Fives

Top 5 things that irritate me in no particular order:

1. Drivers who are idiots and think they own the road
2. Christmas shoppers who only care about themselves
3. People who talk LOUDLY on their cell phones
4. Smacking–gum, food, anything really
5. When I say I want to go to sleep at 9:00 and someone is still talking to me at 9:15 😉

Top 5 things I love about this time of year:

1. The smell of cold cold weather
2. The possibility of snow–even though this is TX and I know theres like a 2% chance of the white stuff
3. Spending time with family
4. People seem to be in a better mood this time of year
5. Looking at all the Christmas lights and sometimes wondering why on earth they thought the way they put them up looked good.

This weekend

Okay, 4 parties in one weekend is just WAY TOO MANY! It was a fun weekend but just too busy and exhausting. It started out Friday night when we had our small group’s Christmas party. We had a fun time eating together and having a white elephant gift exchange. We got home pretty late Friday night and slept in until around 11:30 or 12:00 on Saturday–Just in time to get ready for another party. Our friends Richard and Amber had a birthday party for their wee one, Gracelynn, who turned 1. That was fun and we love spending time with the 3 of them. After the B-Day part we went to Desoto to take some pictures for our Christmas card and then on to Dallas. We grabbed a bite to eat at Pei Wei before heading to our friends Allison and Daniel’s house for a Christmas party. We got to see some old friends and catch up, it was a lot of fun. Then on Sunday we went to church and had a few more Baptisms, and our friends James and Mary’s son, Andrew, got baptized…or as he would say Babatized. After church we went to lunch with Matt and Kathryn and then just went home for a little while and did some much needed laundry and stuff around the house. A little while later headed back out the door but this time going to Rockwall for the CWF Christmas party, after that we headed over to Jonathan’s parents house to drop some stuff off and stayed a little while chatting with them. We eventually made it back home around 10:15 and headed to bed. A very very long, exhausting weekend, now I just need another one to unwind from this one!

All Grown Up

Jonathan starts his new job today with Dallas County Community College District. Ever since college he has been used to wearing jeans and a t-shirt to work, with the occasional polo shirt, and sometimes even a baseball hat. Well, those days are over. This morning he was wearing a nice button up shirt and tie! yes, a tie. Although I’m a litttle scared because I left the house before him and at that point he didn’t have any shoes on so I don’t know what went on his feet. Girls, you know why this scares me…men don’t have the best fashion sense. I’ve told him before that eventually he will have to grow up and not be able to wear jeans and a t-shirt to work–the time has come, and he’s all grown up now.

Weekend wrap up

Another good weekend at casa de blundell. Friday night Jonathan and I went to dinner at Chuy’s in Dallas with my best friend Jen and her fiance, Jed. It’s always great getting to catch up and have a good time with them. After dinner we headed over to my parents house to see my neice and nephew because my parents were watcing them. We also made it over to the Medlins and visited with them for a while. And, eventually we made it to our destination, my brother’s house to pick up my beloved oversized, comfy chair that he had been storing. Now that we have a house, we have room for my overly huge chair. It’s the best! Presley is glad to have it back too. She could sleep on it all day long. We also got a Christmas tree from a friend that was a lot bigger than the one we originally had. We put up our Christmas tree a week or two ago and it was just kind of skimpy, not a big tree by any means. So we got this new tree and I had to put it up so we took down the old tree and moved it all to the new tree. That’s when all the fun with the Christmas tree started. Below you will find a picture of the old tree–Jonathan is there to put it into perspective:
tree

This is the new tree all decorated and after it was put back upright–more to come on that!
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So we got the tree up on Friday night but not after some hassel. The tree stand that came with it was for a real tree so it didn’t really hold the artificial tree and the tree kept wanting to fall over. After a while we got it sturdy enough that if no one were to touch the tree it would be fine. HA! Well
Well, Saturday we woke up, after sleeping in-YEAH, and went to Lowes and Target…the usual stops on the weekend as of lately. We picked up the storm door we wanted to put on our front door and a new vaccum…my vaccum decided to stop working on us. Jonathan’s parents and grandparents came over Saturday afternoon and his dad installed the storm door for us. Later that night we all went to Cracker Barrel for dinner–soooo good. I basically got a plate full of starch-delicious. Good ‘ole chicken ‘n dumplins with mashed potatos and hashbrown caserole.
Oh I forgot about the tree on Saturday–okay, we the tree had been holding up nicely over the last 12 -18 hours until now….when Jonathan’s mom wanted to take a picture of us infront of the tree…..we were standing in front of the tree and all of a sudden–Bam, here comes the tree falling towards us and the ground. So here was our nice big Christmas tree laying on the ground with all our ornaments and everything. It was pretty funny to watch. We got the tree back in the right position and nothing broke believe it or not. After dinner we drove back to lowes and got a new artificial tree stand and now it’s all good–mainly because you can’t see the book under one side of the tree stand making it not lean–it’s our ghetto Christmas tree.
Sunday we went to church–i was in the nursery so I missed the mesage. After church we went to Whataburger with some friends and then I went to a baby shower for a friend in Richardson. Jonathan is still on his weekend–Lucky! He starts his new job tomorrow so I’m sure he’ll take advantage of this nice day off.

