Happy One Year!

This past Monday was Shane and my one year anniversary as a married couple. It was such a great weekend! Shane and I both took the day off, and we really had such a beautiful relaxing couple of days.
Mama was so kind to get us a free stay at Ameristar, so Shane and I decided to spend the afternoon in St. Charles at the festival of the little hills. We found a couple of interesting things as we strolled along beautiful Main Street.


Duh! ;)
At Ameristar, we got crab legs, and spent the rest of the night watching Downton Abbey. We woke up and watched more Downton Abbey and went to a diner for breakfast in St. Charles. I told Shane I wanted to spend the whole day outside, because what else would I rather be when I'm stuck in my office?? Outside! So why not take this opportunity of having a day off in the middle of the week to do exactly that. I was dying to go to the zoo, because I hadn't gone in so long. And then afterwards we went bike riding in Forest Park. And ended the night with Hunger Games. (And now I'm obsessed..) It was such a great day! Pics from the zoo:

They were cracking us up so much.




They were my favorite!
Such a great day. Such a great way to celebrate one year! Can't wait for another happy year!

I'M DONEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

School is officially BEHIND me. Well, I guess it's not official until I get to the other side of the stage. But as of a click of the submission button, I am finished.

I already feel my spirit being uplifted. I already feel air in my lungs. The air seems cleaner. I can breathe easier. My body feels weightless, and I am rejoicing!

I can't wait to start a whole bunch of new projects. I know I'm probably gonna be overwhelmed with all that I want to do and then get lazy, but WHO CARES!!! I have no more deadlines, no more stressing out. If things don't get done, oh well. I'll get to them when I want to. But most likely I will get to them, because I've been dying to for the past year or so!

Now, I think it's time I finally get some wedding pictures printed. Yeesh.

EEEP! :)

Christmas Time is Here!

 
This is one of my favorite christmas songs from the Charlie Brown christmas album. HIGHLY recommended. I love it. Beautiful, elegant, simple, and classic. It's great. Love it and this song so much. Just puts me in the mood. Love this wonderful season of celebrating our Jesus and family time! (Only because of Christmas. Don't really care for the cold weather.)  
I'm so getting into the Christmas spirit. It's kind of making me sick. But I love it! We had most of our decorations up, including our tree, before Thanksgiving, because I got so excited! Look how fun my house is!  

I made those trees at the bottom! And Shane was in a crafty mood and helped! My house feels so warm and inviting with all my decorations. And I adore my advent calendar. That's gonna be hard to top. But in the meantime, I've made a couple of ornaments to get my craft urge fixing for the week. 
  
Adorable! The left one is a fabric scrap wreath. Thought I had to explain it since some people were unsure of what it was. I can't wait until school is over so I can start more crafts. Unfortunately most of my time will probably be spent getting presents, but that's always a good time too! Unless I have gobs of people to deal with, which is no fun.. Maybe I can MAKE PRESENTS! Perfect.

Reading some amazing posts over at Life Blessons.  She has written a new series for Newlyweds, Secrets of a Newlywed.  It's been so uplifting and encouraging.  I really admire that there are so many couples struggling with the same issues, but can share them freely in hopes of helping other newlyweds resolve their own.  Now, I'm just hoping I can become a better wife to my amazing husband!

I always feel like everything I'm doing and saying is right, and I never mess up, and that I'm better at this than he is.  But after reading these blog posts, I'm finding that I'm actually more at fault than he is! And I'm learning that there are so many more ways I can improve our marriage, just by doing MY part rather than making him try to change.

Just like every newlywed couple (and thank goodness I'm finding that we aren't the only ones) we argue about a lot of stuff and are struggling with a lot too.  Of course we have many many good aspects of our marriage, but we still gotta get the negative ones straightened out, and that isn't always easy to do. So I'm happy to be reading this series to help our own marriage, but to show my husband how much I love him, and how I am willing to show him that in any way possible (even simple ways that I never would have even thought of!)

Free morning photoshoot from John Harder.  Up before sunrise on little sleep and 30/40 degree weather.

But regardless, absolutely and totally worth it. 

(Favorite. Because this expresses more of who we truly are: children.)

So much fun! :)