Five on Friday

I'm linking up with Christina, Darci, April, and Natasha for 5 on Friday and you should too!

ONE.  My friend Kaleena and I went to the Keith Urban concert last night and it was AMAZING.  It's the first time I'd ever seen him.  He put on a great show.  I would go back and see him again in a heartbeat!

TWO.  Kaleena and I decided last night that we are totally ready for summer and outdoor concerts!  Country concerts remind me of summer and being oustide...I'm soooo ready for it, but I fear that Michigan has many more months of cold winter weather in store for me.

THREE.  I signed up for my second race!  I'm going to do another 5k in May.  I'm excited about getting back in to running...when the weather starts to cooperate that is (see #2).

FOUR.  Starting Monday, I'm joining Stephanie at Southern Mess and going Yeast-Free for 30 days.  It's time to get back on track with my eating and get in shape!  Who else wants to join?  Click here to read more.

FIVE.  We have some fun weekend plans that I'm looking to.  I have to work for a few hours tomorrow, but then we are going to dinner with some friends, and going out to lunch for a friend's birthday on Sunday.  A big change from the super lazy weekend I had last weekend when I never left the house!

Snow Days

Monday and Tuesday were snow days for me, so no work!  I didn't leave the house and it was great.  Although, I did have to go outside in the below zero temps and shovel, but I just considered that my work out for the day.  I did get some things done around the house, but for the most part I was pretty lazy, and I'm ok with it.

I shoveled our deck, otherwise the snow would blow in when I let the dog in and out.  It was drifting pretty bad and was up to the to top of our deck!

I didn't shovel this side of the deck...that was all the snow we got in one night.

After I shoveled the driveway Tuesday morning...definitely a good work out.

The snowbanks are deep...probably up to mid thigh on me.  

Winter Wonderland!

I enjoyed having a couple snow days, but it's back to work today for me.  And do you know what tomorrow is?  No?  Well let me tell you...I'm going to see Keith Urban in concert tomorrow night!  I've never seen him before, so I'm pretty excited :)

Kitchen Goals/Ideas

I hope you had a great weekend...I literally didn't leave the house once on Saturday or Sunday.  Today I actually have a snow day from work, so I probably won't leave today either!

As part of my New Year's Resolution, I said wanted to clean/organize our house room by room.  I'm going to start with the kitchen, since that's the place where we spend a lot of time.  It's where we make all of our meals (we eat at home a lot), as well as where we enter/exit the house.  We rarely use our front door.  Instead, we enter through our breezeway area, which enters in to the kitchen.  

I'm hoping to start working in the kitchen this week, and I want to share my list of things I want to accomplish in there, hoping it will hold me more accountable.

Organize/clean all drawers and cupboards.

De-clutter counter tops.

Create a mini command center near breezeway door.

Clean all trim (repaint if necessary).

Clean floors (including grout).
Purchase and install a new faucet.
Paint walls grey.
Re-cover seats on dining chairs to add some color/pattern.

Finish grouting and trimming the back splash.

Here are some pictures of what our kitchen looks like:

I don't mind the green walls, I'd just like to do a grey/blue color to kind of match the backsplash and counter tops and add in pops of color other places.

These two pictures are from when we moved in, but it really doesn't look much different.

It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the quarter round they used around the backsplash is too small (in my opinion), and they didn't add any at the top of backsplash under the cabinets, and I think it needs some there.  There are also some spots around the kitchen window that need grout.

The area where the light switch is there on the wall is where I want to create a little command center.  The doorway you see to the right of the light switch is the breezeway, and that's the door we use all the time.

My plan is to completely finish a room before I move on to the next, so that I don't have a million projects happening at once.  I plan to share my progress with you all and any tips I learn along the way.  I have lots of ideas on my Kitchen Pinterest board, if you want to see what I might be thinking about doing.

Our kitchen/dining area is small, so being very organized is a must.  Do you have any kitchen organization/diy tips that might help me?

Five on Friday

Happy New Year!  This week's Five on Friday post is themed around just that, the new year.

I'm linking up with Christina, Darci, April, and Natasha for 5 on Friday and you should too!

ONE.  Kevin and I spent our New Year's Eve at home and it was wonderful.  We wore sweat pants, ordered pizza, shared a pint of ice cream, and lounged the entire night.  I loved every minute of it.

TWO.  I got on a total cleaning/organizing kick on New Year's Day.  But I tried doing the entire house at once.  Fail.  I'm going to concentrate on putting away all of our Christmas gifts and then deep cleaning/organizing room by room.

