It happened again...

Friday we went to see The Hangover Part Two, it was pretty good although I didn't like it as much as I liked the second one. It did however live up to the hype. My favorite part was probably the beginning when Phil called Doug's wife Tracy...

Phil: “Tracy I’m sorry.”
Tracy: “Where the hell are you?”
Phil: [sigh] “It happened again.”
Tracy: “Don’t say that.”
Phil: “No, this time we really fucked up.”
...Tracy: “What the hell is wrong with you three?”
Phil: “So much Trace, I don’t even know where to begin.”
 
We had a long and glorious Memorial Day weekend, thanks to the troops who make it all possible! Wouldn't it be nice if everyone worked four 10 hour days and always had three day weekends? I vote yes.
 
Saturday we had a cook out at my in laws house and had a lot of fun eating, hanging out and playing corn hole. I made Balsamic Bacon Deviled Eggs and J made our homemade Peach Ice Cream! I was thrilled with how they came out :) If you're interested in the recipe just let me know! PS Unfortunately Blogger won't let me post pictures today, booo hisss.
 
My sister spent the night on Saturday, she's the first person to stay in our guest room! She came with us to church on Sunday too. The service was great, we had a guest pastor who preached on the story of Hosea and Gomer to wrap up the series Mr. & Mrs. Better Half. After church, my brother in law rallied the troops or so to speak and brought over Jeremy's family to help us get some stuff accomplished at the House! Praise the Lord we are finally getting some work done in the house :)

• New Fan in Living Room
• Hang old Living Room Fan in the Master
• Hang Microwave
• Purchase rug for Living Room
• Hang pictures in Living Room
• Re stain New Sofa Table & Dinning Room Table
• Paint railing for stairs
• Recover Dinning Room Chairs ( I did buy fabric for the charis this weekend, recovering story to come soon! $16 for 4 yards at Hancock Fabrics, heck yes Memorial Day Sale )
• Hang up Hanging Baskets on Porch (We found the hangers for them at my Mother in Laws, yes! These will be hung this week!)
• New door knobs and deadbolts for front and back door
• Trim painted up staircase and in 1/4 of the livingroom
• Curtain Rods hung in Living room
• J organized his closet and our room!

Yesterday we headed over to Jake and Stacey's pool and we grilled out for dinner. We aren't 100% certain but J thinks he broke his toe, no idea how either... maybe too many beers? It was a great end to a wonderfully long weekend that was much needed!

How did your Memorial Day Weekend turn out?

Perfect Match

via Amazon

These would look amazing in my Kitchen!



Cheyanne, Diane, Delores & Rita...

Sex & the City always makes me miss these girls... my Tricks.

Happy Memorial 3 Day Weekend! Wish me luck with my cooking adventures tomorrow :)

What are you doing this Memorial Day?

7 layers

The guest room now has furniture in it! No more friends sleeping on the floor or couches, ladies and gentlemen we have a guest room :) Just doing one little thing at a time each night is really helping make our house a home!

Tonight is the farewell party for my Ad Director who is leaving us and heading to a bigger newspaper in FL to manage, it's kind of bittersweet honestly since she gave me my start into the working world. We're allowed to bring our spouses which I am thrilled about since I a.) no one at work has ever meet J and b.) I get to show off my new husband.

I signed up to bring a bean dip tonight since I fell in love with my friend Ashley's bean dip at a Jewelry party back in March. I made it last night when I got home from work, I tweaked the recipe to please the guest of honor since she's a Vegetarian, so there's no meat just extra beans. Stephanie I bet you're proud!?

7 Layer Dip

1 lb. ground beef

1 16 oz. can refried beans

4 cups grated cheese

1 cup sour cream

1 cup guacamole

1 cup salsa

½ cup chopped tomatoes

½ cup chopped green onion

Brown hamburger meat and set aside to cool. Layer refried beans, 2 cups cheese, ground beef, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and remaining 2 cups cheese. Sprinkle with chopped tomatoes and onions.

Coming along

My kitchen looks a million times bigger today because last night J hung the microwave and I supervised helped as best I could. We purchased the black Kenmore microwave off of Craiglist for a $75 steal back at the beginning of March and I am so pleased with how it looks in our kitchen. Pictures to come soon since I could J wasn't in the mood for pictures last night and neither was Buddy... oh the men in my life do not like cameras.

