a year in review

As 2013 is coming to a close I like to look back and reflect on the year. It's been a big one for me and Dave with so many new and exciting things, along with some struggles and tears. We took on some massive transitions; Dave getting out of the Army, moving, buying a house, getting a puppy, etc. I think we took all the most stressful situations and packed them into the end of the year while most (some would say smarter) people tend to spread them out.

2013 was a year that strengthened our marriage, one that brought us closer together whether it be by celebration or struggles. We added a new family member (Finley) to our household and with that so much more responsibility and love. I've loved this past year even though it has felt broken up into many different sections for us. I'm really excited for this new year of getting settled into our house, neighborhood, church, and feeling more cohesive about the year.

Dave's favorites in 2013 (asked while he was eating so I had his attention!)

Spending our summer together
Getting Finley
Getting settled in our house
Getting a job that pays the bills

May you all have a safe and fun new years eve celebrating in whatever way you do!

New Years Goals

Like anyone, I always start off the year with things I'd like to accomplish for the fresh new year. This year is no different and to hold myself accountable I'm putting it up on this here blog.

{via}

Curb my spending. Seriously. I have a tendency to just buy things because-well I don't really know why, and I like to especially buy clothes. I've set a limit for myself this year-only 24 pieces of clothing for the ENTIRE year of 2014. And when I do purchase something new I have to donate an old piece of clothing. As I work at the LOFT I feel that this might be a struggle for me-but you can do anything you put your mind too....and it'll help if I leave my money at home.

Devotionals and Bible studies. I'd like to continue my good streak from last year with my daily devotional Katie and I did. I'd also like to join a study group at the new church we're attending (i love it!) and continue with some studies with my friends.

Turn off technology. I'm always looking at my phone, checking instagram, plugging in online and I feel like Dave and I are missing out on precious moments together. I want us to shut off our phones, keep them in a different room and spend quality time together without any distractions. I don't want to feel like I have to be reachable at every moment.

Anything you want to do or try this next year?

12.27.13

 Dear Friday's letters, I can't believe this is the last one of the year! So crazy how fast this year is coming to a close. Such a very good and transitional year for Dave and I. Dear Dave, I had a wonderful Christmas with you. I love embracing our traditions and I can't wait to make more memories with you. Yes, I even enjoyed the you and steve wing tradition. Lip smackin' good!

{my sweet little family on Christmas day-Dave is in shorts as it was 75!}

Dear parents, thanks for the collaboration Christmas meal, it was so good. We definitely napped after you left we were so full! I'm so glad you're close by. Dear Janet, move down here already, so you can be nearby too! Dear Dad, it was so funny that you ran to our house and mom had to come get you. I love that you're able to do that. Can't wait till you're down here full time. Dear Sister Friend, I really missed you. Christmas just isn't the same without my little spaz muffin celebrating with me.

Dear Finley and Bella, I think you've officially formed a wonderful friendship. Dear Kristyn, I can't wait for you to get back into town!!! Dear friends, I hope you enjoy your weekend.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve: Holiday Traditions

As a fairly new married couple (2 1/2 years what what!) Dave and I are still forming our own traditions. Of course we both came into this marriage with traditions from our childhoods and it's interesting how we go about making new ones for our own little family. For example Christmas eve we will go to church (my tradition), eat chicken wings and pizza for dinner (Dave and his best friend Steve's tradition), and drive around in our pj's looking at the Christmas lights (my tradition).

{first Christmas as a married couple was spent apart....me and deployment Dave}

{2nd Christmas together-we cut down our own tree in Maryland}

We're still forming our own traditions and I know that they'll just come about naturally through the years. I'm so excited for the time spent together and am so thankful I have Dave all to myself this week. I'm also excited that my parents are just down the street so we can go to church together tonight and then have them over for dinner tomorrow.

On a slightly different note:

Sometimes I miss my sister so much during Christmas time because growing up it was us, and our parents did everything they could for it to be magical for us. My favorite tradition was that we would sleep in the same bed with these pillow cases my mom and her sister slept with when they were young girls. Maybe other people feel this way about their siblings and Christmas but it's just hard to put into words why I miss her during this time. Our family has so many silly traditions that no one else would get-but WE get them and I love that I had someone to share my childhood with.

