Happy Holidays

Thanks to my friend Jenn I was reminded of the holiday fun of "elfing yourself". Here is the link to our latest family video:
http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/nPakZAB9rSxsVTor

Our Song!!

At my friend Jenn's wedding, my other friend asked me if me and Matt had a song. We had been dating for over 2 years at the time, but as much as I wanted to say that we had this ultimately romantic song that summed up our feelings for each other in a perfect way...ultimately I had to say that we did not. "Oh well" I thought, "I'm not in a high school relationship anymore, so no big deal." And...I didn't think about it again...until...

.... a couple of weeks ago Matt informed me that we now had a song. I had never heard the song before, so we pulled the video up on youtube and watched it together.

If you've already pushed play..you know what the video is about. But, I was completely surprised when I saw it that this is what Matt had thought was "our song" and represented our relationship. But...since he had only listened to the song on the radio, he also was totally surprised by the video also..

I think Matt picked a good song for "our song". The lyrics are great and the video is hilarious... and I think it makes me love the "our song" even more.

An Indulgent Post..

I'm calling this an indulgent post because I want to blog about some of my favorite kitty pictures.... I'm calling it.....

"The Top Ten Most Kitty-licious Moments Caught in Pictures"

(in no particular order)

#1- The human and the CatThis is one of my favorites because Stormy hates to be held, and this is a rare picture of her with a human..most importantly...me!!

#2- Kitty vs the Laptop
The newest kitty Ella loves to jump up and chase the cursor on my laptop...she's so curious about everything...I love it!!...even if she does step all over the keyboard and cause my laptop to freak out!

#3-Christmas kitty
Chas is such a good sport to let us drape tinsel all around him for a photo opportunity.

#4-Chas exploring the pantry
In our new house we have a nice big pantry...which Chas loves to hang out in and climb all over the shelves. Luckily he hasn't broken into any of our food while exploring.

#5-Stormy and her kitty tent
My mom bought the kitty tent for my cats at IKEA and Stormy especially grew very fond of it. This is one of my all time favorite pictures of Stormy...she's so cute!!

#6- Chas in the hamper
We got Chas when he was just a little guy, full of curiousity and spunk. He obviously was jealous of the time I spent with the laundry, so he thought that he'd better get in there so he could get attention too!!

#7-The one and only

Until 6 months ago, we just had the two cats Stormy and Chas....this is the only picture I have of the two of them together...precious!!

#8- Chas with eyebrows

Boredom is a dangerous thing...as illustrated by this picture of Chas..with eyebrows drawn on by Matt. Hilarious!!!

#9- Toilet training

I think this is a sign that Chas is ready to toilet train!!

#10-pure excitement

This picture was taken at the adoption fair where we got Ella...the excitment on Matt's face tells it all!!

Halloween

I've never been a huge fan of Halloween. Of course I've never had anything against the holiday, afterall, I've got no complaints with a holiday that gives free candy to children...or at least I didn't have an complaints when I was the kid getting the free candy.

Since it was our first Halloween in our house, we decided to dress up and have a mini Halloween party of our own. I dressed up as a rocker chic and Matt dressed up as...umm..I'm not sure...but it was pretty scary! Here we are in our outfits...

...and here is a close up of Matt's face in all his scary glory! Unfortuately he didn't keep in his outfit very long since the wig made him want to itch his face...which doesn't work too well when covered in face paint!

Our friends Daniel and Dominique came over...along with Daniel's brother Steve.

Here we are all just goofing off! Steve-the crazy gun nut (And don't worry---it's not loaded), Daniel-the escaped prisoner, Dominique-the old-time bar maid, Matt-the guy in the Avatar wig, and Kristin-the rocker chic!!

We had a great first Halloween in our new house, and we had a lot of cute trick or treaters show up for free candy...despite the rain!

Birthday Boy

It was Matt's birthday on October 14th. This year he turned the big 29!! The age actually isn't too significant, except for the fact that I kept giving him a hard time by telling him it's the last one before hitting 30!!

Since his birthday was on a Wednesday we didn't do anything too elaborate or exciting to celebrate. I did leave work early so that I could decorate the house before Matt got home.

I put up a "happy birthday" banner in the mud room since that is the first room in the house he goes into after work. I put balloons and his present on the table.

He was a little confused about what would be in a bag of that size that would be for him.
But was quite impressed when he saw "Fine Jewelry" printed on the box.

It was not a decoy box, but rather contained a titanium bracelet for him. And boy did he like it!! He's so afraid that he will damage it if he wears it at work, but the minute he comes home he is thrilled to be able to put it on. Of course the present isn't the most important part, but I'm glad he liked it and I'm glad that I have such a special person to celebrate their birthday...because that is the most important part!!

