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!