I always freaked out over my stocking and she would just sit quietly and intently look at everything and place it aside. I was annoying and would want my parents to watch me open everything and Katie was usually much more calm, but you could see it in her eyes when she was excited about something.

It still sometimes feels like a holiday just for us because we spent so many years sharing it together. I know that we're apart again this year but Spaz I miss you and love you so much. I hope that however you're able to celebrate you're thinking of us and know how much we all love you and Nate.

The best of friends

Wow, this weekend was such a good one. It's amazing how happy having my best friend and her baby girl in town made me. There was no agenda, we just played it by ear and enjoyed our quality time together. With Dave and my move to Florida it's not often we get to see Megan and even when we lived up north she always had family she had to see so our time was limited. It was great to have Meg all to myself this weekend and to just enjoying us being together again by ourselves for seriously the first time in a long time. I got to spend some quality one on one time with little miss Caroline in the mornings when I kicked Meg out of the house to go running by herself. It was such sweet time with her little girl and I'm even more crazy about her than I was before. I was also reminded of just how strong Meg and my relationship is. We've been through so much both individually and together as best friends. We've seen each other through heart break, hard times, best of times, and I know we'll continue to stay close and develop our friendship as the years go by.

I'm so grateful that she took the time to come visit and I'm so very blessed with the best friends. It was a hard goodbye at the airport yesterday morning but I know I'll see her soon.

12.20.13

Dear Meg, God it's so good to have you here. I miss you and every day best friend time. Thank you for taking the time to come visit. Miss Caroline is so adorable, I'm looking forward to the weekend with you two!

Dear Cards Against Humanity, oh.my.gosh. Such a raunchy game, but so very funny. I'm so thankful it brought a couple of my work friends to my house this week to play it and get to know each other better.

Dear Bella, I think Finley is lonely without you to play with. You two were so cute together. Play date soon! Dear Finley, you totally won our stare off the other day. I was thinking back to when we first brought you home and we've come such a long way. You're turning into a really good little dog. Dear Momma, thank you so much for taking Finley out the past two days while I was working my shift at LOFT. You're such a big help and I appreciate it, even though you did get us the wrong milk at the store-we'll overlook it this time! haha. Dear Sister Friend, I miss you so much. Can't wait to Skype and hear about your week.
Dear Dave, I love you so much. Thank you for all your hard work at work and on the house this week.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

home

Now I don't pretend to be all HGTV or Young House Love kinda good or knowledgeable when I write about building our house or decorating, but sometimes I just have to pat myself (and Dave, mostly Dave) on the back. Our new house hasn't really felt like home till just now. I moved a lot growing up and the way my mom made our new quarters feel like home was by hanging curtains and art on the walls. You know, putting a part of us into the new house. Dave and I tackled decorating pretty quickly and things came together nicely but something for me was still just....off. We have basically a wall of windows and then another window on the adjacent wall. Yes, our backyard has a fence dividing our backyard from the next development over but it still felt a little fishbowlesque at night.

 I didn't like the fact that we didn't have privacy and it didn't feel quite as homey with these big huge windows. So we decided to have roman shades put in. They'd look good,  be functional, but allow light to come in during the day and then lower them at night for privacy. Perfecto! That just left us with figuring out what to do with our sliding glass doors. Our sliding glass doors are massive and there was no way to put anything there unless it was curtains or those ugly blinds things. We ended up deciding that curtains was a better fit for us.

With wanting the ability to open and close the curtains from day to night I found that the clips they sell made it so much easier to slide them back and forth on the rod. Even though Dave said it made them look like shower curtains I'm willing to live with it as long as it makes things easier for me. I am also so very glad that we decided to hang the curtain rod 12 inches from the glass doors. It makes them seem so much wider and when we have the curtains open none of the doors are covered.

What I also did was pulled the yellow from the accent chairs pillows into the curtains. We have an all blue pallet going on that I didn't want to overwhelm the room with one solid color. I found these curtains at BB&B and knew they would work perfectly. They tie the whole room together with the cream, gray, brown and yellow and the pattern is subtle enough to work.

