House Pictures

The kitchen and island

My little backyard

 The great room

2nd Bedroom

3rd Bedroom

Guest Bathroom Upstairs

Laundry Room

Master Bathroom

My Closet

Master Bedroom

 Garage (or Mike's room)

And the front :)

Change is good!

Though I've had some pretty exciting things happen since I last wrote, I just haven't taken the time to sit down and make a post.  


First, with the leaving of my boss and the night supervisor, I am keeping my same title but got a 2/hr raise and a cell phone allowance!  Holy cow...I feel like I'm movin' on up (singing this)  May 9th is the official date that this new company takes over.  I am really excited for Monday to happen and am really excited about the changes that are going to happen and the potential for me as well.  I really think this is going to be an awesome change and I can't wait to get it started!


Second, the hubster and I were signing some house papers on Sunday and we found out that our house is going to be done on June 24th!  And what I mean by being done on June 24th is that we can get our keys on June 24th!  That is a month earlier than we were expecting!  Since we are getting into our house sooner we were able to lock in a rate this week of 4.375!  


A raise, an earlier move-in date, and a fabulous mortgage loan rate!  Life couldn't really be much better right now!  And to top it off I'm having a Photographer Mother's Day Weekend with my mom and I will be taking pictures all weekend.  It should be a lot of fun and I should have some good pictures to post!


I have some pictures I took of the house, I will post in a separately. 

Goodbyes

Today we went to Who Song and Larry's after work for some dinner and drinks as a farewell to Jamie and Avie.  There is not one ounce of me that wanted either one of them to leave but at the same time it hasn't hit me yet that when I go to work on Monday, they won't be there.  I don't even feel sad yet because it hasn't hit me and I refused to give Avie a hug goodbye.  That meant it was a little too real.  I've become especially close with Avie over the last few months and am really going to miss seeing her and talking to her everyday although, I have a feeling we both still might need each other for some venting time. :)  


When I first started at this office I really didn't think I would be there long but I'm glad I've stuck it out.  I've met some really great people and I really think this job could have some potential in the future.  I'm sad for losing Jamie and Avie but I do believe everything happens for a reason.


I think this saying is fitting:
"Some people come into our lives and quickly go.  Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same."  ~Flavia Weedn,Forever

Oh New House

I just wanted to give a little picture update on our house being built.  We have about 14.5 weeks left until it's complete and I abso-freaking-lutly can not wait!

Front of the house 

Garage aka Man Cave 

Kitchen area - the stuff sticking out is where the island will be 

 Bottom floor living/kitchen

Guest bathroom - this isn't in place yet. 

My stairs 

Master bedroom 

Master closet 

Master Bath/Shower

I feel like these pictures make the house look kind of small but it is 1600 sq ft so we will have plenty of room!

Sons of Anarchy

My life has been really uneventful in the past 2-3 weeks...most the time I feel like it's pretty uneventful but could always blog about SOMETHING.  Every time I would think about sitting down to blog, I couldn't think of anything to write about.  I don't feel like I have anything too exciting at the moment but it's been too long.

The husband and I got hooked on the TV show Sons of Anarchy.  It's pretty hard core for being on FX and it's super addicting.  In case you haven't watched the show or heard of it, it is about a biker club and the trials and tribulations they go through.  They run guns, so as you might imagine there is illegal stuff happening all the time and every episode ends with someone getting shot.  Sounds great, huh?!  You just have to watch it.  It really is THAT good.  At the end of every episode I swear it ends by me saying "uh oh!"  And then we have to watch the next one to see what happens!  I have a bit of a crush on Jax but really love him and Tara and I secretly wish I could be the bad ass that Gemma is...ok that's not really much of a secret. :)  I wonder what it would be like to really be a part of something like that...I'm sure I couldn't hack it but you never know, I could surprise some people! :)  When I really like something (like Twilight) I get weird, obsessive thoughts and can't stop thinking about it and then I think crazy thoughts like "I want to be in a biker club and date Jax and carry a gun and have people intimidated by me!" lol  I'm pretty much insane but that's ok.  We just finished Season 2 and will be starting Season 3 asap.  Then I will have this void and will have to wait until Season 4 starts!

