O Christmas Tree

As soon as we got back in town yesterday and unloaded the stuffed car, I jumped immediately on unpacking all the Christmas decorations we had bought over the past week. And, finally finished the tree! :) (Ignore the ugly white blinds in the background please - I need to get some curtains to get rid of those!)







While we were in Fayetteville last week, my wonderful mother gave us a set of German Christmas ornaments for brides. (Thank you, Mom!!!) I Googled what each of the 12 stand for...

According to the old German tradition, the tree of a newlywed couple should include these twelve ornaments
to insure blessing and happiness for their life together........

An Angel - God's Guidance in the Home
A Rose - Beauty and Affection
A Rabbit - Hope and Faith
A Teapot - Hospitality
A Pine Cone - Motherhood and Fruitfulness
A Santa - Unselfishness and Goodwill
A House - Shelter and Protection
A Fruit Basket - Generosity
A Bird - Happiness and Joy
A Flower Basket - Good Wishes
A Heart - True Love
A Fish - Christ's Blessing

And here are some photos of the beautiful pieces...











Happy Monday!

Thanksgiving Break in Pictures

Our break has been a BLUR - it's hard to believe we'll be back to work/school in less than 48 hours!

We left Saturday for Fayetteville to see my family for a few days...


Our dog, Drake


We got to go see the lights on the square with Emily, Drew, Anna-Marie, and Michael




And then us girls had an ornament-making party (Robyn was there earlier in the night, too!)



I actually got Eric to go antique shopping again while we stopped in Prairie Grove!




And then Wednesday we hit the road to Memphis!


Thanksgiving lunch was delicious!




And Friday we hit the bargains at the mall (after sleeping in of course - we can't do the 5am stuff! :) I managed to survive my first Black Friday experience, and actually got a lot of my presents taken care of! - I'm usually pretty last-minute :)

Hope your break was great!!

One Year Ago Today...

On this day in 2008, Eric very sweetly proposed! :) I thought I would mark the anniversary/occasion with the story...

November 21, 2008

Eric took me out and surprised me with a fancy dinner at James at the Mill, just north of Fayetteville. For the drive, he had compiled a nice CD of jazz music since he knows I like to listen to jazz on XM radio during the evenings when we're out driving around.

After dinner we drove around town waiting on Eric's "surprise" to be set up with the help of his friends Collin and Brett (thanks again guys!!!!!). Eric then drove us around to Wilson Park where I could see several candles almost lighting one of the back fields on fire! We circled around to the back of the park and he slowed the car down and told me to look out the window. Candles filled the center of the field, spelling out "Marry Me?". We got out of the car, he took my hand, and told me that there were 120 tea candles in white bags spelling that out. Then, he got down on one knee, told me how much I mean to him, and proposed. It was the sweetest thing ever!

I love you Eric!

Christmas Canvas Giveaway

Check out my art blog, Flair Artwork, to read about the giveaway I have going on right now! :)

I feel like we live at a zoo...

I have to say, our apartment complex has quite the variety of wildlife, and we experienced a new type this morning...

We encounter a group of 4 deer on a regular basis...




We lived with ladybugs all over the place for a few weeks in October (this was our outside storage unit - we'd get a few stranded ladybugs that would make it into our apartment). Surprisingly, this is only about a 1/4 of the total number of ladybugs we dealt with...



Of course you know about the mouse. And then there was a stint for a few days that we found one dead and one alive wasp in our bedroom.

And, today, get this...TURKEYS! Eric has seen them before, but this was the first time I'd ever seen them!



I kid you not, there were 4 HUGE black turkeys outside this morning.

What's next? Pandas or polar bears? :)

Don't get me wrong though, we live at an awesome complex and couldn't be happier with our current living situation. It's just we've seen some crazy creatures lately!

Groceries, Christmas Trees, and Thanksgiving!

It's become our Friday night ritual to go grocery shopping now apparently. I guess that's what happens when you get married. :)

So, Friday we went down the street to our new neighborhood HyVee that just opened last week. I had to take this photo just for my sister - this summer when my family was helping us move, we were driving around town and saw another HyVee store. Since this isn't an Arkansas grocery store, it was new to us and my sister yelled out "it looks like that sign says "WeeWee!". Granted, it's a little bit of a stretch, but from a distance it did kind of look like "weewee". Needless to say, the whole car busted out laughing and my mom probably laughed for 20 minutes straight (I'm cracking up just thinking about it now).

Kim, this is for you:



Unfortunately, our HyVee experience was slightly disappointing due to the fact that we're a newlywed couple on a tight budget. The store was very nice, but after pointing out several items that costed dollars more than it does at Wal-Mart, I don't think this will be our usual Friday night date location. It was a fun experience though!

Our next "adventure" for the weekend was scouting out Christmas decorations. After paroosing around Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart, and Michael's, we made a few purchases. The first being our first Christmas tree! Wal-Mart had some really great deals (we got 48 ornaments for $10 and wrapping paper there is as low as $1!) so we snatched up our new tree.



We had some difficulty finding the "perfect" angel tree topper, but Michael's had the one we just fell in love with!



Here's the tree in progress. We'll be making some outings this week to get lights, garland, and more ornaments, so I'll keep you updated!



And, the countdown has begun for our "thanksgiving break!" - 5 days and counting. Since Eric is out of school all next week, I was able to ask off with some unpaid vacay days so we can travel to Fayetteville and Memphis! We can't wait!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! I'm sure counting down the hours until the weekend! :)

So, to update from the last post, we caught the mouse! (Thank goodness!!!) Maintenance stopped by our apartment and put down the "old school" mouse traps in our kitchen, and sure enough by the time we got home after school/work, the big fat black mouse was caught and dead. (I wouldn't even look at the thing - thank you Eric for being brave enough to dispose of it!) Hopefully that will NEVER happen again.

We got to make a quick trip to Fayetteville last weekend to see the Hogs, Anna Marie and Michael's new house!, and have a little "dog date" with Chloe, Summer, and little Linus! Linus is Emily's new ADORABLE puppy - we were so excited to meet him! I think Eric walked out of there pretty sad that our apartment doesn't allow pets, because I know he'd get one in a heartbeat!





Summer


Chloe


Drew and Linus


Anna Marie and Linus


Linus - I actually caught this photo before he ran all over the place again!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Halloween Weekend

So we had a somewhat uneventful Halloween weekend filled with multiple trips to Wal-Mart, studying, and painting. We did get a nice date-night dinner in there though at Ruby Tuesday's which was delicious!

Eric volunteered for the "Tiger Night for Fun" sponsored by Children's Hospital on Saturday, and he and his MHA friend Clayton dressed up as Power Rangers...
Unfortunately Eric won't let me share the pictures of him in the child-sized red Power Ranger costume... ;)





And then we woke up this morning to... a mouse. Of course, it's a Monday, too.

I walked into the bathroom this morning and a minute later, I see a black blur zip into the room. I jumped, let out a blood-curdling scream, and ran to the office to stand on the futon, and Eric leaped out of bed thinking I was dying. Needless to say, I spent the next 45 minutes locked in the bathroom sitting in the sink getting ready for work while Eric, the brave mouse hunter, searched up and down the entire apartment. Unfortunately, the mouse hid pretty well, so he hasn't been found. Hopefully maintenance will have trapped the guy by the time we get home in a few hours.

(In case you couldn't tell, I HATE mice, hate them. As well as fish, snakes, frogs, and other creatures of the like, too :) Luckily though, I have an AWESOME, Eagle Scout, dragon slaying, prince charming, (you get the point), husband who isn't afraid of those things! - THANK YOU ERIC!)

More to come later this week!