Weekend Recap

We had an exciting and busy weekend! Here's the recap:

Saturday was spent painting at our new house!! We closed on our house last Thursday and decided to do some painting before we move. Here are the before and after pics. We painted our master bedroom, kitchen, and living/dining room. Thankfully, we had great parents who helped us get all of our painting done in one day!

Before

 After

On Saturday night, we watched the movie Captain Phillips, which was really good and had some delicious hot chocolate in our negative degrees weather. 

Sunday, my cousin was home from California so I got to visit with her and meet her fiancé, and their adorable little puppy. 

Sunday night was spent going through some of our clothes before we move next weekend. We did a pretty good job and ended up with a couple boxes for garage sales and Goodwill.

I am looking forward to warmer temperatures this week and for our move into our house! Hope you all have a wonderful first week of March!

Ashley!! I Know Her!!

Not sure how many of you are Ellen Degeneres fans, but I'm a huge fan of her show! It's always hilarious and she's also amazing at giving to others. Well, recently, my best friend got to be on the show and her show aired yesterday! It was so awesome to see her on TV next to Ellen. I was super excited for her (and a little jealous)! She submitted a photo a few months ago for Ellen's "Bad Paid for Photos" segment, and she got picked to come to the show. She got to bring her sister and mom with her and they got to spend a few days in LA. It was pretty cool to see a girl from my small town of 600 people on national TV. Way to go Ash!!

Here is the video clip from her segment on the show (her photo is the first one shown):

I can now say my best friend is a celebrity! Ellen even posted her picture on instagram!

Weekend Recap

This weekend was pretty busy, but very fun! 

1. Friday night and Saturday was spent at the State Wrestling tournament cheering on the 3 wrestlers from our hometown and our brother-in-law, their head coach. All 3 came home with medals, so that was great! I also got to hang out with my sister-in-law and friend (both of the coaches' wives), we had a good time, as always!
2. Saturday morning, 2 other girls from work and I ran the "Trek Up the Tower" race in downtown Omaha. We raced up 40 flights of stairs, 870 steps total! It is super exhausting and challenging, but I felt good when I got done.  My uncle also did it, so I got to see him there!
3. Here is a picture before the finals started on Saturday. The wrestlers come in to the arena to the song, "We Are the Champions" and it gives me goosebumps every year. It's so cool!
4. Saturday night, we hung out with some friends and celebrated National Margarita Day. My margaritas were delicious! We also played some Catch Phrase, and unfortunately, the boys beat us girls.
On Sunday, Ryan and I went shopping for paint for our house and we also looked at washers and dryers. We picked out the paint, but are still deciding on the washer/dryer. Things are slowly coming along, and I'm excited and nervous!

That was our weekend! We are closing on our house on Thursday, it's coming so fast! I also have one prayer request, my baby cousin Adrian, who is almost 6 months old, is having heart surgery today. Please keep him and his parents in your prayers that the surgery goes well!

Advice

Ok...readers and fellow bloggers, I need some help and advice. Ryan and I need to buy a washer/dryer for our new house, and I'm not sure what is the best kind. I've heard pros and cons about top loaders vs. front loaders and I want to hear your opinions!! And if you recommend any certain brand or model, that would be great too!

Thanks!

Casting

Last week, we got Google Chromecast, and so far, we really like it! I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but for those of you who aren't, it's a device that lets you stream pictures or videos from your computer or phone onto your TV so you can see things on a bigger screen. This is great for pictures, YouTube videos, and shows you may watch online. 

It's really easy to setup and very easy to use! 

Does anyone else have Chromecast? What's your favorite thing to use it for?

Baking Day

Yesterday, on my day off, I did some baking! There were a couple recipes I have been wanting to try, and I finally had time to do it.

Here's what I made...

Red Velvet Puppy Chow from Your Cup of Cake

Ingredients: 

1 cup Red Velvet Cake Mix

5 cups Rice Chex

1/2 cup Chocolate Chips

3/4 cup White Baking Chips

2 oz. Cream Cheese

1 1/2 Tbsp. Milk

1/2 cup Powdered Sugar

To get the full recipe, click the link above!

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

I just used the bag mix of sugar cookie dough for these.

Creamy Peanut Butter Dip from Fit Sugar

Ingredients:

6 oz Nonfat Vanilla Greek Yogurt

1 Tbsp. Peanut Butter (I used regular, not natural as the recipe stated)

 1/2 Tbsp. Maple Syrup

1/8 tsp. Cinnamon

News

My husband and I have some news to share...we bought a house! We've been looking for about a month, and found the one we really liked, so we put in an offer, it got accepted, and now we're going through the closing process! If everything goes as planned, we will close on March 3rd and it will officially be ours!

Now, comes all the fun, yet sort of difficult decisions like paint colors, furniture ideas, and decorating! I'm excited to finally have our own place to do with what we want! 

Here's a few things I've learned so far in the house hunting and house purchasing process:

1. Houses are expensive! (ok, I already knew this but it really hits you when you see the actual numbers, including all the closing costs)

2. Seeing a house you really like and then finding out it got sold is really disappointing. We had a couple of these in our search, but I learned you have to stay positive, the right one is out there somewhere.

3. Banks require a lot of paperwork. I didn't realize how much they had to verify as far as your employment, income, etc. I've used a fax machine more times these past couple weeks than in my whole life, constantly sending our lender information.

4. Having a good realtor can make a world of difference in your search. We started with one that wasn't the best, but when we switched to our current one, she was great! She was always sending us new listings, would respond to our questions quickly and has been a huge help in our buying process.

5. Buying a house is a big step in life and we had many doubts about whether we were doing the right thing and choosing the right budget, but lots of prayers and guidance from our parents really helped us in our decision.

If anyone has any tips or advice for us as we get ready to move, please let me know, I would love to hear them! And I will keep you updated with more inside pics as we get settled. I would also ask for prayers that our loan and paperwork go through smoothly so we can close in a couple weeks!