Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Wedding-First Look

Totally fell behind on posting about our big big day as our sweet nephew, Jack, called it. Yes Jack, it was a big big day!

Here is one the sweetest parts of our day. We went against tradition and did a first look and it was probably one of the best decisions we made. I knew my anxiety would obviously be running high on our big day that when our photographer mentioned a first look we decided that it would be very beneficial. It was a very special time between Derik and I time that we both needed before the ceremony. Derik just brings me a sense of peace and calming and in the midst of the stress that is exactly what I needed. Everyone is different so is everyone's dream of their wedding day. I obviously, would recommend a first look it was the sweetest part of our day besides the actual ceremony. Here's what our first look, looked like! I cry each time I watch it on our wedding film.













Ah looking at these give me goose pimples and butterflies all over again. Can't believe 7 months ago we said I do! I'm so in love with that man.

xo,
Sarah

Monday, December 16, 2013

Bucket List

So on our five hour journey home the hubs and I got to talking. We haven't made a bucket list yet...so I whipped out a pen and started jotting down some items to drop in our bucket so to say. :) You can totally tell who came up with each item for the most part.

-Have sweet babies
-Take the hubs to NYC--he's never been.
-Be a spectator at the Macy's Day Parade!
-Visit various places in Europa!
-Attend a taping of the Ellen Show
-Attend a Dallas Cowboys game in AT&T Stadium aka Cowboys Stadium--preferably a game that wouldn't cause my husband to stroke out.
-Pack Operation Christmas Child boxes in Boone--where they go before they make their journey.
-Deliver Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes
-See So You Think You Can Dance live--again.
-Master a few authentic international meals.
-Visit Nashville--neither of us have ever been and we're talking about making it our birthday trip! Grand Ole Opry here I come!


That's our list for now...hopefully one day will be able to cross them all off! I'll continue to add as we think of more.

Friday, December 13, 2013

It's Friday!

Greetings from Parkersburg, WV--by God--. I feel it's necessary to add the by God every time we're up there. Derik's entire family is from West Virginia his mom and dad were the only rebels to move away from Parkersburg, smart move in laws smart move. Derik was also the only sibling to be born in North Carolina. The trip up here isn't too terrible only about 5 hours but its a whirlwind when we're in and exhausted by the time we get home. It's Friday and lets get right to my favorite things starting with my most favorite thing that happened this week.

1) FINALS AND PAPERS ARE OVER. My to-do list has every item crossed off and for the next month I can breathe a little easier. Praise the Lord. Grad school is not easy folks. It will all be worth it in the end.--Repeat after yourself Sarah--.

2)
My poor chapped lips. They are so chapped and dry the feel burnt. Picked up this little baby during my Target run yesterday. Best $1.97 I've spent lately. This will be my lip saver this season. 
3)
I made apple cinnamon bread this week. I think I could have devoured the entire loaf in one sitting. Oh my yum. Here's the recipe it's too good not to share! 

4) On our way we started our Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University 91 day challenge. I did this in Sunday school pre-hubs this go around makes a little sense. We definitely wanted to star this now before kiddos and I'm so glad we did. 

5) Another favorite is all the Merry Mail we've received this week. Christmas cards definitely can be found on the top of my favorite things about Christmas list. I also made our cute little way to display cards. This picture was taken at the beginning of the week and its slowly starting to fill up! I need to display our first Walters family Christmas card!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I'm ready to eat some more, nothing like a grandmother's cooking! 

xo, 
Sarah 

Monday, December 9, 2013

Manic Monday...

Ha. Now that song is going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day! But come on who doesn't love The Bangles? I say it every Monday but weekends just go by too fast. Friday night we made a shrimp and chicken stir fry. Oh my yummy. I'm pretty impressed each time we make it and it saves so much money than going to a Hibachi style restaurant. We also have a yummy recipe for their shrimp sauce. It may not be the healthiest with it being mainly mayo but it is oh so yummy. I will definitely share the recipe. I then got a jump on my Christmas present wrapping, my elf of a husband couldn't help since the majority was presents for him. Shockingly enough, he's a much better present wrapper than I am. He believes in paper I believe in bags. But he's slowly convincing me to use wrapping paper and I've bought enough for the masses. I told him cute wrapping paper would help me wrap presents instead of putting them in a bag and stuffing it with tissue paper. 

