We Moved

After months of trying to decide what was best for us we finally made a decision and moved. We were planning on moving at the end of our 6 month lease at our old apartment, but then we were buying a car and were broke. Through a miracle we were able to sell Taylor's car which meant we weren't quite as poor, and the thought of moving became possible again. I found this apartment the day it was posted on Craigslist on a Thursday, we looked at it and signed a lease on Friday, and moved in a week later. Everything happened so fast, and we hadn't even decided if we were going to move when we first saw it. We decided to take a leap of faith and went for it. We had so much help moving from Taylor's mom, Sheldon, and one of Sheldon's roommates. We started at 8:30 and were done by 10:30. No way we could have moved so fast (or at all) without them. Huge thanks to them for helping us!

You first walk into our living room, and its ugly carpet. We're planning on getting a super cute area rug once we find one we like to hide some of the ugly. I love the big window it has

(I sewed those curtains. Go me!), and the way it is set up compared to our last living room. If it looks like pictures are hung crooked it's probably because they are... I swear they we straight when we first hung them. We plan to add more to the collage above the couch soon. I love having wedding pictures hung up in this apartment. 

We got rid of dish and bought a digital antenna box that gets the local stations so that's what that is in the corner above the TV. It's not too bad though because I still get to watch Grey's Anatomy every Thursday :) There's so much more room to decorate which makes me happy. Although, it doesn't make our wallets quite as happy.

We gave some things up and got some with the move. Goodbye super discounted dish. Hello open concept. I loveeee the open concept! It makes it feel so much homier and inviting. Plus you can see the TV from the kitchen now so hopefully we won't boil things over as much while cooking and trying to watch TV at the same time. 

Goodbye storage closets and coat closet. Hello washer and dryer in our apartment! (They are behind those mysterious doors in case you didn't catch on) I might use it as a dumping ground sometimes most of the time since there isn't a coat closet, and the dryer makes such a good shelf.. Goodbye being super close to the mall. Hello being literally a minute from my work, five minutes to Taylor's work, and closer to the highway so I can get to school a little faster. 

We also have a second bedroom now that is the perfect size to be a nursery someday in the future. It's also the perfect size if someone needs a place to crash. One of my favorite things is that the bathroom has a big counter. This is wonderful because I can sit on it while I straighten my hair and get ready in the morning. I really am that lazy.. Oh well. I really love this place and the management has been super nice to us. Which is a great thing because I don't see another move in our future for years.

On a side note: I don't recommend moving and buying a car in the same week. Your bank account will hate you. 

Wedding Pictures

Before you are even thinking about getting engaged you should probably make sure that you have an extremely talented cousin that is an incredible photographer. My cousin, Melissa, is so stinkin' awesome. It was great that I already knew the person taking our pictures and she gave me everything I wanted and more. Here's some more pictures that I don't think I shared on Facebook. I haven't downloaded the pictures without the watermarks yet so love them anyway.

A wedding success secret is to have an aunt that is a great hair dresser. She made getting my hair done easy. I trusted her to do what she thought would look best, and it turned out perfect. Also, isn't my mom a babe?! Love those sisters!

 Another thing that doesn't hurt to have is a cousin that can bake really well. She made all of the cupcakes for the wedding, and did a fantastic job.

Possibly my favorite out of all the pictures! I love love loveeee this one!

 So much family there to support us!

Please stop and take a minute to admire how cute our niece is........... okay carry on now.

 Love my crazy siblings

New Wheels

We finalllllyyyyy bought a car. I say finally because we first looked at the car in July 3rd and Taylor has been car shopping since we were first married. This Nissan Altima was the perfect car for us. We just had to wait for it to get a new engine put in it. It was well worth the wait! It may not be brand new, but it is new to us.

It gets about the same gas mileage as my cute Elantra. Good gas mileage was an absolute must because I drive to school in Rexburg and back three days a week this semester. It should do decent in the snow, and will make a great family car later on. It is such a smooth ride. Its snazzy, and has tinted windows. It has a DVD player attached to the ceiling(doesn't work right now) that will be great for when we have kids. For being a 2002 it is in dang good shape. I couldn't love it more!

The only thing the car is missing is a name.. Call me weird, but I'm a huge believer in cars needing names and having their own personalities/being able to hear what we say. My car, Stella, has some problems. I believe that if I talk crap while in her she'll get mad and act out. Usually I rub her dash to make her feel better if I do say something mean. I think she needs some extra loving since we got this new car because it is so much better than her. 

Here's to hoping that this car lasts us a long time with no or next to little problems, and is everything we're hoping it is :)

Wedding Facts

In honor of getting my wedding pictures back I thought I would share some lesser known facts about my wedding day. I'll share more pictures soon!

-I haven't thrown up since my sophomore year of high school. That was until two days before my wedding. I nearly passed out while getting our marriage licence, and it only went down hill from there. I stayed at my brother's apartment half dead while everyone else left to go explore campus. It was terrible.

- My dress had a corset back, but I couldn't have it tied up as tight as it should of been because my stomach still hurt too bad.

- I shared a hotel room with my sister and brother the night before the wedding. I didn't get to bed until almost 1 and then all 3 of my brothers barged in the room at 1:30ish, and stayed for a little while. Matt woke up at 7 because he was hungry, and woke the rest of us up too.

- I feel like the lack of sleep and being sick gave me a pretty good excuse for any bridezilla moments that might have occurred.

- While running out of my hotel room away from my brother's nasty farts I tripped and fell and got some awesome road rash on my hand. Of course it was my right hand so trying to put on make up, and having people shake it through out the day killed me. The worst part was that I dropped my cinnamon roll when I fell..

