Big News!

What if I told you in this picture that we are a family of three...well its true. We are adding on to the family and although in my monthly goals for September I wanted a four-leg furry friend to add to our family, God had a bigger plan. On September 5th our lives changed...we found out we are PREGNANT!! We are beyond blessed and excited.

You may have noticed its been a little quiet around here and that's because I have been super tired. I thankfully haven't had any morning sickness but exhaustion and hunger has gotten the best of me this past month.

We had our first ultrasound yesterday. It was surreal to see our baby up on the screen moving around. I am 9 weeks and am due May 12, 2014!

Living Room Part 2: Painting The Walls

After we primed everything we needed too it was time to paint. I was so excited to finally get color up on the walls and see it come together. 

I took on the fire place and painted two coats on it. It was kinda my little project. While I did that Jesse was off taping and trimming. I helped with the walls but he did it for the most part. I was too short for the job! ha!

One day I even came home to this...Hey at least he is having fun right?!

For our first time painting it wasn't terrible although at points I honestly thought it wasn't going to end. We used Behr for all the paint. Its not Benjamin Moore but it is good quality over some other box store paint options so we went with it. 

Living Room Part 1: How To Paint Wood Paneling

Living Room Part 1: How To Paint Wood Paneling

Lets take a trip down memory lane back a few months ago...in the house tour. Remember this dated and dark living room? Well I sure do and I'm beyond excited its gone! Spoiler alert. 

I am so thankful we tackled this painting job while we were still on the honeymoon phase of our house. It was a three week long project and after working all day it was the last thing we wanted to do but we keep chugging and made it through. Whew! At least the hardest room is done painting wise. 

This will be several parts so stay tuned this week. 

First we primed the paneling and brick. We felt it was necessary to paint the brick too because there isn't a ton of light in the lower level and we really wanted to brighten everything up. 

We primed it with kills complete oil based primer and boy did we learn a few lessons with oil based paint. 

1. Its almost impossible to get out of a paint brush so don't use your nicest one. Get a junky one and throw it away when you are finished.

2. Kills complete stinks! 

The good thing about oil based paint and why we used it is because it helps cover up stained wood and wood grain as well as sealing the pores of the brick. Both of which we needed it for. Overall though it wasn't a bad experience we just learned a lot and had countless trips to Home Depot. 

What were some of the hardest projects you've done in your home?

Living Room

After being in our house for a month now we are starting to get things organized and planing out what we want to do in each room. We are going to start the the living room first because we feel it will make the biggest impact. Its current state is dark and dated. But our challenge is coordinating it with the mural in the dinning room. Although we went back and forth on keep the mural, for now its staying. Thankfully there are lots of colors in it we can pull out.

So some living room inspiration...

via

We are thinking lighten everything up, brick included. Paneling and mantle white, brick light gray, walls a soft mint/teal blue. I'm so excited and cant wait to get started...now if only our weekends could settle down a little so we can make some time! Oh well:)

Vacation Pt.2

In vacation pt. 1 I left off at the end of our Tennessee trip. After a few fun days in Tennessee though it was time for some ocean wave and sunshine. We headed to Kiawah Island for the remainder of our trip. It was absolutely beautiful there! Although it was muggy the beach was great compared to others on the east coast. While there we took several day trips to Charleston and Savannah. Both gorgeous cities with tons of history but I do have to say Charleston is my favorite. Here are some photos of our week in Kiawah.

HGTV Dream Home anyone? 

And if that wasn't stalker enough try Tara Lipinski's house right on the beach.

We ate a Lady and Sons with Paula. It was very good :)

Our total fail at a sunrise. The last morning we finally got our butts out of bed just to see this! Boo storms. Thankfully my sister in law got some killer shots a few days before us.

Vacation Pt. 1

Our vacation was nice and long. It all started Wednesday July 3 right after work. We met at my in-laws house and off we were. My mother-in-law made us the cutest boxed dinner complete with yummy fudge! Our first stop was a quick hotel stay that night. After a not too shabby continental breakfast we were off to Gatlinburg TN! 

We arrived there around lunch time and was on a mission to find a yummy stop to eat...Bubba Gump! Then we were able to check into our cabin for the next few days. It was cute and cozy. Although it was rainy in Tennessee it was so nice to snuggle up in that cabin with a good book. 

