Our New Kitchen

Have I told you how much I love my new kitchen? I thought it would take a lot longer for us to start re-doing our house, I mean buying a house was enough but to redo a whole kitchen?  Well we did it and I am so so happy we did.  Some of things that we learned by doing that was 1) It is a lot more work than we thought. 2) It was a little bit more expensive than we thought. 3) Don't sweat the small stuff.  All in all, it was a great experience and I am over-the-moon happy how it turned it out.  

To give you an overview, the front of the cabinet doors were redone by adding trim and breadboard so we did not have to replace all of the cabinetry.  (Pinterest idea)  We of course painted all of the doors and added new hinges and pulls.  We pained the kitchen a creamy grey color that my mom had left over in her garage that goes perfectly with our granite and tile floors.  Speaking of the floors, we bought our tile in bulk on sale and plan to use the extra for the bathrooms in the future.  The granite was a sample that Ashlee, my sister-in-law, had picked out for her house, but she did not use it.  I ended up loving it and it is what is in my kitchen now.  Addison and his dad built a table and benches so we finally have a place to sit and talk at the beginning and end of our day.  We made a cut-out for the refrigerator, which was literally in the middle of the kitchen.  There is still soooo much to be done in my book, such as hang things on the walls, curtains and what not but here are a little before and afters....

A panoramic of the (almost) finished product.  I will get a close up of the granite and hopefully a few other pictures this weekend when we work on it a little bit more.  

I love it. 

Change

I really need to get better at this blogging thing....There has been so much going on that I have had no time at all to think about blogging.  Addison and I (mostly Addison) have almost completely finished the kitchen.  We still have a few things to do so I won't post pictures yet.  We still want to re-do both of the guest bathrooms, but after realizing how much work it actually takes, we feel they can be put off for a while.  I am amazed at the job Addison, his dad and everyone else, did with the overhaul of the kitchen.  I love to cook now and we actually like spending time in our kitchen now.  

I graduate with my bachelor's in two weeks!!!!  I feel like I graduated a million years ago, but my homework and internship still haunts me.  It's amazing how getting married at 20, buying a house and getting a big girl job will make you grow up a lot sooner than you thought you would.  I would not trade my life for anything!  Just last week, I had probably the next year planned out in my mind, man how things have changed, but only for the better.  I trust in God's plan always and pray for his timing in everything.  Speaking of timing, Addison and I have made it past the year and a half mark!  I can't believe how times flies.  I thank God for the man he is and how he supports and loves me and my family unconditionally.  

I always wanted to seek your prayers in praying for Addison's nephew.  He is going through a lot of issues with his heart right now and was just put on the transplant list.  Again, we know God has a plan and trust him through everything.  

A lot of changes going on right now in our life but whether they are good or bad we always praise God and cling to his promises.  We pray you have a blessed week!

Update: Part 2

It's been almost two weeks since I've posted, not too bad considering last time was over four months....I left out a few things from January.  We celebrate my sweet Daddy's birthday.  My mom threw him a surprise birthday party with most of his buddies.  It was the week before my mom's surgery and she knew he wouldn't get to see his friends for a while so she had them all out to eat mexican food and sing happy birthday.

So our house has become one huge work in progress.  We started with the master closet right when we moved in, partly because when we put all of our clothes on the racks, they all fell down.  Then we moved to sort of fixing up the living room.  We got our love seat and chair recovered (hand-me-downs) to match our couch  little better and a few new pillows. Remember the awesome entertainment center Add and his uncle made me?  We are going to add doors to the front so they will match the kitchen doors, which leads me to the kitchen.  Addison and his dad have worked very hard to give me the perfect kitchen for our first house.  When we moved in the floors were linoleum and once our dishwasher leaked it all started to peel up.  We decided to immediately start saving so that we could redo the whole thing.  Our countertops were pretty hideous as well, in my opinion. Addison, his dad and uncle started with the cabinet doors.  We didn't have it in our budget to completely rip out the cabinets and do custom made ones so they literally just took off the doors and added a piece of trim and breadboard in the middle.  I found a lot of pictures on pinterest of people doing that to ugly cabinet doors so I thought I would see how it looked.

A bad before and after.  I will post better pictures when it is all done. 

