Love and Marriage...

We were blessed this weekend with some warmer weather... mid 50s... ahhh... Not quite warm enough but after the freezing cold winter we are experiencing here in North Carolina it was heaven!  We were able to work in the front yard, work on projects, play with neighbors and rock out to awesome music :)  It was so nice.  The kind of weekend where the kids are finally in bed and you sit down and realize it's the first time you've rested all day long.  A few weeks ago I had dumpster dived and scored a nice little side table.  I planned on painting it white and using it in the guest room to hold my sewing machine.  Tres chic, no? 

:)

Anyhow, it needed to be sanded down first- it was a nasty dark wood- and I put the first eight coats of white on... I was impatient and didn't prime.  To be fair to me I didn't have primer but oh well...  So I am painting and Nolan is digging in  helping me with the front garden and we have the following conversation:

Nolan: "Mommy how do you get someone to marry you?"
Me:  "You ask someone.  Daddy asked me to marry him and I said yes."
Nolan:  "So if I wanted to marry Christina I would have to ask her."
Me: slooowly "Yes.  But the person has to say yes.  If you ask and they say no then you don't get married."
Nolan:  "What if everyone in the world gets married except me?"

Is your heart breaking?  Mine melted into a puddle right there.  I assured Nolan that he will get married one day and not to worry.  Why is my four year old concerned about these issues that are decades away?  My little man :)  Oh and just so you know Christina is Nolan's little friend from preschool.  They have had a handful of playdates and always seem to want to play doctor.  Oy vey...

Well, I am all tuckered out from our busy weekend and I want to head to bed and curl up with a good book.  HP is calling my name...

Talk to you soon.

Long Weekend

Let's discuss how awful I am coming up with the titles for my posts.  How can I make long rambles about everyday activities sound awesome?!  Apparently I cannot.  Moving on...

Because of President's Day we have had an extra day to our weekend.  YAY!  We ran our errands on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning and have hung out at home the rest of the time. Love hanging at home. :)  So, we went to Lowe's Friday afternoon- did I mention that's our second home? Seriously, we love it there! And they were clearancing out chandeliers and such from last year to make room for this years model.  Let me just tell you we lucked out because last years model is SOOO much nicer than the new junk they have.  So because we could not pass these savings up we picked some of those bad boys up.  We got a 5 arm chandy for the dining room, a 3 arm chandy for the breakfast nook and a pendant light for over the kitchen island and that cost us under $150!!  I know right?  How could we pass that up?  So, Ryan hung up the chandelier in the dining room on Saturday and hung the other two up on Sunday.  They look so beautiful!  It is amazing the difference they make.  Before we had builders grade nickel finish light fixtures.  Not the worst( hey it wasn't gold!) but it just wasn't our style.  We knew it was on the list for down the road but the clearance called to us :)  Let me tell you, Ryan struggled to get the 3 arm up in the breakfast nook.  He just hit one problem after another.  But he kept working and finally got it up.  I won't shame him by telling you how long it took him(it was hours not minutes)  but it was worth it and I'm sooo appreciative!  What better Valentine's Day present could a girl ask for but a super handy hubbie that cares about these projects as much as I do?  Well, besides a beautiful arrangement of flowers.  But don't worry he got me that too :)   It's funny because now I am motivated to get other things on our list done so they are up to snuff with the lights.  Isn't funny how it snowballs?  You update one thing and something else glares at you as if to say, why don't I look that nice... :)
The boys were thrilled because Hubbie got them some yummy sugar cookies for Valentine's Day.  I sampled three some and they were so good.  You know the kind of good where you just KNOW they are filled with sugar?  That good :)

Unfortunately, now Ryan is on his deathbed.  He still has not gotten out of bed.  I think he picked up what the boys had but in true Ryan fashion.  Translation?  He has it worse!  I am just hoping he feels better soon enough to at least get out of bed.  Well, I am going to work on some curtains for the bedroom.  Yup, the ones I finished I am still working on those bad boys :)

Talk to you soon!

Our Weekend

These past few days have been wonderful... I LOVE long weekends :)  Anytime I get to have the hubs at home with me and the boys is perfection.  This past Saturday Hubbie turned 29 so we went out to dinner with some friends at Outback.  That was sooo his choice.  Our family has a tradition that on your birthday you have a special birthday dinner. It's always at home.  The birthday boy or girl can pick the meal, sides and dessert of their choice.  Ryan picked a steak from outback :(  But he was the birthday boy so I went along with it.  I'm so sweet like that.  We also had homemade birthday cake which right now is calling to me from the cake stand in the kitchen... Juuuuliiiieeee, come eeeeaat meeee.... Haha :) It is so yummy. 