We're still waiting on our kitchen table and man cave couch but for now we're keeping it classy and putting our kitchen trash can in the middle of the space so we don't hit our heads on the light. Other than that we're pretty much done other than finding a piece of art for above the new hall bench. It feels good to know we're all done can not just relax on weekends with each other. And it's nice to have it all put together for visitors-like my best friend Megan who comes to town TODAY!!!

the grinch and cookie recipe

I don't know what it is this year but I'm a lot more calm when it comes to Christmas decor. Usually when we put up the Christmas tree I'm a drill sergeant, "no those lights are too close, move them to that bald spot."  But this year for some reason I'm all kinds of chill. Maybe because our Christmas tree is up on the second floor where no one really goes, or maybe because we put it up so late, or maybe because having perfect lights on the tree doesn't actually matter. I'm not sure but I'm loving it-I didn't even do the squint test this year. If you know me you know that's a pretty big deal! Even though I'm a little disappointed in myself with how I've handled gift giving this year (Dave picked out his own mom's gift!-and my parents are getting dinner with us) I'm a little relieved that I haven't gotten wrapped up in the hustle of everything this year. It's been nice to not have a whole list of people to buy for. Sure, if I could afford it I'd love to buy all my friends something but at the same time it's been nice to have a break from being me. And by that I mean a little anal, over spender, and stressed during the holidays. I want everything to be picture perfect and by relaxing this year I've gotten to enjoy things more without the stress. I wanted to send out a Christmas card with a picture of my pretty little family-that didn't happen. It didn't happen and I'm ok. Maybe we'll send out a new years card or something, or maybe I'll get to one next year.

As Christmas is A WEEK AWAY and a bunch of you have asked for my aunt's sugar cookie recipe I decided to share it with you. A little part of me is sad that it will be out there in the world for others to pass off as their own but I know if we meet and are going to the same holiday party and I want to bring these cookies, you'll let me so that my treat will be the best!

Hope you all enjoy and don't stress this holiday season.

Holiday Festivities

It never feels quite like Christmas until I've made my Aunt Barbara's famous sugar cookies. Everyone always raves about them once they try them. They're the perfect cookie-soft and chewy with the most delicious icing. On Friday, the kids I babysit and I decorated cookies and it was a lot of fun.

Finley met Santa! After his class on Saturday we took a couple pictures with the jolly man before heading home. Dave and I finally put up our Christmas tree this weekend too....talk about being behind. But at least it's up now and it feels more like Christmas down here.

12.13.13

Dear readers, first thank you for checking in on this little blog of mine but I do have to say I'm a little heart broken that my guest post on Tuesday didn't receive any kind of feedback. My friend Cassie shared something that is personal to her and no one said anything. I'm fine when I don't get comments on my silly little posts but this one just stung a little. In case you missed it you can check it out HERE. Dear Cassie, I know people read it and I'm praying they'll feel moved to do something like what you and your fiance are doing in their area to help those around them. Hope you'll still want to guest post in the future! 

Dear Spaz, your wedding invites have been sent! I really feel like we're making great progress in wedding stuff, as we should since you get married in 58 days....OMG! 

Dear Official I hate Florida week, haha I got a kick out of it. Please hate away, I was in shorts and a tank top enjoying 80 degree weather while you were scraping ice off your cars (most with ice scrapers-some with frisbees and other household items-Christa and M.V I'm lookin at you!) 

Dear Dave, I love that we were able to have a lunch date randomly this week. I love that you're always  excited to see and spend time with me. I'm a lucky girl.

Dear Finley, you're a stud muffin. I love little moments like this when you just sit and take it all in. I'm glad I finally brought my phone on one of our walks so I could capture this.

Dear mom and dad, Dave and I are taking great care of Bella while mom's out of town. Finley and her are getting along just great, it's really cute to watch him copy her. Hope I'm sending enough pics to assure you she's just fine! Dear Dad, talking about all the food you're making mom makes me miss your cooking. Come to Florida already and cook for me full time. Thank you. Dear Meg, you come to visit in less than a week!!!!! I could scream I'm so excited. Can't wait to hug you and kiss on that little girl of yours.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tis the Season-Guest Post

Morning everyone! I just love this blog world that I'm immersed in. I've had the opportunity to "meet" some wonderful women and develop relationships that encourage and inspire. One of those women is my guest blogger today, Cassie. She's funny, sweet, and has an amazing heart. I'm excited that she's here today so please welcome her with some comments, love, and most importantly participation! 