Saturday went by in a blur as it usually does. We got up and headed to the city where we met, fell in love, and we each lived for five years--only two of those together-- Greensboro. I miss living in Greensboro especially the little part we lived in! It's considered the older part, the roomies and I lived close to campus our first two years then the last three we lived on the outskirts of the country club area. We got lucky with a great little rental. My MacBook decided to eat a DVD and I've tried for the past month and a half to get it out. So it was off to Apple where the man pressed three buttons and tada The Holiday spit right out. I swear magic exudes from the Apple's employee's fingertips. I tired everything under the Google-moon for the past month. We then met our sweet friends AJ Bridget and precious baby Wells as well as my partner in crime roomie for 4 years Danielle and her boyfriend Kyle for lunch and beers at our favorite local spot. I'm so glad Greensboro is only a 30 minute drive away. Of course, I forgot to take pictures even of sweet Mr. Wells which is so unlike me when a baby is around. Wells is the first baby to born into our group of friends and its so amazing to see AJ and Bridget as parents. He's only 2 months old and I could squeeze every bit of him. We then made our way back home for some leftover stir fry and the ACC championship game...ahahaha Dookies. 

Sunday was full of paper writing which I'm continuing to putt off now. It's amazing how good at procrastinating I get. My friend Sarah and I had hilarious conversations via text message yesterday as we were both avoiding our papers like the plague. She was watching youtube videos and I was cleaning and doing laundry. Yesterday was also cold and icky weather wise. North Carolina you never cease to amaze me during the spring and winter. It was literally 80 degrees on Friday then a bone chilling 30 degrees yesterday with freezing rain and ice storm warnings. Really NC, biploar much?

I may not be blogging as much this week and the semester comes to a close. Paper, exam, and assignment due tonight. I'm also going to attempt to get my final method assignment and exam done before Thursday. We head out for West Virginia on Thursday and well...not much blogging or homework can happen in West Virginia--by God. It's always a whirlwind of a weekend when we're in!


Screenshotted our ridiculous weather forecast Friday morning it's all changed again. 

This was going around Facebook and is so stinking true. 

This is real life Sunday folks when church is cancelled due to ice--except there wasn't any--and we have errands to run. 

And our failed attempted a family picture, snapping, not choking the dog, and funny half smiles. 
Wondering when we were going to be done and if it included a trip to the dog bakery downtown. 

Ha. What mine and Sarah #2's day was like yesterday trying to write papers. She's #2 because at one point there were 3 of us. 


How was everyone else's weekends? Extremely fast like ours?

Friday, December 6, 2013

Helllllooo Friday!

Oh Friday, it's so good to see you! :) Linking up with some lovely ladies this week for Five on Friday! Let's get right down to it!



1) I finally finished decorating the inside of our house this week! Here are a few of my favorite parts!

I love the way our mantle turned out. The reindeer came from TJ Maxx, O Holy Night canvas is from home goods. I tried to recreate it myself, but don't give a perfectionist a piece of chalk. It only ends in frustration. Our stockings came from  Pottery Barn.
Our tree, I would have it lit 24/7 I love sitting by the lit Christmas tree. Something about a fire roaring, a lit mantle, candles, and tree...it's good for the soul y'all. 

2) If you ask anyone in my family my favorite movie they will either tell you The Sound of Music or White Christmas.  So you can imagine how excited I was to watch The Sound of Music live last night on NBC. I love Carrie Underwood and I think she did a wonderful job portraying Maria. The acting wasn't the best but I still sang along at the tippity top of my lungs, the hubs wasn't impressed. So I Facetimed one of my dear friends, Sarah, and we sang along together. Nerds yes. Do we care? Not one bit. Everyone rose such a big stink and compared it to the original. I don't think that was NBC intentions, I love that they brought it back to life and broadcasted stage plays, I hope they do more of this!


3) Eh it's December so sorry if the majority of my favorite things pertain to Christmas. Actually, I'm not sorry it's my favorite time of year and doesn't last long enough so I'm embracing it while I can. This sweet pillow was made by my grandmother. My aunt gave it to us at a wedding shower and of course I cried. My grandmother used to make these pillows and they were divided up amongst the kids once she passed and I somehow missed out on getting one. Until March at our shower. It now sits on our bed and will every Christmas. 

 
4) I finally used my upgrade last Saturday and got the iPhone 5s. I can't say that I don't hate it. I love the thumbprint recognition, so cool. But I also have my passcode so no one can sneak into my phone either way!

