The Big 21

Well last week was my 21st birthday!  I had a good week all week!  On Monday Eric took me to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and then to see Puss in Boots.

 Eric then surprised me early on Tuesday with my present that he got all the siblings to help with!

Isn't it amazing?  I just love it!  It's so cool and perfect for me!  Now I just need to learn how to use all the cool features so I can utilize all of it!

  Then on Wednesday he sent me flowers at work! 

On Friday he gave me another little project he had been working on!  He got all the family to write me letters, and put it in a book for me!  It was so sweet of him, and of all my family to do that!  I love them, and it will be something I cherish and look back on for a long time!

 I got some new running sew too :)  I love them!  They are so comfortable and my favorite color!  What could be better!  Time to get back to the gym!  My lazy but has been away for too long!

So everything was going great but my actual birthday wasn't all that spectacular and I think it's because I felt like it needed to be!  I like our normal life!  I mean we are a dinner and a movie couple.  I know boring, but that's what we like.  Yeah we do a lot of other things every once in a while, but we normally just enjoy being at home with each other cuddling and watching a movie!  Call us boring, but I have gotten use to our quiet boring life.  You see there is nothing really to do here in Midland haha.  So when you are looking to get out of your normal for a special occasion and do something cool you have to be creative.  My birthday was Saturday so we started early.  We were going to go to a special lunch, but all 4 restaurants I picked were closed until dinner time.  Who knew no one eats In Midland until 5.  So we ended up just eating at our usual place Rosa's.  We then went and saw the Muppet movie, which was awesome!  Great day so far right?  Well we got home and pretty much were ready for bed....it was 6 o'clock.  Haha we are like an old married couple.  So naturally with it being my 21st birthday we said we can't just be done or stay home we need to do something special....well when you don't drink, don't have any money, don't have a ton of family or friends here....well you don't have a ton of options!  Ha ha so Eric and I drove around rocking out to some music, got a red box and came home!  WE ARE AWESOME!  So ya know what I'm okay with just having normal days from now on!  I like our life, normal, boring, whatever it may be, I like it just the way it is, and I don't need anymore of these "special occasions" coming and ruining our routine haha.  All I need is Eric by my side to have a great day!
Ha ha I mean come on!  Look at that cutie!  What more could I need to have a great birthday!

On Sunday night Grandma Sue had a special birthday dinner for me!  It was so nice of her!  She even made my dads special stuffed mushrooms for me!  Am I a lucky girl or what!  I am surrounded by so many amazing people!  God is truly blessing my life each and everyday!  I got some great presents from everyone, but I have to say one of my favorites is this from Uncle Mark and Aunt Terri!

Isn't it great?  Yup pretty blessed individual right there my friends!

Thanks everyone for making my birthday special!  I love you all!

Thanksgiving

So for Thanksgiving we went down to Austin with Aunti Deb and Grandma Sue.  We stayed with My Uncle Mike and Aunt Kelly!  It was so nice of them to welcome us into their home.  I love Austin, it's so nice to see apart of Texas that is green.  It was great to get out of west Texas for a bit and have a change of scenery!  We got there Wednesday night and just chilled and caught up! It was so nice to see them and my cousin Olivia, and Shannon who I have never really been able to spend much time with.  My Aunt Kelly is a chef, so lets just say we ate really well on Thanksgiving, probably...I mean positively too well.  We had ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, mac n cheese, Brussels sprouts, green bean casserole, fruit salad, and don't worry we filled up on appetizers like spinach dip way before we even sat down to the actual meal!  I was pretty much in a food coma the rest of the  night.  Don't worry it didn't stop me from eating her amazing pumpkin praline cheesecake

awwwwwww I'm drooling now as I think of it!  It was amazing!  She gave me the recipe so I am going to attempt to make it for Christmas....:S I'm sure I won't do it justice because it was just too Delicious!  On Friday we drove and met up with Uncle Mark, Aunt Terri, my Cousin Rachael, and her boyfriend Ryan.  It was so great to meet Ryan and get to see Rachael!  I haven't seen her in a long time and it's always so fun to meet up!  We went to the Renaissance fair in Magnolia Texas.  It was so much fun!  It was great to get out and actually do something out of the normal!  They had all shorts of shows, and stores with anything Renaissance you could think of!  I couldn't help but think of my sister Jules as I chowed down on my first turkey leg I have had since my last time to Disney Land.

