased (for other people) have already been wrapped too. Just trust me when I say that everything was a good deal!

After my nap we decided to take Louie to the vet. He had his last heart worm treatment on Wednesday and had been having trouble keeping his meals down. I was worried about him and he just was not acting himself....so to the vet we went. They could not pinpoint what was wrong, but they did give him a shot that seemed to help very much. He has been on the mend since Friday and has been keeping his food down. We actually had to run to Wal-Mart to buy baby food for the pup since he was on a white rice and baby food diet all weekend. We are slowly adding in his regular kibble and hoping for the best! I just hate it when he is sick and hurting!

After the trip to the vet, we left him at home to sleep while we scouted out our perfect Christmas tree. We snapped some pictures in the back yard on our way out:

My eyes were just too tired and dry from wearing my contacts all night, so I resorted to my glasses for this shopping trip. My eyes are still a little irritated from this weekend actually...so glad I have these glasses as a backup!

The above coat, friends is my new peacoat. Thank you Old Navy Black Friday sales! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it and got the best deal. It was on sale for $29, but the store was an additional 15% off and I had a coupon that I won for having a picture of Louie in my phone while I was in line the check out. That meant my coat was $20!!! Score! It was quite entertaining in this line-there was an employee asking for things in order for people to earn coupons. For example, my sister in law got a coupon for not having on white socks and some other girls near us got coupons for singing their favorite Christmas Carol. See what I mean? Fun and entertaining!

We went to 2 Christmas tree farms looking for trees and found this one:

I had my heart set on a Frasier Fir, but ended up not getting a Fir at all. Apparently they are very expensive around these parts! We tagged the above tree because we liked it...just didn't love it. I thought that we could find a better looking one, and we did!

While we were tree shopping we got to see the prettiest sun set I have seen in awhile:

Isn't it beautiful? Seeing something like this, I just can't understand people who say there is not a God!

At the end of the night we ended up with a tree! We settled on a Spruce Pine Tree and I must say...I LOVE it! It was pretty fun trying to make it fit in the back of my car...which is small, but bigger than Stephen's. We had to put the back seats down and push it through the trunk. The trunk still would not close! Guess it was a good thing I had rope and bungee cords in the car that I had purchased last week for Stephen's stocking! They came in handy!

Getting it out at home was easier than getting it in the car...maybe because I knew no one was looking at me so I didn't care how crazy we looked? Who knows! Here it is:

Louie was excited...okay, maybe not. But, he was feeling better!

On Saturday we put the tree in the stand and got to work decorating:

The tree's new home (until Jan) is in our dining room bay window. I love the way it looks inside and from outside at night. Plus I just really love having 2 Christmas trees...it may have always been a dream of mine!

Sunday we went to church and then spent the day being lazy at home. In my opinion, it was wonderful! I think Stephen might have gotten a little bored at points but it's okay. We don't have lazy days like that very often. We watched several Christmas movies...so many that we only have one left to watch. I sure hope "Santa" brings some more Christmas movies!

How about you-how was your Thanksgiving?

Did you join the crazy people in Black Friday Shopping?

Whoa-just realized how long this post was. Bravo if you made it to the end!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T14:55:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I cannot believe that the end of November is already upon us, and before we know it the New Year. Where in the world did this year go? Maybe it did not fly by for you, but for us it moved at lightening speed!

We have so many things to be thankful for, and I just wanted to touch on a few of them since I have not participated in any thankfulness countdowns that have been going on.

Here goes:

1. I am thankful for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Without his sacrifice I would be nothing. All blessings flow from him and the closer you grow in your relationship with him you will realize this.

2. I am thankful for my husband and the marriage that we share. We respect each other, giggle with each other, love each other, support each other and most of all we are growing together daily. Marriage is an incredible blessing and something to be very thankful for!

3. I am thankful for my family in Florida and Indiana. We love all of you and appreciate your endless support in our lives!

4. I am thankful for my job. I really enjoy doing what I do and working where I work. My boss is appreciative (something I have never experienced in a working environment) and understanding. I have learned so much in the time I been there. I can only imagine how much more I could possibly learn.

5. I am thankful for our home. It is a wonderful blessing and security for us to have our own home. Not only that, but it is beautiful, warm, safe and cozy-the perfect place to make memories and start raising a family.

6. I am thankful for Louie. He is the sweetest pup and we both just love him. I am especially thankful everyday that I can see the steps he is taking. He has already come so far since we rescued him. People who abuse animals have no hearts in my opinion.

7. I am thankful for our health. Even with a chronic disease I am thankful. Why? Type 1 Diabetes is manageable, and it is easy to put myself in other shoes when I am having a down "diabetes sucks" kind of day...and this disease is always easier than the alternatives. So I wear some medical devices in my pockets...who cares? I am healthy and living my life!

8. I am thankful for our church family. They are always so welcoming and quick to help if needed. What a blessing!

9. I am thankful for this season in our lives, and this season of the year-yay snow!

10. I am SO thankful that my family from Florida is coming up over Christmas. I cannot wait to see them and have them as guests in our home!

And some pictures of things I am especially thankful for (some are listed above):

This list could go on and on, as I am sure yours could too! BUT, I had to find a stopping point. I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family! Stay safe shopping on Black Friday if you are brave enough to go out! I am headed to an outlet mall tomorrow evening with my MIL and my two SIL- we will be staying at a hotel before coming home...I am so excited! Let the shopping begin!!!

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,

in everything give thanks;

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV

New Furniture!

2011-11-23T02:10:00.004-05:00

First, I want to report the delivery of treats to our neighbors. We went out last night around 7pm-hoping that the time would not intrude on their dinners or anything, in the freezing rain to make our deliveries. We have 3 neighbors we were delivering to, and 2 our of the 3 were home. I think they really appreciated the gesture and were maybe even a little bit surprised by it. The first delivery was at the house on our right (that's for sale) and the woman answered the door. This is the woman that we have not met, but tricker treated at our house. I introduced us and explained that we made a sweet treat for Thanksgiving and that we hoped they had a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving. She smiled and said thank you and even reach to shake my hand...but never told us her name. So we have met, but I still do not know her name. This kind of disappointed me. The second stop was the house on our lefts- upstairs apartment. We already know the gentleman who lives there, so it was pretty easy to deliver his. He too was surprised. I hope they enjoy them!

Now onto the real post today:

About a month ago Stephen and I went furniture shopping and made a purchase we were quite excited about!

A week ago that purchase was ~~finally~~ delivered to our house.

Of course the delivery time was smack dab in the middle of the day (10-2). Why do places always do that? Luckily it worked out for Stephen to leave work early and get home in time to meet the delivery men. We were a little nervous about getting the furniture in the house since we had such a struggle getting our previous furniture in. Of course, our salesman was completely confident that everything would fit even though he did not know any specifics about our house. In the end we loved the furniture (and the price!) so we took a chance. Guess what?! It fit perfectly and without any stress at all.

Praise the Lord for that!

Here is a shot of our new loveseat and ottoman:

And the couch:

And the full room:

I was so anxious to get home from work and see the new furniture. The afternoon seemed to go on FOREVER for me, but finally I made it home. It was so exciting to come in and see new furniture in our living room. I was over the moon! Until...

