Superbowl Festitives

Steve and I decided that our first house warming gathering was going to be a Superbowl Party! Who doesn't love a great Superbowl party with good food, friends, and of course a BIG screen to watch it on. After a month of having our new TV sitting on the floor, due to some technical difficulties in the wire department, we finally got our TV mounted on the wall in the family room. We were so excited and couldn't wait to show off the house to our friends and family.

I was planning on ordering really cute invites and make a big deal about it, but with the unsureness of the TV, I only had about a week to get everything together. I ended up counting on my trusty Liquor Barn to supply me with the necessary Superbowl decor. I love planning parties, that I think I would do this every weekend if I could afford it! We had new friends and old friends here, plus our families, which made for a great evening!! Everyone made a dish and we have a huge spread of delicious food! I even got really creative and made football brownies! We couldn't have asked for a better house warming party!!

Best Brownies...I would like some now actually

Food Spread

Cute plates and napkins

Football Cupcakes!

Watching the Game

Steve came up with a little betting game so that everyone had a reason to stay and cheer til the end. The betting board contained 100 squares. Each squares being $1. Each person put their initials in whichever squares they wanted and played accordingly. Then after all the squares were full, we drew a number 0-9 out of a hat that went on the top of the grid representing one team. Then the same thing down the left side of the grid to represent the other team (but the numbers in a different order. We drew twice). There was a  winner at the end of each quarter, depending on the score of the game. For example...at the end of the 1st quarter the NYG were up 9 to NE 0. So the person who won was the person who had their initials in the box that met with NYG 9 and NE 0. Each quarter the price got bigger. The winner, had their initials in the box that met with NYG 1 and NE 7, because the final score was 21 to 17. (I hope that makes sense). You should try it out for your own party next year! Here is the website where we got some great tips! http://www.party411.com/PlanYourParty/oliday/SuperBowl/SuperBowlGamesandActivities.aspx

Papa Joe, picking his squares

I can't wait to have a cookout this summer!! I am thinking Lula theme!

Its Moving Time Again

After 4 months in the Bird House, it is a bitter-sweet day when Steve and I finally get to move into our new house. It has been a pretty cool expereince watching our house grow from dirt to concert to wood to our home.

We had a great expereince with Ball Homes, they were very helpful and quick to answer our questions or fix any problems we had with the house along the way. Since my dad has builder keys, we were able to go over at night and see our house at every step in the building process. I have a whole album of pictures that probably no one can tell what they are except for me. Once the dry wall was up, Steve and I finally felt like we had a new home.

pre-grass

We were so looking forward to moving into our new house, that I even took a week off of work so that we wouldn't be rushed. Well our closing got pushed back a week (that is what I get for trying to plan ahead). That put us moving in the week of Christmas! We had family coming into town, Steve and I both had to work all week, so moving in wasn't has easy as we wanted it to me. Luckly, we have the best friends in the world! Tricia, John, and Sheila all came over helped us unpacked and even brought us dinner! It was just what we needed to keep going.
Here are some of my favorite parts of the house...all before we moved in...

Breakfast area and view of backyard

I love this fireplace!!

My Bedroom ceiling...now our bedroom is grey!

Master Bath

Boot Bench....so helpful for all the little things

Unfortantely, being so close to Christmas, we did not take on the task of decorating and putting up our own Christmas tree. However, we did get to enjoy helping Ryan, Steve's mom, and my grandma put up their trees. I am so looking forward to next Christmas, where can acctually have our first married Christmas in our new home!

Tallulah under Ryan's Tree

The Broken Arm

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! is definitely the response my new husband received when he called to tell me he was in the ER with a broken humerus while I was out of town!!

