Pictures of House!

I have hesitated putting up pictures of the house because each time I think about putting up pictures, I want to fix or do something. Until finally, a friend said "there will always be something you want to fix". So I decided if I wanted to post pictures sometime this century, I would just go ahead and do it.

Things on the to do list for the month of May:

*replace chandelier with 2nd matching ceiling fan
*change shell sink vanities in bathrooms
*paint master bedroom a light gray color
*purchase new bedding for master bed
*make cabinet doors for front of built in in living room
*put doggy storm door in

And of course our house wouldn't be complete without a photo of our two children. Aren't they adorable in their daddy's off limits massaging recliner?! :) You can see the guilty look on Barkley's face!

We would like to thank craigslist.com for the majority of furniture you have seen in these pictures. I was literally obsessed for a few weeks there, but I have limited myself to only looking once a day now. We are loving living in Mansfield! Everyone has been EXTREMELY nice in our ward. We even have been invited to dinner at another couple's house next Sunday! Hopefully we will make more friends over the next few weeks. The drive to work has been lengthened by about 10 minutes. We have decided to stay working at our school in Irving next year (my last year teaching). Then I will go wherever I can get a position as a counselor. Evan wants to take over his lead teacher's position when he finishes his degree in 2 years. We feel very blessed to be where we are!

Bella!

I can't believe I haven't posted about Bella yet! At the end of February, Barkley's owner contacted us. She said that her and her husband decided they didn't want any dogs anymore. They had another puggle, Barkley's sister, and they wanted to know if we would want to buy her. We had thought that maybe Barkley had been abused by his mannerisms. When we sat down to talk about it, we just couldn't bare leaving Barkely alone all day while we were at work. So now we have Bella! Bella is has more pug qualities such as a shorter snout, breathing problems, and a constant need for affection. She is adorable though! Her and Barkley just love playing with each other. We feel like a complete family, for now.

GLEE!!!!!!

Evan and I are GLEEKS!!! We are in love with Glee! Maybe it's the show choir in us both, but we think this is one of the funniest shows we have seen in a while. We have even bought the soundtrack. Yall should all check it out! The new season starts on Tuesday on Fox. Love it!

Busy, Busy, Busy......

Wow, March has been a BUSY month so far! It all started with my 25th birthday on March 4th! This year was AWESOME! Evan really is the reason it was so awesome. We both took off work and had so much fun. The highlight of this birthday was the purchase of our new fridge for our new home. We found a fridge that retails for over $3,000 for only $1,400 at Sears Outlet in Arlington. So exciting! Evan surprised me with a hotel stay on Friday night. It was nice getting some alone time since we have been staying at my parents and don't get alot of privacy lately. Amanda Churak made it great too! It was fun hanging out with her and my family that Friday.

Then I had one of my Masters classes end on March 9th. This is a critical class in which alot of info is given, but it is only 6 weeks long. It ended in a final project. I had to take a day off of work to complete it because it was just so time consuming. Here is the cover to my final project.

On March 11th, we had open house at my school. This means that there wasn't a real routine the days prior to open house because we were creating things for visiting parents. We had fun making 3D solid figures (hanging from the ceiling), clay insects, and silhouettes. Evan and I decided to stay at school until after open house rather than going home. It was a LONG day. Then after we got home (around 8pm), I had to stay up and bake the cakes for Summer and Aaron's wedding. I ended getting to bed close to 2am.

Friday, March 12th, after work, Evan and I loaded up the baked cakes and all of my decorating supplies and headed to Oklahoma. Summer is one of Evan's friends that I got to know on my many trips to Oklahoma. She is awesome, and so is her new hubby Aaron! This is the largest cake I have made before. Needless to say, after 12 cake mixes, 5 pounds of powdered sugar, and various other ingredients, a wedding cake was born! It was time consuming but fun at the same time. She wanted the icing color to be "M&M blue". Poor Evan had to go to the store SEVERAL times to get things for me when I ran out. I definitely underestimated the quantity of some of the ingredients.

So anyway, now we are just waiting to close on our house over spring break. Our fridge gets delivered and we just bought a kitchen table and chairs on craigslist. I hope all of you have a wonderful spring break!

Valentine's Day

Evan did a great job this Valentine's Day surprising me. If you know me, you know I'm not easy to surprise. He planned to have a beautiful edible arrangement delivered to my school on Friday. Well, it snowed a record 13 inches here in Dallas, which meant that school was closed on Friday. SO he had to call and have it rescheduled to be delivered to our apartment. It was so yummy!! Then on Saturday, he took me to see the movie Valentine's Day. It was really cute, until I started getting nauseous. I ran to the nearest restroom but didn't quite make it. I got sick all over the lobby of the movie theatre. And even though I smelled awful, Evan still sat next to me for the rest of the movie. What a great husband! Because I was sick all weekend, we didn't do much besides that. We stayed the night at my sister's house so we could spend some time with Barkley. He is so stinkin cute! Evan's Valentine's present was a pizza and chocolate dunkers one night and then his favorite place, Ghengis Grill, on Monday night. Overall, it was a nice first married Valentine's day!

Barkley!

Well, Evan and I just couldn't wait until we had our house to get this little guy. His name is Barkley and he is a puggle. His dad was a black pug and his mom was a pocket beagle. We had been searching for bull dogs on craigslist and then decided they were too pricey. Evan wanted a pug but the pug buggy eyes kind of creep me out. SO we decided to compromise and that is when we found Barkley! Isn't he cute!?! He is 9 months old. His previous owners couldn't handle 2 puggles and a preschooler any more. He was $50 although his previous owners paid $250 for him from a breeder. We haven't gotten to spend much time with him yet because he is staying at my sister's house until we close on our house. We don't have much space in our 700 sq ft apartment. Anyway, without further adieu.... HERE'S BARKLEY!

Our First House!

Evan and I are buying our first house! It all started with a friend of mine from work wanting to sell her house in the neighborhood. We loved it but it wasn't affordable for us. So we started seriously thinking about where we wanted to live, have our kids born, and stuff like that. We finally found a house in south Arlington/Mansfield area that we love. It is just the right size for us (1700 sq ft). The lot it is on backs up to a very new elementary school. The elementary school principal was also a professor of mine at DBU last semester! Anyway, life has been VERY stressful with work, school, and now my third full time job of signing paperwork and answering phone calls. We had the inspection today, in the many inches of snow. The report seemed to be good. We are going to meet with him on Saturday so he can inspect the roof and sprinkler system. Next is the appraisal. Hopefully the house will appraise for more than we offered, but if it doesn't then we have to go back to negotiations. Well, enough of the info, here are pictures of our potential first house!