Christmas & Housewarming Party!

Dan and I had a Christmas/Housewarming party for our families on Saturday and it was a blast! I was so stinkin’ excited to have people over to our house and to make treats and everything! So almost everyone was able to come (except Dan’s sister and her family, my sister, and Dan’s brother and fam in Idah0). We had about 19 people there so it was a pretty good turn out!

My digital invitation. Made it in photoshop by copying one I found online for a different party last year. I just covered up their words with my own! Saweeet.

Dan of course checking out the game scores before everyone came over. He is so great to help me so much and I have OCD and he totally puts up with it and doesn’t even act like I’m crazy (which I kind of am). He just does things and makes me laugh along the way!

The house before people came over. We had some extra chairs Dan had gotten from work for a good deal and he also got a cute little kid table (under the bay window) which worked out great for the grandkids!

I love to bake and I had to restrain myself or I would have made a lot more! I made yummy 7 layer dip, chocolate chip cookies, Christmas tree cookies, buckeyes and Fresca/Limeade. The Christmas cookies were an idea from Thrifty Decor Chick,

and the Buckeyes were from Beneath My Heart.

I love the awesome blogs I read and their great ideas!

I made the super cute JOY candlesticks which I saw on Shanty2Chic!

Jon, Joe, Julie and Wellyn in the family room and cutie pie Wellyn just chillin’ on the couch.

The cute girlies enjoying their cookies. I think Sarah ate about twice her body weight in cookies. No joke.

Wellyn loves to sit and watch the picture slideshow on the laptop! He’s so funny when he recognizes someone or something.

The girls playing with Dan and my parents enjoying the food!

Grandpa and Ryan (above) and Dave and Amanda (below).

Joe, Debbie and Grandpa Goates.

Jon and Mike.

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree!

So I have finished getting most of our Christmas decorations up and I’m LOVING it! I absolutely love our home and it just feels so cozy and we love being there. I get so sad when it’s time for bed and I know I won’t be able to be home again until the next night! I have been crazily working on crafts and decorating so I just feel like I don’t have enough time! I wish I didn’t have to work and I could just enjoy my house and decorate it and have enough money to buy all the things I want for it!!! Ahahahahhhaaaaa! We can all dream right?

So here are some pictures of the holiday decor I have been putting up around the house! I still have a few projects in the works but for the most part it’s done and we can enjoy it!

I saw this on another blog but I hung glittery NOEL ornaments on our lamps on our end tables. The wreath on the right I made! That’s right, I made it myself! I am so proud and I just got a cheap garlandy wreath on Black Friday for $2 and a bunch of poinsettas, berries, pinecones and other stuff and I stuck it all in and it looks great! It’s hanging on our door to the backyard.

Here is our family room with the tree and entertainment center and my pretty nativity that I got last year! The red wall looks a lot brighter than it actually is. I like it with the Christmas stuff, but it’s really not that bright red I promise! And I have a sweet picture I got on sale that matches all the colors really well. I forgot to take a pic :).

The tree is on a box and I covered the box with burlap, sparkly red and gold fabric and a garland (to hide the stem).

The Christmas tree has been a work in progress. It is just a cheap little guy we got last year, but I think I was able to dress it up. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find about half of my ornaments after we moved! It drove me nuts, but I ended up doing some other things that I liked better. Then I found the ornaments at my parents house and added some of them and now it looks perfect! I love the classic red and gold. I want to get more trees and do different themes in the future!

With and without the flash on :)

My willow tree nativity from my mom last year!

These are some more crafts I’ve done. The JOY is just hanging on our front door for now but I made it out of pizza boxes mod podged in Christmas paper! Pretty cute and basically free!

These ornament wreaths are all over the crafty blogs I read and I made them and LOVE them! You just have to get a lot of shatterproof ornaments (hobby lobby, dollar stores, walmart) and hot glue the tops of the ornaments on. Then string them around a coat hanger! Read Eddie Ross’s tutorial for more info. These are hanging on our french doors to the living room.

Here is our staircase in the entry way. The paint looks awesome by the way! We have a darker wall on the left entry way and one wall upstairs and one wall in the family room. It’s hard to explain but I love it and love Brighton for helping me do it! I had to hang some mistletoe from the staircase and I think it’s so cute! I have garland with gold ribbon and red bows on the staircase.

And finally my cutie cute cute nieces on Sunday for Sunday dinner. They just love to cuddle with me and talk to me and I can’t get enough of it! I hope I love my own kids as much as I love these sweethearts! They make my day every time I see them!

Happenings

Well I finally got some pictures from the past few weeks. We've just been getting the house ready to move into and we got moved in and now we're finishing unpacking, then the fun can begin! I will start decorating! Woo hoo! Mike was at the top of a super tall ladder painting the tip top of our super tall walls in the entry way!

Everyone helped out and we got the entire main floor and upstairs hallway painted!

Me cleaning the laundry room and the spanking clean microwave! It was pretty sick before.

Dan cleaning out the garage! We LOVE our garage!

After another long night getting the house ready.

Painting is my nemesis! I suck at getting edges and I'm so impatient! I have started going around all my edges and corners where different colors touch with a really tiny brush to try to make them look good! It's a never ending battle!

