This looks like a job for SUPERMAN!

Marshall tells me Tuesday night at about 10 that he needs a costume for the Halloween Carnival at his school, which is on Thursday(today). GREAT! Quick, everyone put on your thinking caps... Thanks to a co-worker we came up with this...Clark Kent!
And what is a Halloween costume if you can't get into it?
Clearly Marshall has no problem with that!
Up Up and AWAY!
And when I told my 5 year old nephew (who is being Spiderman) about his cool uncle Marshall's costume he was EXTATIC! I told him they would be a great superhero team! Oh yeah... cool uncle Marshall, thanks to cool Aunt Jennifer!

Total cost $1. For the dollar store glasses that are probably going to make Marshall have to see an optometrist because he goes blind from wearing prescription glasses when he doesn't need them. And they are a STRONG prescription, trust me, i tried them on and though I was in an alternate universe. But hey, what is halloween if someone doesn't loose there eyesight?

The cool neighbor

A few of the boys from the neighborhood were playing a little touch football and apparently Marshall just couldn't help himself. When I went out to get him (because we had to leave) they all pouted and told him to come back out when he got home. Marshall says to me "ha, been here a couple months and I am already the cool neighbor".

25 going on 12

Upon entering one of the stores we went to on our extensive couch search Marshall found a GIANT chair and as soon as he spotted it he said "ohh, take a picture, take a picture" after I rolled my eyes and chuckled a little I took a picture for the little guy. He is adorable. And the look on his face shows the tremendous amount of joy he received upon getting his picture taken on the GIANT chair. He asked me if I wanted my picture taken on it but I kindly passed on the offer.

Super Awesome Weekend

What did we do you ask? A whole bunch of this...
We resumed our positions on the couch, hooked the laptop up to the TV and watched the entire second season of The Big Bang Theory. It was flipping awesome! It was rainy and cold so we snuggled up with blankies and didn't move. I love getting stuff done but once in a while there is nothing like doing NOTHING!

Seriously Marshall, Seriously?

Many of you may know this but I live with none other than the flippin' grinch! No matter how hard I try getting him in the Christmas spirit each year it always fails. So finally I have accepted my fate and am no longer trying to cheer up Mr. Christmas DUD. I will have my own Christmas spirit party and he is no longer invited to JOIN IT!!! So, I am SUPER stoked to finally have a house so that I can have Christmas lights! Isn't this something everyone thinks of when they are buying a house? Yeah, I am pretty sure it is. Okay, moving right along... Last year, in the apartment, I strung lights around my deck railing and it brought tremendous joy every time i drove by and they were lit (maybe because I knew Marshall turned them on and that was a glimmer of hope, I should mention that this only happened twice) Anywho... so I asked Marshall if he would hang them for me and of course he said no and I said what about if I buy you whiskey? And vwala! I have a Christmas light hanger. We are still working out negotiations for the Christmas light taker-downer. It is all about playing to crowd ladies and gentlemen.

SNOW!

I woke up this morning and.... there was a sheet of SNOW on the lawn! YAY! I am in LOVE LOVE LOVE with snow. I think it is gorgeous! Not so much to drive in but definitely to LOOK AT!!! YAY winter.

Tricks

The blog is playing tricks on me and I do not appreciate it. I tried to publish a post and it gave me an error message so I gave up and now I get a comment that you can see the title but not the post. WTH man? So... I shall try again.A lot of things have been happening in my life lately that have really got me thinking. Thinking about a lot of different things really. One of the biggest is my family. Me and Marshall. Gosh I love it! One particular conversation with my superfluous nosy neighbor made me realize how much I love it. Upon being openly inquisitive she mentioned that she saw us getting new counter tops delivered and one thing led to another and next thing I knew she was snooping around inside my house looking at said counter tops.

**Side note** For some reason, the older I get, the less friendly, less nice, less understanding and more paranoid I get toward strangers. I really wish this would have happened when I was 16.**

So she comes in and I immediately feel like my space is being invaded! Somehow she talks her way up stairs to see the new bathroom and pokes her head in a couple other rooms. I am in the kitchen pacing back and forth, having a heart attach thinking... get out! get out! get out! She finally comes down stairs and proceed to have an extremely awkward conversation about how different our lives/homes are. Only ended by Marshall feeling the awkwardness and offering her and 2 of her kids a cookie. Thank you Marshall. Anywho... after she left it really got me thinking...

We have really been working hard to create a home for ourselves and along the way I am afraid I have not been thinking about having a baby in the house. Have we created a completely un-baby friendly house? Can we be good enough parents to teach them what they can and cannot touch? Is our house going to be a giant NO? Are we going to have to have a maze of baby gates up thus to not destroy what we have created? Was this all selfish? Is it wrong of me not to want kids right away but instead to build a life with Marshall first then add kids to it later? Will I get over having to have things clean all the time? Why am I so unfriendly? Do I care too much about worldly items? Will having a kid change that? Will I still get to buy nice things for myself? Will I want to? Will I feel the need to? Will my body ever be the same after kids? Should I care? Does having a kid un-selfishize you? Is un-selfishize a word? Do I need to change my entire life style? Do I come off a biznatch? Am I over thinking things like i do 90% of the time? Hm...

