First Anniversary!

Sunday is our first wedding anniversary, AND since I do not post on the weekend I wanted to post about how special this day is; today.

At the beginning of the month I noticed and made note that our anniversary was coming up. It just hit me this week that it is this actually weekend. Wow! I am kind of in shock actually. Where did the year go? It has been an amazingly incredible year, to say the very least. I remember after we got home from our honeymoon being in a state of shock, too. I just could not believe that we were married, that we lived together and that we lived in Indiana. Randomly I would ask Stephen if he could believe it and usually he would so no also. It was just such a whirlwind. Well, I feel the same way right now. I read that feeling this way in normal the first year of marriage. There are just so many new things and the adjustment time veries for each couple.

In the past year we have learned how to live together, care for each other, cook many (many!) meals together, praying for and with each other, shop together, budget together, and love each other more and more every day. Marriage really is a wonderful blessing! Not to mention all the other things we did this year like, moving me from FL, getting settled in our first apartment, looking for homes, closing on our first home and moving in to continue living our dream. It was not always easy, trust me. Moving away from my family and friends in FL and starting a new job 2 weeks before our wedding was crazy. Starting a new job is stressful enough in my opinion, add moving to a different state (acorss the country, basically) and you have a recipe for chaos. Stephen was there for me every step of the way though. I never felt alone.

A whirlwind of a year? Yes!

Do you know that people say the first year of marriage is the hardest? I kind of believe that just because of all the changes and adjusting that both the husband and wife have to go through. That being said, I feel like we are incredibly blessed. I would not describe this year as a walk in the park or anything like that...we have had arguments and rough days, but we always remember that we are in it together. For always.

I am so incredibly thankful for my husband. He is a wonderful supporter in so many ways! I thank the Lord for bringing him into my life and I am excited to see what else he has in store for us! I know the journey will be incredible!  

All that to basically say that this year has been the most fun, enjoyable, hard at times, fast, and adventurous year of my life. Being married to Stephen is an incredible blessing and I am so thankful for our lives together and all God continues to provide for us.

Now let’s take a look back at some of our wedding pictures:

It seems like yesterday I was sitting in the salon getting ready for my wedding...the roses were from Stephen, delivered by his best man, Adam.

I loved my wedding shoes that I forgot to wear last minute. My Mom said when she saw my feet at the altar she almost stood up to pause the ceremony while she got my shoes. Instead of these I wore purple flats.

Finally Mr. & Mrs. Only, I don’t think he had sunk in yet!

We took SO many pictures outside of the church afterwards. If I could change something about our wedding, I would have done all these beforehand. Of course, to do that I would have to convince Stephen that it was okay to see me before the wedding.  

Formals in the church…  

I really like this picture of our attendants. I saw a shot like this in a wedding magazine while we were planning and gave it to our photographer. I think it is so cute!  

Why, hello beautiful bridal bouquet!

Something must have been funny during the ceremony. Was this when the best man and groomsmen acted like they lost my wedding ring? Oh boy!

Delicious cake, thank you Mr. and Mrs. Milligan for that wedding gift (and Publix for making it)!  Though I am a little worried about how it will taste when we eat it on Sunday. It's okay, I baked some delicous "back-up" cupcakes just in case!

Stephen’s groom’s cake was awesome if I do say! It is a replica of his bass guitar, true to size!    

Gotta love your bridesmaids and cheesy pictures with them! J     

To celebrate we are planning a nice dinner Saturday night (I am not sure where yet). We will get dressed up and enjoy ourselves even if it is raining. Of course we will break into our frozen and transported hundreds of miles year old wedding cake too. Hopefully it is sill delicious!

Seriously, where did the year go!?!

I can’t wait to see what is in store for next year. Bring on year 2 of wedded bliss!

1st Floor Photo Tour!

Catch up with the upstairs photo tour here.

Since I seriously dropped the ball on doing our home tour, I thought I would revisit that idea! J I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to get these pictures taken, edited and posted to share with all my friends and family that are unable to come and visit us! Please accept my apology.

SO…

HERE GOES!

