Catching the Moment.

I realized something as I watched my mother in law take 4 pictures of 2 of my nieces. She was asking them to say cheese and trying to get them both smiling and looking at the camera at the same time. That’s not an easy feat especially when they’re both in hyper moods, and 4 years old. I realized how different I take my pictures. I knew I liked “moments” over “cheeses,” but in going through my more recent pictures, the only pictures I have of “cheeses” are of me, cause cheesin is what I do best.

I prefer to stand off to the side, let life happen, and capture it. Here’s an example below. The first one is the fam asking all the girls to smile for the camera, while I’m snapping from the side:

It’s cute. Ok, THEY’RE cute :) I can see how big they are, the nice dresses they’re wearing. I know it’s Easter. Or at least I hope it is… unless random plastic egg shaped toy hunting is your thing on the first day of summer. Or some random day like April 27th. But I don’t see any interaction, or personalities shining through.

Lets take a look at this one. Where the girls are enjoying their finds. Anticipation and smiles, wondering what’s in their treasured eggs. It’s sweet, and I feel like I’m right there with them, waiting to see what treats are about to be presented. And which chocolate I get to ask them to please share with Aunt Samantha ;)

Now take a look at the one below. The one where D is infatuated with her little sister, Little A. Wanting to hold her, show her the eggs, make her play with them. Big A shares an egg with Little A as well, while she is pouting, wishing she had enough strength to high tail it out of there.

Here’s another, showing the curiosity Big A still has with her eggs, and now D is reallyyy loving on her sister. How precious is this?!

So I try more angles, since straight on went out with film cameras. It’s still really staged, since they were placed there, after all. But it still feels real, in the moment.

Of course, not all cheese photos are bad. Sometimes I agree when one begs me to take a picture, says cheese, and then “LET ME SEE!” and it turns out oh, so cute.

What would these kids have done back when we had film? Waiting for it to develop? Oh the humanity! By the way, these pictures are from LAST Easter. Capturing those moments is especially nice when you realize how much they grow up in just one short year:

Make that 2 years. This was a year before the first set! Yeah, Little A wasn’t even born yet! Shh, don’t tell their parents they’re about to pick up M&M’s on the ground. And probably eat them. Oops.

And here’s one last cheesing for your viewing pleasure. We were all asked to say cheese, so what do Hussy and I do? Bunny ears. Hey, it’s allowed, it’s Easter! Then Big A wanted to make bunny ears, but it came out as peace signs :) D is not pleased at all, but the way she’s sitting is hilarious.

What’s your picture style? I know I’m not the only one with a “signature” way of doing things! Or a complete hypocrite for always cheesing hard when I see a camera pointed at me, yet don’t like taking cheese photos!

One Year Wedding Anniversary.

Since I semi-swore off the internet this weekend, for good reason, I'm a little delayed in wishing my husband a happy one year anniversary on here! Our weekend was jam packed with fun stuff, because, well, that happens when you don't waste your time hitting refresh on facebook. I may or may not be guilty of that when I'm truly, severely bored. But hey, it works, because other super bored people keep posting stuff for me to read every 2327840.2B seconds. Anyhow, I just wanted to kick the habit and enjoy my time with my husband with little to no interruption. You see, we wanted to go somewhere fun, like New York City, since I've never been. Or even take some crazy getaway vacation like we did for our honeymoon. But we didn't.

So why didn't we? For one, the kitchen renovation is on the table. Although the money is just sitting and waiting, everyone knows things go over budget. We also dragged our feet in booking anything, so by the time we almost decided what to do, things were too pricey.

Instead, we had a delightful weekend around home. On Friday, we went to look at a foreclosure. This home was listed for $150k, but assessed at $300k. I knew something was wrong with it, but I had to know what. I HAD TO. So we met up with our friend/realtor and took a glance at it. Our suspicions were right, it needed work. LOTS of work. When foreclosed upon, someone took the cabinets, appliances, vanities, light fixtures, air vents, heat pump, and even tried to rip the countertop out of the kitchen. They failed and left a broken chunk on there, and drew a pretty picture on the wall where the cabinets were.

Safe to say, it needs a lot of stuff. However, we looked at it in a different light than most. We welcomed the challenge. Nothing I love more than planning a kitchen or bathroom remodel! We also love buying stocks at half price (when the stock market crashed, THAT'S when we saved our money!), so why not a house at half price? Well, we haven't even gotten started demo'ing our kitchen, refinishing our floors, or planting grass seed. The main things we need to do to sell the house at top dollar. This also meant we wouldn't be able to even enjoy the fruits of our labor. Although we discussed that house over and over, we just couldn't do it. Yet.

Saturday we went to the park and threw a frisbee and fed the ducks bread.

Since it was our Wedding Rehearsal/Dinner Anniversary, we celebrated by eating dinner at Bottoms Up pizza, where we had our rehearsal dinner.