My new addiction...Jax and the SONs :)

I'm also pretty sure I have WAY too many tv shows that I have to watch...

The Good Stuff

Mike and I are so excited about owning our first home, we still have approximately 4 months until the houses are complete.  Unless they get them done early?!  Which would be awesome for personal reasons but not to awesome for saving reasons...

This first picture was taken on March 17th and the second picture was taken yesterday, March 26th.  A huge difference in 9 days!

We went on Friday to the design center to pick out all of our interior stuff.  It was a lot of fun but now I just can't wait to see it all in the house!   I'm so excited about our kitchen!  We picked out some granite countertops and a pretty awesome back splash.  I'm really excited to also to see the floor color and cabinet color!  

Here is a little overview of what we picked...hard to tell exactly with the lighting

        

 This is our floor color and the light wood is the cabinet design, the swatch is our cabinet color.

Our granite countertops!  Showing the cabinet color and granite together.

This is our back splash...we are doing a travertine subway tile.  You can't really tell in the picture but the light color of this tile really made the light colors in the granite stand out.  Off to the right is our paint color, it's called Macadamia with Antique white trim.  

Our house thus far..now if only the months would go by a tad bit faster.  I don't know about you but March has seemed to take forever!

Interview...

I have never been to Providence Portland, I have only ever seen it from the freeway.  I didn't realize how HUGE the place was.  Of course, I park in the parking garage NOT connected to the plaza.  Good thing I knew myself well enough to leave with plenty of time. :)  I had 30 min from the time I parked to find where I needed to go.  I got there with plenty of time to spare!

My initial reaction was that the interview went pretty well.  It was long and it was all situational questions which I do not like.  It was hard for me to come up with exact instances...I ended up probably answering more behavioral than situational.  Hopefully that didn't deter them too much.  That part took about an hour - I was expecting about 30 min.  At the end I asked what the next step in the process was and was told that you would meet with the "preceptors" and then the office manager would make her decision.  She ended up having me interview with the 3 preceptors immediately after instead of having me come back another time.  I took that as a good sign that I "passed" the first face to face and got to meet with the others...hopefully, I'm not looking too much into it and it means absolutely nothing. :)

Of couse the more I sit and think about the process I'm feeling worse about it.  Thinking, "I should have said this or I should have said that, dangit!"  The office manager wants to have a decision by the end of the week...as much as I feel like I want this, if I don't get it, I need to remember that everything happens for a reason and something better is going to come my way!

YAY!!

I've spent a good portion of my time over the past week applying for jobs.  As of last Friday I had about 9 applications out that were still active applications.  This morning I was sitting at my desk and my phone rings, it's a number I didn't know, which meant that it was probably somebody calling about a job!  And it was.  It was Providence hospital calling about a job I applied for a week ago!  We had a phone interview and at the end I asked if there would be a face to face interview after she got through her list and she said actually I'd be willing to set one up with you right now if you want.  So of course I said yes.  I have an interview tomorrow morning at 10a with one of the doctors offices at Providence Portland.  It's on OB clinic which I'm super excited about!  I'm just really excited about the whole thing!  I feel like this really could be meant for me...  It's funny how everything really does seem to work itself out and happen when it's supposed too.  Mike is really excited about the interview too...this is what he told me "get your nice clothes together, put on your game face, and get that job at Providence." lol  He cracks me up.  It's possible I may have to take a small pay cut for the position and when I told Mike he said "so what, it's Providence."  The benefits of working there probably outweight the small paycut I would maybe have to take. 

