It's the Small Things...

Is there something that can make your day everytime? I'm talking a small, tangible thing? I sure do and it comes in the form of a Starbucks tall soy no-water chai:) Ah, bliss!

I have had a rather emotional week (stupid hormones) and was so incredibly pleased when my Husband showed up at my office this afternoon with a delicious cup o' goodness:) I can't even tell you how this made my entire day. Hey we all have our thing, right?

Before and Afters!

I am so excited to share with you that my cute little $5 garage sale dresser is finally finished! I LOVE home projects and I really love turning old forgotten items into one-of-a-kind treasures. So here it is, my "new" adorable side table!!

First I would like you to see the before pictures ~ Ewww!



And the lovely after pictures:)





And just for fun, these are some other little improvements we have made over the past few weeks:) Enjoy!

This was one side of our den when we moved in (I can't believe I am showing you this mess).




And this is my new desk and little artistic corner. Much better, don't you think?





Lastly, I fell in love with this pair of green chairs, also from a garage sale, and finally covered that yucky black plastic!

This is one of the chairs before I covered them.



After. They aren't perfect, but it was so easy that I can change them if I find something I like better:)

Lovely

I recieved this in an email today.

"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others."

Audrey hepburn

Flashbacks

My day has been spent at home today. I woke up with a terrible stomach ache and major nausea:( Not fun, but this afternoon I started feeling better and decided to do some laundry, clean up, prep dinner, you know, be domestic:). Like always, I put some music on and got to it. My choice for today was Justin McRoberts. I love his music! Anyway, while singing along to "Alone Together", I was completely taken back to my Senior year of high school, sitting in Chris' blue Thunderbird and listening to this song. There is no doubt, I was falling hard for him. A huge smile swept across my face today as I remembered falling in love with such a wonderful man:)

Is there really a better feeling than falling in love? For Chris and me, it happened fast. I love remembering the beginning of our relationship. I love remembering that the reasons I fell in love with him haven't changed today, they have only increased as I learn more and more about him. and his awesome heart for the Lord, me, children, life, family, etc.

I love you Babe! Thank you for making the past 5 1/2 years so incredible!

Allow Me to Catch You Up...

My current mood: refreshed, content and happy.

This is good considering my recent moods have been: grumpy, tired and sick!

I have missed blogging, but have just had no time:(

A quick recap of our last three weeks:

* We went to Santa Cruz and the Sharks game with Chris' Dad. So much fun!
*Chris got sick
*Chris got me sick on a week I couldn't take off work because my boss was out and we were really busy:(
*I was still sick on Valentine's Day and the entire weekend that we spent at a cabin in Tahoe with Chris' Dad, step mom and brothers:(
*We bought an awesome new couch and decided it would our Valentine's gift to each other!
*We are currently crammed in a tiny living space with too much furniture since we haven't posted the old couch on Craig's list yet.
*I feel fabulous since I finally got my hair done last week.
*In the last two weeks my brother turned 4, my sister, Audrey turned 3 and my sister, Ava turned 2!!
*I finally spent time with my sweet friend, Parris and saw the movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic", which was fantastic and I highly recommend it to anyone who LOVED the book like I did!
*We watched "Changeling" last night. Also very good but slightly disturbing.
*In addition to all this, we have been really busy dealing with house stuff:) I will wait to disclose anything until something is for sure!

This weekend we have had some much needed catch up time to relax. Yesterday marked 8 months since our wedding! I had already planned on making a yummy dinner, which ended up being a perfect opportunity to celebrate! I really can't believe it has already been a better part of a year! The time has flown by and has been absolutely wonderful! Here are some pics of our tasty diner:)

Ever a Chatter Box

As long as I can remember, I have been a girl of many words. I may have grown up since people called me a chatter box, but I definitely didn't grow out of it! Which brings me to preface you that this post will probably be very wordy. I just have so many exciting things to say!!

First things first ~ Chris and I are looking to buy a house! The last few weeks have been pretty eventful for us. But, wow, they have been really fun!

I should probably share how this all came to be. We have been weighing our options for a few weeks of what our next step will be as far as a place to live. Our lease is up May 1st and we don't particularly want to stay in an apartment. Not that we don't love it, but we would love to have a bit more space and a yard for Abby. So, we looked into renting a house, but they are pretty pricey, which steered us in the direction of possibly buying. The marked is so good to buy right now so we decided to look. Well, wouldn't you know, we found a condo we absolutely love. It is the last in the development so they are throwing in every upgrade (granite counter tops, ss appliances, upgraded carpet etc.)Plus, it has a yard. Oh and did I mention it is 1800 sf so we would totally have room to start a family there. Realizing it was in our price range, we decided to pursue it and see if we even qualified. We did! Wow! Knowing that we needed to leave God in complete control of something like this, we prayed that He would give us a clear "Yes" or "No" to proceed. We were feeling really good about the whole thing for a few days but something kept nagging at both of us that it was too quick to make such a big decision.

If my story has seemed to jump really fast to you, it's not just you, we felt the same way. We realized it was a great place, but they were certain things that we just couldn't push away in our minds. The biggest being the outrageous HOA's and Melo-Roos fees. At a hefty $480/month! Talk about crazy. That's a big portion not even going to our mortgage. So, after several daunting hours of playing with our budget, we decided that we should step back from this. Two nights ago we made the decision to keep looking. You wouldn't believe how many awesome houses and great deals there are to be had right now! We are really encouraged about this journey we are beginning in finding a new home.

I would like to highlight how faithful the Lord has been in our decision making. He absolutely gave us the answer we were needing and we could not have more peace about turning that property down. Sometimes He won't give us the answers we want, but it ALWAYS pays to listen!!

So tomorrow, we are getting up early, going to breakfast and continuing our hunt!

Another huge thing that happened this week is me becoming eligible for benefits at work! I will finally be able to get my wisdom teeth out!! I really can't put into words how grateful we are to have such great medical/dental coverage. Oh yeah and 15 PTO days for the year!! Woo hoo...you gotta love paid vacation:)

And finally, the only show I religiously watch started last week...Hell's Kitchen!

I told you this would be a long one:) Thanks for your love and support!

Hope your weekend is wonderful!