Utterly Smitten

wedding

2011-10-03T18:52:00.004-04:00

Josh and Mer got married this weekend on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception a ton of fun! We're so thankful they are our friends and so happy for them! I didn't take any pictures, but did bring home many flowers to keep in our house. The flowers and decorations were beautiful...

We have one more wedding this year and then we're done probably until next summer. Everyone said that our life would slow down after our wedding. That hasn't been the case and I don't think life will really slow down until January. Until then we'll enjoy our crazy life together!

bouquet

2011-09-19T20:23:00.004-04:00

I'm not a huge flower person. I think they're pretty, but I don't know anything about them. The flowers for our wedding were important to me because I wanted them to look good but I wasn't very picky. I trusted our florists and hoped for the best {they were wonderful!!}.

I absolutely loved my bouquet. It was perfect. I went back and forth between wanting an all white one and wanting one with a little color. I decided on one with a little color and I'm so happy I did. The peach English Roses {my absolute new favorite!} looked so great with my dress and in pictures...I'm not bias or anything! Needless to say, they might be my go to flowers in the future if I ever buy flowers.

But how can something this pretty turn into this???

I wish I could have saved my pretty bouquet forever, but I'm glad I have such great pictures to remind me!

so excited!

2011-09-15T19:49:00.002-04:00

We got the CDs with all our wedding pictures the other day and I finally got them all put on my computer this afternoon. I've been spending way too much time looking at them and wishing I could go back and do it all over ten times!

never forget

2011-09-11T19:45:00.002-04:00

10 years ago I was a Sophomore in high school sitting in the gym conference room taking ISTEP tests. After the test was over I walked back into school to finish up my day of classes. As I walked through the gym, the bleachers were pulled out like we were going to have an assembly. Did I miss the fact that we were going to have an assembly or mass that afternoon?!? I remember seeing everyone watching the TVs in the cafeteria as I walked by and I was really confused. I thought maybe it was normal for them to watch at this time of day since I was normally in a different class. Then I walked to the library and everyone in there was glued to TVs as well. Everyone else in the school already heard about the events of the morning and had been watching for quite awhile. The conference room didn't have the PA system hooked up, so we had no idea what was going on.

I'll never forget that day. We didn't have any classes. We watched the news all day and then had an assembly later in the afternoon. A prayer service. There were only a few times in my four years of high school that I was in the gym with hundreds of other 15-18 year old kids and you could hear a pin drop.

The kids I teach weren't even born when 9/11 happened. It makes me sad because they don't know how the events of that day unfolded or how many heros we watched that day. However, it makes me happy that they didn't have to experience that horrible day.

I will never forget that day and all the people that lost their lives.

My thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the victims.

i hate mondays

2011-08-29T19:06:00.003-04:00

Mondays are awful.

And to top it off, I had the worst headache most all day today.

So I skipped my workout, came home after work, and just woke up from a little cat-nap.

My night isn't turning out so horribly after-all!

On another note, I learned about the My Fitness Pal app the other day. I have started using it and I love it! My goal is to lose all 12 lbs. I gained after our honeymoon/this summer and maybe a couple more pounds before Josh and Mer's wedding. I lost two pounds last week just being back in the school routine and working out twice. Looks like this is possible!

"Cleaning Tuesdays" is making its way back to our house starting tomorrow. I used to religiously clean at the apartment every Tuesday and then I wouldn't have to worry about it on the weekends. I'm dreading having to clean tomorrow because we've put it off for so long. But, I'll be thankful this long weekend {and many other weekends} that I don't have to use my days to clean.

I'm off to enjoy my lazy night before the rest of this week starts getting crazy!

to shop or not?!?

2011-08-23T20:22:00.004-04:00

I was just looking through my closet to try and find an outfit to wear to school tomorrow. {Yes, I have to pick my outfit out the night before or I'll be really, really late to work in the morning!} I yelled down to Kurt saying I really want to go shopping and get some new stuff. And that I really need some new clothes....! :)

Funny how things work because while cooking dinner we were talking about money. We were talking about stuff you talk about when you get married...trying to save for the future even more than we were before. "We need to stop spending so much money," came out of my mouth during this discussion.

Ugh, I know we need to save money, but looking cute is important too! Right?!? {ha} I guess no shopping is in the near future. Now back to figuring out what to wear.

P.S- My first day was great. I'm exhausted and thinking of going to bed soon. This year is going to be fun!

kindergarten

2011-08-22T19:35:00.003-04:00

This little lady started kindergarten today and I can't believe it! She's growing up so quickly!

This is Lauren and Julia with my dad {Papa} on Julia's 5th birthday this summer.

I start school tomorrow. I'm not ready. The older I get, it seems like time goes quicker than the day/month/year before. I want life to slow down!! This summer was amazing and I'm sad to see it come to an end. I know this year will be fun and I can't wait to meet my kids tomorrow. I'm off to finish the laundry so I can get in bed early. Have a great week!

really wishing...

2011-08-18T18:48:00.003-04:00

...we were back here.

No responsibilities, no phone, no emails, just us.

Missing that amazing time we shared, just the two of us, on our honeymoon.

lake rage fest

2011-08-02T21:46:00.004-04:00

We invited some friends up to the lake last weekend. We had a blast. Ate a lot and drank even more! The weather was perfect for long days at the sandbar. I didn't take many pictures, but I'll let them speak for themselves....

We left Coop at my parents house and brought Bailey for two reasons. 1. She LOVES swimming and hasn't gotten to go to the lake for a couple years. 2. We really wanted her to 'teach' Olive how to swim.

Trying to beat the lake....

OG had a difficult evening...complete with some marshmallow on his chest!

On the last day, she decided it was a good idea to swim! Woo hoo!!

not in college con't

2011-07-27T20:58:00.003-04:00

After today, I am really reminded I'm not in college. I am currently posting laying in bed ready to go to sleep for the evening. I had tutoring this morning and then ran a couple errands. At noon I met all my 2nd grade teacher friends at the pool for a summer team meeting. Right away I started off the meeting with drinks and continued to drink until I left at 4:30. Sounds like a pretty great meeting, huh?!? :)

I met Kurt at the car shop and dropped my car off {because the air isn't working..ugh!} and then we ran a couple errands. We went to Three Wisemen for dinner/drinks early and sat outside. Wednesdays are $2.50 pint nights so of course we both had some beer...I just continued my drinking trend for the day. I'm exhausted from this little bit of day drinking and trying to extend it into the evening....ugh, I'm getting old.

Kurt went to hockey for the night, so I hanging with the dogs and planning a very early bedtime. Too bad it's still light outside or I might be sleeping right now!

On a side note, we were talking after our meeting about babies and such. I expressed my concern that EVERYONE will know I'm pregnant {when the time comes} way before we're ready to tell anyone because they'll notice right away if I don't drink. Sounds like I need to reconsider this whole drinking thing, huh? That's a whole different conversation for another day!

we're not in college anymore...

2011-07-26T21:41:00.004-04:00

...unfortunately, in some respects. I must say I miss a lot of things about college - friends, lack of responsibility, the college town atmosphere, Bloomington. I do not miss the school part - tests, homework, papers, etc. I absolutely don't miss Kurt's crazy nasty houses and the horrible decorations/home furnishings. We've kept one thing straight out of college in our apartmentand house until the other day...thank goodness it's gone!

Here's a look at the front corner of the house before:

Ah, yes. A touch lamp. And, yes it is crooked.

And now, our little upgrade...

Only thing is the cord. However, that shouldn't be a problem for too long {hopefully}. We plan on getting another chair and little table to finish off that corner and add more seating in our living room. We're now on the hunt for a new chair that will fit!

shopping spree...for {practically} free!!

2011-07-20T13:51:00.005-04:00

I didn't expect registering to be so stressful when we got engaged. I thought it would be a process that was fun and exciting. But, it did stress me out when we were actually registering....are we making the right decisions on plates, cups, pillows, towels, ect. AHHH! I was so worried about it all. We knew we were inviting a lot of people to our wedding and I had 4 showers, so we made sure to register for a lot of stuff.

You've seen the post about our house being a mess from all the presents we got before the wedding. Well, things haven't improved with stashes of gifts, Crate and Barrel boxes, and tissue paper. It's insane how much stuff we've gotten {and we're working on thanking all of our family and friends for their generous gifts!}. Since we've gotten back from our honeymoon, we've been going through all of our presents and making three "piles." 1. Keep at home. 2. Keep at my parents {no room for it at home but we'll eventually want it and won't want to spend the money on it}. 3. Take back.

Although we received many, many gifts from our registery, we decided to take a decent amount back mainly because we really feel we don't need

it/won't use it and would like the money for things we didn't get that we do really need/want and will use. So onto this "free" shopping spree. Monday and yesterday we took back a lot of presents to the stores where we registered. We've been going through our registeries thinking about what we'd still like to get. After we returned some things, we decided it was time to start using our 10% off at these stores and work on getting these things we still wanted to get.

First up, Target. We had a gift card there for 80 some dollars and also a 10% off card. Here's what we picked up {none were actually the original things on our registery but similar products}. We did spend $12 here to cover a few other things that aren't on here...

We picked up two of these puppies. Great for tailgating and sitting in the backyard {since we don't have patio furniture}. Oh, and the lake! Note the cooler on the side of the chair...selling point for Kurt.

And we grabbed this for the same reasons as above.

We may have gotten ourselves in over our heads. We'll see when we test it at the lake in 2 weekends...!

Then we headed to Crate and Barrel. I wasn't expecting to be there for as long as we were, but I remembered why registering in the first place was difficult....I WANT EVERYTHING! That store just pulls me in every. single. time. We got a lot {for free} and still have over $300 to the store to use very soon! :)

We got too much stuff to put all the pictures up. So here's a quick list:

Small Salad Spinner

White Butter Dish

Non-slip Over the Sink Cutting Board & Colander {love this one!}

Grill Tool Set {with green case}

2 Dylan Highball Glasses {to finish up our set}

6 Dylan Double Glasses {to finish up our set}

2 Black Silicone Mitts {for Kurt while grilling}

Square Grill Basket {for veggies, potatoes, etc}

Grill Half-Grid "Basket" {for fish}

Pepper Blend

Another set of corn picks

Spoon Rest

2 in 1 basting brush

Meat Tenderizer

Ice Scoop

Zester/Grater

I have absolutely no idea where we're going to put all this stuff, but I can't wait to find places and start using them!! We're trying to find time to clean out all of our kitchen cabinets to see what we have and to reorganize. Let's hope this happens soon!

Lastly, after dinner, we went to Macy's. I've been really, really wanting a new vacuum {which is crazy because Kurt does most of the vacuuming!}. We returned a few things and went straight to the vacuums. We knew we wanted the Dyson Animal one. It just so happens that a sale started today and part of the sale is newly married couples get 20% off everything {on top of sale price} instead of the usual 10%!!! We were able to "preorder" the stuff, aka buy it last night and pick it up today for the sale price. We also picked up two awesome pillows that we didn't get. I can't wait to use them!!! We had to leave because the store was closing, but we're planning on going back and picking up a few more things. Oh, by the way, we got a over $500 vacuum and 2 pillows that are originally $200 a piece for $50 of our own money. Sweet!!!

slow down!

2011-07-07T11:52:00.000-04:00

Woah, we're back. In fact we've been back for a week now. This summer is going way too quickly!

Our wedding was perfect. More than I dreamed of, imagined, and pictured for so long. I'm sad it's now over, but excited about our future together. Many, many more updates to come.

Our honeymoon was absolutely perfect except one thing...I wanted to stay forever! We were gone for 2 weeks and still didn't seem long enough. We have tons of pictures from that to share, too.

I thought things would really slow down once we got home and got all settled in. They haven't yet and don't seem like they will for a little while. So, I'll try to catch up as best as possible. But some things were pushed to the back burner or nonexistent for many months before the wedding that need tending to now! All the laundry is done {well last load in the washer for now!}, the house is now somewhat cleaned {thank God!}, and we're slowly but surely going through presents and finding spots for them. Next up, yard work this weekend...ugh! And, thank you note writing is beginning right now. I'll leave you with one picture from the wedding {the only one I have so far}. On of our options for our Thank You cards. Have a great Thursday and {probably} weekend. I'll be back to update about the yard next week.

I'm getting MARRIED...

2011-06-09T22:32:00.000-04:00

in 2 days!!!! I absolutely cannot believe it. This week has been so busy but has gone by so slowly. Tomorrow morning bright and early the wedding festivities begin for both the men and women. Nails, lunch, makeup, rehearsal, and dinner are all in the plans for tomorrow night. Sunday we have a day after brunch. It's going to be quite a busy weekend but I hope that it doesn't go by too quickly! It still hasn't really hit me yet, but I think it will tomorrow night. I'm going to be Mrs. Weiper in less than 48 hours!!!

Many, many pictures and updates from the wedding and life later. Have an amazing weekend!

11 Days...omg!

2011-05-31T15:46:00.000-04:00

Almost exactly at this time in 11 days, we'll be married. Holy sh*t!! I've been dreaming of this day since I can remember and seriously planning for over a year. How did it all the sudden creep up on me?!? I cannot express how excited I am. Each day I'm starting to really feel like it's coming, but I know it won't hit me until the day of, or maybe even after. I feel like this most Christmas days. I listen to music, shop, etc. looking forward to the big day and all the sudden, it's over. I'm a little worried this is how our wedding day will feel. Now that all the plans are in place, I keep playing the weekend over and over in my head. I hope the weekend will be better than I have ever imagined it to be. I cannot wait for the moment that I see Kurt for the first time waiting for me at the end of the aisle. This is one thing I know will be better than I can ever imagine! I can't wait for him to finally see my dress...man, it's been tricky trying to keep it a secret from him for so long! Oh and how I can't wait to see all our family and friends all in one spot...dancing the night away!