We went to visit my parents this weekend and it was fun as always.  I definitely wish I lived closer to them but I'm very grateful for a normal schedule now that allows me to see them more than twice a year.  Though we don't get much sleep when we visit, it's still a relaxing time and I usually gain a couple pounds to top off the great weekend! :) 

Only 4 days and it's time to hit the design center for your house...and officially start my name change process!  This is turning out to be a pretty eventful week and it's only Monday!  Woohoo!

Bad Blogger

Wow, I didn't realize it's been about a week and a half since I wrote...

This past week has been a little stressful for me in regards to my job.  We are still under the whole bankruptcy thing and although things should be figured out by March 30th, nobody here in the PNW knows anything that's going on...and we haven't known much of anything for the past couple months.  The not knowing really gives me an uneasy feeling.  I've been applying for other positions like crazy, just in case, but the hospitals around here take so long to even get a hold of you if they want to interview you.  I'm talking a month + to even get a call.  Honestly, I just want our house stuff to go through.  I want this house so bad and it is time for us to take this step, I just don't want it to get messed up.  It's not about actually losing my job because I'm confident even once we had the house we would figure that out until I could find something else.  I'm willing to eat pasta roni and mac and cheese every night if I have to...I just want this house.  Deep down I really feel like everything will be fine, especially for me, I'm more of a little person on the totem pole.  I guess my concern is stemming from the possibility of these buyers (who are in Arizona and didn't want us in the first place) shutting us down and that's how I lose my job.  I'm hoping with everything I have that the buyers in Arizona have people who want to purchase us once the original buy goes through.  Why would they want to just purchase us and shut us down instead of getting more money by selling us??  I'm hoping I make a valid point there...i

On a happy note, I saw my little niece this weekend and I just LOVE her to pieces.  She is the cutest thing ever.  She is 7 1/2 months old now and she gave me kisses!  She opens her little mouth and leans forward it's so stinkin' cute!  She starts to cry if people she doesn't know hold her so I'm glad that she knows who her Aunt Sam is because she truly is the best.  I can't wait until she gets a bit older and starts talking, we're going to have so much fun, me and baby rae!

We also had Allie this weekend and her little attitude is getting so much better!  I've also felt/seen huge improvements with how she acts with me.  It's starting to finally feel like I have somewhat of a relationship with her which make me really happy.  I don't have the expectation to be her "step mom" but I want her to feel comfortable coming to me with anything and I want to be able to be a good influence and role model for her...Speaking of which, I have to go now because Mike and Allie are coming to get me to go to a friends house.  So caio for now!

I'm sooo excited...and I just can't hide it!

We put our official offer in yesterday on the house and put down our earnest money!  I can absolutely not wait to have a house.  We are so ready for this.  We are doubling our space inside and also will have a little backyard space as well as a garage.  I feel like we might not have enough stuff to fill the house but I'm sure we'll figure it out.  Just means more shopping, right? ;)  I'm excited that we are having it built and we will be able to watch the process but at the same time I wish it was already completed just because I'm so impatient.  But it makes this whole process so much more worth it for me to be able to watch it being built and to be able to pick out colors and everything on the inside.  I feel like this is really OUR house.  We will have basically designed the inside..what a fun way to buy our first house together!  We have our appointment at the design center on March 25th, 3 weeks from today!  It feels so far away...I'm hoping it goes fast.  The tentative date for completion is July 22nd, what a perfect birthday present for me!  I sure hope the next 4 months go by fast.  This house is pretty much all I've been thinking about for the past 2 weeks and I'm sure will be the only thing I'm thinking about for the next 4 months...

Mini Photo Shoot

Mike and I had Allie this past Saturday and we had a fun arts and crafts day with my mother-in-law.  I was asked if I could take some pictures of Allie with her cute new haircut.  Although, I was very surprised to be asked to take pictures I can't pass up the opportunity to take some photos!  We went outside and got some pictures first but it was so cold outside we couldn't stay out long.  So we had to take some pictures inside.  The backdrops are little less than desirable but there were still a couple cute pictures of Allie.  We had fun running around the house to find new spots and Allie had fun posing for me. :)

It's been really awesome to get to have Allie more and we've made such huge strides in her comfort level with me.  Almost every time we get her I feel like that little wall she has comes down a little more.   

