Don't want it to be over...

Well, mine & Matt's Spring Break week and 2 days is coming to an end tomorrow...here's to waking up at 5:30AM on Monday....

Over the course of our Spring Break, Matt & I have shopped until we've dropped for furniture, literally.  The good news is we bought a bedroom set from 'The Bed Room', Mattress at Raymour & Flanigan & even went to the "Mammoth" garage sale at St. Joes school today & purchased a few things for cheap(2 desks, a bookshelf, and some dishes).  We might become garage sale junkies!
 

Since the weather has been so nice the last couple days, we had a chance to take Heath out to run around & play.  We try to do this whenever the weather is nice because if he isn't pooped, we are pooped from chasing him around the house.  We took him to the school's baseball field to play some fetch & here are some pictures & videos of our fun...

What a stud!

       So proud of my boys...Matt's throwing arm & Heath actually getting the ball & coming back!

Time to go home Mom & Dad!

Closing is in t minus 3 days friends!  I will keep you posted & will most likely post before & after pictures as we progress in the rooms. :)

Catch up time

 Happy Easter!!  

Matt and I are alive!  We have been so busy this past month, we barely have time to do anything other than house stuff, grad work, keep Heath out of trouble & lesson plan every night.

To start & to go off the lesson planning, I received a 1st grade long-term teaching position at Alexander (Matt & I are both teaching at the same school...cute, I know).  I absolutely love it, everyone is so welcoming and my 16 kiddos are great.  It really came at a perfect time with the house and everything (actual teacher pay rather than everyday sub pay).  I am hoping that this experience will get me into my own classroom sooner rather than later.

Closing day is in t-minus 9 days, yes, that means only a week and 2 days folks!  We are so excited and cannot wait to get into our house.  Since my last post, the tub problem has been solved.  The seller ended up having her plumber come back to look at the drain again and he ended up pulling out a 5 inch piece of metal (the on/off lever for the water) out of the drain.  It is now a normal running drain, who knew?!  Matt & I still want to replace the pipes to the house so that will be our only major project that we need to complete before we move in.

We have been picking out colors for the rooms and trying to find furniture for the past month and so far it has been a success.  We found a great couple who hand craft furniture in Elba.  We put an order in for a TV stand, coffee table, two end tables and a wine rack. We were able to customize everything we ordered so we cannot wait to see how they turn out!  We also purchased a living room set from Raymour & Flanigan in Rochester.  Now all we need to get is a bedroom set and a few other odds and ends. I will definitely make sure I post pictures of the house as we go.  We can't wait to have everyone over for a house warming party!

 First wall decoration in our house :)

So I miss wedding planning....house planning is stressful. We have done a few things...
-Our engagement pictures are June 9th
-We just booked a surprise that only few can know...sorry :)
-DJ is getting booked this week
-Honeymoon & Rehearsal dinner are the next steps on the list to be completed.

#TubProbs

I am getting really bad at this posting every week deal, so I apologize if you have been anxiously awaiting my next post.  I will try to recap what our last 2 weeks have been like so brace yourself.....

House Inspection: Our house inspection was on the 5th and our home inspector was fantastic!  We seriously learned so much about how things work in a house that we have never known before (scary, but true).  He even gave us a pretty neat book on how everything works in our house and what's in it, etc.  This book will definitely be needed, especially if I am ever home alone without Matt. So anyways, it took our inspector to inspect our new soon to be home about 2 hours to do everything.  We found a bit of mold in the basement because of the gutter drains on the side of the house weren't long enough and one other problem. 
Our inspector took us upstairs to look at all 3 bedrooms and the 1 bathroom in our house.  He turned on the sink, the tub, and then flushed the toilet so he could see the "flow" of water.  All of a sudden a gray substance came up into the tub when he flushed the toilet and it smelled absolutely terrible.  It basically smelled like sewer!  ( Mind you that before we went upstairs we were walking on cloud 9 because we thought this was the best house ever with literally nothing wrong.) Oh and let me add that it took about 5 minutes to drain 5 cm. of water from the tub.  Our inspector told us that it could be from the piping of our plumbing because its (galvanized) or that it is clogged with "old hair" or who knows what else. YUCK! 
As of yesterday, we went back to look at the drain and problem again and it did not back up this time. This was a huge plus, but it still took 5 minutes to drain 5 cm. of water :(.  All in all,  we got a ball park estimate of what it would take to replace all our pipes if it was the worst case scenario and decided that we will replace it no matter what. So we are still moving on with our house and will hopefully close on the 10th of April! :)

Furniture: Matt and I are starting to look for furniture for our house.  If you have any ideas where we can find good quality furniture that isn't super expensive then let me know please and thanks!

