Goodbye 2008!

I know, I know, I know - it has been entirely too long since my last post and y'all don't know what to do with yourselves do you?

Just wanted to write one last post in 2008 before my big update post will come after the new year. Sorry for the hiatus - we had a wonderful Christmas in London with Matt's family and are now headed down to Austin for a belated Christmas celebration with my family! It's never too late to celebrate the birth of our Savior though, right? :) I hope you all had a restful, blessed holiday! I'll be back soon with pictures and a more detailed update of what's been going on lately!

Happy New Year!

Overheard in my classroom...

"But Mrs. Coleman... I jus' did not get enough sweep wast night!" - One of my 4 year olds explaining why she was taking so long to finish her project

"Ok - who knows why we are bringing in canned food?"
"For people who don't have money!!"
"Yeah like my mom- she always tells me she doesn't have any money."

"Oh my goodness - what am I doing?!" - Another one of my 4 year olds who decided what he was coloring was not what he meant to color

"Mrs. Coleman! I I I - I decided I am going to change my name..."
"Really? To what?"
"Umm... probably Picachu I think"
"Oh ok - should I call you Picachu then?"
"Nah... just call me Neal"

"What would you give Jesus for His birthday?"

• A skateboard
  
• Seashells!
• A race car
• Socks
• Love

"Colin - there's enough of those for you both to help!"
"Well THAT'S convenient isn't it?"

"Who knows what a pilgrim is?"
"OOOH! I know! Ummmmm...... an elephant?"

After practicing our sign language to the song Silent Night for our Christmas "show" -
Rhett: "Cooper - I am SOOO sick of this song, aren't you??"

A big update!

Finally I have some good pictures of the framing that's up for our house! They started on the framing before Thanksgiving, but we haven't had time to get out there when it's still light out until this weekend. Enjoy!

Taken from the top of our street - we're the little house on the right at the end. There's only 3 houses on our street so far.

Finally we have a roof!

Taken from the hallway looking back towards the front door.

This is where the kitchen will be! - I love the round end to our breakfast bar.

Matt standing in our family room (texting his dad) =)

Our bathtub in the middle of the master bedroom.

At this point I think things "stall" for awhile because the gas, AC and plumbing all has to be finished and inspected, and then we have a pre-sheetrock meeting with the builder that won't happen until after the 1st of the year before we will actually get walls. In case you want to start putting these pictures in order of the layout of the house - here's a link again (you might have to click on the "show floorplan" button) to the floorplan (just remember that our house is flipped from what is shown online).

On another note - only 2 more weeks until Christmas break for me! The kids get more and more hyper every day - so by the time our Christmas party rolls around, I will be so ready for a vacation! We are headed to London this year for Christmas with Matt's parents on the 20th for a little over a week, so I'm really excited about that! Then we'll head down to Austin on New Year's Eve to have Christmas with my family :) I love this time of year!

If Love Was Enough

Contrary to the title of this - I am not about to write about some sad relationship story - it's just the name of a song! Keep reading...

I wish I could say I was cool enough to get another blog "tag", but I'm not - I stole this from my roommate from freshman year at Baylor after she posted it on facebook. I thought it might be fun - and it gives me something to blog about until I can get some more pictures of the house taken. Thanks Laura!

1. Put Your iTunes on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds!
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.
5. Tag at least 10 friends.
6. Anyone tagged has to do the same, because fun pointlessness spreads like a virus.

If someone says, “Is this okay?” You say?
"Glory Defined" - Building 429

How would you describe yourself?
"Best Days" - Matt White

What do you like in a guy/girl?
"Follow You Down" - Gin Blossoms

How do you feel today?
"Settlin" - Sugarland

What is your life’s purpose?
"Take Me Out to a Dancehall" - Pat Green

What is your motto?
"Country Grammar" - Nelly

What do your friends think of you?
"Waking Up" - Graham Colton

What do you think of your parents?
"Hold on to Me" - John Michael Montgomery

What do you think about very often?
"Faster Car" - Keith Urban

What is 2 + 2?
"Cry Me a River" - Justin Timberlake (that's what I'll do if you ask me to do math)

What do you think of your best friend?
"You Drive Me Crazy" - Britney Spears (haha!)

What do you think of the person you like?
"Won't Let You Down" - Keith Urban

What is your life story?
"You Found Me" - Kelly Clarkson

What do you want to be when you grow up?
"I Will Not Be Silent" - David Crowder Band

What do you think of when you see the person you like?
"Your Body is a Wonderland" - John Mayer

What will you dance to at your wedding?
"Simon" - Lifehouse

What will they play at your funeral?
“"The Christmas Waltz" - Frank Sinatra (I guess there could be worse songs, everyone loves Christmas music, right?)

What is your hobby/interest?
"When it Comes" - Tyler Hilton

What is your biggest fear?
"Alabama" - Cross Canadian Ragweed (apologies to anyone who lives in Alabama :)

What is your biggest secret?
"Bent" - Matt Nathanson

What do you think of your friends?
“The Mix Tape" - Jack's Mannequin

What will you put as the title?
"If Love Was Enough" - Graham Colton

Even though I wasn't actually tagged for this - if you're reading this, I tag YOU!

Fabulous

I finally have solid proof that someone reads my blog! (well, other than my parents). My friend Allison has given me a "fabulous blog" award and seeing as how I'll most likely never get a blog award again, I can't let my loyal fan(s) down!

For this award, I must list 5 things that I find "fabulously addictive" - and I'm going to steel Allison's idea of posting a picture with each :)

In no particular order...

1. Our new house - I guess the "addictive" part of this would be constantly checking the progress! I'll use this spot to update you on the house progress - here's a quick picture or two of the slab (once I can get out during the daytime I'll post some more pictures of the framing that they've done!)
2. Hula Hut chips & queso - I couldn't find a picture of just chips and queso, so the chips and salsa pic below will have to do.
3. Photography: I'm not great at it myself, but I love that you can see someone else's point of view with just a simple photo, not to mention the memories that you can capture!

*photo taken by Lauren Clark - one of my fav photographers from Lubbock*

4. Diet Dr. Pepper - although I've been sick for the past month and really haven't indulged in this addiction, I don't think I could ever kiss this goodbye for good!

5. Target - it's hard for me to go more than a week without checking out each and every section in Target - I've started grocery shopping at the Super Target near our house, which gives me a great excuse to check out everything else they have!
Now I'm supposed to tag 5 more people with Fabulous blogs, but I really don't know 5 people with blogs that haven't already been tagged, so I'll settle for...
Katie because she's my sister so she must be fabulous
Jill because she just found out they're having a boy!
and Davi because she just had a baby boy!

Another vote... and a romance

I've been trying to decide if we are going to send out Christmas cards this year - and in looking around online I couldn't find any that I really liked. So I decided to try my hand at designing a few - although I still haven't decided if I like any of them enough to use them. The picture in the first one is not the picture we would use - I just needed a place-holder, and the big empty spaces on the other 3 are where the picture would go! I also would probably make some tweaks to whichever one we decided to send out, but anyways vote for which one you like! You can click on them to make them bigger - leave a comment if you want to be on the list of recipients!

#1

#2

#3

#4

On another note - I just had to share the cutest thing from my class today. Jack and Ava are both little flirts, but I guess Jack decided to make it official and commit himself to Ava - by bringing her a flower! I had to take some pictures to document the moment :)

A vote

Which header do you like better for the top of the blog? You can vote to the right or leave a comment!

Quick update

Just a quick update for those following the progress of the house. I actually took these last week but since my immune system has been on vacation, I've been out of commission for awhile. These are the pictures of the rough plumbing - which has passed inspection and the slab should be poured this week. I'll post those as soon as I get the energy to drive out there and take some more pictures!
You can see the progress on the houses behind us too - note the top left window in the 2 story house behind us...

This is taken from the corner post of our lot looking up the street
This one was taken from the upstairs window of the house behind us :)

On an unrelated note - I wanted to take a second to brag on my sweet husband after our anniversary :) I was so sick I could barely get out of bed - but when I did get up in the morning to get some juice, I was met by a sticky note on the door that said "365 Things I love about you, us and our marriage". I opened the bedroom door to find our dining room, living room and kitchen completely covered in post-it-notes that each said something sweet on them (365 to be exact).