I noticed the above hole in the couch. That's right. Our new furniture was delivered with damage. After calling the furniture store I was told that they would send a repairman out from a furniture upholstery shop. I was okay with that. Have they called or come yet? No. So, this afternoon I called the furniture store again. I mean, it has been a week that we have had the furniture and are not sitting on it because we don't want to make the hole larger! Today I actually talked to our salesman who said he was not told about the damage and that nothing was reported. Umm, really? All seems to be well now because he is trying to get us a replacement. I am thankful for that at least. I know that this was not the store fault, or any ones fault really-it is just a little disappointing to make a large purchase, look forward to it for weeks and then find out that it is damaged. Agreed?

I am hopeful that we will get a replacement sofa soon. Please pray that he finds one in this color, because they have been discontinued...hence the great deal we got!

Also, the room was very heavy with the large ottoman and coffee table. We decided to give the room a chance without the coffee table and so far I am loving it. We moved the coffee table to the basement before selling it or donating it just to make sure we were not going to miss it. I think removing it from the room was a good decision!

All in all, we love the new furniture. The loveseat is super comfy-and we know this because it is the only furniture we have been sitting on while waiting for the sofa to be repaired/replaced. Have you ever experienced poor customer service or damaged furniture?

I CANNOT believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Where did November go!?

I am determined...

2011-11-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

...to meet our neighbors!

Before we moved into our house I was looking forward to meeting our neighbors. I guess I just kind of thought it would happen. I didn't expect a welcoming quite like you see in the movies, but I did expect our paths to cross and an opportunity for introductions to present itself. Well, I was wrong in my thinking.

We have lived in our house since the end of July and have yet to meet all of our neighbors. In fact, the wife of our house next to us tricker treated at our front door with her child and did not introduce herself. I only realized she was our neighbor when I noticed the child-who we have met. Obviously she knew we were her neighbors, so why would she not say "oh hey, I live next door-I think you have met my husband but not me. It's nice to meet you!" I don't think that would be too difficult...maybe I am expecting too much?

Anyways, I have been bound and determined to meet them, introduce ourselves and let them know that we are right next door if they need anything. Anything like eggs, or someone to get their mail while they are out of town. You know; the normal neighborly duties. Well don't you worry about us meeting our neighbors any longer (if you were worried in the first place), because I came up with a plan!

Last night I spent some time making some cracker candy and putting together cute little fall mason jars full of the sugary treat. Have you ever heard of or had cracker candy? My husband had not and well, turns out that he LOVES it. I sent him to work with the extras today to share with his co-workers and they LOVE it too. Looks like I might be making more of this soon! We plan on delivering the jars to our neighbors this evening-if it is not raining. No matter how awkward it is for us to walk up to our neighbors house and ring the door bell, we are going to do it. I am excited and nervous and anxious to deliver these. I hope they are well received and enjoyed by our neighbors! :)

In addition to our neighbors, I left a special treat in the mail box this morning for our walking mailman/mail lady. We have talked to the man who delivers our mail once, but he and a woman switch off. I don't know who will be the lucky one today to get the treat!

What about you-was it difficult to meet your neighbors? Like I said; I hope that we can establish a good relationship with both houses on our left and right! Oh, and the house on our right is for sale...any takers?

New furniture post is coming tomorrow...I promise! Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Weekend Wrap-Up...in Pictures!

2011-11-21T08:47:00.000-05:00

First of all, Happy week of Thanksgiving! Can you believe Thanksgiving is already here? Didn't we just start this month? Regardless of how fast time is whizzing past us, I am excited! Though, I am not sure if I am more excited for Thanksgiving or Black Friday shopping...? Let's just say both!

Friday night we did our usual thing...grocery shopping and getting dinner. We are crazy, y'all! We also ran to Big Lots because I was in search for some specific garland that I was pretty sure they would have (and cheap!), which they did! We had planned on decorating for Christmas on Saturday, so the boxes had already been brought up from the basement and I had started sorting what I wanted to use:

Yep, this is what our dining room table looked like Friday night and Saturday morning. Talk about overwhelming me! :) It is no secret that I like organization, so this mess was just a little much for me. I am glad to tell you that it is no longer there and the house is mostly decked for the Christmas season!

Saturday we put up tree #1 in the living room. We plan on getting a real tree this weekend to put up in the dining room. I.cannot.wait for the fresh pine smell-that is the best! Here the lights are starting to go on:

And this was Louie all day on Saturday:

I think he was confused by all the boxes and activity and smells I am sure. He just laid on the sofa and watched us for most of the morning. The sweet pup approves of the new furniture...but he is not allowed on it directly. Please picture me following him around with a blanket and putting it down before allowing him to jump on the furniture...I am not sure how long that will last yet. We will see!

I just realized I never posted about getting our furniture. There is a story there! :) I will try and get that post scheduled for tomorrow with pictures from delivery day!

The tree is done and wrapped presents are underneath it:

LOVE :) We decided to add aqua to this tree to tie in the colors in the living room and I am so glad we did that. I love they way it looks and blends with the art and pillows in the room!

The banister was almost the death of me. Seriously. I could not get anything to look "right" for me and was getting irritated with the task pretty quickly. Thank goodness Stephen is patient with me! After wrestling with ribbons and garland for awhile I decided to tie big bows and call it a day. I must say that I kind of love the result. We have wooden clothes pins to pin Christmas cards we receive up on the garland and I can't wait so so that!

Speaking of Christmas cards...when are you sending yours out? I think I may mail ours next Monday. They are already ready to go out!

In the dining room we hung ornaments from our light that is over the table. We used all the colors on both trees to tie it all together. Surprisingly, this was not a Pinterest inspired idea but an idea I got from an old co-worker in Jacksonville. There is not a centerpiece on the table yet, and there might not be...the ornaments just kind of handle it on their own and I love it!

Here is a view of the living room from the entrance. You can see our new loveseat and ottoman!

And the fireplace:

Up close and personal :) This one is for you, Mom!

And the glowing tree:

I just LOVE Christmas time, it is the best. The lights, the smells, the garlands, the baking, the presents celebrating Jesus' birth. I love all of it! I cannot wait to put up tree #2 this coming weekend!

On Sunday we went to church and out to lunch before heading to the gym to watch our niece's basketball games. After the games, we went out to dinner to celebrate Stephen's brother Greg's birthday. We ate at a Chinese Restaurant that was SO good. We really enjoyed the company and getting to celebrate Greg's birthday with family. It was a great time. We ended the night by watching a Christmas movie at home...my idea of perfection!

And lastly, our sweet pup Louie who may be just a little bit spoiled. He is so sweet, don't you think?

That's all folks! Hope everyone has a great Monday and short work-week, yay!

our weekend in pictures...

2011-11-15T10:49:00.000-05:00

Warning: This post contains a LARGE amount of pictures, so if you are reading on a mobile device it may take a long time to load. Consider yourself warned!

We had a great weekend this past weekend. Friday night we had our usual grocery shopping and dinner date in Huntington. Before we left I snapped some pictures of and with Louie, just because he is cute. Also, I felt kind of guilty for leaving him...so here to to hoping that a shout out on the good ol' blog will cheer him up! I just hate leaving him at home...is anyone else like that with their pets?

