Social Life

I recently realized that I haven't taken many pictures at all since we've been married. So I've been trying to take a picture at every social thing we're at. :) I'm so glad Daniel likes to socialize and do a lot of stuff as much as I do. Although lately we've had plans every night. It's been fun, but I am getting too old for this kind of thing. :)

I know this isn't a social event... but on a lovely snowy morning, I was headed to work... and ended up in the ditch. The roads weren't even that bad at all, but I came around a curve on our very own lane, and there was a snow plow right there. It was either hit the snow plow head on or go into the ditch. I went into the ditch, and thankfully I barely missed two patches of trees. Whew... it could've been a lot worse. I know it hardly looks like I'm in the ditch in this picture, but I really was! My dad was out of town on business, so my cousin Micah came and saved me! I was only 30 minutes late for work.... but let's just say I go slow around the curves on our lane now. :)

Mom had the family over for dinner a few Sunday nights ago... us kids played Parcheesi, a game we played all the time growing up. A simple game, but it was fun cuz it's just been forever since we've played it. Bridget had fun playing with her own pieces and kept telling us "I'm playing a game too."

 So precious... Bridget's looking at pictures of Heidi when she was young. Mom, all those scrapbooks over the years have paid off! :)

Last week we babysat for Bridget & Carter at our house. We finally can have the kiddos come to our house now that we have room! I went to my mom's before they came to get my Bitty Baby(from the American Girl doll store) stuff from when I was young. Bridget loved it... she played with it almost the entire night.

 She loved wearing this baby carrier.

These two are such pickels, but I love them to death!

This week Daniel was on spring break. So I took advantage of it, and decided to do a whole lot of stuff and have people over that we haven't seen in ages! Monday night Jenna, Adam and Elisabeth came over for dinner(I made some chili. :) I hadn't seen Jenna since Christmas... pathetic!

Us girls. Ignore how I look... this was taken really late and I was really ready to go to bed. :) Oh, and Elisabeth isn't crazy for having a sock on her hand... it was part of the game we were playing, Quelf.. I don't know if you've ever played it, but it's the most random game, and makes no sense whatsoever. It is funny though!

Everyone but Daniel... I love how us girls are so close together and Adam's a little loner on the other couch.

A far away picture, but you can see our living room for now... until our piano comes! Then it will go in that corner! :) We love to have friends over, but we kind of end up kicking them out.... Around 11 Daniel and I kinda drop some hints that we're ready to go to bed. We're so old. :)

Tuesday night Kendra came over... I forgot to take a picture, whoops! We just sat around for quite a while and talked up a storm... and then we dropped some hints that we were ready to go to bed! :) Most conversations these days when Kendra comes over are MEDICAL. With Daniel in nursing and Kendra being a nurse too already, they have a lot to talk about. I just sit and listen. :) Maybe I should do something medical....

Thursday night I failed to take a picture too. We had Fred(Jodi was gone), Seth L, and Joe over for dinner. We grilled kabobs and it was sooo good if I may say so myself... especially for only the 2nd time grilling! They didn't hang out too late... maybe because they're all older than us. :) It was fun though to have some guys over finally! Poor Daniel mostly hangs out with girls. :)

Friday night was the Mennonite Relief Sale. Hannah came with us! It's been way too long since she's hung out with us, so it was great to have her along.

We may have made a scene to take this picture, but we did it! :)

It was great week... but man, I'm struggling with my 4th cold since Christmas and I am exhausted. And it's not about to stop....

Today I got to work my first Saturday in a while. So no sleeping in for me! Gotta love tax season.

Other exciting news... my parents and I went and picked out a freezer today(Daniel was working)! I'm sooo excited to have a big upright freezer in my basement. Can't wait for it to come on Tuesday!

Hope you all are doing well! I am SO ready for some 50 degree weather!

