Telling our parents

Telling our parents that they were going to become grandparents was a lot of fun!! We told my family when we went down to their house for their Christmas party. We gave them a picture of us with Murphy wearing a sign that said Big Brother. They just thought it was a cute picture and didn't get the message! I finally had to tell them and they were definitely surprised and very excited... As seen below!

We told Jeff's parents the weekend before Christmas- they were also very excited! 

We weren't able to keep the secret very long- but it's a lot more fun having more people to celebrate with!

That's another Arkansas Razorback... Loss.

We went to the last LR game of the season against Miss. State this weekend.

We lost in overtime. 

It's so hard being a razorback fan. But alas, we will continue to cheer. 

Ceilings... Beautiful Ceilings

Two down, lots to go. 

We've started tackling our popcorn ceilings. It's not fun, but also not hard. And the finished product makes it 100% worth it! 

I started the hall bathroom one afternoon I got off work early just to see how hard it was (since we had just gotten some quotes that were a lot more than we wanted to spend). Turns out it's pretty darn easy work but SO MESSY!!! I didn't prep the bathroom, because (1) I didn't know it was going to be so easy to just scrape the entire ceiling (2) I knew we would be painting the walls and (3) that's just not my style. That was probably a mistake, but you live and you learn, right??

After finishing the hall bath ceiling, we patched the wall where we created some sizeable holes removing the stupid towel bar, and I mixed some paint and we painted the walls. 

Voila:

It's beautiful, isn't it??

Next up, and much larger, the kitchen! Doing the kitchen was extra fun because I gave us a one weekend deadline to get it finished because we had company coming and having a huge mess in there was not an option!! 

This time we prepped the crap out of the floors and walls to cut down on the mess. 

From that to this:

Also got rid of the horrible fluorescent light. Yippee!!

Easy peasy, the rest of the house will be tackled after the new year!

Quilting Queen!

I went from this...

...to this!

All it took was a long weekend, a love-hate relationship with a sewing machine, a willingness to become very familiar with a seam reaper, and lots of precise cutting. Easy peasy. Hah. 

Making something that requires such precision is really outside of my comfort zone so as soon as I finished the binding (a major pain in the ass), I used my extra fabric to make a pillow case- I just eyeballed everything, so I was back in my groove :)

Jeffrey wants a quilt now, and I've come up with a pattern for his (yes, I am already a professional quilting queen that can make up quilt patterns... I think. Although my first fabric calculation said I would need 70 yards of fabric.... someone should take away my high school math club awards.) but I'm going to resist buying fabric and starting on it until we are done scraping the ceilings. Which we are now doing ourselves after we got a quote from a company saying they could do it for the small sum of $6K. Yozers. No thank you. We dropped a nice chunk of change at Sherwin Williams the other night, so now we just have to find the time and motivation to start this project. 

Also, on another unrelated note: Jeffrey and Murphy are learning lots in puppy school. Even though they are probably the least trained duo in the class, Murphy can now heel, sit (although he could do that before this class), lay down (he could already do that too...), semi-stay, and... well I guess that's about it. But I'm sure they will be learning other useful things in the future!

Murphy enjoying my car's sun roof! 

This picture cracks me up.

Rude Dog

While Murphy is generally a pretty good, laid back dog, he definitely has his moments.

For instance, he likes making confetti out of our toilet paper:

Every chance he gets:

We no longer keep toilet paper on the toilet paper holder. Sorry, guests. 

I think the same day he tore all the toilet paper up in the bathroom, he also chewed up Jeffrey's glasses and contacts. Very rude. 

He hasn't really gotten into anything in a few weeks, and nothing since he was neutered, so last night I wanted to let him have free range in the house while we went out to dinner. Murphy failed that trust exercise. He chewed up Jeffrey's sunglasses (he really does not want him to be able to see anything at all) and he got a hold of my iphone and chewed up the case. And cracked the camera lens with his sharp fangs so now all of my pictures look like this:

But you can't stay mad at him for too long, because he's too cute!

Sweet, sleeping dog.

Add it to the list

Of things I'd rather hire out than do myself.