I will say that it does melt my heart when we do come home and he is so excited to see us. It is the only time her gives kisses and I gladly receive them!

I can tell in this picture that he does not look happy, but he is still so cute and loved!

Our town has snowflake lights up on the street lights along Main St. I thought it was beautiful and tried to get a picture...but you can see that it did not turn out quite right. Maybe it was because we were driving 40mph? Better luck next time!

Saturday morning we had some errands to run, including getting the tires on my car balanced, rotated, and checked for winter. I was very happy when they told me they would be good for another year...that was not an expense I really wanted to deal with now. Not needing new tires mean that I can still go Black Friday shopping. Woo!

Our photo shoot in the car! :)

After our Discount Tire appointment we went to the mall and grabbed lunch at Red Robin. I have to say, I have eaten there several times and I am just never impressed. Am I the only one?

I did get some things that I wanted at Kirklands...well, Stephen got my some things for Christmas. Which means, that I have to wait until Christmas to open and use them!

In the afternoon I did some Pinterest inspired baking:

Y'all, this was DELICIOUS and SO easy. Several people on Facebook asked for the recipe, so I will be posting that later this week. Or you can find it here. Later in the afternoon Stephen's Dad came over to help move our living room furniture to make room for the new furniture that's coming! It ended up being more than a two man job, so they called in Adam for back-up. I was so thankful that they were available to help us because I know that Stephen and I could not have handled that on our own!

It was a tight fit into the new room...

And this is what our living room looks like now:

I will say that after spending our free time on Sunday laying on the floor watching football and movies, we will appreciate our new furniture so much! It really is so nice to have a sofa to sit on-don't take it for granted!

Louie looks for soft places to lay. All the time! These blankets were on the floor for no more than 1 minute before we found him looking pretty comfortable. He likes blankets, pillows and laundry. Sometimes I leave my PJS on the floor in my closet and I always find him in there laying on them (they are fleece for winter). It is just precious!

All the old furniture was moved to our "library" and arranged so we can now use this room for reading, crafting, and playing games. So fun! Here are some shots of the room with furniture in it:

This door goes into our half bath and laundry room that is also connected to the kitchen...it's one big circle!

While the men were moving furniture, Louie and I were taking pictures. The noise and activity was scaring him so we just stood back together and watched.

After all the activity and furniture movement, we headed to church for a donation dinner and auction. I had never been to an auction before (apparently that is weird, Stephen was shocked and called me sheltered, ha!) and it was so fun! I really, really enjoyed it and just listening to the auctioneer. I thought he was great, but I was told that others talk way faster...I cannot even imagine. At the end of the night we walked away with a tree stand that I got for $2. I call that a good deal, and I was thrilled that I was able to raise my hand and place a bid. Maybe I am easily entertained? Oh well, it was fun!

Last but not least, our updated bathroom downstairs. I forgot to post about this last week but we have made some improvements. Our first floor bath is a half bath and it has our washer/dryer in there. I did not like the way the room looked or felt with the appliances visible, so I scoured Pinterest for ideas to minimize the industrial feel. I decided the easiest way and cheapest way would be to hang shower curtains:

Well, I did it and I LOVE it. To me it looks like a shower/tub now, so unless you already knew our washer/dryer was there you would have no idea! Score for that!

So that was our weekend in a nut shell. I hope that you too had a great weekend! New furniture comes tomorrow...I CANNOT WAIT!

Happy Tuesday!

Hello, again!

2011-11-10T16:42:00.000-05:00

Hello again! I must apologize for my absence in blog land again. I could offer you excuses, which are true; like we have been so busy, work has been crazy, and we have just been enjoying being a newlywed couple with a super cute pup…but I won’t bore you with that mombo jumbo. K?

Oh with the good stuff! Life has been pretty busy for us, which is a good thing. I have been busy at work and while I have days I want to complain about it, the fact is that I am completely and totally thankful for my job every day. I kind of love it. How many people can say that about their job? Thankfully I enjoy what I do all day…most of the time. While I can always think of things I would rather be doing, but I am saving those for dreams to pursue later down the road. Read: opening a bakery. For now, I am so happy in my current job.

We have been waiting ~~patiently~~ on our new furniture to arrive. We finally got the call today that it is in and ready to be delivered. They asked me if next Wednesday or Friday would be better. Umm, Wednesday people…why would we wait until Friday? That is a whole week away! No thank you! I promise to post pictures of some sort next week once it is in our living room. I doubt you guys are as excited as we are…but it’s okay!

Louie has been doing really well. I don’t see his improvements daily anymore like I did when we first rescued him, but I can look at the day we got him and see how far he has come. I love that he will go outside with us and not run off. We have not put a leash on him in weeks. In fact, one day last week I came home from work to Stephen cutting the grass with Louie prancing back and forth right next to him. It was the cutest thing! I wish I had my camera out to capture the moment, but I missed it. I am sure there will be a next time. The weather has gotten colder here so he is almost always in a sweater or something. It is so cute! I am looking forward to getting him a nice red one for Christmas…oh boy, I never thought I would be the person to dress up my dog. Really though, he is pretty small and shakes all the time without something on. I think he just can’t handle the Indiana cold!

Speaking of cold and dogs; what do you guys with pets do when it snows? I am thinking we will just keep a square shoveled for him to use. What do you recommend?

I have spent a little bit of time crafting recently…I can blame Pinterest for all the new projects on my to-do list! Have you seen the coasters that are made from square ceramic tiles and scrapbook paper? Well, I tried that last weekend and failed. I could not get the paper to flatten out properly and then the color rubbed off tinting the modge podge. Any ideas on that? I gave up pretty quickly and started working on this tree skirt:

It took quite some time to complete but I LOVE it! I cannot wait to see it under our tree that will go in our dining room. Since the room is red, we decided to not put any red on the tree…it should be a beautiful green, white, silver and glass covered tree hence the color choice of the tree skirt!

I also worked on some fall crafts, like this fabric flag banner:

I also LOVE this. I plan on making Christmas ones too, I am just not sure where they will go.

I am itching to decorate for Christmas. Really, I am. I am trying very hard to wait until the week of Thanksgiving at least (for our fake tree), but we are not planning on getting our real tree until the weekend after Thanksgiving. I know it will be here so fast, like in the blink of an eye so I am trying to enjoy the Thanksgiving season, too!

I just love this time of year, October through December is my FAVORITE!

If you made it to the end of this long and pretty boring post with me, you rock! J I hope that you also are enjoying this season and you have a great weekend!

See ya next week! (Hopefully!)

Weekend Wrap-Up...on Friday!

2011-10-28T08:07:00.000-04:00

I realize I am doing a weekend update on Friday (I started this post on Wednesday!!!) and I am sorry. This week has just been a little bit crazy, which is okay with me. I am pretty happy that today is Friday though...I always look forward to the WEEKEND!

So, Happy Friday Y'all!