Busy Life

My blog posts have been a little sparse... my apologies. We are very busy people. I know that sounds crazy since we don't even have any kids or anything... but we are constantly going. We don't have much going on that is out of our weekly routine... so if you want to know what we always do, here's a run-down. :) I'm sorry if this bores you, but here it is :)

• Every other Monday night I teach music lessons for the whole evening. I usually teach one other lesson during the week too when I can fit it in (thank goodness for such flexible students/parents while I wait to get a piano in my very own house!)
• We usually have people over at least once a week(lately it's been 2 nights a week...).
• We just started a "Faith" bible study with a random group of people at church. It's on Wednesday nights at 6 before church services. Which means I come home right after work and hop in the car with Daniel. It's been good though, getting know the people in our group better, and I have already learned so much and we've only been there one week.
• Daniel works a 16 hour shift every Friday or Saturday night...it switches back and forth.
• Weekends are always busy... always the house to clean or people to socialize with. :)
• And on top of all that.... we try to go to the gym/work out 3 evenings a week..... and I try to keep the house spic and span, and cook the meals....

I didn't think it would be that hard to work full-time and keep up a house, but it is. Big applause for moms who work full time and still get their house clean, meals cooked, stay fit and exercise, AND take care of your kids. You're supermoms!

Daniel is already on spring break. I can't believe he's already through his first semester of nursing school.... These 2 years are going to fly by! As I mentioned our busy schedule above, we don't have that many evenings just to do nothing and to relax without Daniel having to study. If we have a free night, we usually go to the gym, which means we don't get home until at least around 7:30-7:45 and don't eat dinner until around 8:30. Tomorrow night Daniel and I are going out to eat, and I can't believe how excited I am. Go out to eat, come home, and relax!! Ahh! I am a major quality time person, and especially since we don't get to do that much, I am SO looking forward to it! It would've been fun to go Florida or something over his break, but.... I am in the middle of tax season at work! I don't think they would've liked me to leave them! :)

And I'm so glad it's beginning to be warm again!! I'm tired of these treadmills, I want to run outside! :)

Fun Happenings

Today I was going through my pictures and realized that some of these had never been posted and written about on my blog, when they were totally worthy of that. :) So here are a few pictures that need to be seen by the world wide web. :)

Brittany and Tim were married the first weekend of January... kind of a while ago, but good enough friends that they must be blogged about. :) I love having Brittany in Roanoke....except between the two of us, it seems we're actually hardly there on the same Sunday. :)

 Daniel & I babysat Robert & Mary's boys one evening. We thought we would do something fun with them, so we went and got pizza. It was fun, especially babysiting them together. This picture is soo typical!!

Just last weekend we went up to Belvidere and visted Troy & Ellie and little Cyrus for the weekend. It was SUCH a good weekend. We were only there for about 24 hours, but so worth it. Troy & Daniel got to become friends and thankfully they get along quite well! And of course, you don't have to ask if Ellie and I got along. :) Looking forward to more weekends with this fun young couple that we enjoy being with so much!! Thanks Troy & Ellie! :)

Valentines Day & Mice

Haha, the title sounds so romantic, doesn't it? :)
I'm sure you are all dying to know what we did for our first Valentines Day. :)

I decided to pick up Chinese on the way home from work because I'm been wanting it SO badly. Apparently Daniel was going to surprise me with that... but I kinda jumped the gun on that one. Whoops! At least he thought of it first!

So I picked up Chinese and we ate dinner, we did a very large stack of dishes that has been piling up, and then we went "trapping" together. :) Haha... we went and checked our mouse traps in the basement. I discovered one behind the dryer(and it was still alive!) while I was doing laundry, and Daniel found another one dead. Gag.... that took our number up to 5 in the basement since we've moved. Ugghhh. I do NOT want mice in the house, but welcome to the country I guess!!

We have been so busy this week, we haven't even sat down in our new living room since we've moved. So we sat and relaxed. Daniel decided not to do any studying or homework. It was soo nice! We don't have an evening like that very often these days!


Speaking of mice.... this morning I was not happy at all. I found mouse droppings by my basket of onions & potatoes in the kitchen. Mice... you can be downstairs, we don't really use it... but STAY AWAY from my kitchen!! Every time I opened the cubboards this morning I jumped back.