I spent all morning collecting and reading my notes and then climbed back into bed -we unfortunately had to cancel our dinner reservations, but Matt picked up Pappasitos (mexican food is good for clearing your sinuses! not to mention that fajitas are our food of choice - it's a tradition now since we had them at our wedding too) and we enjoyed dinner in our sweats at home. We also enjoyed a nice bottle of champagne that my parents had gotten us along with the top layer of our cake! It was still delicious as ever! Thanks dad!
Since the first anniversary theme is paper, Matt also got me the coolest photo - it's from a company called Indigo Night and you basically give them a date and they create a photo of your city of choice with the stars and the moon and the lighting exactly as it was on that day! He originally tried to do our wedding night, but that was a new moon, so there is no moon, so he chose the night of our first kiss in Austin- and he got to personalize the quote that goes below it and he put "You are the star for which all evenings wait" It was so sweet and creative! Check out the site - http://www.indigonight.com/

A letter

Dear Immune System,

Are you enjoying your vacation? I sure hope so. It seems that in your absence, Mr. Fever, Mr. Aches, Mr. Chills, Mr. Mucus and Mr. Phlem have decided to take up residence in your home. Seeing as how this is day 8 of your vacation, I'd really appreciate it if you could return home as quickly as possible so that together we can kick out the aforementioned squatters.

Thanks,
Brittany

One year ago today...

... I was watching Tech lose to UT - but not this year! We were triumphant and I am still celebrating! Oh, and I also might have gotten to walk down the aisle in my favorite dress ever, surrounded by my favorite people ever, and been met by my best friend ever only to say "I do!" to spend the rest of our lives together! As cliche as it sounds, I can't believe it's been an entire year already. In the past 365 days we've experienced so many things together-- we've gotten a new address (two actually!), gotten new jobs (two for me on this one as well!), I got a new last name, experienced the joys (and pains) of sharing a living space and so many others - but I wouldn't trade any of it for the world! I'm so lucky to get to share my life with my best friend! Before this post gets too sappy, I'll leave you with some of my favorite photos from a year ago today :) p.s. I apologize for the enormous amount of photos to follow...

My favorite view of the day :)

Cutting into the delicious cake that my DAD MADE!

Wreck 'Em Tech!

I just had to write a quick post to say "WRECK 'EM TECH!!" Unfortunately we weren't able to drive up to Lubbock for the game last night. We did go out to the Tavern with a group of our friends in Austin (all Longhorns, I might add) to watch the game in style. I'll keep it short and sweet and just say that I was getting death looks throughout the game as I was the only one cheering for Tech in the entire place. We both have no voice and raw hands from cheering and clapping all night, and are officially back on speaking terms after the silence in the car ride home last night. :) The 33-39 win for Tech was well deserved - we fought hard (even if we did let up in the 4th quarter because we got over confident - which led to Texas' only lead during the entire game, and for only about a minute 40 seconds- which coincidentally is more time than we need to score :p) I'll leave you with some photos from the most exciting game that I've ever witnessed (if only it had been in person)!

"Benched our homesite"

It's official - they have FINALLY started doing something on our lot! I say 'something' because I'm not exactly sure what "benching our homesite" means, but I don't care! We drove out to Murphy yesterday after work to see the forms they've put up - see pics below. They said that this stage already has to pass an inspection (I guess to make sure everything is set up at the right spot in the lot), and then they will start trenching for the rough plumbing (do you like all those technical terms? I'm a real pro already). It's hard to tell from the pictures, but you can sort of see the forms they put up which will be the perimeter of the house, and they've also dug around and laid out where the driveway will be and marked where our fence will go! So exciting!

I took this picture standing on what will be our front porch - and Matt is standing in what will be our foyer!

Sorry this one is a little dark - I took this from across the street, and plan to take a picture from this same spot (there is a fire hydrant there to mark my place!) every time we go out there so we can see the progress over time!

Absent

Just a quick post to apologize for being absent - because I know so many of you depend on my blogging for your livelihood. Anyways - I've been having some gallbladder issues and have been back and forth to the doctor the past week. (I seriously never thought I'd have to type or say something like that until I was at least 80...). They basically told me that it needs to be removed, but it's not an emergency and can wait until it's convenient for me. Thanks Doc. I'm sure I'll find a convenient time for you to cut me up and pull out an organ real soon...

On a more exciting note - the builder called me today and said they will be surveying our lot on Monday and breaking ground on Tuesday! I hope you're all as excited to see as I am to take/post lots of pictures! =) Happy Friday! Have a good weekend!

Inspired

After reading my friend Allison's blog a few days ago, I was inspired by her cupcake baking and decided to make some of my own! With fall weather upon us, I was in the mood for pumpkin anything, so I found a martha stewart recipe for pumpkin spice cupcakes from scratch, and then used Allison's recipe for cream cheese frosting. Because I'm so modest, I won't exactly say they were the best cupcakes I've ever made... but they were pretty much the best cupcakes I've ever made.


I'm glad I got these pictures taken before Matt came home... because there's not a lot of them left! Happy fall y'all :)