Next on the agenda: Convince the hubs that we need a little father/daughter photo shoot :)

Housing Update

This past week has been pretty much all about the house.  We officially decided to go for it last Thursday.  We got our prequalification last Wednesday, met with the sales rep for that location on Thursday to go over the standard base package for the house at the price of 159,900 and on Thursday we put in a non-binding offer, which we changed on Friday before we heard back.  Our offer was really aggressive.  The house right now is listed for 163,900 ($4000 for landscaping in the back) so we offered $170,000 and they pay 3% closing costs, we want a stainless steel fridge, air conditioner, and $6100 credit to the design center.  They came back with all of that for $171,000!  We were so surpised!  The counter offer was WAY better than we expected.  After some more talk last night we decided to up our price and ask them to cover all of closing costs because that would be an extra $4000 we would need to come up with.  We have a meeting Thursday to put in an official offer and put down our earnest money...then we can finally make an appointment to go to the design center and pick out all of our stuff for the inside!  We've submitted everything to process our loan application, which we've hit a little snag on which way we are going to go, but other than that we are on our way to being homeowners this summer!

Mike and I are both so excited!  We keep saying how we don't know how we are going to last 5 months while we wait for it to be built!  It will be so awesome to live so close to our friends and I'm so freakin' excited to be able to pick out all the inside stuff!  I'm so glad we decided to go this route.  It's definitely the "safe" route and I am OK with that!  Now if only we could talk the sister-in-law's family to move next door...:)

Happy 5 Years!

Today is Mike and I's 5 year anniversary.  I realize that once you get married your years should "start over" but I'm not willing to give up those 5 years just yet. :)  I honestly feel like we have been together a lot longer than just 5 years (and married for 4 months).  Not in a bad way by any means, I feel like he has always been in my life and me in his.  As cheesy as it sounds, he really does complete me. 

This morning though, I had the realization that Mike and I really like to push each others buttons.  I knew we did it, quite frequently, but this morning as I was thinking about us and our 5 years I realized just how much I think we enjoy doing it.  Haha!  So happy anniversary babe to the biggest pain in my butt that I couldn't imagine my life without!  You truly are amazing and I love you! :)

A New Little Home?!

A couple weeks ago I found these brand spankin' new houses that I fell in LOVE with.  Even though I only saw them on the rmls website, I still knew that I loved them.  The only downfall...LOCATION.  They are in Estacada, which is about 30 min from where we are currently and adds a bit more to both of our drives for work.  I finally convinced the hubs to just go look at them because I was willing to forfeit the location for these houses.  We went and looked at them today and I would still have been willing to forfeit a better a location because these houses were so beautiful and new and we would get to build our own too which I think is fun!  Of course, the hubs disagrees.  He doesn't want to live in Estacada (it is a bit ghetto) but these houses...I just love them!

Our best friends, along with a couple other of our friends, live in a housing development of townhouses.  Mike has been really anti the townhouse and for the most part I have been too.  There were definitely things I liked about them but in the big picture I was saying no.  There has been one particular one right across the street from our best friends and it's been a joke that it was meant for us because it's the only one that hasn't sold, out of the ones that have been built.  The prices have dropped so drastically on these townhouses that Mike actually wanted to look at them so we went and looked today and he actually liked it!  So now we had some decisions to make...  The hubs has ALWAYS wanted to have rental properties and with the price being so low and below our budget on these townhouses it would be a perfect investment to live in a for a few years and then turn it in to a rental...OR we look at houses and spend probably a good 30,000 more...  Decisions, decisions.