We had a great weekend last weekend. Friday night we had our youngest niece, Hadley sleep over. Her big sister Emma was having a sleepover with friends at their house so we kept Hadley so she would feel special and important too. We had SO much fun with that little girl! The first comical thing happened Friday evening when Stephen and I took 20 minutes to figure out her car seat. We could not figure out how to buckle her in, the straps were missing. She kept telling us that she didn't use them anymore but we weren't sure we could believe her....turns out she was telling the truth. Hadley has officially upgraded to a booster seat. When we figure that out we loaded up and head out for grocery shopping and dinner. She was a sport through it all!

We ate at the Japanese Steakhouse again...what can I say, when I find something I like, I usually want to eat it often until I can't stand the thought of it anymore. Hadley LOVED the onion soup...which I don't like. She drank and drank, I thought she might put a straw in it!

Here are some pictures from dinner:

Oh, and I can't forget to tell you about this steal:

We bought this rug at Aldi's. Yep, the grocery store! It was a great price for the size and I was thrilled about that. I really like the colors too and how it looks on the wood floor in this room. The room is basically empty right now, but not for long...you'll find out why soon!

Hadley was pretty set on sleeping in our "flower room" which is the guest bedroom, but we decided it would be easier on all of us if she were in our room. We blew up the twin air mattress and made a cozy spot for her right next to my side of the bed. She told me it was "perfect". Haha!

Seriously, how cute is she!?!

She slept very well until around 2am when I heard her crying. She said she wanted to get in bed with us and so the three of us squeezed into our queen size bed. Apparently Hadley is not a still sleeper! After a couple hours of her wiggling and kicking I moved to the air mattress and was much happier :) Stephen said that even after I moved out of the bed she was still kicking and rolling into him though!

Stephen got up early to take my car for servicing and Hadley and I slept until 9:30! When we woke up the house smelled like cinnamon rolls because Stephen had breakfast ready. Yum! After breakfast we painted our nails and cuddled to watch a movie:

Note: Louie usually jumps off the furniture as soon as you sit down, so the fact that he is sitting there with us is pretty much a miracle. He is getting better with socialization and I am so proud of him!

After Hadley headed home, Stephen and I headed furniture shopping. I did not expect us to buy anything, but to hopefully get some ideas and find out what we liked. We really needed new furniture in the living room because the furniture that we have was mine before marriage and it has some snags and tears that bother me.

Well, we shopped at 3 places and made a purchase at the final place. I am so excited about our new furniture and cannot wait for the call saying that it is in and ready for delivery! That should be sometime next week...okay, okay...here is our new furniture:

I took these pictures directly off the Sofa Mart website, but we also got a double storage ottoman that they do not have pictured. It is the length of the loveseat and has a HUGE storage compartment that will be great for many different things...crafting things, movies, photo albums, kids toys (one day)...you just never know!

The plan is to put the old living room furniture into the empty library/reading room/nook, as long as it fits though the door way! I can't wait for it to all come together!

We also hit Hobby Lobby and stocked up on some Christmas ornaments because they weer 40% off! Of course purchasing Christmas stuff totally put me in the Christmas mood and so I am listening to Christmas music now on my drive to and from work. I just love this time of year!

Speaking of Christmas, when are you putting your tree up? I am trying very hard to wait until the Saturday after Thanksgiving (I will be shopping on Friday), but there are no guarantees!

Well, it is time to get to work for the last day this week! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

the coals are ready!

2011-10-21T11:09:00.000-04:00

I bet you are wondering what is up with the title of this blog. Well, I am here to explain that for you today. I can hear you all screaming "yay" as I type! :) So, tonight is our oldest nieces birthday party/campout/sleepover with friends. Emma had picked out what cupcakes she wanted me to make for the grand party at the beginning of September and I have anxiously been awaiting the time to make them since then!

Well, this week was that time!

They girls were planning on camping out in the backyard, complete with tents and lots of blankets. BUT, mother nature had other plans for Emma's party. Because it is going to be cold tonight...the low is 31, I think they will be sleeping inside. The cupcake she picked go with the former theme of her party; a campout. Emma wanted to stick with these cupcakes even though they will be sleeping inside tonight.

Okay, okay...are you ready for the unveiling?

Here ya go:

These cupcakes started with yellow cake, and then were died black for a coal looking cake. Since Emma asked for yellow cake that is what we did, but you could use chocolate too :) Once they baked I let them cool over night and began to decorate them the next evening. Before crumb coating the cupcakes with frosting I stuck them in the freezer to firm them up a bit and then crumb coated them. The marshmallows were cut in all different sizes and directions so not one cupcake would look uniform. I applied these with dollops of buttercream and stuck them back into the freeze for the time being!

The life stages of a coal cupcake! :)

Once all the marshmallows were applied I died some buttercream frosting to a gray color and then spooned it into a liquid measuring cup to heat it up. Yep, I heated up our frosting. Just stick it in the microwave for about 35 seconds. Trust me, it works!

Now it is time for dipping! I took each cupcake out of the freezer individually when I was ready to dip it. You want them to stay nice and cold so the hot frosting does not melt the marshmallows or pull them away from the cupcakes.

Don't be afraid to push the cupcake in the frosting! I wanted good coverage so you could not see any white frosting or marshmallows. Once you have it dipped and covered, allow the excess frosting to drip off before setting it onto a cookie sheet to cool and harden.

Apply sprinkles before the frosting sets so they will stick. In these case you want orange and red sugar crystals or nonpareils. I also crushed some Oreo's to use as a topping too! `

And the finished product:

Cute huh?

I can tell you that Emma loved them when we delivered them last night. I was so relieved that she liked them and hope her friends do too! Now I am thinking up ideas for their next birthday...ha!

Hope you have a great Friday and weekend, we have our youngest niece staying the night with us tonight during Emma's birthday festivities. Wish us luck! :) We also might go furniture shopping tomorrow because we really need a new couch...probably more than I need a new Digital SLR Camera. Gotta prioritize, right? I think we will be going to Furniture Row: Sofa Mart first to see if they have a good selection. Anyone have experience with them? Let me know where you recommend shopping for furniture, I would love to hear!

Toodles!

Pumpkin Muffins

2011-10-19T16:08:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posting here recently. I don't know if it is how busy work is, or the cold, nasty, wet weather we have been having...but I am in a funk. A blogging funk that is. Ever happen to you?

Anyways, over the weekend I made some pumpkin muffins that were too good not to share with all of you. So, here I am blogging and sharing just for you...feel special!

These muffins were so incredibly easy to make (really, I can't stress that enough!) They only have 2 ingredients. 2!?!? I did decide to add some extra sweetness, so mine had 3 ingredients but yours could only have 2.

INGREDIENTS:

1 Box Yellow Cake Mix

1 Can of Pumpkin

Handful of white chocolate chips if you wish :)

Mix all of the ingredients together and spoon into a greased or lined cupcake pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until a knife/toothpick inserted comes out clean. Note: my time varied between batches and I am not sure why, so I recommend baking for 25 minutes and continuing on if necessary.

Let cool before ~~devouring~~ enjoying!

We did some other things this weekend too! Here is the breakdown in pictures:

Saturday we headed to Fort Wayne for a Newsboys concert and a little shopping. Louie was looking too sweet not to take his picture!

