Valentine's Day

This is our first Valentine's Day as a married couple and started a new tradition - you must make the gift.  This is probably an easier task for me then Sean so I can't wait to see what he comes up with.  After giving it some thought and coming across some awesome fabric online I came up with a great idea.  I'm going to make Sean some pajama bottoms.  I've never made any before and didn't exactly have a pattern but I went for it anyway.

First step is to get all your supplies out.  The supplies needed are as follows:

• Fabric
• Parchment paper
• Pencil
• Thread/Sewing Machine
• A pair of pajama pants you know fit your man

Lay out the parchment paper and trace the pajama pants you want to make a patern after.

Make sure you ultimately draw your pattern larger then you drew in the step above to allow for a seam.  A helper is a must, too.

Sew all the seams together, put in a hem and elastic waste band and voila, you have pajama bottoms.

Wrap them up and give them to your honey.  Look how cute he looks in them!

Sean has been bugging me to make what he calls his favorite meal - Hawaiian Chicken.  I never have made it for him but I decided to make it for Valentines.  I got the recipe from his mother so it would be just like he remembered it.  He LOVED it!  He was like a kid in a candy store.

Sean's favorite dessert is Rice Krispy Treats.  I made him a batch of those but cut them out in heart shapes.

I couldn't do all this without taking it one step further and making the card, too.  I leveraged an idea I got from Martha.  Start with your supplies.

Fold the part that will be the card in half and afix a fancy strip of paper onto it.

Cut out three matching hearts and sew them on with waxed thread.

VOILA!!!  You have a really cute card.  But you're not allowed to see what is written inside - that's just between my honey and me.

Painting the House: The Entryway

Late last year we finally took the plunge and got the rest of the inside of the house painted.  We only have one bedroom left that is still "builder's white".  I still need to finish doing some "decorating" in the different rooms but wanted to let you all see how it turned out.

I'll start with the entryway.  I thought I took before pictures of all the rooms but I can't find a before picture of the entryway so you'll have to image what it looks like in builder's white.  We also got a new front door.

So now for the big reveal.....

I couldn't get the color to look right with my camera.  It's really somewhere inbetween the lightness of the first picture and the darkness of the second one.

A Nice Surprise

So I woke up this morning and let Duke out and was a little surprised by what I saw.....

Now I don't like being cold one bit but when it looks like this and you know it will be gone soon, I LOVE IT! We hardly ever get snow in Texas.  Usually it's just an ice storm so this was a really nice surprise.  I actually had to get out and around this morning so I took some pictures because it just looked so beautiful.

I think the snow is going to hinder the progress on the new road.

I thought the snow on the trees was really pretty but driving and taking pictures didn't do this justice.

I thought the snow on the cactus plants was funny.

My cute snowman flag finally gets to actually see snow!

The cute frog pot doesn't look too impressed.

By the way, the Texas house currently has WAY more snow then the Maine House and it hasn't quit snowing yet!!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

House Plants

So my niece texted me (cuz she can't seem to pick up the phone and actually call - teenagers today - don't get me started) and asked me to email her pictures of house plants.  Apparently it's for a school project.  I LOVE house plants.  I have a really hard time going anywhere that has plants and not pick up a new one.  Since we will only live in the south half of the year I have to be careful how many plants I accumulate since I have to find someone to take care of them while we're gone.  Thanks Elizabeth for taking care of them this past summer!

Since I had to take the pictures anyway I thought I'd share my house plants with you all.  This is a vine I have propogated over and over.

This is a peace lilly I've split from a larger plant.  I'm trying to get it to grow bigger.  I think watering it more helps.

This one I inherited from my sister.  She got it from her mother-in-laws house.  When we got it, it was in VERY poor shape.  I don't think it had been watered in years - literally.

I think I may have gotten this one from my Grandmothers funeral.  It actually is blooming right now.

This one Tamara or Elizabeth game me as a piece off one of their plants.  I can't seem to get it to fill in but again I think it's due to lack of water.

Another peace lilly.

This one is technically not a house plant but since it's winter it's inside.  It's a Sago Palm - I acquired it in an unusual way - found it on the side of the road.  It's a pair but the other one didn't make it.

This one has seen better days because it was left at the house instead of making the treck to Elizabeth's house.  While she was in Maine for the wedding it was a little neglected and we've been nursing it back ever since.  It looks much better then it did.  This is actually a peace lilly and has really big flowers when it blooms.

Again, more of the vine.  It's time for it to get a hair cut.

I love this one (cardboard palm) but based on where it's placed in the house we seem to have forgotten about it so now we'll be nursing it back to health too.

More vine - btw - I've had the original vine this came from since I was in college.

Christmas cactus - I can't seem to get it to bloom but Elizabeth was able to as it was full of blooms when I got it back.

I acquired both of these at different times.  I think they look better in the same pot.

I got this one at Home Depot.  I just thought it was cool.

This one started off as a little piece from a plant Elizabeth has.  It's come a long way.

This one came in a basket from all my Texas friends when my Grandmother passed away.  It's outgrown it's basket and now resides in this new pot.  It's actually a couple of different plants together.

This one is called Mother-in-Law's tongue.  I didn't give it that name.  I've split this one several times and given parts away to other people.

I got this one in Canton.  She said it's won a ton of different awards.  I don't remember what it was called but essentially it can survive anything.

I got this one in Canton too.  It's called a rattlesnake, if I remember right.  The pot has seen better days so it's probably about time to find a new home for it.

More peace lilly.

I've had this one for a long time too but I don't remember where I got it.  If it wasn't still green I would throw it away as it's a strange one to grow - again probably a water issue.

