top five

for my closet...




for everyone around me while i read hunger games...

for my nieces...{alright a little bit for me, too..}

for Jae...

 for me...

birthday gala{s}

Jae and i celebrated our birthdays this past week - Jae's being on tuesday (the 21st) and mine on wednesday (the 22nd). it's nice that president's day falls on the 20th so we usually get that day off to get the celebrating started! although this year we've spent any and all extra money on our house, we still had an enjoyable birthday week sans presents for/from eachother. (although Jae cheated a bit, as you'll see later in a picture).

both of us got off work by about noon on both tuesday and wednesday so we got to spend the rest of the days together. the celebrations included sushi, naps, {way too many} desserts, party with family, food, more food, two hours at the tile store, a job interview for Jae, orange leaf, working at our house, more incredibly high-calorie, high-carb foods, a leaky toilet, time with friends, and then some more food. it seemed to be a food-themed birthday. needlesstosay, i feel like i gained multiple pounds over the last week. and it was a good time. here are some of the highlights from the week.



our favorite special treat - strawberry chocolate chip concretes from nielsen's

my wonderful work friends went above & beyond - cinnamon roll cake, my fav yogurts, m&m's, & a giftcard to our favorite store as of late..home depot.

Jae enjoying his free birthday dessert at Mikado

blowing out our candles at our party with my family

all of our loot - i told you there was a definite food theme (and i got my hair played with the whole time we opened presents by miss Hana. it was a nice added present :) )

frozen yogurt at orange leaf with Jord & Chels (Jordan & Jae share a birthday so we were celebrating both of them). aren't they such a good looking couple? it just makes you sick, right? yeah me too.

friend dinner with mary & stacia (and a sleepy Jade)

Jae surprised me with these lovelies on my birthday. he's a keeper.

here's to another fantastic year with my Jae!

our house: {finished} wood floors & bathrooms



dining room & into the living room



middle bedroom, looking down the hall into the first bedroom

half bath. i LOVE this tiny sink/vanity. it actually makes this space seem roomier somehow.

full bath - custom vanity drawers/doors will be done & installed this weekend.
the sink & faucet turned out awesome.

our floors actually turned out quite nice for how horrible of shape they were in. thank goodness. we love them. and our bathrooms are really coming together too! although that dang half bath toilet is still giving us grief...a brand new toilet, installed by a plumber and everything...nothing but grief. grr. but i'm choosing not to stress about it too much because that's how it goes and honestly i don't care. we have another (so far) perfectly functioning toilet, so all is well. we will be starting the moving in process this weekend...which means happiness for us!!
can i get a wahoo???!

our house: a fully functioning kitchen

a fully functioning kitchen? whaaa????

let's be honest. we never thought this day would come. but it has! and it's true - we totally have everything up and going - cabinets, countertops, stove, microwave, sink, dishwasher. even the disposal. ok so i just thought of one thing we don't have yet...we don't have our fridge in and hooked up yet. dangit. but who even cares! we've got everything else, and it feels SOOOO good.

(ok so we still have just a few things here & there to finish off too...filler pieces & toe kicks & such)

can i just say how weird it is that we have a kitchen? we've been working on this house that we've owned for almost 7 months now, and it's somehow strange to see this kitchen and realize it's ours and we'll soon be using it and actually be living there.

yay yay yay yay. now pictures.

we have to adjust the cabinet doors a bit that go under the sink..that sink is a beast!

close up of our 'cookies n cream' countertop

numero 27 - 2.21.12

it's this guy's big number 27!

isn't he incredibly handsome? i think so too. i can't wait to spend his birthday with him.

happy birthday Jae!!

gone swimming

well it finally happened.

i dropped my phone in the toilet.

yup, i did. i pulled the dreaded i-totally-forgot-my-phone-was-in-my-back-pocket thing and down it went. i grabbed it real quick, took it all apart, dried off all the pieces, and stuck them all in a bucket of rice. a day later, it's as good as new! well, so far anyway. i'm keeping my fingers crossed. who knows, maybe it'll work better now with a little toilet water swimming then it did before.

yesterday just wasn't my day. first, the phone in the toilet, then i dropped Jae's water bottle like 4 times throughout the day (it was rolling away from me in parking lots and such - obviously not as traumatic as dropping my phone, but i just couldn't keep ahold of anything and it was SO annoying!). we went and got our taxes done yesterday afternoon, which Jae and i walked out of feeling very beat...let's just say it went exactly opposite of what we had planned on.

BUT we did get our wood floors completely finished and stained and beautified! they actually came out a lot better than we were expecting, and that was definitely a blessing. pictures to come soon.

let's just say i'm glad that today is a new day. church went well (although i must admit, sac. mtg felt extra long today for some reason) and we got some hopeful news that might turn out to be a super exciting, really good thing for us. we'll see. and tomorrow is monday the 20th....which means COUNTERTOP INSTALL DAY!!! holy excitingness. not to mention, i get work off tomorrow (paid) so it should be a happy day all around. oh and it's our birthday week.....let the celebrating begin :)

hope you all had an {un}eventful weekend!

{here's a sneak peak of our floors..}

cuuuute

i just LOVE everything about this!
so i had to share.

PS: shout-out to ASHLEY GREEN - i might need you to come use your painting skills at my house someday when i'm in need of a nursery  ;)  (NO i am not making any annoucements!)