The Tour: Part I

As promised for quite some time, here are some pics from inside our house. If the pictures don't quite do it for you...feel free to visit and see it in person. Upon walking through the front door you will see a picture timeline of the progress of our house construction. I got all the frames from the D.I and painted them to make them match, but keep their uniqueness.
As you continue to walk in the staircase to go downstairs is on your right, as is our huge Eiffel Tower canvas. This was quite a task to hang up, and Matt almost fell off the ledge and down the stairs. Stormys favorite spot in the whole house is to sit on the ledge. It gives her a great view, plus keeps her from getting to close to the other cats.

This is the guest bathroom. It's hard to get a good picture since because of the size..but you get it...afterall its just a bathroom.

Here is our kitchen/dining room area. We love the openess between the living spaces.

The view from the kitchen into our living room. As you can see, Matt did a great job of haning the television and surround sound sans visible wires.

The view from the sliding glass door looking towards the living room.

The view from the hallway looking back on the living room and kitchen.

The cats feeding area.

And possibly my favorite room...the mud room! This room connects the kitchen/dining room and the garage. Not only do we love having a washer and dryer, but we love having a buffer zone where Matt can shed his muddy shoes before entering the rest of the house.
Well that takes care of the "common areas" of our house. I will work on getting pictures of the bedrooms up soon.

Priorities

We were very overwhelmed with all that was on the "to do" list upon moving into our house. So what did we do???...prioritize.

Our #1 priority...television.

Finally, since we weren't in an apartment we could hang our tv on the wall instead of just having it sit on our tv stand. Matt took upon himself to complete the task, and I was there to document it. step #1: drill holes for the box

Step 2: Using the drilled holes as starting spots, cut the box using a jigsaw.
Step 3: Attach the green boxes into the drywall. Now you have places for your cords to connect to your devices. Step 4: After finding the center of the wall, mark a level line parallel to the floor.Step 5: Use the parallel line as a guide for where to attach the mounting bracket.Step 6: After bracket is firmly attached, lift the television and attach it to the bracket on the wall.

Ta-da!!

Now comes the really fun part...running the wires through the wall!! But first you've got to figure our which cord is which!

Continuing the Adventure

First Night in the New House

Matt and I were pretty exhausted after moving all of our stuff inside the house, but my desire to not live in complete chaos was motivation to start organizing. First stop, Walmart. Unfortunately, that was also my last stop. After spending hours at Walmart shopping, most of my motivation was gone by the time I came home. Gone also was my motivation to have a nice home-cooked meal our first night at our new home.

Instead...TGIFriday's frozen skillet meal was on the menu.

It was a pretty yummy meal...but not very filling. Their definition of "a meal for two" is only true if those 2 people are children, or my mother (who eats probably less than most children).
The excitement of the night came when we got a delivery of what is probably my favorite thing about having a house...

...our washer and dryer! Finally, years of going to the laudromat at the apartment complex is over!!! Yeah!!

And how did the cats adjust to the new house?
Stormy was quite adventurous, hopping in every box, curious about everything.

But Chas was a little more timid about exploring, and found an old familiar friend to get through the transition with.

Beginning the Adventure

As most of you know, despite the lack of blogging by myself, Matt and I moved into our very own house in December in Saratoga Springs, UT. Even though I haven't kept current with blogging, I still can't just show you all of the finished pictures without first sharing the adventures along the way.

Adventure #1...moving:

We moved in on December 5, 2009 thanks to a lot of help from Matt's sister Jenn, his brother John, my brother Steve and my Dad.

John, Jenn, and Matt "carbing up" for the big move!

They needed all the strength they could muster to move all of this, plus more!Stormy took refuge in the spare tire on the deck while all of the action was going on.And once everything was out of the apartment, Chas just didn't know what to think about it.After loading up the apartment, our final stop was my parents house to pick up our refrigerator. Luckily it all fit in the Uhaul..who knew we actually had that much stuff?

Once at the house, the real fun began! Especially trying to get the refrigerator into the house..The refrigerator couldn't make it in through the garage like everything else, but luckily it made it through the front door, even without having to take it off of the hinges.While everyone was bustling about carring boxes and furniture to and fro, Ashton (my nephew) got to watch the Disney Channel...lucky duck!

Once everything was finally in the house Matt had to take a break among the madness. Now there was only one thing left to do...

...feed the troops!! Luckily one of the few eating establishments in Saratoga Springs is Little Caesars. We have definitely grown to appreciate their $5 Hot 'n Ready pizza and this was the perfect lunch after a lot of hard work. Thanks to everyone who helped us make the move quickly and easily...but for Matt and I...the work had just barely begun...