Easter 2010

Our Easter was really special this year. First of all, this is the one holiday that since Vic and I have been married, we have not traveled to either of our hometowns for. In 2008 (our first Easter of marriage) Vic was scheduled to be the reader at Church. So, we stayed in town, had my brother attend and over for lunch and Vic made some delicious fried chicken! That is what he has eaten every year for Easter at his Granny's house and he loves her fried chicken. So, that was a little bit of home for him. For my bit of home, I made Easter baskets just like my aunt has always made for us kids. Anyways, to make a long story short, each year we have stayed in College Station (going on 3 this year) for Easter to share with one another at our Church and fortunately Charley has always been here too! After the fried chicken year, we changed to brunch because fried chicken takes a long time to make! So, this year at first it was only going to be the norm - Vic, Charley and I attending church, eating brunch and opening Easter baskets. But, slowly over the couple of weeks before, we invited a friend here or there to join us and it ended up with 7 friends attending Easter services and having brunch at our house. It was so wonderful and special! See below for some pictures! We'll start with a few food pics - I wish I'd taken a picture of everything!

Blueberry and Orange-Pineapple muffins

Paula Deen's Baked French Toast Casserole

And I think that is all of my pictures...hmm. Well, we also had fruit salad, Farmers Casserole, cupcakes, white strawberry sangria, mimosas and a delicious sweet treat Ana made whose name I do not know!

Anyways, after a great Easter service with wonderful music, the following people came over to celebrate our Risen Savior with brunch!

Charley and his girlfriend, Ana
Vic, Josh and Kari (the soon to be Mr. & Mrs. Barmettlers come 10/30/10!)
Justin and Danielle
Katerina and I

Some of them played a game of 42 while the food was cooking and then we sat down to eat brunch. Here's a picture before we dug in!

We just had a wonderful day and after a few left, Vic, Charley, Ana and I got our Easter baskets! I don't care how old you get, Easter baskets are ALWAYS fun!!

Showing off some Easter basket goodies; sorry I didn't get a good picture of you Vic!

Ana is super excited about her replacement Taylor Swift CD!

Okay, and before you view the next picture you should know that Easter baskets are SO much fun just like stockings are and I tend to want to just fill them to the brim. Plus, with Charley - he is a poor college student who NEEDS gift cards and clothes and food and money and the Easter basket is a great way for me to provide for him. So, I might have gone a little overboard...

This is Vic asking me whose money was used to pay for all of Charley's gifts. Silly Vic - he has such a hard time understanding that his money is my money and my money is his money and we share and it's ok to spend it sometimes. His face says it perfectly though! Oh Vic! Fortunately, even though he "acts" like it was a problem, he and I both know he doesn't mind!

What makes this funnier is that I posted this picture on Facebook and one of his co-workers stated that this was the same face he uses when she wants to spend too much of their agency's money at work! Poor Vic cannot catch a break!

And here is a picture of me - I debated putting it because my hips look gigantic in it! So, then I attempted to make the picture smaller....I don't think it helped those hips! But, I had to post a picture of my Easter basket because my Aunt GG surprised me by mailing it and having Vic hide it. I loved it - it was so fun and cute!

And finally the last picture. Vic finally got happy again when he got his 1980's lawn chair to layout and get all super hot and tan in. He has been looking for one, but lawn chairs are sort of pricey. So he decided this was what he wanted and then we could not find one anywhere. When I found this the day before Easter, it was the last one in Target. Whew. This saved me from the "Stop spending so much money on Charley" lecture I could have gotten. Oh who are we kidding? Vic is never angry with me!

I hope everyone's Easter was as blessed as ours. Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia Alleluia!

February & March Happenings

Hello everyone!

I have lots to post and some pictures to go along with everything, so here we go! In February, we got to go down to Orange Grove for our friends Cassie & Joe's baby shower. I did not get one picture all weekend long, but we had a great time. Friday night was dinner at Mandee & Derek's house with a lot of our families, Saturday was Cassie's shower, and Saturday night was dinner with Jill & Mike & Cassie & Joe. We had a great time and I am so excited for little Wesley Klatt to arrive in April! Cassie got so many cute little clothes and blankets and I am just so excited for them both! Also, in February, I turned the big 2-7! I think I like it and am very happy to be 27 - I have thoroughly enjoyed these last 27 years and think this year is going to be pretty fun as well!

The first weekend in March was our first PAINTING weekend. We have been in our house since July 2009 and though we love it, we have wanted to paint since the day we moved in. All of our walls are just a very light-neutral color and we need some warmth in there! The first room we wanted to paint was the kitchen. So, Vic and I decided to go to Sherwin Williams, pick out a couple of colors, put them on the wall at home and then decide the final color. Do you really think that process was that simple? No. We ended up with 9 different colors on the wall (and multiple trips to the paint store for samples) before we finally decided to go with the 9th one! We decided to go with yellow because it is warm and goes with everything in our kitchen (which is lots of red and then just every other color in the color wheel!). Do you know how many yellows there are? Way more than we knew! Below is a picture of the final color testing done on one of our walls:
It really is amazing to look at a paper color wheel and think something looks one color only to find out after it is on the wall that it is a totally different color! Yikes! Some of those were hideous. However, we did choose one and after a weekend of very hard work by my hard-working, sweet husband, we had a new kitchen. Here is a picture below:
Next kitchen project: Curtains & Countertops!