Yesterday we spent about 3 hours in the backyard raking and bagging leaves. When we bought our house, it was pretty apparent that the backyard had gone years without being raked. I think the weekend right after we bought the house, my dad spent an entire day in the backyard raking up leaves and yesterday we bagged about 20 bags. The actual process wasn't too terribly bad, but oy vey... my body was hurting last night and is sore today.

(this is only about half of the bags!)

Hopefully we will have won the lottery before we need to rake again in about a month.

The New Mr. and Mrs. Lantz

Last weekend we celebrated the wedding of Jeffrey's best friend, Peter. They had a small wedding with their families and closest friends, and we had a great time!

 Here we are at the reception. Jeffrey was best man, so he got to look extra spiffy in a tuxedo. 

(Jeffrey thinks we should do a photo Christmas card this year... using this picture. We'll see....)

The happy newlyweds:

This is hilarious. Tamara didn't want to have bridal portraits made/displayed at the reception (can't blame her for that, because neither did I :)  ), so Peter thought it would be fun to have a groom's portrait on display when you walked into the reception. We can't wait to go over to their house to see this hanging above their fire place!

Professional Cruisers

We're starting to feel like we are professional cruises now that the last two vacations we've been on (both in 2013) have been cruises- but we aren't complaining about that! :) 

Last month we headed down to my parents to drop off the Murphers and then continued down to Galveston a few days later to hop on the boat. We went to Progresso (boring port with nothing to do) and Cozymel. We sprung for a room with a balcony, and loved it. We got lots of sun, had lots of fun, and are ready to book our next vacation!

Little kitchen updates

Last night I got a few things checked off my never-ending home to-do list. I hung these burlap curtains in our kitchen. I think they look great in here. 

 

I also did a quick craft by framing these recipes. From top to bottom, I have a recipe from my grandma Vogel, my mom, and my grandma Medford. I think they look pretty cute and are perfect to fill in some wall space in our kitchen!

Our next big project will be to scrape the popcorn ceilings. Eek!! 

Weekend In Review

This past weekend Jeff went to Gulf Shores, AL for Peter's bachelor party, I met my family in Fayetteville for the Razorback game, and Murphy was boarded for the first time. 

And I have to include this picture because it cracks me up:

One too many conversations going on here ;)

Weekend in Review

Another great weekend in the books. Not that I don't really enjoy my job, but I often find myself thinking that I'm working for the weekend! 

Friday afternoon I helped Andreya hang some curtains in her apartment. We got two sets hung, but of course the last set required a trip to Target, some extra random holes in her wall, and we still couldn't get it hung. Bob Villa I am not. 

Saturday afternoon we headed over to War Memorial for some tailgating and the football game. Jeffrey had to work, so he didn't make it until just before the game.

It was SO hot on Saturday. We forgot to take a picture before we started sweating everywhere. Oh well.

We sat with Carmen and Drancy. Carla had to work that night :( 

Carmen and I before the game:

Here we are at the game! The sun had gone and I might have just stopped sweating by this point.

Go band, go! I love the Razorback band!

Panoramic shot of War Memorial. It's still a packed house in this game that really should've been a blowout (playing Samford), because we were losing for a while and it was not looking good for the Hogs. They pulled it out in the end, though.

And finally, I can't seem to go an entire post without showing sweet Murphy! Here is in the guest room on the new bedding I bought.

The End. :)

Labor Day Weekend

The rest of our weekend after wedding festivities Friday and Saturday...

Our friend and college roommate Caitlin came to Little Rock for the weekend. We met over at our junktastic house before going out to lunch on Sunday. It's really great to have friends that you can get together with after not talking for several months and pick up without missing a beat.

That night we went to dinner with Whitney and Collin and then to a movie. Probably the last time the four of us will hang out together before they move to Houston. Sad!

Monday we got up bright and early to make Caitlin's wishes come true and went to climb Pinnacle Mountain. We took Murphy along for his first hike and he seemed to like it. He especially liked stopping at every person we saw to get pet. He seriously thinks everyone's life purpose to pet him and give him attention all the time. Luckily, most people obliged (probably because he's so cute and friendly). Right after we took this picture, the couple a few feet away from us got engaged!

Monday night we had Peter, Bryan, Tori and Claire over a cookout. This baby is getting to big... she sure is a cutie. Murphy wanted to be all over the baby and licking her feet, so he got banished to the backyard. I already feel bad for the rude awakening he is going to get when he's no longer #1 in the house when we have kiddos.