I have a lot to do in these next 11 days. Before all last minute wedding planning can happen, I must say goodbye to my kiddos. My first ever class. What a crazy year it has been. One I'll never forget. I just told my kids something we're going to find time to do in our crazy schedule tomorrow. An idea that came to me while on recess duty today. I am going to have each student in my class write a letter to him/her self. A reflection of second grade. We're going to seal them up in an envelope for me to keep. I'll give them their letter the day they graduate from Orchard in 8th grade {in 2017!}. As I was sitting thinking about this, I decided and told the kids I would write one too. One can only think about what things will be like in 2017, but it will be wonderful thinking back to this year and all the things that have happened. As for now, I'll think about how great things are now and how I'm lucky that things will be absolutely amazing in 11 days.

see for yourself

2011-05-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

Um, this is what a house looks like 3 weeks before a wedding....

Honestly, I'm positive you can't even see how much of a disaster our house currently is. These pictures don't do it justice. As I was taking these pictures, Kurt commented that, "This {the sh** you're looking at} is just the tip of the iceberg!" I couldn't have said it better, babe...

Only good news?!? Well, two things. We've gotten so much awesome stuff, from all my showers and people's wedding gifts. And, Kurt is starting to get really sick of all this crap around {as am I} and said he was going to do a major clean-up this weekend while I'm away. Wooo hooo! Look's like I'll be coming home to a clean{er} house! :)

Can't wait to relax and party with my friends all weekend!!!

worn out

2011-05-16T21:46:00.000-04:00

It's only Monday and I'm already worn out. We had an all day field trip today which was tiring {Kurt came with}! When we got home at 4:00, I got right to work on wedding stuff. I've been working on stuff ever since...it's now 9:45. I did take a 15 or 20 minute break for dinner. I must say, I got a lot done tonight!! This week is busy so posting will probably be light once again.

Tomorrow - Last meeting with florist at 5:00 then a new team meeting {for next year}.
Wednesday - My friends at work are having a work bridal shower for me!!
Thursday - Must finish sub plans for Friday and Monday {taking the two days off} and work out at 5:30.
Friday - Last meeting with photographer at 1:00. Off to Bachelorette Party Weekend at 6:00!!!!!

Oh yeah, I need to try and find time to do laundy and clean the house sometime in here....!

memories

2011-05-13T14:40:00.000-04:00

So, I totally did this post the other day but just realized it didn't show up.... I don't know where it went! Anyway, Kurt and I spent a lot of time {way too much time} the other night putting together our wedding slide show. So far, this has been one of my favorite projects that I've done for the wedding. I didn't think I'd get as emotional as I do every time I watch it, and I've watched it multiple times already! I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you. We can't wait to share the whole slide show with our family and friends at our wedding reception!

{Cute baby Kurt}

{My family}

{Little Mr. Athlete}

{Yes, at one point in my life I was good at a sport!}

{Shortly after we started dating...don't judge!}

Our wedding is 4 weeks from tomorrow. I absolutely cannot believe it's so soon!

Olive watches Bethenny too!

2011-05-09T15:05:00.009-04:00

So any time a baby or dog comes on TV, Olive stops dead in her tracks and runs to the TV to watch what's going on. I accidentally erased a clip on TV that she was going nuts over, so this will have to do until I can catch it again with my camera. What a funny little pup we have...!

I have my second dress fitting tonight. Wish me luck! Can wait to try on my dress again! :)
Less than 5 weeks. The countdown has begun!

2nd Grade 'Surprise' Party

2011-05-05T16:06:00.001-04:00

My friends that I teach with and some parents of 2nd graders worked together to plan a shower for me at school today. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I found out....not from the kids! They are really good at keeping secrets. They asked me some questions about the wedding and sang "Here Comes the Bride" as I walked in with my veil and bouquet. Needless to say, I cried. Some of the parents took video and pictures of our afternoon {that I'll share sometime}, but I thought I'd leave you with a picture of a present I got and some wedding advise given to me {all of them wrote Kurt and I a piece of advice and put it into a whole book}.

It's hard to tell how stinkin' cute this is from the picture. My class made it for me with their thumbprints. Then they drew around it to make some object. I love it!

"You should say I love you to him, do the dishes, and feed the dogs." - Reese

"You're the best teacher ever and I bet you will be a great wife. Try to do everything together whenever you can." - Eli

"Make sure he says he loves you every morning, noon, and night. And don't let him tell you what to do because you're the QUEEN." -Lola

"I hope you have a fantastic marriage. You should get candles on your wedding cake and make wishes." - Benny

"When your kids go to college, try to let them call you." - Eric

"Always remember your honeymoon when you celebrate your anniversary." - Louise

"I wish you have a great time with Kurt. When you get married you should take charge of Kurt. Oh and make sure you do the dishes because husbands don't like to." -Hailey

"I hope you have a fantastic wedding. I hope you have a boy." -Logan

"Remember to fight through tough times together." -Mary

"Always give Kurt a hug and a kiss when he comes home from work." -Kayla

"Take a lot of family trips...remember bring the baby!!" -Sydney

"Don't forget to go out on dates sometimes." -Chase

"Don't just enjoy the wedding, really enjoy the marriage." -Keegan

"Remember if you are ever mad at Kurt look back at the best times you and him had together. P.S. Have a happy life together." -Jack

"I hope you have a great life. Never let Kurt spell 5 things wrong in a sentence." -Charlotte

"Remember don't let Kurt pick out your outfit." -Caroline

"I hope you will be happy with Kurt. Don't get too much furniture or you'll have no room." -Josh

"I wish for you to have a great marriage...and for June 11 to be the best day of your life. And remember, there's never too much makeup!" Josh

"I wish you a happy wedding day. Oh, and don't get too excited. A baby is a real handful!" -Margot

"I hope you have an awesome marriage. I hope you have a good life with Kurt. Remember always get your way!" -Morgan

"I wish for you and Kurt to have the time of your life. Here's a tip...don't ever get in fights. If you do, just drop it." -Soren

"Wedding Advice: 1. Make sure you do a big mwhooo {kissing sound}. 2. Make sure you braid your hair. 3. Make sure you are looking fancy. 4. Make sure your eyes twinkle in the sun." -Casey

"I hope you have a good wedding day and a good baby." -Tucker

Sorry, I know I said a few. But, there are too many to choose from!

The Mannings

2011-04-29T10:25:00.000-04:00

If you're a Colts fan {maybe even just a football fan}, you should read this article. Have a good weekend!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6430211

Stella & Dot

2011-04-28T13:46:00.000-04:00

Tuesday evening, my mom and I had a little jewelry party. Have you ever heard of Stella & Dot? If not, you're missing out. It's soo cute! One of the reasons why we wanted to have the party now was so I could get some fun stuff for me to take on our honeymoon!! And I got so much fun stuff. I can't wait for it to come! Here's what I got...

{Love this ring!! I can't wait to wear it!}

{I got these in gold}

{How fun is this??}

{And, my favorite. A ring. That I'm going to sport on our wedding day. My mom said I could only wear it at the reception though, but I promise you I'll be wearing it!!!}

rage fest

2011-04-26T15:59:00.001-04:00

A week ago this past Saturday, our good friends {and Best Man and Maid of Honor} Josh and Mer had a couples shower {or rage fest according to Josh}. We are so lucky to have such great friends to have a party for us and come celebrate with us before we get married. We had an awesome time. Thanks, Josh and Mer for having a party for us! And thanks to all our friends for being so great!!

The yummy food!

Kaden {Mercy and Turner's little boy} came to party with us!

Some boys hanging out.

More boys...

Mer and I

We're getting married in 45 days and I can absolutely not believe it's coming so soon!

I'm starting to go a little crazy with all the things we have going on...!

refreshing

2011-04-25T19:41:00.000-04:00

Kurt and I gave up beer for Lent. Not the best idea we've ever had, but we did it anyway. We did cheat a few times, but for the most part didn't drink beer for the whole 6 weeks. It was so refreshing to taste a yummy summer beer yesterday! I'm about to pop one open right now...

Ahhhhh, how I love beer.

respondez s'il vous plait

2011-04-22T09:48:00.008-04:00

Since we sent our invitations out a little over a week ago, we've had lots of mail!

Response cards in particular.

You might not believe me when I tell you that this picture is how many response cards we've gotten back already, but this picture isn't lying!!

47 cards to be exact. 47 out of 150 sent.

And what's even harder for me to believe is that so far only 6 people can't come!

84 people {including Kurt and I}

What's been really fun is reading notes that people are leaving on the back of the cards for us.

{The bottom of the response card says, "Include a message of best wishes for the bride and groom on the back of this card."}

Things are starting to come together and get really exciting. I absolutely cannot wait to see all the people I haven't seen in awhile and share our wedding day with so many special people!

surprises @ the door

2011-04-21T19:34:00.001-04:00

Today we got lots of packages in the mail, one we knew was coming and the other is a gift!

We were really excited when we opened up this package...

We registered for this doormat from Pottery Barn.

Kurt's aunt and uncle sent it to us.

Although I'm not technically a Weiper yet, Kurt insisted that we put it at our front door because we like it so much!

Looks awesome, don't you agree?!?

The long awaited package of part of my bridesmaid's gifts also came today!! I really, really wish I could put a picture up of what came, but don't want to ruin the surprise for my girls! I'll be sure to share after the wedding.

And speaking of gifts, look at what I'm using for the first time to make part of our dinner...

Steamed broccoli is soo good!
We got this for a shower gift from my sister-in-law Allison and her mom.
And I can't forget to mention our little teapot we LOVE...also a shower gift!

We're blessed and lucky to have such special family and friends.

my "do" for the "I Do's"

2011-04-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

In a month or so I have my hair trial. I've been keeping an eye out for updos that I like. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with a veil and headpiece...if I wear them. {I don't want to give too much information in case Kurt is reading!!}

Two of my friends used my hair girl for their wedding updos recently. Both of them had amazing wedding hair!! Here's a picture of my friend Courtney's hair....gorg but kinda hard to see!

So here are a few of the pictures I've saved while searching wedding websites. Not sure which one I'll pick yet, but I have many that are all contenders!

Clearly I'm going for a free form "messy" kind of updo. I think I'm wanting it to be a little to the side, but not sure about this part yet...

...I'm also not sure about how I want the front to be. Do I want my long bangs to be swooped over to the side or totally back and completely out of my face. Too many choices!

My boss offered to make a veil for me. I can't wait to see what she comes up with. It will be so special for me to have that on our wedding day. I'm not exactly sure how I'll wear it yet, but I do like this picture...

I'm going to stop here. I don't want Kurt to know too much information!! I'll make sure to share more about hair/veil/headpiece after our wedding!! :)

{All pictures from Style Me Pretty}

pretty pretty princess {or prince?}

2011-04-18T20:13:00.000-04:00

Over spring break {which seems like ages ago}, Julia spent the night at our house. We had a lot of fun hanging out together, but a highlight had to be playing Pretty, Pretty Princess {Disney Princess Edition} with Josh and Meredith. After we ate dinner, Julia and I ran down to their house to see if they wanted to get ice cream and come play a game {we didn't disclose which game until they agreed...didn't want to scare them away!!!}. We all piled in my car and went to McDonald's for some yummy ice cream then headed back home for a fun game. Kurt decided he would wait for another round {which never happened} and let Julia, Mer, Josh, and I play together. We had a blast and Julia won fair and square!!

Trooper!

Princess Julia

{Olive wanted to play, too}

Julia and Olive LOVE each other!

Playing together in the morning.

Old Man Coop was exhausted from all the events!

mayhem...

2011-04-14T16:12:00.000-04:00

...is the story of my life right now. Funny how things can change so much in one week. I was so relaxed and feeling on top of things last week and am going absolutely crazy right now. Between teacher responsibilities for the next couple of weeks {that seem to continue to keep piling up}, planning what I'm going to teach, planning a wedding, and every day stuff, I think I might loose my mind. Oh and my dad was in the hospital all week and had surgery last night {he's home and doing well...gall bladder}. June 1st {last day of school} can't come soon enough. June 11th is a close second. Hopefully, I'll be back tomorrow with a more exciting post.

signed, sealed, and delivered {i hope!}

2011-04-13T08:43:00.001-04:00

This is what our kitchen table looked like on Saturday afternoon

We picked up our envelopes from my mom's friend, our calligrapher, in the morning and I immediately began stuffing everything! My mom came over to help a little later and we finished with everything in a couple hours of work.

I L.O.V.E how our invitations turned out and the calligraphy topped it all off! At the end of our afternoon, we were looking at this

{some of the calligraphy is blurred for privacy}

All 150 envelopes all ready to go!

Kurt and I put them in the mail Sunday night and they were to be picked up yesterday morning at 7:00am.

I hope people start getting them today!!

I. Can't. Wait.

We are most excited to get our response cards back to see who is coming and what meals they are choosing to eat. We also have a part on the response cards asking people to write us a note. We're hoping to get some good ones back!

I'll show specifics some other time...

tutu or dress?

2011-04-12T19:43:00.000-04:00

Originally, my plan I was set on was having Julia wear a tutu for the wedding. My inspiration came from this photo

{Style Me Pretty...I think.}

I fell in love with the tutu idea. Julia would be comfortable, cute, princessy, etc. I liked the fact that it would be different than the normal flower girl outfit. I found some other weddings with flower girl tutus and couldn't get over how cute it would be for our wedding. So, the search began. I found lots of different options online, but most tutus were the wrong color, too fluffy, or not the right length. My mom found one while in San Francisco that she bought, but it was too pink. I found a really cute one on etsy, but it had to be a custom order and couldn't be returned. My hopes for the tutu were dwindling. We did talk to one seamstress {who is actually altering my dress} that said she could make one for us, but that seemed a bit overboard...!