Headed to the mall for some shopping. We only wanted to stop a 2 stores and Chipotle for lunch. It was a successful trip and yummy-after this we were onto the concert:

We LOVE the Newsboys. I like their old music and their new music-it is all Jesus filled and great! Michael Tait was pretty hilarious in between songs too. I loved all the references he made to the "chocolate church" and "vanilla people". I am sure someone in the crowd was offended by it, but it was just so funny. The color of our skin does not matter in the least. Jesus love us no matter what! Praise him for that!!!

There were several bands opening for Newsboys too. I really liked Royal Tailor-who I was not familiar with. We ended up buying their CD and it s great. I encourage you to check them out!

We did a little bit of singing and dancing at the concert, too :)

Sorry for the blurry picture, but it was crazy in there!

Our Sunday was spent at church and home. We watched The Amazing Race in the evening while Louie took a nap and made himself comfortable:

Can you believe how he is laying down, and sleeping!? We have a crazy pup in our house. Good thing we love him!

Hope you all are having a great Wednesday and week for that matter!

Weekend Wrap-Up in Pictures!

2011-10-11T09:11:00.001-04:00

Happy day after Monday, y'all! We had a great weekend full of house projects and some time with family, too. Friday night we kicked off the start of the weekend with a birthday dinner for our niece's at El Mex in our town. Let me just say this: we LOVE El Mex. If you ever come to visit us, you are guaranteed a trip there! Now, on with the update:

This was just as we were walking out the door Friday night.

Ainsley's birthday was the last week in September and Emma's birthday was just last week. They both got their birthday gifts from us on Friday night. The pillow that Ainsley is holding below was made from a PJ set of hers that she outgrew. This child LOVES penguins and did not want to get rid of the PJs, so I made it into a cute little pillow that she can cuddle and sleep with whenever she wants. I believe she liked it. Agreed?

I'd say her smile says it all. I think the pillow was a hit!

So, birthday's at El Mez are pretty embarrassing. They put a sombrero on you and sing. But that's not all they do! They also smear whipped cream on your face the entire time they are singing. For some reason these girls just love it!

Emma is about to be whipped creamed!

And it begins!

The finished product! :)

Friday night Lauren from church joined me for a chick flick. We ran into her family at El Mez and the plan developed from there. We wanted to get Bridesmaids to watch, but our RedBox did not have it. We settled on Something Borrowed. It was nice to have her home from college this weekend and to get in some girl time! Stephen watched the movie with us too, but he did fall asleep a couple of times. Have you seen that movie? I thought it was okay...not sure it is one I want to purchase though!

Saturday we planned on planting all our bulbs for spring flowers. We had a lot of bulbs to plant! 165, actually. I started working with Louie as my sidekick while Stephen ran some errands in town. Once we was back we both worked on this project. In the end we did not get them all planted, but I think we did pretty good.

Hopefully next Spring this flower bed:

will be blooming beautifully with many different kinds and colors of tulips. I am praying!

We also planted many around the historic sign in our front yard, and worked on re-painting the wording on the sign:

AND I bought a new paint pen to add our name to the sign. Hopefully next weekend I can work on that!

Last week the above tree had changed colors at the very top, but this weekend it changed completely. I think it is just beautiful! I don't mind the orange/yellow glow it casts to rooms inside our house either :)

Louie was our supervisor while we worked. Doesn't he look content?

He also liked playing in the leaves! I guess when he got tired of laying he would decide to frolic and play. So cute!

I love his tongue out on this one!

This is probably my favorite picture of the weekend. Or maybe my favorite picture ever taken of him!

After planting we showered and got ready to head out for our weekly grocery shopping. While I was waiting on Stephen (I think he was walking Louie) I snapped a picture of me and the pretty flowers the hubs got me for our first anniversary. I want to remember these, so this is my documentation!

Before we left we stopped to snap a few family pictures (maybe one for our 2011 Christmas card?) with the beautiful trees and leaves:

Sunday we went to church and taught our first Sunday of Sunday School. We are teaching 5th and 6th grade, so it should be exciting. I know I am looking forward to it. We also had nursery duty during service, so we had a morning full of sweet kiddos on Sunday!

Sunday evening we went back to El Mez, well it's another name but it is owned by the same people...for a great dinner with Stephen's boss and co-workers plus their wives. After dinner we all went to Eagles Theater to see Courageous. Stephen's boss Mark was nice enough to cover dinner and our movie tickets-he had seem the movie the prior week and felt that strongly about all of us seeing it. Let me tell you, the movie did not disappoint. I would recommend it to anyone, regardless of if you have children or not. We laughed and we cried; it was so good! Have you seen it or heard great things about it? They do have a FB page for the movie if you want to check it out!

Lastly, I wanted to share with you the gift that my boss brought me on Friday:

Isn't it just the cutest and sweetest pumpkin? I LOVE it!

Tomorrow morning I will be dropping Louie off at the Vet for round 2 of his heartworm treatments. Please say a prayer for him and for us! If any of you have gone through this with your dogs, feel free to let me know how round 2 went. We would appreciate it! I am praying that since he handled the first round well that this one should not be much different, but you never know. Prayers appreciated. Thanks! :)

Hope everyone has a terrific Tuesday!

1st Year of Marriage Memories

2011-10-11T04:58:00.001-04:00

Two posts in one day...crazy, right?

For the past year I have been working on this memory book chronologically with pictures taken throughout our first year as husband and wife. This is the first time I have ever done a scrapbook of this importance digitally and I am kind of excited to see the finished product. I finally ordered it this week and I cannot wait for it to arrive at our house. You can bet I will be at home waiting for the UPS man on that day. It will just be a replay of last year when I was waiting on our wedding album!

So, if you take the time to look at this please let me know what you think! Have you done any digital scrapbooks with Shutterfly? I have done several, but nothing this big and long! If you are looking for a good site that is user friendly and easy to learn, Shutterfly is it! They also have a new feature when you can customize your page by moving or resizing pictures, changing the background color, adding stickers and borders. It really is cool!

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

Click here to view this photo book larger

This & That

2011-10-07T09:35:00.000-04:00

We have a reason to celebrate in our department at work this week! My friend and co-worker, Kathy gave birth to her little bundle of boy on Tuesday morning. Jadin Michael arrived around 9am weighing 8 pounds, 11 ounces. Mel and I went to see him over our lunch break on Wednesday and boy is he beautiful!

I am so thankful that he made his arrival, and I know his mommy is too. The miracle of pregnancy and birth is a wonderful thing. And the baby that results is just perfect...you could say that holding him at one day old might have given me a little bit of baby fever. Maybe just a little.

It's okay though...we are not planning on having any baby Donaldson's just yet. Read: Mom, don't start freaking out and yes, my blood sugars have been excellent! :)

Mel and the cutie patootie!

Remember that I forgot to put dinner in the crock pot on Wednesday? Well, that resulted in a impromptu date night with the husband and we took Louie with us too! There is a little restaurant a couple block from our house that we had not been too and we thought this was the perfect opportunity. They have a small indoor eating area, a drive-thru and a couple picnic tables outside. I can tell you wholeheartedly that this is the first time I have ever ordered food from a drive-thru on foot. Yep, we walked through the drive-thru carrying Louie. Please picture us jumping up and down on the sensor that tells them there is a car in the drive-thru. I promise it was a funny picture, I hope that we at least entertained some passerbyers!