- We never rehearsed the ceremony so any of it that didn't run smoothly is because we had no idea what we were doing.

- Other than during the ceremony itself I wore a pair of Old Navy flip flops the entire night.

- Our getaway 'car' was supposed to be a tractor for my farmer boy, but his brother cleaned it the day before and the wind broke the door. This wouldn't have been a big deal, but the morning of our wedding was rainy. Instead, we settled for the Rzr.

- I forgot to pack underwear in my overnight bag so I insisted that we run to Walmart at 11 PM on our wedding night because I needed to have clean underwear.

- For the first couple of days, maybe even weeks, I felt like I had betrayed my family or something because I didn't have the same last name as them anymore. I know that is absolutely crazy, but I am the first girl to get married so giving up Thomas was hard for me.

1st day of school and problems of an ECSE major

Well school is back in session. I haven't gone to school in nine months so I'm basically terrified of how this is going to go. This is the first semester that I will be working and married.

To be completely honest, my first day was not good at all. I slept terrible the night before so I was basically a hot mess the whole day. I started at the library at 8:30 because I already had so much work to do. I have classes from 10:15 to 2:45 which leaves no time for lunch. Bad choice on my part, but you have to do whatever it takes to get the classes you need. All of my classes started teaching the first day, and I had a paper due at 11 PM that night. What teacher assigns a paper due the first day?! Needless to say I was stressed to the max by the time I got home. Taylor ended up working later than normal which was both good and bad. It meant one less distraction, but I wouldn't have minded having someone to complain to. Either way I got the paper done and got a 92 on it so I guess I can't complain to much about it. 

One thing that added to the stress is that we're moving this weekend closer to where we work. Maybe not the best timing, but I'm so excited for the move! We already started packing so I wouldn't have to do as much this week. Now to find an internet provider that fits in our budget.

I would love to go back to taking 100 level courses rather than 300 level. I didn't know how easy I had it back then. It's going to be a hard semester, but all of the classes I'm taking are for my major. That means no more boring foundation classes. Thank goodness! I get to teach in a school for a couple hours a week and hopefully by the end of the semester I'll be certified to teach handwriting. 

Now for the problems with being an Early Childhood Special Education major. There aren't many guys who choose this major which means that your classes are filled with girls. This would be fine except girls always have to show off and think they're always right. Even worse than the girls are the guys that are in the classes. They're WEIRD! I'm fine if a nice normal guy wants to have this major, but that doesn't happen. I don't want to be mean but, they are seriously weird looking and say the dumbest things. It's going to make for a long semester. At least they keep things interesting.

Bursting at the Seams.

I would love to give you an awesome recap of our Labor Day festivities, but honestly it fell short of being special. It rained for a good part of the day so we ran errands, babysat the kids I always watch for a few hours, and bought a Sodastream. The Sodastream was a late wedding present to ourselves. It's way fun to experiment with it. It wasn't the day that I had hoped for, but I don't think that I would trade it.

The kids first day of school was Tuesday so their parents gave them all baths before we got there. Lucky for me Emily's hair was still wet when we got there, and she really wanted her hair to be curly for her first day. Then she rode her bike with curlers. She is definitely the definition of a tom boy. I can't wait to one day see Taylor snuggled up on the couch with our own kids.

Starburst candy corn > Pumpkin spice M&M's

Labor Day means that fall is very fast approaching. That means that Halloween is coming which means homemade pumpkin and ghost sugar cookies. That also means that Thanksgiving is coming, and that means that Christmas is coming. I could not be more excited. I've already started making a Halloween wreath, and I can't wait to buy some other decorations. I'm pretty sure Taylor thinks I'm absolutely crazy because of how much this all excites me, but i just can't help it. I get to have my first Christmas with Taylor. We get to decorate our first Christmas tree together. We get to decorate our own place for the holidays. The holidays are going to mean so much more this year because they are now ours. We get to start our own traditions. I'm practically bursting at the seams I couldn't be more happy.

In other news, the father of the kids that I watch found a new job so I will be watching them regularly again. Hooray! With Emily back in school and the twins doing half day kindergarten watching them should be easier than this summer. I start school in a week and a half which I am pretty happy about. I'm taking 16 credits and I'll still be watching the kids twenty hours a week so I'll be busy, but I'm happy that I will be getting back into a routine.

Lesson Learned

Work has stolen my husband for the whole weekend. He worked all day Friday, spent the night at the job, worked all day Saturday(14 hours), and is working all day today. I know it isn't a big deal, but it was our first night apart since we were married, and I went to church for the first time without him. I sat in the back so I didn't take up a pew when a whole family would need one.

There was a baby blessing and and it's a holiday weekend so the chapel was packed. Our ward already has a lot of little kids, but today there was more than normal which means it was extra loud. A couple minutes into sacrament meeting a big Chinese family came in and sat in the back. The meeting continued as normal, and I didn't really think much of them. That was until the first person went up to bear her testimony, and the next thing I knew I could hear someone consistently talking. I tried to ignore it, but it didn't stop and I was getting really aggravated because the person speaking at the pulpit was telling a really good story. I looked around to see who was talking, and when I made eye contact with him I gave him a dirty look hoping that he would get the hint to be quiet. I turned my attention back to the speaker and almost immediately it hit me that he was translating for some other family members that he was there with.

This was such an awakening moment for me. I felt terrible and I so badly wanted to take back the dirty look that I had given him. Who was I to try and stop someone else from hearing the message that was being shared? I noticed other people looking around to see who was talking and I wanted to tell them it's okay he's just sharing the message with someone else. I couldn't believe that I had made such a quick judgement and thought that he was just being inconsiderate. It is definitely not our place to judge another, and I am so grateful that I was reminded of this lesson again today.