This is our front door, on the inside of our porch. I did not take a picture of the outside door because it was dark. BUT, you can refer to this post if you have forgotten how the front of the house looks!  

The front door opens up into our dining room, which is connected to all the rooms on the first floor. You could actually just walk in circles through all the rooms if you wanted. Ha, we have our own indoor track!

To the right in our dining room we have these big bay windows (that I love). We need some furniture to fill this space, but we are in no rush to get anything. Why? Well, because we are not sure exactly what we want or what would work in this space. Any ideas?

To the left side of the dining room we have our console table with odds and ends and our staircase to upstairs. There is also a doorway into the library (that’s what we call it) and the living room, too!  

This is looking into our living room from the dining room. Louie wanted to be in the picture, so you can see him too! I am not sure what color this is, it was here when we moved in. We have discussed painting the living room, but have no idea what color we’d like to change it to.

Fireplace & TV. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the fireplace? SO much!  

Our Sofa, painting by me and a little view of our big windows. The windows on this floor are the original windows from 1883. We really enjoy the shutters on the windows and that was a big selling point for us because we knew we would not have to worry about window treatments; which can be expensive!   

This is the view from the couch, looking through the dining room and into the kitchen.    

Entering the library…    

Our under the stairs coat and vacuum closet; I am so thankful that Stephen hung the hooks for the coats this weekend. Yay for having a place to hang jackets!     

This is the light fixture in the library. I kind of like it, kind of don’t. BUT it does flow well with the rest of the house so that means something! We were told that the older couple that used to live here eventually made this room their master bedroom because they had difficulty getting up and down the stairs.      

We use this room for DVDs, books and my craft/scrapbooking things. The plan is to put a daybed in here for an extra bed and reading area. Now, we just need to get starting on making one out of old doors!       

This bookshelf has mostly picture albums and scrapbooks on it. There are some paperback books too, but you can tell that I like to take pictures and document everything, ha! The butterfly rug was made by my little brother in elementary school (not sure what grade?) and he gave it to me as a Christmas gift. I still have it!        

The library connects to our half bath and laundry room. You can also get to the bath/laundry room through the kitchen. Louie’s kennel stays in this room during the day while we are gone, but we move it up to our room at night for sleepy time.          

      

Looking out the bathroom/laundry room into the kitchen…

And the kitchen. Quite possibly my favorite room in the house!

All the other houses we looked at had such dated kitchens that we would have needed to do some serious work. We were so blessed to find this house with beautiful cabinets, counters and newer appliances! God is so good!

Those cabinets on the left open up and have drawers that pull out. That is so awesome! It makes putting groceries and finding things SO much easier!  

The kitchen sink and window looking out into the mudroom…  

This is the door to/from the mudroom. We use this door daily when coming or going.   

And the mudroom! We just put the bench together last weekend and placed it out here so we could sit down and put our shoes on. I like having a place outside to do that because honestly, shoes do not belong in our house. We ordered a nice shoe rack too, but it has not arrived yet!    

These are all our shoes that will one day go on the shoe rack!     

And this is the door outside from the mudroom, that enters the backyard.      

And that, friends, is the tour of our first floor!  You may have noticed that the pictures are not perfect, and the house is not perfect. That is because we actually live here, and it shows. This is our home and we love it! Now, come on up and visit to see it for yourself…it is a little piece of history! (hint hint, family in FL!)       

Hope you enjoyed the tour! See ya next time!



Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies :)

PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLE COOKIES!

Via: Pinterest, via: Annies Eats

INGREDIENTS: For the cookies:
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg ( We left this out, too)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree ( I modified this and used 1 heaping cup for extra moistness and pumpkin flavor!)
1 large egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the coating:
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger (We did not have this, so I left it out-still tasted delicious!)
Dash of allspice

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Whisk to blend and set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.  Blend in the pumpkin puree.  Beat in the egg and vanilla until incorporated.  With the mixer on low speed add in the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated.  Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour (I only chilled for 10-15 min, and then while I had cookies baking I had the dough in the refrigerator, too).

