Sunday, December 20, 2009

Happy 29th!!!

Today, Justin turns TWENTY-NINE!

He is my husband, my best friend, and the father of my baby boy...
I love him with all my heart!

It's hard to believe that we have now been together for more than half of our lives!
We started dating when I was 15 and he was 14.

Here we are at my house in Manhattan, celebrating his 21st birthday.


The next day....
He ask me to marry him!


It makes me so emotional to think that's been eight years ago.
We were engaged and planning a wedding.
I had one more semester left at K-State...pulling all-nighters in design studio. Some things never change :)

Now, here we are...
mommy & daddy to our sweet baby boy!





I hope you have a great birthday, Honey! Enjoy the last of your 20's!
I can't wait to see what the next decade brings for us and our family. I love you!!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Master Makeover

The last time I painted our master bedroom was the summer before we got married and moved in. That would be roughly August 2002! YIKES! Every other room in our house has been painted several times, so the bedroom was in major need of a fresh coat of paint!

THANKS to my sweet mother-in-law and father-in-law for giving us their old bed! They hadn't had this queen bed for too long, but just got a custom-built king, so they let us have their not-so-old bed! Wonderful Serta mattress and all! We have been sleeping cozily in a full-size bed for several years...it's nice to have a little more room now!

I didn't have much time to clear out the room and paint, before we got the bed. I was at Walmart picking out paint on a Saturday afternoon. I thought I wanted a burnt orange color. Bought a whole can of it, painted a patch on the wall and DID NOT like it for our bedroom. I love darker colors, because they make everything so cozy, but this was too dark. It was a spice color, and would have been too close to the color of the bed and blinds...there wasn't enough contrast. My husband was no help...so I headed back to Walmart after 7pm that night. I didn't have a clue what color I wanted. I ended up picking "Apple Cinnamon," a deep tan/golden color. I wasn't sure when I first put it on the wall, but after it dried, I loved it! *If anyone is interested, the color is from the Better Homes & Gardens line at Walmart, but I had it mixed with the Kilz Casual Colors paint-one coat primer and color guarantee. It went on beautifully!! I went ahead and did a quick second coat, even though it didn't really need it.

Here are the walls BEFORE.
The color was "River Reed" from Walmart's basic paint line. Then I glazed some vertical stripes on.



This is the "Spice" color I tried a patch of first...



I will be using the "Spice" to repaint the kitchen after the holidays...unless I get a real wild hair before :) You know me!

Here is the Apple Cinnamon color I went with...



We put Barrett to bed, Justin went to Josh's to hang out, and I started painting around 9pm. I was a little caught-up in the Nebraska football game. I had the tv on in the bedroom, but took several breaks to stop and watch! Especially that darn nail-biting end...heartbreaking loss, but I kept on painting! I finished up around 2am.

Here are the walls AFTER



The next morning I finished moving all the furniture out of the way so I could vacuum one last time before we moved the bed in. AND I washed down all the blinds. That was obviously after the pictures above :) dirty!!

Justin and his dad set the bed up fast, and I had it made in no time! I LOVE it!! Brandon and Jenn gave me the white Thinsulate comforter for my birthday. Cabela's was having a HUGE sale on them awhile back. They were originally $200, and they were selling for $20!! I tried to order one online, but they sold out too fast! Luckily they'd already bought one for me! This thing is so warm!! I love the white...makes our room feel like a fancy hotel. But I might end up making a duvet cover for it. We do have a toddler that likes to climb on our bed!!


That's it for now! I might be using some of my Christmas money to buy or make a duvet cover. Once I have a fabric for that, I can get some shams and decorative pillows. The more pillows, the better! Justin loves to take them all off the bed every night :)

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Finally...Our 2008 Blog Book

In the midst of my {busy} season for photography...I somehow managed to finish our 2008 blog book (by Blurb). Only 11 months into 2009! Not too shabby! The big discount and free shipping offered at the end of November, really kicked me into gear. It also helped that I had all of you excited about it and rooting me on-Thanks!

Since I had the discount, Justin and I decided to go all out and make our books the large hardcover with image wrap. These are our family scrapbooks, and we want them to be nice. I'm so excited to think in ten years, we'll have a whole bookshelf full of them. Well, do you think we'll still be blogging in ten years?!? Anyway...we also knew that Barrett would want to look at it (which he does a lot), so we wanted it to be tough enough to handle all that lovin'. My book ended up with 228 pages! That sounds like a lot, but I know my 2009 book might be double that! I think the books can take up to 400 pages, so I might have to do some creative adjusting!!

I checked fedex.com tracking everyday after I ordered it...

Finally, on December 3rd, it came!! I think I was squealing when I saw the truck pull up out front.

Barrett probably thought I was crazy. Why is Mommy so excited about this little white box?!?!

I let him get it from the front porch, and help me open it.



He was so excited to see pictures of himself on almost every page!



I love my book!!
hardcover with image wrap and custom spine





There are tons of options for picture and post layouts. I tried several different things, and now I know which I like and don't like, for my next book. I LOVE the pages with full-bleed pictures!





Back cover


That's it!! I really do love it that our memories, my random journaling and Barrett's first year are all documented and printed out into our very own book! I love holding it in my hands and reading through the posts. Now that I know how it all works, I'm even more excited to get to work on the 2009 book. I need to be ready in case they have another big sale at blurb!!

So, anyone else out there get a Blurb book?? If you did, I want to hear about yours too! If you're not sure you want one...come over and check out mine! I love to show it off!
 
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