Wicked and my 27th Birthday

I think I now have a new favorite musical. My all time favorite is Les Miserables, but after we saw Wicked...wow it was amazing! I have always heard such great things about it, but I had never seen it. It came to Houston so I knew that we had to go see it.

July 20th was my 27th birthday. Wow...now I'm really getting close to 30! I took the day off from work, and it was a fairly relaxed day, which was nice! I got some great presents from my wonderful husband and my mommy :)

My mom and brother got me an Edible Arrangement. The chocolate covered bananas that were on this thing were AMAZING! It also had chocolate covered strawberries, pineapple flowers, grapes, canteloupe, and regular strawberries.

My mom also got me my favorite gum! And the biggest thing of Sharpies I've seen! It's kind of an inside joke with us, but I think this seriously was my favorite gift!

My hubby got me a shirt from Gap, some hand cream from Anthropologie that I wanted, a new phone case, and 2 candles I LOVE! One is from Circle E Candles. They are made in Fredricksburg, but they sell them in some stores. I also got a candle from Anthropologie. I just love them because they aren't overpowering and they are pretty to look at too!

After opening presents we headed out. For my cake this year, I wanted to try Sprinkles cupcakes. They just opened one in Highland Village. We got 4 cupcakes...cherry, red velvet, cinnamon sugar, and chocolate. My favorite by far was the cherry. Jeremy liked the cinnamon sugar too.

Then we went to our staple restaurant for birthdays, Melting Pot. Every year Jeremy asks me where I want to go and every year I say Melting Pot! I love that place!

We didn't get dessert there because we had yummy cupcakes waiting for us, but our waiter was AWESOME and brought us out chocolate covered strawberries because it was my birthday.

We got home and I blew out my candles and ate my cupcakes!

I had a wonderful birthday! I am so very blessed to have my wonderful husband who always goes way out of his way to make my birthdays so special, my mom and my brother who always get me the coolest things!, my grandparents who I always get a laugh out of their cards, and tons of friends who wish me Happy Birthday. I love you all and thank you for making my birthday so special. :)

Living Room = DONE!

Project Living Room is complete! Well...almost complete. We still need a painting or something and a new entertainment center, but other than that we are DONE! After we got the new window, we painted. Look at the difference a window and a coat of paint makes...
BEFORE:

AFTER:

We are so happy to be finished with the living room. It really was the room in the house that frustrated us the most. We couldn't figure out what we wanted to do, but we took our time and it really paid off!

New Window!!

We finally got our new window put in! When our house was built, there was a wall in our living room that didn't have a window. It's the only wall that faces the backyard. So we couldn't look out into our backyard from the living room. Well we want to be able to see all of the birds, and of course see the dogs out there running around. So we hunted down the contractor who built our house and had the window guy come and install a window. I was a bit nervous, because he was going to have to cut a hole in our wall! But he did fantastic and it looks GREAT! It's unbelievable the amount of light it lets in. That was another drawback before. We only had 2 small windows in the living room, so there wasn't a whole lot of natural light. We don't have that problem now!
Wall where the window is going. Don't mind the paint samples on the other wall :) We were trying to decide what color to paint.

These next pics are Louie doing what he does :)

Voila! And we have a window!

After Louie did his thing it was Jeremy's time to get to work. He spent the next few days sheetrocking, sanding, puddying, sawing, and spackling the inside of the window! It looks so professional!! Mr. Handyman fixed it again. When all was said and done we absolutely love it and we are so happy that we decided to do it. It adds so much light, and with the new paint in the living room (next post!) it looks great :)

Happy 4th of July!

We had a fun 4th of July weekend! Friday it rained SO much I almost didn't make it home from work! The HOV lane was flooded, and I ride the bus, so needless to say it took a long time to get home.
Saturday our friends Chris and Carrie were in town from Dallas. Chris' parents live in League City and they were visiting them. We met them out there and went on the boat! It rained off and on while we were out there, but we still had such a fun time!

Us and our good friends the Norwoods :)

A pretty rainbow after all the rain

After we got off the boat we ate brisket and sat around and talked. Then we decided to go to Kemah, which is a boardwalk on the Galveston Bay. There are restaurants, games, and a couple of rides. We had never been there but had been wanting to go.

                                                                         Boys being boys

On July 4th we went to The Woodlands and watched some fireworks.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Backyard Flower Bed

I feel like all of my posts are about new things we have done in the yard or in the house, lol. But that is what we like to do!
After we finished making the new birdfeeder, I wanted to go ahead and add a flower bed out back. When our house was built they landscaped the front yard but they didn't do anything to the back. So we got a few little green plants and some flowers and made a flower bed! And of course the birdfeeder is in the middle of it.

The yard looks so much better now that there is some color back there :)

New Birdfeeder

During our Memorial Day weekend, we decided to make a birdfeeder for our backyard. We have a regular birdfeeder, but we wanted something that was open for the smaller songbird seed. So off to Home Depot we went. We searched through the scrap lumber section and found everything we needed for $3!! We got some paint and screws and we were on our way home! This was the beginning of Mr. Birdfeeder. :)

Here it is after we painted it and in its new home:

We are going to build a flower bed to go around it. That will be a weekend project here pretty soon. The birds love their new feeder! 

Disneyworld 2010

 "Jeremy and Katie you have almost finished your first school year in Houston, where are you going to go?" "We're going to Disneyworld!"

Well, we didn't exactly just pick up and go to Disneyworld. It was band trip time! Woohoo! We went to Florida for 5 days with 65 high school band kids. We had a blast. We went to Epcot, Universal Studios, MGM Studios, and Magic Kingdom. We rode just about every ride...twice. I went to Disneyworld 12 years ago for high school band trip, and holy cow this time I could tell I was 12 years older! By hour number 14 at Magic Kingdom I was ready for bed!

Here are a few pictures from our time there:

Epcot at night

Us in front of the Hulk RollerCoaster (awesome btw)

Tower of Terror! We rode this four times! Never gets old :)

Mickey's Hat at MGM Studios

Us in front of Thunder Railroad (I think that's what it was called)

Cinderella's Castle at night! Sorry its blurry

This was band trip, so the band performed at a contest! These two pictures are good "action" shots of Jeremy conducting the band! They did a great job :)

We had such a good time and Jeremy really does get to work with a great bunch of kids. We had no lost kids, no real problems, just a couple of missed curfews. But it was great to spend time with my husband and watch him interact with the kids. God has truly blessed him with a great talent!

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

We have been doing a lot of work lately on our flower bed. A month or so ago I blogged about how our tulips were starting to bloom. Well now they are in full bloom. And they are beautiful! They are a dark purple and it seems like everyday I see more and more coming up.

A few weeks ago my brother came down to visit. While he was here he helped us plant a bunch of spring flowers. He is a pretty good landscaper :) He helped so much and was so diligent in placing all of the flowers in the perfect spot.

We also planted these palm bush things. I forgot the technical name for them, but they look like miniature palm trees. They don't get tall like palm trees, but they do really well down here in Humid-Hot Town, lol. We put one on either side of the driveway.

There are also pots of cilantro, rosemary, and basil (in that order for the pic) too! When we bought these, they were so small, and they have really started growing like crazy!

We have done a little in the backyard, too. We put hanging plants on the fence, put up a bird feeder that is attracting some beautiful birds to eat there now! We have a pair of Cardinals and a pair of Mockingbirds that make the rounds every day!  We also bought a neat temperature gauge from Kohl's.

Now all I need is for my mom and brother to come down and help us landscape our backyard :)