Couch Potato

I don't know when it happened but Crosby has claimed the couch. She used to be nervous about jumping up on things and we really had to encourage her to get on the bed or couch. I know, I know, who encourages there dog to get on the couch....we're wrapped around her dewclaw ok??

I sit on the floor a lot of the time and when I turn around she has typically made herself at home on the couch. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of our little diva.

And my favorite.

I wish everybody a Thanksgiving as restful as Crosby's will be!

Thirty Years of Love!

Today marks my Mom and Dad's 30th Anniversary! Thirty Years! I can't even wrap my head around 30 years because I haven't been alive that long. So, I looked up a few things that were also turning 30 this year to help give me a little perspective :)

1. The Chicken McNugget: Those gross little processed bites are also 30. Congrats McNugget!
2. The Moonwalk: People have been gliding backwards for 30 years!
3. Plinko: Who doesn't love Plinko! You go Plinko, 30 years!
4. The American Mini Van: I've heard that once you get one it's hard to go back!
5. Mario Brothers: What?? Mario and Luigi turn 30 this year too?
6. Hooters: 30 years of delicious food.  They go there for the food ladies, don't worry.
7. AOL: Not really sure what that is anymore
8. The Disney Channel: Yep, our childhood was founded 30 years ago!
9. The Reading Rainbow: Take a Look--It's in a book!
10. Microsoft Word: That little paperclip with eyeballs turns 30, Congratulations paperclip!

Add the marriage of Todd and Suzanne to that list and you have a complete list there.

I think it is such an incredible achievement but also such a testament to their love for each other and their their devotion to our family. My parents are a huge example of what I want in a marriage and I think they are the reason I was so picky when deciding who to date. Derrick is the only guy I ever seriously dated and one of the reasons is he was the only one I could see having a marriage like my parent's with. Growing up it was not uncommon for me to walk into the kitchen and see them kissing, or for them to be cuddled up on the same chair during a family movie night. Mom and Dad never fail to speak positively about each other and they have always made sure we know how much they love each other. They have paved the path that I think all three of us kids want for our own marriages.

Congratulations and Thank You Mom and Dad! Here's to 30 more!

Thanksgiving Prep

We are hosting Thanksgiving! Nothing like 14 people coming to your new house to motivate you to get some projects done! I'm not necessarily known for my chef skills either. Remember my french dips? Luckily my Mom has given me some good ideas for food and Derricks mom and grandma are coming all day Wednesday to help prepare. Should be fun!

Since I'm not good at the cooking part I want to make sure everything else looks good! I am planning a super simple and fun table setting and made some fun candle holders to mix with flowers on the table. Just a couple vases, painters tape, and gold spray paint!

 

Super easy and inexpensive. I used the gold paint I had left over from my desk makeover and the vases are $0.99 at Michaels.

I also hung some key hooks in the laundry room and I am obsessed with them! Mom and I went to Wilmington this weekend to watch Jack in a tournament and went to an antique store during one of his byes. I came home with three dragonfly hooks and they are in our laundry room for keys right now. I LOVE them!

They were super hard to photograph...the light was all weird so this is the best you're going to get.

 

 Slowly but surely! Thanksgiving is happening here whether we're ready or not!

Stripedy Stripe Stripe

Derrick and I painted a stripe this weekend and I now have a respect for all stripes! It was HARD and at one point I was questioning if it was worth it or even possible. But....two yard sticks, two levels, one measuring tape, a two-timed sharpened pencil, and two roles of painters tape later.....we have seen the light!!

Here's the before as seen on moving day. It pretty much looks exactly like this now except the TV is bigger. The mess is all still there :)  This room is upstairs and is lofted over our foyer. The walls are one of the four shades of brown you will currently find in the house and unfortunately we can never paint this room unless we want to paint the entire foyer as well. It's OK though cause I don't hate the color....I just wanted a little pizzazz. Hence the stripe idea.

I figured if we started the stripe at the bedroom door and carried it around to the corner where the loft starts it would look intentional and like a natural starting and ending point for the stripe. I had a heck of a time choosing a color. I brought home two samples and tested those. Then when I got to Lowes I second guessed myself and randomly picked a color I'd heard was popular. It's a navy blue that they color matched online. Derrick was able to go all over the store and get everything else we needed before the paint was even mixed and when they gave it to me it was grey. I told them it wasn't right and they told me it was and moved on to the next customer. So I left the paint there and went to Sherwin Williams who got it right on the first try. Then I got home and decided to go back to my original color choice so I had to go back to Sherwin Williams and he said "I must have made a mistake" when I told him I'd changed my mind and gave me my new quart plus let me keep the old quart for free. And I will never go anywhere but Sherwin Williams for paint now. Customer service people!! It pays!!

Then the measuring began and we marked everything with a pencil. You can see where we adjusted lines and we even had to make the line thicker because we totally screwed up one measurement and I couldn't get the pencil off. 

Good thing I guessed right when I was deciding where to paint the samples!

Tape tape tape!! Two people helped a lot here because we did one long continuous piece of tape across each wall so I placed the tape and Derrick held the role and pulled it out as we went. Once we got the first stripe done we just measured up from there for the next two stripes. We used green frog tape for the areas that would have paint on either side of them because we wanted the spacing to be consistent and the blue tape was just slightly thinner then the green tape. And it helped us know what was what. Here's the first two stripes taped off.

