Recap

Since it's nice and cold outside and there is plenty of snow on the ground, we don't plan on going anywhere today.  It's the perfect day to catch up on blogging.

For our first Christmas together as a married couple, we had the "perfect" day.  We were able to join in my family's tradition of a holiday party on Christmas Eve followed by church with Ryan's family.  

The ornament my mom gave me this year!

Instead of spending the night with Ryan's family we opted to stay at our apartment to wake up together Christmas morning.  We opened a couple of gifts here but then headed to Marietta to join Ryan's family.  

We had a lovely breakfast together and then opened lots of gifts!  I got lots of Auburn stuff (since my team is playing for the National Championship ;)).  About lunchtime we took the long drive over to my parents house.  It was perfect timing because it had started to snow!!  We spent the rest of the afternoon playing games and watching movies.

Danielle's giant present! Turned out to be a new tv!

Ryan got Scotland Yard for Christmas.  He loves being Mr. X

 We eventually ventured out into the snow and Ryan and Wade made a snowman with the little boy next door.  It was a lot of fun.  The white Christmas will be hard to top!!

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Dad had to dust off the propellers so Santa wouldn't crash!   Then Miles had to check Santa out!

Building a snowman

 

Sledding!  Miles didn't enjoy it too much!

For New Years we went down to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl.  Ryan's parents were nice enough to purchase tickets for us for Christmas.  Ryan and I went down on New Years Eve.  We got up about 4am to make sure we got there in time for all the festivities.  Unfortunately it turned into a very long day and we did not make it to midnight (more like I did not make it to midnight).  I don't really care for New Years Eve though, I think it's a little overrated!  We had a great time at the game on New Years Day!  We had great seats and it was fun to see Mississippi State beat Michigan!

 

 

 

 

   

 

It's hard to believe Christmas and New Years have come and gone.  It's even harder to believe that we will be celebrating our first anniversary next weekend!

Cable, coupons and house hunting

Most of our friends and family know that we have begun our house hunt.   We have been searching online for a while now and finally took the leap to start searching.  We saw some really great houses!  There are two that we really liked, there were a few others that were liked as well, but there are two that top the list.  The only problem is one is a little further out of town than we wanted and one is out of our price range.  We aren't ruling them out yet, we just need to figure out the part of town we really want to be in and if the home is worth being a little further out and if not, if we can get them to come down on the price of the other one.  We aren't putting all of our marbles in one bag though, we are still actively looking and will keep an open mind about the search.  

We have been saving for a house for a while, but now that our search has become real to us and buying a house could be in our near future, we are cutting back.  The first to go was our cable.  Yes, that's right, I canceled our cable.  We had a HD DVR, another HD receiver, the sports package, HBO (this was free) and internet and it just seemed to be getting out of hand!  So now we have basic cable and internet and we will be saving over $100 month!  Ryan was not a huge fan at first, but he is now on board.  He has an XBOX that is connected to the internet, so he can still watch ESPN, which was his main concern.  

The next cut back is eating out!  I did a previous post on eating out and cooking, but likely story, I did not stick to it.  But we went to dinner with some friends on Friday night and she introduced me to couponing.  I have tried in the past to use coupons, but apparently I was not using them wisely.  They are able to purchase groceries for $50 a week.  Imagine all of the savings!  I know in our household that would be a lot!  I am probably pretty late to the party, but at least I'm starting somewhere.  My friend has graciously offered to take me under her wing to teach me the ropes.  I have already started researching and printing coupons and I'm eager to start after Christmas! 

Happy Thanksgiving

So I have been a little MIA lately, but life has been pretty hectic.  I can't believe it is already time for the holidays!  I can not wait to get my Christmas decorations out, but my husband has been adamant about waiting until after Thanksgiving!  Just a few more days now....

We are headed to Chicago to visit with family for the holiday.  It's a yearly tradition that we have Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house.  This year is extra special because my aunt and two uncles are coming in from Colorado with some of my cousins.  If only the rest of my cousins could make it as well.  We will certainly miss those who aren't with us!  This is the first year that Ryan will come home for Thanksgiving with me, even though it will be a very short trip for him (stupid jobs get in the way now that we are grown ups!) but I'm thankful that he is willing to make the trip!

I have much to be thankful for this year!  The Lord has truly blessed me and my family. 

Many wishes for a very happy Thanksgiving!

Dinner Dilemma

I have a problem when it comes to dinnertime.  I am horrible at coming up with ideas for dinner.  When we got married I was sure I would be cooking more, well, it's come in waves, but I would say we eat out quite a bit.  I've used the excuse that it's hard to cook for two people, but I have finally figured out why I don't cook.  I never have any food in the house!  And that stems from my hatred for the grocery store.  I HATE going grocery shopping.  

This always happens to me!!

Just the thought of it makes me cringe.  Tonight, instead of going grocery shopping, I dusted!  I found that more enjoyable, ha! I typically make Ryan go with me so I will “enjoy” grocery shopping.  We will usually buy food for a week maybe two weeks and then once we run out it’s back to eating out.  We end up with a lot of frozen foods and packaged things that will heat up easily.  Every time I go I swear I am never going to buy them again, and they end up in my cart every trip!  I love the idea of coming up with foods from scratch and eating fresh foods, but the fresh foods I buy always end up going bad before I use them.  

Don't these look yummy!? 

And I seriously loathe eating out all the time (plus it will save us some money to eat in) but somehow it always seems easier to go grab something than actually taking my butt to the grocery store.  

I read Shine every week for recipes, but they always seems so hard and/or overwhelming, but practice makes perfect right?  I’m going to drag myself to the grocery store and buy items that I will actually use.  I’ve been considering going to one of those places that you pay to have someone show you how to make the meal and then you can take them home and freeze them (I know these places have a name, but I can’t think of it, probably why I haven’t done it, haha!).  So, moving forward I'm going to try really hard to have meals at home like this: