It's about time...

Alright.  The boys are 5 months old, and I'm still carrying around some of their baby weight.  It's time to crack down and lose it.  Jeremy has also put on a few pounds, and so we have decided to do things a little differently around here.  First thing that we are changing is the way we eat.  I'm not a big fan of "diets" because they're restrictive.  They don't let you eat things you want to, and therefore you are more likely to eat them, because you are forbidden to have them.  Instead, we are just going to eat healthier, with a huge lists of things that we should be eating everyday.  That way, it's concentrating on foods that we can eat, instead of foods that we cannot eat.  Jeremy originally suggested this "diet", as he had gotten it from his favorite chef, Alton Brown.  Alton has completely changed his way of eating and lost around 50 lbs in 9 months.  We are going to give this thing a try. 

This will be my "before" picture...All my extra weight is concentrated in my hip/belly area, and I have about 15-20 lbs to lose.  (I debated a long time about whether or not to post these pictures... they make me pretty self conscious, but I think it's good...it'll motivate me.  knowing that they have been put out there, for everyone to see.)

We are also each starting our own exercise routines.  Running is my passion, but I don't like to go out running while the boys are awake, I feel like I should be spending time with them instead.  I still take them out on runs occasionally, but it's sometimes hard to find a good time when I don't think that either of them will get pissed and start screaming when I get halfway around the block, and also, it's starting to get too cold outside to take them out in the wind for that long anyway.  I would go when they nap, but their nap times are so unpredictable, that I never know if I would have time to finish my run before they wake up.  SO I have a different strategy that I'm going to do for a while.  I got a few different Jillian Micheal dvds, as I've heard and read that they are uber good work outs.  I plan to do those (rotating through 3 of them) for 5 days a week, and then P90X yoga one day a week.  I can easily do these while the boys nap because the Jillian Micheal work outs are only 20-30 minutes (we're almost always guaranteed that amount of nap time), and the yoga I can do after they go to bed at night.  

Here is the AB lists of foods to eat that we are now following:

Eat everyday:                     Eat 3x a week:                         Eat 1x a week:                Never eat:

        Fruits                                 oily fish                                  red meat                          fast food

   whole grains                            yogurt                                     pasta                               soda

   leafy greens                            broccoli                                 dessert                        processed food

       nuts                                  sweet potato                            alcohol                        canned soups

      carrots                                 avocado                                                                  "diet" anything

    green tea

 *I'm not calling this our "New Year's Resolution" because those always get broken, and we started it before the New Year anyway.  We started this on Christmas, and have each lost 3 lbs so far. Hooray for progress! 

In other news...We have made a few new decor changes to our home...

My awesome friend Amanda sewed this really cool design for us before the boys got here.  I recently got it framed and it's now hanging in our family room.  (notice the empty leaf...for future children!)

I often get groupon deals for pictures that can be turned into canvases.  I am a sucker for them, and have gotten a few for the boys' room:

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It's beginning to look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS!

Our tree is up, and our house is decorated for the holidays (which, by the way, I need a lot more decorations to fill our house, but I guess that comes with collecting things over time! ). Christmas music, baked goods and movies are beginning to fill our home.  Now all we need is some snow.  Yes, I did just ask for snow.  I grew up in Michigan with snow every year, and I miss it now that I live in the south (although last year's snow was pretty awesome).  OH!  and our boys are now being sung to sleep with Christmas carols each night, and it's precious.  

Once they boys get older, I'm super pumped to make Christmas cookies with them, do fun advent calendar activities, and have the excitement that is Christmas morning.  

I have always found the Elf on the Shelf a little creepy.  But after seeing some awesome ideas for the elf on Pinterest, I'm totally going to get it for the boys.  Here are some mischievous things to do with the elf!  

Another super fun thing that I am excited to do for the boys is this:

They will have to break through their bedroom door on Christmas morning!!

Our Home

Our home.  I'm super excited that we have been able to buy a house, somewhere to call home.  Somewhere where we can park and get comfortable for the next 5-10 years or so (until our family outgrows this house!).  I haven't really felt "at home" since I left mine in Michigan in 2005.  I've lived in college dorms, friends' houses, duplexes, and apartments since I've moved to Nashville for school.  Jeremy and I first lived in an apartment when we got married, but it never really felt like home, because I knew that we weren't going to be there for very long.  Even though I had no idea that we would be able to get a house as soon as we did, I never completely felt at home in our apartment.  Sure, it worked just fine for us, and we had 2 Christmases together there, but there was always something missing.   

