you waited almost 2 months for this??

well thanks to the demands of someone, i am finally updating!
(thanks for the push!)

i haven't updated in forever, b/c, well, nothing exciting has happened. at least not house related. we kind of came to a standstill with the unpacking/setting things up. as in, the 2 extra bedrooms are still piles of boxes. thats not to say i am doing nothing, i have put up curtains, hated them, taken them down, change them up, take them down again, and finally decided that blinds are the way to go (curtains are just too foofy apparently)

and then theres the constant weeding/yard work.

we don't even have flower beds anymore, they are more like weed-beds, with the occasional flower. speaking of, we got our first HOA threat letter saying that we needed to weed our front flower beds. i promise it was on my to do list anyway, that just made me bump it a little higher.

it wasnt till i looked through my camera though that i realized that we have done alot in the past month and a half! here it is in pictures,
since they speak a thousand words:

i removed 15 feet of mint plants from the side of the house. thats a lot of mint. like a big garbage bag worth. i read online that they are worse than weeds to get rid of. in my quest to make our yard less minty fresh though, i made 2 giant friends. like 3 inches tall, each!

brandt finished probation (yay!) and we went out
(he wasn't allowed to drink in public during the academy and probation)

brandt with his first drink ~ kyle with his girly beer

jen with her beer samplers

(why none of me? i was the dd, and the camera person)

brandt was on tv!


several astros games:

and we got a sunburn to go with the win

brandt learned he loved crab legs,
and also learned how to make them himself!


LUKE & KATY GOT MARRIED!!

bachelorette party:

wedding:



the best man speech,
i married quite the public speaker!

luke's awesome groom's cake

and my amazing in-laws!


the other mr & mrs owens!


ohh, and just this week, my amazing hubby sent me flowers
at work just to say thank you for being a good wife :)




i guess that's it for now... i promise to be better with updating!

my cabinet!

of course i can't find the "before" picture, but here are 2 "during" pics and a finished one


so now it is sitting in our dining room hiding all our extra kitchen stuff!

reason #256 why i love my concrete floors...

you know how on tv when bad things happen, it all goes in slow motion? definatly how this happened:
last night i was finishing up the hutch that i have been redoing. (it looks awesome, but worthy of its own post) brandt walked into the dining room to talk to me, and as i turned to face him the can of varnish slipped from my hands and fell to the floor. in landed upright, but as it hit, the contents flew upwards and outwards all over the floors/walls/table/hutch/me. long story short, it cleaned up easily, and i finished my project! and i love my floors!

we bought a rug

the animals approve...

need anything assembled? i'm getting good at it!

check out our grown-up desk!



bye bye to our cheapy college dorm-ish furniture!

we're a little bit fruity...

when we moved in, the house came complete with a mandarin orange and a lemon tree! we added to them this weekend with a strawberry plant!
and then i was feeling a little crafty/needed a break from unpacking. this guy was left by the previous owner (thank you!) but was a little rusty since we was just metal. here he is with several coats of paint:
and then here's my giant door mat! its a combo of
two that i tweaked in order to look like one

we are living in a maze of boxes...

well, honestly it is not that bad. we didn't have a good experience with movers. granted, it meant less work and no knuckles getting slammed into doorways while lugging furniture around. but it was really strange to have someone else's hands all over our stuff with no regard. i quit watching when i saw them heave our new suede couch into the truck and then flip it so it was standing on its armrest, and scoot it to the back.

one of the movers had a horrible attitude! what did he think he was going to do when he got to work that day, bake cookies? take a nap? you work for a moving company! so in order to speed up the process, brandt jumped in and helped with the loading. (i gave them gatorade, that counts right? even if it was the gross lemon-lime pee flavor.) however, the movers were getting grumpier so brandt finally just stopped them and was like, lets just go. so off they went to the new house, where i was waiting, along with our mini-zoo.

once there, it was just easier to tell them to put everything in the front room, aka future game room, since we have no furniture for it yet. my labels that i made and stuck all over my boxes were in vain i guess, b/c they didn't seem to show any interest in sorting my boxes out by room and delivering them there for me. *sigh*

once again, brandt was there helping unload and got them out of there super quickly. left behind for us to move: our big boxy tv's, (our bank account hasn't let us convert to the light flat screens yet), the elliptical, the Christmas tree, and several other less bulky items.

so here's what we were up against:

here's the view when standing on a chair!
good thing we don't have cable yet...
we aren't going to have free time for awhile!

painting day!

we got in there before the big move and did some painting! thanks to
mom jen kyle and of course brandt! and my dad who supervised
(aka walked around and watched) *these are from sat 4/19*


the first stoke of paint!


jennifer's wall


before:


after:
(the white dots aren't really there... not sure what was happening)


taping in the bathroom:


my screen installer/window frame cleaner
fyi: he works for bbq, i'll get you his number if you want to hire him


before:
off of the living room, where our comp desk will go, when we get one


after:
oops i didn't take a pic w/o the tape... but you get the idea


before:


after:
not so bright IRL... and looks great with our couch, as soon
as the boxes are gone (never, it feels like) i'll post pics!


master bed & bath done:
bath is a darker shade of the bedroom turquoise


and just for fun...

don't lean against the wet paint!

closing pics!
sorry they are so tiny... that's how i got them in the email

thats just one signature of maybe 100... i've never signed my name so many times before!!

its ours!

so we closed monday, and we met the former owner of the house. she was amazing! she and her brother did all the work on the house themselves (he is a contractor) and she loved it so much she is "retiring" from being a social worker and is going to start up her own business decorating and renovating! amazing! (and i'm jealous!) she took the time to go through the house explaining everything, why they did this, how this works etc... and then through the whole yard and went over *every* plant and what they were/how to take care of them. brandt looked a bit bored, but i enjoyed it!

so saturday we are heading in to start painting! we aren't doing a whole lot, just a wall here and there to add some color. pictures will be up soon!

oh, and so cute... she brought a camera to the closing and got pics of us signing the papers, since its our first house :) those will be up to as soon as i get them!

happy weekend everyone!