Things that make me laugh...part 2

Laughter is good. Good for me, good for you, good for everyone...so, back by popular "demand" (ie: Kacey's request) Things that make me laugh part II.

     

Thirty Thursday's {18}

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are eagerly anticipating the New Year. This question wasn't a hard one for Alex, but it definitely took me some thought.

What is your favorite professional sport?

Abby:
My favorite professional sport.....is a compilation of a lot  of sports: The Summer Olympics. They're so good and they're not the traditional ESPN covered sports. I like to watch the diving, swimming, running and gymnastics most. Although, I did enjoy watching the Crew teams.

Alex:
To watch or to play? To watch is football, specifically the Rams. I know, they're not the greatest team, but they're my team. To play? Golf.

"Oh what fun..."

Some people would end the song, "it is to ride, in a one horse open sleigh," but in the Williams' household the song ends, "it is to be a home owner!"
I will begin with some background information first...

This morning I asked Alex to turn the crockpot on so we could eat a nice dinner...fortunately he turned it on. Unfortunately I didn't specify the temperature, so our chicken cooked for 8 hours on high...yum. Upon arriving home and smelling our crispy, blackened chicken, I turned it off and dumped it down the garbage disposal -bad choice #2 (number one was not specifying the temperature for the crockpot).

After running some water down the drain I decided that if I put some dish soap with the water it would give the pipes a nice bath (bad choice #3). Unbeknownst to me, our garbage disposal is a hunk of junk and when one uses too many bubbles in combination with too much water and food bad things happen.

In our basement we have a creepy, cinder block shower with a (seemingly) useless pipe. Apparently this pipe is where our extra bubbles, food and water spill over.
Luckily I went down stairs to check our dehumidifier and noticed the Nile of bubbles headed to our floor drain.

Alex mopped up the mess and I cringe the whole time.

Moral of the story: just because you have a garbage disposal, doesn't mean it works or drains properly. Hopefully it will be an easy(ish) repair and Alex's incredibly handy father can tackle it. My fingers are crossed.

Merry Christmas

Merry, Merry Christmas. I hope you have the most fantastic Christmas of all year : ). This time of year is so wonderful and magical. People smile more, are more generous and tend to be even more kind than usual. It's a great season and I hope that you get to enjoy family, friends and good food. We are excited to see our friends and family, and I've put in my menu requests with my Mom. So, good food will be easy to come by. Thank you so much for reading my little blog and making me feel somewhat special when my "blog views" are more than two (Me and Alex).

Merry Christmas!

-Alex, Abby & Moose-

"It's the hap-happiest season of all!"

Christmas time is by far my favorite time of year. I am so excited to begin the Christmas celebrations and festivities. Today marks the beginning of my "Christmas break." (This is my first year out of school and not having a whole month off...I will survive. I will survive. I will survive.) I get five whole days to spend singing carols, wrapping gifts, drinking cocoa and wearing Christmas socks. I LOVE CHRISTMAS! I'm giddy just thinking about it. We've watched most of our Christmas movies, but still have a few more to catch up on. We annually watch: White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Miracle on 34th Street (the original), ELF, The Grinch, Charlie Brown Christmas and the Polar Express. That's about our only tradition. Maybe someday we'll have more or different traditions but, who knows?  Does your family have any good traditions?

Merry (almost) Christmas!!

A Work in Progress

HGTV really tricked me. I thought that within thirty minutes we would buy our house, renovate it and show it off to friends and family. Apparently, that is what defines "TV Magic." This kitchen/living room revamp/renovation will certainly be a work in progress. We have "the wall" out, finished and now painted, but we still have a list three miles long to complete before it's done. The floors are next, hopefully followed by the counter tops, an actual pantry, back splash, new appliances and some day (most likely far far away) an island. Who knows when any of this will get done, but at least "the wall" is gone!! I can't express to you how much I disliked that wall...so, without further ado, a finished (ish) living room and kitchen area.

Behr: Anonymous (grey) Paint.
Alex spent the better part of two days priming and painting.  He's great!

View from the kitchen. Don't mind the clutter, we're still trying to remember where things are or belong.

Moose is tired from all the hard work. He's slowly getting used to his new home. 

Thirty Thursday's {17}

Merry (almost) Christmas! 
This week's topic:  What is the thing you most wish you were great at?


Abby:


I wish I were great at baking. I like to bake and I'm not too bad but, I'm not great. I would love to have a bakery, but I don't think I would get very far. I wish I could just whip recipes up from scratch and make great tasty cookies and cupcakes...maybe someday.

Alex: 
I wish I were great at being a handyman. After buying our house, I've discovered that I can't do as much as I thought I could. Hopefully I'll continue getting better.

Renovation day 4, 5, 6......

The wall is out and finished beautifully! It was completed in four days, just like we expected and we couldn't be happier with the result!! Alex has spent the past few days priming and painting. I'll post all sorts of fantastic photos after its complete. I will give you a bit of a clue as to the new wall color: Anonymous by Behr. So, if you're really eager to the color you can Google it. Have a great evening an hopefully by tomorrow you will see out hard work!

Scrabble

With our phones and tablets, it seems that the good old fashioned board games are going by the wayside. So, in order to have some tv-less fun, we whipped out the Scrabble board and had some good word wars. With the holiday season among us, I feel it important to put away our electronics and spend quality time with our loved ones. I encourage you to play a board game or do whatever it is that you do with your family and friends to make lasting memories!