Look at all of that counter space now!

I'm so thankful that we are slowly making progress! With the microwave hung we are now pretty much done with the kitchen minus decorations for the tops of my cabinets, which will come A LOT later once I decide what I want to put up there. We decided last night to start a list of projects in the house and as we do them mark them off so we can see our progress, I'll probably start the list today and put it on the fridge tonight.
So far:

• New Fan in Living Room
• Hang old Living Room Fan in the Master
• Hang Microwave
• Purchase rug for Living Room
• Hang pictures in Living Room
• Re stain New Sofa Table & Dinning Room Table
• Paint railing for stairs
• Recover Dinning Room Chairs
• Hang up Hanging Baskets on Porch

We're going to J's parents house on Saturday night for a cook out, I'm pretty excited about it since my favorite brother in law is going to be in town! I'm trying to figure out what to make, any suggestions? What's your favorite dish to bring to a cookout?

Maybe I'll test out our new Ice Creamer maker, this sounds delicious!
Vanilla Ice Cream with Fruit Blend

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
1 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 recipe Mixed Berry Blend or Nectarine-and-Toasted Almond Blend

Preparation

1. Beat eggs at medium speed with an electric mixer until frothy. Stir together sugar, flour, and salt until well blended. Gradually add sugar mixture to eggs, beating until thickened. Gradually add milk, beating until blended.

2. Cook egg mixture in a Dutch oven over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, 15 to 20 minutes or until a candy thermometer registers 170°. (Mixture should be thick enough to coat a spoon.)

3. Fill a large bowl or pan with ice; place Dutch oven in ice, and stir occasionally 10 to 15 minutes until custard is completely cool. Transfer mixture to an airtight container; cover and chill 8 hours. Stir in whipping cream, vanilla, and desired fruit blend.

4. Pour mixture into freezer container of a 1-gal. electric ice-cream maker, and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. (Instructions and freezing times will vary.)

Trifling Tuesday

Tuesday has not turned out as planned.

I woke up at 4am WIDE awake and while I should have gotten up then, I decided to try to sleep til my alarm went off. Bad idea. I'm in grumpy mood, I even yelled at J on the phone this morning at 7 when the garage wouldn't go down. I'm not the type of person who likes to figure things out, hence the reason for my aggravation as to why the garage wasn't working was beyond me this morning. So, being the heroic husband he is, J called Brian who apparently has magic hands because all he did was hit the button and it closed completely no stopping or anything. We are so blessed with wonderful friends!

I love my husband. He keeps me grounded, how he puts up with me I'll never know. He always says he's the lucky one but I know that 'real talk' as Stephanie says I really am.

Gosh, he's so cute.

Anyways, weekend recap:

• Friday was drop in night at our house between my mom, brother, Stephanie and Rachel.
• Saturday did not go as planned for J and I. I got all of my clothes put away and the guest room cleared out for the most part otherwise we didn't really do much since the day got away from us.
• Buddy got his nails cut/buffed, praise the Lord for this.
• Stacey's Bachlorette party was a success, I think! Ha, I drank too much. I hope she had fun I know I did!
• Sunday was a complete bust, so sick from the night before all I could do was sleep til about dinner time. J took care of me and laughed at me :) My brother in law Josh called on Sunday and told me I was too old to drink so much, I guess I should know better by now... Oh Josh, I can't wait to see you this weekend!

Puppy Love

I meant to post this earlier...

I found Buddy's bowtie last night and showed J since this was a surprise for him that I forgot about.

I got the bowtie off of Amazon for $3.00 and it included shipping!

Isn't he cute? And he didn't even try to jump on my dress, such a good dog.

Down Time, Amen.

Yesterday J reminded me how excited he was for us to have a 'down' weekend with not much to do. We literally have been going non stop since the weekend we moved him into the house two and a half months ago. Whether it was it was  bachlor/bachlorette party, bridal shower, work, a wedding, etc. we've been constantly going-going-going!

While we have a down weekend we have a lot to do, I made a list yesterday and now I need to add onto it :)  Hang up the ferns and flower baskets, buy light bulbs for the flood lights, buy J a weed eater and a hedge trimmer, pick up rocking chair from Grandma Jo's and the possible night stands, vacuum and mop the downstairs and bathroom, clean the bathrooms, I'm sure the list could go on and on... I just have to know we won't get it all done this weekend!

