Happy Birthday Chase!

My Sweet Nephew,

It's hard to believe it wasn't just yesterday that I was holding you at the hospital and you were a tiny 7 lbs.

 But 2 years later here we are!

I am so grateful I've gotten to be closeby for the first 2 years of your life.  

I've loved getting to watch your little personality develop.

It's fun to get to see you open up more and become less shy around us.  

I love getting to hear you say my name or call for David from the other room

It's crazy how much you look like your daddy and you continue to look more and more like him each time I see you.

I enjoy getting to play cars with you and color with you and trying to make you laugh.  

It's fun getting to ask you questions about all the things you know now like colors and people's names or what you did the other day.  

So while it's hard to believe it's been 2 years since I held you at the hospital for the first time, I wouldn't trade that for getting to spend time with you now.  

Love you bug!  Happy 2nd Birthday!

Welcome Rogue

On David's birthday about 2 months ago I texted him this picture when I was on my way over to his place:

My poor Tribute was getting old.  A month after being told it needed a new transmission and tires, I found the check engine light on.  So we decided to start looking for replacements.  

David's been searching the internet finding good deals and this past week we found one we didn't want to pass up.

So we are now the owners of a brand new 2013 Nissan Rogue!

It's a fun little crossover car.  We went Tuesday night to test drive it and ended up driving away in it that night leaving the old Tribute behind.  I have loved driving it the last 2 days and am so grateful for a working car where I don't have to constantly worry if today will be the day it'll break down.

What a blessing!

Birthday Party Fun

Yesterday we went to a birthday party for my nephew who is turning 2 next week!  

His mom asked him a couple months ago what kind of party he wanted and he answered (without hesitation) "Elmo party"

His Nana made the adorable cake and cookie monster cupcakes

The party was at Gymboree (a gym, not the clothing store) so the kids climbed, ran, jumped, blew bubbles, sang songs, rolled cars, and danced.  Chase loved playing with his cousin Luke

He was the star of the show at the head of the table for snack time

And really enjoyed his Elmo cake.  

side story about the cake: back at Chase's house his Nana had made him another Elmo cake for his family party.  Toward the end of the night he walked up to his mom with red icing all over his hand and she went to wash it off and he thought he was in trouble.  My brother confessed that Chase stuck his hand into the icing on the plate because his daddy (the ultimate grazer) did it first. 

After the Gymboree party all of the family went back to Chase's house where we had dinner, more cake and he opened all his presented.  It took him about 1 gift before he remembered how to rip all the tissue out to get to the good stuff :)  He got lots of fun toys that they then all got to play with

We had a lot of fun celebrating him and I think he had fun too ;)

DIY Headband

So I have been getting the sewing bug lately. I always find cute things to make but I don't have a sewing machine. I really wanted to make a dress for our double date to the Rangers game, so I borrowed my friend Amy's sewing machine.

The dress was a disaster- I cut it all wrong and messed it up. Guess not everything from my "apparel design and production" class at Baylor stuck ;)

Yesterday I decided I really wanted to wear a headband to the game. So I decided to make them. It was a much more doable task :)

I started by making the flower for the top. I've seen lots of tutorials for fabric and ribbon flowers. I got out my trusty hot glue gun and went to work!  I cut out a circle of fabric for the base and started wrapping the ribbon in the circle starting from the outside and working my way in gluing at each step. 

I've made the flowers with pearls or other buttons in the middle, but since it was for a rangers game I got the baseball buttons

Then I used a headband I already had as a pattern. It's not real exact- but it's about 2 inches at its widest and then gets smaller toward the ends. It needs to be long enough to tie behind your head. 

Then I pressed up the sides a little (like 1/4 inch) and sewed it underneath to make the edges look nice. 

Then I sewed the flower to the top. 

It was so easy and quick I made one for Sarah too:

I had 2 red fabrics so hers is a little different. And I hot glued her flower onto the headband because we were running late ;)

The finished products:

It was a super easy and super cheap project. The buttons were my biggest expense :) and I think they are pretty cute. I'll have to make more before I return the sewing machine

Rangers Game Fun

 Last week my friend Sarah sent me a message to say they had extra tickets for the Rangers game Friday night and asking if we wanted to join them.  We usually have a lot of fun with Ray and Sarah and David likes baseball (just a little) so we were excited to go

 Last night could not have been more perfect weather.  These past few days here have felt like it's Texas' version of Fall and I kind of love it... I hope it lasts!

 Ray was insistent they have the 2 foot long hot dog

 With my man

Sweet friend!

We had a really good time and it was a perfect combination.  I usually get restless at the games (I've told David if baseball games were only 5 innings that would be perfect!) and Sarah does too, so I had a friend to go walk around with while the boys watched the game and talked baseball trivia.  

Thanks for inviting us friends!

I don't know who I am

We've been married 3 weeks now. And I'm faced with the never ending question of who am I?  I quite literally have no idea what my name is. 

I changed it on my drivers license a week ago and already have a new ID. 

I waited at the social security office yesterday morning to get my name changed there. Once I get my new card I can change everything over with my work and my bank. But until then my old name is my official name.

 

A few times in the past couple of weeks I've been confused about how to sign something. When I fill out an application to change my name (drivers license, social security, state certificate for work) and I put my old name and new name on it and it asks for a signature- who do I sign as?

