Slackin'

I decided today that I am so far behind in blogging that I am just going to catch you up on what's been going on in list format... (I heart lists).

Christmas time:

For Christmas Steve and I went to the great state of Utah as many of you know already. We thought our first Christmas would be a breeze because both our families live somewhat nearby. The whole Christmas experience was wonderful, but we did struggle with trying to be fair with each family and divide our time equally between the two. We both wanted to be in two places at once!

We spent Christmas Eve and morning with my side of the family, and Christmas day with Steve's side. It would have been fun to see all the little kids at Steve's parents house opening up there presents Christmas morning, but we did love being at my parents house too.

That was a really fun trip for us but we are glad to be back in the nice, warm weather here in AZ!

New Years:

For New Years Eve we hosted a little get together where we played games, ate random assortments of food and finally... watched a movie and paused it at midnight to say happy New Years!

January:

In this wonderful Arizona month we had some of my family come to visit us. It was so nice to have my Mom (A.K.A. clean-aholic), Dad (A.K.A. Speed racer), Allison (A.K.A. Mrs. Barton (in a French accent)), Bradley (A.K.A. stud muffin) and Olli Mar (A.K.A. dog) come to visit us. I wish I had taken some pictures but I have been totally slacking in this area for a while now.

While my family was here they really helped us get motivated again to work on our house. My mom was soooooo wonderful. While everybody (except for my mom) went four wheeling she stayed behind at my house and painted the entire back wall of the house in the porch area and part of the front trim! Really! She is the best. Thank's mom!

February:

Just this last weekend we had the pleasure of having more visitors! Scott, Rachel, Mason and Brynn just left Monday (sad face), but we were so happy to be able to spend time with them this last weekend and have them stay with us a short while. It was so much fun to watch Mason chase Weston (or "Reston" as he says it) around the house and the yard, and then Weston chase Mason. They had so much fun with each-other. I don't know about Mason but I know Weston is experiencing withdrawals at the moment.

Steve and I really loved spending time with Scott and Rachel last weekend and meeting Brandon, Whitney and Rachel Fay. We also really enjoyed having small children around. It was so much fun and it makes me excited to have kids in the future!

Today:

So now you are officially 'caught up', and I feel like I contributed something else besides house pictures to our blog:)

House Update

So it's been a while since we had any sort of an update because we did not have Internet the last few months, but now we have returned to cyber space to share with you some updated pictures of the house. As you can see we have come a long way. Our house actually feels livable now and we really love having all the extra space to put all of our stuff. We still have lots of stuff to do but mostly small things that we will be working on during our weekends for the next 30 years, or as long as we live here.

I feel incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful home and place for our cute Weston to run around in. He loves the backyard and insists on laying out in the sun EVERY-DAY! (I smell doggy skin cancer in our future). Good thing he has like 25 inches of hair to protect his skin or else I really would worry about something like that.

So here are some pictures and hopefully now that we can offer a place to stay for people we can get more visitors!

The TV room. We now have a full set of couches in here so it looks even better and we get our Cantera fireplace installed this coming Monday so once we hang the TV on the wall over the new fireplace this room will be complete!

The kitchen. (The back-splash in the background we decided not to use because it just didn't match all that well). I think we will probably end up more of a natural sandstone tile.

View from the front door looking in.

View from the kitchen looking at where the kitchen used to be. F.Y.I. We actually took down our Christmas tree before New Years just so you know. We are not crazy people that leave it up till the end of January! Now Steve has his ping pong table and dart board in here. Sort of temporary until we win the lottery and buy a living room set.

Master bath... Still needs a counter top, sink and hung mirror.

Master bedroom. Not a lot of furniture but what else do you need?

Hall bath

Lastly... Your bedroom when you come and visit us!

My birthday

I just celebrated my 25th birthday a little over a week ago and I don't feel much different. I think that's kinda how it goes though. Steve made it a very special day for me by doing exactly what I would have planned for myself on my birthday... Dinner and a movie!

Steve has always loved to be around as many people as possible, especially on occasions like a birthday. I, however, am the complete opposite. Though I love spending time with friends, what I enjoy most is good food and entertainment. Not a big crowd. Quality time with my amazing husband is the best!

My birthday fell on a Monday this year and I took the day of work to celebrate. Steve took me out to lunch at a breakfast spot because that is what I was craving and it was yummy. He also gave me these amazing flowers that I loved. They lasted a long time too because I just threw them away today (Sunday the 22nd of November), and my birthday was on the ninth.