Dinner was pretty good and cheap. Stephen had a breaded tenderloin sandwich and I had grilled chicken. We shared a diet coke and a peanut butter frozen yogurt cone. They have a different flavor of yogurt daily! I am thinking that we might not be the first people to bring our dog through the drive-thru because they gave Louie a dog bone, ha!

After eating we continued our walk downtown before heading home. It was a great night!

I love this tree that we passed and the color of it's leaves. I took a couple home to dry out!

Look who is getting better and better at walking on a leash!

In motion picture...a little blurry, but fun!

So remember the cone I told you Stephen and I had? Well we I decided to see if Louie liked it once Stephen and I had enough for us. The verdict? He LOVED it. I could not stop laughing at how he licked the ice cream cone like he knew that's how you eat it. It really was too funny! We took hundreds several pictures of the hilariousness of it all, but really you just had to be there.

The little guy ate all the ice cream that we left in the cone and then started biting and eating the cone. Seriously, it was too cute!

I love our pup!

This was Louie after our walk. Keep in mind that we carried him for a large portion of it. He just tuckers out pretty easily, but he sure is cute when he is passed out!

Lastly, I want to share this picture of Louie. (sorry for the bombardment of Louie pictures, we just love him!). Stephen and I were in bed reading and I heard him roll over so I got up to check on him and this is how he was laying! He ended up closing his eyes and sleeping that way for quite awhile. We really have a silly dog on our hands!

How has your week gone? Hopefully well, but regardless; Happy Friday!

TGIF!

Midweek Randoms :)

2011-10-05T09:27:00.000-04:00

I have been pretty busy at work this week, which is a good thing! But, that makes our evenings a little less exciting because by the time we get home we are both pooped! Stephen's been working at his parents house this week, roofing their house. This has been nice because his drive to and from work is a little shorter since they live closer to us than his usual job sites are :)

Fall has arrived in Indiana and I love seeing the leaves change colors. I also like collecting leaves to dry out for craft projects...which is what we did on our evening walk with Louie last night!

These trees are at the back of our property and you can see them changing already!

This tree is in our front yard and I cannot wait until it is orange and yellow throughout. I can see that it is changing at the top though, so I don't think it will be long. Yay!

We have been testing Louie outside without a leash on. He has been really good and has not ran away from us once. He does get going on a sniffing spree and wonders all over the yard, but if we call his name he turns around and runs for us. I am so pleased with his progress!

We spent some time outside last night before dinner watching Louie wonder and moving the sprinklers. We spread grass seed Saturday and Monday so we are watering the yard this week to keep it moist. Too bad there is no rain in our forecast!

Louie thought he would sniff my camera, too. How cute is he!?

I love his fluffy eyebrows!

And those big brown eyes! :)

I took this picture on our walk last night. This is not our street, but the street behind us. I just love our town and the quiet tree lined streets; especially in the fall when leaves are changing and falling! We collected some nice additions to my leaf collection for crafts!

After our walk I think Louie was tuckered out, ha. He was not interested in moving at all, until we went upstairs. Then, he galloped up the stairs behind us and begged to be lifted onto our bed.

So cute!

On Monday I came home to a surprise from Stephen. He had gotten me a sweet card, beautiful fall flowers and an extension cord. I was so happy. You might wonder why I was happy about an extension cord. Let me tell you! I like to craft in the living room, and my hot glue gun cord is not long enough for me to sit anywhere other than the floor. Sitting like that for hours really hurts my back, but now I can plug in and sit on the couch to craft AND use the coffee table as a working space instead of bending over using the floor. Yes, I am excited!

The flowers are beautiful, too!

This was this morning as I was leaving for work and putting Louie in his kennel. It always breaks my heart when I put him in there every morning! I know he is just a dog and it is normal for them to be caged for hours, but I just feel bad sometimes! Can I please be a stay at home puppy mommy?

No? Okay then, back to work...

Have a great hump day everyone!

Oh, I almost forgot! I was running late this morning and did not have time to put dinner in the crock pot, so Stephen said we could go out for a midweek date night! Seems that forgetting to start dinner has its advantages sometimes! And, we are taking Louie with us! I'll let you know how that goes!

a year ago...

2011-10-04T04:36:00.000-04:00

One year ago today, we were here:

In the Jacksonville, Chicago and Los Angeles airport flying to our honeymoon destination:

We drove a white Mustang convertible to beautiful places like this:

We swam and sunbathed at beautiful beaches like this:

We admired God’s handiwork and enjoyed our first vacation as Mr. & Mrs.

It was a wonderful adventure and a dream honeymoon for us. The start of a great year!

Read full posts and see more honeymoon pictures here! J

Cupcakes and a Weekend Wrap Up!

2011-10-03T16:07:00.000-04:00

First off, I need to blog about these cupcakes:

These cupcakes were made for our niece, Ainsley's birthday sleepover she had with friends on Friday. Her actually birthday was Thursday when we (Stephen & I) delivered the cupcakes. We arrived at her house just after she opened her new bike and mini penguin pillow pet from her parents. That and cupcakes? She was on cloud 9 I tell you! Ainsley picked these cupcakes out herself from one of my cupcake books, and made some changes to personalize them to her liking. She is so funny! She picked the purple icing, and asked for funfetti cupcakes :) I have not heard how she responded to the purple and pink funfetti when she bit into the cupcakes. I think she was expecting traditional boxed funfetti cake. I thought I was being sneaky and surprising her! :)

So that was Thursday night...this was Friday night:

Stephen and I had a long list of things to complete over the weekend and we decided to get our grocery shopping done on Friday evening. That also meant that we were going out to eat. I was pretty excited about this because recently I feel like we are never home. Between running errands on Saturday and going to church and grocery shopping on Sunday, there is little time left. But I did feel guilty about putting Louie back in his kennel since he had been in there all day, so I gave him lots of extra Mommy loving before we left! I don't think he minded us leaving though, he usually is pretty content in his kennel. Thank goodness for that!

We took some family pictures on Friday evening too. It was a wonderful, cool, fall night in Indiana and I was loving it!

Just to confirm the arrival of fall in Indiana:

Our front yard Friday evening...

After walking Louie and getting our grocery list (yes, I always make a list), we were headed out!

Yay for car pictures! I don't think Stephen will ever really like these, oh well. Also, I am really liking my new nail polish color, Piper by Zoya. It is easy to apply and stays chip free for about 2 days. I think it dries pretty quickly too, since I have been painting my nails during my lunch break, while reading and eating. I am sometimes an extreme multitasker. Guilty.

Saturday we had a long list to tackle at home. Buying an older house means that anytime we want something to do or work on, we probably don't need to look very far. Stephen and his Dad got a TV antenna installed on one of our chimneys (we have 3) so we now get some local channels. I am really excited to be able to watch The Amazing Race and a few other shows. The first thing we watched was the Florida/Alabama game on Saturday night. Let's just say the game started out well for the Gators but they did not hold up. I fell asleep around half time. We also got a bunch of other things done at the house, like taking the boxes from our move to the recycling center so I can now park my car in our garage. Stephen and his Dad also installed some hooks/nails so we can hang some things in the garage. Having things like shovels, rakes, and other yard tools hanging instead if laying in a heap on the floor makes a world of difference. We also mowed the grass and spread some fall grass seed. Hopefully we see the results of that soon! There were some other things accomplished at home too, and I am so thankful for that!