So I hope you've enjoying checking out my plants as much as I enjoy looking at them.  They just make the house feel so cozy and lived in.

Six Month Anniversary

So it's officially been 6 months of wedded bliss!!!  Can you believe it?  As an update from the 3 month report, he still doesn't put the seat down but I've finally learned to sleep through all his squirming and early rising.  I've also started to adjust to the house work load and have actually started to really enjoy cooking dinner each night.  Sean is also starting to understand I require a lot of sleep and has started to let me sleep a little later in the mornings.

Over the last 3 months, the hardest thing we encountered was learning how to be married and work together.  It was frustrating at times as this was the busiest time of the year at work.  We were both working a lot of hours, trying to enjoy the holidays, Sean was taking classes.  It was all wearing on us.

It was actually pretty funny that Sean was the one that remembered today was our 6 month anniversary.  It didn't even dawn on me until he told me.  I tease him sometimes that he's more like the girl in that he thinks of that kind of stuff.  I don't think he appreciates my teasing!  It's all from a place of love!

Over the weekend we hung the new curtains I made.  It was quite an interesting experience as I'm a bit of a perfectionist.  I had to put them up, tweak them a bit, put them back up, etc, etc because the windows weren't square.  Sean was so sweet and positive and just helped me get through it to get them hung up.  He also acted as the manly man he is and did all the work that required the power tools.  We survived the experience!  According to Sean's friend Alicia, if we can survive hanging curtains together we're meant to be together.  That's kinda how I knew Sean was the one; I could spend 24/7 with him and didn't want to kill him!

Sean was ever so sweet and sent me a surprise for the occasion!  I'm sure glad I didn't end up going out of town for work or I would have missed out on enjoying them.  We are getting more and more adjusted to married life.  I feel like we're both starting to come into our own as individuals that are married and as a married couple.  THIS IS FUN!!!

On another note, my brother got engaged over the weekend!!!!!  Congrats Deek and Ashley; I'm so very happy for you guys!!!!!

Kitchen Curtains

So when we had the inside of the house painted last month I had the painters take down the old shades that were in the kitchen window. This quickly became my motivation to get the curtains done that I had always wanted in there. We started to feel like fish in a fishbowl.

When I was younger, I was in 4-H. I know what you're thinking but our group was called City Slickers. I didn't do anything country or that had to do with animals. Instead I did the crafty, sewing, cooking type activities. For the activities that were sewing related my Aunt Janelle helped me learn how to read a pattern and sew clothing.

Now fast forward say about 20+ years and I get an urge to sew curtains for the Texas house. Maybe it's being married and feeling domesticated or something. So I drug Sean to the fabric store to look at patterns with me (he probably wouldn't want me to tell everyone that). I ended up finding a pattern to make a Roman shade and found the most awesome fabric so I was ready to go.

First you start out with all the necessary items to make your curtains.

Even though I had a pattern, my windows were bigger then the pattern allowed so it took a lot of measuring and general math to figure out how much fabric was needed, etc. Well, on top of that I ended up picking a fabric with a pattern. Since all four windows are together the pattern had to match. All of that takes a little trickiness to make sure they all match up. Plus, there was one window that was a different size then the others. This made making the curtains harder but at the same time better because I could customize them. After sewing on the decorative piece and the front fabric to the black-out shade it was time to sew on the tube tape that makes the Roman shade work appropriately.

I pinned on all the strips at one time making sure all four curtains lined up so when they were opened they would be level.

Now it's time to get your handyman. I chose Sean for this (I could have done it myself but it makes him feel useful and manly!). Measure twice and cut once please! Speaking of...I asked him to cut the 60 yards of cording into 12 pieces. For those math whizzes out there that's 5 yards per piece (or 15 feet). I was busy tacking down some pieces and finishing up some other stuff with the curtains. I got up and headed to where he was cutting and found 5 feet strips of cording. I quickly told him to stop as those weren't even as long as the curtains. I was so afraid we weren't going to have enough cording now but we ended up measuring and making the pieces the necessary length and actually had some left over. We laughed pretty hard about this. His excuse? "You said 5 and the tape measure is in feet."

Yes people that's Sean using something other then a computer!

So the other thing I found out about my windows is they aren't square. I had to staple and restaple the fabric to the piece of wood so many times before I was finally pleased with how they were hanging (yes a little OCD there).

So the long awaited reveal!!! Here's what they look like all the way down.....

and in their up position.....

I really enjoyed sewing these and I'm already planning my next project. This is one of my goals for this year; to do more things I enjoy doing!

The Avatar Bandwagon

One of the things that comes with being married to Sean is his fascination with Science Fiction movies. I'm sure you've heard of the type - has the entire collection of Star Wars and Matrix. He's tried to get me to have a marathon watch party with them but I've escaped it so far.

I wasn't able to escape getting drug to see Avatar. All I had seen on the commercials was blue people and I couldn't figure out why he thought I would want to see it. I decided it was probably time I went to see a movie he wanted to since he always goes to see ones I want to.

Since we were going, I decided we should go big so we went to the IMAX 3-D version. First of all 3-D has come a long way. The movie literally looked like it was happening on your lap! At times during the movie there were fireflies and embers floating around and you were tempted to swat them away.

Although the movie was 3 hours it really didn't seem like that long. It was action packed and had a good story. I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone. If you're waiting for it to come out on DVD - DON'T!!! I would also recommend going the extra mile and at least see it in 3-D. I think I've now become obsessed with 3-D and can't wait for all the new 3-D movies to come out.

Here's Sean with his sexy 3-D glasses on.

Our self portrait - man we are lookin' good!