Heath's 5 month birthday was the 13th, he is getting so big so fast! He is now bell trained to go potty which is awesome.  He basically rings a bell by the door when he has to go out. It took him like 2 or 3 weeks to get but hes got it now.  He also chews anything and everything so to stop it we are trying the pig ear chew treats.  So far he loves it, he was occupied for 2 hours straight by chewing it.  It is really gross because it really looks like a pig ear but hey, anything to stop him from chewing, right? 

To look at how much he has grown, here is a 6 week picture of him..

and here is 5 months...

Valentine's Day:  Matt and I did not spend Valentine's day together this year as he had a modified basketball game all the way in Kendall. (boo!) I did have 16 cute 1st grade valentines though as I have been subbing for a teacher in Alexander for 2 weeks.  I made them these valentines too...

"Wow! This is so cool!" "Your the best teacher ever!"

The kids absolutely loved it! My mom and I took off the paper of 120 crayons, broke them into pieces, put them into a heart shaped cupcake pan, and melted them and WAH LAH- best valentines day gift ever! :)


So since Matt and I didn't spend valentines day together, we had two valentines day celebration nights this year.  Friday we exchanged gifts in which he bought me beautiful pink roses, red cat wine, ghiradelli chocolate and sweet tarts heart gummies. <3 Did I mention how much I love him? We then went out to our favorite pizza place and came back to watch the basketball skills contests with our lil man Heath. 

The life of my boys

 On Saturday, we went up to Buffalo on Elmwood to a cute restaurant/ martini bar called Cecelia's.  The blueberry martini was delish, as were the crab cakes, Matt's grilled salmon and my chicken entree. We then went to the galleria to go see the movie "Side Effects". This movie was absolutely nuts and so good.  Definitely recommend it if you haven't seen it yet.

Wedding Details: No new updates.  My maid of honor, Summer and I are going to the Batavia Bridal Show this Sunday the 24th, So I am really looking forward to that.   I also am trying to get ahold of our planner to tell us what needs to be done next because a lot of stuff we can do at the Avanti, like the DJ, food, cake, etc.


More to come soon...

Weekend Highlights

So as you all know, Matt and I put an offer on a house on Thursday.  We found out Friday, after waiting anxiously all day that the seller ACCEPTED our offer and that Matt and I will be home owners pending the inspection on Tuesday.  Now, we are pretty sure that our inspector will find something wrong, I mean they always do, but overall I think we are OK and that we have a house to live in!! WOOHOO

After we found out, we rushed down to the realtors office, signed papers, and put our deposit down.  We then went out for dinner to good ol' Tullys to celebrate our next big grown up step in our lives.

Yesterday was the bridal show and it was nothing like I expected.  Matt, Summer, My mom, and I did have fun though as I won $5 cash from a limo service! There were tons of vendors for venues (not needed), photography (not needed), limo services, DJ's, cakes, flowers, videography (so expensive!) and photo-booth's.  Here are our photos....

The highlight of the bridal show was the Buffalo Bridal Association contests.  They would call random people up on stage to do various things. For example, there were 3 couples picked from the crowd.  Couple #1-STRONG, Couple #2- no words, Couple #3- somewhat normal.  These couples had a make out competition. AWKWARD!

I wish I got the part where I could show you how couple #1 was strong.  He basically held her up while kissing her for 5 minutes...

Then they chose 3 grooms that attended to come up on stage. This was my personal favorite...

So with all the bridal show excitement above, you may have forgotten that today is the Superbowl.  Although the steelers aren't playing, Matt and I will still be watching the ravens(boo!) and the niners play at our friend's Dave and Darcy's apartment.  I am pretty excited to play with their little man Harrison, eat tons of food, watch Beyoncé perform during halftime, and just have a good time with our friends we haven't seen in forever.

House Hunters

First off, I want to apologize for not posting in a couple weeks.

So nothing has really happened with the wedding plans since my last post except that I did get my ring back last Wednesday and I stared at it for hours. I literally was walking in the mall and staring at my ring because I missed it so much.  For all our friends who have not seen the ring in person yet, I cannot wait to show you so you know what I mean. :)

Anyways, the only update regarding wedding plans is that we have a bridal show this Saturday at the Seneca Niagara Casino.  The "we" is going to be Matt, myself, my mom, and Summer (Maid of Honor).  Now, I did NOT force Matt to come at all, he chose to come all on his own! :) He deserves Fiancé of the year award!
*Boys take note!
I am really excited because this will be our first bridal show that we are attending.  There are supposed to be like thousands of vendors, prizes, discounts, and of course tastings!