Saturday night is my friend Stacey's bachlorette party! She and Jake are getting married in less than a month, Jake was in our wedding and is one of J's best friends and J will be in their wedding as well. We are so excited for them!

It doesn't get anymore official

...than adding your husband to your insurance! Remember yesterday's post about the possibility of not being able to add J on? Well, problem solved my Jesus and my HR lady came through in the 'clutch'. God is good all the time!

J and I are ready for the weekend so we can start on some home projects. Namely get the guest room up and running aka put the bed together, mount the microwave in the kitchen, hang up some stuff in the living room and hang up the shower curtain rod in the guest bath. If we can get those done I think we'll start to feel very accomplished in the house!

Isn't this adorable? I'm thinking of doing something similar in the dining room.

Deadlines...

Wednesday is proving to not be the best day so far and sadly it's only 9:25. I forgot to enroll J with my insurance, I've been so busy playing catch up that I completely forgot and we NEED to get him on there. I got an email from HR this morning asking why I didn't do it by Monday? Apparently I only had 6 business days to do it and I didn't see the deadline, so I'm trying to work with HR now to see if corporate will allow us enroll him. Please pray that they will!

I made chili for dinner last night, it was amazing and sooo easy.

Quick Zesty Chili

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef or turkey
2 (15.5 ounce) cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 can of Green Chili's (Optional, I added these since the reviews said it wasn't that spicy)
2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes ( I used 1 can of chili ready tomatos)
1 cup water
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions
1.In a large saucepan, brown beef; drain. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Lucky

Yesterday was kind of a crazy day at work for me and part of it wasn't even work. J was so sweet, for once he got home before I did and he had a bath drawn for me with candles everywhere and my rob and flip flops ready to go for when I got out :) He knew it had been a long day, what a wonderful husband! Just had to brag on him for a minute is all...

While discussing the day, J remembered he was supposed to go and pick up our new Sofa Table! We got one heck of a deal for a handmade piece, $40. We might have to re-stain it to make it match the rest of the furniture downstairs but that's no big deal. PS That's not our house, that's previous owners house.

After we got the table situated in the house, J cooked a pizza and we zoned out to Weeds Season 6 on DVD. Big thanks to Red for the DVD set as a wedding present! As you can see, married life agrees with us haha, we like to keep things simple.

People keep on asking 'How does it feel to be married now?' Honestly? No different than before, probably less stressful since the wedding is over now but since we got engaged we really have felt 'married' already. I think it really hit home with us when we said our vows and we know that no matter what we will always work it out but aside from that nothing is different and I'm so glad :) If anything things just keep getting better and better, I feel very blessed and lucky!

Slowly busy

This weekend it seemed I was very busy but it all happened really slowly. Weird right?

Friday night Rachel came over and I made Chicken Hobo, it as pretty tasty especially when you added Ranch to it :) We took a Wine Walk with Buddy after dinner, which ultimately meant Buddy jerked me around and I spilled wine on my shirt, still A LOT of fun.

Saturday morning I had intentions of continuing to unpack our home, i.e. our bedroom and my clothes since our room looks like a disaster. But my mother in law called asked me to come over and see if I wanted anything from Grandma Jo's house- I came across some pretty neat finds. Two really old Martini & Rossi bottles I'm going to use as decorations for the kitchen, a wooden salad bowl with serving spoons, a purple serving bowl and chips n dip tray, Salt N Pepper Shakers, some funky necklaces and a glass jar for our bathroom. I also want to take two end tables from there and turn them into night stands for our bedroom! J said he thought it was a good idea. AND I'm getting a rocker for our front porch!

Saturday afternoon and evening I spent a lot of time with my sister Allie. She was getting ready for the Prom and I was the driver for her and her friends, yes I pimped the mini van.

Isn't she pretty?