I didn't give up hope on a tutu, but I started searching a bit more for dresses. All along I knew that if we had to do a dress, it wasn't going to be a typical flower girl dress. My first stop was Crewcuts/J.Crew bridal {of course}! We ordered this dress thinking it might work out.

Julia tried it on and of course loved it, but I disliked it from the moment I saw it. The color was off and it just wasn't formal enough for our wedding. Plus, the top part is sewn in odd ways and you could see the stitching keeping the fabric in place. So needless to say, that was shipped back against Julia's request. And the search continued. Shortly after we returned this one, I found another dress from J.Crew that looked perfect online. It is even has "vintage" in the name {which is a theme for our wedding}. Too good to be true? Almost...

The color is perfect! Matches the peach on the BM dresses perfectly! It's more formal than the other dress, but not too flower girly. And I love the detail on the shoulder....

Sold. I found the dress I wanted her to wear, but there was one small problem. There was a little tear on the seam of one shoulder. I took it into J.Crew to return it and order another one on the "red phone". {If you don't know about J.Crew's "red phone", you should! Free shipping when you order from the store AND I can use my teacher discount.} Long story shorter, I returned the dress and reordered another. But the guy on the phone said there was only one dress left. This made me nervous and made me think I should repurchase the dress with the flaw. The ladies in the store said I didn't need to buy it back, but they'd keep in on hold for two days until I heard for sure that the new dress had shipped. Close to the end of the 2nd day, I figured out {from calling customer service} that in fact the dress in her size had sold out and it wouldn't be shipping to me. Ahhh, I freaked out! I immediately called the store and thankfully they hadn't returned it yet. So, I went back and bought it {again}. They fixed the flaw free of charge. Phew, dodged a bullet on this one!

I can't wait to see Julia in the dress on the wedding day. She's going to look so grown up. She will be going with us the day before the wedding to get her nails done for the first time! And my hair girl will be doing something a little special for her. The make-up artist even said she could give her a little special blush or lip gloss to make her feel special. She's going to love it! I'm having a hard time finding shoes that I like for her, but the search is on.

While I'm kinda sad that the tutu idea didn't work out, this dress makes me feel good thinking about how perfectly it fits into the whole theme of the day. And my cute fiancé informed me that the bottom of the dress is kinda like a tutu...which is true! :)

Garb for the Men

2011-04-11T12:47:00.034-04:00

While it seemed quite easy picking out dresses for the girls, trying to think of what the men were going to wear simply stressed me out {which isn't very hard to do!!!}. Our wedding is pretty formal, so we knew we probably need them to wear tuxes. But I have a problem with rented tuxes...they are made to fit the "norm" population of men, meaning that they don't fit as well as a tailored suit or tux. Kurt's body build is not in the "norm", so everything we looked at seemed too small here but too big somewhere else, etc...ugh! We looked into the option of having all of the guys buy a black suit for the wedding. After comparing costs, the suit option would have been quite pricey for each guy, so we decided against it.

One thing I learned while tux shopping {that I still don't understand} is that most places don't have tuxes for men to try on before deciding which one to pick!!! What, really?!?!?! Kurt and I both agreed that we would not choose a tux without him being able to try the whole thing on. There was no way we were going to pick out something for the most important day of our lives without seeing it on. Anyway, we found a place in the Indy area that does allow you to try on tuxes. After Kurt tried on a couple different options, we picked the look we want for both him and the other men {including our dads}.

Kurt's Requirements:

-tux {he did entertain the suit idea, but really does want to wear a tux}

-vest {Not my favorite because I think it looks funny when the guys take their jackets off at the reception. He assured me that they have full-back ones that look okay with no jacket.}

-shoes {he wants all the guys wearing the same shoes}

My Requirements:

-simple

-classy

-not much color

-fit Kurt well

-comfortable

Finally we came up with two tuxes that we really like and think will look great on our wedding day.

Here's what Kurt will be wearing

Up Close {the tie has a bit of a stripe detail that you can't really see}

Here's what the other men will be wearing.

Same thing as Kurt but different color tie.

Up Close shot {it looks kinda grey because of the flash...}

The strips on this tie match the one Kurt will be wearing.

I love the black tie because one of the stripe colors matches the grey bottom of the bridesmaid dresses!

And yes, the vest is full-back so I'll feel comfortable with the guys taking their jackets off once the party has started!

I think these two tuxes match the requirements we both had for tuxes for our wedding. Let's hope all the other guys look great in them, too {if they ever go in to get fitted!!!!!}.

laziness = boredom

2011-04-10T16:32:00.000-04:00

Lazy days sound wonderful to me all the time. But let's be honest, I get incredibly bored when I'm attempting to be lazy. Today is one of those days. I'm sitting here thinking about what to do and can't come up with anything. {Well there are some things, like buying flowers and planting them, but that would be require me driving to the store and spending money.} Of course, the very last day of my spring break is a beautiful and hot spring day. I have been attempting to enjoy the nice weather.

I've already done a lot. And now I'm B-O-R-E-D. Feeling like I should be working on wedding stuff....

I tried to get some sun while catching up on my magazines...

...and listened to the sweet sound of our new handmade {by Julia!} wind chime.

I watched the Blackhawk game with Kurt. Now we'll have to watch the Dallas game tonight because they must lose for the Hawks to get into the playoffs. Ugh.

I attempted to brush one very lazy dog...

I keep telling myself that the wind is going to pick up outside so that we don't have to turn on our A/C. But for now, I sit inside our house that is 83° watching golf {gross} trying to think of what I'll do for the rest of the day!

Maybe you should remind me not to complain when I get super busy in the upcoming weeks...

Perfect

2011-04-10T14:56:00.000-04:00

This is perfect.

{from Style Me Pretty}

I'd like a cake just like this at either our rehearsal dinner or reception.

Can you imagine how cute our cake would look...

Love

Spring Break....

2011-04-08T10:42:00.001-04:00

...is over.

I've been on spring break for the last two weeks and I can't believe it's already coming to an end. We didn't go anywhere this year because we need to save money for our honeymoon.

I had many plans to get lots of stuff done and have pretty much failed at getting any of them complete.

The weather has sucked around here, making it impossible for me to do anything outside, especially start working on a little tan.

But I have done a lot of relaxing, sleeping in, reading, and catching up on shows. It's been a good two weeks off school. Only 7 more weeks {and a couple days} left until summer officially starts! And that means our wedding is coming up!!!!

I'm off to celebrate and fill the last couple days of my break with fun activities. Have a good weekend!

Colors & BM Dresses

2011-04-07T12:24:00.002-04:00

One of the very first things I did once we were engaged was begin looking for bridesmaid dresses. I wasn't exactly sure what colors I wanted for the wedding. I think I worked on things a bit backwards because I wanted to make sure I could find the perfect dress for my girls that went with our color scheme....whatever that was going to be!

I quickly found a Lula Kate dress that I loved at Bella Bridesmaid in Indianapolis. My decision was made and I knew I didn't need to go searching around other places.

Choosing the colors was a whole other process that didn't go as smoothly as choosing a dress. I knew for sure that I wanted a pop of color but nothing over the top. I wanted to keep our wedding colors as neutral as possible without being drab. So, eventually I choose to go with a mixture of dark grey, ivory, and muted peaches.

Here are the swatches {that are beginning to get a little ratty from being in my purse for almost a year!} for the dresses. The whole wedding has somewhat evolved around these three swatches.

Meredith, my maid of honor, is wearing grey on the bottom and ivory on top.

All the other bridesmaids will be wearing grey on the bottom and the peach on top.

I am beginning to get really excited to see everything put together. At first, I had a hard time envisioning how things would look, and I was worried that we weren't going to have a cohesive look. Ideas are starting to come together and I am hoping that everything will look beautiful...I can't wait! :)

There is one slight problem...at this point, my all the girls will be walking down the aisle barefoot! I have been searching for shoes for them to wear and can't seem to find any that go with the dress, are comfortable, and not too high of a heel. Let's hope I find something soon!!!

Newest {mini} Addition

2011-04-06T12:14:00.005-04:00

When I first started blogging, I told all about my family here and here and here. Almost 6 weeks ago {I can't believe how fast time flies}, Andy, Quinn, and Julia welcomed another little baby girl, Lauren Victoria.

Lauren was born on February 24th, weighing in over 9 lbs!!! When Kurt, Christopher, and I went to the hospital that day to see her, she was very alert. What a precious addition to our family. :) I can't wait to spend more time with her and watch her grow.

{Kurt practicing for one day...ha!}

Wedding Updates

2011-04-05T10:30:00.022-04:00

All of the big plans are set and major decisions have been made! Our wedding is in 67 days...but who's counting?!? :) We're now getting into the smaller details of our day. I can't wait to see it all come together! Each day I'm getting more and more excited about our wedding day and spending the rest of our lives together. And I must admit, I'm getting less and less patient!

Here is a quick update on some of the plans for the wedding:

-Our wedding day is June 11, 2011.

-Ceremony - Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church {where I went to school!}

-Reception - The Conrad {downtown Indianapolis}

-Honeymoon - Europe for two weeks {couldn't be more excited!!!}

I could spend all day going into specific details, but I'll spare you the time {for now}! I promise to keep updating with wedding plans and many more exciting things going on around here.

Go Dawgs!!

2011-04-04T20:30:00.009-04:00

Although my heart belongs to the Indiana Hoosiers, I can't help but to be excited for Butler!! I basically grew up on the Butler campus, taking many, many gymnastic lessons there and sledding there each and every winter. What an exciting time for the team, students, alumn, etc!!! You know who I'll be cheering for, what about you?!?

I'm back!!!

2011-04-04T12:31:00.000-04:00

Okay, I know I've been gone for almost a year. Originally I started this blog of mine with plans of blogging all of our wedding planning {and I didn't know when that would be}! Recently, I looked back at some of my old posts about our house, friends, etc and realized that I've been missing out of documenting this exciting time in our lives. I know I won't be able to make up for missed time, but I hope that I can catch you up on things that have been going on and share the many new and exciting things happening in our little home.

overdue updates

2010-05-11T18:50:00.000-04:00

I don't know where to begin. Before we left for Mexico, I'm sure you could already tell posting was getting less and less as things started getting more crazy and stressful. Once we got home, the craziness continued, and the thought of blogging stressed me out even more! So, I'm back to recap the last couple of months. Especially since many new and exciting things have happened around here!!!! :)

Cabo Trip

It's nearly impossible to try and sum up a week of vacation. We had an amazing time. The room was incredible {upgraded to the Penthouse!}, the weather couldn't have been more perfect, the food was so good, and sharing that with best friends makes it even better. Here are a few pictures from the week:

{The Group}

{The Boys}

{The Girls}

{My Love}

Doggie
After talking about getting another dog for a long time, we finally caved in and bought our second dog. We rescued Olive from Animal Care and Control. We picked her up after her spay on April 1. After a couple days, her and Cooper have become best buddies.

During our first vet appointment {also Cooper's 6 month check-up}, we found out that Olive had kennel cough. They put her on $60 medicine and couldn't give her the shots she needed until she got better. Two weeks later, we took her in to finally get her second round of shots....vet said everything looked good except a rash on her belly {needed more medicine for that}.

That next Saturday {after having her for 3 weeks}, Olive had been up throwing up all night. Her belly looked really misshaped and she couldn't stop shaking. The vet wanted us to come in as soon as possible. After a long day, lots of tests and x-rays, and some confusion, Olive had surgery to remove her spleen. It had twisted over on itself and she almost died because of it. She's practically famous at our vet office now since she is only the third dog in 30 YEARS that this has happened to! It's going to take almost that amount of time for our wallets to recover! :)

She's happy and healthy now. She loves to play with her older brother and snuggle on the couch. Our house appears to be hit by a tornado because she loves playing with every toy we have. She can entertain herself for quite awhile! Every time we put the toys into the basket, she takes them all out and puts them on her bed. I love our new addition to our family...even if she is expensive!

{Here she is with all her toys on her bed...including the 3 she's laying on!!!}

Katie and Kurt, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes MARRIAGE!
Yep, that's right. Kurt and I got engaged last Friday!!! We couldn't be happier to take the next step in our relationship. The engagement was perfect. After taking me to dinner, Kurt planned for us to walk around downtown and take a carriage ride. Because it started to storm, we couldn't do either. I suggested we go get some ice cream and go back home to watch the Blackhawks game. The entire night, Kurt acted totally normal and didn't persist on us doing anything. After ice cream, we went home. By that time, I knew he wasn't going to propose that night. When we got home, there was a card taped on the wall right as you walk in. It basically took me on a little scavenger hunt. The last stop was the dresser where a ring box was with a note that said, "Turn Around." He had mentioned in one of the cards that there was a surprise on the bed. As I am ruffling around the bed, thinking that Cooper has eaten my surprise, Kurt got down on one knee. Finally I turned around and he asked me to marry him....while Olive licked his face and Cooper howled at the door because he wanted in!!! :)

{After he proposed!}

{The ring he designed AND kept a secret from everyone since February. He did ask my dad a week in advance, but before that, NO ONE knew he had bought a ring!!!}

We've started the wedding planning process. We're planning to get married June of 2011. Hopefully this summer, I'll be able to shuffle tutoring, getting a classroom ready, planning a wedding, and blogging!

{One of my best friends, Susanah, got engaged the night before us. Not planned at all!!}

Of course we've had some other exciting things going on, but I wanted to update on the most exciting/important ones. Only two and a half more weeks of school...so I hope to be around more often!

