If You Have To Move...

...it's nice to have a weekend like we did! Moving is never fun. Packing boxes and then moving them, scouring up help to move the big furniture, borrowing a truck/trailer to put the stuff in (thank goodness for our dads and friend, Butch!), and finding places for the boxes in the new place so you can "live around them" is just frustrating. But, it's all not so bad when the weekend is as beautiful as it was for us!

It was in the mid 60's and sunny both Saturday and Sunday! We did a bit of moving on Friday too, when it was off and on rainy and in the 70's. Still not bad but not quite as nice and Saturday and Sunday when we did a good chunk of the stuff!

We are so excited that we are finally in our much larger two bedroom!! I LOVE it. It may only be about 210 extra square feet but it's huge to us! It feels so much more roomy and we have a hallway!! We've never really had a hallway in any of our places so far. It may seem trivial, but it's big enough we have a hallway! I think another reason it seems larger is because in addition to the extra space, we have less furniture stuff in our living area. Since we have a second bedroom the bookshelves are all in there and we got rid of a bookshelf that was falling apart.

We can't wait to continue unpacking and make this place our cozy new home. It's already pretty cozy, I just know it will get even better when it's decorated, all the boxes are gone, and we've bought the few things we need that weren't needed in our old place! I'm so glad we stayed in our same community though because we've absolutely loved living there for the past year. It was a great bonus when we were looking to upgrade that they had a two bedroom that was very much so within our price range!

It is definitely a relief though that the move is over with. We were both pretty stressed about it, but it went fairly smooth! A big HUGE shout out to our family and the few friends that helped us. Without them it would have been much, much more stressful!

Cindy

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

The Super Bowl was on Sunday. I am not a football fan. I don't watch games unless I'm at my in-laws house and my father-in-law has a game on. I really don't know too much about the game except for the answers I get from the questions I ask during a game. I do enjoy watching the Super Bowl though, mainly for the fellowship and excitement. And of course the commercials!

This year, Collin and I went to a party at his parent's house and had a good evening! The food was delicious and the game was so good! Plus, it was our local team (Ravens) playing and then they WON. That was super exciting! And we got to see some pretty funny commercials. The only disappointing part of the evening was that some of the other people were talking during some of the commercials and that bothered Collin and I. But other than that we had a really good time!

I made a peanut butter brownie trifle and the very first peanut butter cup I pulled out had TEN wrappers around it. I said to Collin, "Whoa, this one has lots of wrappers, I'm going to count." Then I started counting and when I got to five and kept going Collin just kept laughing!

Delicious food on my plate. Pulled pork sandwich, my buffalo chicken dip with crackers, dirty rice, orange peppers and mushrooms.

The trifle in all its delicious glory!

I didn't make this but it was an awesome cupcake arrangement that a friend made!

Cindy

Life, Lately!

It's been a fun and busy past few days! We got more snow on Friday afternoon/evening which (along with my cold) kept us home, I had a lovely girl's day with some ladies Saturday, Sunday we had church, lunch with some friends, and some errand running. Then yesterday it was back to work and then play practice last night at 8pm. Whew! And the busy-ness isn't going to end until this weekend (or maybe after!) I don't necessarily mind being busy, but keep me going too long and I get annoyed and just want to be home!

The pretty snow on my lunch break last Thursday once the sun came out and it had stopped snowing.


The pretty sky on my way back in to work after lunch on Thursday.

Do they look mischievous? It's because they were. Collin put Seabass in the snow to freak him out, instead he runs around trying to climb trees and hiding in bushes. Needless to say, I freaked out a little!

After his excursion in the snow, he decided to make it up to me by snuggling in my lap for a long while that evening.

A pretty sunrise on Friday morning before the weather got bad again.

I'd been wearing my puffy down coat all last week because it keeps me warm. However, sometimes the feathers escape!

The snow on my windshield as I left work on Friday afternoon. It had only been snowing for about an hour and there was already significant accumulation and the roads were slippery!

Even though it was snowing outside I made myself a hot fudge sundae!

While watching Back to the Future Seabass slept on me.

I love when Collin tries to figure out songs. He is so great at hearing something and being able to play it. I love his musicality.

The frost on my car windows Sunday morning as we left for church.

Somebody hit my car door with their car door it looks like... I have no idea who it was and there's a little bit of scratching at the top mark. =/ My poor car was already dirty enough from the snow/salt. Now it's damaged. =(

I don't like the cold weather, but I sure do like that I can wear cute hats!