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.   Combine the sugar and spices for the coating in a bowl and mix to blend.  Scoop the dough (about 2½ tablespoons) and roll into a ball.  Coat the dough ball in the sugar-spice mixture and place on the prepared baking sheet.  Repeat with the remaining dough to fill the sheets, spacing the dough balls 2-3 inches apart.  Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until just set and baked through.  Let cool on the baking sheets about 5 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Repeat with the remaining dough.  

We baked these cookies this weekend and they were delicious and perfect for the cooler fall weather we are having in Indiana right now! The hubs helped me bake them and we had a great time working in the kitchen together, cooking with your spouse is fun! These cookies were inspired by Pinterest, but I did modify the recipe a little bit. These cookies are the perfect combination of tradition snickerdoodle, with a hint of pumpkin flavor. And you know what? They are delicious with a warm cup of tea! Let me know if you give them a try!

Weekend Wrap-Up!

This weekend was full of fun activities, even with the rainy couple of days here. Fall has arrived and you can see it everywhere; the trees are starting to change colors and leaves are already falling. Agh. Fall is my favorite season, and I am so thankful for the cooler temperatures!

Our Saturday started out at home. We had plans to spread grass seed and do some other yard work, but were unable to with the rain. We decided to head to Fort Wayne and get our shopping trip done in the morning. We also stopped at Logan’s Roadhouse for lunch and it was SO.GOOD! It had been a long time since I had a steak, and we actually split an 8oz. so it was the perfect amount! After feeding our bellies we were onward to Dollar Tree, Hobby Lobby, Kirklands, Menards, Gordon Food Service, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bath & Body Works and Country Kitchen. We got some great deals and everything we needed, too!

We came home and changed into comfy clothes to just relax. Is it just me or do other people like rainy days for PJs and relaxing too? I ended up working on a Fall Wreath that was inspired from Pinterest last week. Surprisingly to me, this project did not take long at all. In fact, it only took the length of two Friend episodes!  

After some crafting it was time to bake. We made these pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies that were also inspired from Pinterest (are you noticing a trend here?). They are quite yummy and I have plans to post the recipe tomorrow for you all to enjoy!

Sunday after church we got to have lunch with this adorable little girl:  

We met Stephen’s family for a yummy lunch at The Boathouse to celebrate September birthdays. Yesterday was actually my Mother-in-Law’s birthday; Happy Birthday Bev! My SIL Robin was going to come too because her birthday was last Friday, but she was not feeling good and did not make it. We missed you, Robin!   

Looks like Hadley and her Dad, Adam were having a very serious talk! J

We came home and tried to take some family pictures with Louie, but he wanted none of it. He was quite a little stinker this weekend, actually. We did get a family picture minus Louie and then some individual pictures of our little man, so I am going to call it a success!  

What else did we do on Sunday? Well, Stephen worked a little on his hunny-do list while I crafted. We got some pictures that we bought at Kirklands hung, and hooks put up in our coat closet finally. Now all our coats are hanging instead of being crammed into black garbage bags like they have been since our move. I am hoping that the wrinkles fall out before we need to wear them. I can dream, right?

Our new picture in the bathroom that I love:

   

Now I have my claw foot tub AND my chandelier that I have always wanted!

I put together a little dry-erase board inspired from Pinterest again. All it took was an old picture frame and some scrapbook paper. I added some letter stickers and a little heart sticker too to dress it up. We hung it in our kitchen above the hooks for coats, purses and umbrellas. We plan on using it for reminder notes…or maybe just love notes since we don’t get to see each other much in the mornings. I am very pleased with how it looks! (Note: the feather boas are usually not there, they were a purchase made this weekend at Hobby Lobby and they will be used on my niece’s birthday cup-cake display!)    

Lastly I worked on another Pinterest project. I had seen (and pinned) a unique and creative headboard made from an outdoor seatee cushion, some buttons, string, and a shelf. I took this picture immediately after Stephen hung it, so it is not final but I was just so excited and wanted to share it! I think it is such a neat idea for a fun headboard! What do you think?  

Well folks, that is our weekend rolled up into one long post! I hope that you enjoyed the pictures and ideas shared. Let me know if you try any of the craft projects and just let me know if you have any questions!

Happy Monday!