Here are the mouse pictures I promised....brace yourself haha. We found out we have a mouse problem but I think we've figured it out! We caught about 8 or so mice in just a few days! The first one dan killed while we were cleaning the house and the rest have been caught in the good old fashioned traps. Dan sealed up a bunch of holes outside the house and under cabinets and behind the stove. We think that's where they were coming from and we haven't had any for the past few days so cross your fingers!

Yucka. I just had to take a pic and post it! :) On a totally different note, I made my first official craft. I've become completely obsessed with all these great thrifty and crafty blogs! There are so many cool ideas and I can't wait to start working on things! Before we moved, I started small and I just made this! I think it's really cute and I have a few other ideas for something similar for Christmas. It's just a fleur de lis cut out (really carefully) on scrapbook paper, modge podged to a painted canvas and hung with a ribbon! Cuties!

Dan finally cut his hair! It was really out of control and even though I absolutely loved his curls, he was way overdue for a trim! So his mom chopped it all up and cleaned him up beautifully. He now looks like the man I married, what a hunk. See the pic of Dan and the mouse above for the after shots.

Painting, painting, and more painting....

Isn't he cute? Hahahahahaha I love that afro.

Thankfulness & Tragedy

Well this another post without pics (sorry). But we got all moved in and somewhat settled thanks to our GREAT family! They are awesome and helped get us moved quickly. Now we just have unpacking to do! But so far we love our house except for the mice...more to come on that later. Hopefully we got it figured out but we'll see! Eeek!

The tragedy that has struck is that my little ford focus has reached the end of its life. This is tragic for many reasons. Most of all because we have to buy a new car (unless someone has one to donate?? :) We just bought a house, and this is extremely unfortunate timing for us, but oh well....you just gotta roll with the punches. And there are a lot of blessings to come from this difficulty. Dan just got a new job with Backyards Inc. so no more 5 buck pizza yay! I love him for working pizza when he hated it, but I'm so glad he found something better and now he will work more and get paid more so that is a great blessing!

My awesome parents are letting us borrow their trusty old accord (that I drove in high school) for now and I love them for that. We wouldn't know what to do if we didn't have that car right now! So for now we're still debating our options and reviewing our finances (not a whole lot to review but ya know...). We knew this would happen soon enough, so I'm sure things will work out and everything will be fine. We are grateful for the support of our friends and family and I'm especially grateful for our wonderful families right now. They have done so much to help and I love having them close and being able to see family all the time. It's a great blessing and I'm so grateful for them!

The best part about dealing with something like this is that I don't have to do it alone. I've thought that many times over the time that Dan and I have been together and I am so thankful for him in my life. It's such a great feeling to know that he is by my side and we're in this together. I love him and I have so many things to be thankful for in my life right now!

We're moving!

So things are super duper busy right now! Our apartment looks like a tornado blew through. It is a disaster because we have been so busy getting the house ready to move in to! On top of everything, I have been battling a yucky cold! I'm finally better (1 week later), but luckily it wasn't the swine flu! Friday Dan and Mike worked on prepping the house for paint, then they painted all the ceilings. I came over later Friday and helped sand. I basically had to sand every single wall that we were going to paint because the old owners had used some crappy paint and there were bumps everywhere! It was nuts.

Saturday we got up bright and early and Dan's great family came over and helped us paint ALL DAY LONG! I didn't realize what a huge task that was, but we got so much done with their help! I had chosen 4 different colors so that definitely made things harder, but everyone was a trooper and helped a ton. We have really super tall ceilings in the entry way and stairs so Mike was balancing precariously on a ladder trying to paint! I have pictures, but I haven't had time to upload them yet.

We worked all day and all evening Saturday and were able to get all the walls painted. Dan and I went to our new ward Sunday and we're really excited about it! I think it's going to be GREAT! This week Dan and I have been going to the house every night to finish painting trim, doors, and CLEAN! We're getting the carpets cleaned today and our our fridge and new furniture delivered on Friday! Then Saturday is the big moving day! Woo hoo!

Story: So while Dan and Mike were at the house Friday, they saw 2 mice! Or maybe the same one twice! So we got mouse traps, but so far we've seen nothing. Then last night I was vacuuming the stairs and I saw something our of the corner of my eye move at the top of the stairs! I looked around the stairs and the mouse was running up the stairs! AHHH! I screamed and Dan came running with a painting bar in his hand! He cornered the mouse in the linen closet, but then it ran into a bedroom. Since there is no furniture or anywhere to hide, Dan was able to corner it and then as it tried to run by him, he used the bar to let loose his best golf swing and I saw the mouse go flying! I screamed again and ran into the next bedroom while still screaming and jumping around and letting loose a few choice words. (I don't know why I act like such a girl!) Dan quickly covered the mouse with the sticky mouse trap and that was the end of that! Very entertaining, but I'm just praying it was a one time thing and that we don't have a mouse problem! I'll post the triumphant pictures later.

We still have a lot of work to do to get the house ready but some things will just take time and they will come as we move! Thanks to everyone who helped paint the house-you guys are amazing and we really appreciate you all jumping to come help us out! We couldn't have done it without you!