They now have a new coat of white paint and door handles.  See the countertops?  Yikes.  Our beautiful granite went in Monday and our tiles guys are working had to finish the floor backsplash by Saturday.  We went with a more grayish, white and specks of black granite with a grey and creme stone backsplash.  The granite looks awesome, can't wait to see the rest!  Our last step will be to buy a range and we'll be cookin'....literally.  We still have all three bathrooms to redo so it will be a while before we get everything done.  We have a hard time taking a "breather" before we start the next project, but I think our bank account needs a rest.

At the end of January we (Human Resources) moved to a new office and I finally got my own area.  I use to be in a closet all by myself so you can imagine how excited I was to finally have my own desk!

Shortly after we moved into the new office, I got a phone call from my daddy letting me know that my great-grandfather, Pawpaw (Eldon Roberts) passed away.  He was more special to us than anyone could have ever imagined.  He was also my Grandmama's daddy and he kept her sweet spirit alive.  He was 94 years old and one of the sweetest, Godliest men I will probably ever know.  I am so thankful that I got to spend twenty-two years of my life knowing him.  I feel like that is so rare these days to have a great-grandfather surpass both grandfathers.  I am so happy and thankful though that he is with Jesus now dancing with a new hip ;)  

I'll end with a few funny pictures of little Trenty, my younger older brother.  

I'll end with a few funny pictures of little Trenty.  The first is his coloring his mommy a pretty picture to put in her room.  The second is when he filled out the board for the nurses, he's so sweet, (I'm sure they hated us) and third is Trent trying to break into the nurses station.  Life without him would be so boring, I'm glad we had him to entertain us all while we were stuck in the hospital room.

Update: Part 1

Since the last time I posted, in October, Addison and I had our second Thanksgiving and Christmas together.  It was so much fun actually being in Abilene for both holidays, and getting to go from on house to another whenever we pleased.  It was also the first time that both Addison or I did not get a big Thanksgiving and Christmas break; and let me tell ya, it was rough.  People always told us to enjoy college as long as we could, and I think were now finally understanding that.

Sweet Laurel as the "Harlequin Doll" in the Nut Cracker.  She's amazing!

 Such a precious picture to me.  This is my Dad's little brother, Uncle David who is now in hospice. 

 We celebrated Annalee's 1st birthday!  We love this little girl like she is our own. 

 I took 3 days off from work to get my wisdom teeth out.  Glad I had Lucy to snuggle with.  

 Went hunting by myself for the 1st time.  (I have always gone with my Daddy)  So---we have a mountain lion on the loose at our ranch, and right before I left that evening to go hunting, my mom told me "watch out for the mountain lion."  The sun was about to go down and I was getting a little fidgety until the thing pictured below walked right across the creek below me.  Now, of course it was a lot smaller but still!  It scared me to death, I couldn't even hold my phone.  Why I didn't shoot it?  My scope was off since it was so close and well, I freaked out and didn't pull the trigger fast enough. Maybe next time...

 This picture is from google BTW. 

 Over Christmas, all the guys worked day and night to get this feeder filler up and running.  It helps feed the deer feeders a whole heck of a lot faster and is just pretty amazing that Addison and his family could do this.  My dad is pretty happy about it, to say the least.  

 We did a lot of hanging out at the ranch by the fire. 

 We attended FDLIC's Christmas Party.  It was the most amazing event we have probably ever been to.   We are so blessed to be apart of such an incredible company.  They are doing BIG things there!

I was also able to have some of my best friends over for a Christmas/New Year's get-together.  I was so happy to see each of them and sad for those who couldn't make it. 

Other than that, Addison is absolutely loving working at FDLIC.  Like I said before, they really are the most amazing company to work for and be apart of.  On January 1st, I became a Full-time (permanent) employee for First Financial.  They have been really good to me and I also feel very blessed to have such a great job.  On January 14th, my sweet momma had knee replacement surgery so I took about a week off in all to be with her and help her recoup.  It was really hard at first, but she is now getting better each and every day.  We thank God for watching over her the past few months.  She has been so strong during this whole process, which makes me love and look up to her even more.  She has also had some wonderful friends that have visited her on many occasions and brought her movies and food.  

On another note, Addison and I are re-doing our kitchen right now, which I will post about later.  My sweet mother-in-law has helped us the whole way, we couldn't do it without her.  We also got a new dachshund today!  She is 2 years old and we rescued her from Rescue the Animals.  "Millie" is not too fond of Addison or my dad right now but I think she will warm up to them.  Hopefully she will put off baby fever for a little bit. ;)  That's it for November-January!

I promise the next post won't be in 4 months!