Their pizza is to die for. The crust is thick and delicious, and the Hawaiian toppings are pure heaven. The interior is also incredible with the exposed brick, beams and pipes, and industrial lighting. When we had our rehearsal dinner, we ate next to some doors off the side of the building that they opened up. We played with the kids outside while still chatting with the guests inside, and watched the trains go by until dark.

We also decided to hit up The Wine Loft in Short Pump. We drove past it a million times (I mean, we have to pass it to go to the gym!) but kept putting off going. Since we would have spent so much more money on airfare and hotel accommodations, we decided to splurge $20 to enjoy ourselves. The Wine Loft didn't disappoint! The walls are a dark greige, the lighting was yellowy and comforting, and the seats are so incredible comfortable, even the bar chairs! They also had beautiful floor lamps and tufted brown ottomans that I want so badly in my own home now. The staff were amazing, and we sat next to a guy trying to impress his date (while asking us if he should go after the more attractive lady to his left. Yeah, he was a little gone.). We were pretty underdressed for the upscale atmosphere, so at least we know to look a little more classy next time. But it really was a nice comfortable place to hang out, and I can't wait to go back again.

Then Sunday, the official anniversary day, we slept in then took a trip out to Ashland to enjoy the downtown walks, homes for sale, and take pictures in front of the place we partied at a year earlier. Ok, and lots of pictures of everything else, but you know how I do.

Then we got home and Drew grilled us a delicious feast:

We spent a lot of time relaxing, and then watched our wedding video (good idea, Hussy!). We toasted each other with our year old toasting wine (which was still delicious!) along with the toasts in the video.

My dad gave a heartfelt speech about Drew becoming his son, and me no longer being called the Runt. Then Jesse, our best man, entertained the crowd thanking Myspace for introducing us, and commenting on how we're the two most financially conservative people he knows, and he's shocked we weren't sharing a glass. Little did he know we didn't even have toasting glasses without my stepmother's present! Yeah, we're cheap. Ok, we also didn't buy cake cutters, not fancy nor bland ones, we BORROWED someone else's wedding set!

Then we finished the movie and cut the top piece of our cake:

with a cake cutter we ended up getting as a present. (check out all that open area in the freezer now! precious real estate in a home where people actually eat there!)

I'll tell you more about those cake toppers on Thursday, but the cake was delicious. Now we have to have a cake eating gathering like we had with the groomscake.

But just for good measure, we went to the gym afterwards since it's so dead on Sunday evenings, and I tested out my new workout attire. (and I sure don't want those pounds installed upon my person!) We enjoyed our anniversary, even though we didn't do anything spectacular. But that's how we roll.

If You Like It Then You Shoulda Put A Hypoallergenic Ring On It.

Lame, I know. But when we were wedding band shopping, we decided to be cost conscious and settled on titanium wedding bands.

He really liked the style of his, and mine was a cheaper version of the white gold ring I loved, but the jeweler couldn’t get sized down small enough for me. See, my ring finger is a size 2.75. I get gasps when I go to jewelers and tell them that. And some “OMG you’re so little!” Holy cow, are you serious? Cause I thought I was a giant all my life! What? If they’re going to state the obvious, I get to joke about it!

I loved my wedding band. It was exactly what I wanted. I didn’t have a matching set. I go against the grain. I like the look of mismatched stacked rings, so I thought, why not do that with the wedding ensemble? It worked well, I was happy. Until my finger turned red. Like, blistering, puffy rash red. After I wore my wedding band and e-ring together for a couple months. I dealt with it for a while, thinking maybe it was just the hand sanitizer drying me out. So I took the rings off for 2 weeks, it cleared up, and I put the rings back on and didn’t use sanitizer for a few days, and took the rings off to wash my hands and left them off until they completely dried. I cleaned the rings, I put clear polish on the inside, I did every trick in the book. Nothing worked. I blister rashed back up every. single. time I wore it.

I finally broke down and asked my doctor if it was possible to be allergic to something that has a reputation of being hypoallergenic. She said yes, and I most certainly am.

:(

I don’t know how, since all I’d read was that you could be allergic if it gets moist under, but I didn’t let it get wet at all underneath! So I didn’t wear a wedding band for a while, and gave poor Hussy a hard time about how much I missed it. Then one night the heavens opened, the stars aligned, and AHHHHH he suggested we look at rings again. I knew exactly what I wanted, but I wanted to try on the other options I looked at a year prior just in case. None of them worked quite like that band I was going to get in the first place, before I found my beloved titanium band. Now I’m outwardly showing the world I’m married again, and it feels so good (and it’s white gold, and I’m not allergic!). As if I couldn’t gloat enough, they were able to size it down to fit me, no issues at all, and the ring only took 10 short days from order to finger. Why couldn’t I have had this much luck the first go round?! Oh, and he went to Jared. Lame again, but I had to do it! :)

Although it’s not the wedding vow exchanged band, it’s just a symbol. All that matters is that I have my Hussy <3