So that's a little bit of what's been going on lately! Today is so nice and warm! It's almost 60° and tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid 60's! Which is perfect because I can wear a dress AND... Tomorrow is my birthday!! I'm really excited! There's not really anything too big planned, we're just going to Cracker Barrel for dinner tomorrow evening with family. But I love that place and can't wait to enjoy a delicious meal! This birthday isn't anything too terribly monumental, I'm turning 27, but I still love celebrating. I love celebrating life! Plus, it gives me an excuse to spend time with family and get a good meal. =)

Cindy

Christmas Weekend!

Hello, my friends! What a truly wonderful Christmas "break" we had. I am so, so glad that I was able to have five full days off to enjoy the holiday. I think it really put me in the mood to celebrate and it allowed me to be completely prepared. What a blessing!

Friday I spent some time with my good friend Kaitlin, catching up and eating delicious scones. It also consisted of "date night" with Collin. We cooked dinner in (so good!) and then went and got frozen yogurt because we have a gift card!

Seabass actually climbed into my lap to snuggle. I think as he's getting older he's calming down and wanting to snuggle more and more.

Chicken marinated in Italian dressing, oven-cooked asparagus, and honey butter rolls.

Frozen yogurt topped with chocolate covered raisins.
Saturday I went to an open house for Kaitlin's ministry job. She works for EdgeCorps at Penn State mentoring and leading college students to Christ. Fantastic work that girl is doing. After that I went to Kohl's and helped my dad finish up his Christmas shopping. After running errands, that evening Collin and I stayed home, watched some Seinfeld and played video games.

My babies sleeping so peacefully Saturday morning while I read on the couch.

I finished this book before leaving for the open house. I'm gonna review it soon on here!


The sky was so pretty all day on Saturday! We deserved a nice sky though after the massive rain we had on Thursday evening/Friday.
Sunday was a great church service and afterwards Collin and I had lunch and then ran some more errands. After hitting the "chain stores" we decided to check out one of the local thrift stores. What a great decision that was! I got two pieces of clothing for $5 total, a Tommy Hilfiger, green gingham button down, and a pretty black and white dress. We also got an apple peeler/corer for $3 and a 7' artificial spruce Christmas tree for $3! And we got The Invention of Lying on DVD for $2! I think we made out really well! That evening we drove around to a few neighborhoods in the area and looked at Christmas lights. What a neat way to get in the Christmas mood!


We saw this at one house driving around... a little creepy, no?

Monday (Christmas Eve), Collin had to work for about 5 hours that morning. I went to the chiropractor and finished getting stuff ready for the next morning. Once Collin got home though we watched Die Hard since it's a non-traditional Christmas movie and Collin is discussing it when he podcasts tonight. After that we played some video games until it was time to get dressed for church. We went to a 6pm Candlelight service at a church other than ours. My parents always host an Open House gathering on Christmas Eve that starts at 7:00 and we're usually still there or just leaving close to 11:00. Those are both the service times for our church. So the church across the street from my parents' house was very accommodating with their service times. And I'm glad we went. It was a great service! After church we spent the evening at my parents' house visiting with family and good friends. What a great evening we had!

Watching Die Hard with these handsome guys.
Christmas morning was fantastic! I was so excited I woke up about 5am and couldn't deeply fall back asleep. So Collin and I got up around 7:15. We opened presents (he did really well and I love my gifts!!) and then had cinnamon rolls for breakfast while finishing Die Hard. Around 10:00 we headed to my parents' house to help make lunch. Once my sister and brother-in-law arrived about 12:45 we had a turkey lunch which was delicious! Then we opened presents and were all so spoiled! After present time we played my mom's new game, "Bubble Talk". If you've not heard of it, check it out. It's similar to "Apples to Apples" only you are captioning a picture instead of determining nouns to adjectives. We laughed pretty hard at some of the pictures and captions. About 4:30 we left my parents and heading to see Collin's parents. When we got there we had a delicious ham dinner. And afterwards we opened presents and got spoiled by Collin's parents also! After dinner we watched Christmas Vacation; it was only my second time seeing it!

The tree at my parents' with the presents waiting to be opened.

The new shirt I bought for Collin.

Lunch ready to eat on the table!

My parent's cats sunning themselves while we opened presents.

The in-laws' tree we gazed upon all evening!