Sunday: Pondering. Doing laundry. Cleaning. Pondering.
Monday: Work. Finish Laundry. Cook.
Tuesday: Date night with Marshall. Dinner and a Netflix.

Wednesday: Every Wednesday is "spa day" at my house. When I get home from work I begin the quest of beauty. I start by removing all of my old nail polish (usually fingers and toes), I then epilate one leg (then the battery dies), I plug in the epilater and hop in the shower for an extra long, exfoliating, relaxing escape (sometimes this is a bath), after which I deep condition my hair and pluck my eyebrows. While my hair is air drying a bit, I epilate the other leg, I then dry my hair, paint my toe nails and last but not least my fingernails. All while watching shows on line, most recently The Big Bang Theory (hilarious). This takes all night. From the time I get home from work to the minute I go to bed (not sticking my feet under the covers in fear of smudging my freshly painted toes).

Thursday: Marshall and I continued our very extensive search for a very specific couch. Our front room is going to be the "gem" of our home. We have decided up front to spare no expense, no matter how long it takes to complete. So, couch hunting, couch hunting. We decide on a range of which we are comfortable spending on a couch because although we say "spare no expense" there is a line that must be drawn, so we look, look, look. Ahh... there she is... How much? Over our price range. Of course, this always happens to me! If i had a catch phrase it would be: "Jennifer, champagne taste with a beer budget". Anyways, okay we found runner up number 2, not as good as the first one but still alright and in our price range. We tell the salesman we will be back after we think about it. So we go home and proceed to the living room where said couches new home will be. Marshall joins me and we think. We think, think, think. I look at Marshall, knowing exactly what he is thinking and I say "why do we always do this? Why don't we just get the one in our price range that will be just fine?" and Marshall looks at me and says (excuse the language) and I quote "because we are spoiled little bitches!" I just look at him, not wanting to believe what he said and go upstairs to bed. About 10 minutes after laying there I say "so we are getting the one we want but shouldn't get?" he rolls over and says "duh".

The moral of this very long story: I have been thinking about kids a lot lately, especially when I see ALL of my friends kids and how cute they are and how good of moms they are and how fun it looks and i have to think extra hard because I know EVERYTHING is going to change once I pop one out, and although I want kids soon, I love the way we live now. I love taking luxurious vacations, just the 2 of us, I love having the option to buy clothes that cost as much as our car insurance, I like having a spa day every week, I love building a bond with Marshall that will be un-penetrable and although our day will come and children will bless our lives when a week like this one happens it makes me happy to continue to wait for that day to come! I can only have this life style once because once kids come it will be entirely different and with kids always being an option and this opportunity expiring upon acceptance of the kid option I think I will continue to enjoy it for a bit longer. In the mean time, I will just go to the Austin's and play with Dane to fulfill my baby needs. Sorry mom.

Boys will be BOYS

I cannot believe that I didn't post about this earlier because I think of it and tell the story often and it makes me laugh every time. So, Marshall's dad was in town in August and they were going to do a few projects and decided that a little hand saw was just NOT going to cut it (no pun intended). So, they headed off to the ol' Home Depot in search for a saw. After going to the store, Marshall's dad just dropped Marshall off at our house with his new tow because he was meeting up with Marshall's brother. Soon after I hear his dad leave Marshall comes in and without hesitation and with much excitement he says to me "wanna come see my new saw"? Um... I said... well, gosh, not really. And the look on his face was priceless, like I just told him Santa was not real. And with a shiny, glazed over set of eye balls he looks up at me, so hurt and sad and says with a very pitiful voice "but it has a laser". I immediately started laughing because it took me back to the days when I was 6 and was not interested in my brothers air machine gun and it just crushed him. So, needless to say, I went into the garage and saw the saw with the laser. And I was lucky enough to even get a demonstration. God bless little boys.

The finished product

Before:

After: Last night we said goodbye to the last bit of linoleum and laminate in our entire house! ahhhh... it felt OHHH so good!

**NOTE: I still need a few more decorations... YAY

Back yard that says so much

While I was taking pictures of the landscaping we have done in the front yard I decided it would be a good idea to put up some pictures of what sold us on the house. I am standing in the door frame of our back door while taking these and I think they speak for themselves.
Behind our house is a small park, every city has one and it is in case of flooding so the middle of the park is slanted inward. It stretches all the way up and down our entire street and around the corner and the best part is, no one can EVER build there. You can see how far back our neighbors houses are and then to the left the houses are pretty far away. WE LOVE our back yard. We are out there every night that we can be and my clever mother got us that awesome fire pit for Christmas (and because we are not 10 anymore and a gift like that would get most of its use during the next couple months, she gave it to us early). It is super amazing and when we sit out there we get overwhelming feelings of how lucky we are.

