Spice storage.

One of my favorite things about the decorations around my home is that most, if not all of them, are things we used in our wedding. So all it takes is a look around to remind me of my favorite day. My dad came up with the perfect spot for this chalkboard window box that we used to write the menu on 

It also has the perfect little shelf to keep all of our spices in! I found these perfect little jars and chalkboard labels at hobby lobby and love how it turned out 

I'm still working on what to write on the chalkboard but I love how it turned out!

12 Dates a Year-January

I have the BEST brother and sister ever. As a wedding gift, they gave Ross and me a set of 12 envelopes, 1 per month, each one containing a ready-to-go date! The 1st of every month we get to open the envelope and see what we got to do this month. 

A hockey game! I love this gift so much because it gets us out there doing things we wouldn't have thought of. Ross and I both enjoy hockey but never would have thought to go to a game. But we're so glad we got to go to one, because we had a great time!! 

We also enjoyed a delicious dinner beforehand  

And Allen won 5-0! It was so much fun, and a great chance for us to spend some time together and just hangout. I can't wait for the 1st of the month and am so excited to see what is in store for us!

Chalkboard pantry!

It didn't take long for me to take on my first project in the new home. Our apartment doesn't have any sort of pantry and pretty limited kitchen storage so we knew we'd have to get something for that. We were just going to get a wire shelf at target and put it in the utility room, but then we saw this on craigslist and I was SURE it would still fit in there with the washer and dryer.

Perfect fit, right? Except for that I couldn't use the washer and dryer that I dedicated a whole blog post to, so that wasn't happening. So then it found a home in the dining room. How cute is it?! And the perfect size. But I knew I wanted to do a little something to it to make it more us. 

Step 1. Find perfectly shabby cabinet on craigslist

Chalkboard paint-the answer to all most life's questions.

Step 2. Tape off edges and paint first coat. Question how long you've had
this chalkboard paint. Should I have sanded it first? Whatever.

The finished product! I'm really excited with how it turned out! 

Step 3. Apply second coat and remove tape. Sanding not
necessary which is good because I've never sanded a thing in my life.

It works too! And so far it's been great for keeping track of what we need! We'll see how long we actually use it to keep a list of what we need, but regardless it was definitely worth the $30!

Step 4. Get peanut butter, a can opener, and truvia. 

It's a dogs life

This is how Cricket feels about my new job making her wake up at 5:30am

The feeling is mutual.

I'm feeling 22!

I had a wonderful birthday weekend with some of my favorite people! The celebrations started out on Friday when we met Ross's parents for dinner at Twisted Root for burgers. Then Saturday I got to choose whatever I wanted to do and I chose to go to a grocery store. But not just any grocery store-Trader Joe's. If you don't know what Trader Joe's is/have never been find your closest one now and go ASAP. It has anything you could possibly want and everything you didn't know you needed. Here's the proof.

Oops. But LOOK at those prices! How could we not?! I've never been happier to spend my birthday grocery shopping. We then went to dinner just the two of us at a delicious Mexican restaurant at the Stockyards downtown and had a great time celebrating! Sunday morning we saw Saving Mr Banks and it was awesome. A lot more intense and sad than I had anticipated but I really enjoyed it. We got to round off the festivities with dinner with my parents at the best Italian restaurant ever where I've gone for the last 3 years. I'm not sure how 22 can top 21 to be honest. I graduated from the best university, watched my best friend marry her best friend, married my best friend, my husband graduated, and we went on the best vacation ever. 22-you've got some serious shoes to fill! 

PS. If you do plan on going to Trader Joe's check out http://www.whatsgoodattraderjoes.com/ first. It helped me not buy the whole store, although it doesn't look that way based on that receipt.

You know you're married when....

We love just about everything about our apartment-except one thing. It doesn't come with a washer/dryer. We had planned on using the on-site laundry facility for the first couple of months and then finding something cheap on craigslist to hold us over for a couple years. But with the holiday specials going on we decided it was worth it to get a new set, and so we made our first big grown up purchase!  A brand new washer and dryer. I couldn't have said it better myself, Dad!

How pretty is this? And how ridiculous is it that I am this excited about doing laundry?

Nothing makes you feel quite like a grown up like buying a washer and dryer, and doing 4 loads of laundry the day they get delivered!

Finding our routine

Oh my goodness. This December was one for the books. I plan on going back and posting about everything with pictures and finally getting caught up, but for now we're just working on getting settled and figuring out our new life and new routine here. Ross had his first day of work on Monday and I had a interview for a nanny job. Thankfully, both went really well and Ross had a great first day and I have a job! I'm the nanny for the CUTEST 6 month old twins! It will be so nice for me to have something until I start school in June-there's only so many times you can clean the house until you start looking for something else to do. Ross has really been enjoying his first week and the people that we works with and we're starting to figure out Fort Worth! We've got big plans this weekend-my birthday is Monday and I requested we go to Trader Joe's. I know-dream big! I'm planning on being better about keeping this updated, hopefully once we get into the swing of things it'll be a little easier to find the time!

Happy New Year!

Finally-a holiday I took some pictures of! Our Aggies were playing in the bowl game on New Years Eve, and because we don't have ESPN and because some of our friends were in town for the break, we headed over to a sports bar in downtown Arlington to watch the game and hangout to celebrate the new year! I don't want to talk about the first half of that game, but they turned it around and it made for a really great game! We had so much fun hanging out with some of our friends-I loved getting to see them!

After the game we headed home in time to watch the ball drop and were in bed by 12:10 and I couldn't have imagined a better way to ring in the new year!

Speaking of new years I've been thinking of my resolutions and I have the same ones I have every year-eat better and move more, be kinder, get more organized, etc. But one specific one I have this year that I REALLY want to stick to is taking more pictures. I have a fancy new camera I got for graduation and no pictures to show for it. So I really want to be better about capturing moments-whether it be my phone or camera-I just want a way to prove these things I'm talking about actually happened! And maybe I'll have the pictures to more than just one of our first holidays!