A Date and a Sleepover

Tonight, Alex and I are going out of town to eat with some friends we have been growing closer to over the past few months and Natalie is going to spend the night with my parents for the first time. I must admit, I have been looking forward to this all.week.long. Seriously, Friday could not come soon enough. Being away last weekend and not having any household responsibilities was amazing, but it totally killed my motivation to come home and return to the never ending pile of dishes and laundry. I pretty much sat around every morning this week and finally mustered up the energy to accomplish something around Natalie's nap time. I felt guilty for being so lazy while Alex worked hard to support our family, so that in itself was a pretty good motivator to get me out of my pjs and start cleaning the house. Anyway...

We haven't been that great about having a regular date night since Natalie has been born. Scratch that. Since we've been married. We'd set aside Friday or Saturday nights for time together for a few weeks and would then get lazy or preoccupied and stop being purposeful about making time for quality interaction with one another. And we'd always make the excuse that there is NOTHING to do in our town. I'm sure that's really just laziness on our part, but it sure can feel really boring living in a small town in rural America. Both our moms have asked us when we were going to go on a date again so they could babysit (I love living close to the grandparents for a number of reasons and I love how much they enjoy spending time with Natalie). My mom and dad are really excited about finally  having Natalie stay with them overnight and I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to being able to get out of bed in my own time instead of having to get up when my little 16-month old alarm clock decides it's time to start our day. I'm really curious how Natalie is going to handle being away from home tonight. I hope she doesn't give her grandparents a hard time going to bed since she's been a handful in that department lately! Goodness, gracious!

So here's to a night of great food and fun with friends and spouses and to Natalie being a little angel for her grandparents who are looking forward to spoiling her with frozen yogurt and other "contraband" goodies! What are your favorite date night ideas with your significant other/spouse?

3rd Anniversary

Alex and I will have been married for 3 years tomorrow! I don't know where the time has gone because it really does just seem like yesterday. Neither one of us ever wanted to lose that "newlywed-ness" and I think most days I can honestly say that the we've been successful at keeping it alive. I truly cannot imagine sharing my life with anyone else. It's been so exciting preparing for the birth of our first child, a blessing from God to be sure. I can't wait to see Alex as a father.

We didn't make any elaborate plans to celebrate this last anniversary sans kids, but we did schedule in some quality time throughout the weekend. Yesterday we saw Courageous at the movie theater. I highly recommend it to everyone. The message was clear and strong: men, stand up and be bold enough to be the spiritual leader of your family. Teach your children the ways of the Lord and set an example for them. Encourage them to be who God made them to be. Don't wait for someone else to be an influence in your child's life. It's YOUR job as a father. I think that Alex really liked the movie. The whole topic was one that we've discussed numerous times, but I didn't think he fully understood the importance of. I hope that hearing that message in a different way helped it make sense to him and planted seeds on fertile soil.

Today is a banking holiday (thank you, Christopher Columbus!), but Alex took the day off, too, so that we could spend time together for our anniversary. We're going to lunch at Red Lobster and doing some shopping for the nursery. I don't need fancy gifts or an elaborate getaway (although those are nice, too!). I just want some quality time with my man and that's what we're gonna do! I've got my coupons to Hobby Lobby and Petsmart ready to go (shopping for dog food is soooo romantic, don't you think? LOL). Now I need to go get ready because somehow I don't think that Alex would want to be seen in public with a pajama-clad wife ;)

My Life in Review

Oh, how the little things in life get me excited! I now have 5 followers! Yahoo! Thanks, Megan, for coming on board! :) And this is my 50th post! My, how time flies! Another little thing to be excited about is that our built in bookcase project is now officially complete since I repainted the living room wall. Here are the befores:



And the after:


I'd love to reupholster that ugly green chair someday. And I still haven't put anything on our new built-in bookcase on the other side of that wall! I hope to hang some wedding pictures up on this wall and maybe cut out another vinyl wall decal or words to go along with it. All in good time...

I also finished painting my "knick-knack rack" (say that 10 times, fast!):


I just can't seem to find things to go in the narrow tall spots. All the little square cubbies are filled with sewing thread and embossing powder.

On a different note, it seems that I may be getting a newer car. I'm waiting to hear from my insurance adjuster to see if my car is totaled from this little mishap that occurred Wednesday afternoon:




My first car accident. A lady ran a red light and I couldn't stop in time to miss her. I hit her front driver's side door. She got to drive her car away, while mine was towed. It's amazing that amount of damage that it caused from only going 20 mph. After the police report came out, it appears that the lady isn't admitting to running the light, thus we have conflicting stories. I had handled the whole incident rather calmly until I got that news. I broke down and cried. Just kinda figured she would have been honest, her insurance would pay to fix or replace my car, and I'd go on without an increase in my premium. But, now there's a bit of a waiting game to see who the insurance companies believe to be at fault. And in KY, we can each be held responsible for 50% of the accident. Not exactly how I thought this would all turn out. Please keep the situation in your prayers, that the truth would be known to all and that it won't hurt my driving record. Luckily, my insurance adjuster thinks it's in my favor that I crossed 5 lanes of traffic on the busiest road in town without an accident before hitting this lady. Hopefully that will help my story that I had a green light and she did not. I'll keep you posted.

On a positive note, tomorrow is our two-year wedding anniversary! Our original celebration plans have been put on hold for another week (if we decide to go that route at all), so we're still trying to decide how to celebrate since we both have tomorrow off (hooray for banking holidays and my husband's vacation time!). We might take advantage of the lovely weather and go hiking with Layla. We'll see...