Cheap Date Nights

As the new year starts, and we are bringing a baby into our world, we talked budget.  One category of the budget that we will not cut out completely is date night money. We feel very strongly that having date nights is important to our little family of 3.  Thank goodness we have always done cheap date nights. Don't get me wrong, sometimes we splurge a little and go somewhere nice, but most of the time it's on the cheap. 

Here are some of our date nights: (you may not call them dates, but they definitely are to us!)

* QT dates - ok, if you live in the South, then you definitely know what QT (Quick Trip) is.  It's basically the cleanest, nicest gas station around. I know, sounds sooo trashy. But it's not. We go on dates here to grab a fun drink and a snack. We'll either take it home for a movie night (winter) or to the park (summer).  We can't wait to introduce these special dates to our little one!

* Walking around the mall - usually we'll grab some chick-fil-a or something then just walk around the mall. Sometimes we have an agenda and sometimes we don't. It's just nice to walk around together instead of being trapped inside during the cold winter months.

* Walking around our favorite Antique store - We usually have a QT date before this...then we walk around and get inspired by all the beautiful things! We love to dream :)

* Taking a walk - we have this GREAT trail called the Suwanee Greenway. It's about 2 miles from our house. Unfortunately, I am a woose and can't handle it during the winter. So we reserve this for spring, summer, and fall months. There is a playground at the end of the trail that is fun to swing on for a little break in the middle. Once we are done we usually grab some breakfast.  That is MR.P's favorite part ;)

* Ice cream dates - we have this great little ice cream place in the middle of one of our favorite parks. We love to go there then lounge at the park. This is making me really excited about spring.  Goodness gracious...it's January. I have a long time to wait!!

I love dates with the Mr. He is precious and I love him so much!  We had a great night last night. We started off our night by catching up on each other's days. Then we worked out together (whoohoo!) Cooked a simple dinner (surprise, surprise). Then we read for about an hour. MR.P was finishing up "Fathered By God" and I was reading "Baby Wise"...except for mine is seriously 18 years old. It was my mom's book :) I am going to read "Fathered By God" too. Matt was raving about it!

I leave you with this! I hope our child has this kind of confidence!!!

Pretty sure as a kid my parents never worried about my confidence...it was always pretty high ;)

3 years ago

On December 22nd 3 years ago MR.P asked me to marry him.  Well, 3 years later we went to visit that same beach.  So fun to remember.  I just can't believe it's already been that long! 

Thanksgiving

First off, I just have to say that I am SOOO incredibly thankful to have MR.P back home.  I almost forgot what it felt like to have a husband!  Ok, just kidding.  It's just really nice to have him back.  This is how excited we were to see each other!

(terrible quality, but you get the excitement!)

So anyway, onto the point of my post today.  I wanted to share some things I am thankful for.  Not only because its the week of Thanksgiving, but because I should always remind myself of these things and thank the Lord for blessing us sooo much!  I am thankful that the Lord blessed me with the gift of marriage and to the best husband ever!  I am thankful for our families and the fact that we are all believers.  MR.P and I have been left with such a heritage of believers and for that we are sooo incredibly grateful.  I am also thankful for our new house.  I can't believe that we actually have a house!  It's been such a learning process, but so good for us.  I am thankful for our our friends and family.  I am thankful for our jobs...the list could go on.  Sadly, some days I don't feel so thankful.  I grumble and complain about anything and everything.  Can you believe that???  I have so much to be thankful for, yet, so often I ask God WHY?  Why haven't you given me this?  Or blessed me with that?  I pray that through this Holiday season I can learn to be thankful on a daily basis.  I pray that I would have a heart of gratefulness even in the things my heart desires.  God knows exactly what we all need and the exact timing for us. 

What are you thankful for?  What are you learning about this Thanksgiving?

P.S. We are headed to the beach with my family for Thanksgiving this year.  I am sooo excited about this.  MR.P and I get almost a whole week with all my nieces, sisters, brother, brothers-in-law, and my parents!  We are very blessed!

Sweet friends that kept me company this week

So I can now tell you that MR.P has been gone for 2 full weeks!!  He will be home today and I can barely concentrate!  So during these 2 weeks I have had sweet friends and family to keep me company.  I have appreciated everyone so much, I can't even begin to express myself. 
Day 1 my sweet sisters-in-law came over after church and spent the entire day with me!  How incredibly sweet of them :)

(This is an old picture, but I love it.  This was for my girls weekend before MR.P and I got married.)

Day 2 I had Dgroup (bible study).  They all kept me great company.  I don't have a picture of them all, but they know who they are :)   BUT, my sister in law "Beans" came over @ 9:45 that night because I got a little scared.  I'm such a whimp!  As a thank you I got her a Vanilla Coke from Sonic.  She said it made her night.

(She caught the bouquet at our wedding :)  too funny!)

Day 3 I went and spent some time with my friend Katie!  I went to her house and she made me the best dinner ever!  We hung out for a little while, ran to target and then Wal-mart.  It makes me so sad that my time with her goes by so fast!  We live pretty far away from each other so we have to make the most out of our time together.

(pic from my girls weekend before MR.P and I got married)

Day 4 my mom spent some time with me. It was soo nice to get some alone time with my mom. We went shopping for some crafts for a sisters/girls night we are planning :) Oh and "Beans" came over again.

 Day 5  My friend from college came over that I haven't seen in years!  She was so sweet to come eat dinner with me and just hang out.  Then "Beans" came over again...is it getting hold yet?  Just kidding.  I appreciated everything she did for me these past 2 weeks.