Hi everyone! My name is Cassie, and some of you may already know me from my blog “Sage.” Unfortunately I said a sad farewell to my blog a few months ago for reasons related to my professional career. Lauren has been lovely enough to still let me guest post on something close to my heart.

You may have seen other bloggers posting their “101 in 1001” lists. If you have not, this is just a little goals list of 101 things to complete in 1001 days. After seeing a few other bloggers complete one, I couldn’t resist. Although I do not still have a blog to share it on, I wanted it for my myself (Type A personality type prototype over here!).  My first goal (which I admittedly stole from my sweet friend Cassie over at Living onCloud 9 , was to make care packages for the homeless that I could keep in my car to hand out as I saw the need.

I quickly got my fiancé, Matt, on board with me. As Christians, we are always looking for ways to share Jesus and to serve others. This has become an especially important thing as we start planning for our marriage. We definitely want to keep Christ at the center of our relationship. Anyways, that is beside the point. So, the night after we agreed to do care packages for the homeless, my sweet fiancé went out a bought $100 (our budget for the bags) worth of items to include in our care packages.

I found a number of websites that had pre-made lists of items to include. You can check those out here and here. We decided to include the following:

·         Toothbrush/toothpaste

·         Deodorant

·         Socks (one of the most important items to include)

·         Granola bars

·         Body wash/bar soap (with a carrying container)

·         Pens and notepads

·         Razors and shaving cream

·         Mini flashlight with batteries

·         Lotion

·         Chapstick

·         Wash cloths/hand towels

·         Beanies

·         Wet wipes

·         Mouthwash

·         Combs

·         Shampoo

·         Church fliers (although you do not have to include these, consider including a note or Christmas card)

Not all care packages had the same items exact items, but we tried to put the essentials (e.g., shampoo, body wash, toothpaste/toothbrush, socks, etc.) in each bag. Some websites suggested using backpacks, but we chose to use gallon sized Ziplocs. These were cost effective and allowed us to make seven bags in total.

My point in sharing this with you today is that I want to encourage you all to join in with us in making these care packages. Christ calls us to help the helpless and during this advent season, we challenge you to do just that. Our goal is to make and distribute 100 care packages by December 25^th. With the cold wave sweeping the country (besides Lauren in Florida you lucky duck), there is a HUGE need. We challenge you all to get your friends and family on board to compile these bags and help us reach our goal of 100! You do not need to have $100 to go out and make these. You can put together small bags of just the essentials for under $10 a bag. Even making one will help us reach our goal and spread love and warmth. A few of our friends have recruited kids in the classrooms, people at their churches, and even  neighbors to help us reach our goal. There are so many great ways to help and we hope that you will join in as well.

If you decide to participate, please tag Matt (@mattybees) and I (@cass_mar) on instagram and use the hashtag #charitybagchallenge so we can add your bags to our count! We currently have 7/100 with 18 days left! Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions you might have (clm348@nau.edu)!  If you do not feel you can help us at this time, I ask that you pray that we can compile all 100 bags and that we will have the opportunities present to us to pass them all out. I also ask that you help us spread the word by sharing this on instagram, twitter, facebook, you know the drill.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas full of joy and love. 

Thank you so much Cassie! I will definitely be looking to do something like this in our area this Christmas season.

woof

Welcome to our first edition of "The Finley Files". Yea, I may have lost my mind but the dog is so damn cute that he has to start having a weekly say on the blog, don't ya think?

I know this picture looks a little rough but it was my first attempt at cropping an irregular picture in PowerPoint (you can find the video here), so I think I did a pretty good job. Plus he's a dog-he's not judging me.

He's doing well in his training class at Petsmart, we have three more classes to go before he hopefully graduates! He's so funny on walks, if you can even call them walks. Half the time he throws his body on the ground and scooches around in the grass in a circle on his side. Or he'll just sit and look at the birds, feel the wind, or watch the sun. Other times he'll walk sideways until I can get him to walk normal because he's looking behind him at people or something he finds interesting. He's getting to be a really good dog and I love his temperament. He's funny, sweet, and just likes being near us. We really lucked out with this little guy and I hope he's as happy with us as we are with him.

Friday's Letters

Dear week, you've been tiring, I'm glad you're over. Dear Schiller, I'm so excited for your visit and to meet the new girlfriend! Dear Florida, please stay in the 80's for their visit so we can convince Schiller to move down! Dear Net Net, I love you and am so proud of you. Praying for swift recovery. Dear Momma, you're a good person, sister, daughter, and mom. I know you don't think so at times and I don't say it enough but I'm proud of who you are, what you taught me, and I'm so thankful for you. Your kindness and love has impacted my life and who I am more than you'll probably ever realize. I love you. Dear Finley, you're the cutest but I'm really over all the biting in the mornings. Please stop. Dear myself, as people from college start requesting friendships on FB or Instagram remember who you are. Don't compare, don't look back, and stay true to who you are. It's hard when you feel like you never fit in.

{throwback....look  how tan he was! 4th of July on the Capitol}

Dear Dave, thank you for all your hard work this week and always. The house is coming together and I'm loving it. I'm excited for some down time together this weekend with you.
Dear Dave, sometimes it's fun to look back at old pictures and remember how much we thought we loved each other then. It's crazy to me how much more I love you every day and how much stronger our relationship gets with every passing moment, struggle, and celebration. I'm so thankful for you and our marriage.

welcome

Wow, first I don't know how these other people do it, make their rooms look beautiful in pictures. Well for starters they probably use a real camera instead of their iphone (that'd be my first mistake). Oh well, I don't have time for that. Moving along.

We've finally finished the guest bedroom, nothing like an impending visit to really put a fire under your butt. I spent Monday and Tuesday painting the room with an extra trip back to Home Depot for just a liiiiitle more paint. I love the color blue we chose for the walls, we went with Tropical Pool by Behr Ultra. It's slightly darker than I had anticipated but thankfully I love it and it works well with the decor.

{looks better in person, you'll just have to come see for yourself!}

{ahhh Florida, the land of sunshine}

{a sweet guest book given to me by Nicole for visitors memories etc and a table my mother in law gave us}

We want our visitors to feel like they're in a relaxing place, so we decorated  minimally and have a beach theme going on. We may not be on the water but we're much closer than most of our friends (45 minute drive to some of Florida's best beaches!). One of Dave's best friends is coming to town this weekend with his new girlfriend and I'm excited to show them around. Then we have visitors on and off until the end of February. I'm excited the room will get some use and that Dave and I will have some of our very best friends coming to visit!

life lately

Ok so technically these pictures were all just from today, but hey it's my blog, I do what I want! Things seem to have been piling up since getting back from Thanksgiving. Finley as the puppy he is gave me a scare early this week by attempting to chew on an ant trap. He's fine! But still that's how my week started. It took me two days to paint the guest bedroom all by myself and I've just felt worn down. But thankfully the week is picking up and I'm having a much better day.

My sweet blog friend Cassie posted a pic on instagram so that people could go to Starbucks and treat themselves to a drink on her. Such a sweet way to pay it forward. It has me thinking about something  I can be doing especially during the Christmas season.

While Finley did scare me this week he's also been a good boy (I say as he's sweetly asleep in his crate). He let me put this bow tie on his collar and sat for some pictures. He is just ADORABLE. We had bath time for him last night and I love the way he feels after----so soft.

 Dave and I have been hard at work putting together the guest room and hanging pictures that we just haven't gotten around to yet. Every day it's feeling more and more like home. I'm excited for our window treatments for the living room to get in in a few weeks, then we'll really be all kinds of done with buying things for the house. Yay. Hope you guys are having a happy hump day!

haha cracks me up!

Back home

Hello again friends. I hope you all are well rested after a long weekend with family, friends, and stuffing your face full of turkey. It was good to go see Dave's family and friend and enjoy the snow for a little minute and then come home. 

{mama and me with my big boy before we headed off to the airport}

We're so blessed that my family was willing to take Finley and care for him while we were gone. I would wake up to 7 pictures and get videos almost everyday. I knew he was in loving hands and I didn't worry about him at all. That being said it was also nice to have a little break from the furball and sleep in past 7 am.

{snow!}

{Rochester garbage plate....so good}

While in NY we did the typical things of seeing family, friends, and of course I had to have my garbage plate! It was a cool feeling flying back to Florida, I think it really feels like home now. We definitely were over the cold after a day or so, so it really makes us happy to be back in the sunshine state.