A day in the life of Laurie

So someone told me that I needed to blog more and I said, well if I don’t have much to say what do you want me to blog about. Her response–your life…what you do each day. So Amanda, here you go–you asked for it.
Monday 11-19-07
I woke up at 5:00 am when the alarm went off–well, I actually got out of bed at 5:18am then I took a shower and got ready for work. I ate some breakfast while Presley spent some time doing her business outside in the backyard. Around 6:10 I left for work and drove all the way to Dallas. Just kidding, it’s not that bad of a drive. I arrived to work around 6:45 and got started calibrating all our machines and printing out our schedule sheet for the day. The day wasn’t too bad, it was busy in the morning but not at all in the afternoon. About 2:30 I left the wonderful world of Children’s Medical Center and went to the Carrell Clinic for physical therapy on my shoulder with Rosanne. She gave me some exercises and stretches to do that will help with my shoulder and hopefully I won’t have to go back because it can get pretty expensive–especially when you’re already paying 3 hospital bills. After PT I left and drove back home to Red Oak. I got home and aired up mine and Jonathan’s bike tires and looked at my brakes because they have been sticking. But by the time we were ready to ride it was dark so that didn’t happen. I started chopping up the veggies for dinner and once Jonathan got home we started cooking dinner. We made a veggie dish–well what was supposed to be a egg, veggie Quiche I think, it was okay but I’d be completely fine never eating it again. After we ate dinner and cleaned the dishes (about 6:30) I made Jonathan pick between two colors to paint the dinning room. I think that was too much stress and if it were up to him we would keep white walls everywhere. I told him the walls are getting painted either way so you can either give me your input with color and tell me if you don’t like one or I’ll just pick. Fair enough, right? Well we finally picked a color so we got in the car and drove to Home Depot. On the way we took some food to Richard and Ambers for Richard to take one of his students for a Thanksgiving dinner and we ended up staying there for a while just talking. So after we got the paint I figured well it’s too late to start painting tonight so we went to Marble Slab and got some frozen yogurt–and it was good! Then we came home and I taped off the edges of the trim on the wall and I’m all ready to start painting. That was my day–very exciting I know. Today is going to be just as exciting as yesterday–except when I get home today I’ll start painting and then at 6:30 go to our small group and have some great mexican food and play some games. We normally do a bible study but with thanksgiving this week we decided to take a break.

Painting the kitchen

Friday night Jonathan and I started painting the kitchen…I’m lucky I finally got him to do it! For some reason he doesn’t want to paint anything….he’s afraid to put holes in the wall because “they are permanent” and I guess he’s afraid of permanency? So he’s scared to paint a kitchen for fear he won’t like it but he married me for the REST OF HIS LIFE –hummmm odd ball! Anyway we finally wrapped it up and it’s all finished. Below are the before and after pictures. Well I forgot to get a before picture so it’s just one we took before we moved in.

kitcken
painted kitchen

the joys of owning a home

Last night I walked out to our backyard filled with dirt and a few sprouts of grass and looked around. There are a few spots along the house where grass has come up but the majority of the yard just had the seed laying ontop of the dirt. I thought to myself–this isnt going to grow grass just sitting here. So I went into the garage and got the backhoe (sp?) that my dad let me borrow and “tilled” the entire backyard to mix the seed in real good. With Jonathan’s help of course–he came out about 1/2 way through and finished it up for me. Once the dirt was all mixed up and evened out we ran up to Lowes and got some more seed and a fertilizer spreader to spread it out evenly. We put the seed out and then watered it real good. Hopefully in a few short months we’ll have somewhat of a grassy backyard! Now we just have to pay for the ginormous water bill we are about to have….Can I steal the water from the neighbor again??? No one lives there, so it’s not like I’m really stealing water, is it? Haha Now I have a blister on my thumb from last night, but it will be all worth it when my dog can go run outside and tear up the grass we so carefully planted and grew! now we just have to put fill dirt to raise the level of the ground up to the fence and put a board along the bottom of the fence and we’re good to go…I have to make sure my doggy can’t escape from the yard. She is a houdini! More to come later from the adventures of owning a home with Jonathan and Laurie.

Dinner

So tonight we decided to cook pancakes for dinner….i know can you believe it, I ate breakfast food for dinner….if you know me, you know I don’t do that. Anyway, Jonathan decided to make them so he started and they just weren’t turning out right so I grabbed another pan and made some of my own. Well, let’s just say we know who is going to make the pancakes for our kids when the time comes. His is on the left and mine is on the right:
pancakes gone wrong

Now lets look at our presentation of the meal….which is more appealing? This time mine is on the left and his is on the right.
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Although I will say, he had an unfair advantage….the pan he was using was very uneven and tilted so it didn’t heat evenly and mine did…if you can tell by the picture of his pan below.

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