Show Us Your Life- Living Room

So a blog that I read, Kelly's Korner, asked readers to show pictures of their living rooms. I loved the idea and spent a few hours going through all of the readers posts. My favorite decorating ideas come from other people so I've had fun looking through everyone's living rooms.

Here are a few pictures of ours from renovation phase until now. We bought our house in March of 2009. It was built in 1968 and had not really been updated since. My requirement was that the house had a basement to hold our man cave and serve as a playroom for our future kids. We've made lots of renovations and I'm proud of how far we've come! We still have a LONG way to go to make this house where we want it but we're working on it :)

First few days in the house, we got the room painted and then used it as a staging area for all the renovation supplies

Got the furniture arranged but needed to find a media cabinet. You can see storage in the back right corner too!

My fab craigslist find! Only $100

This is the view from the foyer into the living room.  I love our huge window in the front. I keep debating on putting up window treatments... I love the afternoon sunshine and we don't use this room ever so privacy isn't a concern. This is sort of what it looks like now, except we've added artwork and I change the theme around with the season. My goal this weekend is to get the shells down and start getting fall decorations up!

This is our front entry way. We recently put in tile but I don't have any updated pictures. If you walk in the front door and turn to your right you are in the living room.

Egg and Spinach Muffins

I heard about this recipe from my Sarah, my hairdresser. Sarah always has yummy good for you recipes to share with me!

Egg and Spinach Muffins
(I add mushrooms too!)

Wonderful Weekends

Now that school has started, I long for weekends. My favorite part is being lazy. Unfortunately there was none of that this weekend.

Friday concluded by meeting up with girlfriends + Jay at Monterrey for Mexican in our PJs. I'm so thankful to have friends that I can completely be myself around. We enjoyed sipping monster margaritas (who we blame for the terrible Saturday headaches) in our t-shirts, pj pants, and ponytails. We polished off the carefree night with a little vino and watching football while cuddled up on couches in the basement.

Saturday was a marathon of football games. I was at the field from 12:30-8pm with my cheerleading squads. Saturday night was the Wolfpack away game. Jay and I woke up early on Saturday, worked out and began preparing for game day. We made spaghetti, sausage dip, and cut up veggies for our guests to much on later in the evening. As you probably know, I do not get things done ahead of time. This Saturday meal prep was extremely uncharacteristic of my procrastinator self! Luckily I was "rewarded" by doing things ahead of time as the football games ran way overtime and my guests arrive before I did. Thanks to Jay the food was heated and ready to be served upon my arrival. We enjoyed spending time watching the game with Mary Clare, her new boyfriend Casey, and Jennifer and Brian. The five of us Wolfpackers enjoyed the victory and laughed until our sides hurt from telling college stories :) We had a great time reminiscing.

On Sunday I had my first experience with Pure Barre. Whew! This workout is supposed to change my body in only 10 sessions... I'll let you know how that goes! Jay and I both got to enjoy family time on Sunday. I participated in family workout with my mom and Allie. We had a blast winning all the races and enjoyed making a mess with flour. Upon clean-up, I met Jay and his mom and aunt Vic at the lake for an afternoon of sun, and house viewing (more like dreaming about my life in a lakeside mansion). Funny glitch with the lake- I was supposed to call Jay when I left the house and for some reason, recently I've been leaving my cellphone behind. Sunday was no exception. I had to stop and scrounge for change to use the pay phone at a gas station on south blvd. Lovely. The phone didn't even work and it took my last $.50 (who knew it cost $.50 to make a phone call!!!) I continued out to the lake and a nice kayaking couple let me use their phone to call Jay.

Playing Catch Up (again)

Hopefully this will be the last "catch up" post and that I will be a good little blogger from here on out. My goal is to keep this blog current by posting at least once a week! Here goes nothing!

September 8th marked our 3rd anniversary! I cannot believe it has been that long. We've been together for 7 years! We celebrated in the usual fashion of takeout Chinese food (moo goo gai pan for me and sesame chicken for Jay) and cake. Although we didn't get to eat our wedding cake, a neighbor's mother's pound cake was pretty delicious. Overall the night was uneventful as we dined and watched TV, but it's comforting knowing how happy we both are and where our lives have taken us. We may not be as rich or as successful in our careers as we would have wished by now but we are so very happy and thankful.

Happy for our home, for each other, for our animal babies, for parents who love and care about us, for God and our church, for everything we have been blessed with. I'm so thankful to have a husband who loves me so much and is never afraid to show his affection. Jay, you always take care of me and our home and I'm so fortunate to have you in my life. Happy anniversary!

Here are a few pictures of the last 7 years together.

This is our first picture together. Taken in September of 2003 at my room in University Towers our freshman year! Notice that my shirt says center of the universe. Go ahead and laugh!

At SeaWorld in March of 2004 for freshman year Spring Break.

Back to School Bash. August 2004. What was I wearing?!

March of 2005. Arriving in Mexico for our sophomore year Spring Break!

Junior year Back to School Bash. August 2005.

October 2005. Celebrating our "third" anniversary in Williamsburg, VA. 

Winterbreak in Snowshoe, WV. January 2006.

Somewhere in the Carribean. Junior year Spring Break. March 2006. 

The night we got engaged! October 1st 2006.

New Years Eve in Florida for the Orange Bowl! December 2006.

July 2nd 2007. Bringing home our first baby!

College Graduation. May 2007.

Vegas for my 23rd birthday. November 2007.

Spring Break in Philadelphia. April 2008.

1st Anniversary in Mexico. September 2008. Not the best picture but you get the point :)

March 30th 2009. Bought our first home and construction begins!

Celebrating our 2nd anniversary rafting on the Nantahala River. September 2009.

2nd anniversary trip to Yelapa, Mexico. November 2009.

Rome. June 2010.

Amalfi, Italy. June 2009.

Whew! After looking through so many years of great memories I am even more thankful for everything I have been given.