Then yesterday we had friends/old neighbors come for lunch and it was so nice to see them again and catch up.  Before we bought our house we lived in military housing and they lived right across the street.  We hung out a whole lot.  There were Friday night dinners together, working out at the Y, playdates, cornhole and more.  It was so nice to catch up and show off our house at the same time :)  My friend can sew so I was showing her the first curtain I made and she couldn't even tell I didn't sew it!!  (I used stitch witchery) It was fun showing a new pair of eyes what we wanted to do in the house- from simple painting to the more complicated moving a doorway :)  Fun times :)

Plus, this weekend we made a major breakthrough in our fabric/paint selection for the kitchen.  Makes me sooo happy (sung like an angel)!!  The scoop? Ok here it is because I am desperate to share I know how much you want to know. We painted our downstairs half bath Olympic's Misty Surf. Yes, we picked our paint for the half bath AND the dining room without picking fabric.  Let's just say YIKES! We are having a bit of an issue with that... Well, the first fabric I picked out was a brown and misty surf-y color paisley.  Which I had picked out at Joann's after walking through the fabric section, holding paint chips and muttering to myself for about an hour.  All the while Kyler was pulling bolts of fabric off the shelves.  He only looks sweet and innocent.  Anyhoo, once I got the fabric home Ryan told me it looked too dark in the space and more formal than what we were looking for.  POP!  My bubble deflated pretty quickly.  But instead of hanging it, I let the fabric sit in the window for a month bit and realized the Hubs was right.  We went to Joann's again over the weekend and picked out a gorgeous fabric for the half bath.  Don't worry I will show you when the curtain is finished.
What does this have to do with the kitchen you wonder?  Well, we decided to use the same fabric in the kitchen.  I know, I know it could be too much but I really don't think so.  The fabric is just so beautiful.  And the spaces will have different colors on the walls so they will feel different, just share the same fabric.  Am I convincing you? I will show you pictures when it is finished.  I promise :)  Because we picked the fabric we now settled on two colors for the kitchen.  A sandy beige on the main walls and a beautiful green in the breakfast nook.  Again, I will show pictures :)

Side note: Yesterday, I was in the kitchen getting lunch ready for our guests to arrive(homemade Tuscan Chicken Stew) YUMMY.  Ryan had taken Nolan to Walmart to pick up some last minute things and Kyler was at home with me.  Kyler got into the triple paste and smeared it all over his blocks, face and even in his mouth.  This kid is going to be the glue eater in his class I can just tell.  He loves that paste like consistency.  He got into the triple paste yesterday and he has also been into the spackle several times!  We had the covered spackle in the guest room on the floor with the door closed firmly.  He had houdini-ed himself into the room and opened(!!) the spackle and helped himself to a taste.  The first time he did it I thought he had spit up because it was around his mouth.  But when I tried to wipe it up it wouldn't come off with just a bib.  I needed a washcloth to scrub his face.  What a little schnitzel.  :)
Sorry if this post got a little long winded but I had a lot to share :)
Talk to you soon.

Intro

Hi Everyone! I'm Julie. I started this blog because I want a way to stay connected to the hubs when he deploys. My husband, Ryan is in the USN and has been on his shore rotation for the past three years and now is headed back to sea. He will be on staff duty come April and is set to deploy before the end of the year. Oh joy.

We have two sons, Nolan, 4, and Kyler, 1, and a dog Brodie. We just purchased our first house in Northeastern North Carolina and are trying to make it our home. You know what that means- we want to paint, furnish and update. Yup, you heard that chorus- money, money, mon-ey... monnneeeeeeeeey! Haha :)

Plus, all our relatives live far away and I hope they can feel like they are a bigger part of our lives.

I am starting the blog now because I am hoping to get into the swing of things now so by the time hubbie leaves it will be second nature to blog about what has been happening in our lives. Also, (and maybe this is wishful thinking) after Ryan is deployed maybe he can look back on the times we spent together when he misses us...

If only hubs was a sentimental pile of mush like me that might happen :)

Talk to you soon.