After lunch I went shopping, and who doesn't like shopping! I bought a couple things for the house and then that night when Steve got home from dinner he gave me a nice card and in the card he said that my present was in his pants. I was a little confused by that and I am sorry if that surprises you, but that is just Steve's funny way of getting a laugh out of me. After I read the card I laughed a little and said "okay, where is my real present?" Steve say's "No really... It's in my pants"

and he pulls this out from his pocket

It's hard to see in this picture but it's a little piece of paper torn out from a magazine. I was confused at first. I was like "thanks for the fishies?" because thats what it looked like the picture was of. Eventually he told me it was a new tv. So I was excited. Now we have a new tv to play our Wii on.

After that we just went to dinner and a movie, it was a perfect night. Thank you Steve for knowing what I like and treating me so well. I always hoped I would marry someone great but you have exceeded my expectations so far and I know you will continue to do so in our future.

For my mom and sissy

My mom asked me to post some pictures of the progress we have been making on the house... Let me just tell you, I took these today and we are moving in a week from tomorrow! We still have a lot of work.

Enjoy!

The master bath vanity area! Ok, well this is where it is supposed to be.

Getting the dry wall on

This was the kitchen... Now it will be the front room

This is where the new kitchen will be installed next week.

TV room. What was underneath the 70's tile... Painted brick! We will be covering that up!

Wish us luck!

Steve's contribution to blogging

So as you can probably see the picture on our page has changed... Yesterday Steve discovered blogging. He was killing time checking the usual ESPN, cougarfan.com and it would take a while to list all the sports pages he checks every day so I just named a couple. I tried to encourage him to participate and he seemed interested and said "okay... Can I change the picture?" I said "sure, it's your blog too!" and this is what we got, the wonderful Phillies Logo! I had to laugh because he just thinks it's the best picture ever... Seriously, I wish you could see how giddy he was about it. I was kind of hoping he would write something but if this is all I get, I'll take it! I have to be honest, I'll probably be changing the picture back soon but I love him for trying...

The new diggs...

I just wanted to post a couple of pics of the house we just purchased. We are now officially home owners! I am a little hesitant to post the pics because you have to have an open mind when looking at them. We plan on remodeling. These are the "before" pictures and when we finish in about a month or two we will post the "after" pictures. The reason we loved the house was mainly because of the back yard. It's totally a mess right now but it will look great when it's all cleaned up!

View from the front... Not much to look at yet but it will be.

The kitchen, which is really weird right now because the front door is there on the right? You walk into the kitchen but we will be moving the kitchen to the back wall of the house.

View from the front door looking to the back wall area where the kitchen will go. It's hard to imagine with these pictures. It's actually the perfect size and space for a kitchen area we just need to move a window or two.

This will be the family/t.v. room after a little TLC.

The back yard!

The grass area in the backyard although right now it's just the dead-grass area in the backyard. We do have a banana plant, orange tree's and a lemon tree in the yard. I LOVE the lemon tree!

The outdoor gazebo area. Will be a pimped out grill man area if Steve has his way with it!

Happy bundt-day!

So we just celebrated Steve's 30th birthday this week on Wednesday and can I just say how weird that was... It doesn't seem like he is old enough to be 30 if that makes sense, I always though that was old. Not anymore!

I had a lot of fun planning this day for him. I have always felt that birthdays are a big deal and this birthday imparticular is because it's our first birthday as a married couple and come on... HE'S 30!

The first thing I did that morning was leave him a present to open when he woke up. I wish I could have been there when he opened it but I was at work so I left a note on top of the present saying "open me" with a nice little note telling him how much I love him and that this was not his main present. I got a text from him a little later that said "thank you! I love it". I gave him bocce ball. If you have never played bocce ball before you are missing out, it's a fun game and if anybody ever comes out to visit us we can play it!

When I got home from work I let him open up his main present along with some cards that were sent to him for his birthday. The main present was a wii... He was really excited! I also gave him the Mario kart game and an extra paddle, (they really rob you with all the little things!) We have now played it a couple times and both agree it's awesome!

After the presents we had to leave to go meet all of our friends for dinner. We went to Benihanas and then after that back to our friend's house to have cake and ice cream around a fire. It was perfect weather for the fire, it's getting so nice here! I think one of the highlights from the evening was the cake and ice cream. I wish that I was a good non-gluten free cake baker but I'm not. I did order this delicious Red velvet cake with chocolate chips and cream cheese frosting from this totally cute place called nothing bunt cakes. They have all these cute themes and decorate the cakes so nice! I also spent the night before making homemade vanilla bean ice cream which was also a huge hit! All in all I think it was a very nice birthday for Steve and he got to do his favorite thing... hang out with me and all his friends!

This is the cake.

Happy bundt-day honey!!!