Here is a juggling show we watched

 Here is the Jousting competition!

 Getting ready to watch the FIRE WHIP SHOW!

 Fire Whip guy!  He was AMAZING!

 Here is a comedic team doing the Mud Show!



Later that night we were able to drive towards Houston and meet up with Mel, Stephen, the boys, and Mom.  I always love seeing them as much as I can, but I do have to admit my favorite person to see was sweet baby Evan!  He is the new addition to the family and I just adore him!  Unfortunately he had been sick all week and was fussy, so I only got to hold him for a few minutes, but that was all I needed to fall in love!  Welcome to the world new nephew we love you!

Well we had an awesome trip and a great thanksgiving!  Thanks for everyone who was apart of making it an amazing weekend!

Erics Birthday

Well Eric Turned the big 25 on November 22nd.

 












I'm a little late at posting, but we have been busy.  It was so nice becasue my Mom was able to be here during that time.  It was so good to get to see her, and even though we didn't get to spend a ton of time with her, it was still a very needed visit.  I took Eric out the night before his birthday to dinner and the night of his birthday Grandma Sue made Eric dinner, and we had a little get together with the fam.  Eric pretty much got a whole cow for his birthday dinner, it was pretty great.  I got him a new lap top for his birthday which he got early.  I wanted him to have something on his actual birthday so I had hidden 25 notes all around for him to find haha oh yeah and I bought him some new sweats lol.  He is always complaining that I borrow his and so I just bought him new ones :).    Happy late Birthday Baby!

More exciting stuff happened that week as well!  I got a raise at work!   They normally do a 3 month review, but they went ahead and did a 1 month review.   They said I was doing so well and that they have never had anyone in that position that has learned everything so fast!  Needless to say I was really excited!  Its really validating to know that we are in the right place, and that the lord is blessing us so much!

Oh yeah and I finished my wreath finally haha just in time to have it on the door for like a week!  Oh well I love christmas so I was okay to remove it to decorate for Christmas.

Quick Note Of Thanks

Sorry I haven't been a very good blogger as of late.  Things have been a bit crazy, and it didn't help that I broke Eric's computer :(.  He accidentally left it on the floor one night and by the next day it had gotten covered, and I stepped on it and cracked the screen....sad day.  Oh well luckily I was already planning on buying Eric a new computer for his birthday, so all in all it worked out just fine.  It just means that I haven't had a computer for a few weeks.  Well considering it's thanksgiving, I want to get back to all the fun and exciting things that come with it, rather then spending all my time on here!  I just wanted to drop a quick note and say I am so grateful for everyone and everything in my life!  I am surrounded by amazing family, friends, opportunities, blessings, and of coarse my dear husband.  I am truly truly blessed.  I hope y'all are having a marvelous thanksgiving!  That's all for today, I need to go eat some pumpkin cheesecake :) yum!  But there is a lot yet to come.  My mom has been in down, it was my uncles birthday party, Eric's birthday, thanksgiving in Austin, promotion at work, and all sorts of fun stuff!  Don't worry I'll update the blog for real soon!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Our New Rid

Well last weekend we FINALLY got a new car! YAHAHAHA!  We found an awesome deal on a chevy cobalt (one of my dream cars :) ) in Houston.  We looked outside of Midland just because everything is so expensive here.  Houston is an 8 1/2 hour drive, so instead of that we decided to fly.  We just figured in gas for the truck there and back, plus having to drive sperate cars home, and put that mileage on the truck, it would be better to fly.  It really ended up costing us about the same amount of money, but made it a really fast trip there, and allowed us to drive  home together! 