Proud Moment

As many of you know, Marshall is extremely into lacrosse. He has played since high school, was a captain at BYU and won 2 national championships along with being All American back in New York & his first year at BYU (I just found out what All American means recently and WOW). If you have ever seen him play it is fascinating to watch, it comes so naturally and he is SUPER good. Well, since graduating from college every year we have a school or 2 hunt him down and ask him to be their coach. The last school he was at the team just didn't have it in them. Something you should know is that back east lacrosse is SERIOUS! You practice every day and you work your tail off. Well, it is just up an coming in the west coast so naturally some people have a different attitude about it. He has struggled the past 2 years with his team trying to understand why they don't take it serious and what he can do as the coach to help them. After moving to our new home Marshall decided that it was too far to drive to coach the same team and soon after word got out he got another offer at a school right by us. It just so happens that this particular school is as passionate about lacrosse as Marshall is and he is having an amazing time coaching an amazing team. They are driven, enthusiastic, SERIOUS and good! Now, Marshall has always gotten paid to coach but it was not much and for as much stress as it put Marsh under I tried to talk him out of it but he just cannot get away from the game, it will be in his heart forever. Marshall is not only teaching school full time but he is also taking classes 2 nights a week and online to get extra certification so he can get paid more and become more valuable as a teacher, he is the head coach of this new school and he runs his own lacrosse camps in Idaho every June for three weeks. So, he is a VERY busy man to say the least. I just wanted to make a post at how proud of him I am so the next time he pisses me off I can look back at this blog and remember how amazing he is and how hard he works for our family.

**Side note** It is so amazingly sexy to watch Marshall coach! The way he knows the game, gets totally into it, bosses the kids around (they call him sir) and is dead set on taking "his team" to a championship. It is like a fantasy come true!

My first tile job!

As mentioned in my previous post, Marshall and I took on the project of re-modeling our second bathroom. We started last Friday after work and it will be complete on Thursday, when the counter top guy comes. Friday night we demoed the old bathroom, painted the first coat of paint and started re-finishing the vanity. Saturday we painted the 2nd and 3rd coat, finished the vanity and began to prepare for Marshall to lay tile. Sunday rolls around and Marshall is beginning to figure out the puzzle that is called tile (it is actually kinda difficult). Naturally I was right there with him, helping out, soaking in and learning (I think I get this curiosity from my mother). He laid the first 2 tiles and then he needed to make a cut so I went in the bathroom and started spreading the mortar like I had previously watched him do. After the cut he handed me the tile and I measured the next space for a cut. Next thing I knew I had mortar to my elbows, all over my pants, totally covering my fingers and we were 3/4ths of the way done with the floor and it was looking FABULOUS! So we just continued with it and now I can proudly say I have laid tile. Ohhh weee, it makes me get goose bumps looking at how strait those lines are! After I was finished Marshall and I were looking at it and he looked at me and said "Jenn, you will never look at tile the same again". I didn't exactly know what that meant until I was at the post office the other day and I couldn't help but notice how far apart there grout was. Ha ha ha, I guess he was right.

Projects!

Everyone that comes over cant help but be amazed at how much we have done to our house already. Some of it may be ambition some of it may just be my sense to be doing something ALL OF THE TIME but whatever it is we LOVE IT! I had a request for a posting so I thought I should tell everyone what we have been up to (this is just a small handful, trust me). I have learned that I am not very good at the whole before and after thing so you will have to use your imagination on the before part, sorry, i will work on it. So, since moving in at the end of June (with a three week break for Europe and two weeks off for family in town) we have done this:

Re-finished the master bathroom

BEFORE: Not the best picture in the world, Marshall took it when he was talking to his brother finding the best way to rip up linoleum but you get the drift. It was hunter green and GROSS! It was first on our list and it got done 1st thing. All done by Marshall, myself and a little tile cutting help from Walker.

AFTER:

I am absolutely THRILLED with how it came out. One of my favorite rooms in the house.

Painted the master bedroom:

Painted a wall & furnished the office

Finished our basement bedroom - This little delight used to be the "play room" so it was yellow walls with a pretend bright blue fireplace that doubled as a chalk board and the alphabet around the top edge painted in yellow, red, blue and green. It was just darling... NOT!

Built an extra closet in the basement

Built storage shelves in the basement

Built a work bench in the garage

Boarded off the top of the kitchen cupboards

Replaced and painted the pantry doors

Landscaped the front yard

BEFORE:

This one I really wish I had a better before because we really have done a lot in the front yard.

AFTER:

Everything is still pretty immature but I will take some more pictures next summer when things are a little more vibrant!

Started landscaping the backyard

Re-wired and fixed broken heads on the sprinkling system

Moved the back fence

Vigorously worked on repairing our VERY dead grass

Replaced the family room ceiling fan

Like I said, this is not everything we have done and we don't plan on stopping any time soon. In fact, this weekend we are re-doing the second bathroom so I will post about that sometime next week.

A lot of people ask what our secret is and I feel as though I must come clean...We moved in the last couple days of June and since we were leaving for Europe just 15 days later we decided not to get cable until we got back. Well, when we got back we had family in town for 2 weeks and after that we finally to some projects that desperately needed to be done. That was enough to give us the motivation to keep going, so that is exactly what we did. After getting through so much so fast we decided that we like not having cable and the money we were saving from not having it we have been putting back into our house via projects. **Note: it also helps to have a husband with summers off**