Money Pit

You are looking at our first house purchase that wasn't on clearance....not for lack of trying, of course. After over a month of using plastic storage bins as make-shift chairs, we finally broke down and bought chairs to match our beautiful hand-me-down kitchen table. The table was originally given to Jacob's dad and Diane as a wedding present. The next project is to remove the flowered wallpaper border. It never ends!

Thankful for Family!

Jacob and I cooked up our first Thanksgiving dinner together! We didn't go as far as to make a turkey, but we still did a pretty decent job. My dad came over to enjoy it with us. We headed to Sapulpa, Oklahoma on Friday to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jacob's mom, stepdad, younger sister, granny and papa Haynes and cousin Tom. It was a fun family filled weekend!

Clean up at the Clearance Center

Our first big home project was to install our new kitchen appliances. Anyone who knows Jacob, knows how obsessed his is with good deals. We needed a new refrigerator, so my dad recommended that we go to the Sears Clearance Center and look around. We not only looked around for one entire evening, but WE went even went back the next evening. Apparently, we needed to compare every feature of every fridge in the store before we could figure out which one was the best deal. After he suggested that we return for yet a THIRD night in a row, I decided it would be best if Jacob make the trip himself. So....that weekend, Sears delivered a new fridge, A NEW DOUBLE OVEN AND A NEW BED. Neither of which we necessarily needed, but "they were too good of a deal to pass up". I honestly can't complain now, because I love all three.

Backyard Fun!

Here is another picture of the back of our new house - pre-raking! We're really looking forward to next spring/summer so that we can have bbq's on the new deck! We're already planning a big Royal's opening day party on April 3rd and an even bigger Kentucky Derby party the first weekend of May. Mark your calendars now!

Raking Nightmare

Here is a picture of our new backyard! Until this weekend, we couldn't have been happier with the tree top view from our kitchen. What changed our mind? We decided to tackle raking the yard! Ugh...I forgot how hard it is! It took us less than an hour to do the front yard...which definitely gave us unreal expectations for the backyard. We only got maybe 1/3 of the way done before the sun gave up on us, and left us in the dark. Tex didn't seem to mind following us around in the yard for hours on end!

Lost and Found

We left Tex in our new backyard for the first time yesterday....and when we got home he was gone!!!! He didn't have his tags on because he wrestled out of his collar at my Dad's this weekend while playing with Cody and we couldn't find it. Anyway....long story short, the animal control centers were all closed by the time we discovered he was gone and so we printed up flyers and put them all up and down our street.

One of our neighbors had seen a flyer on the street light earlier that afternoon advertising that someone had found a dog...so we called the number on the flyer and it was him!!! Apparently, he followed two little boys home from school and so they kept him at their house and made up the flyers. Jacob and Dad had put his new doghouse right up against the fence and we think he used it to jump over. We're going to move his doghouse to the middle of the yard, but just to be safe, Tex is in the basement today. Whew... stressful evening.

Our cat, Baby, seems to be liking the new place. She hasn't tried to escape yet! :)

Home Sweet Home!

We bought our first house together!  We closed on our house in Shawnee, Kanas on Halloween 2005.  We have quite a few projects planned for the inside this winter and know it'll keep us pretty busy!  I'm sure it'll come together slowly. We start our busy season at work in January and my eight or nine weeks of out of town time also begins.  Hopefully it'll be a good home for us for years to come!

Anna & CJ's Wedding

Isn't she beautiful? My good friend, Anna, got married on 10/29, here in KC. My first wedding to be a part of since my own. What a great, non-stressful experience! She actually got engaged one day before I did, last October. It has been fun to have someone else to share the wedding planning ups and downs with. The whole weekend was a great time!

Just Mauiied!

Jacob and I got to celebrate our first week of marriage in Hawaii! We went to Maui for four days, and the Big Island of Hawaii for three.

Maui was beautiful!

We were able to squeeze in lots of fun activities between our lazy beach times. Although all vacations are always tough to return from...this one was especially gut-wrenching!

One last post with my old initials...I'm MF from now on!

You can't really tell...but I have "I DO" written on both big toes: )

First Post!

Well here it is, my first blog post, an introduction to our family. Jacob and I were married on September 24, 2005 in Kansas City. We were blessed with a beautiful day!!! We had guests from over 15 states travel to attend the big event. Due largely to our wonderful friends and family, we couldn’t have envisioned a better event to celebrate our new lives as husband and wife. I took a year's planning...but was definitely worth the work and wait!