So today at lunch I went and bought 12 mouse traps. A lot of them will be going in the garage, hoping we catch them before they make their new home the kitchen.

I don't like cats, but I am VERY tempted to get one to live in the garage/outside. I know my nieces and nephews would love it if I decided not to show it any love. :) Plus Daniel's family has a lot of kittens right now so it'd be simple to just take one home with us.


So the adventures start as we live in our new(but old farm) house...

It's almost here!

Moving day is almost here! Tomorrow morning we get to move to a house! We are very excited. Last night we drove to the house to drop a load of stuff off, and we seriously saw about 40 deer out in the field right by our house. After we saw that, Daniel asked me if we could live there forever. Haha, I don't think I want to be in that house forever, but we can live in the country forever! :)

Anyway, last Saturday was the first day we had the house. Daniel worked a 16 hr shift that day, so Mom, Heidi, Kendra and I all cleaned and scrubbed the place.

 Literally scrubbed. Kendra and I got on our hands and knees on the concrete basement floor. Ugh. Let's just say that it hurt to kneel in church the next day!

 Heidi scrubbed the horrible looking shower/tub. She got it to look a lot better though! Thanks to Shaklee's scrub! :)

 And my mother..was a trooper. She cleaned all the carpets and also helped wipe down walls, base boards, etc.

To say I was tired that night is an understatement. It felt so good to get all the dirt out of that house though! It's probably the cleanest it will ever be!

Since I'm SO excited to post pictures of the new house, especially as I begin to decorate, I thought I better post a few pictures of our apartment. Sorry my apartment wasn't cleaner... I took these when we had already started to move a bit. And the decor is slacking, because I didn't think it was worth it for just a few months.

 Our bedroom- view from the door

 View 2 of our bedroom

 View 3- don't you love the ironing board? :)

 This room is the "office." The place where Daniel studies. It's also sort of our junk room...we put stuff there when we don't know what to do with it! Like I said it's sort of mess, my apologies!

 The living room- looking quite bare.

 Kitchen/living room-- don't judge me by my messy kitchen. :/

The kitchen again-this was taken at a different time when I didn't have as many dishes. :)

And the little tiny bathroom with our pinkish toliet. Something I will not miss. I am so excited for more counter space and a bigger mirror in our new bathroom.

So that's it for now folks! It might be awhile until you see another post. Lots of boxes to sort through, and we don't have internet at our house yet.

Christmas Day

Christmas Eve night we went over to my Mom & Dad's. It's been a tradition that Heidi & Luke spend the night, even with kids, so we spent the night too.

It's so much fun. Especially waking up in the morning with the kiddos and having brunch together.

The kiddos got stockings... I guess we're too old for those now. :) I love Bridget's face in this picture. She got a headband with a mistletoe hanging from it... you will see her with it on in nearly every picture I have of her! She loves the thing!

We all went to church together Christmas day morning, except Dad was sick, so he wasn't able to come. After church we had a late lunch of prime rib.

The whole fam. We ate lunch while the kids were taking naps. :) It was much more enjoyable that way! I'd say Dad looks pretty good in this picture for being sick!

After the 2nd big meal of the day, we opened presents with a fire in the fireplace. Ahhh, my favorite time of the year.

 Bridget with her new doll house that she was QUITE protective of. Especially from Carter. :)

 Mom framed a picture for Luke of his favorite time of the year...harvest time with Uncle Tom.

 Dad's new hat that Luke gave him. :)

 Adam gave me Crate & Barrel bowls that I LOVE! Haha, I also got folding chairs from my parents... oh the things you ask for when you have a house of your own!

 First Christmas together.

 Like I mentioned, she LOVED the hilarious headband.

 Oh this girl brings us so much JOY. She keeps us all smiling!!

It was a very FUN two days with family.

