Saturday, December 31, 2011

Accomplishments of 2011

This year was a totally crazy one! It went by so fast, yet played out in slow motion. I feel like I have accomplised a lot in this past year and want to share those moments with you! Here is my list of my "11 Goals for 2011" that I made at this time last year:





11 Goals for 2011


1. Find a DH Job!

- and I can check that one off the list! I just hope that it continues out to be a full time position and things pick up!


2. Find an apartment/house

- another check off the list! We are loving our new place and you can view it here!


3. Learn to quilt - Quilt a t-shirt quilt, a baby quilt, and a quilt for me & Phil

- I unfortunately did not complete this goal, but I kinda think I dreamed too high with this one with all the wedding planning going on! We did receive a quilt from Phil's grandmother and one from my friend Jeff's mother for our wedding!


4. Continue eating healthy and working out

- I did accomplish this goal until the latter part of the year! The holidays hurt me, but I plan on getting back on track! I will list this as goal complete because I did so well for 95% of the year! (that is a made up percentage so don't even try to calculate that!)


5. Use my crockpot

- check! We have made a couple different dishes in the good ole crockpot, including a potato casserole, thai chicken, and chili!


6. Have fun planning mine and Phil's wedding!

- check again! Planning was definately fun, but also very stressful as well! I am glad it is over with, but it was truly the happiest day of my life!


7. Make tooth-fairy pillows for my cousins/nephews!

- this did not happen! Luckily noone has lost a tooth yet! haha I did make the ring bearer pillow for my nephew, Alec, to hold while walking down the aisle!


8. Get a kitty

- this hasn't happened either, but it can't while we are living in our new place cause we aren't allowed to have any pets except our fishies. We did acquire a kitty friend that most likely belongs to a neighbor that comes to visit us and we call Muffin!


9. Continue to read for pleasure as often as I can.

- this I did! Although I didn't read as many books as I did last year, I did read as much as I could with all the craziness going on! I read a total of 18 books and plan to read more next year!


10. Start paying off my loans.

- I started doing this! Big accomplisment here!


11. Continue to blog!

- although I've had some trouble, I have continued to blog as much as I could! I fear though that I have lost many followers due to my absence!


I am happy that I completed 8 out of the 11 goals that I have set for myself! Many of which you may see again for 2012! Come back tomorrow to see what they are!


...and have a safe and happy New Year's Eve everybody!

Friday, December 30, 2011

This Week...

This week was a very busy one for me! I know Christmas Eve wasn't technically this week, but I will tell you that we went to Phil's family's houses that evening. We celebrated Christmas on Sunday at my house with my uncle, aunt, and parents. We got too much for Christmas! I really seriously felt like we got enough from the wedding and tried to tell everyone this, but it didn't work. We are blessed.




  • A couple things we got that were awesome were our new shelves for our pantry! We needed these badly cause everything we had was just sitting on the floor!




  • We got Scrabble! And can't wait to play it!



  • We also got some Disney movies, since it is our new obsession. We got Bambi, The Lion King, and my favorite, Beauty and the Beast.

  • We got some new yellow sheets that helps our bedroom with the yellow and grey theme I was trying to convey.

  • The most evil gift we got was our new Isotonic Memory Foam Mattress Topper! This gift makes it hard to get out of bed at 6:30 am and makes you want to hop in bed after a long day of work! It is like our new little island of comfort and we LOVE it!

This week I worked for two different dental offices filling in for their hygienists. It was nice to be able to do since kids are out of school and I can't go to my regular job. I just hope it picks up some, or I can at least fill in a little more the next couple months!


Tonight, Phil and I are going to our friend Lee's birthday dinner at Hibachi! So excited to see some friends and possibly eat some sushi!

Hope you all have had a great week too!

Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Christmas Song



Just thought I'd share a favorite Christmas song with you...


The Christmas Song


Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,

Jack Frost nipping on your nose,

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,

And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,

Help to make the season bright.

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,

Will find it hard to sleep tonight.


They know that Santa's on his way;

He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.

And every mother's child is going to spy,

To see if reindeer really know how to fly.


And so I'm offering this simple phrase,

To kids from one to ninety-two,

Although its been said many times, many ways,

Merry Christmas to you.