After I dropped Allie off at prom, we headed to Pub House for a drink and grown up conversation aka gossip. And by we I mean Kristin and Stephanie :) 

Sunday morning I headed to St. Anne's Catholic Church for baby Whit's Baptism. It was really neat to see since I've never A.) been to a Catholic Mass and B.) A Baby Baptism. Dana and Patrick asked me to be the videographer for them and record the whole thing, it really reminded me of the days when I dreamed of being a camera woman Freshman year hopefully I did a good job for them! Afterwards we headed to their house for a fabulous meal, I loved the Potato Salad. And my sweet husband, no shower and all, met us over at their house! He has been in Chester all weekend for a bachelor party and there were no showers at the cabin they stayed at.

It was nice to have J come home after such a long weekend! Can you believe that we've been married for two weeks already? I cooked him dinner  after a lazy afternoon of napping and The Green Hornet, decent movie not my favorite though. I pulled together a white wine cream sauce and seared some chicken and made homemade mashed potato's and broccoli. I was really happy with dinner, I even made cookies afterwards. Yes, I am now a wife so I have to step up my game a little :)

Have a happy Monday Bloggers!

Blogger is killing me

I redid my entire blog and for those of you who read my last entry you saw the changes. Apparently when Blogger went down yesterday none of it saved and it's reverted back to what it was... so I'm kind of annoyed with it and don't feel like changing it again but I probably will :)

Anyways, Brett put up our sneak peak of pictures last night and I couldn't be any happier with them! They are fantastic... beyond my expectations completely! Please, if you're looking for a wedding photographer or just a photographer in general look up Brett Seay Photography

Oh Todd...

My incredible Navy Blue Shoes from 6pm.com :)

PARTY!

We had so much fun!

The weekend is ALMOST here, who else is as excited as I am? Rachel and Stephanie are coming over for dinner tonight and I'm going to attempt to make Decor and the Dog's Chicken Hobo but with a twist, I'll let you know how it turns out! 

New bloggggg

Looks like I finally decided on a title for the new blog, A Pretty View and I'm very pleased with how things are looking are here! I've been trying all week to figure out what I wanted to blog about and I've been exploring a lot of other blogs trying to get inspiration and I think just blogging about our everyday life and the projections we're going to be taking on in the next few years will be fun. Plus it will be a great way to look back and see where we've come from and where we're trying to go as a family!

Don't worry, I will continue to post neat wedding things I might find while browsing the Internet. I wish that could be my only job :) Wouldn't having a website where you strictly wrote only about weddings and post beautiful pictures be amazing? I'm so jealous of the editor at Style Me Pretty, maybe one day--- I can dream for now!

So as to catch you up on life since the wedding:
1.) The honeymoon was so, so needed and was absolutely the best time we've had on a vacation! Just a few of my favorite pictures--

Dress up date night to eat Sushi, J surprised me and ate sushi too!

Universal Islands of Adventure- the Harry Potter Rides were our favorite.

BLUE MAN GROUP. My husband is amazing, enough said.

2.) Buddy has gained a lot of weight back, it seems he got fat while we were gone :) But I think he was just wayyyy too skinny before. We're still having some issues with him ruining the carpet and throwing up, etc. so I'm currently researching a new brand of food for him, hopefully this might help things!

3.) We're slowly and I do mean SLOWLY putting the house together. J says I'm starting to make it our home though and that means the world to me that I can do for us! Speaking of, J just text me saying he found a sofa table for our living room I'll post pictures once we get it next week.

4.) Work has sucked for both of us all week. Praying that next week will be better.

5.) I'm dying to see our professional wedding pictures. Brett said it's going to be a while since there were so many, but fingers crossed I can get a sneak peek soon!

Our Wedding

Through the eyes of our wonderful friends... more pictures to come later!

Rehearsal

Rehearsal dinner we had a Fiesta and Moes catered!

My handsome 'almost' husband :)

Dad and I

The Parentals praying over us and our marraige, such a huge thing for us!

All my ladies

THE kiss

Garter Time

Dancing the night away, we danced for almost the whole reception!

After party!! We got on the groomsmens shoulders, please notice my face.

I also thought that it was a great idea to dance on the table

Right after we were announced!

Toasts from the Maid and Best

We are so lucky!

My entrance to the isle

Listening to Cameron & Bekah sing 'Marry Me'

It was perfect to say the least, a day I'll never forget but also a day that is such a big blur to me, so thankful for pictures as a reminder of EVERYTHING. Big thanks to everyone who came, it was truly a huge blessing to see how many people love us!