48 more hours...

2010-03-18T15:10:00.000-04:00

...until we're in Cabo!! This week has been so incredibly busy...we've had stuff every single night. Getting ready for vacation and finishing up loose ends at work is already stressful enough! I have one more day of work and then 2 WEEKS off...one in Cabo and one at home. I'll be sure to share pictures from our trip when we return. Enjoy the beautiful weather!

checked out

2010-03-09T14:50:00.000-05:00

I've lost a lot of motivation...it's not hard to do since we'll be here in less than 2 weeks...

I honestly can't put into words how excited I am.

employed

2010-03-08T13:33:00.000-05:00

Phew...today was the day my school passed out contracts for next school year. While I was really not worried about getting a job, there was always a little bit of fear that I wouldn't get one. But, I DID! This is the first summer that I'll be able to relax and know that I have a job...at a school I love...with people I love working with!

I think this is a cause for celebration tonight!!! :) {Especially since we don't have a pay freeze anymore and I'll get a 'raise'!}

healthy eating....

2010-03-01T20:12:00.000-05:00

...not really! After writing reports all weekend and afternoon, I got home and didn't feel like cooking much {plus we're running really low on food}. I asked Kurt to pick up some milk today when he was out, but he forgot. He was going to run to the store a little while ago and then pick up something quick for dinner. There's not too much healthy food around our house, so we finally decided on Wendy's....so much for us losing weight before we go on spring break!!! :)

Then I had a genius idea. Kurt could make a 'one stop trip' and get us dinner and milk for breakfast! Just buy two individual size milks for our cereal in the morning. We couldn't get any more lazy, but I have to say I love that about us!

For proof, here's dinner and {part of} breakfast tomorrow...

tv stand {3...finally!}

2010-02-23T12:51:00.001-05:00

I know, I know, I've been away forever. I was actually thinking of giving up blogging/reading blogs for Lent, but decided against it. So, that's why I haven't been posting lately. We've been taking a break from house stuff lately, so I really don't have many updates. Here are the pictures of the t.v. stand...finally!!

Remember how I told you that I started buying stuff instead of trying to find stuff that all fit together?!? Well...it worked! We are using almost every single thing we bought in the living room area! Check it out...

Warning -- although I wish {a lot} I would be good with photography, I'm really not! So, sorry. These pictures aren't very good....best shots I could get... :)

Very top right. My favorite part!

{Coral - Z Gallerie}

{Blue Vase - IKEA}

{Red Dish - Crate and Barrel}

Top Right Shelf

{Z Gallerie}

Middle Right Shelf

{things we found around the house}

Bottom Right

{Z Gallerie -- Sale!}

Very Top Left

I know the picture is the wrong way...we had it in a different spot. We tried it vertically and liked it...we still need to find a picture to replace it...oops!

{Yellow Vase - Crate and Barrel}

Top Left Shelf

{Blue Vase - Crate and Barrel}

Middle Left Shelf...another favorite!

{Lantern thingy - Z Gallerie}

{Little Birdie - Crate and Barrel}

Bottom Left

{found around the house...my favorite book...Marley and Me!}

Can you tell we really liked the white look? I like it even more when you see it all together because the white really pops on the dark wood. I'm loving all the bright colors together...they're fun! Here's the whole thing...

lazy

2010-02-16T18:22:00.000-05:00

I'm not one to sit around and do nothing, but the last couple of days that's just what I've been doing! Last week I started feeling sick. I had a nasty cough and lots of congestion. So, I ended up not going to work on Friday. The rest of the weekend, I felt stuffy and still had a cough, but not too sick to keep me in bed. But I must admit, for the most part, we stayed at home, relaxed, and watched the Olympics. I'm not sure about you, but we l.o.v.e. the Olympics around here. We've been taping each day and catching up on it at night....thank God for U-Verse!!! :) And to top off the weekend, we didn't have school yesterday!

So now it's back to reality and I have lots of things to catch up on!! Hope you had a great weekend!

snow

2010-02-10T13:05:00.000-05:00

I love snow! Pretty soon, I'll be ready for the weather to get warmer and the snow to melt away, but for now I'm enjoying all the snow we've had in the last couple of days. Snow is even better when you get a day off work!!! Yesterday, we had a snow day and it was amazing. I sat. In my pajamas. All day long! And, it was wonderful!!! I have a hard time relaxing and normally don't like sitting at home all day. But I must say, it was really nice to have one day to spend in our house without worrying about a thing.

Today is back to reality, and with report time coming up, things around here are starting to get stressful. Hopefully I can get rid of my procrastination and get these reports done early!!!

flag

2010-02-04T15:21:00.000-05:00

On Thanksgiving, my grandma gave Kurt and I a housewarming present -- an American flag. I was excited about this because a flag is something I would probably never spend my own money on, but I'd love to have one flying on our house. At that time, I had already started my Christmas list, which included an IU flag and flagpole. I was able to check the flagpole off the list, but still wanted the IU flag {badly}!! And, one of Kurt's brothers gave us an IU flag for Christmas!!!

We finally got around to hanging it last weekend. We had a tough decision which flag to fly first. But, in the end, we decided to show our Alma-mater pride first. It was really quick to hang it and it's exciting that we already have two flags to alternate between. Check it out...

We marked where the holes needed to be and then drilled in those spots...

...then hammered the anchors in...

...Kurt used his big muscles to screw the holder-thingy in...

...I put the flag on the pole and screwed it into the holder, and voila!

...what it looks like now...

{p.s.- do you see how great the new blinds look upstairs in our bathroom??}

blinded by the light!

2010-02-03T12:58:00.037-05:00

Immediately after we put up the blinds in the laundry room and kitchen, we knew what our project would be that next weekend! We were amazed by how great and different the windows looked by just adding/switching out the blinds. Moving in, we knew eventually we'd need new blinds at least upstairs if not the entire house. The decision to complete all the windows upstairs was quick and easy once we saw the other two windows. Bonus -- we loved that for a reasonable price we were able to get quality, expensive-looking blinds. Double bonus -- we would now be able to open and close our blinds, or even crack them to let just a little bit in...so luxurious! Without further-ado, here are before and afters of some of the upstairs windows....

Here's our bedroom. The blind on the right was too small for the window. If we ever tried to open it, the blind would pop out onto our heads and unravel...ugh!

One down, one to go...

Can you believe how much better it looks?!? Our room looks so open and airy!

{Now if we could just find a stand to put our tv on...that space is awkward.}

Here's the guest room. Yes, the left blind was stuck like that....

With the new blinds, Coop can sit on the bed and look out the window...what he l.o.v.e.s. to do!

Also, we were finally able to fix the ceiling fan in the guest room. We had NO light in there since we moved in. We couldn't take down the fan because one of the screws was stripped. But we were finally able to use the light from the old ceiling fan and put it on this one. Thank God!!

Our giant window in our bathroom looks great with the new blinds...we love them!

And just to brag a little bit....I put all the blinds up on my own while Kurt and his dad worked on the laundry room project!!! {Kurt did help me lift the one for our bathroom....} :)

dreaming of...

2010-02-02T15:32:00.000-05:00

...getting another puppy. We've been talking about it forever now. It's probably not the smartest time to get one, but I don't really care!! :) We'll see what happens. I can tell you one thing's for sure, if we get another dog, Cooper will be in heaven!

Don't you think he'd be such a GREAT big {doggie} brother?

Winterfest!

2010-02-01T09:05:00.001-05:00

Saturday Josh, Meredith, Kurt and I went to Winterfest -- a beer fest with mostly all local beers {and a few not so local}! I was the only 'beer fest rookie' so I wasn't quite sure what to expect...not to mention I was somewhat concerned about making it through the day... :)

After we took a cab to the fairgrounds, we had to wait in line for awhile {in the FREEZING cold!} before we could get in. The fest only lasted from 3-7, so most people wanted to get in right at the beginning.

Freezing our butts off!

The boys were very intense about trying to get to possibly as many places before the time was up. The second we got in, they were on the prowl! Meredith and I on the other hand, took things a little more slowly as to not get ourselves in trouble! {Plus, I hate chugging good beer. Can't I sit and enjoy it for a minute?}

Towards the end, we weren't looking too bad!!

Kurt was trying to run around at the end {while we were getting kicked out} trying to find 'trinkets.' I'm not really quite sure why...I hate trinkets and who knows what we'd do with them anyways!!! Apparently Josh really wanted this one sign so Kurt was trying to get the guy to give it to him. I walked up trying to get Kurt to leave. Instead, I was able to talk the guy into giving us the sign.. {ha!} Not for our house though!!!

Once it was over, we waited for awhile for a ride. We originally planned on taking a cab back home, but another friend decided he'd pick us up on the way. We all ended up coming back to our house to hang out. Too bad we were starving when we left but our pizza took over 2 hours to come!! All in all, we had a pretty fun night!!

{Waiting for Loyd, our ride.}

Tip I learned from beer fest: Make a pretzel necklace before going to any other beer fest!! {We saw tons of people with these and we couldn't have been more jealous!}

color pop

2010-01-29T12:51:00.000-05:00

I've recently changed my decorating mentality. Since we've moved into the house, we have spent hours running around the city, shopping, browsing magazines, etc. looking for things for our house. We never seemed to buy things because we {I} wasn't sure if it would fit, how it would look, if I'd like it.....

So, I told myself if I see something I like, I'm going to get it, try it out at home, and if we don't like it take it back! And, it's working!! We've added lots of new accessories to our tv stand that look great {and wouldn't have been anything I would typically throw together in my mind}. Here are some recent purchases we bought from Crate and Barrel.

{Glass Birdie - $7.00}

{Lula Vase $9.00}

{Yoko Vase $8.00 -- we got blue one}

One of my favorite things about buying stuff I like when I see it.....we have a few extra things that we've stored away. We have them close by for whenever we'd like to switch things up a little bit! I'll be sure to show you the finished tv stand when we get it complete!!

Have a GREAT weekend!!

door/window upgrades

2010-01-28T16:36:00.057-05:00

Finally after the major projects were complete in the laundry room, we tackled the door and the window. After we moved in, we decided to switch all of our door knobs to stainless steel. Because they are pricey, we decided to do a few at a time. Now, all the downstairs doors and the laundry room door have a much better look to them! Check out the door before...

First we put the door knob on. But, we still had to do the hinges. You may not think it's that big of a difference, but when you see the silver door knob next to the brass hinges it's night and day!!

Next up on the list was a new blind. The one that was in was 5 in. too short. We are also planning on making all of the blinds in the house uniform. This was blind #1. Before we began...

It was difficult to get the screws into such tight places. After putting in a couple blinds, we came up with a great strategy that has made all the other blinds a breeze.

It didn't take too long to transform the window. We're so happy that we can actually leave the laundry room open to get more light upstairs. It's nice to be able to open and close the blinds, too!!

Since we're on the topic of blinds, I'll show you what we did to the kitchen window. That window was the only one in the entire house that didn't have any type of covering. I really dislike having open windows at night {people can see in, but it's hard to see out!} Also, since we're in an up-and-coming area there is still some issues with crime {really this could happen anywhere}! We've been told time and time again that if people can see in your windows all the time, that gives them an opportunity to scope out what they want if they were to break in. Anyways, we wanted blinds on the window to give us some privacy and make us feel a little safer!!! Here's the before...

It was extra tough getting this one up. {Compared to the laundry room}
You had to stand on the counter tops and get into that small space.

After a couple minutes, we were finished! And we're now able to still see out the window...

...or close it if we want!

Of course I had to throw in one of our Coop. I think he was wondering what in the world was going on. Isn't he cute??

****If you are thinking of getting new blinds, I would highly recommend the Levolor brand from Lowe's. If you take your measurements into the store, they will cut the blinds for you while you shop. They are also VERY reasonably priced. We compared the look of many blinds and these ones look the most like real wood {we thought}. Also, you may have noticed that our blinds look a little long in these pictures.... you can shorten them to fit your window ...we just haven't gotten around to that!! We liked them so much, last weekend we {really ME...I'm proud of myself} put new blinds in all the windows upstairs. Pictures to come soon!

finishing the laundry

2010-01-27T16:27:00.065-05:00

Okay, I know it's been a long time since I last updated you on the laundry room progress. A couple weekends ago, we finally got the majority of the room complete. {I know it seems like we're taking our sweet time on this, but it's been hard for us to find time on weekends to get work complete!!}

After painting an already small room trying to maneuver around the washer and dryer, Kurt's dad helped us put in our new counter top.

Although the counter was a huge improvement, we were still lacking any storage in the laundry room. We decided to add two cabinets to provide tons of storage. Cabinets seemed like the best idea because they will keep the counter clear {to fold} AND allow for 'organized' chaos behind closed doors!

And so we began...

The laundry room is very deep. That was the problem with the shelf that was in there originally. If we attached the cabinets directly to the wall, it would be challenging for me to reach any of the shelves {since I'm a little shorty}! Kurt's dad used some wood that he had to build a frame. First, they attached the frame to the wall.

Then, they attached the two cabinets to the frame. {I'm making this sound so easy! It took them quite awhile and lots of work to get these puppies attached to the frame!}

After screwing the cabinet doors on, the major project of the room was complete! Take a look for yourself...

{I'm sorry these pictures are so bad. The room is so small it's hard to get a good shot of the entire room...}

I couldn't wait to get things put away {aka hidden!} and try to get things more organized. We did buy a few plastic bins from Target, but for the most part we've thrown things in. Hopefully, we'll find some time to organize them a bit more...

I know you probably don't believe me, but I promise to finish the last of the laundry room updates tomorrow!

Super Colts = Super Bowl!!

2010-01-26T20:20:00.001-05:00

Colts are going to the Super Bowl!!!

