It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

To say that we are excited for our first Christmas in our new house may be a bit of an understatement! We've never had the opportunity to put up Christmas lights, and we've never had so much extra space to decorate! Here are some pictures of our preparations:

Jeremy soon realized that putting up Christmas lights wasn't as fun as he was hoping! And we kind of ran out of lights for the tree. haha :)

Decorating our mantle is one of my favorite things to do! I also love how my wreath turned out! Oh, and Jeremy cut out that deer for me and spray painted it sparkly gold. He's so good to indulge my crafting addiction.

Just a few of our Christmas decorations.

 We also had some huge snow and ice storms move through our area recently. The snow was beautiful but inconvenient at times. My work closed for two half days because of the weather and Jeremy learned the hard way that an icy driveway can cause some nasty falls.

I was having fun in the snow meanwhile Jeremy was doing all the grunt work. I knew I loved him!

While we are a little disappointed that we won't be making it out to Idaho or California this Christmas to spend it with family we are excited to have our first Christmas with just our little family of two. It will force us to come up with some of our own traditions and will allow us more stress-free time to focus on the Savior and the true meaning of Christmas.

Some other recent happenings in our lives are:

-I got released as a ward missionary and called as an Activity Days leader

-We were on the ward Christmas party committee. The party was yesterday and was a success.

-Jeremy finished his third semester of dental school with all A's and B's (he's such a smarty)

-We got new cell phone's and phone numbers (email us or Facebook message us if you would like our new Kentucky numbers)

-We are doing some of the finishing touches on our house renovations including new carpet for the spare bedrooms and painting the last two bedrooms. (Almost done!)

We hope all of our friends and family are enjoying this holiday season and we wish everyone a very merry Christmas!

One Spoiled Girl

I had so much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. It just so happened that our five year wedding anniversary fell on Thanksgiving day this year. It was such a blessing for it to fall on a holiday because it distracted us from the fact that we were away from family. And let me just tell you I am one spoiled girl! The day before our anniversary I came home to a big surprise. There was a note on the door telling me to follow the footsteps to find the reason why Jeremy loved me so much. Our house was filled with little printouts of feet in different colors that each led me to different places in the house. At the end of each path there was a reason why Jeremy loved me and a gift to go along with it. For example, one stop was "I love you because you find the beauty in life" and the gifts were a tripod for my camera and the Photoshop Lightroom 5 program.  Yes I know, he's amazing! How did I get so lucky to marry him?

Thanksgiving/ Anniversary morning we relaxed and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Ever since I was little I've loved watching the parade, and I think Jeremy got a little in to it this year too.

We also decided that since it was just the two of us and neither one of us wanted to spend a lot of time cooking and then cleaning up on our anniversary, that we would go out to eat for the first time on Thanksgiving! We went to the Cracker Barrel who was serving an amazing Thanksgiving meal and let me tell you it was one of the best meals I've ever had. If we ever do it again though we will make sure to call in advance so we can have reservations. There were so many people there we had to wait about an hour to get seated. We had fun though and just played an intense round of Scrabble on our phones to help the time pass (I won!). :)

It's hard to tell but the entire shop was filled with people waiting to be seated! I never knew so many people ate out for Thanksgiving!

After dinner we went and watched Catching Fire at the theater. LOVE that movie! All in all we had a wonderful Thanksgiving/ Anniversary and I couldn't think of anyone I'd have rather spent the day with. I'm so grateful for Jeremy! I love him more than words can express! We've had so many adventures together over the last five years and I'm so excited for all the many adventures to come.

We hope all of our friends and family had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!

Capturing Happy

Recently, we met up with some friends to take pictures for Christmas cards. We took some pictures of them and they took some pictures of us. Of course I'm not going to ruin the surprise and show the pictures that we are going to use for the cards, but after we were done Jeremy and I took a little time just to enjoy the beautiful fall scenery! Granted we took pictures in a cemetery it was actually really gorgeous! I realized that beautiful places just make me happy! I felt rejuvenated and just wanted to run around and play in the leaves. So....I did! Even big kids like to play in the leaves!

 Jeremy wasn't as excited about having his pictures taken but I was still able to snap some cute ones of him too! I love this man so much!

Here's to happy fall days!

Falling in love with Fall

Living in Kentucky has really made me fall in love with fall! Everything seems to coming alive with bursts of color and liveliness. Yellows, reds, oranges, purples, the colors are everywhere. Overnight the weather goes from warm to brisk. I can honestly say that I used to get sad when fall came because it meant that summer was over, the weather was turning cold, and I'd see a lot less of the sun. But, now I'm giddy with excitement about the fall colors, hot chocolate, college football, boots and scarfs, and the upcoming holiday season. There's something magical about fall.

Here's what we've been up to thus far in October:

So the previous owners of our house were the opposite of green thumbs. We figured after spending the last couple months remodeling the interior of our house it was time to focus our attention on the exterior. So we decided to rip out the overgrown bushes and add some pretty flowers. It took us a few Saturdays, and Jeremy is still bummed that our grass it mostly weeds and rocks, but I must say the yard looks so much better!