5) A sweet friend of mine posted a video of her and her son singing lullabies at bed time the other night. In the video she posted they were singing one of my favorites Que sera sera. I was reminded of the sweet words Que sera sera...whatever will be will be the future's not ours to see que sera sera what will be will be. Hearing those words out of a 3 year old made it sound so simple. My prayer this week is to have childlike faith and trust in the Lord without having to understand everything. 

xo, 
Sarah 

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...Gifts under $100

Linking up again with some lovely ladies for the grand finale of these are a few of my favorite things! I've really enjoyed this link up and will be scanning blogs for great gift ideas. :) Onto my favorite gifts to give under $100!



Duplin Christmas Wine. One of my favorite holiday reds. Throw it in a cute wine bag and you're good to go. Who doesn't love a good wine?

Monogrammed ring dish. I have one on my night stand and it's where my wedding rings and earrings go each night. I love it. You can find one on Etsy for $15!

Subscription to Our State magazine. My mom got me a subscription a couple of years ago and renews it each year. Definitely one of my favorites, you can get it for $29.99 here. It displays North Carolina and all of the beautiful wonderful things about it. I love my home state! If you're not from NC Southern Living is great or Garden and Gun any magazine subscription is great!

Monogrammed half zip pullover. This one is on my list for the hubs to get me this year. I have one with my pre-married initials it's time to upgrade to my new initials. You can find it on Etsy for $40 Monogrammed Half Zip

The hubs got me this bracelet for surviving my tough summer semester. Which included abnormal mental health. AKA the scary side of counseling! I've gotten so many compliments that it has become my gift for my closet gal pals this Christmas season. JCrew It's currently $29.50 plus an extra 30% off with the code SALE30.

May Books. If you're a nerd like me who loves planners, notecards, and monograms have I got good gifts for you! MayBooks 50% off 2014 planners and free shipping with 3 or more items until tomorrow at midnight. You won't be disappointed. Happy shopping! :)

Wooden monograms. We have one over our bed as well as in our living room. I'm obsessed. My former roommate gifted us with one as a wedding present and I also used one for our head table at our wedding. You can find them Here.

My other former roommate got us a personalized stamp as a wedding present. It saved me so much time for Christmas cards. I'm obsessed. Stamp.

Happy shopping ladies!

xo,
Sarah

Monday, December 2, 2013

Thankfulness.

Happy December y'all! How did that happen? I cannot believe how quickly the month of November flew by. Can't time just slow down a little? Especially during the Holiday season. This is by far my most favorite time of year and I'm trying to savor it the best I can. Thanksgiving weekend kicked off for us Wednesday at noon. I didn't have to work and the hubs only had to work a half a day! We celebrated with some Christmas shopping, trivia at Mellow Mushroom, and quality time with good friends. Thanksgiving day included, Macy's Day Parade watching, eating, eating, eating, family time, eating, best friend time, and Black Friday people watching. The hubs really wanted to go to Belks and watch the crazies at the $20 boots but there was not a parking spot in sight. So we went to Target and we're in and out in 35 minutes--much shorter than our usual trips-- with lots of movies and fun stuff. We mainly went for people watching for you can't beat $6 Blu Rays. Friday morning while the hubs had to be lame and go to work for a few hours I packed up the car and had a daddy daughter date. We then hit the road for Hickory to see Derik's family for the weekend! There we ate some more, shopped some more, and played with our most precious niece and nephews. We also decorated her house for Christmas! Yesterday we returned for my dad's extended family's Christmas lunch. Yes we celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas all in the same weekend. Score.

It was such a wonderful long weekend being able to enjoy family time. Like I said earlier, I really feel like time is just flying by at an exceedingly fast rate and it has no plans of slowing down. I'm trying my best to savor each moment, even the little ones. The moments of everyday life and not only the moments surrounding the holidays. That is definitely my number one New Year's resolution. To enjoy every single moment both the good and bad. The bad moments make you stronger and also make you appreciate the good ones more!

How did y'all celebrate Thanksgiving?

Best friend. 

Sweet Daddy!

I love our little family! Crazy faced dog and all...she was licking the remains of the piece of cheese off her face. 

Mommy!
Kendall babysitting Kinley!

Decorating! :) My mother in law is pretty creative and got this shot from the front porch. I love it!

Snuggling with dad. 

Kinley loved the Christmas tree!!

xo, 
Sarah 

 
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