And...we were there to celebrate the big win :)

Take a look...

quick recap

2010-01-19T17:25:00.001-05:00

I've been very tongue-tied lately. Instead of telling you a lot about our trip, I'll let you see {some} of the pictures. Hope you had a great long weekend!!

Getting ready for dinner...taking a break from dancing!

The whole family {minus Allison} at a new restaurant...beautiful!

Hanging out at dinner :)

She l.o.v.e.d. the Santa at our hotel!

My wonderful family.

Taking a break from eating at our favorite place...Edith's. Yum!

New Year's Eve

Julia and Christopher playing doctor...her foot was hurt.

Resting up after eating a yummy home-cooked New Year's Eve dinner.

Really not wanting to go out to celebrate New Year's -- losers I know.

We were exhausted and tired so we decided to take beers down to the beach and have a low-key night.

What a great way to begin 2010!

Happy 2010!!!

First picture of the year!

Last night -- beautiful sunset from our patio!

Julia with her baby on the last night.

Although our trip seemed extra short this year, we still had a great time. Kurt and I {along with some friends} will be heading back down to Cabo for my spring break. I can't wait to be back!!

favorite

2010-01-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

Love the beautiful views and sharing them with family.

Cabo {finally}

2010-01-12T19:27:00.000-05:00

When thinking back to my many trips to Cabo, I'd have to say this trip was {by far} the most dramatic. I'm sure you're wondering why, but I'm not so sure you'll want to continue on reading....

You want the short version? -- It took us 36 hours {or something} to get there.

You want the loonnngggg version? -- Continue on reading!

Instead of telling the story, I'm going to just give you the {as brief as possible} time line. Okay, so here we go.

November{ish} 2009
Mom calls to get our seat assignments and airline informs her that our flight had been canceled. They {graciously} bumped us onto the Christmas Day flight. We informed them that we could absolutely not leave on Christmas Day. They {finally} added us onto another airline's flight leaving the day after Christmas...like originally planned.

December 26, 2009

{times are all in Indianapolis time...}

3:15 am - Our alarm goes off to get ready...get out of bed at 3:30! :)
4:15 am - Mom and dad pick us up.
5:30 am - Having difficulty checking in. {Julia's reservation was for some reason with my name....important information for later on...little did we know!}
6:00 am - Kurt and Andy stand in line forever waiting to talk to the gate agent about getting seat assignments...kinda hard to fly with a 3 year old when we're scattered around the plane. {Another flight had been canceled, so those people took forever in line.} They never talked to the lady.
6:30 am - Our flight was scheduled to leave. We continued to sit in the airport... {Maintenance}
7:30 am - Sitting on our plane waiting to leave. {1 hour late}
*Note -- we had an hour layover in Denver to make our flight to Cabo*
7:45 am - They come back on saying there is another maintenance issue with the air conditioning.
8:45 am - We are told we have to switch airplanes....still in Indianapolis!
9:30 am - On our 2nd plane of the day, waiting to get deiced.
9:45 am - FINALLY leave Indy.

10:30 am - Our flight leaves for Cabo...without us :(

11:30 am - I'm looking out the window noticing we continue to turn to the right a lot...
12:00 pm - Pilot announces that we've been circling because of a snow storm and we'll continue to circle until given the okay.
12:45 pm - Land in Denver.

1:00 pm - Find customer service line in airport. Dad begins waiting with the hundreds of other people. Everyone else tries to find a place to eat.
2:00 pm - Done eating lunch at Paradise Cafe. Find dad who has just gotten to the beginning of the line.
3:00 pm - Manager of customer service has looked all over the country trying to find us a way to get to Phoenix. {There were no more flights to Cabo that day. We HAD to get to Phoenix by 9am the next morning to make the flight. All the flights from Denver to Phoenix were overbooked that day. If we didn't get to Phoenix by the morning, we were told that we wouldn't get to Cabo until Tuesday...it was SATURDAY!} She came up with a plan!!!!!! This is what she told us... "There is a flight leaving from here in 30 minutes to Fresno, California. You'll have an hour layover in Fresno and then you'll get on another plane to get to Phoenix. We're going to send your bags to Phoenix tonight. You'll stay the night in Phoenix and catch the first flight out to Cabo."
3:05 pm - In disbelief of how ridiculous this day was. Rushing to our gate to make the next flight.
3:10 pm - Find out that our flight to Fresno is delayed because the plane is late from Aspen. Praying with all our might that it would hurry up so we could make it to Fresno in time....

{While waiting, we had to take our minds off of the stress. Watching the airport people clear off the runways...how exciting!}

{Wearing sunglasses in the airport because it was SO sunny and warm inside. We're making our 'I can't f*ing believe this is happening right now' face!}

5:00 pm - Finally leave Denver praying that they will fly the plane EXTRA quick!

6:45 pm - Land in Fresno. Look around while pulling into the terminal to see NOT ONE plane sitting by a gate.

7:00 pm - Run to our gate to find out that it left.....

7:30 pm - Begin talking to the gate agent about what the hell we are going to do. We just wanted to make it to Phoenix that night. After standing there talking for 1 1/2 hours this is what we found out...

-There was no possible way to get all 7 of us to Phoenix that night.

-The first flight to Phoenix was at 6:30 am the next morning. Here's the kicker....there were only 6 seats on the flight!!!!

-Kurt and I offer to figure out a way to fly that night to Phoenix so that everyone can get on the morning flight.

-Man begins checking to see what we would have to do to get to Phoenix.

-B**** lady on the phone tells us that they would not allow for me to fly with Kurt because Julia and I were together on a reservation. They wouldn't split up our reservation and if they did, Julia would loose all of her seats for the remainder of the trip {including home flights}!

-Kurt offers to fly by himself to Phoenix...which meant he would fly from Fresno to Vegas THEN from Vegas to Phoenix....that NIGHT. {Kurt ended up being in 5 airports and 5 states in ONE DAY!}

-Man gets Kurt's tickets and then works on getting all our tickets for the next morning. THANK GOD we were already on the Phoenix flight in the morning....we just needed to make it there!!!

-Man tells us we need to come back to the airport at 5am the next morning.

9:00 pm - We sit down at the {one} airport restaurant to eat dinner. Kurt continues to complain about his stomach acting up....he can't eat a thing.

9:45 pm - Say goodbye to Kurt in the Fresno airport.

{Julia started crying when Kurt left. We were making our 'sad faces'.}

10:00 pm - Call hotel shuttle.

10:15 pm - Get free 'cosmetics' and hotel rooms. Find our rooms. Can't shut my hotel room door. When I figure out how to shut it, I can't get out...ugh!

10:30 pm - Lights out. Waiting for Kurt to call.

{Going back...} 10:00 pm - Kurt's plane starts to leave for Vegas. He throws up in the plane bathroom and tells the flight attendant that he's not going to be able to stay on the plane. They make him talk to the captain and drive back to the gate. He calms down and decides that he's going to stay on the plane....if he got off, he probably wouldn't have gotten to Cabo till Tuesday...! He pukes the entire flight and they make him wear a mask. {poor guy!}

12:30 am - Kurt calls from the Vegas airport. Says he feels like crap. Looks for a gatorade and waits for his next flight. I remind him of all the things he has to do when he gets to Phoenix and go back to bed.

2:00 am - Kurt calls from Phoenix. He checks in for the morning flight, gets his hotel voucher, and talks to the baggage person about where our bags are. He calls the hotel shuttle.

2:15 am - Hotel shuttle not there. Kurt calls back. They ask him to take a cab because they were having an emergency.

2:30 am - Kurt gets to the hotel and gets reimbursed for the cab fare. He was told about the drunk lady who stumbled through the lobby/hit her head and cause the emergency....

2:45 am - Kurt is still sick and tries to lay down to get some sleep.

8:00 am - Arrive at the Fresno airport. Wait in a VERY long line {when we were told NO ONE would be there!}

8:30 am - Lady tells us that Quinn {sister-in-law} was in fact NOT on this flight and that she is THIRD in line on standby. {Even though they printed off our tickets the night before that we were on this flight}

8:45 am - Start freaking out. I go stand in the security line. We didn't know if everyone would get on the flight...even if we did, we didn't think we'd make it through security in time.

8:50 am - I scan the security line for some saints!

8:55 am - Ask two incredibly nice ladies if my family could cut in line so we could try and get on the flight.

9:10 am -Run to the gate and begin asking people if we can pay for their ticket so they would switch. Some people offered, but they decided not to when they heard they couldn't get out of Fresno until at best the next day.

9:15 am - Told that if we have a ticket we had to get on the plane or they'd give away our tickets. Dad decided to stay so Quinn could go. {They gave Quinn a 'ticket' to get through security but not to get on the flight.}

9:20 am - After ALLLL the drama, they close the door and allow all 7 of us on the plane.

*My dad was able to get on because other people didn't make it through security in time...

9:30 am - Plane leaves Fresno a little late. I'm shaking in my seat because we had only 45 minutes in Phoenix to make the Cabo flight.

11:00 am - Plane lands in Phoenix. We run to our next gate, where Kurt and Patrick were waiting. {Patrick was supposed to come a day later than we were. We ended up being on his flight!}

11:15 am - Having not eaten a bite of anything that day, we buckled our seat belts on the final flight.

1:00 pm - Land in sunny Cabo!!

1:45 pm - Absolutely cannot believe that ALL our bags made it safely to Cabo!

3:00 pm - Get to our hotel and begin the checking in process.

3:30 pm - Begin drinking {!!!}

Can you believe it?!?!?!? It still stresses me out....and kinda puts me in a bad mood...ha!

You would think that after that the vacation was a-okay? Nope, the first day we were there {a whole day late} it absolutely POURED more than you can imagine. Oh well...we took great naps that day! :)

I'll be sure to share some good parts of the trip tomorrow!

resolutions

2010-01-10T21:02:00.000-05:00

Typically I don't make New Year's Resolutions, but 2010 is different. Kurt and I have decided to spend more time together...without distractions. During the week it can be challenging for us to find time to spend together. Most days after school I work out and don't get home until after 7. Kurt works many evenings, but his schedule is different each week. The nights that we are both home to spend time with each other, we {a lot of the time} throw together dinners, eat in front of the tv, read our emails, etc. Last week was a great way to start off the year. We spent four nights together...we made dinner and ate at the table together!

Most of the time I blog in the evening. But, I'm not willing to blog on evenings when we're spending time together. I'm going to try and balance everything out, but most likely I'll be posting less than I have been.

Hopefully, I'll be back tomorrow to {finally} share with you our Mexico pictures and later on in the week share our updates we made this weekend. Today was a crazy busy day and we've already made plans for some more things next weekend. Hope you had a great weekend!!

new tv

2010-01-04T19:45:00.000-05:00

A friend at work gave me some great news today....a bunch of shows are starting back up this week and next!!! I'm a sucker for reality tv. So, tonight instead of sharing some Cabo pictures, I'm going to have to take a night off and watch The Bachelor....loser, I know! :) Anyone have any other shows that start soon that I should watch???

Back...Sorta

2010-01-03T19:57:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that my Winter Break ends today...this year break didn't seem long at all!!! Christmas always comes and goes too quickly, and this year was no exception. We were lucky to be able to spend so much time with both our families.

We did have a nice {but crazy & short...story to come later} vacation. Hopefully next year we can both take a little more time off and stay for longer.....

But for now....I'm off to relax in my last couple hours of break. Tomorrow at 5:45 am means back to reality and begins the longest part of the school year.

Merry Chirstmas {and Happy New Year}!

2009-12-24T12:52:00.000-05:00

I love Christmas.....

The traditions, spending time with family, snow, music, etc.

I especially love that my family leaves for Cabo San Lucas, Mexico the Saturday after Christmas each year.

Yep, that's right. Saturday we'll be leaving the cold weather for a week of relaxing on the beach.

Have yourself a wonderful Christmas and a very fun New Year.

See you in 2010!

Dog Bed

2009-12-23T15:45:00.001-05:00

I'm outnumbered in our house. Guys-2/Girls-1. Typically, this isn't a problem. But, when Cooper didn't like the first {stylish} dog bed we bought, Kurt insisted that we just hurry up and buy one from Pet Smart. Of course, they didn't have any that look great {I suppose they aren't horrible}. We ended up buying one a couple weekends ago. I left the tag on with secret hopes that Cooper wouldn't like it and we'd still be in the market for a cute AND comfy dog bed. My plan didn't work. He L.O.V.E.S. it. I guess we're keeping it....

I didn't even have to bribe him to get on it {like I tried last time}!

The first night we had it, Kurt had a late hockey game so I was in bed before he was home. Normally Cooper comes up and sleeps upstairs once I'm up there. I kept calling for him to come up, but he wouldn't get off his new bed!!!

Oh well, boys win this time... :)

Room Redo - Laundry Room

2009-12-22T15:45:00.000-05:00

Remember this? Well, we finally got the painting done and even added one new 'accessory' to the room! The paint ended up looking much better with two coats...even though it's probably not my most favorite color in the world. But hey, it was free! So, here's what the laundry room looks like so far....

We started off with a room full of white and not much storage.

You can see part of the one shelf we had that was SO high I could barely reach it! :)

We love our washer and dryer - didn't want any paint on them!

I was having a little fun with our paint that quickly started looking orange....ahhh!

Kurt was in charge of the tall stuff while I was stuck behind the washer and dryer...

It's hard to tell in this light, but the walls actually turned out to be the same color as the kitchen. They still look orange in the pictures, but in person they are a burnt redish color.

Step one of adding a new counter top: put door railing around the edges to hold the counter top up.

Finally, Kurt and his dad lifted the counter top into place and glued on the side splashes.