HAPPY WEEKEND FRIENDS!

our house: wood floors

{turns out my camera lens needs some serious cleaning. i blame my house - 

it makes everything really dirty and dusty and yuck. 

so for the following pics, please excuse the nasty spots.}

but hey hey, check out our wood floors! they're really spiffin up nice! 

nicer than we expected. it should *hopefully* be all done and stained and finished by this weekend!!

right on.

for him

i found this on the bathroom counter after getting out of the shower. we often get a Qtip and set it on the counter for eachother, but Jae decided to get a little creative (and be extra sweet) and left this for me.

he's the best.

right back at ya, babe!

this one's for you, Jae. thanks for being the best guy/husband/lover/friend ever!!

happy lovers day :)

something cool

so for those of you that aren't utahans, like myself, there's a radio station that has 'friends of the program' join their show in the mornings. they talk to these people, ask them random questions to get to know them, and their last question is for them to think of something unique about themselves that might make them go "oh, really? wow that's neat". i always wonder if i ever went on that show (which i wouldn't, but you know, hypothetically speaking) what would i tell them that's unique about myself?

it couldn't be just any random thing, i don't think. with radio people, i feel like they'd be a lot harder to impress somehow, and i would have to think of something really interesting to really perk their interest. do you agree? so i always think to myself, what would i say?

{enter blogpost about random things about myself.... :)}

so i've tried to come up with a few. they're not that great, to be honest, but i'm just not a crazy-exciting-interesting-wowzers kinda person i guess! here's what i came up with.

*i can shake my eyeballs back and forth at super speeds! (more just 'weirdo' than 'cool', i know)

*i'm married to a man that has the same birthday as not just one, but TWO of his brothers. AND they're all 4 years apart (4 years from first to second, 4 years from second to third. and ok ok so i know that would be more Jae's than mine, but i'm claiming it anyway)

*i was thrown off the back of a motorcycle, rolled many times, and walked away with just some nasty scars (probably more just lucky rather than cool. it wasn't that cool.)

*i started playing in the organ in church when i was 12

*i share my first name with a rabbit of sorts....more specifically a 'patagonian hare'. neat. i will even show you: (see the resemblence??)

so as you can see, i have exactly five zero things that are of the cool/unique/interesting/wowzer levels. i'm not sure how i feel about this. what cool things could you guys tell about yourselves? go ahead, tell me. i dare you to beat my coolness.

our house: we gots lights, yo

sooo wanna come party at our house?
we can now.
because we have light!

it's super awesome. the electrician came (back) and put in our kitchen, dining room, living room, main bathroom, and master bedroom lights! it's amazing how nice it is to just flip a switch and have light as opposed to hauling lamps around to plug in wherever we're working or whatever. and tomorrow he's coming back to finish installing the fixtures in the laundry area, half bath, and a second one in the main bath.oh and to hook up our dishwasher. it's like the coolest thing ever. having light. yep.

yes, we realize our light looks pretty ghetto with lightbulbs missing...
they'll be in shortly!

and yes, there is still a fridge in the middle of our living room.

the plastic is still on it, so there's a nasty glare, but the inside has sweet pictures of
old super decorative doorways and such. it's way cool.

and then on top of having light, we have kitchen cabinets!!!!!!!!!!

who knew kitchen cabinets could be so exciting?? we're still working on the details (like shelves and cabinets/drawer doors and such) but all the boxes are up! ooh and we have the sweet soft-close hinges that keep them from slamming closed.

SO COOL.

we had to have the vanity for our main bathroom custom built because of the lame, small, weird space. the guy making it happens to live just down the street from us, which is so nice, and he brought that over yesterday to make sure the box fits right. and it does! so now, over the next couple of weeks, he'll get the drawers and doors and all of the rest of it made and installed. we're super excited. this neighbor of ours is awesome. so awesome that he actually spent his entire saturday at our house, helping us install our kitchen cabinets. just because he's so cool like that. we owe him BIG.

and of course, some more painting was done. at this point, all that's left to paint are the other two bedrooms - yahoo! those bedrooms aren't getting painted until after we move in, which means as far as painting is concerned, we're ready to move in! too bad everything isn't move-in ready yet...

anyway, this is our teeny tiny half bathroom. it's so little and dark and cave-like, i wanted to paint it with a bright color to help it be less cave-like. what do you think? it's like an orangey-yellow-peach color. ish. depending on the light.

cheers to having very few things left to do until moving day!  :)

addicted to the greek

i have never been a yogurt person.

i've tried and tried.

i've wanted to like yogurt.

it's a handy, easy snack, not to mention much healthier than other snack food options.

but more often than not, i just can't choke it down.

something about the slimy, gooey, half-between-a-liquid, half-between-a-solid food.

nope. can't do it.

until i met Dannon Oikos Greek Yogurt.

it is HEAVENLY people.

seriously, anyone else have the yogurt eating problem?

you must try this kind!

it is a thicker consistency, so it doesn't give you the yucky, too runny feeling going down your throat.

it's got a slightly more tart taste than regular yogurt, but not too tart at all.

my favorite flavor-styles?

vanilla, key lime, strawberry, raspberry.

{note: do NOT get the 'fruit on the bottom' ones...no bueno}

it.is.sooo.good.

where were you all my life, oikos greek yogurt??

i'm sure some of you think i'm totally off my rocker by now, but i just can't help it.

i love it that much.

many people i work with love it too (these are people that have always been yogurt haters like me), and they eat it every day! 

best part?

it's fat free.

no, i didn't get offered any cash and/or yogurt reward for doing this post.

which means yes, i am a freak who did just willingly do a post entirely devoted to my new discovery.

happy mid-week my friends. 

now go try the yogurt.

{best deal is at walmart - $1/each. you're welcome.}