Merry Christmas

Our first Christmas card! 

I love that I married a graphic designer, he is one talented stud muffin ;)

Merry Chirstmas!

24

December 8th was my 24th birthday. Ah. So crazy to think that I graduated from high school 6 years ago...

I was so excited because thankfully I didn't have to work. I wanted to sleep in, but Clover was wide awake by the time Drew left for work, so sleeping in was a no go. 

Andrew told me that he was going to try and get off of work early so that we could hang out all day! 

The perfect birthday gift in my opinion! ;)

Around 12ish, I was getting ready in our room and I heard two loud bangs against the window that completely freaked me out. I looked out of it only to see this...

He is with out a doubt the best! 

The rest of the day was filled with shopping 

Seeing this

And yummy food & coffee. 

The day after my birthday my sister and Jordan came up. Saturday morning the door bell rang, and I was told it was a birthday present from my mom being delivered... but when I opened the door it was my mom and brother!! Such a lovely surprise! Dad had to work, unfortunately :(

We shopped around downtown and enjoyed all of the twinkle lights and beautiful trees, watched Home Alone, enjoyed my moms amazing peppermint cheesecake and loved all of our time together. 

My sister brought me this sweet little cake and they all sang happy birthday.

I am so blessed to have such sweet people in my life. 

A new favorite

Andrew and I love love looove talking about future holiday traditions that we would like to have with our family one day. I think these cookies made the list for a must have at Thanksgiving! We loved them--especially the frosting... I did could eat it by the spoonfuls. 

Ingredients
Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Frosting
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Pinch of salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Stir in pumpkin. In a medium bowl, sift together the baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, salt and flour. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well.  Drop by heaping tablespoons onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

To make frosting: In a medium saucepan, combine butter, cream, and brown sugar over medium heat.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture just begins to boil; remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Cool then stir in confectioner's sugar.  Spread frosting over cooled cookies.
   Mmmmm! 

Clover may have even snuck a lil frosting ;)

Now I suppose I will get back to listening to this and getting ready for work. 

FOUR more weeks until Chirstmas vaca! 

<3

Happy Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. Family, food and friends. The simple things are amazing things. God continually blows me away with all of these blessings. The challenge for myself is not to take any of it for granted. "It" being: A wonderful husband who loves me and loves living this amazing adventure together. A family who is so so awesome. Friends, old and new, that have been inspiration to us, we are so grateful for them. Our future ahead and the excitement of not knowing what it holds and knowing that God is in complete  control of it. A place to call our own. Financial blessings, our business and our jobs. Little Clover, oh how we love her. 

I should probably stop there before I write a novel. 

I am so thankful. 

God is good all the time. All the time God is good. 

10.31

Happy Hallowalloween 

as my favorite little 3 year old would say! 

Photo credit goes to the lovely Shayla. 

Baby Callan photo shoot might have turned into a mini Clover photo shoot thanks to this girl. 

:) 

today.

 I'm loving...

This weather. Fall! I love everything about you!
The crisp leaves, my cinnamon spice candle, pumpkin seeds, lots of family time, fireplace burning, warm comfy sweats and my fav.. pumpkin spice lattes. Oh they can be bad news.
Just look at them...

The fact that I (kind of) got to sleep in this am.

 I am so not a dog-in-the-bed kind of person. But this morning, after Drew left for work, I scooped her up and plopped her right next to me on our bed. She slept and slept and slept and then out of nowhere started grinding her teeth!?! Great, so I have a husband and a puppy who both grind their chompers.

This picture I found of my little brother. I just want to squeeeeze him.
Was he not the most absolute sweetest little boy you ever did see?

That it is Friday... and the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Radford are coming to visit. We are going to have such an autumn-y weekend :) Sauvie Island corn maze, yummy food, engagement pics, downtown shopping, mmm hmm, perfect!

 

Little Clover. She is so hilarious to watch. She treats every object like it is alive... hunches down, lets out a small growl, prances (yes, our puppy prances around like a cat almost 24/7) and then paws at it just to be safe. Andrew and I can watch her for hours! 

Pinterest. Me oh my who invented this crazy addicting madness? So many cute ideas. So many! I did find this lovely recipe that I am going to make for our little autumn-y weekend w/ the Rads. It looks delsih!

And this one guy. Andrew. He is amazing. Always has everything under control, taken care of and prepared. I love him oh so stinkin' much.

That's all. My nice little random post is over. Off to get some groceries to make some yummy homemade granola and have lunch with my hubby!

Yay for Friday! 

A good one for Monday morning

Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Last night Andrew and I pulled into the garage around 1am with a little puppy full of energy. She had been in her kennel for the past 3 hours on our drive from Roseburg to Portland so we couldn't really blame her. We took her out and played with her for about a half hour trying to try and ware her out a little bit. We finally put her in her kennel for the night and, granted she wasn't whining, she was chewing on everything - all night long! We finally fell asleep only to wake up to a clock that read 7:49am. The husband starts work at 8am, so it was a bit of a hectic morning. I dropped him off at work, went grocery shopping and then returned home to Clover who had poo'ed in her kennel and had smudged it all around, EW! I bathed her, only for her to run straight back into her kennel! Yes, it has been one of those mornings! 

And then I saw this video. And it touched me. And I loved it. And it has made this Monday morning awesome. 

:)