We've added a ton of space to fold clothes {and right now a great place to set stuff...}!

{The ironing board and things are there to hold the side pieces on while the glue dried.}

After the first of the year, we have plans to finish off the laundry room. We'll make sure to show you the rest!

!!!

2009-12-18T18:10:00.000-05:00

It's Winter Break! I know I've been gone all week...it's been crazy...but hopefully I'll be back next week to share a few things. Enjoy your weekend!! :)

sad

2009-12-14T20:28:00.000-05:00

As you know from the many dog posts, my family loves our doggies. Today we had to make a tough decision. Tonight will be the last night that Belle will sleep at my parent's house. Remember in June how I told you that we've had Belle for 16 years? We got her the summer before I went into second grade...and now I teach second graders! She's had a wonderful life, but we'll sure miss her! My family has never had to do this before....

Today after school, I went to my parent's house to spend the afternoon with Belle and Bailey. Belle laid on my chest like a little baby. We took a long nap together and just hung out.

I don't know what tomorrow's gonna be like. I don't know how it's going to feel going to my parent's house for the first time in 16 years without Belle there. But one thing is for sure, I know I'm gonna miss her a ton.

Thanksgiving Break - Night 5ish

2009-12-09T07:34:00.000-05:00

Saturday night was technically 'night 5,' but I don't really have anything to share from Saturday. Kurt played golf and I spent some time with my mom and Julia. We did go to Brugge {an amazing restaurant in Broad Ripple} with some friends on Saturday night. Other than that, a pretty relaxing day...

Sunday was the last day of break {and it came WAY too soon}! Before we could watch the Colts game and relax, we wanted to get our Christmas lights on outside. It took us awhile, but the house looks great!!

It started out pretty chaotic....

We slowly, but surely got in a groove and got the lights up...

That's not to say that we didn't have to take down many things and redo them...

...for example this tree.

Kurt really wanted some colored lights {I'm a white light girl}.

His dad gave him a whole box of old colored lights for us to use.

We tested all the strands before and only one worked.

So I put it {really well} on our little tree outside, but decided I needed one more strand to finish off the top.

Before we went and bought a new strand of lights, we wanted to see if it truly did need more.

And when I plugged it in, only HALF of the tree lit up!!! AHHH!

So, I had to take it all down....maybe we'll have some color next year!

We added a nice little Boy Scout wreath.

And waited patiently for it to get dark enough to see the lights...

The final product!

Like it?

We're finally done decorating for Christmas. Now we just need to finish our shopping {and wrapping} and we'll be able to relax and enjoy the season.

Thanksgiving Break - Night 4

2009-12-08T07:11:00.004-05:00

The Friday after Thanksgiving, my mom and I always go shopping. But, we're not those crazy {sorry if you are!} early shoppers. We like to sleep in and head out to the stores what some people might consider 'late.' Anyways, we found lots of great presents and spent some quality time together.

The original plan was for Kurt and I to put up all of our Christmas decorations on Saturday. But, all the men in my family decided that they are going to start a new tradition of playing one last round of golf on that Saturday. Kurt really wanted to play, so we decided that we'd put our tree up on Friday night and finish the decorations on Sunday.

So, after shopping on Friday, I met Kurt at the Christmas tree place. We picked our tree, stopped at Target to pick up a few more lights, and headed home to get started. {Oh, I forgot to tell you about the new pj pants that we bought at Gap on Wednesday. We decided we wanted to have a night where we could just lounge together in our new pj pants. This was the perfect night! Maybe another new tradition for us?!?}

Putting up the tree didn't go as smoothly as last year. I think we rushed a little in the buying of the tree because we bought a crooked tree {or the guy drilled the hole a little crooked}!

We twisted, turned, and finagled the tree as much as possible, but it continued to be crooked. Kurt decided to take a string and tie it to the trunk, pull the tree straight, and tie the other end to the tree stand. For the most part, the tree straightened up! We had some more issues with the lights, but eventually they were on...phew.

{Much straighter, huh!?!?!}

Then the fun part....the ornaments! Each year, I buy an ornament for us at the Holiday Mart and get it personalized. This year I decided to buy one to remember our new house. This was the first ornament to be put on the tree.....

{Kinda hard to see, I know. Do you see Cooper in between us?!? Cute, no?}

It didn't take too long to put up the ornaments. After we cleaned up, we decided to lounge around in our pjs. I really wanted to watch a Christmas movie together. We decided on Love Actually {he vetoed The Holiday}. We searched everywhere, but quickly realized that my movies have been misplaced at some point during the move.....that's how much I watch movies!! So, instead we watched Santa Clause.

{Trying to get a picture of our pjs and the tree....not so successful!}

It was a nice little evening spent together. I love Christmas time so much!!

Thanksgiving Break - Night 3

2009-12-07T07:44:00.003-05:00

Day/Night 3 of my Thanksgiving Break was actually Thanksgiving. We were supposed to wake up early and join my parents and my brother, Patrick, for the annual 'Turkey Trot.' Unfortunately {maybe/maybe not!}, we overslept and decided to not go. Instead, we slept-in until about 9:30. We had a pretty busy day. We dropped Cooper off at Kurt's parents house, because we knew we'd be gone longer than they would. We then headed over to Kurt's parent's friends house to eat meal number 1. After a couple hours of eating, drinking, talking, laughing, and playing war {....}, we headed over to my parent's house for meal number 2! It was great to spend time with both our families.

That night, Julia really wanted to play with me all night long. So, we spent a lot of the evening in her 'room' at my parent's house. This is where a lot of her toys are, especially her baby things. She is in love with her Bitty Baby {a small American Girl doll}. So, my mom bought Julia and her Bitty Baby matching Christmas pjs. She decided pretty quickly that she wanted to change both her doll and herself into her new pjs, and asked me to help.

This couldn't be any cuter....

As we continued to play, she decided that she wanted to sit in her Bumbo Seat {she used it when she was a baby} and read a book to her baby and me. She told a really great story about babies... :)

And of course, she wanted to take a picture of her baby and me...

{a little too close up!}

So, that's how we spent our Thanksgiving Day! We headed home somewhat early because we were so tired from all the food!! More Christmas and laundry room updates to come.....

Thanksgiving Break - Night 2 {part 2}

2009-12-04T08:49:00.003-05:00

In case you were wondering, our room is still orange....

But, our Christmas decorations downstairs make me happy! :) So, back to the DIY project for all those materials I showed you.

I broke our one hurricane that we brought from the apartment. I knew I wanted to get a couple more anyways so this was the time to buy them all! I also knew I wanted to use different 'decorations' inside of them for different seasons/holidays. So, in came the idea for jingle bells, snow, and cranberries. Wednesday night we wandered through Michael's and found everything we needed....sorta. Instead of cranberries {or fake ones} we found a very long strand of red beads that look just like cranberries. All we had to do was snip the string and we had our cranberries!!

At first, we thought we wanted to put snow at the bottom of all three hurricanes, but shortly after I did the first one, we decided that wasn't going to look right...

So, we finally decided on the biggest one having the jingle bells, the short one with cranberries, and the tall/skinny one with snow on the bottom and a mixture of bells and cranberries on top. We found a few things we already had and put them all on top of our TV stand. It's really hard to tell, but here is what it looks like all together.

Here are the pictures of what each side looks like close up...

Like it? We really love it!! And, it'll be easy enough to bag up all the things and switch to something new in January.

Oh, and remember that green 'bowl' I showed you? We wanted to jazz it up a bit for Christmas {and we plan on doing so for each season}. So, we went to my favorite store, Target {!}, picked up a tube of silver ornaments, and popped them in the bowl. Check it out...

Hope you like it!!

Have a great weekend!

{mild} panic attack

2009-12-03T09:56:00.001-05:00

Yes, we're crazy and we began a big project last night. We have decided to begin tackling our house going room at a time. Don't ask why, but the laundry room is the first....

We started a little of this last night....

With one coat of paint, I'm really starting to regret the decision. It's supposed to look like this mauve-ish/red-ish color in the kitchen.

You might be thinking that we picked a different shade that we thought would match, but NO it's from the exact same paint can!!! Currently, our laundry room is somewhere around the shade of Burnt Orange straight off of the Texas Longhorn's football jersey....oh no, what have we gotten ourselves into!

Keep your fingers crossed that another coat and drying time will dramatically change the color!

{Sorry about the short break from the Thanksgiving updates!}

Thanksgiving Break - Night 2

2009-12-02T08:32:00.004-05:00

I wish I could say that we woke up early on Wednesday and had a really productive morning {like we'd planned}, but we didn't. And, it sure felt great to sleep in! Kurt's dad came over shortly after we woke up. We've been planning on doing some upgrades to our laundry room, including adding a counter top above our washer and dryer. Kurt's dad is a home builder so he hooked us up with a 'counter top guy' to find a cheap and perfect match for our tiny little room.

We had planned on buying any remaining Christmas decorations for the house so that after Thanksgiving we wouldn't have to fight the crowds to find what we wanted/needed. In order to do that, we needed to pull out all our decorations and make a list of things we needed to pick up. Getting our decorations out was somewhat of an ordeal....

Our coat closet has a great {finished} storage area behind it/under the stairs. There are a few minor problems with getting to the things stored in that area. Why you might ask?

1. The door is all the way at the back of the closet. The cleaning supplies and Cooper's food has to be removed to get access to the door {and the coats!}

2. The closet is an odd shape. There is only one rack for coats and that rack is smack-dab in front of the door. So....all the coats have to come out.

3. Once everything is sprawled out around our house, we can finally see the door. BUT, we have to unscrew it before we can get in!!!

Once all those steps have been completed, we're able to find all our things we've neatly stored away. {Major plans are in the works for making this closet and door more functional!} Needless to say, we only get in the storage when we really need to and make sure to put everything away before closing it up!!!

Here are a few decorations we already had.

The Santa found a new home {and I can't wait to show you!}

The Cooper-look-alike will stay on the stair landing and the red and green candle has found a great spot on the window ledge above the sink.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent running errands. We did some damage at some of our favorite stores! We knew our house would be very festive this year!

Remember this picture I shared yesterday?

The first thing we started to do was this...

Wonder what we did with the rest of the stuff?

I can assure you that all these things put together make up my favorite decorations in our house.

I'm running out of time, so I'll have to share the finished product tomorrow.

But until tomorrow, check out this picture...

...the green 'bowl' was one of our purchases of the day.

We added some umph to it to make it more festive.

Can you guess how?!?

Thanksgiving Break - Night 1

2009-12-01T08:15:00.000-05:00

Our Thanksgiving Break was so great! I'm lucky to teach at a school that I love and that has great perks! Each year, we get Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off school to celebrate Thanksgiving. So, officially my break began at 3:20 on Tuesday afternoon. Kurt and I decided that we should do something fun on Tuesday night to celebrate. We've been wanting to see A Christmas Carol and thought it would be a perfect night. There is an IMAX theater downtown Indy not too far from our house. We went to the later showing, so not many people were there. The popcorn was horrible, but the movie was great! We'd both recommend it, just not for young kids. It's a little scary...there were definitely parts when I jumped in my seat! Seeing it in an IMAX made it even more realistic and fun....even if you look goofy!!!

If it wasn't so expensive to see movies at the IMAX, we'd be there more often! Hope you get out to see the movie as well!

I can't wait to share with you the many, many things we did this weekend to decorate our house for Christmas. Here's a sneak peak....

Bloomington

2009-11-30T09:46:00.050-05:00

Last weekend, we headed down to Bloomington to tailgate and try to pretend like we were in college again. As much as I love our house, Indianapolis, not having homework or tests, I miss Bloomington like crazy. I get nostalgic every time we make the short drive down. And, we don't get to go nearly as much as I'd like.

Josh made hotel reservations {at the Travel Lodge...ha!} for us a couple months back knowing that we'd all want to party. The last football game of each season is the IU vs. Purdue game....a long time Indiana rivalry. We had planned on going to the game, but ticket prices are so high now we decided to hang out in the fields and catch the end of the game on TV at a restaurant.

The weather was great for tailgating! It was great to see some friends that I haven't seen in awhile. Kurt and I spent time walking around to a couple different tailgates and made out with lots of great food and some great drinks along the way!

{Kurt grilling...weird!}

{Glad we found you!}

After tailgating, we headed to Yogi's - a favorite college bar. We found a great table for lots of friends to sit and watch the end of the game. Too bad the Hoosiers lost. :( An old friend from college works at another bar in Bloomington. He talked to the guys and apparently told them if we stopped by, he could hook us up. So we walked across town to the Irish Lion and drank our fair share of Irish drinks!

{Cheering on the Hoosiers!}

{Writing on each others hands or something crazy....}

{Boys chose to drink some sort of Irish whiskey, I think}

{And of course, we chose to drink Bailey's!!!}

After 6 or 7 rounds of Bailey's and whiskey, we decided we needed to grab a bite to eat. We walked to Kirkwood {the street with the majority of bars} and found ourselves at Uncle D's - a pizza by the slice joint that is normally for the late-night. It felt like late-night to us since we'd been drinking for like 8 hours at that point! We ended the night at one of my favorite bars in Bloomington, Upstairs. They have the infamous AMF drinks....so yummy, but very dangerous!

{Kurt pretending to work there while carding people as they walked in....}

After some shenanigans at Upstairs, we walked to the bus stop in hopes of either catching a taxi or getting lucky with a bus. We had to wait for a little while, but a bus eventually came. Yes, we'd be back to the hotel in no time! Well....that's what we thought. Until the bus driver was crazy. Kurt and I started to feel car sick. At that point, I remembered how badly Meredith gets car sick. I turned around and she was balling because it was so bad. The next thing we know, Josh had pulled the cord and we were jumping off at the next stop so Mer could puke outside instead of in the bus. Ugh, it was awful!