Go here to hear it!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Wish





I hope everyone has a very warm and merry Christmas


surrounded by family and friends!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Traveling West Virginia

I had posted before about traveling for work, so last time I was gone by myself I took some pictures to share with you all! This particular trip took me to Petersburg, but there were some sights I saw along the way.






I took these pictures to depict the snow and the mountains.Here are some pictures of the awesome windmills that I think are too cool!Here are some pictures driving through Elkins.Seneca Rocks from afar.The farm behind the hotel where I stayed.My hotel room had a geese theme. It kinda freaked me out a little!The frosty sheep farm behind the school we were at the next morning. Next to the farm was a cemetary, and beside that was the school's playground!And finally, a picture on the wall in the hall of the school we were at. I don't know about you, but I don't think this kid respects his tooth brush very much!




My work has the benefits of being able to travel around my beautiful state and can be pretty entertaining due to the kids we see!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Our New Place

We love our new place that we have together! It really is pretty perfect for us as newlyweds! It is pretty spacious with a good amount of storage space and is in a great location that makes us feel pretty safe! What more could you ask for our first place? It does have some quirks, but nothing we can't handle!

Enjoy the tour!










The front of our new place, here it shows our fall decorations.





This is what we see when we walk out our front door. This is where we and our neighbors park our cars, but beyond that is just an empty field. We are on a dead end gravel road and our landlord lives in a house at the beginning of our street.



This is what we see out our back door. There are some nice pine trees blocking the view of some houses which is nice and we also have another rather large field and a little patio.








Our Living Room


It is rather spacious and we need a coffee table badly (which we are most likely getting for Christmas), but right now the Christmas tree fills it in nicely. I hate our couch, which I have had forever, but that will have to wait until our pockets are a little heavier! The couch has this beautiful quilt, a wedding gift my friend Jeff's mom made us, on it now!






Our Dining Area/Phil's "Command Center"


Our table doesn't get used much right now cause it is so busy, but Phil uses it to play on the computer while I watch television.






Our Kitchen


...with 70's gold coutertops and a gross built-in cutting board (that we cover up!) that we are sure was placed there when the apartments were built in the 70's. The closets hide the washer/dryer and the pantry. Say "hi!" to the fishies!






To the upstairs!






Our Bathroom


...complete with 70's gold toilet and tub!




Our Office/Guest Room/Phil's "Man Cave"


"Man Cave" because that is the room where Phil keeps his guitars, video game station, and his closet, because I took the 2 closets in our bedroom :)


Notice the other very special wedding quilt on the bed that was a gift from his grandmother that she entirely hand sewed for us!






Our Bedroom



...with humidifier (because it is extremely dry in there, never experienced that before!) and the same comforter they had on this season's Biggest Loser! haha We noticed that about 2 weeks after we purchased it! Please excuse the mess!



Well, that's it! I still need to put pictures up and decorate a little better! I feel like I can't get that part put together. I hope once I get our wedding pictures printed that alot of them can fill our blank walls!



Any tips for me for decorating?

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Christmas #1/Decorations

Tonight, Phil and I went to our first family gathering for Christmas! My aunt, uncle, and cousin will be out of town visiting my cousins in Idaho for actual Christmas since the babies are there. That's why we decided to celebrate early with them! This year we had picked names out of a hat and got eachother presents $20 and under. That turned out really well and we had a great time! The icing on the cake was getting to see and talk to my cousins on the phone/ipad app thing! I got to see my 8 month old baby cousin Aysley for the first time in about 3 months and she is growing so fast!

This is also mine and Phil's first Christmas together as husband and wife! I'm excited to wake up next to him on Christmas morning and be able to start our own traditions.


I know I haven't shown any pictures of our new place, and don't worry cause that is coming soon, but here is a small glimpse of it with our Christmas decorations!




Our first grown-up tree with some new ornaments!





Our Disney ornament we got on our honeymoon!


Our stockings and some Christmas cards we've received!


The little tree we had before, but now all it's old oraments can fit on the big one!


This is my wreath I made! Fits my color theme nicely!


Well, there ya have it! Do you think I did a good job? I'm not totally happy with my stockings because I got them randomly since I could not find exactly what I was looking for! I saw some stockings last year at Hobby Lobby that were my color green and red and were made out of sweater material, but of course now they don't have them and I can't find any like them! Oh well, the search will continue until I find what I want.


Hope everyone is done with their shopping and enjoying their holiday season!