Settling in...

I haven't had much to talk about because we've been settling into our home and getting our schedule back in line. For the longest time I could NOT sleep during the day (a huge problem for a night shifter, yes?) and was sooooo sleepy at night. I'm still working on that, but we're making headway!

I can't remember if I blogged about it, but my Daddy and Momma got me and Brandon a super sweet new camera! I've played with it a little...and, my, the vast amount of dog pictures we have (especially when we learned how to take more rapid fire shots...). Point is, no pictures this post. I'll have some later.

We just hung some curtains in the bedroom. It was needed more than we realized. They're not very fancy, and, if I do take pictures of them, will look super lame because we've tried to make a cave out of our room. They're simple chocolate brown curtains bought from Anna's Linens (without the valance) on nice rods from Lowes. Nothing expensive. They advertise as thermal panels and energy efficient. We'll see.  We also bought an extra liner that we pinned to the curtains. It was cheap but advertised as a black out liner. It doesn't black out...but it helps, that is for sure. On top of that...we push pinned the edges of the curtains to the walls and, on the two big windows we just used one rod on, pinned the curtains together. This all minimizes the light coming in. If we get really pissed...we'll just line the windows on our side of the blinds with foil. Energy efficient, cheap, tacky, but gets the job done. (must be on your side of the blinds and not the window side or it'll upgrade it to trashy instead of tacky...but that's my opinion...)

My cousin's church had a sort of garage sale and she had a table that didn't sell. It looked nice and was a good color (even though it was round and we really wanted a square or rectangle table). Either way, we decided to take it home, as it was being given to us for free since there were no chairs to go with it. Fast forward a few weeks, there was a sort of estate sale on my parent's street and a table and chairs for sale there. Mom went ahead and bought them for us because she swore the colors were right. Well, the chairs match the old table AND the new! We probably will keep the old table (since it has an insert that makes it more rectangle with rounded ends) with the chairs and either get rid of the new table or find something fun to do with it (corner decorative table? it's not that big of a table...but it's not small either).

What else...Mom bought couch covers for the dogs. They're like blankets for them to sleep on PLUS protect the couches! They're really nice. The only downside to them is there no way to affix them to the couches. They just sort of slide off, so could really use a sort of elastic band to go around the top corners, at least. Well, when mom brought them to the house to give them to us, she showed us what she thought about them, how you could just fold it and use it as a sort of bed on the ground. After giving them to us, we all went out to eat and came home to a destroyed cover! I've sort of kept it in play, but JJ keeps getting bored and ripping more stuffing out. That dog loves to de-stuff things!

I still need to brain storm something cute to go in this nook near the ceiling in our bathroom. We have brown mats to match the faucets and mirror paint. I don't know what to put up there and don't want to spend a lot of money, so I'm dragging my butt on doing anything at all. But every time I see it, I think, "I need to put something up there." Any ideas?

That's all for now!

House Decoration and Celebration

So, as we still have plenty of stuff at my parent's house to get moved, we're officially living, successfully, I think, in our new house. We had a little celebration this weekend and, even though we weren't expecting gifts, we received a few really cute things.


Pictures:

This was given to us by my friend since kindergarten! Love it! We decided it should be hung above the pantry!

A super awesome gift card, non-alcoholic beverage for me, and wine for Brandon!

Scotch for Brandon and a non-alcoholic option for me!

Isn't this clock pretty?! I can't wait to hang it!

Our welcoming buddy from my mom!

We actually got 2 more gift cards, one to Lowe's from a work friend of Brandon's and one to Home Depot from Anne...but the Home Depot one is highlighted on my baby blog with another type of gift.

This is a little lawn windmill ornament my mom got for us. Brandon picked the perfect place for it!

Here are the pictures of the house with stuff in it, looking a tad less bare:

What will be our dining room, but was our "sitting room" for the party. That is my Mawmaw's card table and chairs we borrowed. It was a popular place, lol.

The kitchen (after clean up, actually). The red vases with small roses and white flowers at the base were decorations at my wedding and the large vase with an arrangement was a decoration used at my nursing school pinning ceremony. I think it looks nice until we feel like spending more money on decorations more specific to our rooms.

Our new couches! They all recline and are super comfortable! We're thinking we want a decorative mirror above the fireplace, but, since I scored an awesome deal via MamaPedia or GroupOn  (I don't remember which) for a canvas photo, I just placed our wedding canvas picture there until we hang it elsewhere. My nursing figurine and Brandon's police figurine are there, too, with empty glass photo frames we'll fill in the future.

Also, the little candle sticks and candles around the fireplace was given to us by my Grandmommy. They're a nice little touch to the living room.

This is the view of our office from the hallway. We had to add the fan because it gets so warm in this room.

This is the office from the corner. That is my shelf all set up. Brandon is still working on his. 

This is our front porch. We got some simple, but cute, lawn chairs and table, complete with citronella candle. It is summer in Texas! 

Still very bare, but our spare bedroom. The bed is ready for visitors! Only I forgot to grab a mattress pad for it. I, personally, hate sleeping on beds without mattress pads...but maybe that is only my problem. Who knows.

The spare bathroom. We wanted a cute, simple shower curtain that would go with the paint already there, but be both adult and kid friendly at the same time. I think we did alright!

I can't remember if I showed off our new laundry room. Aren't they pretty?!

Our bedroom. I swear it looks bigger with our crap in it than with the previous owner's stuff. We don't have a headboard set for the bed yet, but, with some purchases from Ikea, we at least have places to put our things.

Our new bed. Sorry, I did not make the bed for the picture, but I don't care. Hope you don't. We just need a bed skirt for it, really. And some bedside lamps in the future. But our bedroom light fades to the dimness we like and is within reach of our bed...so we're good for now.

This was what happens when you leave the dogs for too long and DVDs within dog reach. Obviously, before our new couches were delivered.

And what happens if you don't get the bedroom door shut in time. They look so comfy, though.

That's all for today! My brother's graduation photos came in, too, and he's handsome in them. But they're just posed things. The pictures I managed to take sucked (too far away with a camera that just isn't capable of a zoom like that) so I won't have any to post.

Oh, and my cousin who sells Arbonne just sent me some things to try out! I'm super excited to play with some of it (and some will have to wait since it's for baby, and, well, that will be October or November!). But I'll let ya' know how it goes!