We had a busy weekend full of lots of friends and fun! My parents were in town for the wedding so we got to see them for a little bit, too! I always love it when they are in Little Rock!!

Jeffrey is working this next weekend the Razorbacks are in town for a game tomorrow. I think it'll be another great weekend!

The New Mr. and Mrs. Briggler!

Mary Helen and Andrew tied the knot on August 31, 2013! Jeffrey and I were both in the wedding and could not have been more excited for them.  This wedding brought back lots of memories of our own wedding about a year and a half ago... what a fun time!

Here we are about to go to the rehearsal:

MH looked so great and happy! And her dress was gorgeous!! 

Cutting their beautiful (gluten free!) wedding cake:

The Sick kids and their spouses:

Congratulations, Mary Helen and Andrew!

27&28

We've been celebrating our birthdays these past few weeks (and enjoying our time being the same age... which only comes around once a year for one week. Hah.). 

We celebrated my birthday with my parents with dinner at the Capitol Hotel Bar & Grill, presents, and cake. Yum yum, chocolate on chocolate, duh!

A few days later we celebrated both of our birthdays with the Sicks with dinner at YaYas, presents, and cake. There weren't enough candles or fire extinguishers handy for us to both have 27 and 28 candles, so I blew out 9 (2+7=9, get it?) and Jeff 10. I was worried I wouldn't get all mine in one blow, so I really brought it and ended up blowing wax all over that gluten free cake. At least it was pink and pretty!

 Then a few days later (while still in a sugar coma and up a few pounds from all the eating out) we celebrated Jeffrey's big day. When I got home from work that night our bathroom (where Murphy stays during the day) was covered in little black dots. Turns out those were seed ticks. Hundreds of them. So we spent an hour or so cleaning that up and running to the store to buy tick shampoo and generally freaking out about ticks being everywhere. While I was disenfecting the bathroom, Jeff actually ended up cooking his own birthday dinner (steaks and sweet potatoes). Sorry 'bout that. But look at this delicious looking cheesecake per Jeff's request, made by moi. Go ahead and ignore that crater running down the middle. After dessert we went to the movies and then came to the other bathroom (where we put Murphy while we were gone... since you know we had the tick crisis in the other one) covered in dog shit. Yep, Murphy also had diarrhea. I have a sensitive gag reflex, so Jeffrey got to clean that one up. Nothing says "happy birthday and welcome to 28" quite like cleaning up liquidy poop. Eww. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS TO US!!

Murphy is on the mend (not that you could've told he was covered in ticks or had the runs) and fixed up with tick shampoo, tick collar, and tick spray in the backyard. Sometimes he likes to wear a bow tie. We don't know where he gets his taste for fancy things, but nevertheless, what can you do?

Grandma Medford

 

We spent this past weekend in Mena celebrating the life of my Grandma. She passed away in her home August 13, 2013 (on dad's 53rd birthday). It was a bittersweet time for our family. It was great seeing all of our family, but also strange since it felt like it might have been the last time we would all be in Mena at the same time again. Without Grandma living there, there isn't really a need to go to Mena (our aunts and uncle that live there are able to travel and visit us, which Grandma hasn't been able to do for the last several years). 

The funeral home compiled a bunch of pictures together to create a slideshow of Grandma's life. It was running in the background Friday night at her visitation- everyone loved getting to go down memory  lane and see a bunch of pictures of Grandpa too (he passed away in 1998). Grandma was sassy, sarcastic, outspoken, and more proud of her family than anyone else and will definitely be missed by many, especially her family!    

(Side Note: I love that she thought of Jeffrey as one of her grandchildren. She was very proud of him. When we visited her in the hospital this summer, she said "Here comes the Doctor!!" when Jeffrey came into her room. I can also remember one Christmas where she gave all of the grandchildren Christmas cards, but she gave Jeffrey a present (I am pretty sure he was the only one she shopped for that year)-- a huge can of cashews because she had seen how much he liked them when he picked them out of all the bowls of mixed nuts. Sweet memories for sure.) 