Although, like I mentioned, my Dad was sick with the flu. Unfortunately, he didn't enjoy our family Christmas very much. Almost my whole family got it after Christmas Day. Oh well, it was well worth it I suppose! :)

Leman Christmas

On Christmas Eve we went to Mom & Dad Leman's for lunch. It was such a GOOD lunch. We each brought a Chinese dish, which included several stir frys, crab ragoons, egg rolls, fried rice, all the works.

Like most Christmases, the day was full of eating, talking, games, and gifts. One thing that was different is we reenacted the Christmas story. Grandma Knapp had all the costumes(which is a lot) that she made for her grandkids to do this same thing every Christmas.  

 I had Shiloh's name for Christmas...I gave him a little piggy bank. He loved it so much he sleeps with it quite often. :)

 Here is the Nativity scene. We actually have a Mary & a Joseph, along with a baby! :)

 Fred & Jodi's family. Such a darling picture. Letty truly is a little angel!

 Robert & Mary's family

 Daniel & I in our costumes. I think we mostly dressed up for the pictures. ;)

 Grandpa was reading to the boys. This picture is SO typical!

 Me & Elisabeth. I am so blessed with such a wonderful sister-in-law! Can't wait for her to get married so we can do things together as couples! :)

 All the brothers except for Timothy

 Elisabeth & sweet little Asher

 Eating the great Chinese food!

Jodi crocheted all the boys slippers for Christmas presents. I'm pretty sure they all loved them!

It was of course a wonderful Christmas Eve. So fun to be in a new family and learn their traditions. Makes me excited to make OUR very own traditions when we have a family!

Blessed

Life has been busy and it's just about to get busier.

As most of you know, I work at an accounting firm in the bookkeeping department. Since the 1st of January we all hit the ground running.... and we have been ever since. We get to have all quarterly returns, 1099's and W-2's done by January 31st, and there's three of us in the bookkeeping department. The result of this? LOTS of overtime... more than I've ever worked in my life. We get to work every Saturday (speaking of, I'm on my lunch break right now :) and during the week the days are also very long.
After Christmas I got sick.... and I'm still fighting it. It's been almost 3 weeks and I'm still dealing with a terrible cough and a mild cold. So yeah, I'm still not quite to my energetic-self yet. It's made the over-time situation even more fun. :P
Through this busyness, Daniel has been wonderful... since he's on school break, he has more time than usual and has helped me with laundry, dishes, and everything else. It's sooo great to not feel quite as overwhelmed with the stuff at home. I have a fabulous husband!! So after January 1st it might calm down a little bit, but then tax season starts up! So that still means every Saturday! The biggest advantage to it all is all of the over-time pay. :) But really, I am so blessed to have a full-time job that is needing and wanting me to work more. An answered prayer!!  


This Monday, Daniel (well, sort of us...) starts a new journey. He starts nursing school at OSF. He had new student orientation on Thursday, and he is SOO excited. The nursing program might make us a little busier/stressed-out, I don't know yet. But the part that is so great is that Daniel is so excited to start and to learn. It's going to make him going through school so much easier for the both of us. It has been wonderful to have the first semester of our marriage to be more relaxed, since Daniel only took 1 college class. God truly had a plan for everything when we felt lead to begin our lives together.  


Today is our 5 month anniversary. Wow these last 5 months have FLOWN! It has truly been the best 5 months of my life. I couldn't be more thankful for the husband God gave me and what He has done in our lives. I feel incredibly blessed every single day. There's never a day that I don't feel that way!  


Our other news that I am SO thankful for, is that we are moving in 1 month!! We will no longer be living in the city...it is extremely convenient with school and work, but we are so excited to get to the country. I am SO ready to have a house!!
February 1st we get our rental house that we are renting from my dad and uncle. One week later, we are going to move! We'll be living down a gravel lane, with cows in the backyard. :) Right where Daniel feels at home! Heidi and Luke used to live there, and they did a TON of work to it, so it shouldn't need much paint or updating. Pretty much just the carpets cleaned!  


Like I said, God has truly BLESSED us!