Wilder's Baby Dedication

Wink! or blinking at the camera flash :-)

Last weekend, we held a very special ceremony for our little guy. Zach and I dedicated Wilder to God, with the help of our families and our home group from our church. Some churches do this in a service, and others, just with home groups. It was a low-key ceremony. Our friend from our home group, David Kwast, led with a prayer and guided readings, and everyone spoke Bible verses over us. Zach and I pledged to raise Wilder under biblical principles while demonstrating the value of God's Word in our home, and praying for his future salvation and discipleship. Many of our loved ones prayed over Wilder. It was really wonderful to experience the love and support at Wilder's dedication. We concluded with a lunch!

Making Progress

I just realized I haven't posted any new photos of our home in a while. We've been in and out of town so much that we haven't done as much as we'd like to the house. However, we *do* have a few rooms done, and I want to show you some additional furniture we've gotten lately. Our kitchen will be completely "done" next week, so I'll post a photo of that very soon. Please keep in mind these are a work in progress, and our list of projects/improvements is about 20 items long! Without further ado...

Formal living room

This is furniture from my Grandma Sara's house. I've had the piano for a while. It was originally my Grandma Sally Wilder's, and I grew up playing it. It's really special to have it now. The nesting tables, chairs and couch are my Grandma Sara's. The cabinet to the right is one we purchased refinished from a friend. Nothing on the walls yet. We have some ideas, but haven't pulled the trigger. Desperately need new blinds and window treatments, a different piano bench cover we're debating on brightly colored pillows for the couch. :-) Where do you get your throw pillows?

Wingback chairs in formal dining room

These were my Grandma Sara's. We're going to reupholster the chairs in probably a teal pattern fabric. Any suggestions of FW reupholsterers or fabric ideas? You can see our new table behind them. More on that in a second.

Formal living room

These marble coffee table and end tables are from my Papa Wilder and Grandma Sally's formal living room (just like the piano). Growing up we spent many happy hours playing at their home. I never thought I'd use them myself, but they really work in our house now.

Formal dining room

I've been dreaming of hosting an honest-to-goodness dinner party for a long time, but we've only got a square kitchen table for 4 and a two-person bistro table. After a lot of deliberation, we settled on this trestle farmhouse table we found through Craigslist. A man actually builds them to specifications in Azle--let me know if you want his info. It was a good price and we're really happy with it. Now... TO FIND CHAIRS. I just can't decide on the chairs for this baby. Ideally, I want neutral linen upholstered like our bed... but I hear linen isn't durable... and we have neutral everything. Second choice, peacock teal chairs from World Market... but they don't have arm chairs to go with it. Plus, they're microfiber. So again I'll ask y'all--suggestions of where to get interesting side chairs? Something traditional but not too fussy. Maybe Parsons chairs...

Formal dining room

This mirror came from my Grandma's house... it used to be hung over the couch in my dad's parents house. The rest of the pictures on the floor... we're still mulling over where to put them. So hard to decorate!

Dining table

Upstairs desk nook

 Upstairs is pretty well done. We're hanging the last few pieces in the upstairs living room and then I can show it to you, and we do need to redo the bathroom wallpaper, but it's fine for now. I'll show you the bathroom another time!

Guest bedroom #1

 This room is pretty much done for now. We call it "the purple room" and I think it looks pretty good so far!

guest bedroom #1

Workout room

This is the room we spend the most time in upstairs. It's so nice to be able to do my workouts at home. We go to the gym every other workout, but the program I do can also be done right here! I love the two giant mirrors.

Well, there you have it. Just wanted to update you guys on the house so far.  I hope to have more things to show you as we get more time working on it!

The Masquerade Housewarming New Year's Party

The host and hostess

On New Year's Eve, Zach and I hosted a party. It was our first big soiree at our house, and in theory it was a good idea. However, we were really busy leading up to it (so finishing setting up decor didn't happen) and we actually were out of town until the DAY OF the party, arriving from San Antonio at about 1 pm. Yikes! But I pre-shopped (and pre cooked actually) and my in-laws helped out, so I think the party turned out pretty well. Lots of our friends came out to celebrate our masquerade / housewarming / New Year's occasion! Following are some photos :-)

Kate; Sharon, Zach and I; my brother Jonathan and his fiance Holly; Cade and Courtney

Sarah and Drew; Sharon and Esther, Jashley, me and Ashley (haha); Ryan and Ironman Alicia

Ryan and Ashley; Marisa and Jacob; Jonathan and Holly (with the dogs of the house); Grant, Gene and Esther

The liquors; the champagne (and sparkling wine) punches; the foods and the desserts.

