Looking Back

We have now been in our house officially for one year! Its crazy looking at pictures of when we bought it, to what it looks like now. I was thinking to myself...why did I like this place??? I loved it then and I love it even more now and there is still sooo much left we want to do so I'm sure in another year I will look back and be even happier with this place we have made a home... here are a few before and after pictures of the pool and the unpainted/wallpapered walls....



This is what the pool looked like when we bought the house...inviting, huh? We figured it was hopeless and we really did not want to take care of a pool so our plan was to fill it in and add to the already huge backyard. As it turns out, one of our neighbors owns a pool company and offered to help clean it up for us.

He sent 2 guys over. They drained it and acid washed it.



And this is what we have now! We also pulled out the big sawgrass bushes that were planted behind the pool to open up the yard. I have really enjoyed having a pool and am so glad we kept it!

Here is the wallpaper that was in the kitchen. Somehow it incorporates chickens, apples, watermelons, and the pink/blue-gray theme that is throughout the house.

It took 3 nights to peel all that paper off...this really does not make me look forward to doing our bedroom and both baths....

And now we have a bright happy yellow kitchen, which I love...of course we want to totally gut it and remodel but it is last on the list for remodels because it is functional and we have other uglier rooms ahead of it haha...


And a quick update on the shed...its painted and all that's left is to get doors...this is the paint color we are thinking about for the outside of the house...we decided it would be a good idea to paint the shed and see what it looked like first...

I really hope there are more house updates soon...but I am at the mercy of my husbad as to when these projects get started because he is the one who does all the work!!!

My Camera!!!

I found my old camera!! I'm so excited...I decided to organize the bookshelf, which had piles of books just haphazardly stuck on all the shelves and unpack the rest of the books that I hadn't touched since we moved in. When I started moving all the piles of books off the shelf...I found the camera that has all of the pictures of our house before we started painting or doing anything to it!!! I'm so excited and I plan on posting some before and after pictures soon. Flipping back through the pictures I'm not sure why we liked the house when we first bought it ha ha. I love it now...but it was sure UGLY!!

Salad For Dinner

We had this Saturday night and it was enjoyed even by Silas, who may not consider salad a main course for dinner. I got the recipes for the salad and for the bread from The Pioneer Woman. It was very easy and very flavorful and actually made just enough for dinner that night with no leftovers, which I like. I am one of those who does not enjoy my leftovers. The bread is very good and not healthy at all! but I figured if we had salad we could afford the bread :)



(the food looked better in person, and on pioneer womans website!! but i promise it is very tasty :))

He's Just So Cute!!

Here is Gavin, almost nine months old and so cute!! I get to watch him some days while Shama goes to work with Caleb or just needs to get stuff done and I love it!! I love being an aunt and I love this kid!!

murdock update

Apparently we have reached peacock mating season. The peacocks have become increasingly noisy around our house the last week or so and on Saturday morning Silas was up pretty early to try to finish up the shed project. He snapped some pictures while he was out there of the peacocks...apparently the Murdock we have been seeing is actually two birds...here they both are. We were trying to figure out if one was a female and one a male or if they are both males.


So either this guy is in love or he's chasing the smaller one away...

Either way, it was pretty cool to have this in our backyard. He is HUGE...about as big as the saw grass bushes...maybe we will get another chance to see him and take some pictures without the sun behind him.

Wedding Portrait

Way before I was even thinking of getting married I had an idea that has stuck with me about what I wanted to do with a wedding photo of mine. I think I saw it in a magazine and just really like it and kept it in the back of my head. After we were married and I looked through the photographs that our photographer took I fell in love with this one he took of us walking up the boardwalk. I'm not sure why I liked it so much since it didn't have our faces, but it was just a neat picture and it had the back of my dress and my veil in it, not a posed portrait. I decided that this was the picture I wanted to use for my idea. So, for christmas Santa got me a 20x30 print made!! haha...I also kinda thought that it was more artistic and that we would use it for a long time. Then I found a calligrapher who would write the date of our wedding on the mat board (there is no way I would even attempt to do it myself). I found http://http//www.calligraphybycami.com, she was great, if anyone ever needs something done, she also has a lot of cool ideas on her website. And here is the finished product!!

This is going to hang over our bed whenever we remodel our bedroom. It will go great I hope since our colors will be blue and brown, this picture is black and white but is warm tones so the mat board I chose were tan and chocolate brown and a dark brown frame which goes with our bedroom furniture. Sorry the pictures aren't better but I could not get good lighting no matter what I did, maybe I will try again later and post a different picture.

Valentine's Day...not excatly typical

Although not a typical v-day this year, it was a great one. It all started with Silas planning a hunting trip for the weekend of February 14th. Being the amazing wife I am, I did not get upset, but I did use his trip as leverage to get him to take me to the melting pot for our v-day celebration :) Who really wants to fight the crowds and go out to eat on valentines day anyway. (OK, so I'm sure he would have taken me wherever I wanted to go, but it felt like I got my way when I think about it that way...)A few days before the 14th Debra asked me what I was doing and suggested that since both of our hubbies would be MIA (hers was working), that it might be fun to invite our friend Chris to have dinner with us.

*Chris has refused to be pictured in my blog...I had to remove the picture I had of him or else he would never talk to me again* haha....I will get another one one day!!!

Chris is a friend we met several years ago. He lived across from us in our apartment complex. He befriended us three girls (Debra, Alicia and I) and pretty much got us through college, providing us home cooked meals, movies, groceries and company. He has turned out to be a great friend that all of us girls are thankful to know. So, we suggested dinner and decided to have it at my house. Of course, he insisted on cooking for us since it has been so long since he has cooked us a meal. Alicia has married and moved to Hawaii :( so her "replacement" was Shama, (Caleb is with Silas hunting). (<--He even made the plates all pretty and presentable) Chris has a tendency to cook way too much food (but we weren't complainin'!!!) It was soooo yummy. We had so much food we started callin' around to see if anyone else was lonely on v-day and needed some food...Kathy came over and joined the fun. (<---Kathy and Gavin) Chris served us steak with baked potatoes and asparagus, king crab legs, and a Thai dish...yes 3 full meals....(and salad, although i skipped that part).

<---The crab legs were my favorite part...

I made the desert, cookies and blackberry cobbler (no picture, guess it wasn't that impressive...). Chris also rented some movies, a bunch of chick flicks for us to watch. All in all it was a lot of fun and a great way to spent the day if you cant be with your man....

<---my substitute man :)

Chris even got us girls gifts! All I can say is that I hope he finds himself a worthy wife soon and whoever she is, is one lucky girl.....

Thanks Chris for the wonderful evening, even Silas said it sounded like it was almost worth stayin home for... :)

P.S. We missed you Alicia sooo much!!!