Louie spent most of the afternoon outside with us and he was great. He just followed me or Stephen around the yard, even when we were not holding his leash. We just let him drag it around so if he did take off running it would be easier to catch him. If we stopped in one spot for longer than a minute he would just lay down in the grass. So sweet!

Saturday night while watching the Florida game we broke out our year old wedding cake. The verdict? Well it is a toss up; I did not like it but Stephen did. He ate a good portion of it and put the rest in the fridge which I think he is looking forward to eating during the week. I just thought the cake was too dry, but the icing was not all that bad. I started feeling pretty icky after eating it, but since Stephen did not get sick I think it was just me being tired and having blood sugar issues. Oh the joys of type one diabetes...NOT.

On Sunday, I still not not feeling 100% and after almost getting entirely ready for church I decided that I could not do it. I just felt icky and my blood sugar was too high for comfort so we stayed home and relax for a bit. We watched Nights in Rodanthe and made taco soup that was delicious. Our oldest niece, Emma was playing in a softball tourney a couple blocks away from our house so we decided to enjoy the lovely fall weather and take a walk with Louie to the ball park. Honestly? I was worried about how he would handle bats and balls and lots of people around him. He took it like a champ though! When he was not sitting on the grass watching the game like he knew what was going on, he was curled up on my lap to stay warm. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Because Louie's exercise has to been monitored and kept under a certain amount since his heart worm treatments, we had to carry him for parts of our walk. He looked so funny with the wind in his face/fur!

I just love how he is sitting and watching the games. So cute and sweet! Have I mentioned how much we love him?!

So that's it folks. Our anniversary weekend all wrapped up. Nothing too special or celebratory, just spending a weekend together and doing normal things. Well, normal minus eating year old cake. It's not everyday we do that!

First Anniversary!

2011-09-30T06:43:00.015-04:00

Sunday is our first wedding anniversary, AND since I do not post on the weekend I wanted to post about how special this day is; today.

At the beginning of the month I noticed and made note that our anniversary was coming up. It just hit me this week that it is this actually weekend. Wow! I am kind of in shock actually. Where did the year go? It has been an amazingly incredible year, to say the very least. I remember after we got home from our honeymoon being in a state of shock, too. I just could not believe that we were married, that we lived together and that we lived in Indiana. Randomly I would ask Stephen if he could believe it and usually he would so no also. It was just such a whirlwind. Well, I feel the same way right now. I read that feeling this way in normal the first year of marriage. There are just so many new things and the adjustment time veries for each couple.

In the past year we have learned how to live together, care for each other, cook many (many!) meals together, praying for and with each other, shop together, budget together, and love each other more and more every day. Marriage really is a wonderful blessing! Not to mention all the other things we did this year like, moving me from FL, getting settled in our first apartment, looking for homes, closing on our first home and moving in to continue living our dream. It was not always easy, trust me. Moving away from my family and friends in FL and starting a new job 2 weeks before our wedding was crazy. Starting a new job is stressful enough in my opinion, add moving to a different state (acorss the country, basically) and you have a recipe for chaos. Stephen was there for me every step of the way though. I never felt alone.

A whirlwind of a year? Yes!

Do you know that people say the first year of marriage is the hardest? I kind of believe that just because of all the changes and adjusting that both the husband and wife have to go through. That being said, I feel like we are incredibly blessed. I would not describe this year as a walk in the park or anything like that...we have had arguments and rough days, but we always remember that we are in it together. For always.

I am so incredibly thankful for my husband. He is a wonderful supporter in so many ways! I thank the Lord for bringing him into my life and I am excited to see what else he has in store for us! I know the journey will be incredible!

All that to basically say that this year has been the most fun, enjoyable, hard at times, fast, and adventurous year of my life. Being married to Stephen is an incredible blessing and I am so thankful for our lives together and all God continues to provide for us.

Now let’s take a look back at some of our wedding pictures:

It seems like yesterday I was sitting in the salon getting ready for my wedding...the roses were from Stephen, delivered by his best man, Adam.

I loved my wedding shoes that I forgot to wear last minute. My Mom said when she saw my feet at the altar she almost stood up to pause the ceremony while she got my shoes. Instead of these I wore purple flats.

Finally Mr. & Mrs. Only, I don’t think he had sunk in yet!

We took SO many pictures outside of the church afterwards. If I could change something about our wedding, I would have done all these beforehand. Of course, to do that I would have to convince Stephen that it was okay to see me before the wedding.

Formals in the church…

I really like this picture of our attendants. I saw a shot like this in a wedding magazine while we were planning and gave it to our photographer. I think it is so cute!

Why, hello beautiful bridal bouquet!

Something must have been funny during the ceremony. Was this when the best man and groomsmen acted like they lost my wedding ring? Oh boy!

Delicious cake, thank you Mr. and Mrs. Milligan for that wedding gift (and Publix for making it)! Though I am a little worried about how it will taste when we eat it on Sunday. It's okay, I baked some delicous "back-up" cupcakes just in case!

Stephen’s groom’s cake was awesome if I do say! It is a replica of his bass guitar, true to size!

Gotta love your bridesmaids and cheesy pictures with them! J

To celebrate we are planning a nice dinner Saturday night (I am not sure where yet). We will get dressed up and enjoy ourselves even if it is raining. Of course we will break into our frozen and transported hundreds of miles year old wedding cake too. Hopefully it is sill delicious!

Seriously, where did the year go!?!

I can’t wait to see what is in store for next year. Bring on year 2 of wedded bliss!

1st Floor Photo Tour!

2011-09-28T06:14:00.000-04:00

Catch up with the upstairs photo tour here.

Since I seriously dropped the ball on doing our home tour, I thought I would revisit that idea! J I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to get these pictures taken, edited and posted to share with all my friends and family that are unable to come and visit us! Please accept my apology.

SO…

HERE GOES!

This is our front door, on the inside of our porch. I did not take a picture of the outside door because it was dark. BUT, you can refer to this post if you have forgotten how the front of the house looks!

The front door opens up into our dining room, which is connected to all the rooms on the first floor. You could actually just walk in circles through all the rooms if you wanted. Ha, we have our own indoor track!

To the right in our dining room we have these big bay windows (that I love). We need some furniture to fill this space, but we are in no rush to get anything. Why? Well, because we are not sure exactly what we want or what would work in this space. Any ideas?

To the left side of the dining room we have our console table with odds and ends and our staircase to upstairs. There is also a doorway into the library (that’s what we call it) and the living room, too!

This is looking into our living room from the dining room. Louie wanted to be in the picture, so you can see him too! I am not sure what color this is, it was here when we moved in. We have discussed painting the living room, but have no idea what color we’d like to change it to.

Fireplace & TV. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the fireplace? SO much!

