Getting settled....

My First Christmas in my new HOME!!

Girl from my work was nice enough to give me her tree that she wasn't using for my new house! it is SO much nicer than old tree. Notice Emma keeping my tree company! She has been a good kitty so far and has stayed out of the tree but monitors it very closely from the bottom branches!

View from the front corner of my living room into my dining room. Love my console table behind my couch.

Christmas decorations on my console table.

View into living room from the dining room

New recliner I got on clearance at work, it has a few scratches on it but add a few pillows and....

you'd never know! Emma has officially claimed this chair as her's.

My antique door bell chimes!! Love these! Even decorated them for Christmas!

Dining Room with old light fixture.....

New light fixture!! So much better!!

Baby Christmas Tree in my tiny built in archway in my dining room. SO CUTE!! I am on the search for an antique phone for that area since I will not have a real land line phone I can put a decorative one!

MY FIRST HOME!!!! Can't believe it's mine!!

Photo shoot of the day I closed on my First House!!

Was full of so much excitement I had a little fun taking pictures to capture the memories of my first home! I must say in my mind I pictured something more formal of my closing on my house with the bank but it was just a bunch of (MY) signatures and then they handed me an envelope of the keys and I was done! Guess HGTV makes it look so much more fun... That's TV for ya!

My first house warming gift from Mom and Dad. A Keurig coffee maker!! Was such a nice unexpected surprise!! I LOVE it!!

FINALLY I can call it MINE!! Can't even express in words the great feeling that I had that day!

Sitting on my front corner step. My house is on a corner lot and I have a sidewalk on only 1 side of my house. I guess the couple that lived in my house for the last 40 years were very active in the city council and fought to have the sidewalk that would have been on the other side of my house on the other side of the street! (Which means less shoveling for me!!)

SOLD.... TO ME!!!!! Such a proud homeowner!!

Going into my HOME!! Funny part about this picture was that I was faking this because I could not figure out how to get my key to work for my front door... It is a vintage lock and door and the lock works just fine I was just not up on how to work an old lock like that!

One of the MANY things I LOVE about my home! My antique Mail slot!! Mail inside my front door! Love it and not many homes have this anymore! But am looking forward to not having to go outside to go and get my mail!

Had to do a few jumping shots because I was jumping with joy the day I closed on my house!! Truth be told I woke up that morning and immediately started jumping on my bed cause I was so excited! I had to contain my excitement while I went to work for a few hours.

Was pretty proud of that Sold Sign!

Come visit me soon!!

First Home....

My new home... stay tuned...

offer was accepted now waiting on final financing

The front of the house. The garage is in the back. It is on a corner lot and has great curb appeal. I do feel like it needs a pop of color somewhere but time will tell me what it is. Besides some small maintenance on some bushes the yard is already nicely landscaped.

This is the back porch. Will be coming in through this door mainly as the garage is right at the end of this path. Again love the landscaping and the sun-porch on the back of the house!

The entry way and part of the living room. The first view of the hundreds and hundreds of yards of wallpaper that I will be removing but I fell in love the the archways and found out there is beautiful hardwood floors below the carpet waiting for me to reveal.

Second half of the living room and a view of the other two arches in the home. Love that the living room has a ceiling fan too!

Picture of one side of the living room. There is one more arch and also a built-in in the corner. More wallpaper to remove but think it will be a totally new and fresh look when it is done! Through the arch is a linen closet next to the bathroom and bedrooms on both ends of the hallway.

Other side of the living room. There is a built in along the whole window. Will eventually update the chandelier and a few other things but can see the potential here and love that my dining table will have plenty of room to have guests over for dinner!
My new kitchen!! Complete with a dishwasher and all appliances! Also a garbage disposal and sprayer in the sink. Guess it is just the little things that make me happy. Will finally have plenty of space for all my kitchen things with my cabinets going all the way to the ceiling too!! I do have more wall paper to pull off and curtains to take down but I know I will LOVE cooking in this kitchen!!

Other side of my kitchen with more cabinets. Opposite of sink is the fridge and the stove.

What will be my master bedroom. Finally found a house with 2 bedrooms large enough to home my bed! but this one has the larger closet so eventually after wall paper removal will be my master. Also has hardwood floors!

Don't have a picture of the second bedroom downstairs but this is the cherry upstairs bedroom.

Sunroom (4 seasons room) added 10 years ago lined with cedar. Smells so good! Don't know what will go in this room but eventually will find the perfect furniture i am sure.
Two car garage and no more scrapping my car off this winter!! WAHOOOO!!! So excited to pull into my garage for the first time!! Don't have much to put in the garage but guess my car will do.

Emma

Emma's favorite lounging spot! She loves to look out the window. While yet she is terrified of the door being open and windows being open. Hope our new home she can lay in the windows like this cause she loves it so much!

Emma keeping my yoga mat/ mat that I do my morning crunches on company! She thought it was just her size!

Madison's First Adventure to the fire station!

Although Madison was skeptical about going into the fire station at first, and was bribed by Ryan after he mentioned the word candy, in the end she loved the fire station and was say "fireman" and "fire truck" all the way home!

I also must admit that I have 1-never been on the Arsenal to my recollection and 2- have never sat in a fire engine like that! There is a ton to look at inside and tons of buttons that Madison wanted to push. Still think it was funny that she was skeptical of getting in the engine until I did and then she wanted up on my lap to check it out too!

More of Madison checking things out!

Her turn to wear the fire hat! (or maybe this was her taking it off... not sure)

Ryan and Madison checking out all the la-z-boys that all the firemen hang out in when they are not out on a call... ruff job right?? Didn't take a picture of the huge TV that they were all faced at but I am sure you can imagine it...

Madison loving that she got her own chair!

Trying on the hat and then she'd hand it to Ryan to put on... pretty funny

Trip to Houston 2011

Mom and I out to lunch near downtown Houston on our day out on the town! Love the Mexican food here and LOVED eating outside (especially when it was snowing back in Iowa!)

Uncle Steve and Scott at lunch

A small preview of the beautiful landscaping all over town!

Love tulip beds and they were all over!!

Sol finally warmed up to me on this trip and would come visit with me (which I later found out was because I was sleeping in what was normally his bed!)

My other buddy during the trip! A rescue dog from Galveston after the hurricane.