Alright folks let me tell you what, I am NEVER buying a car from that dealership.  This was our first time ever buying a car and it is not an experience I ever want to re live.  I'm so sick of telling the story so I'm not going to get into too many detail, but long story sh ort we ended up being at the dealership for almost 5 hours!  it was ridiculous.  First, there were problems with address verification, then insurance, then this, then that.  It was just crazy!  The sales guy was super rude too and kept making comments about our personal information we had given him.  Like our phone bill being way too much, or  how he can't believe we've been married this long and I haven't changed my name on everything, or how he can't believe we moved to Texas and haven't gotten new licenses yet. OKAY OKAY bucko do you want this sale or not?  Because last time I checked you're not us and you don't know our life, so sale the dang car don't analize our life choices.  I almost slapped him, haha it didn't help that we hadn't eated all day either...our bad.  Well it just makes me too frustrated to talk about all the details of what happened (if you want to know more, call me, haha it's too hard to explain on here) but eventually we did get out of there alive and with a new car!  I LOVE the car!  It's a 2008 so it's not brand new, but it's the nicest car I have ever had, and I adore it!  The other great part of the weekend was that we got to see the Coopers!  We didn't get there till late on Saturday night, but we got there, that's all, that's all that matters.  It was so nice to catch up with Mel and Stephen, and to get to see the boys!  They are just so cute!  It was so nice of the Coopers to let us stay the night with them!  So after all the adventures it was time to head home!  We left early afternoon on Sunday, and the drive home was great!  So all in all I'm happy.  It wasn't the most pleasant experience, but I'm just going to put that behind us, and focus on the fact that we have a new car, which is all that matters!  I'm a happy girl!  I'm going to be sad to give it up for 6 months so that Eric can drive to his intership, but I love Eric more so I'll make that sacrifice haha.

Craft Time

So I have been needing a creative outlet lately and kinda went a little overboard.  I now have too many projects going on but I'm loving it!  I feel so accomplished when I finish one, and I love working on them!  I actually get excited to come home just so I can work on my crafts :) I'm a nerd, no biggie.

So project #1 I decided to make a wreath.  I only own 1 wreath and it's an Easter wreath,........that's still hanging on the door.  I haven't taken it town yet because our door is ugly, and I haven't had anything to replace it with.  Ha Ha so I figured it was time for a new one, but I couldn't find one I liked!  All the wreath at stores looked the same and were expensive, so I just decided to make my own!  I have started one for fall, and will start one for winter too :).  I'm super excited!  It's not quite done, but here are some pictures of it so far!





I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with it, but thanks to Pinterest tehee I got some great ideas!  You can buy an actual foam circle at craft stores but those are like $8 so I wanted to try to be more thrifty!  I wanted to find a water noodle, but considering summer is over no one is selling those.  So I ended up finding construction pipe covering.  You can buy a pack of 3 for $3.  Way cheaper, and now I have some left over to make more wreaths.  The piping didn't work exactly how I hoped, but it did the job.  It's just shorter and skinnier then I thought so when I bent it into the circle it went a little skiwampiss, so I just wrapped it in tape and the shape is a little better now!  Here are some of the pictures from Pinterest that got me inspired.




After that all I did was wrap it with yarn!  Super easy, but I like the modern clean look of these kind of wreaths !  I didn't just want your average fall wreath of leaves and pumpkins (not that those are bad, I just wanted something different), so I loved this idea when I saw it.  I'm not done yet but I'll post pictures of the finished project.  I'm going to add some more yarn that is a dark mustard yellow, and I'm making felt flowers to add to it as well!  I'm excited to see how it turns out!