Since it was so late, we knew another bus wouldn't come for awhile. Josh and Mer took off towards the library leaving Kurt, Ross, Loyd, and I still at the Union. We didn't know where Mer and Josh went, so we decided to begin walking to the hotel.....by the mall. I'm sure it was at least a 3 mile walk. Our night finally ended with us all safely back at the hotel. After a few more crazy events, we all 'hit the hay' very quickly.

The morning brought about some more laughs, but we had to pack up the car and head out. It's always great to go back and visit Bloomington, especially when you're with so many fun friends. We're hoping to make it back soon!

thankful

2009-11-24T12:16:00.000-05:00

I know I promised to share pictures from last weekend's trip to IU...I haven't forgotten. But, I've decided to take some time away from blogging and enjoy this Thanksgiving week. Today at 3:20, my break will begin!! It's going to be filled with lots of family, friends, food, decorating, shopping, and {hopefully} some relaxing. I promise to be back next week with lots of updates and things to share.

Remember to stop and think about all the things you're thankful for. Take some time and enjoy those people, pets, etc. around you that make you happy each day.

Have a {very} happy Thanksgiving!

{another} busy weekend

2009-11-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

We have another crazy but exciting weekend ahead of us. Last night, we went to dinner at Benihanas {one of my most favorite restaurants!!} to celebrate Patrick's birthday with my family! {Happy belated Birthday, Patrick!} Yum, what great food!

Tonight we're going out with Patrick and Allison and many of their friends to celebrate Patrick's birthday {again!}. Dinner should be great and then we'll either go duck-pin bowling or to the bars...either will be a blast!

Tomorrow we're heading down to Bloomington to cheer the Hoosiers on {by tailgating and visiting our favorite bars from college}. The last football game of the season is always against our rival, Purdue. Go Hoosiers!! {Please} beat Purdue! :)

We're wishing we could get IU to bring back the Bud Light 'Fan Cans' so we could drink a few of these while cheering on our Hoosiers...

Oh well! I'm sure we'll still have an amazing weekend! Good thing next week is only a two day work week for me!!! :) Hope your weekend will be great, too!

tv stand {2}

2009-11-18T09:29:00.002-05:00

Remember the long beginning process of our tv stand? Well, it took even longer because we had to wait for the piece {that Kurt accidentally broke} to be shipped. Once it finally came, Kurt decided to put it on himself before I came home from work....

...In the process, he dinged another piece! He got back on the website and ordered the new piece. So, we had to wait for that, too! Finally, we were able to put the new piece on, hammer on the back, and finally put it to use.

Here's what our room looked like before the rug and tv stand --

The room now looks like this --

I know these pictures aren't the best, but they give you an idea. Do you see that yucky blanket that Coop is still using as a dog bed? Hopefully that will be switched soon. And we're looking for lots of cute accessories to adorn the tv stand. Any good ideas or places to look? We'd love to hear from you!

kiss cam

2009-11-17T12:18:00.000-05:00

Remember how I told you Kurt and I were going to the Pacer game last week? It was pretty uneventful.

Except, for the half time show...

{Cutie, patriotic, frisbee-catching doggies!}

...and they won...

...AND we were on the Kiss Cam!{ha}

excitement & exhaustion

2009-11-16T18:16:00.000-05:00

I love the four seasons and could never live in a place that didn't have each season. All four have things that I love about them. Each year I love this time of year -- football, basketball season is beginning, snuggling, Thanksgiving is just around the corner, Christmas is coming soon {!}, etc...

This weekend is a great example of why I love this time of year, but it's exhausting! Friday many of my friends from work came over to our house. None of them had been here yet and we love getting together to unwind on Friday afternoons! Saturday we went to Josh and Meredith's house for their engagement/housewarming party. We brought lots of food to share, so we spend a good chunk of the day preparing for the party. And, yesterday....football. The biggest game of the season. Colts versus Patriots. I'm sorry if you're a Pats fan, but I couldn't dislike a team more than I do the Patriots! :)

{Getting hyped for the game!}

The boys got overly excited about the game, so our day was pretty much spent getting ready for the game and tailgating. We 'had' to begin at 4pm for an 8:30 game. It was freezing, but we had a good time!

{Trying to stay warm in our free Colts hats!}

Although it was chilly, we had a great time hanging out before the game. We made sure to bring a plethora of beverages, lots of food, and of course, bags.

{Go Horse!}

Speaking of horses, the Budweiser Clydesdales {and Spot!} decided to stop by the parking lot. Wow! They were HUGE and Spot was sooo cute!

{Sorry about the butt shot. None of the pictures turned out!}

Oh, I guess I should mention that the Colts pulled out an amazing last minute and v.e.r.y. exciting WIN. By the time we left the stadium {it was too exciting to leave!}, got home, and went to bed it was close to 1:30am. And I was so hyped up, I had a difficult time falling asleep! Needless to say, today was rough and very tiring! I decided to take advantage of my sleepiness {and the season} and stop by Starbucks this morning for a yummy Pumpkin Spice Latte. Oh, and to make my morning even better?!? One of the radio stations has begun playing Christmas music. I listened. And sang along. Too early?!? I don't care!! :)

Tonight we'll be getting in bed early. But not too early because we need to catch the Hoosiers basketball game!! Ahhhhh, I love Fall.

tv stand {1}

2009-11-13T08:22:00.002-05:00

I can't tell you how long it took us to find a TV stand that we liked. It was a painful process and we're very glad that the continuous searching is over. But before we were able to enjoy it, we spent four days waiting for it to be shipped, six hours putting it together {on multiple days}, and waited for two separate pieces to be shipped {due to user error....} Phew!

Because the process took soooooo long {and I took pictures all along the way}, I thought I'd only share with you the first half.

Because we didn't have a TV stand, our TV and things were being temporally housed on our {pottery barn} coffee table {which was damaged in the storage shed...ugh!!!!!}. It looked really lame, but was doable until we found something we wanted.

And so it began...

We spread all the pieces out on the floor so we could easily find them.

Cooper didn't really understand why we weren't playing with him and what all the stuff was on 'his' carpet he loves so much! He decided he wanted to help!

It took f o r e v e r to put the main part together. Of course there were a few pieces we put on the wrong way, so we'd have to take a bunch of stuff apart and do it over....

We really didn't want to stop, but we had to take a quick break for dinner. Then, our first 'bump in the road.' I heard a loud 'snap' and then Kurt yelling. When we were laying all the pieces out, he had set one of the long skinny pieces {that goes in the very front of the stand} on the couch. After dinner, he went to sit down to figure out what we needed to do. You finish the story.....

Oops! We didn't really know what to do! Kurt decided he'd call the place where we bought the stand. They let him know that pieces break all the time. All you have to do is go to the website, fill in some information on what was broken, and they'll send it to your house asap. So, back to work we went!

Well, some of us....Cooper was really bored and tired from watching us work so hard!

After about 4 hours, this is what we had.

We thought we were getting pretty close to the end, but we were wrong. It seemed that the further along we got, the longer things took. Maybe because things at the end are so detailed and tedious! Finally, at 11:30 {on a Thursday night} I decided I was done for the night. It took me SO long just to put one door on, I was so over the whole thing! When I went to bed, our room looked kinda trashy....

Ha ha!!!

Guess you'll have to wait to see the finished product :)

Have a great weekend!

{Maybe we'll find some accessories for the TV stand this weekend?!?}

change of plans

2009-11-11T18:10:00.000-05:00

Welp, I had planed on sharing pictures and details of our new TV stand, but we're now going to the Pacer game. My dad has two seats that my brother was going to use. He now can't. So, we're going....

Here's a sneak peak of the work in progress...

taco tuesday

2009-11-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

Every Tuesday evening, Kurt and I are glued to the TV.

Why?

We love The Biggest Loser.

There aren't many shows that we agree on watching together.

I like HGTV - He likes HBO.

About the only other thing we are willing to watch together is sports....a lot of 'em.

I find Tuesdays to always be ironic.

{FYI--Ironic is a very hard word to explain to kids. I was trying to do so today and didn't do a very good job. I really wanted to just play the Alanis Morissette song....I didn't!}

We end up sitting on our butts for close to two hours, right after we've eaten dinner {unless we eat dinner while watching!}, and most of the time eat some sort of dessert, as well! Hum....I thought the show was supposed to be motivating?!?

Schedule for tonight? Chicken tacos and Spanish rice -- always fills me up!

I'm sure I'll sneak a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich in sometime during the show...

I ~~think~~ know Kurt will dig into his odd obsession, popsicles!

We're seriously considering buying stock in the popsicle brand he eats {I don't even know what it is!}

We buy a big box every week at the store, he eats the whole box usually in four days.

I will admit, he buys the 15 calorie kind. He's got it figured out that he can eat X amount of popsicles for X amount of whatever else we have around the house.

Funny how people are different?!? I'd rather eat one really good thing and be done. He'd rather eat a gazillion popsicles that equals the one really good thing....

Have a great Tuesday evening. If you're watching Biggest Loser, enjoy. Who are you cheering for?!?

dreaming

2009-11-09T08:18:00.001-05:00

Sorry about my short blogging hiatus. Work last week was full of drama and very busy....

This was a much needed weekend that ended up going way too fast!

I don't have much inspiration right now considering I had to be at work today at 6:45 am.

Lately, I've been dreaming of my family's yearly trip to Cabo San Lucas.

We always go the Saturday after Christmas and stay through New Years.

Not trying to wish away this time of year, but it will feel fabulous when I spend a week looking at this....

cooper said 'no thanks'

2009-11-04T08:21:00.007-05:00

Welp, Cooper made his decision quickly. He did not like his dog bed...one bit. He wouldn't even get on it while I bribed him with a treat!! Any ideas of comfy/somewhat inexpensive/cute dog beds? We're in need!! I'm really ready to get rid of this ugly blanket!

Cooper says 'Woof' aka thanks in advance!

You like that rug underneath him? He does! We do, too!

P.S.- Check out that lamb he dismembered!!

scooby boo!

2009-11-03T08:06:00.000-05:00

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, but I was determined to make this one memorable. We were really excited for our first year to pass out candy to trick-or-treaters. Meredith and Josh invited our friends, Drew and Meg, and Kurt and I over for dinner. We decided to put a sign on our door telling the trick-or-treaters to come get their candy four houses down! Coop came with us {in his Peyton Manning jersey} and hung out on the porch while we passed out candy. We thought we bought enough candy for us to have some left-overs, but we ran out 45 minutes early!! {Guess we shouldn't have been so generous at the beginning of the evening!!}

Coop and I warming up before dinner.

After our very yummy dinner, Kurt and I walked home to change into our costumes. We had to leave 'Scooby' at home for the evening......

The Four Characters from Scooby Doo!

I think we pulled it off pretty darn well! :)

We quickly headed up to three of our friends' apartment. It was fun to see all of the costumes and hang out with some friends for the evening. That's about it for our Halloween. Hope you had a great one, too!

Loyd {one of the party hosts} and Mer.

utterly impulsive

2009-10-30T15:01:00.003-04:00

The secret is out - Kurt and I are impulsive people. {We're getting better, I promise!} Two weekends ago, we decided we really didn't like the look of our dark bed skirt that we sported at our apartment. We hadn't put it on here yet. We were really sick of looking at the box springs, frame, and wheels on the bed! We noticed that Ashley Furniture had the exact same bedroom furniture that we purchased a year ago before moving into the apartment. Kurt remembered seeing the bed with a foot board and side panels. So, we thought we'd go by and check it out. Sure enough, shortly after walking in the door, we were paying for our new stuff! Tip for those of you buying furniture for your home - opt for the pick-up. Delivery was going to cost us double the furniture!

I finally got a call on Monday night that it had arrived. We excitedly went to pick it up yesterday after work. By the time we got home, ate dinner, and cleaned up it was kinda late. But, without a second thought, we knew we needed to put together our stuff! Right after our room looked like this -

-I thought to myself, "We're nuts! Why are we doing this tonight!?!?" No turning back now! And so it begun...at...

Thankfully, it didn't take long. We were done, bed in it's place, sheets on, room cleaned up within an hour! First thing was taking off the old frame and getting it out of the room. We then had to add some hardware on to the side panels and crossbars. After that, we were ready to attach the side panels to the head and foot boards!

My strong man flying solo...after I tried to help and slit my finger on the bottom edge. {Imagine paper cut, but with wood. Youch!} I'm gonna live, don't you worry!

All we had to do after that was attach the crossbars, clean the stuff up a little, and put the room back together!

Kurt's got a little cleaning lady on his hands...not! Trying to tidy up.

You think it's gonna hold us? Kurt, you test it out! He's a little nervous about his first try!

Check it out. Having a bed with a foot board and side panels makes a HUGE difference! Worth every penny {and we got them on sale!!}.

Bye, bye rollers and box springs! We won't be seeing you anytime soon! What do you think? Makes our room look that much nicer, huh?

Have a fabulous weekend, and Happy Halloween!! This will be our first year to have our very own trick-or-treaters! I'll be back next week with more updates and Halloween pictures!

70 dollar facelift

2009-10-29T17:00:00.037-04:00

Remember this?

Well, it was next to this...

Sheer. Unmovable. Rough. Not my favorite.

My least favorite was the fact that you could see though it at all times {especially night}.

While walking through Bed, Bath, and Beyond, we found some new curtains that we thought might work. We brought them home and immediately put them up. And....

We have windows that you can now see out of!!!

Our room looks a billion times better and bigger. We love them!

And no more creepers can try to look in at night!

Great part? They were only $70!