Scott and Becca; Zach and Clint; Karen and Jimmy; Me, Zach, Jonathan and Holly post party

Our entryway had tons of masks laid out as party favors.

Pierre thought that meant toys for the cat. He walked all over them and sat down on top of them, splattering them around.

All for me, he says

 Kate and I decided to address the problem, first giving him his own mask. He did not approve.

Not quite his style

Next I tried to pry him off the counter, but he hung on like a barnacle! 

Never gonna let you go!

Finally Kate got the idea to blow a noisemaker at Pierre. I tried to take a photo, but we vastly underestimated its volume and effect... Pierre freaked out and took off for the Christmas tree. Masks fluttered everywhere, even behind the tree. I keeled over laughing, but we might have caused Pierre to lose one of his nine lives. He stayed away from the masks after that...

Yeah, I'm a photographer

 Meanwhile, in another part of the house, a head-measuring contest was going on. I don't know how it got started, but it was pretty entertaining.

NOT the largest head

I knew my brother would win. Jonathan's head was definitely the record breaker. :-) I'm so proud.

Giant. jk!

Alfred was not a fan

Almost all of our guests! Missing a few!

Pierre, taking care of Alicia and her baby after the party

 We had so much fun! 

Fabulous Fall

This tree is in our backyard! Spectacular!

Hello all! It's been a busy few weeks since I last posted. I'm going to combine several topics into one post. :-) We moved in, got our furniture put in the right places and I went to Florida and College Station almost immediately for a week. I've been back for a bit and we're slowly getting everything set up. We don't have decor put on the walls, books on shelves or the garage cleared out, but we're making good progress and it's really starting to feel like home.

I've even been able to put up some fall decor. Michael's had some great sales, so I was able to get some things without much investment. Here's a sampling:

I've had those pumpkins for a few years. The peacock was a recent gift. The leaf garland and wheat in the vase are my new additions.

A friend made a centerpiece like this recently and I copied the idea. The coffee beans in the bowl smell great!

I am really proud of this wreath. I was appalled at the price tags of pre-made ones, so I picked up a grapevine wreath, leaf garland, artificial flowers, pine cones and pumpkins and made my own for half the price. I love the color!

We finally got all the pieces for our new bed and set it up. It's super super comfy and I really like the colors. We're planning to use that teal throughout the house, and you can already see it here and there!

Bed is from Restoration Hardware (Originally), bedding is Barbara Barry (Bed, Bath & Beyond), the teal throw is from BB&B, purple pillow is DKNY and the teal pillows are from Ross. I made the lamps myself in welding class in college. :-)

Though I never would have thought it would work with my style, we decided to use some of my mom's furniture in our bedroom. It's all solid oak. Our bed is also oak, so they work well together. We may refinish them someday, and we'll probably get new handles, but for now, we have a really nice bedroom set up. I'll show you the rest once we get our decor up.

I've also been doing quite a bit of cooking. It's wonderful to have the kitchen all set up with all my favorite things! We recently had a gathering with our Supper Club at the house and I got to try out some new recipes.

My first time to roast a chicken. It turned out REALLY good.

I was so proud of my roasted chicken :-)

I made butternut squash soup too, and it was awesome. New favorite meal right here.

got to use my wedding gift champagne glasses!

Our first fire in the fireplace. My brother-in-law made it a roaring one.

We also made s'mores. Super yum.

beautiful!

Drew and Ellie

Pierre will only let Jason do this to him.

Our party was a sleepover before our 5K Foam Race, so we also had breakfast, courtesy of Grant and Zach.

awww

We've been doing some gardening as well. Zach has been hard at work making our yard look great. We seeded the bare spots with fescue. Can't wait to see how it sprouts up!

the bare part of the backyard after Z got it ready for grass seed

evidence of Zach's industriousness

grass will go here.

grass will go here

grow little fescue, grow!

Hard at work

We got the bougainvillea hung up too!

I'm very excited about the two trees we're planting. I really wanted something with pretty fall color. Lucky for us, one of the trees in the backyard has gorgeous yellow leaves. We just planted a "Fire Dragon" Shantung Maple in the front yard today. This is what it's supposed to look like--IN TEXAS:

"Fire Dragon" Shantung Maple (the red one)  and regular Shantung Maple

It came in a box!

I can't wait to see how it grows. I'm already in love with the leaves!

tiny tree :-)

tree in our front yard--Total To Kill a Mockingbird moment :-)

I also got some acorns from the one and only CENTURY TREE from Texas A&M. It's a huge tree on campus and the tradition goes, if you walk under it with your true love, you'll stay in love forever. It's such a special tree to Aggies. Thanks to my friend Jana, I have acorns from it... so I planted them. It'll take a while to grow, but that's ok. We'll be here for a while. :-)