Um....YES PLEASE!

A House Anniversary

That's right--I am celebrating ONE year we have been in our house. Why? Because I don't think I've lived anywhere this long since high school. In college, I moved every year to a new apartment full of new friends and new experiences. Then I moved to AZ and lived in my rented house for 9 months till I got married. (That is such a blessing how I found Jessika and lived in that house so I could meet CHAD!) Then we lived in our first little apartment for a year till our contract was up. Then we lived at my parents' house for 2 months till we bought our first house. Needless to say, I am PUMPED to live in a place for longer than a year. It makes me feel settled. It feels like home. We bought a fixer-upper in a beautiful neighborhood. Here's what we've done so far:

-Put in sinks & faucets
-Put in lights and fans
-Put on electrical outlet covers (for some reason, they were all missing. Weird.)
-Fixed a broken window
-Put up curtains and blinds
-Put in every. single. appliance.
-Grew grass and planted plants
-Painted gate
-Cleaned out garage and attic (the previous tenants decided to leave a bunch of garbage)
-Sold a TON on craig's list
-Painted
-Fixed locks
-Caulked
-Scrubbed. the. house. (bankowned homes are DIRTY)
-Grouted tile
-Fixed sprinklers
-Put chair rail up in Chase's room
-Decorated little bit at a time (install media center, couches, beds, dressers, etc etc!)
-Painted baseboards and refinished front door
-Refinished computer desk
-Put in pavers in the backyard
-Fixed the dryer hookup so the air would go OUTSIDE not in our laundry room :)
-Got a new roof and AC unit
WHEW!!!! (All this done while Chad works two jobs and I was working and had a baby!)

When I get down on myself for all the things we STILL need to do, I just think about all that we have accomplished. We've done so much and I am so thankful to have a husband who loves to take ownership in our home and work on it every spare moment. He is so wonderful!!

Chase Smiles

He smiles just at the very beginning so if you blink, you might miss it!

A plethera of pictures

So I am still learning that when I put pictures onto blogger, they like to turn out BACKWARDS! Grr. They always take so long to download anyway so by the time they have FINALLY downloaded, I don't have the time or patience to do it "right" all over again. So here you go--some backward pictures.

We went to the Phoenix Zoo with my sisters and their kids plus some cousins and their kids. It was very fun but Chase slept through his first visit at the zoo! He is such a good baby.

Chase's room is by far my favorite in the whole house. You can't see everything in detail, but here's a quick snapshot (with an air mattress..haha). The picture makes the room look kinda small and you can't see the framed hospital onsie and hat that Chase wore (super cute!), but that's ok.

Chase loves to put his hand around his bottle! It is the cutest thing! This is one of those lazy Saturday morning pictures when we bring Chase into bed with us and just hang out. It is the BEST. I don't like the little balls of light in this pic, but I LOVE how Chase looks with his Daddy. So cute.

Here is Chase at 2 months (the one month is at the bottom...darn these backward pictures). We decided to have him next to his Aunt Maya's teddy bear! He is very long but not very chubby. A tall, skinny boy?? He might not be ours afterall....haha

How CUTE is this face?!

Chase LOVES being swaddled and won't go to sleep unless he is. He also loves spitting out his binky and making his Mommy come put it back in his mouth during naptime.

He also escapes from his swaddle sometimes...with cute froggy mittens on to keep from scratching his face!

Our first hike together. This little snuggie carrier sure comes in handy!

Here's the one month old picture! (I accidently cut the "1" off when I took the picture). He was super red when he came home. We called him "our little red man".

There are so many pictures that we have taken because we are so in love. I really want to start a scrapbook for him but am really intimidated by the cost and time it takes. Does anyone scrapbook that has ideas for me to start? And also would motivate me to start??

How did I get here?

How did I go from here:

To here:

To here:

To here? I really don't know how it happened. It goes so quickly and I am so blessed beyond belief. What a happy, wonderful life I have. My days are filled with diapers, bottles, rubber duckies, binkies, naps, bedtime stories, and I wouldn't have it any other way.