And all the stripes taped off. You can see it's getting darker outside. We started this around 1:00 and finished everything about 9:00. It was a long day but I'm gad we didn't drag it out any longer. Power through!

Painting time!

We did 3-4 coats (one wall took an extra coat....weirdo) and then pulled back the tape. That was the best feeling in the world because I just knew it was going to look awful and we were going to have a huge disaster on our hand. Instead....we felt like Picasso!!

It's a masterpiece!

I still have some other things I want to do in this room but I am SO happy with how the stripe turned out. I think it makes a huge statement

Ellie Time

Derrick and I got to watch our niece Ellie for the first time last week and we took full advantage of everything you can do with a 4 month old.

We rolled on the ground.

Changed into Wolfpack gear.

 Practiced walking.

Did a little bouncing around.

 
Watched some TV.

Chewed on our hands.

Practiced our serious faces.

And then we all had a nice long scream and collapsed in exhaustion.

First Halloween in the new House!

Halloween was awesome this year! We bought a car from a pirate, got tons of trick-or-treaters and had pretty empty gym for some climbing. This was our first year with trick-or-treaters and we did not want to be known as the house with bad or not enough candy so we bought $50 worth of candy and were ready at 5:30 for some kids. 

Crosby dressed up in her usual Halloween Costume.

 

We decided to sit out on the porch because we were expecting a lot of kids and the doorbell would have driven Crosby crazy. We were sitting out there at 5:30 and started getting nervous that our neighborhood wasn't a big trick-or-treating neighborhood because we didn't get any activity until about 6:30 but once it started it was non-stop!

I think the most popular costumes this year were ninjas, pirates, and Elsa. We also had a very pissed off ninja turtle who kicked our bushes when I didn't know which turtle he was. And my favorite over-enthusiastic Elsa who wiped out two driveways in a row because she was so excited. 

At 8:30 we finally set a bucket of candy out on the front steps and left to go climbing in an almost empty gym. It was a fun day. Next year we're going to follow our friends Kevin and Meredith's lead and take a tally of the costumes that come by.

Crosby will be waiting patiently for next year!

State Fair

Somehow we managed to squeeze the state fair into our busy October schedule and I'm so glad we did. I always love going to fair. This year we went with our friends Dan and Lauren. Derrick used to work with Dan and they both played in our soccer league last season. My phone died almost immediately but Lauren managed to take some awesome pictures which she sent to me.

I do this every year and I'm getting better! It's this super unstable ladder and the goal is to get to the top without falling off or flipping over. This year I got my hands on the very top rung but I wasn't able to grab the bar at the top. Next year is my year!

I love this picture. I'm so glad Lauren snapped it for us. I am such a wimp and I'm pretty sure this was about the moment I told Derrick I wanted to get off. It's just those high swings that circle around for about 60 seconds but I was so scared the whole time. At least Derrick won me a reindeer to hang onto for the whole ride :)

Lauren and I with our loot. Lauren won her owl...or is it a penguin? at one of those water gun games where you aim at the target and race to the finish line. Derrick won me the reindeer at this addicting 50 cent bingo game where you throw balls into a bingo card and try to land 4 in a row. The prizes there are totally random and weird but Derrick spotted this reindeer and knew I'd love him. He's been added to our Christmas decoration stash :)

Until next year state fair!

New Wheels

Derrick's got some new wheels and he's looking pretty fly. I realized I never really posted anything about his accident. It was pretty traumatic for both of us and we're still dealing with insurance and attorneys so it's not resolved yet. At the end of August I got a phone call from Derrick while I was showing houses. He doesn't typically call me during the day unless he needs something specific so I answered. He told me he'd been in an accident, was at the hospital, couldn't remember anything, and was going back for a CT scan and then a nurse got on the phone. It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. Luckily I was with two clients in the medical profession who told me to stay calm and drive slow on my way to the hospital.  

Derrick had been hit by a large truck on his way to work. The truck ran a red light and struck the driver side of his two door '98 civic. Long story short, it's two months later and we're both still feeling grateful he lived to tell the tale.  

Derrick got this '98 civic when he was 16 and it was on it's way out of commission. Mechanically, this car was awesome! We were never in the shop and it only had about 135,000 miles on it which is young in the life of a civic. Cosmetically though it needed a paint job, it didn't have the pep that it used to, the windows didn't roll up all the way, and the AC/heat took quite a while to kick in. Derrick isn't a car guy so these things really didn't bother him and it was just used for going to work and back again.

After the accident we were forced into the car market though and I wanted Derrick to get something he was excited about. We got the Rogue about two years ago and that was my car. He always said when his car conked out he would take the rogue and I'd get the new one but I really wanted him to have something new...he really deserves it. My parents loaned us their spare car for the last 6 weeks while we settled with the property side of the insurance and did some research and last Thursday we went out for some test drives! The timing was actually perfect because dealers are looking to clean out their 2014 inventory and it was also at the very end of the month. We wanted to take advantage of the last day of the month deals so we came back the following day and made the purchase! 

 

Waiting for the paperwork

Derrick is the proud new owner of an Elantra GT. If you need to go car shopping I would totally suggest going on Halloween. It was hilarious. Everybody was dressed up. Our guy was a pirate, our lender was a baseball player, and the manager was iron man. This was the first new car purchase from a dealer for either of us. We're both happy with how it went and I'm pretty sure Derrick is fond of his new wheels. I'm fond of the heated seats :)