We decided to at least do the pre-qualification and see what our interest rate would be and potentially next weekend go put money down on an empty lot and have our new little home built!  I know everything will happen how it's supposed to and if it's meant to be, we may be moving into our newly built house in August!  The whole process makes me a little nervous because I want to make the right decision for us and this could potentially turn into us owning our first home!

Motivation & Procrastination...

This is the story of my life today.  As I sit here at work I look at the time, it's 11:30am.  I think to myself this is already the LONGEST day ever.  Today I lack the motivation to do anything...and blogging at work is my procrastination.  I went to make a call this morning to another doctors office and I get this recording "thank you for calling frontier, this phone has been temporarily disconnected"  hahaha.  I find this pretty funny really, that's what happens when the company you work for decides to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy and stops paying bills to look like they are in more financial distress.  Awesomeness.  It's now only 11:45a..I've successfully managed to waste about 15 minutes, including phone interruptions.  WILL THIS DAY EVER END?!?! 

Valentines Day Recap

Mike and I never do much for Valentines Day.  I've never been a huge Valentines Day person, I'm more one the people that think nice things should happen throughout the year not on Valentines Day.  But this Valentines day was a first for us, we were able to have Mike's daughter Allie.  We had heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's and Allie and I decorated brownies.  We also hung out with the sister in-law, husband, and cutest little niece ever.  It was a nice low-key night spent with ones that we love.  I suppose that's what Valentines is about anyways, right?  I also was lucky enough to get a nice massage before bed time!  I think the husband needs to give more those out throughout the year! :)

I'm ready NOW!

This weekend husband and I went and looked at a house, the first one(s) we've looked at since the last time we were going to buy. They are brand new houses that have been built and we actually looked at a few in the same subdivision.  They were nice and I was secretly hoping husband would really like them and then want to do a 100% financing loan so that we didn't have to wait to buy but that was not the case.  If I'm being honest with myself, I didn't actually fall in love with the houses either.  What I like is that they are new so we don't have to worry about things going wrong and end up being house poor, but I am also feeling really impatient with this whole process and want to buy right NOW.  I feel like we are bursting out of our tiny, 750sq ft apartment and it's time to move on.  Our lease is also up April 1st so it would be nice to be out by then but that's not going to happen I'm afraid.  We are still in the process of saving up our 3.5% down payment, then we still need to get pre-approved, then we need to start really looking.  We're hoping end of April we will have the downpayment...

I'm just ready to move into a house and I want to be able to paint and have friends and family over and I'm SO ready for Mike to have his own space. :)  Every day that passes I get more and more impatient so I hope this whole process ends up going by quickly for my sake and Mikes!

Work Drama

We have been in the process of getting bought out at my company.  Originally, we were supposed to get split from our corporate office, where they did EVERYTHING for us and they are located in Arizona, so we started taking on some more tasks as an office in preparation for the change.  At the same time we took on these tasks, on of the girls at our office left leaving us even more short handed.  I was answering all inbound phone calls(along with 2 other girls who are in Roseburg and  Astoria), which I hated, lets be honest.  After the rearranging of job duties I was taken off of inbound phones(thank goodness!) and moved to doing more outbound phone calls(scheduling).  With that rearranging, it seemed to piss some people off.  Nobody in the office likes to answer the phones.  I have also been there the shortest length of time so the fact that I am able to get off the phones and other people either have to stay on inbound phones or are now on inbound phones created a little animosity towards me.  Although, I wasn't aware until yesterday.  I had my suspicions that certain people were a bit upset about the change but yesterday it was made clear.

1) Yesterday one of the girls was asked to backup phones when needed(due to her hour allotments being a little screwy), she put up a fight with the boss lady and in the midst of the arguing about it flat out said, "why can't Sam get on phones?"  Which may not seem a big deal, but I know from this comment there has been some "venting" about me being able to get off phones.

2) A couple days ago one of the ladies went to another one of us and tried to start some shit talking by saying, "Don't you think Jamie treats Sam differently than everyone else?"  The girl this was being said to became the bigger person and said she wasn't going to discuss that with her and walked away.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!

