Parade of Homes

So this past week Mark and I decided to do the Salt Lake Parade of Homes.  It was so much fun looking at all the cool (and weird!) houses.  Even though we just bought our house a few months ago, it made me wish that we could get a brand new one!  Oh well.. at least it gave me some decorating ideas for the future!  I wish I would have taken more pictures, but there were so many houses that we went to it was crazy!

Of course the highlight of the whole thing was the "Up" house.  It was so cute and it's so much like the movie.  I can't actually imagine living there though--you wouldn't be able to make it your own!   It would still be fun to stay there for a day.

St. George Anniversary and SURPRISE!

Mark and I were able to celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary in St. George.  I can't believe it's already been a year--it went by so fast, and I can't wait for more years to come!

We drove down after we got off of work on Saturday evening and went straight to bed after we checked in at the motel. 

On Sunday we went to church with Mark's aunt and uncle who lived close by.  We skipped out after sacrament meeting and took a nice long nap at the motel which was so nice.  They had us over for dinner which was super yummy and it saved us some money too! We stayed for a bit after dinner and they showed us all of their scrapbooks from all of their various cruises and trips.

Monday was the day where we had everything planned.  We went golfing--it was my first time-- and I pretty much sucked it up!  Mark says I did really well for my first time, but it was so frustrating!  I threw a few clubs and almost ruined one.. :P haha

On Monday night we went to Tuacahn to see The Little Mermaid.  It was soooo cool with all of the special effects!  It's one of my favorite Disney movies and seeing it live on stage was so awesome. 



Before we left on Tuesday morning we stopped by the St. George temple.  It is so beautiful and so white! 

On the way home we stopped in Axtell (a.k.a The Middle of Nowhere, Utah) and visited another one of Mark's aunts.  We also visited his cousins who breed miniature Australian Shepherds.. They were sooo cute!  They had a new batch of puppies that were born 4 weeks ago that were so tiny and adorable.  We loved them because they weren't too big or too small.  Come to find out there were 4 puppies left from when they had several litters at once (almost 50 puppies!) They were 11 weeks old.  Anyways.. long story short

It's Canter!!  He's 11 weeks old and so adorable.  If only Posey would leave him alone for 2 seconds.  She always wants to play!  I swear she never gets tired.  Poor puppy!  I definitely wasn't expecting to get a puppy this week, but he's so cute.



I wish we had more days to spend there because we had to much fun and the weather was so warm! I can't wait for all of the many more years to come!

Housewarming Party and Changes

A couple weeks ago we finally put together a housewarming party for our new house!  We had a really great turnout and it's been fun learning how to throw parties and entertain people...

Yummy Refreshments



 Housewarming gift from Dakota and Jeff--so cute!
It's just perfect for our little table.



I think we've done quite a bit of work to our house since we moved in 2 months ago--I can't wait to do more!  Here are a few of the changes we've made so far:


Our Living Room was already painted this yellow color and we decided to keep it for now.  We added all of our furniture and decided we needed to find something to put on the big empty wall.  We found a huge picture of the Golden Gate Bride for $50 at Ikea and decided it would match perfectly.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Our kitchen had lots of empty space where cabinets were ripped out when the house was foreclosed on before we bought it.  We decided to add some open shelving for now until we renovate the kitchen.  The kitchen was already this green color and we are going to paint that when the kitchen is redone also. 

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Dining Area Before

Dining Area After

We didn't do too much to the bathroom yet.  We're eventually going to paint it but I couldn't decide on a color before we got our paint brought up from California via Mark's parents.  I want it to match the tile since it sticks out past the bathtub.  The only thing we did in the bathroom was add towel racks by the shower and one for the hand towels by the vanily.

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

The next bedroom is the 2nd bedroom which will eventually be the nursery.  We decided to paint it while we were painting ever other bedroom.  We picked yellow since I can make that work for either a girl or a boy. (Sorry for the bad lighting.. it was a really sunny day!  You can't really see the color very well.

2nd Bedroom Before

2nd Bedroom After

The master bedroom was so plain and white!  We chose a romantic red color for one wall and then a neutral tan color for the other walls.  I think it turned out great! The walls are still pretty bare--especially above the bed!  Our decorations from our apartment definitely need to be upgraded to bigger ones!


Our Bedroom Before



Our Bedroom After

This next room is my craft room/office.  I was so excited to have this extra room to keep all of my crafty stuff in.  We painted it a grey clor with a darker grey as an accent wall. 

Craft Room Before



Craft Room After

This is the future family room (as soon as we get furniture for it)  right now it serves as my workout room. Mark fell in love with this green color when we went to another firend's housewarming party.  We decided it would look great in the basement.. I'm surprised by how much I like it!  The lighting on the after picture is pretty bad again though.



Family Room Before



On the outside of our house we added the tree ring around the tree, (There's no before picture of that) planted flowers inthe flower bed, and added shutters!  I love the shutters!  It seems like they should have been there all along.

Family Room After

Holiday Fun!

I love the 4th of July! This year we headed to the Layton park in the morning to hang out with my family.  My sister Krystal and her kids were in town from Idaho and so we got to see them which was nice too!  We caught the end of the parade and then looked around at all of the booths they have set up around the park which is my favorite thing to do. This year I bought some craft projects for myself to do.  First, I bought an old window that I'm planning on making in to a picture frame of some sort and some wooden block letters that say "Summer."  I'm sure you'll see the finished projects when I'm done!



Me and my two sisters and the park



The beginnings of my Summer letters

 After a few hours at the park, we headed out to Springville to Jeff and Dakota's Food and Fireworks Extravaganza!..  We had a delicious BBQ and TONS of fireworks! I decided to make some festive cookies that I found on a blog.  They were a little frustrating to make because the stars turned into big blobs with rounded edges when they came out of the oven, but with a little help from a knife I was able to reshape them into stars.  They were really yummy!.. But the next time I make them I will make them the morning of instead of the night before because they started to get soggy by the end of the night. 

My 4th of July star cookies!

As soon as it started to get dark we lit of the fireworks!  I had never done any fireworks like this before so I had a lot of fun watching them light up int he air and taking lots of pictures!  There were a few malfunctions, but nothing serious!.. haha.  We had tons of fun and can't wait for the 24th!

Lighting off fireworks

The one that almost hit the neighbors!