We found this in her pantry... it's a notebook filled with recipes. I took it home with me for the week to browse through it and jot down a few recipes. I love having old things like these- it's fun to think about what stage of life Grandma was in when she was copying a recipe into her notebook or gluing in newspaper clippings for things she wanted to try.

My grandma was German (I think her parents spoke exclusively in German in the home?) so I might have to give this German recipe a try!

My Aunt Cynthia also gave me one of my Grandma's rings. I love having something of her's that I can wear to remind me of her and my grandpa. It's a gorgeous emerald ring. Jeffrey is taking it to our jeweler (it's okay to say we have a jeweler, right?? haha) to get it sized for me.

Over the weekend several people, including my Dad, told me that I reminded them of Grandma... And I think that's a great compliment!

Cute Murphy!

Weekend in Review

We didn't do much of anything this past weekend, which was nice since between the two of us, we are booked pretty solid until our week off in September. I got some sort of sinus infection or head cold last week so I ended up taking Friday off so I could laze around in my cold-medicine-drug induced state. We were wanting to go visit my Grandma on Saturday, but with me not feeling 100%, I decided it would be better if I didn't subject all the family to my pitiful self. (Side note: How great is it to have friends that are MDs and Pharmacists to direct you to the best OTC drugs for your symptoms?? So grateful for them!)

We ran errands non-stop on Saturday. Rolled out of bed and went to Panera for breakfast, then to NLR to get my bridesmaid's dress for MH's wedding fitted, then to Bryant to Ashley's furniture to see if they had any good sales going on for the things we liked (they didn't), then we came back to LR and went to Haverty's (who do they think they are having the same furniture as Ashley's but priced 20%+ more?!... also we saw our headboard for sale there... $600.... we got ours from an estate sale for $100. Boom!), ran home to let Murphy outside, then went to Maumelle to look for a ceiling fan for the kitchen (didn't find one), went back to NLR to look at their furniture stores, then to Lowe's to look at cabinet hardware, then to the hardware store to get our free quart of paint, and finally back home to let Murphy out again! After dinner we wandered over to The Home Depot to look at getting a new front door. We were thinking about replacing our front screen door with a glass storm door, but then looked and saw that it would just be cheaper to get a new front door with a window. We have got to let some light into our dark dark living room! Back home I took Murphy on a walk and Jeffrey started to paint the built ins in the living room. (I used my lawyer mind tricks on Jeffrey to convince him to finish painting the living room on his own... or he's just doing it because he's nice- either way, I don't want to paint anything, ever again.)

We found a few pieces of furniture that we liked, but got to talking and are wondering how new furniture is going to mesh with the rest of our goodwill-esque decor. It was making me laugh out loud imagining the slip covered chairs I decided I probably need mixed in with the rest of our stuff that is second hand/diy. After thinking for a few minutes, we realized that the only new piece of furniture that we have ever bought is a tiny recliner from Target. Hah. Hah. Hah. I guess that is what they call shabby chic. Or not.  

Sunday, Jeffrey did more painting. I went Krogering. A rarity in the Sick house since I hate grocery shopping so much. Then I came home and cooked (kind of another rarity) and we went to church, ate dinner, painted, and called it a night. Not exciting, but relaxing!

I got these flowers at Kroger for $1.80! Almost makes grocery shopping worth it if I can have pretty clearance flowers in the house. Almost. 

I realize this post is filled with ramblings that no one cares about (including myself!), but we might like looking back on this kind of thing in several years when our lives may not look much like this.

Ralphy's visit

We volunteered to watch Ralphy last week while my mom went to visit grandma. Poor Ralphy. Murphy has not yet learned when he is not wanted. (I wonder if he will ever learn that?) Anyway, he was constantly jumping on Ralphy, nipping his ears, his tail, body slamming him, and being a general pain. He's basically blind so I'm not even sure he could always see Murphy coming for him. I also think he was afraid of getting in trouble if he fought Murphy back. Again, poor Ralphy.

Here he is in the one spot Murphy couldn't reach him... warming up my side of the bed for me.

I do think he enjoyed getting a pup cup of ice cream, though! And his nightly walks. So it wasn't all bad. But I don't think he will ever want to stay with us again.

Murphy is doing fine adjusting to being the one crazy dog of the house again.