Let me give you a little bit of back ground story. Steve is a huge softball player!! It is one of his favorite things to do, Spring and Fall, with his friends. He has played on several teams over the years and really gets competitive with it. Since we have been together I have tried to be the most supportive softball player's wife that I can be. I have attended games, sat in the rain (that was early in the dating game :), and supplied the guys with drinks, because I wanted to be supportive and a good fan! In August of 2011, Steve injured his wrist sliding into 2nd or 3rd base (I don't remember at this point). He ended up breaking off the tips of his ulnar and radius and had to wear a cast for 4 weeks. Now everyone knows that wearing a cast for 4 weeks is going to cause weakness, fatigue, and muscle loss in the extremity. However, when it comes to men and their softball, all reason goes out the door!! =) Steve had cleared with his doctor that he could play "Fall Ball" after getting his cast off. I am not sure the doctor knew "Fall Ball" started 2 weeks later.

So against my wifely/nursing advise, my husband decides to play in a softball tournament 2 weeks after getting his cast off from a broken wrist. The best part about this story is that I was out of town, his parents were out of town, and my parents were leaving to go out of town the following morning. Well about 5 minutes into the 1st ending, Steve catches a ball in left field and attempts to throw it in to home. Now my husband is a great softball player, but not professional (except for the game he played 2 weeks after cast removal). Due to the muscle weakness and fatigue in his arm, Steve shattered his right humerus bone (the bone that connects your shoulder to your elbow). You would think that any husband would call his wife once at the hospital and tell her what had happened. But Steve had other plans. He waited until 5pm to call me (about 8 hours later) to til me what happened. Therefore you can imagine my expression when I hadn't talked to my husband ALL DAY to tell me he was in the hospital and was going to have surgery on Monday due to a shattered humerus from playing softball! Being the new wife that I am I went from angry to crying to pissed all in about 5 minutes. You see I was on my trip in DC to visit my very good friend, Beth, who has been waiting for me to come visit for 2 years. Between angry and crying I didn't know if I should in DC and finish my trip, trying get on the next flight home, or what. So after much debate and a lot of tears and a phone call to my mom, I decided to stay one more night in DC and fly home in the morning. I would still be home before Steve went to surgery and I asked my mom and dad go to the hospital to stay and check on Steve. All I can say is thank God for good friends, great parents, and really nice Delta workers. I had amazing friends in the ER taking great care of my husband, parents who dropped what they were doing to go be with my husband, Josh (one of Steve's best friends) stayed with Steve all day on Sunday until I got there, and Delta waived all the fees for me to change my flight and were very helpful when I was in panic mode.

Luckily, the resident taking care of Steve, was one of my best friend's boyfriend so Steve got a little extra care! The day of Steve's surgery I was a wreck!! I had been IN the hospital several times myself, but never have I had my husband in the hospital. I sat in the surgical waiting room with Steve's parents for 5 hours during his surgery and finally he was out and we got to see him a couple hours after that. The surgeon was soo nice and explained everything he did, and told us Steve was going to fine after some rehab. What he failed to mention was that he filleted my husband's arm open leaving a scar over a foot long.

A couple more days in the hospital and a couple of sponge baths later, Steve came home and all was well. He had several month of physical therapy and a lot of vitamin E oil rubbed on his arm, but 6 months later, Steve is healed and back to doing almost everything he did before....(Except NO softball never again :) 

Here are a couple pictures to remind us of the event....

Pre-OR...all wrapped up

X-ray of the broken arm

Incision post surgery and home

To top off the story, we packed and moved from our house a week later. It's a good thing I love him so much!! :)

Washington DC

I love to go new places!! Unfortunately, my husband doesn't always want to jump into my adventure of traveling. But that is why I have amazing friends that love visitors! One of my very best friends, Beth, is my world wide traveler that I love to go visit. She has lived in France during college, St.Louis, and now Washington D.C. I will be the first to say that I wish I could travel the world like she does, but lets be honest, I can't see myself moving ahead from home. However, her adventurous spirit has allowed me to take some pretty amazing trips over the years to visit her. And she always know how to show a girl a good time!  I have been wanting to go to D.C. for a long time now, but with planning our wedding, honeymoon, and trying to sell our house, it was a slow process. But....I did get there last fall!