I know it will be weird once I have to sign everything with my new name, but I'm kinda ready to know exactly what name to sign and be able to sign everything the same way. 

This morning we went grocery shopping and after I paid with my credit card the checker asked what my last name was- so I said the one that goes with my card. He then handed David the receipt and said "have a good day Mr and Mrs Reed"

Oops! Guess I should figure out what my last name is :)

Apartment Tour Part 5

Finishing up the tour of the apartment today with some of our decorations--mainly things that were given to us as gifts

 I love having prints that I find on Pinterest in my 11x14 frame, so this one carried over from my old apartment (it was technically a Valentine's Day Printable).  The Willow Tree figurine was a gift at our Cleburne shower and I really love it

 A Gift from Mama and Daddy Mazur :)

 My sister-in-law bought this for my kitchen shower

 Erin made this for us--love having it in our bedroom

A gift from one of my co-workers

And that's most of our apartment.  I did leave out our den.  It's kinda boring... a desk, computers and bookshelf.  It's also where Lily lives :)

Apartment Tour Part 4

Today's Apartment Tour includes all of my organizational things that I've set up.

It is really nice to me when everything has it's set place, so I was excited to get organizational tools set up at the apartment.  

We'll start in the kitchen where I feel like we have the least space, but the most stuff...

 Our kitchen has no silverware drawer.  So in May I bought this organizer in Canton and I love it! 

Love this rack to set up all of our cookie sheets, cake pans, and muffin tins on their sides.  So easy to get to things!

 And I love these cabinet shelves for organizing our plates and glasses

Pop Containers are wonderful

 I'm a big fan of baskets for organizing odds and ends, such as our Wii accessories here

 I have lots of shoes.  At least most of them have a home here!

This idea I stole from Nicki... an over the door organizer for bathroom stuff.  I really have way too many hair products, appliances, lotions, and other stuff.  But this is a great place for all of them!

Apartment Tour Part 3

Welcome to our more personal spaces... the bathroom and bedroom:

Love our shower curtain and the towels we have to match.  And I am such a fan of these microfiber mats.  (Lily endorses them too... they are one of her favorite places to lay down!)

 Our bedroom.  Our bedding is a few different shades of blue.  We picked it out so long ago and actually got it as a shower gift in April, but I made David hold out on using it until I moved in :)  It's fun having it all set up

And here are the curtains that I made David hang for me :)  They help make our room a lot darker at night which helps me sleep much better

Apartment Tour Part 2

Today brings us to the Living Room!

Our fully assembled IKEA entertainment center with all of our movies (most are behind the doors at the bottom) and decorations!

And the coffee table we made out of part of the entertainment center (I really do like it so much better on the floor though!)

Apartment Tour Part 1

I am so excited to feel like our apartment is mostly set up.  I know it was really only a week of chaos, but that was more than long enough for me.

So I thought the next blog "series" would be an apartment tour.

Starting with the Dining Room and Kitchen!

We got so much great kitchen stuff.  And our kitchen is just not big enough for all of it.  So I was excited to get our dish cabinet put together and use my shelves that I've had in all of my apartments for the rest of our serving dishes.  I love how much space was created!

 Our beautiful China--we were so blessed by people gifting it to us!

 Moving into the kitchen.. this part overlooks our dining room.  There are several things I'm super excited about here.  Love my fun pictures (Be Grateful and Roll with it).  And I am so excited to have my very first spice rack and knife block--both things I've wanted for a while but couldn't justify getting.  And I love my adorable cookie jar from my sister-in-law

 Counter Space!

And more storage on top of the cabinets!

Wedding Week Details

I know all of these pictures have mostly been shared, but I finally got around to writing up my thoughts in the blogs for all of the events in the pre-wedding week.

They are posted on the dates they actually happened, but here's the table of contents ;)

Last Minute Details

Bachelorette Party

Pre-Wedding Pampering

Rehearsing

Wedding Day!!

That's it for the wedding posts until we get our pictures back from our photographer.  So for now you can have a break from wedding details.

Thanks again to Erin for all of the great pictures of the week!

First Furniture

We are one week into our new home together. I am glad to report that things are way less chaotic than they were a week ago when we had boxes stacked everywhere. As David has happily told people in the last 2 days- we can see our kitchen counters again!

Once things are more set up I'll post pictures. But for now I just have to say that our marriage has survived putting together two pieces of IKEA furniture (which all include about a billion separate pieces).

 So we officially have a dish cabinet:

And an entertainment center:

Technically that one isn't completely done because I haven't put all the shelves up- trying to figure out what all we want on them first!

But I think making it through that much furniture assembly in one week bodes well for us ;)

Doesn't he just look so excited?

Photobooth Fun

For some reason I really love photobooths.  David and I have visited a few in our dating days.  This was the first one we ever did together:

So I was excited for the opportunity to have a photobooth at our wedding reception.  Crazy enough, David and I were so busy doing other things that we completely missed taking photobooth pictures at our wedding (I told my sister-in-law that we did have our own personal photographer for the night though!)

These people, did not miss out on the photobooth...

We are so glad people had fun with it.  Even if they felt ridiculous, we love having all of the pictures in our scrapbook!  And there are lots more, these are just a sampling for you guys