A Very Merry IKEA Christmas

Since Andrew and I decided to purchase a brand new computer a month before Christmas, we agreed that this would just be our Christmas present to each other....along with a trip to IKEA!

You see, our whole bedroom set is from IKEA and there was one more dresser piece that we were missing. Our last two apartment bedrooms would not have been able to fit this 3rd piece, but in our current townhouse, there was not only plenty of space, but the PERFECT space for it in our new bedroom. So on Veterans day, Andrew and I used our glorious day off of work to make a day trip to IKEA. Seriously...if you have never been to an IKEA, you for real need an entire day. That store is amazing. And I would say we had a very successful day trip...despite Andrews face (pictured below), extra long receipt, and a clearly blown budget.

When we got home, Andrew got to work right away putting together our new dresser

but it wasn't all work and no play :) ha!

Oh, what did I do while Andrew played handyman and goofball?

Why, I supervised of course!

And maybe watched a couple of episodes of this

And maybe played with this sweet girl

As things started going up on the walls, we started getting excited about how it was turning out!

...almost there...

All done!

We LOVE our new addition to our bedroom. And we couldn't have accomplished this look without some help from IKEA. Okay, maybe a LOT of help from IKEA since everything pictured came from that store.

Oh, and we can't forget about our new desk for our new computer! Love this new set up too...again, thanks to IKEA :)

So (Early) Merry Christmas, babe. Hope you enjoy the new computer, dresser and desk! (And when did we become old enough for furniture to be exciting Christmas presents?)

Kitchen Bonding

My kitchen and I have been spending a lot of time together lately. Particularly this past weekend. Saturday through Monday were packed with so many fun events that involved food...and of course, I can't help but make a contribution to ANYTHING involving food.

So here's a little recap of what my kitchen and I have whipped up since Saturday evening:

Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Glaze. Made these for hospitality at church on Sunday morning...

Image from Browneyedbaker.com

...which were accompanied by these Blueberry Muffins.

Image from Browneyedbaker.com

And a girl's gotta eat dinner while she bakes. So this Goulash was our Saturday night dinner.

Image from Budget Bytes

Sunday night we celebrated my Grandma's birthday. She requested this awesome Carrot Cake.

Image from The Pioneer Woman

...which was also accompanied by Chocolate Sheet Cake. Who says you can't have two cakes for your birthday?

Image from The Pioneer Woman

And of course, me being me, baking two whole cakes for my Grandma's birthday wasn't enough. I felt compelled to make and appetizer too. And what better appetizer to make than these extremely addiciting Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos.

Image from The Pioneer Woman

Last night we had a yummy Pre-Thanksgiving feast with our church kingdom group. Yet again, do I offer to bring just one thing? Of course not!

Broccoli Casserole (which is a family recipe and my favorite Thanksgiving dish that my mom makes) was the side item of my choosing...

Image from myrecipes.com

...along with Brown Sugar Cookies....

Image from joythebaker.com

and Pumpkin Pie Dip

Image from tablespoon.com

Every single thing turned out absolutely delicious and I absolutely recommend them all.

With all that said, I now need to go spend some quality bonding time with the gym.

Upgrade

Well, Ladies and Gents...considering how long it has been since we've posted anything on here, Andrew and I should just get our blogging rights revoked. I wouldn't be surprised if no one even reads this. We're sorry for being so lame. But there is a reason! Sort of. You see...we both have our trusty Apple MacBooks that we use at home. Love them. They've been so good to us over the years. Until recently. Nowadays, neither of us can use the CD drive as all CD's that enter now get jammed, which leads to a trip to the Apple Store to get them removed (thanks Erin for your help with that!). And as for pictures...umm, we have about 700+ of those just sitting in our lovely Cannon Rebel waiting ever so patiently to be downloaded. But we can't. Both MacBooks are pretty much maxed out in storage, along with our external hard drives, and not to mention is seems to take about 34587987 years for the pictures to download IF they decide they want to. It's all very frustrating. And actually, I'm probably describing it all wrong and Andrew will probably correct me later...but point is, our beloved MacBooks just aren't really cutting it anymore beyond surfing the web. As for why this has affected my lack of blogposts? Well, I've discovered I'm sort of a picture snob about them and only want to make a post if I have pictures to include. Sorry. It's the visual person in me. SO, with all that said...we ultimately felt it was time to upgrade to solve all these problems. This afternoon, my sweet husband will be picking up this BEAUTY! (Again, thank you Erin for your help! FYI for anyone reading - this Erin I keep thanking is our lovely cousin who lives in the gorgeous city of Charleston and works at Apple. She's basically the best.)

I am soooo excited about this pretty piece of technology, I can hardley contain it! I almost feel bad for our poor little MacBooks now as they will probably become severly neglected. Andrew and I will probably even argue like little kids over who gets to use the computer since we will both no-doubt want to play on it at the same time (remember the episode of Friends when Monica and Phoebe fight over playing on the Pac-Man Machine? yea, something like that). So no more empty promises this time when I say I'll be posting more soon! So if you haven't given up on us yet, THANKS...if you have, understandable.