I'll have to put together a good before and after picture, but for now you can see a little of what we did.

All the colorful mums are my favorite!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love working side by side with my love?  :)

We've also had fun hanging out with friends doing "fallish" things like:

Decorating for fall and Halloween

Carving pumpkins

(Which of course had to include power tools. If you know Jeremy at all that should come as no surprise!)

Jeremy wanted our pumpkin to have awesome teeth! Makes sense coming from the Dentist-to-be!

Having bonfires and smores with friends

(Oh Crandall's we love that your house is in the "woods")

That pretty much sums up our October so far - work hard, play hard! And the good news is Octobers only about half way over and we have a lot more fun activities planned. So stay tuned and enjoy your fall!

Weekend warriors!

Like most girls, I have dreamed my whole life of how I was going to decorate my first house. When we bought our house a couple months ago and moved in we quickly started little projects like painting, making new furniture and so forth to help it feel like home to us. Project after project Jeremy has never ceased to amaze me with how talented he is! And I'm not just boasting because he is my husband and I love him to pieces. All I've had to do was explain to him my vision, show him a few pictures, and he's created things that have surpassed all expectation. I'm so excited to unveil our latest renovation!!! A little history first though.  The previous owners of our house had a little girl (around 8 years old) and they let her pick whatever color she wanted to paint her bedroom and the guest bathroom. So like any young girl she chose PINK! Therefore, until this weekend our only guest bathroom was bright pink (see pics below). Her bedroom is pink with an accent wall of pink and purple stripes (the next room to get renovated).  Obviously the pink had to go. And this my friends is what my vision and Jeremy's mad skills created... :)

One of my favorite parts of the decor! :)

Isn't it incredible? Isn't Jeremy incredible? He did all the craftsmanship all by himself, including framing the mirror!  I know a week or so ago I posted some before and after of our kitchen but here are a few more pictures of that too! (I didn't get very good before pictures. oops. And please excuse the mess as I took these right after we moved in and there are boxes and junk everywhere!)

And as if all those amazing renovation haven't been enough Jeremy has realized he has a talent in woodworking! I asked if he could make me a sofa table and the results were so phenomenal that he has now sold 5 custom orders to people on craigslist!!! Here are just a few of his creations and his happy little face at making some extra money.

I'm so grateful to have such a hard working and talented husband. It's been so fun (most of the time) working side by side to make our house feel like our home. It has been a lot of work, but so worth it! Now on to the next project!!!  :)

See I help too!

Mammoth Cave

This weekend we were feeling a little stir crazy and decided to get out of town and do something fun. Since buying our house things have been so chaotic we haven't had much time to take any day trips. So last weekend we drove towards Bowling Green and visited the worlds largest cave. Mammoth Cave is more than 400 miles of cave tunnels!!! The next longest cave is in Mexico and can fit into Mammoth Cave more than two times! Jeremy had never been in a cave before so this was his first time. We had a great time together exploring new places and experiencing new things. We have loved living in Kentucky because there are so many fun and exciting places within a days journey. There's still so much I want to see so thankfully we will still be out here for 3 more years! I'm so grateful to have Jeremy as my eternal world traveling companion, and look forward to a lifetime of exploration and fun!

We bought a house!!!

It's true, we bought a house! As soon as we found out we were coming to Louisville for dental school I starting looking at houses. I mostly did it just for fun and to dream about how great it would be to live somewhere where I could paint the walls, decorate exactly how I want, and basically make my home. I never really thought it would be a possibility to buy a home, especially while Jeremy was in dental school. I mean our time here really is so temporary.
Let's just say that we have been blessed with more than we could have ever dreamed. Soon after dental school started Jeremy found out he had received a Navy scholarship, which would not only pay for ALL his schooling (about $68k a year JUST in tuition), but would also give us a monthly stipend. We were obviously stoked about that and it has already been a major blessing for us. I was also blessed to find a good job in February, after a not so good work experience soon after moving here. I am working for a large dental corporation in their insurance department. It really is a great job for now and has helped me learn so much about the dental field! Soon after getting this job we realized that our income would allow us to buy a house if we wanted to. Well after dealing with way too many maintenance issues, culminating in a sewage flood at the place we were renting we decided to start looking at houses. And well...to make a long story short we bought a house!!!!

Our 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1500 sq ft house is so perfect for us! We are in a quiet neighborhood at the end of a cul-de-sac. We have a 1/4 acre lot which Jeremy was really excited about since he loves yard work. And to be honest there's lots of work to be done on the yard. Let's just say the last owner didn't have a very green thumb. The house is keeping us SUPER busy. I have already picked out paint colors for all the rooms, although we've only managed to paint our great room. (Who knew painting was so exhausting?) Right now we are updating our kitchen with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and a tile backsplash. Even as I type this I feel like it can't be real. This can't really be my house. The Lord has blessed us so much, even amidst our struggles with infertility, and the heartbreak that goes along with that, He had a plan to bless us.

The saddest part about moving was  leaving our ward. We met some amazing friends in our old ward and loved the little sunbeams that we taught in primary. Our new ward is great too and I'm sure we will meet a lot of new friends but we will always love the Louisville 2nd ward.