Best part? The old homeowner left us these --

Couldn't be more perfect if you asked me!

one hundred

2009-10-28T20:32:00.001-04:00

I can't believe it...this is my 100th post! Thanks to those of you who read. I always love to hear from you as well! It's been great to share all the things going on in our crazy lives. Hopefully the next hundred posts are even better than the first hundred!

I had every intention of sharing another project we completed. But, I'm not....

When I got home {after working out and dinner with my mom}, I turned the alarm on. Kurt's not home yet and Cooper is still at Kurt's parents house {we took him there after the bug fiasco}. After putting away some things and such, I remembered I needed to get the mail. As soon as I opened the door, I saw this--

Waahooo! I was so excited! You know what it is?!? Coop's bed! I set the box inside the door and continued getting the mail out of the mailbox. All the sudden, the alarm went off! AHH! I started freaking out, then realized that I 'set if off' by opening the door! OOPS! My hearts still beating a little fast after that....

After I sprinted to the back door to turn it off, I hurried to open the box. Thanks to your help, we decided to order the 'funky circle' pattern. Here's what it looked like at first glance.

They sure didn't hesitate to smash that bed in the box! I was lovin' the pattern from the beginning. The fabric is really comfy and soft...I'm sure Cooper will approve!

The plan was to wash it really quick before Kurt and Coop get home. That way, he'd be able to enjoy his new bed right away. Once I pulled it out of the box, I realized that it's a lot smaller than I thought. I'm not too sure if Coop will even be able to fit on it!! So, no tags will be taken off just yet!

Here's the before --

And, the after --

If you look really close, you might notice something different {other than the dog bed} on the floor! That's right, we did finally find a rug. More on that another time.....

So, we'll wait until Cooper comes back home. See what he thinks or if he'll even fit. And we'll go from there. Thanks for the advice! We hope it works!!

OH, by the way...I think I've found a new way to make some money....

This is the tag from the dog bed. First of all, it says "Designer Dog Bed" on the back. Spoiled doggie... Anyways, look at that dog! I know another {CUTE} dog, that loves sleeping on his bed, and looks SO cute doing it. Could Coop have any dog modeling in the future? Ha. If you have any advice on how to go about doing this, let me know!! :)

P.S.- We FINALLY found a TV Stand. We're picking it up tomorrow. Can't wait to show you!!!

jazzin' up the back door

2009-10-27T19:52:00.001-04:00

I'm {finally} back to share some fun updates we've done! As you heard last week, we switched the blah back door area into a pretty storage space. Here's what it looked like before...

You walk straight in from the back door into the living/dining room. There was no place to set anything {purse, keys, Cooper's leash, shoes, etc} down. We knew some things we wanted --

-Pictures to be hang

-Hooks

-Storage bin of some type for storing hats, gloves, and anything else we want hidden but accessible

Shortly after we moved in, we started using some of the pictures we already had to spruce up the space. Here's what it looked like for a couple weeks...

We really liked the design we came up with, but wanted to add two more black frames to finish it off. We finally found some nice and cheap ones at Pier 1. Adding the other two frames really made it look great!

We also found a leather ottoman from Target. This sits by the door {underneath the pictures} and is where we'll be storing away our things. We bought two plastic bins to sit inside the ottoman to keep things semi-organized. Oh it's nice to set my school bag by the door so I don't forget it in the morning!

The original plan was to put hooks in between the pictures and the ottoman {right around the light switch}. But, the awesome hooks I found at Anthropologie were way too big for that space. We weren't willing to compromise the hooks, so we decided to hang them on the other side of the door....just as you walk in!

If you didn't get the significance of the K C K before, here ya go! Kurt's hook is the tallest...clearly he has nothing to hang up yet! :) Cooper's hook is in the middle....ready to go for a walk! And, my hook {Katie} is the shortest....with my hat {from Anthro} that Kurt bought for me!

So, here it is! We hope you like our new back door! We love it and we're ready for winter to be here so we can break out all the scarves, hats, and gloves. Oh, and the best part?!? It didn't cost us much at all to do this project...even better!!

slowed updating...

2009-10-26T16:31:00.000-04:00

Fall Break was fabulous!

We spent time enjoying the season {and I was wishing I was in Bloomington!}

Unfortunately, my time that was set aside to blog today was used up with another trip to Lowe's.

This is what we had to get....

We've been having a BAD BUG problem. And, we don't like it one bit!!!

You know it's a problem when you have to use the broom on the back door just to get inside!

These little gnat-like bugs are all over our door, windows, and more. They jump on our clothing and Cooper's fur. Once inside, they sit on our curtains and stay on us until brushed off!!

{Look at all of them inside our window!!!}

{This is a close up view of our back door....}

We searched for some information online about them, and we think they are fungus gnats...YUCK!

Kurt's currently putting two types of stuff outside on the ground around the tree and house. We're hoping this does the trick. We're more than a little worried about Cooper, but didn't know of any other option. The labels say pets need to stay away from the area until it is completely dried. Looks like Coop won't get to enjoy the yard for a little while...ugh!

Hopefully, we'll be able to say 'goodbye' to these pesky little gnats soon!

And, of course, I promise to be back asap with those updates you've been waiting for.

teaser

2009-10-23T10:10:00.003-04:00

Our rug wasn't the only purchase we made last Saturday. In fact, we had quite the productive day. I've been itching to share with you all the projects we completed!! But, this weekend is our Fall Break. During my four day weekend, I'm planning on getting many more house projects done, writing some of my reports for school, and hopefully getting some relaxing/fun time thrown in, too! So, I'm off to get things checked off the list. I can wait to share with you projects from last weekend AND ones we get completed this weekend!! Here are some pictures to keep you on the edge of your seats {ha}! Have a wonderful weekend!!

We turned this blah backdoor into a stylin' storage space!

What more could a bathroom need?
Storage, what else?!?

Hum...found these awesome accessories at Anthropologie.
Nope, they won't be staying on the beautiful hardwood floors.
Guess you'll just have to wait and see!!

our yard

2009-10-22T10:00:00.001-04:00

Since I've been posting a lot this week about Cooper {it's his birthday week, anyways!}, I thought I share with you a little bit about his favorite part about our house.

He. Loves. Our. Yard.

Sunday, I snuck up on Cooper in the yard to show you what he does, very often.

He has discovered squirrels.

Both the squirrels and Cooper like to play the 'Who Can Stay Still Longest' Game.
I don't know who wins, but Cooper has fun. I'm not sure what the squirrels think...

And, if you noticed, our tree hasn't changed colors yet. I'm anxious to see what color it's going to be. Hopefully, it'll be pretty!

Celebrations

2009-10-21T10:36:00.025-04:00

Today is a day full of celebrations! On this day many years ago {I'll leave out the exact number}, my mom and dad got married! On this day three years ago, Patrick and Allison got married! And, on this day four years ago, Cooper was born!

Congrats Mom & Dad --

and cheers to many more years together!

Congrats Patrick and Allison --

and, I'm really ready for my next niece/nephew!! :)

Happy Birthday, Cooper --

even though you drive us nuts sometimes!

rug update...

2009-10-20T19:56:00.000-04:00

Ugh, so frustrating! We {I} decided that the rug didn't work in our room. The more I looked at it, the more I disliked it. So, we decided to take it back this afternoon. I didn't hate it, but it really wasn't what I was envisioning. I knew {or felt like} it'd be really hard for us to find curtains, pillows, and accessories. I really just don't want to be unhappy with a rug two months down the road when we can't take it back but don't want to spend money on another rug.....

So, we're back on the prowl for a rug. Again, if you have any ideas, we'd love to hear. I'm starting to get discouraged and Kurt's just getting really frustrated at my indecisiveness!

pier 1, anyone?

2009-10-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

Pier 1 quickly became our favorite store of the weekend......because they had a rug!!! The design and size are perfect. Plus, it was on a huge sale! I was a little unsure of the colors. I was envisioning something a little brighter. We decided to bring it home and see how we liked it. They told us we could always bring it back if we didn't like it in our room. Kurt loved it from the beginning, Cooper L.O.V.E.S it {see video at the bottom}, and it's definitely grown on me. Take a peek of your own and see what you think of it....

Here's what our living room looked like before...

We love our hardwood floor, but we needed a rug. We weren't able to plug in the light on our side table because we needed to run an extension cord under the rug. We also didn't want to buy pillows/curtains until we knew what our rug would look like. So, we now have more lighting and we're looking for some pillows and curtains!!

Here's the room with the new addition...

{You can see how much Cooper loves it! Kurt wouldn't move either!}

It's hard to tell, but the light is actually on!

I know it's kinda dark, but you get an idea of what it looks like.

Cooper's new dog bed will be in that open space on the left {by that basket}.

Make sure you vote!! I don't know if either will work....

So, what do ya think? We hope you like it as much as we do! I'm hoping that we'll be able to find great accessories to go along with it. That's one thing that's worrying me. If you have any ideas, we'd love to hear!

And, as promised, here's a video just to prove how much Cooper really does love the rug!!

We'll be sure to share when we update anything else with the living room.
{Hopefully, that will be sooner than later. We're waiting for our TV Stand to arrive..... You'll just have to wait and see!}

Dog Bed Decisions

2009-10-18T17:35:00.000-04:00

Cooper is spoiled...and, we love spoiling him! We'll admit, he's allowed on our furniture. BUT, he sleeps on his bed in our room at night {he likes to jump into bed and snuggle in the mornings sometimes!}. When we moved in, we folded up an old {and v.e.r.y. nasty blanket} from Kurt's house for him to use in the living room. Sometimes he sleeps on the couch/chair, but most of the time he'll lie on his 'bed'. He's begging us to buy him something more comfortable, and we're not disagreeing because the blanket is so ugly.

We headed on over to All Modern Pet to find a new cozy and stylish bed for our little Coop. Problem is, we like two, a lot. So, we need your help. I've put up a poll on the left side of the blog where you can vote on the one you like most. Please let us know what you think...we're dying to know. Maybe you hate both....that's fine for you to tell us, too! Here are the options:

#1: Funky Circles

{Sorry about the large picture, you wouldn't be able to see the circles if it wasn't big.} I'm bad at mixing patterns together, but I thought since this has a mixture of blues, yellows, and greens in funky circle patterns, it'd go with lots of things....

#2: Multicolored X's

This one has about the same color scheme, but the pattern is more distinct...if that makes sense?!? I'm just hoping that either one would look okay in our room. And, Cooper is wanting us to hurry up and make a decision so he can be more comfy!!

I hope you had a great weekend. We have LOTS of things to share that happened this weekend in our new little house!! :)

update 2 -- master closet

2009-10-15T17:52:00.000-04:00

I'll be the first to admit, our house lacks storage...big time. We're trying to come up with creative ways to add storage in many places throughout the house. Kurt's dad is a custom home builder, so he really understands what people want and creative ideas with how to make this happen. We all agreed {some sooner than others!} that adding storage to our closet was the first place we needed to start.

One of the first days after we'd moved in, Kurt called me on my way home from work and said, "I put all our clothes in the closet{s} today and I think you're really going to like the set-up I came up with." I can't stress enough how thankful I am for having a boyfriend who likes to help out with all the house stuff, BUT I'm a very anal person. After hearing this, I made sure to thank him for putting all the clothes away, but let him know that we'd still need some major help in the closet department. {I stressed that we should both be able to fit our clothes in the master closet so that we can use the guest closet for extra storage for lots of other things.} So, for the first two weeks, clothes were shoved in random spots, nothing was put away in drawers, and the closet floor was such a mess I could barely find clothes to wear to work! Kurt started taking everything out of the closet before I thought to get a 'before' picture, but here's what the closet storage looked like before adding anything.

The left side -- one hanging rod and some shelves.

A view straight in from the door.

One rod on the back wall.

The right side -- one more hanging rod.

Because we already had our clothes hanging, the only place we had to put them while working in the closet was on our bed. Try to imagine all these hanging on 3 rods.

The clothes were covering our entire bed and stacked up pretty high!!

Shoes, shoes, and probably more shoes...

Cooper was bored throughout the whole process...no one to play with and not many places to go! He was being so good, and of course, CUTE!

The first thing I wanted to do was take off the door. There was absolutely no need for a door on the closet that's already inside our master bathroom. No one, but us, is going to see it! By taking the door off, we added space on one wall to add hangers for Kurt's ties and some more for our belts/scarves. It's also opened up a wall for one shoe rack to stand.

We haven't put the hooks up yet, but at least we can access the shelves and have a shoe rack!

We also raised all of the closet rods to about 80in. That allowed us to add another closet rod under each one. Basically, instead of having one rod on each wall, we now have 2 on 2 of the walls and left one in the same spot for long dresses/skirts. {This is the wall with the second shoe rack.}

Kurt's side -- two rods to use.

Looking straight in -- 2 for Kurt on the left, 2 for me on the right.

The right side of the closet -- all my long clothing is behind Kurt's ties.

So, we basically doubled our storage in the closet! We're both able to fit {almost} all our clothes. We've really had to put away off season things and shoe storage is still a problem. It's not the most ideal closet in the world, but it's great for now. Have any more ideas for maximizing space in small closets?

Happy Birthday!

2009-10-13T08:00:00.015-04:00

Today is Kurt's 25th Birthday!

{This marks his seventh birthday we've shared together!}

Cheers, to you babe.

I can't wait to spend many, many more birthdays together.

I hope you have a fabulous day.

I love you!!

crazy

2009-10-12T22:33:00.000-04:00

I feel as though I've been on fast forward since last Friday. I'm taking the evening off, but I promise I'll be back later this week with closet updates! Can't wait to show you how quickly and easily we practically doubled our closet storage!!! {It's still cramped in there, but I'm not complaining!}