I've done absolutely nothing to these women and I know it's just a bitterness coming out but grow up.  I'm here to do my job and do a good job at that.  I do not want to be involved in the drama and I do NOT want to be the source of the drama so act your age ladies.

Photography

I took my first real "family" pictures this weekend.  Of course, they were just of my sister-in-law's family but still. I'm quite impressed with my amateur photography skills.  I see a difference in my photography just since I started this summer.  I just love taking pictures!  I can get so lost in it.  My dream would be to travel around just taking pictures!  I still don't know a lot about all the technical stuff with the digital cameras but learning a little bit here and there.  And knowing enough that I can get out and take some pictures that I'm proud of!

Here are a couple of my family ones...

Beautiful Sunsets

When I got home and pulled into a parking spot I saw the prettiest pink sky. I ran into the house, fed Bax so he wouldn't whine as I ran out the door with my camera and tripod in hand.  By the time I got outside to take pictures the sky wasn't so much pink anymore but still beautiful!

Little Update...

I went to the doctor today, partly to appease my husband and also because after 4 days of feeling terrible I wasn't getting any better.  Let me just add, I do not like to go to the doctor especially for something they can't fix.  I was pretty positive they were going to tell me it's a just a cold and not be able to do anything for me, but I took the chance and went.  And what did they say?  It's a cold.  I was happy to be right although the husband seems to disagree a little bit with the doctor (because he did go to med school and all ;)) I did get some prescriptions that have seemed to make me feel a bit better though. My nose is very congested and my stomach and back muscles hurt from all the coughing but hopefully the symptoms can be controlled a little.  I may actually get through this stupid cold after all! 

Despite not feeling well on Saturday and the first frosting attempt did NOT turn out my first cake looks cute and apparently, it tasted pretty good as well.  I have yet to try it due to this cold that has made me feel like doing absolutely NOTHING.  I ended up making a chocolate cake with a chocolate cream  cheese frosting and a whipped cream filling.  Here is a picture of the final product!

 I took this picture this morning.  I took Bax outside and the fog over the city just looked so awesome I couldn't resist!  Although, the picture didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it still looks pretty cool.

Last but not least, this picture I took completely in manual mode with my camera.  Which means I had to pick out the shutter speed, the aperture, the white balance, and the ISO.  It turned out cute and I didn't even do any editing. :)  It helps that my subject is pretty much the cutest little dog EVER though!

Cold, Cold, Go Away...

Please don't come again another day!  I now have a terribly cold that started with the same cough I had a couple weeks ago.  I absolutely hate being sick and am pretty much worthless when I'm sick.  All I want to do is lay in my bed.  I stayed home from work yesterday in the hopes that a couple days of rest would make me feel a bit better but to no avail, it did not.  I woke up this morning and felt just as crappy as I did yesterday but had to go in to work because I don't have any PTO to use.  I used what I had a couple weeks ago when I was sick and the 8 hrs I have accumulated, is now gone from staying home yesterday.

I really hope I wake up tomorrow when the slightest feeling that this cold is going away...it's times like this when I'm thankful I don't have children to have to take care of when I feel like total crap.

Ugh..

The past week and a half has been very uneventful.  I caught a stupid cold, or just a cough I guess, a couple weeks ago and it was finally starting to go away but today, I have this tickle in my throat that keeps making me cough, AGAIN!  I'm pretty much over this.

Tomorrow is Friday!  My favorite day of the week!  I love the weekends and every weekend I wish that I could stay home all the time.  I could be a stay at home wife and take care of the cutest little wiener dog.  I would be extremely ok with that!  My plan for tomorrow is another Kinect party at Paul and Lyndsays.  Should be fun.  We seem to have a lot of Kinect parties these days.  And for those that don't know what Kinect it, it's similiar to the Wii only you do everything with your body, no controllers.  I can't wait to have a house so that I can have a Kinect!