The two night we were there we went and saw shows. The first night was a fun Opry filled with dancing, magic tricks and tigers! The second night the family went to the Dixie Stampede which had amazing food and was a great show as well.

Overall I loved Tennessee. I've never been there before but loved it! We had not internet those few days too so it was very relaxing as well.

Stay tuned to part 2!

PS: Happy Birthday to my little sister:) Love you girl!

Updates on the House

Although we haven't done a ton of updates we did do a few. The same night we got the keys to the house we changed all the looks to the doors. For privacy and piece of mind. The very next day after we move Jesse replace the upstairs toilet. It was broken and took 5 gallons every time it flushed. He did a great job and now we have a high efficiency 1 flush/2 flush system. To spare you looking at our before and after toilet here is a before and after of our new locks. It just goes to show little changes make big differences.

Now we didn't just have one door to replace the locks we had 3. Thankfully my husband and dad made it look like a breeze. 

After Moving Tips

I am rounding out my series of moving/packing tips today with some after moving tips. You can find the previous tips here and here. Our overall move went very smoothly. We got 99% of our belongings moved in on the first day. I'd say that's success.

To Change

• Your address. Its important to change your address with the post office. You can actually do this ahead of time on the website. Its super easy!
• Billing address. Don't forget just because you changed your address with the post office that your are good to go. That will only forward mail for a short time. So change your address with the credit cards, phone, etc. 

To Unpack

• The necessities. When we first moved I wanted to unpack everything. But that's not possible so we concentrated on unpacking the master, bath and kitchen. From there we just slowly opened a couple boxes at a time

To Be Grateful

• Your new shelter. With all the craziness on moving day it easy to get lost in it all but step back and take it all in. Be grateful that God provided you with a wonderful shelter. Thank the ones who helped and always remember your house is not a trophy for how much you can afford but a gracious gift from God. 

Hebrews 13:2 

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

Sneak Peek

Want to sneak peeks of our new house? Well today is your lucky day! There will be a full house tour this Friday. You may have already seen a sneak peek if your follow my sister. She posted last week about how entertaining the mural in my dinning room was. We talked about painting over it but have decided for now to leave it up. Here are a few shots we got before all of the stuff was moved in.

We cant wait to show you the whole house as well as updates we want to do to it. Hope you all had a great weekend. Happy Monday!

Moving Day

Moving day was crazy but in an organized way. Most our family came to help, which we greatly appreciated. While packing I labeled the boxes "bedroom 1", "bedroom 2" etc. Instead of "master bedroom" or " Alex's craft room". I then labeled the room doors with the corresponding number. It made it easy for our family to get the boxes where they needed to go.

Once we got our first load (we have more stuff than we thought) in the truck and cars we met my mom and sister at the house. They were getting lunch ready and finishing some last minute cleaning. Our lunch was our traditional moving day lunch we have done for every other move...sloppy joes! My mom are the bomb! As sides we had pasta salad, pretzel salad and chips. For dessert there was cookies and homes made brownies.

Shortly after lunch Jesse and I ran out to the appliance store to get a washer and dryer with my dads help. We came back and installed them both and headed off to a relaxing dinner at CiCi's.

I'm so thankful for all the help we got from our family. House tour coming soon! 

We Are Buying A House!!

Today's the day! It's house buying day! We officially buy our first home:) We are beyond excited! I'm keeping this post short because I'm buried in boxes and must.keep.packing. I plan to share all about moving day and the new house next week so check back!

Trying to pretend to know what we are doing. Let just say we spent more time than we needed in home depot last night

Father's Day

For Father's Day this past Sunday Jesse and I were able to spend time with both sides of our family. We went to a late lunch for his side and a dinner for mine. For my side it was at my moms and pretty casual. For Jesse's though it was at his brother and sister-in-laws house. Everything was so nice, tablescape and all. We grilled out and had delicious desserts:) I even made the cards!

Hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day!

Parade Of Homes 2013

Like I said here my sister and I have made it a tradition to go to the Parade of Homes every year. We went this past Saturday. They were beautiful! I took almost 300 picture (yikes!) and have chosen some of my favorite rooms to share with you.

There were 13 houses total all with different decorating styles. Some even had themes like Christmas in June. The house even smelled like Christmas time. Anywho, sit back relax and with out further ado...