New York, New York!

Josh and I went to New York a week before Christmas for a get away. Our hotel was 3 blocks south of Central Park and a few blocks from Times Square, right in the heart of all the action! We did all of the major sight seeing things including those that are special to the Christmas season. The few things that we didn't do include: going to the top of the Empire State Building, taking the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, and going for a ride in a horse drawn carriage. Here are a few pictures from our trip in no particular order:

This is the US Stock Exchange building.

A lego Batman at FAO Schwartz

The big piano featured in the movie "Big" featuring professional piano dancers at FAO Schwartz.

New York style Pizza. I obviously forgot to take the picture before I started eating it. Oops!

Josh and I waited in the freezing cold for an hour and twenty minutes to buy half price tickets to the Broadway Show "Mary Poppins," which is one of my childhood favorites! We had really good seats in the orchestra section.

Ice skating in Bryant Park...it was bigger than the rink at Rockafeller Center.

The Christmas tree at Bryant Park.

A nice picture of the New York sky line.

It snowed while we were there. If you look closely, there's a car burried to the left of the big snow pile.

A picture of Times Square.

Josh won us tickets to the David Letterman show by correctly answering what color the announcer's hair is.

A picture of Josh and the Triceratops at the Museum of Natural History.

You won't believe the amount of Christmas decorations that businesses, not just retailers put out during this time of year. This is just one picture of the many different holdiay displays that I photographed.

And finally, you definitely cannot go to New York without having a piece of New York style cheesecake!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of Year!!

Josh and I put up our Christmas tree after I got off of work last night. Here's a few pictures of us hanging ornaments and a picture of the final product.
Josh actually started hanging the house lights the day before Thanksgiving so that his little sister could see them when she came to our house that night. We have a row of color LED lights and a row of LED icicles lining the front of the roof. Then Thanksgiving night I wraped our mini chrismas trees in the front yard with colored LED lights and put up the white swirl christmas trees. And finally, tonight Josh and I finished off our decorations with the deer in our front flowerbed, which were a black friday purchase from Garden Ridge (the only black friday purchase that I actually made this year since I over slept).This is a picture of our beautiful tree that we have in the front yard. This picture does not do it justice. It's leaves are so vibrant in the fall when it changes colors. When I took this picture, it had a little bit green, yellow, and orange.
I took these two pictures for possible computer background wallpapers.
And finally these are pictures of the flat iron travel case that I made for my sister Jennie for a late birthday present.

Praise God

As you know from one of my previous posts, Josh and I have been trying to rent out our current house so that we can keep it a little while longer until the market improves. We've had it listed and signs posted for a few weeks now and have had lost of interest but no takers.

We were both starting to stress a bit over needing to find renters since we close on our new house tomorrow morning. I've been praying more frequently about it and trying to remain patient and trust that God would provide us with the renters that we need, and today He answered our prayers and gave us more than we had even hoped for.

Not that long ago, Josh called to tell me that a little old lady was trilled about renting our house. She absolutely loves it. She wants to plant flowers there because she enjoys gardening. She will be moving in the day that we had hoped to have renters by, and she plans on staying there until she dies or her children move her to a nursing home. She said that finding our house was a real blessing for her because she's been having trouble with bad neighbors and our house is in a really nice, quiet neighborhood.

She only had one request...that we paint the final bedroom that needs painting a light yellow....$25.00 for a can of paint, we can definitely handle that!

Josh and I are so excited and releived to know that the financial burden of paying two mortgages has been lifted and to know that God is looking down and taking care of us.

God is Good :)

A Treat for Out of Town Training

I am going to training in Chicago Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday this coming week, and I thought I deserved a little something special to take with me so I finished up this laptop sleeve that I started a few months ago. It's a quick and easy project that I was able to complete in between packing and moving boxes today while I was off of work.

Baby Gift For Zander

Here are pictures of the diaper bag and matching burp cloths that I made for my former coach at work, Tammy. She adopted Zander about two weeks ago. He is sooo cute and sooooooo tiny. I had the opportunity to hold him at her shower last Sunday. And just so you don't have to ask, my baby fever is still under control. :) I know of plenty of babies to hold and return right now.