But now our house is now really our home.

Maybe it was our babies that solidified it, I don't know.  But I do know that we live in a place that I am always excited to come home to.  When I walk in the door from having been gone for a while, I feel a warmth, a peace, a comfort.  It's the place where we always are together.  It's the place where we cook delicious homemade dinners.  It's the place where we chill out and watch movies/tv.  It's where we remodel and paint and decorate the way we want, without having to get it approved.  It's the place where we sleep, together and with our babies.  It's the place where we play with our boys and watch them grow.

It's our home.   

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Thanks² Day 14 & 15

I'm thankful that we have a nice home to live in, and I love coming back to it after a long day or trip away!

I'm thankful for the few minutes of free time that I get when my babies decide to be enthralled by the moving animals above them on their mobiles!

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Nursery Complete!

I had been itching so badly to find out the genders of our twins so that I could start on the nursery design.  I had a lot of ideas if the twins were boys...and not so many if they were girls.  That's really sad, I know.  But I just had no inspiration because I didn't want pink or princesses, and it's kinda hard to avoid those things.  As soon as we found out we were having 2 boys, I was pumped to get started on their room.  Our first ideas were a jungle theme or a forest/woodland theme.  We were about to go with the forest theme when we had the idea to base the nursery off of one of the best children's books ever written (in our opinion, at least).  It was Jeremy's favorite book growing up, and although I had never heard of it until I met him, it quickly became my favorite also.  The book is The Giving Tree.  It's a beautiful little story about a tree and a little boy and eternal love without return.  If you've never read it, you totally should.  First we started with a mural on the wall...

    
We took a few pictures from the book



And combined them into one big wall mural, painted by yours truly.  We decided to accessorize the room with apple and tree type stuff.  I searched for a lamp that had a tree base to it, but could not find one that wasn't super fancy or cost less than $300.  Ridiculous.  So what did I do?  I made my own instead.  I found a cheapo lamp base at goodwill (it works!), found a lamp shade from Etsy, and then added my own decorations to the base.

Here is the result:

Next I tried to find a clock with apples or trees on it...also had no such luck, so again I made my own. 

 The J & F will be decorated and hung above the crib.  Here are some other things I painted to go on the walls.

We found some little apple knobs to go on the dresser.  The other knobs are going to be little green leaves, but we have yet to put them on because we need to get some washers.

The nursery work came to a little halt after we were done with the wall mural and after I had trouble finding the stuff I wanted.  It took me a while to decide how I wanted to make the things that I made, but I'm happy with how they all came out, and I'm pumped that the nursery is almost completely finished!  The rocking chair will go in the corner, and the bedding and curtains are yet to come.  The bedding will be made by my grandma out of a really cute light blue/green/brown apple patterned fabric.  It's super cute and I would show you a picture, but I bought the remaining fabric from the online store, and they no longer sell it/took it off their website.  The curtains will be made by Jeremy's mom and myself, and the fabric for that is yet to be found.

Yay!  

Corner shelves.

Home-sewn curtains by Jeremy's mom and I.

Crib sheet set home-sewn by my grandma.

Crib is all ready for our babies!

Adding ourselves to our new house.

There is no such thing as a house that is perfect right from the start.  Whether you are buying a house that had a previous owner or having one built, there is always a lot of work to be done to make it "your" house.  Before I start going over the renovations of our new house, lets take my parents as an example.  I grew up in a house in southwest Huntsville.  It wasn't the prettiest house, but over time my parents did a little bit here and a little bit there until it was something they were comfortable living in.  That took 15 years, and then they promptly moved.  They bought a house that was a new build, and it is a beautiful house.  They have lived there for three years and have finally put pictures on the walls.  They screened in the deck and put in a patio, along with doing some landscaping.  My parents take their time to make their house their own.

We, on the other hand, are hitting the ground hard and fast with our (24 year old) new home.  Paint is easily the fastest, cheapest, and possibly best way to make a new house feel like a home.  So we painted the day of our closing.  Now, we are still taking down wallpaper in the kitchen.  I have decided that I want to refinish the cabinets and have started the stripping, sanding, and staining process.  I have to do the stripping and the staining while Sarah is out of the house due to the fumes.   That, combined with the sheer time it takes to sand the cabinets down, means that this process will take some time.  That is hard for us, as we want it done as quickly as possible.

