Our Beautiful Dining Room

Our first anniversary was in October and we were trying to decide on our anniversary present and I know that the traditional first year anniversary gift is paper. Well, instead of paper we bought a dining room table, kind of the same thing, right? Both are from trees, so does that work as a justification? 

Being the bargain hunter I am, I watched the prices fluctuate until they finally reached our price point which luckily was Columbus day weekend and also the weekend of our first anniversary. And a table isn't complete without chargers, napkins, and napkin rings. 

Our beautiful hurricane centerpiece is courtesy of an early Christmas present from my Mom.

We are heading to California tomorrow to spend Christmas with my Mom. I'm also recruiting her to help make drapes for the house. Pictures to come!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

December Madness

One of the reasons I like to finish Christmas shopping early...

And we are smack dab in the middle of it! This picture is actually the simplified calendar. December birthdays are plentiful in our family as is graduations, parties, and family gatherings. And this year is even more interesting as we have added additional work stresses to the mix. Needless to say with all this going on, home projects are on hold!

Although we did use our fireplace for the first time last night. We don't really have any mishaps to report, which is pretty shocking. I figured there would be a problem with the flue or the chimney wouldn't be clear, you know something along those lines. But I am very happy to report we had none of that, just a beautifully warm fire!

Anyway, we are officially one week away from Christmas, 6 days away from heading to California, and 4 days away from a week off of work! Can you tell I'm excited about next week?!

Time to Catch Up

It’s amazing how busy you can get and not even really know it! But we’re back and it is time to catch up! I’m going to try to recap our lives as of late so it may seem a little random but here goes…

We got a new washer and dryer…woot woot! We did tons of price comparison shopping and research. We probably did TOO much research. It seems washers and dryers these days only last 3-5 years, this conclusion prompted us to by an extended warranty. Normally I’m against the extended warranty because I feel like I’m being taken and for the most part I probably am, but I’m just going to look at this one as an insurance policy – it will help me sleep better! Anyway, we decided on the Frigidaire Affinity. I really wanted this crazy Samsung set but I didn’t want to pay double the price so Frigidaire it is. We’ve had it for about 3 weeks and so far I’m really happy with it. It has some nice bells and whistles, wash cycles with options like steam, sanitize, and delicate. The best part – I can finish ALL our laundry in about 3 hours. The old washer and dryer took me one to two days to finish laundry! For Christmas this year I got a washer and Brett got a dryer. Let’s hear it for grown up Christmas presents! Hey at least they are prettier than the last ones...

Thanksgiving was great! We have so much to be thankful for and it was nice to take a day to really remember how blessed we are. My brother and his wife came to town for a week and stayed with us a few nights. We did all the touristy stuff, ate terribly, and even made a trip to Audubon Zoo. We even had perfect Thanksgiving Day weather high 70’s low 80’s, it was absolutely beautiful!

To follow Thanksgiving a friend and I went shopping on Black Friday, I knocked out all my Christmas shopping by noon. It was awesome! Brett even did a little Black Friday shopping of his own via Lowes.com. My mom had given us a gift card a little while ago and Brett figured it was a great time to stock up on tools and so now we are now the proud owners of a new saw, drill, and battery pack for the drill…

To top off our Thanksgiving weekend and get into the Christmas spirit we decorated our Christmas Tree! Isn’t it beautiful?! I obsessed about the color scheme for roughly 20 minutes in Target while Brett patiently strolled up and down the Christmas aisles. I FINALLY decided to go with a red and gold. This year's tree is SO much better than the sad little Charlie Brown tree I picked out last year!

I continued to spread holiday cheer by sending out our Christmas cards (before December 1st).  I LOVE our Christmas card! A good friend of ours was gracious enough to offer to take some family pictures of us and they turned out AMAZING!

Since my shopping is done, presents are wrapped, and Christmas cards have been sent the only thing left to do is to enjoy the rest of the Holiday Season...and blog!