Day 6 I had the wives of the guys that were out of town with MR.P over for dinner.  We had a blast.  We got take out, talked, and just had fun.  One of the girls has a mac and so does her husband.  So we planned for us all to talk with our husbands.  Soo much fun!

(MR.P is on the far right side)

It was SOOO nice seeing MR.P's face.  I missed that face A LOT!!!

Day 7 my friend Joy came to visit.  We had a great time.  We went shopping, had lunch, talked a TON, and just relaxed.  I really appreciated her coming to visit.  It was exactly what I needed :)

(We tried way too many times to get this pic right...sad!)

Day 8 I visited a new Church that MR.P and I are looking into.  My newest niece fell asleep on my chest and it made my day!  I guess she knew I needed her since I was husbandless during church.  Then my sisters and I headed to celebrate my "little" brother's 15th bday.  The whole family was there except MR.P.  Sad day :(  We all missed him a lot!  Then us girls went and did a little shopping.  This is only 3 out of the 6 of us (my mom included).

(We were sending a little hello text to MR.P)

Day 9 I had Dgroup again.  This week we did a little Thanksgiving celebration.  I finally got a pic of all of us!

Day 10 "Beans" came over again. 

Day 11 I went to my sister Laura's house.  She has 3 sweet, precious girls and I got to spend a little time with them.  We moved some furniture around in her house to make it flow better.  That was fun!  We were going to turn her bonus room into their play room, but it got a little late.  Bummer...we'll do it next time.

(this is us with her new precious baby, Elizabeth Anne)

Day 12 My 2 sisters-in-law came over for dinner.  We went the easy route and got Moe's.  It also happened to be my favorite night of tv, so that entertained us.

Day 13 Because he won't be home for a while today I will have to entertain myself.  I work all day and then have a few errands I need to run.  But, I tell you, I miss that MR.P.  I can't wait to see him tonight! 

Sorry for the long post.  I just wanted everyone to get a shout out who so sweetly entertained me even though I was probably pathetically missing MR.P.  Thanks everyone!

Family Values

Ephesians 1:16-19 "I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.  I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.  I pray also that they eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may see the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for those who believe.  That power is like the working of his mighty strength."

MR.P and I went on a date a few months ago to Brio. We were discussing 4 family values we wanted for our family now and for the future. I have to admit, it was slightly stressful trying to think of these values. Our main question to ourselves was this..."Is this something we just want to teach our children or is it BIG enough that we would put this on our wall?" (you know, like frame it) So after discussing this during our date, plus a more days we came up with these.

1.) Faith - To always remember what Jesus did on the Cross for our sins. We want to teach our children the gospel. We will fail everyday, but we pray that we can teach them about the Great God we serve and hope they will accept him as their personal savior.

2.) Stewardship - We hope to teach our children to handle their money responsibly as well as being generous with it.

3.) Authenticity - To be real with people. I thought this was something I was really good at until a few weeks ago. MR.P is really good at this so I will just follow his lead :)

4.) Hospitality - We love hosting friends and family at our house. We hope to be able to instill that into our family and future children's lives.
What are your families core values??  I'd love to hear them :)

We're just a couple of nerds!

Terrible, aweful picture quality, yet an AMAZING capture of MR.P and my halloween costumes.  I think we pulled off the nerds quite well...maybe we actually are nerdy?  We had a fun halloween party at our friend's house with lots of yummy snacks and great fellowship.  Now we can focus on Thanksgiving!  MR.P and I are headed to the beach for Thanksgiving with my family.  We are pretty darn excited about that.  We can't wait!  Happy Monday everyone.  It's almost over!!!

Just Feeling in love with MR.P

Thankful for him today, tomorrow, and forever :)

I don't have any projects at the moment since I am trying to get better.  Today I feel much, much better!  I've never had a cold like this.  They usually last about 2 weeks for me, but this is only day 5.  Maybe the fact that I've rested a lot is helpful :)  What a novel idea...resting while sick!  I did try spraypainting the chandalier, but that took way too much energy out of me, so I'll post about that soon.  Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!

Painting!

In MR.P and my new home, we have a BRIGHT PINK ROOM.  It was the baby room of the previous owners.  Since MR.P and I don't have any children yet, we ventured out and decided that the pink room had to go!  MR.P told me to choose a color that I wanted for an office and a later baby room.  It was a tough choice, but I found one I like (stay tuned to see what color we chose!)  I LOVE doing projects because I like to make them fun (I think I learned that from my mom...like making road trips fun). So we brought the laptop upstairs and we popped in a Friends DVD and started priming (I will never forget to Prime because my sister has cemented that into my brain). After an hour of priming we decided we probably wouldn't get anything else but priming done. It took FOREVER!

(MR.P doing a great job priming)

I have to say MR.P and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I can't remember what was so funny but I definitely laughed harder  than I have in a while.

We also made the mistake of using too much primer. So we had to make a Home Depot trip to get more primer (Which was probably MR.P's favorite part...hahaha). We made it fun by stopping at QT to get a drink and some snacks. That helped motivate us to finish up. I wore a pink shirt to honor the memory of the pink room that is no more.

Our working station... primer - check! paint brush - check! hole filler - check! yeah, we had it all!

MR.P working hard...and looking good I might add as well ;)

It looks like I didn't do any work, but really I did. See those edges?? Yeah, I did that beautiful work.

It was a fun day. MR.P even installed some ceiling lights for us! They look soooo much better than the gold ones before. Yuck! Stay tuned for pics of the finished product!