This is especially hard for Sarah.  The first day we started messing with the wallpaper, we were both tired.  That mixed with Sarah's ridiculous pregnancy hormones caused her to go from laughing to extreme crying while we were pulling wallpaper off the walls.  I had to call my mom for her to come up the next day and help with all of this so Sarah would have some relief.  After the call, she was crying about not being able to pull the wallpaper off easily and preceded to cry out, "I just want to cook dinner!"  I had no idea why she said this as it was 10:00 at night and still don't understand why she would yell such an absurd comment.  It has been a week and we still aren't done with the wallpaper.

The point of all of this is that it is hard work to create a home.  You can buy a beautiful new house like my parents or an older one like us, it makes no difference.  You are going to have to either shell out a small fortune having someone else fix it up for you, or you can do it yourself. (And still spend quite a bit of money)  I recommend doing it yourself.  Not only do you have the satisfaction of doing something that you get to enjoy for years to come, you also get great stories about your pregnant wife screaming hilarious statements!

Homeowners.

Well, it's official.  We are now homeowners.  It's been a long and tedious process with loads of paperwork and signatures, but it's done.  It's so crazy!  I can't believe we have our own house!  It's so much fun to pick out colors of paint and different things that we are doing to renovate the house.  We are in the middle of painting, moving all of our junk in, de-wallpapering, putting up new molding, some new lighting, a new kitchen sink and possibly countertops.  That's a lot!  But it's coming together, and it's very exciting.  We have met one of our neighbors, and they are really nice.  When we drove over to the house for our final walk through on a sunday afternoon, most of the people in the neighborhood were just outside talking to each other in the nice weather.  How awesome is that?!  I like friendly neighbors.  The first renovation that we(Jeremy) did?  A cat flap.  Haha!  How funny is that?  There is little "doggie door" if you will, on the door that leads out to our garage that the cats use.  We can now keep their food and litter box out of our house.  It's hilarious to watch them use the thing.

You never know how much junk you store up and actually have until you completely move it from one house to another.  We have gotten rid of so much crap just because it was too much stuff.  Ridiculous.  So many trash bags full of things we got rid of during our packing/moving process.  We are now almost completely unpacked and I have yet to cook a meal in my new kitchen.  We painted a few rooms, moved all of our stuff over from our apartment, and then I went straight into working for 3 nights in a row.  So I have not gotten a chance to do much at all to the house except for sleep in it.  I have the next 4 days off and I am super pumped to get the last of everything unpacked, hang paintings on the walls and cook my first meal in a kitchen that fits more than one person in it. Some say I now need to change the name of my food blog, Little Kitchen, Lovely Food because my kitchen is no longer little.  It is now a good decent medium sized kitchen where Jeremy and I can cook side by side without bumping into one another constantly.  No good blog titles to change it to come to mind.  I am open to suggestions friends.

I will post pictures of all of the rooms of our house as soon as we are done with all of the changes!



      

A House ?!

Can you guess another big step in becoming an adult?

Buying a house.

Can you guess that we have done that? 

well, we have.

We have bought a house.  That's just crazy.  We can't afford a house.  We are still poor college kids.  But not really.  Because we just bought a house.  Not only did we find out that we are pregnant, not only did we find out that we are pregnant with twins, but we bought a house.  Oh goodness. 

Everything has just kind of fallen into our lap...I don't know whether I should be concerned or just be happy.  I am very thankful for these many blessings though!  We didn't even search for a house for more than a week.  We found a realtor that we really clicked with, saw multiple houses within a span of 2 weeks, and ended up loving the very first house we found/saw.  How crazy is that?!  It was completely reasonably priced and is an awesome house! We figured we needed somewhere a little bigger than our 2 bedroom apartment for the twins to run around in.  Signing papers and getting approved for our loan has been a long and tedious process, but it's almost all done and we're very excited!

Here are some pictures of our house to be!  (not our furniture)

House!

The little pond will be turned into a garden, and we will probably redo/paint the fence and deck.  And repaint the whole interior.

So exciting!  Our closing date is the 28th of this month.  We're going to paint the next day and then move in!