Saturday is my sister-in-laws, husbands, birthday dinner.  I offered to make a cake because we got a KitchenAid mixer for a wedding present that I'm dying to use!  I've never made a real cake before so I'm pretty excited but wish I had a little more time to work on my cake.

Wednesday night Lyndsay and I did a little shopping after work.  I had some gift cards left from Christmas that were pretty much burning a hole in my Coach wristlet.  We went to happy hour first and then did some shopping.  I haven't had much "girl" time and it was really nice to hang out with a good friend for a couple hours.

Today at work I made my first diaper cake.  It turned out really cute, if I don't say so myself.  One of the doctors we work with had twins so I put together this whole "cake" made of diapers with baby things tied to it.  I bet I could sell those and make a lot of money and then I could stay home with my wienie dog :)

Not only has the last week and a half been uneventful but my company is going through some changes.  A buyout, that is taking a really long time to go through.  I haven't been worried about keeping my job but I'm getting a little anxious about what's going to happen and I'm hoping it will all be good and I may have more opportunity to move up/around.  With that being said, I'm feeling ready to do something else with my job.  I've been doing the same job for about a year now and getting more responsibility slowly but I'm feeling ready to move up.  I keep going back and forth between sticking it out here(my boss loves me and DOES NOT want me to leave) or start really looking for jobs again.  I don't enjoy the latter and with a new job could mean a pay cut to get in a better company with more opportunity.  So many decisions to make about the future!

Now, that I've rambled on, I think it's time for bed and read some of the Girl Who Played With Fire.

Things HAVE changed...

For the first time in probably 4 years, Mike actually went grocery shopping with me.  Kind of...he didn't exactly walk the isles with me, he went to the electronics department, but he still went with me and I didn't even ask him too.  He decided we should go grocery shopping.  As we we walked out of Fred Meyer, at 9pm on a Saturday night, I realized how old we're getting.  We went grocery shopping on a Saturday night, how lame is that?  But we went together, which was kind of fun. 

Being newly married everyone always asks, "How's married life?"  And Mike and I both reply "it's the same as before."  But I realized Saturday night that it's not quite the same.  Mike is a very social person, he likes to be with his friends whenever possible.  I on the other hand am perfectly fine staying home and relaxing.  We have always done pretty much everything together but since we've been married I feel like we stick together even more.  We don't spend every weekend hanging out with friends - most weekends we relax at home or do something just the two of us.  As previously stated, I'm always ok with a weekend at home but it seems since we said I do, Mike likes to stay home a little more often now too.  Maybe it has nothing to do with getting married?  Maybe it's because he is more tired now with his job...but I'm going to go with the idea that getting married has actually changed things a little bit and I'm liking that. 

New Year, New Look on Life

Over the years I have stopped making New Year's resolutions because, lets face it, do we ever REALLY keep them?  Of course I want to lose more weight and be better with my finances but wanting and doing are two different things.  I think the start of a new year gives us an opportunity to look back on the past year and learn from our mistakes and become a better, stronger person each year.

I haven't done a lot of soul searching recently for the things I want to change this year because I think I'm just going to let things happen as they happen.  As I look back on my last year there are no big, negative things that stick out in my mind.  I really had an amazing year and feel very blessed to have the friends and family I have.  I only hope this year will give last year a run for it's money!

I found a couple quotes to start the New Year off with:

"The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul."
-G.K. Chesterton


"Maybe this year...walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but potential." -Ellen Goodman

Christmas Photos

 She's so stinkin' cute!!

 Allie & Aunt Kris

 Raelyn opening her stocking

 Kris, Kevin, & Raelyn

 Siblings - Tim, Kris, Mike & Raelyn

 Mike & I with the cutest little niece EVER!

Raelyn already reading :)

A little late but here are a few pictures from Christmas with Mike's family and our little neice Raelyn's first Christmas!