Also, a little later this month (during Spring Break), Vic decided he really wanted to paint the entryway. This is one room that has practically nothing in it so we didn't know what color to go with. But, we like color and Vic really wanted blue, so below you can see the fruits of his labor again after a couple of days of painting:

We still want to paint the dining room and living room a darker neutral, but we may wait a little longer before we do that. The living room is going to be a big project since we have speakers and TV and furniture, etc. that all has to be moved out. The dining room will be easy though! Still picking a color as of now...

Other than painting, we have also been doing some yard work. We are so glad to finally see green again! Our yard is no longer completely brown and we are getting rid of all the weeds!! We have bought some flowers to plant and a tomato plant and a bell pepper plant and zucchini plant! Also, we brought home about 12 different plants from Vic's grandpa's funeral and have now replanted them in bigger pots and some in the ground and they look great! See below for some super hot husband pictures of Vic in the yard! Oh and be sure check out the yard too!
And would you like to know whether or not P90X works? Well, take a look at those arms on Vic! It works!! Now, if only I can start looking more like that....

Also, in March, Vic's mom, granny and sister came into town for a visit since they were on Spring Break. We had a great weekend of food, shopping, church, and even some 42! This was the first time Granny Irene had seen our house and it is always a lot of fun to have the girls around to visit! Vic did a wonderful job cooking - as usual! See some pictures below!

Ready to shop at the Houston Outlet Mall on Saturday!
Sunday Morning Breakfast!
Jill is cooking!
Delicious rolls from the Pioneer Woman blog!
And yet another recipe from the Pioneer Woman cookbook - Breakfast Bowls!
And here is just another picture of my adorable husband and new fun kitchen!

Okay, so later that following week, we had another big event to celebrate: Mary's 21st Birthday! Mary and I took a little shopping in and then met Vic at Cheddar's for her first official drink - a Bellini and then a margarita! Isn't she cute and adorable and yet, so grown-up?
And then Vic insisted we must take her, as we have with so many other important friends and family -- Katerina, Keller, Kristofer, Charley, Jenna, -- who have turned 21 to the Shot Bar! Here is a picture of Mary getting carded to get into the shot bar....and I have to tell you because it was just too funny and shows that Mary is very innocent, as we already knew! But, as soon as the guy gave her back her ID, she attempts to walk on in...BEHIND THE BAR...instead of walking to the side to order. I mean, I have to admit - it is kind of confusing because it was like 7:00 on a Friday night during Spring Break and there was NO ONE in the bar, but it was really funny when they kind of had to say "nope - other side!". Oh Mary - you are so fun! So, we celebrated her 21st and had a great evening!

Also, during that week, we got to do a lot of visiting in College Station. We went to a Shrimp Boil at the Cummings Home on Thursday night, Lunch at our friend Cady's on Friday, visited Megan and Cole Friday afternoon, celebrated Mary's 21st Friday night, and attended Danielle's birthday at her country house on Saturday night! It was a lot of fun!

As the month wore on, lots of Church activities took place. We had the Church Workday that was combined with Big Event and we had a group of Kappa sorority girls come out to help us at Church. Our Easter Egg Hunt was also on Palm Sunday and all of those kiddos are just so cute. In fact, I made some cookies for the Easter Egg Hunt and they were so fun! First of all, you should know that Vic's Granny Irene is a wonderful baker and has been known to make some delicious desserts. Just recently, Vic and I were given a bunch of her old cookie cutters and I think some of them may be pretty old! We have them for every occasion and holiday I think! So, I decided to use them to make Easter cookies for the kids at Church. I am not that brilliant of a cookie decorator, but see below for the fun cookies I got to make! Thanks Granny Irene!
And finally here is a picture of Vic and I at the Church Workday - Vic did a lot more outside work than me - I mainly took care of the food. But, here's a pic anyways!
And, finally here is a picture of the last thing we've done in March and that was go to dinner with some of Vic's best friends. They all grew up together and I feel very lucky also to know them! Below is D.L., Kelly, Vic, Kari & Josh!
Oh and wait - one more thing! As you all know, Charley comes over very often (but not TOO often because we love to see him!) for visiting and if he can, a free meal. Well, he showed up on a good night because after a long workweek, Vic and I decided Sushi and Edamame from Kroger (believe it or not Sushi from Kroger is great!) was what we wanted for dinner! So, here's a picture of that!

Okay, believe it or not those are all of my updates for now. I am ready for Easter and ready for Spring! Talk to you all soon!