Beth was such a great host and showed me such a great time. Even though, I am sure she didn't want to visit all the monuments and museums, like a tourist, she did anyways for me. It was so nice to have your own personal tour guide around the city. I didn't have to ask for directions or which bus to get on, because she exactly where to go. She also took me to some of the favorite local events, like the out door market and some swanky bars. We had a blast just being girls and roaming the city. I am a huge tourist picture taker, so every stop I was snapping away. I even got to see the famous Dupont Circle for the movie American President. There might have even been a sniper on top of the White House! I know I get excited about the little things. I always have such a great time with Beth and I wish we were able to be with each other more often than we do. She is the type of friend, who you can pick up with right where you left off every time we talk and she has a heart of gold!! I can't thank her enough so all the wonderful times we have shared together over the many years of friendship.

Do you see the Sniper?

I can not wait to get to go back soon and visit again! Oh how can I forget. I got my first pair of TOMS on this trip and let me tell you I love them so much! If you have never owned or even tried on a pair....I definitely recommend it!

The ones I got

The ones I really need to find!! GO CATS!

The Bird House

Time for so more catching up....
After Steve and I sold my house in September, we moved in with my sister and her family for 4 months. Going from living in your own house with your own space, kitchen, bathroom, etc. to living with 4 adults, 1 toddler, a baby, and 2 dogs is quite a change to say the least. However, my sister and I had the best time always being together and I just love her kids to death. My sister and I have definitely gotten closer in our older years compared to some early days in our lives, but the time we lived together, we really learned to respect each other for who we are. She is such a great mom and will do anything for her kids. She is a great wife and role model to me on how to raise a family. She has taught me so much and continues to be the best big sister a girl can have!!

Stacy, Sister, and Me

We celebrated my 27th Birthday with another touchdown tailgate!! Steve and I have been tailgating with Ryan and David (sister and brother-in-law) now for the past several years and we love it!! We always have corn hole and the grill set up! Steve and I go early to score big spots, while Ryan and David trail in a couple hours later. Being in September, tailgating is a perfect time to celebrate my birthday. We had a lot of friends and family come and celebrate with us, which always makes for a great day! My dad even scored a pass park right next to us so he could join the day long celebration!!

During our time at the Bird house, Steve and Nash became closer as well. :) Uncle Steve helped Nash crave his Halloween pumpkin. Nash gets so excited about the little things, that it makes experiences with him that much better!

"Yuck" Inside the Pumpkin Face

Hands Back....Knife Alert

Proud of his Jack O Lantern

Brinkley and Riley were great helpers!

I know that as they get older, I am going to miss these sweet times we got to spend with them. Even though, Steve and I felt like we moved back into a dorm room, we loved our time at the Bird House!

Catch Up

Well I have been a terrible blogger in that it has almost been a whole year since I blogged last. With all the craziest in our life, I just wanted devoted to writing it down. Howver, now that its getting closer and closer to Steve and I's one year anniversary I am regretting not having our first written down to remember later. So over the next several posts I am going to try and catch up on all the high points that Steve and I had our first year together!

Just a couple hours old.

Last summer, I was blessed with a niece, Brinkley Ryan Bird! She is the custest little girl ever. As you know, I watch my nephew, Nash, (her brother) once every week, so now our 2 has become 3. He does really great with her though. For a long time he didn't really pay much attention to her. Now that she is getting to where she can ineract and play, he wants to play with her age toys again. He really is a great big brother and very protective.

Back in January, Nash started going to school during the day so it's back to just the two of us again except Brinkley and I. She is a great shopper!! I have had such a blast hanging out with her and watching her grow up. They get big soo fast! Here are some of my favorite pictures of us being girls!

Learning to be a big girl

Shopping at Hobby Lobby

Playing with Nail Polish...Just like a Girl!