Okay project #2, jewelry hanger.  Okay so the other day I was cleaning the apartment, and I decided to organize my jewelry.  I hadn't gone through it since I just threw it a box when packing.  All my necklaces were tangled, and everything was all mixed up.  I had gone through everything and gotten it all straightened up but didn't really have anywhere to put it. I didn't just want to throw it all back in the jewelry box and get my necklaces tangled again, so I needed somewhere to hang them.  Which led me to be a little resourceful.  I have wanted to make something like this for a long time, here is a picture of what I had in mind.

Okay well I didn't want to wait, and I didn't really have all this stuff just lying around my apartment, so I improvised.  Eventually I'll want to update it and get a prettier frame, one with more detail like above, but here is the finished project for now.


I had an extra frame lying around that was brown and gold, so I took it and paint it black.


Then I found some old lace and cut out a piece and nailed it on.


I had some pearl pins lying around from when I made Jules that bouquet, so I added them to the bottom to act as necklace hangers.


The Love sign was the lid to the jewelry box I was no longer using.  I didn't want it to go to waste, so Eric unscrewed it for me, I added some pretty scrapbook paper behind the lettering, and wahlah!  It's not exactly I had planned a while ago, but for doing it on a whim, and doing it with stuff I already had laying around the house? I don't think it's that bad!

Okay so project #3, I'm not sure if you know this about me, but I HATE plain white walls, and I LOVE pictures.  Well considering our apartment is full of white walls I was going crazy, so I decided it's my goal to change that!  I have been working in the front room this week!  We still really don't have that much money to be spending on decorations, so thanks to the local Dollar Tree I was able to scrap up almost all of these frames for $1 each!  Some of them are from our old apartment, and things we got from our wedding, but I needed a few more to fill up all that space, so luckily we found some for cheap.  So here is what the front room looked like the first time I posted a picture.  Here is what it looks like now

I know I know I'm sure you're thinking, "holy crap got enough frames, you crazy"?  Well yes it's a bit extreme, but I had a bunch of little ones lying around, and I just kept adding.  At this point I would rather look at a bunch of pictures then plain white walls, so thus the million frames.  I have a bunch of pictures sent to Walgreens I need to pick up, that way I can actually fill the frames, what a novel idea I know!  It is kinda weird for me though, because all the pictures we really have are either our engagements, or our wedding!  I feel so vain have 5 million frames of me and Eric everywhere but it's all I have.  I'm going to try and dilute it with some baby pictures and family pictures we love, but we kinda figured until you have kids, you don't have that many cool pictures to put up!  But now I guess when we have kids I'll have plenty of frames to put all their pictures in!  Ignore the empty spaces on the one wall.  I'm wating to get a few more things to add to it, so it's not completely done yet!  The plates with the live, laugh, love decal was another craft project!



  I found that decal at Dollar Tree as well and wanted to add it so there wasn't just pictures on the wall.  I found some silver platters there for $1, and I painted them the beige color because the silver was too much.  The letters of the decals were then too close of a color so you couldn't see the words!  So I just spray painted the lettering black and stuck it on!  They are not pefect in any sense, but I like them, and hey for only $6? I'm okay with that!


So this leads me to project #4.  Here is the next white wall I am going to conquer.

 
I want this to be our family wall which requires all of your guy's help (don't worry I am going to individually ask you, I wouldn't expect to get anything just from asking over the blog).  I found that family decal at the Dollar Tree also (I'm in love with that place).  I'm going to put the decal at the top with a frame around it
and then put pictures of all our family underneath!  That means you moms and dads, brothers and sisters, grandmas, aunts, nieces, nephews, weddings, groups, singles, whatever you have I want them (that sounded kind of creepy...sorry).  So calling all family, send me pictures!  We don't get to see most of you very often, so my goal is to add you to our wall, and then we get to see you everyday!  I'm excited to get this project finished!



Okay so finally I'm updating you on the baskets for the bathroom.  A few weeks ago I posted here about  changing the baskets. Well here are the final project!  I really like them.  They look so good in the bathroom, and I actually like them better dark then light!  I'm glad we could repurpose them!