Alex would like me to add that I wrote this on my phone while playing Scrabble...at least I'm trying. Right?


--I would like to add that I won with a score of 318 to Alex's measly 185. He claims that he had poor luck at drawing letters from the bag. I think he's bitter that he's not the wordsmith that I am. : )

Renovation Day 3

Day three has come and gone, very quickly and full of progress. A vent was moved, walls were spackled, (I have no idea what it is that they did, so this is my very uneducated guess...it was white and putty-like) and a lot of other exciting things happened. :) Construction isn't really my forte, so I will leave it all to the pro's at Stuehlmeyer Renovations. Without further ado, here are some pictures of today's progress.

Day three: Kitchen

Day three: Living

Day three: Pantry

They will be back on Monday to put some finishing touches and then the hard part: painting, flooring, new counter tops, new appliances...this list could get quite long. Luckily, we're not planning on moving any time soon and have time to complete the list. I'll keep you posted as paint goes up, floors go down, etc... 

Have a fantastic weekend!

Things that make me laugh...Christmas Edition

With Christmas just around the corner, I thought a little laughter could easy some holiday stress...

Bad Holiday Photos via Ellen
Click on the link to see more bad pictures

Elf on the Shelf...

What's wrong with this picture?! Via Ellen
Click on the link to see some silly pictures.

Cat Photo Bomb...find the Kitty

Renovation Day 2

Day two continued our exciting reno progress! We have no studs (except for Alex) and have a clear idea (and view) of what our wall, or lack there of, will look like.  Everything is coming along great! Check out Stuehlmeyer Renovations to see what they could do for you.

View from the living room

View from the kitchen.

The doorway has been enclosed and will soon house our pantry! 

Thirty Thursday's {16}

Are you a morning person or a night person? Elaborate

Abby:
I'm definitely a night person. I would rather stay up late working on whatever it is I'm working on than wake up early in the morning. I, like my Grandma, could, would and occasionally do sit in my robe for hours in the morning waking up. Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily  like staying up late, but I'd rather stay up than wake up. 

Alex: 
I am a morning person. I have a good morning routine. I wake up, walk Moose, drink my coffee, get ready for work and go to work. I take comfort in my routine. On the day's where Abby is up early too, everything gets a thrown off and then I'm crabby at Abby....

Demo Day 1

When we bought our house we had ideas of tearing down the wall the separated the kitchen and living room. After eating in it with more than just the two of us, we realized that it would be much more enjoyable with the wall removed. So, we began the search for a contractor. On Facebook I stumbled across one of my friend's pages and it said their "location" was Glen Carbon (if you're not familiar with the area, Glen Carbon and Edwardsville are indistinguishable) AND her husband has a contracting/renovation business. Our search was quickly over. We called him up, had him come over and give us an estimate and it was within our budget! So here we are, beginning renovations! Check out Stuehlmeyer Renovations to see all the good stuff they can do!

Before

After Day 1: the wall is (almost) gone! View from the living room. 

After Day 1: The wall is (almost) gone! View from the kitchen. 

I'll do my best to keep you posted on the changes! 

Thirty Thursday's {15}

We're half way through this blog series, this week the topic is: If you were an animal, what would you be and why?

Abby: 
I would be a puppy. Almost everyone loves puppies, they're so cute and cuddley  I'd (hopefully) be adopted, loved and treated as well as we treat Moose. 

Alex: 
I would be a sea turtle. Because, in finding Nemo they were really cool. I don't know the food chain well enough to know what eats a sea turtle, but they don't seem too appealing or tasty to me. 

Installation Station

I am not high maintenance, but I'm not low maintenance either. Our new bathroom is not palatial but it suits our needs. However, our 18 inch wide, no drawer, one door, blah bathroom vanity was not doing it for me...there was an inch on each side of the sink basin for "counter space." So, an upgrade was on my mind.
As Alex and I strolled the isles of Home Depot I spotted a vanity that wasn't out of our budget, it would fit the space and it had drawers- not one drawer, but three! Alex, being the fantastic man that he is, said we should get it and install it while his parents were visiting. So, without hesitation, we bought it and hauled it home.
After a few hours of removing, assembling, plumbing and 2 trips back to the Depot, we have a gorgeous new vanity. I can't even begin to express my gratitude for Alex's brother, dad and mom's hard work. Thank you Greg, Eric and Sue (and Alex too)!!

Our new vanity! I didn't take a good picture of the old one, so you'll have to take my word for it...

Sunday was a busy day, not only do we have a new vanity but, we also have a new microwave!! It too was a family event! It was an early Christmas present from my mom and dad and Alex, his grandpa, brother and dad installed it for us! There was only one trip back to the store for it's installation. :) Home Depot is going to know us by name. Four trips in one day...good thing it's close by!

We've Moved!!

Alex and I are now homeowners!! We've purchased a 1946 ranch-elow. It's a cross between a ranch and a bungalow. It's cute, charming and we love it! It needs a few updates and changes, but nothing that we're not excited to tackle! We moved on Friday and my parents came to help us. They did so much and we really appreciate them working so hard. Becky also came down to surprise us with Ethan and Nora! They were a lot of help and good entertainment. Ethan helped remove the movers plastic wrap from the furniture and even carried a box or two! Moose loves his new yard and slowly getting to know his way around the house. He's been pretty nervous because of the changes but he's starting to settle out and be the same little Moose he's always been. I'm working on change of address/Christmas cards, so hopefully you'll know our new address soon!