3 more weeks!!!

Just to update everyone on the house... and when I say "everybody" I mean the 3 people that might read this. Ha ha. Currently we are still waiting on the house/loan/underwriting process to get all sorted out. It feels like it's been 3 months since we bid on that house. We are more than ready to leave our apartment. The apartment itself is cute and clean, but we have the weirdest insect problem. We don't have like ants or roaches (well we have seen both before in there) but we have spiders, crickets & silverfish. SILVERFISH?! There was one on Hamilton's pillow last night before we went to sleep. How weird?? Anyways, needless to say we are ready to get into our own place and re-decorate and personalize it. We have finally decided on our kitchen colors and we are very happy! We are going to paint our kitchen cabinets a chocolate brown, add stainless steel hardware, a funky back splash and blue walls. It sounds weird, but trust me I have a vision! Our kitchen was already green and black so we are just adding blue. We got the inspiration from Rachael Ray's funky kitchen with her greens, blues & oranges! We have so many ideas and we can't wait to put them into action! Our house is gonna be da bomb. So as I sit here and wait out the longest 3 weeks of my life I think about what I am the most excited about with this house. The fact that I get to paint the walls? Have a garage? Have a basement!!? No, I am pretty sure I'm the most excited about the beautiful stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. And, about having 2 separate sinks. And having a hallway. And having more than 1 closet. And the fireplace! I am sooooo excited for the fall!! We are going to build a fire with REAL logs in our fire place and grill out and watch some Auburn football. Man, Fall is the best season ever! It needs to hurry up and get here!!!

We found a house!

Man, we are on a roll with this "pre-baby bucket list"! We marked off #2 on this list! We are currently under contract for a house that we found 2 weeks ago. We weren't expecting to find one this soon! I got a call from my realtor 2 weeks ago saying that I had to check this house out. We went to see it the next day and fell in love with it and put a bid on it that night! After one counter-offer we had ourselves a contract! We had the termite inspection & the home inspection and they both turned out great! Couldn't ask for a more perfect house... just small things to fix! The only major problem we have is the dead tree in the backyard. We asked them to cut it down and are hoping they will say yes! So.... just a little glimpse of our house:

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....

Pre-Baby Bucket List: UPDATE

Not much look like it has been accomplished on this list, but paying off this little loan was a huge accomplishment for us and we are very excited! We still have about 5 more loans to go... and trust me they are no where nearly as small as this one was... which is very depressing. But I am very excited to cross something off my list! Yay! Now we really need to find a house. In the mean time, we will be saving as much money as possible up for all of the expenses involved with buying a house (like inspection, earnest money, etc...) We have our realtor looking (and we are too) but there are no houses in Bremen right now! NONE! I am hoping someone will get foreclosed on soon... is that bad? Ha ha.

Oh yeah, I have accomplished one more thing. I finally got some wedding pictures into our frames! I was so use to see those models in the picture frame, and it's hard to get use to seeing us in there! Ha ha.

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....

My skype date.......

My favorite 1 year old in the entire world is Ava Isabella Steis. She has been my little buddy ever since she was born. Hamilton and I first met her when she was 3 weeks old. We flew out to Wyoming to meet the little monkey. I fell in love INSTANTLY!! I love all of my nieces so much and they are just as adorable and loved by me the same (which is THIS MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) But I wasn't there through most of their babyhood... I kinda feel like I missed Madison & Makinzie growing up. It's kinda sad but at least I have witnessed Ava growing! Here are some pictures from when we visited- my little monkey!

We got to skype with her tonight and she danced for us and sang with us and it was so fun and very sad that she lives 4 days away!! Here are some snapshots:

this one makes me laugh b/c melissa's hands look like a creeper's hands going to snatch ava....

Yearly Savings....

So I have officially been couponing for a year!!! I keep every receipt and put it into a spreadsheet every month to keep up with my savings, and I am very happy with the results!! In one year I have bought around $4,176.40 worth of groceries and only spent $1,263.57 on them!! I saved $2,912.83 which is about 70% savings!! Now tell me that ain't awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a side note, Hamilton made this amazing pizza from scratch and I would like to share it with you. It's a baked potato pizza.

Great week!

Okay so this week at Publix was awesome! I spent $48.18 and saved $125.16!! I got tons of awesome stuff like milk, bacon, asprin, soap, strawberries, potatoes, chinese dinners (AMAZING!!), bandaids, etc...

 check out this receipt!!!!

Pre-Baby Bucket List

I'm not going to lie.... I have a bad case of baby fever. But I also have a bad case of BROKE! So, with that being said... don't get your hopes up because it will still be a while before we plan on having a baby. But I decided to make a list of things I would like to get accomplished before we have a baby...

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....