All in all I would say it was a pretty fantastic Christmas!! We had such fun and it was filled with lots of family and friends and love and good food!

I hope your day (and weekend) was just as good as ours was! And may you carry the Christmas spirit with you all year through! After all, Christ is with us all year through!

Cindy

Oh How Wonderful

Do you ever have one of those weekends that was just what you needed? That's what this weekend was for me. Friday evening once Collin and I were both home from work we headed to Red Robin for an impromptu date night. We had both been craving some juicy burger goodness and what better a place than Red Robin to satisfy that craving? We had a delicious meal and then headed home. Collin played Metal Gear Solid 3 for a couple hours while I created our advent calendar. It took a bit longer than I expected but I love how it turned out. Now if only we could just get it hung...

Saturday morning after Collin headed into work I went over to my parents' house and my mom and I created a wreath for our front door. I LOVE how it turned out. It's exactly what I had been envisioning and wanted! I'm glad I got to spend that time with my mom, too! Then later in the day Collin and I practiced our song we were performing that evening at Figgy Pudding, a fundraiser some ladies at our church put on to benefit the church's Wednesday night community dinner. Figgy Pudding is an event where you buy seats at tables that people have decorated very festive and you listen to various musical numbers and eat delicious desserts made by people from the church. Collin and I performed the Mark Harris version of Silent Night which is so beautiful! I also got to play with the hand bell choir. I haven't played hand bells in several years but I played for quite a few before that. Anyway, the director comes up to me and asks me if I would sight read and play the hand bells because they were short two people. He was going to play one set of bells and needed me to fill in on the others. Haha! Fun, but a little nerve wracking!

Sunday was a great day! Church was fantastic! It's absolutely amazing the way God makes everything go together so well! Our praise music fit the message PERFECTLY even though the music was picked without knowing what the message would be. It was SO a God thing! After church Collin cooked us some delicious fried rice! We both thoroughly enjoyed it. I love when Collin experiments in the kitchen. We usually get some pretty awesome results! The afternoon consisted of us running all over town running errands and buying groceries. We were in desperate need of food in our house. I mean, we had food, but the reason Collin made fried rice is because we had odd stuff that you can't really eat together. And we couldn't even have grilled cheese because we were out of bread! So now we are well stocked up on food! My mom invited us over for a chili dinner so we spent the evening over there and had a yummy dinner and cookies hot from the oven for dessert! When we got home, I holed myself up in the bedroom with Seabass while Collin and Stank watched The Walking Dead in the living room. I would watch the show if it weren't so gruesome. I ask Collin questions all the time about the characters and what went on because it's got such a great story, but I am too weak-stomached for some of the stuff.

I'd say it was most definitely just the weekend I needed!! I hope you had a great weekend, yourself! I hope it was just what you needed and it's given you the stamina to start this week off on the right foot!

Cindy

Family Fall Fun

I totally just had an "Oh shoot!" moment where I realized I never shared the photos from our fun day with our niece and nephew. This may have taken place just over a month ago but I want to post them. It's as much for me though for memories as it is for you guys! We had such a great visit with Collin's family and I was so glad that in addition to his brother and niece coming, his sister and nephew came to visit, too! As I said before we went to this big old beautiful tree Collin's dad passes everyday going to work and the kids played in the leaves while we took photos. Then we went to the pumpkin patch/corn maze and we all really enjoyed ourselves there as well! It was so delightful!

I love little Jaden peeking out from behind the tree.




Aunt Jade with Kayla.

Beau decided to hang Kayla from the tree. She didn't mind too much.

Jaden however was not so thrilled...

Burying Uncle Collin in the leaves.


Jade and Jaden

Beau and Kayla

She really got into it and started enjoying herself!


Oh I love him so much!

Bahaha!


Uncle Collin holding Kayla's hand and MiMi (Collin's mom) holding Jaden's hand on the way into the farm.



Off for the train ride!

Playing in the corn box.





Jaden was so excited about holding the flag while in the corn maze. He kept trying to raise it up and we would tell him "Don't lift it too high or they'll think we're lost!" So then he kept asking if we were lost so he could raise it! Too cute!



Collin just had to go down the slide.

Finding some pumpkins in the pumpkin patch.

I love being an aunt! It's so much fun! And it doesn't hurt that my niece and nephew are just so darn cute! I'm so glad we got to spend time with them and I can't wait for our next visit. =)

Cindy