So the reason that I haven't been posting lately is because of a couple reasons...
1) Grad School owns my life
2) House Hunting

House hunting is the most exciting thing ever (besides our wedding of course).  I really think that Matt and I should be on the show "House Hunters" on HGTV and they should have a Batavia edition.  So we have been pre approved and have been looking at a few houses.  Let me just describe a couple houses to you....
-One house was cute, big, and had potential...BUT was in the ghetto.  The neighbors house was bright blue with some funky shutter color and children's toys in the yard.  Our realtor told us that they are "fricken weird".
-Another house had the basement flooded.
-There was a fire in the bathroom in one house and the basement staircase was being held by a log post on a cylinder block.
-We have seen mold in the basement, siding rotting, wooden paneling, super tiny kitchens, etc.
-We were in love with this other house at the other side of Batavia but it was in a flood plain.  I guess it flooded really bad in 1944 and we would have to get flood insurance which would cost us an extra $600-$700 a year.  The staircase was also very steep and the master bedroom and living room were tiny.

So with all that said, we got an email yesterday morning for a new listing and we fell in love.  It is in the best part of town, looks amazing on the outside with many updates as well on the inside, has a wrap around deck for entertaining all of you guys, huge master bedroom-they actually call it a "King Master bedroom", and has 2 other rooms that are great sizes for when we decide to have adorable babies one day, french doors, HUGE closets for all of my clothes, study den, good size yard, and we could work at a coffee shop right across the street because we will be poor...

We ended up putting an OFFER on it today so we are crossing our fingers that the lady who owns it will accept our offer or counter our offer.  We want her to do anything but decline! So keep your fingers crossed for us!

Heath Updates: He is now almost 5 months old!  His stitches from his man parts came out and he is back to his old self.  He likes to eat flies, bugs, worms, rocks, and loves this toy turkey that my Grandma got him for Christmas. He will literally play with it for minutes (he has ADD) by doing this...thanks Grandma.

It's been 25 days....

So it has been 25 days since Matt & I got engaged.  We are still in the moment of calling each other "fiancé" because admit it, it just sounds so much better than "boyfriend" or "girlfriend".  I mean lets face it, the boyfriend/girlfriend thing got a little old after 8 years of dating.  Anyways, a lot has happened in the past 25 days so prepare yourself....

For one, we already have our venue picked out and our date! We looked at Samuel's Grande Manor but it was not for us for a few reasons....
1. 6 weddings could be going on that day (imagine the movie Wedding Crashers)
2. There is no bridal suite, just their office to get ready in (cheap!)
3. No food tasting, they just want you to trust them & assume their food is to die for (food is the one thing people remember at the wedding)
4. We had our hearts set on the Avanti Mansion (It was love at first sight)

So later that day, we went to the Avanti Mansion to check it out.  This place is the most amazing/beautiful place on earth.  I would add a picture, but its a surprise (obv!) I guess you could always go to their site to look but it still won't be the same, so if I were you, I would wait.   Anyways, we booked the Avanti Mansion for both our ceremony and reception, so everything will be outside for our July 2014 wedding day.

Another huge accomplishment we have done for the wedding is picking out our photographer! We narrowed it down to 3 photographers and went from there by meeting them. We went with an amazing lady named Robin Fox from Rochester who does both Rochester and Buffalo weddings, free of travel charge-yes!  We have scheduled our engagement session for June up in Buffalo in Delaware Park in the gardens & other cute little places in the park.

On another exciting note, I had the opportunity to give one of my best friends, Summer, her maid of honor invitation and had a girls night where we spent hours in Barnes & Noble looking at Bride magazines while sippin' on Starbucks and went out to dinner to celebrate. We even got some nifty travel planners to write down important dates (pinning wedding ideas on Pinterest, girls nights, bridal shows, etc.) and a book for myself on everything you need to know including tips of planning your wedding.  It is probably the best book ever for a bride to be.  It is called "The Ultimate Wedding Planning Guide", it literally says what it does.

This Friday, I will be giving the rest of the bridesmaids their invitations in person or by mail.  Matt still needs to ask his groomsman, but each of our parties has a total of 7 in each.  Our event planner at the mansion told us that some parties had a total of 30...wayyy too many for our liking.  I just think that is nuts. It was one of the hardest decisions we had to make, so don't be offended because you are still invited most likely.
On a sad note, I am now ring-less because it was time to get the most beautiful thing I have ever owned re-sized down a whole size to a 5 1/2.  This has been the hardest part because even though I have showed everyone, including the students I sub for, teachers at the 4 districts I am in, and our realtor,  I still love to flaunt it.  We dropped it off on Saturday at Zale's and the lady told us it should only take a week, BUT it may take up to 2 weeks.  I am hoping to pick it up this Saturday because right now I have been wearing my promise ring and its just not the same.

If you're wondering how Matt has been through all of this so far, he has been a champ. 

So that's pretty much all the wedding excitement right now that has happened in our lives.

 On another note, our little man Heath had to get his man parts removed Monday, so I will leave you with a picture of him... he is doing great, a little groggy when he first got home but back to his ball of energy self last night and today.

"The inflatable pillow cone of shame."