THREE.  I have a few resolutions/goals this year.  The first is to eat healthier and get in better shape.  I think this is on my list every year.  To go along with this, I'd also like to run a couple more races this year.  My first 5k last year was really fun, so I'd like to do more!

source

FOUR.  To go along with #2, I'd like to organize my house.  I want it organized while being functional and cute.  Then I can really start doing other projects I've been wanting to do, but I just can't justify doing those until things are organized.  Like I said, I'm going to do it slowly, room by room.

FIVE.  My final resolution/goal is to stress less.  I think this will be the hardest one for me because I think I get stressed easily over silly things.  I want to learn to let go a little.  I'm hoping that exercising more (see #3) will help me de-stress.

Did you have a fun New Year's Eve/Day?  Did you make any resolutions this year?

Top 10 Posts of 2013

Happy New Year!!  Since we've said goodbye to 2013 and hello to 2014, I'm sharing my top posts from last year.  Most of them are wedding related, because well, that was the main thing that I had going on in 2013.  Here are my top viewed posts of 2013:

#1.  Wedding Invitations

#2.  Bridal Party Gifts

#3.  DIY Wedding Details

#4.  Reply Card Stress

#5.  Workouts

#6.  DIY Wedding Card Box

#7.  No Bake Oreo Balls

#8.  Weekend Recap (no idea why this post was so popular)

#9.  Buffalo Chicken Bites


#10.  "I Do" Wedding Shoes

Christmas 2013

Our Christmas was a little crazy this year, but great at the same time.

Kevin and I both had to work on Monday and then we headed to the Muskegon area where both of our families live.  Our drive was pretty bad on Monday...my parents ended up getting around 18 inches of snow that night!

On Christmas Eve we went to my parents and got our "jingle jammies."  It's a Christmas Eve tradition at my house.  We went to dinner at Joe Chan's Bistro with some of Kevin's family and then opened gifts at Kevin's mom's.

Christmas tree at Kevin's mom's

We headed to my parents at 8 a.m. on Christmas morning to open gifts with them and my sister.  Next up was Kevin's dad's at 10 a.m. for breakfast and gifts.  My family party was at Noon at my grandma's.  We were there for a few hours before it was time for us to head to a family party for Kevin's dad's side.

My parents' Christmas tree (with all of the opened gifts under it).

Christmas tree and presents at my grandma's.

I did some shopping the day after Christmas while Kevin was at work.  Friday Kevin had to work part of the day, and then unfortunately we had a funeral to go to that afternoon.

Saturday was another Christmas party with Kevin's mom's side of the family before we headed home on Sunday.

It was a crazy Christmas time, but I was glad we were able to spend time with both of our families.  Admiral even got to spend some time with his cousin, Lambert!

I hope you had a great Christmas and enjoy your New Year's Eve!  We purposely didn't make any plans and can't wait to be at home this year.  After being gone for pretty much the entire week, I'm happy to stay home, and I'm not mad about it.

Do you have fun plans for NYE?

Mini Wedding Gallery Wall

First, I hope you had a great Christmas!  I enjoyed lots of time with family during my days off.  A full Christmas recap is coming soon, but I wanted to share this mini gallery wall I did last night.

After I did a gallery wall in our living room, I've always wanted to do another one.  I still had some frames I wanted to hang, and lots of wedding pictures I want up in our house, so I decided I'd do another little wedding gallery wall on our stair way to the second floor.

I'm sure I'll switch out some of the pictures eventually, but for now, I'm still loving all of our wedding pictures and will keep them up for a while.  I'd also like to add more frames in the future, but need to get the right sizes.

I had this frame already, and added our wedding program and a couple pictures to it.

This frame was a gift from my parents.  I haven't had a chance to add pictures to the mat yet, but I wanted to hang it anyway.

Easy Canvas Prints sent me a free 8x10 canvas print of one of my favorite group wedding pictures.  I already have a frame in our living room with pictures of just Kevin and I, so I wanted to display one of our group pictures on this gallery wall.

I love the way the canvas turned out!  Easy Canvas Prints was great to work with, shipping was fast, and the canvas looks amazing in our gallery wall!

AND it's your lucky day because Easy Canvas Prints is offering you all 50% off a canvas print of your own!  Just click HERE to get the deal.

I swear I could do a gallery wall in every room in my house, I just love them so much!  What do you think about gallery walls?

*Easy Canvas Prints sent me a free canvas print, but all opinions are my own.*

Also linking up with Belle In Boots for Wedding Wednesday.