Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Deck PaRtY coming soon!!

Well..... As I sit here waiting for the snow.... I figured this would be a perfect time to update you on our projects around the house.  At our old house, our yard looked so pretty.  It was just like I wanted it.  I love spending time outside and our yard is hardly what I would like for it to be at our house now.  We have planted shrubs in the front yard and laid some sod since we moved in and it looks a lot better.  BUT.... our backyard is in dire need of some help.  We started with the half of a barn/lean to that was there.  We knocked down the lean to, painted the barn, and Matt added the other side of the barn to make it look better.  I must say, it looks a lot better than it did.  Just recently we had a friend build us a deck.  Matt usually is the one who does our projects around the house, but it would have taken him a lot longer working on the weekends and after work.  So it is finished now.  I am excited to be able to enjoy it.  We have our furniture on it from our old house, but I can't wait to add some flowers and other seating in place of our chewed up rocking chairs (Thanks Cash).  Now we have a place to sit outside.  I'm looking forward to a few deck parties.  Here are a few pictures. Right now I am going to enjoy the snow.... but I look forward to spring and summer where I can enjoy relaxing outside!



 
We also have been painting our upstairs bedroom.  We have done a lot of work downstairs, but haven't touched the upstairs.  It still looks like 1960's /70's up there.  We want our guest bedroom upstairs and our  nursery downstairs with our room. So Matt has been working hard to repair the walls and get the upstairs bedroom painted.  Now all we have to do is move the furniture and then we will have an empty room downstairs that we can begin to paint to prepare for our little one.  Hopefully it won't be too much longer.  We have been waiting almost a year  (in April)~ we pray nightly that God will answer our prayers in his time, but I want to be ready when we finally get "the call". I think the bedroom looks so much better, you can't really appreciate it as much without seeing the before.
 
Not the best picture- I tried to do a panoramic view of the room.  Sorry- but you get the idea.

 For now,  I plan on getting some fun snow pictures, eating some yummy beef stew, and possibly watching a movie tonight! I love cold snowy days!  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

Friday, January 3, 2014

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already.  It was such a fun time for our families.  We had lots of fun throughout the holidays.  I enjoyed an ornament swap with my bible study girls.  We also had such a fun time at the Arnold's annual Christmas party.  It was fun to spend some time with lots of old friends from Oakland (the first school that I taught at) at Mrs. Behrendt's house. This year, I decided to make cinnamon rolls to take to friends.  This was the first time I had ever made dough with yeast.  It went well and I think they turned out good.  I look forward to improving them as the years go by. I have already found a new and improved cream cheese icing for next year!  Matt and I had fun delivering and spending time at each house. We enjoyed lunch with Matt's cousins. Then the time had come..... We enjoyed a candle light service at St. Mark with Matt's mom and dad and then we headed to Marcie's for a Christmas Eve dinner.  Christmas morning Matt's family came over for brunch.  I wanted to do something a little different so we had shrimp and grits, ham biscuits, strawberries, cinnamon rolls and quiche.  It was so much fun.  I love pulling out my china and silver and making it special each year.  We visited for a while, took a nap, and then headed to my mom and dad's house for Christmas there.  We ate ALOT and then we started opening presents.  We really enjoyed Christmas, but I hated to see it go.  Then on Friday, we headed to Charleston to have Christmas with Matt's brother's family.  We certainly enjoyed our visit and enjoyed downtown Charleston as well.  How thankful I am that we have a reason to celebrate.  How thankful I am that Jesus left his throne in heaven to come and die a sinner's death just to save me (and you!!).  Here are some of the pictures to enjoy. 
 


 Even got Matt to help roll some rolls!
Ready for delivery!!
Christmas Eve
Ready for bed!!
Brunch














 We got daddy a Richard Petty driving experience.  He gets to ride in a racecar for 3 laps.  I think he liked it!!
 George is going too!!! (In fact, all the boys are going for a ride).  I can't wait to see their faces!  George couldn't believe it.  Matt is pretending to be the driver. YIKES!!

 Matt's new BB gun
Charleston
Harrison and Gray play violin.  They performed for us so they could get extra credit.  I must say, they are good!!

 Matt and Campbell.  This was just before we decided to play Just Dance on the Wii.   I only had videos of that.  It was quite funny!