The Proposal

Three years ago, today, Jaymes proposed to me.

It was a total surprise.  Just a couple of months earlier Jaymes had taken a job in Tulsa which is 2 hours away.  We were rocking the long distance thing. 

On this day, Jaymes had driven back to Joplin after already working all day long and went to my parents house to ask my Dad for my hand.  My parents hadn't really approved of Jaymes for the first few years of our relationship, so this was a big deal.  They apparently talked for over an hour and then my parents gave Jaymes their blessing.

I would have said yes regardless.

My Mom called me and asked me to come over to the house to sign some insurance papers for her work. I walked in the door and Jaymes stepped out of the laundry room and got down on one knee.  As you can see in the pictures, I was completely shocked!  Jaymes said a lot of sweet things, I think, I actually can't remember anything he said, and then asked me to spend the rest of my life with him and I said yes!

My Mom, Dad, brother and sister were all watching. And my brother took photos.  They are some of the worst photos ever, but I treasure them.

So here they are.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

I got Christmas crazy up in here (up in here) Sunday. 

Aurora and I put up the Christmas Tree and I spread some holiday cheer around the rest of the house while Jaymes put the lights up outside.

 

 

Our plan is to add a little to our outdoor decorations every year.  This year we focused on white lights all around the house.  We'd also like to trace the windows, bushes and roof lines.

 

We have an artificial tree.  I've always had one my whole life, I'm not sure I could even figure out what to do with a real tree.

Although, one year when we lived in Tennessee, we went out into the woods and chopped down our own tree.  My Dad picked out a 20 foot or more tree and then cut off the top.  We put it up in our living room and within days all of the needles turned orange.  So, that was strange enough, but then they all fell off.  Are you supposed to water Christmas Trees?

There are a few very meaningful ornaments on our tree.  I hope to someday have a tree full of homemade ornaments and ones we've handpicked instead of a bunch of random bulbs.

I also decorated our china shelf in the dining room (if you can call it china, or a dining room).

And hung some stockings, but since we don't have a fireplace I hung them by the bookcase with care.

Joy to the World!



Oh, How Pinteresting!

Today, I am linking up with The Vintage Apple for Oh, How Pinteresting Wednesday.  It's my first bloggy link up!  Enjoy the fruit of my procrastination!

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Happy Thanksgiving

Today I am so thankful:

My life is pretty wonderful. I am thankful for:

-my beautiful daughter Aurora

-my husband Jaymes

-our home. It's beautiful and all ours

-my parents, brother and sisters. In laws, nieces and nephews

- my health and the health of everyone I love

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because its all about family and food!

So, go eat!

Free Trees, Y'all

I'm so excited!

When we bought our house we knew that the backyard was an issue.  It is barren.  It's to be expected considering a tornado ripped every living thing out of the ground.

Our builder put sod down in the front and side yards and about 20 feet into the backyard.  That leaves over 2/3 of the backyard as dirt.  Dirt with rocks and tornado debris.  And no trees.  There is nothing with any height besides the telephone poles.

 

(Here is the back of our house.  You can see where the pretty green sod begins.)

 

Naturally, I was so excited when I heard from our realtor that the City of Joplin was offering free trees to residents in the Tornado Recovery area.  Each home is allowed up to 3 trees.  Woohoo!

 

Now, can you believe it that Jaymes was against this idea at first?  I mean, look at our backyard!  It's a wasteland!  It needs a little something something, if you know what I'm saying.  His reasons were that he didn't want to have to deal with raking the leaves in the fall and mowing around them. 

 

Needless to say, I won this argument. I mean this is an amazing opportunity to great free (FREE!) trees and save ourselves hundreds of dollars.  Plus, this will really improve our curb appeal, since we have a corner lot, and our home's resale value.

 

We compromised a little, I agreed to only get 2 trees.

 

We don't get to choose specifically what species of tree we are having planted, but we did get to choose between shady trees or utility friendly trees. Utility friendly trees are smaller, they shouldn't grow to be taller than 25 feet. This is to hopefully keep them from growing into the power lines and needing to be trimmed every year.  Utility companies spend millions trimming trees every year.

 

We opted to go with the utility friendly trees.  Both to appease my tree-adverse husband and to sort of give back to the City of Joplin.  They helped us by treeing up our backyard so why not help them out and save them some cash.

 

Our next step was to call 1-800-DIG-RITE to have all of our utilities marked.

 

 

Now, we just have to decide where to have the trees placed.  What do you think?

 



Random Nothings

I got discouraged.  I had this great post all written out, with links and pictures and everything.  And then I deleted it.  I didn't mean to.  But, it made me really mad.

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In other news, we got a new entertainment center last night.  Holy assembly nightmare. It took around 6 hours to put together, but we got it done.  Even though, they sent us two left legs! 

I like it a lot. It looks a little odd in our living room right now.  We have what I lovingly refer to as hobo furniture. It's all hand me downs that don't go together and are looking a little sad.  So, even though this is the only piece of  black furniture in the room right now, it's definitly the direction we're going.  I love it so much!

Now, I just need to figure out the best way to style it.

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I'm so disappointed.  I ordered Aurora's Year 2 photo book last week and it looks like it is not going to get here before her birthday party.  I thought it would be really great for all of our birthday guests to be able to look through it an reminisce.  Oh well. 

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Only 2 days of work left before Thanksgiving and the 4 day weekend that accompanies it.  I am so stinking excited.  My job only offers vacation time after a year's employment.  So, for the past 10 months I have had no time off to speak of.  Going from being a stay-at-home-mom to working full time with no paid time off has been a huge adjustment.  Especially for someone who likes her sleep as much as I do.

Jaymes has promised, since he is blessed with 2 sleep-in days everyweek, to let me sleep in every day this weekend.  There is one thing about me that has never changed, no matter how many mornings I have to get up for work or how many times Aurora gets me up too early, I love sleep.  No seriously. I would almost always rather be sleeping.

Quick Note

Holy Macaroni!

I need to figure out this whole blog layout thing.

Mine is looking pretty sad.

Here. This is cute to look at.  Forgive me.

Almost 2 Years Old. Help me.

My goodness.

Aurora is turning 2 in 9 days.  Let's just let that sink in.

I can't believe it's been so long.  It feels like I was just pregnant with her.  Let's not even focus on the fact that I haven't lost my baby weight yet.  I should really get on that.

She is so much fun!

As much Mommy-guilt as I've had this year, I really think that putting her in daycare was the best thing for her. A year ago, she wasn't even speaking yet. Now, she won't shut up! haha

Here is a list of all the new things Aurora has learned in just the last month or so:
-All of her colors. Wow.
-How to count to ten. Most of the time.
-Basic shapes.
-Starting to get her letters.  She has A, B, C, F, M and O down pat.

I work with her a lot at home but I think the daycare has to get most of the credit here.  I have never been a good teacher. I struggle with how to present things in an efficient way.

My favorite thing she does right now is how she asks "What happened?"  Whenever, there is a strange noise, or something falls or doesn't work.  It cracks me up!

 

She's just the bee's knees.