Our Sofa, painting by me and a little view of our big windows. The windows on this floor are the original windows from 1883. We really enjoy the shutters on the windows and that was a big selling point for us because we knew we would not have to worry about window treatments; which can be expensive!

This is the view from the couch, looking through the dining room and into the kitchen.

Entering the library…

Our under the stairs coat and vacuum closet; I am so thankful that Stephen hung the hooks for the coats this weekend. Yay for having a place to hang jackets!

This is the light fixture in the library. I kind of like it, kind of don’t. BUT it does flow well with the rest of the house so that means something! We were told that the older couple that used to live here eventually made this room their master bedroom because they had difficulty getting up and down the stairs.

We use this room for DVDs, books and my craft/scrapbooking things. The plan is to put a daybed in here for an extra bed and reading area. Now, we just need to get starting on making one out of old doors!

This bookshelf has mostly picture albums and scrapbooks on it. There are some paperback books too, but you can tell that I like to take pictures and document everything, ha! The butterfly rug was made by my little brother in elementary school (not sure what grade?) and he gave it to me as a Christmas gift. I still have it!

The library connects to our half bath and laundry room. You can also get to the bath/laundry room through the kitchen. Louie’s kennel stays in this room during the day while we are gone, but we move it up to our room at night for sleepy time.

Looking out the bathroom/laundry room into the kitchen…

And the kitchen. Quite possibly my favorite room in the house!

All the other houses we looked at had such dated kitchens that we would have needed to do some serious work. We were so blessed to find this house with beautiful cabinets, counters and newer appliances! God is so good!

Those cabinets on the left open up and have drawers that pull out. That is so awesome! It makes putting groceries and finding things SO much easier!

The kitchen sink and window looking out into the mudroom…

This is the door to/from the mudroom. We use this door daily when coming or going.

And the mudroom! We just put the bench together last weekend and placed it out here so we could sit down and put our shoes on. I like having a place outside to do that because honestly, shoes do not belong in our house. We ordered a nice shoe rack too, but it has not arrived yet!

These are all our shoes that will one day go on the shoe rack!

And this is the door outside from the mudroom, that enters the backyard.

And that, friends, is the tour of our first floor! You may have noticed that the pictures are not perfect, and the house is not perfect. That is because we actually live here, and it shows. This is our home and we love it! Now, come on up and visit to see it for yourself…it is a little piece of history! (hint hint, family in FL!)

Hope you enjoyed the tour! See ya next time!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies :)

2011-09-27T07:01:00.001-04:00

PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLE COOKIES!

Via: Pinterest, via: Annies Eats

INGREDIENTS: For the cookies:
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg ( We left this out, too)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree ( I modified this and used 1 heaping cup for extra moistness and pumpkin flavor!)
1 large egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the coating:
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger (We did not have this, so I left it out-still tasted delicious!)
Dash of allspice

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk to blend and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Blend in the pumpkin puree. Beat in the egg and vanilla until incorporated. With the mixer on low speed add in the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour (I only chilled for 10-15 min, and then while I had cookies baking I had the dough in the refrigerator, too).

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Combine the sugar and spices for the coating in a bowl and mix to blend. Scoop the dough (about 2½ tablespoons) and roll into a ball. Coat the dough ball in the sugar-spice mixture and place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough to fill the sheets, spacing the dough balls 2-3 inches apart. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until just set and baked through. Let cool on the baking sheets about 5 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough.

We baked these cookies this weekend and they were delicious and perfect for the cooler fall weather we are having in Indiana right now! The hubs helped me bake them and we had a great time working in the kitchen together, cooking with your spouse is fun! These cookies were inspired by Pinterest, but I did modify the recipe a little bit. These cookies are the perfect combination of tradition snickerdoodle, with a hint of pumpkin flavor. And you know what? They are delicious with a warm cup of tea! Let me know if you give them a try!

Weekend Wrap-Up!

2011-09-26T10:07:00.000-04:00

This weekend was full of fun activities, even with the rainy couple of days here. Fall has arrived and you can see it everywhere; the trees are starting to change colors and leaves are already falling. Agh. Fall is my favorite season, and I am so thankful for the cooler temperatures!

Our Saturday started out at home. We had plans to spread grass seed and do some other yard work, but were unable to with the rain. We decided to head to Fort Wayne and get our shopping trip done in the morning. We also stopped at Logan’s Roadhouse for lunch and it was SO.GOOD! It had been a long time since I had a steak, and we actually split an 8oz. so it was the perfect amount! After feeding our bellies we were onward to Dollar Tree, Hobby Lobby, Kirklands, Menards, Gordon Food Service, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bath & Body Works and Country Kitchen. We got some great deals and everything we needed, too!

We came home and changed into comfy clothes to just relax. Is it just me or do other people like rainy days for PJs and relaxing too? I ended up working on a Fall Wreath that was inspired from Pinterest last week. Surprisingly to me, this project did not take long at all. In fact, it only took the length of two Friend episodes!

After some crafting it was time to bake. We made these pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies that were also inspired from Pinterest (are you noticing a trend here?). They are quite yummy and I have plans to post the recipe tomorrow for you all to enjoy!

Sunday after church we got to have lunch with this adorable little girl:

We met Stephen’s family for a yummy lunch at The Boathouse to celebrate September birthdays. Yesterday was actually my Mother-in-Law’s birthday; Happy Birthday Bev! My SIL Robin was going to come too because her birthday was last Friday, but she was not feeling good and did not make it. We missed you, Robin!

Looks like Hadley and her Dad, Adam were having a very serious talk! J

We came home and tried to take some family pictures with Louie, but he wanted none of it. He was quite a little stinker this weekend, actually. We did get a family picture minus Louie and then some individual pictures of our little man, so I am going to call it a success!

What else did we do on Sunday? Well, Stephen worked a little on his hunny-do list while I crafted. We got some pictures that we bought at Kirklands hung, and hooks put up in our coat closet finally. Now all our coats are hanging instead of being crammed into black garbage bags like they have been since our move. I am hoping that the wrinkles fall out before we need to wear them. I can dream, right?

Our new picture in the bathroom that I love:

Now I have my claw foot tub AND my chandelier that I have always wanted!

I put together a little dry-erase board inspired from Pinterest again. All it took was an old picture frame and some scrapbook paper. I added some letter stickers and a little heart sticker too to dress it up. We hung it in our kitchen above the hooks for coats, purses and umbrellas. We plan on using it for reminder notes…or maybe just love notes since we don’t get to see each other much in the mornings. I am very pleased with how it looks! (Note: the feather boas are usually not there, they were a purchase made this weekend at Hobby Lobby and they will be used on my niece’s birthday cup-cake display!)

Lastly I worked on another Pinterest project. I had seen (and pinned) a unique and creative headboard made from an outdoor seatee cushion, some buttons, string, and a shelf. I took this picture immediately after Stephen hung it, so it is not final but I was just so excited and wanted to share it! I think it is such a neat idea for a fun headboard! What do you think?

Well folks, that is our weekend rolled up into one long post! I hope that you enjoyed the pictures and ideas shared. Let me know if you try any of the craft projects and just let me know if you have any questions!

Happy Monday!