The Big Exciting News...

Yes that's right....after replacing our windows and replacing our heating and air conditioning system, we're moving!Josh found our new house while surfing the Internet one day. No we weren't really looking to move, but we found a place that fit all of our criteria for a place to stay for a LONG time :)This is the font of the house. You can't see them in this picture, but there are 3 or 4 trees that line the road in front of our house.This is the entry way as you come into the house. This picture was taken from the living room looking toward the entry way.This is the living room. As you can see, it has a fireplace with built in shelves on both sides of the fireplace and nice hard wood floors. It is very spacious.This is a picture of the living room looking the other direction towards the dining room.This is a closer picture of the dining room in the corner it has a small build in desk for your laptop or bills.Here are a few pictures of the kitchen. It has double ovens, gray granite counter tops and newly painted cabinets with an updated tile back splash. We did not request to keep this refrigerator. Josh said that it was noise and it was kind of old and dingy looking so we purchased one at Conn's yesterday during their Labor Day Sale.This is a picture of the bathroom that is close to the dining room, kitchen, laundry room, garage, and what will be Josh's Office (pictured below). His room is one of four bedrooms in the house.

This is the hallway bathroom. It also connects to what will become the guestroom. This is the master bedroom. This is a picture looking into the master bathroom. To the left is the toilet and shower, and to the right is the walk in closet (pictured below).

This is a picture of the covered back patio. Josh and I are hoping to use our patio furniture more often this way since we'll have a shady place to sit. We'll just have to figure out how to keep the mosquitoes away!

Lastly, this is a picture of the back yard. Our house sits on a 1 acre lot. There is both this back yard and there is also a huge side yard.

We are set to close on the 18th of this month, so I am using a little time off of work this week to pack and get ready for the big move! Also, we are trying to find renters for our current house. We want to rent it out by October 1st. Josh made a sign for the front yard that we've gotten several calls off of and a few tours, but no definite renters yet. We're praying for someone to rent soon!

New Post

See the second post below under Monday's date. I started it on Monday, but was too tired to upload all of the pictures.

Great News!!

I passed my final test of the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Exam :)

That means no more studying (after I do my self-study ethics coure). And no more having to miss out on activities.

This also means more time for doing the things I enjoy like spending time with Josh, scrapbooking/card making, sewing, and cooking. Also, I will be getting more invoved at church, which is something that I miss.

Thank you for encouraging me along the way and keeping my success in your prayers. I am blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive family and group of friends. : )

PS - There is much more news to come....hopefully soon. I wish that pictures loaded faster on here.

CKC Scrapbook Convention

This past weekend Jennie and I went to the CKC Scrapbook Convention in Tulsa, OK. We had a blast. It was just the break that we both needed. Here's a picture of us in one of our classes at the convention.Below are pictures of the project that we did in our first class. The title of it was "Just 2 Easy Acrylic Albums." One of the most helpful tips that we learned in this class was to start from the back when you are designing your acrylic album that way you can see what it will look like as you are flipping through it. Also, you should lay everything out before you adhere it.This was our second class titled "One Stamp, 10 Techniques"...Jennie and I never quite figured out what all 10 of the techniques were. This class was jammed packed. We didn't actually finish everything in class...I don't think I finished anything in class, but we finished it later. I think these layouts turned out pretty cute. Now I just need to find the right pictures.And this was our final class that we took, "5 Cards in 5 Steps." This class was very enjoyable. We finished all 5 cards before the end of class and learned some basic designs that can be used over and over again and can be used with different sentiments. The card on the left in the first picture was actually apart of the class above

And what did we do after the convention you may ask...scrapbooked of course. We had to finish the scrapbook pages that we didn't finish in class, and we worked on a page kit that we purchased from Technique Tuesday. Here's a picture of Jennie working on hers and the final product.

I really wish I would have taken a picture of the vendor fair. There were people EVERYWHERE. It was impossble to walk arround without bumping into someone or being bumped into.

Stay tuned....more posts coming soon!

PS - Can't believe that I beat my sister blogging about this! Kudos to me :) Do they still make kudos granola snacks?