Packing.

It's happening... and it has taken over our home.

I think it's actually wayyy worse than this picture shows. Because the piles are everywhere... and I mean everywhere. But looking forward to finishing up and packing up early Thursday morning :) It will all be worth it! I can't wait to set it all up and share picture with you all.

So a quick update on this past week. It was my last week keeping the kiddos. They were super sweet on the last day and surprised me with a cookie cake :) Little did they know that it is my recent favorite! It was the perfect ending to a great summer. Elizabeth is being the best little sister ever and keeping them for me next Monday and Tuesday before they start school. Matthew starts work on Monday so it would have been so tragic for me to have to stay! Thanks sis :)

On Friday we loaded up one load of moving junk and headed towards Birmingham. Matthew had been planning to get together with the guys to camp so I found it a perfect opportunity to go home and do some chilling, shopping, and Tatum-loving!! It was nice and fun, of course I would have liked Matthew being there with me though!

It had been quite a while since I had spent some quality time with my TatumTot so it was definitely time. She is growing up so fast and can now crawl (she's a pro!) and almost stand up perfectly on her own! She say's a few words, but doesn't really go for the "on-demand" thing anymore but it's still adorable!

So thats about it... have a crazy few days ahead that I will catch you up on later!

Recipes and life.

I've been trying to do my wifely duties lately and COOK. It comes a lot easier to me to bake rather than cook, so tons of desserts are flying out of my kitchen :) I have come across a few other recipes that are tasty too, and I wanted to share!

The first one is Lemon-butter Chicken. (from Cuisine at Home)

All you need is:

4 boneless chicken breasts

salt/pepper

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp. minced lemon zest

1 tbsp. minced fresh parsley

3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

So here's the easy part... All you do is season the chicken with salt/pepper and grill it as you normally would. While the chicken is grilling, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Then add salt/pepper to butter mixture. Once the chicken is cooked brush the butter on. It's so simple and is so delish! Oh also... for leftovers I shredded the chicken up and put it, with the rice and broccoli leftovers in a pita- it was SO yummy :)

So my dessert recipe of course I got from Pinterest :)

Source: recipegirl.com via Summer on Pinterest

It's a chocolate chip cookie dough brownie. Did you just die at the sound of it?! I thought it was pretty yummy but it's everyone else's reviews that has me blogging about it. The Thaxton's and the Watford's LOVED it. Like... I gave them a small piece and then was joked on for giving extremely too small of portions! You can find this yummy yummy recipe here! It's highly recommend :)

Now... on to the FUN news :) In just 9 short days we will be apartment leasers in Birmingham, Alabama! We had an awesome week of witnessing God's perfect timing this past week. Everything comes together on His terms. Last Monday Matthew got in contact with a family friend from his B'ham church about an entry level accounting job open with his company. They set up an interview for Wednesday afternoon. Matthew was off to B'ham on Wednesday ready to dominate in the interview. He returned later with "a good feeling" of how things went. Thursday night he received an email from the manager from the company... HE GOT THE JOB! By Friday night he had officially accepted the job and we were off to B'ham in search of an apartment! Saturday we searched high and low and finally found one with what we wanted at a price we could afford. God is so good. He has blessed us so much this past week, and even so much since we've been married.

We are excitingly looking forward to moving in officially on August 7th, the day after Matthew's graduation from Auburn University. I told you... God's perfect timing. As Matthew anticipates getting settled in with his new job, I look forward to setting up our first "on our own" home. As well as searching for a job in B'ham (not really excited about that part!)

At the Watford's house the fun has already begun... I'm already sorting through my stuff getting rid of the unnecessary items! We are so excited to be walking in God's plans and following where He leads.

Pinterest Menu board.

So I finally found a DIY project on Pinterest that I thought I just might be able to handle! I decided to make the dry erase menu board for our kitchen. Here's my inspiration:

Source: makeandtakes.com via Summer on Pinterest

So here's how mine went down:

I bought the frame from a thrift store, just making sure it had good glass, for about 3 dollars! I sanded it down to prep it for painting!

Next I took scrapbook paper and glued it to the cardboard back on the picture frame and trimmed it from there! It's nice you don't have to worry about the edges since they will be hidden behind the frame!

Next here comes the paint. I planned to spray paint it, but our weather has sucked. So I ended up just painting it black with some left over paint I had. Easy-peasy.

Next I used Robyn's awesome Cricut to cut out the letters. I had originally planned to put them on the glass (So I bought vinyl) But I decided it would be easier to put on the paper under the glass so when I erase I won't have to worry about the stickers! Sorry no pictures of the Cricut process. It was slightly difficult! (Obviously the easier option would be to just print the words on to your scrapbook paper, but I wanted to play with Robyn's toy!)

SO here's the finished project! I love it.. turned out just how I had hoped:

And in our kitchen:

And just for fun... We celebrated Cow Appreciation Day last week :) Love me some Chickfila

Disney Cruisin'

Welcome to the Disney Dream.

our beautiful ship!

So this past Christmas Matthew's grandparents surprised us with a Disney Cruise for the whole family. They had us all open up the booklet about it and we all flipped out. It was a complete miracle that we worked it out that everyone could fit it into their schedule at the same time. So we booked July 1st through 5th. So after long awaiting our wedding and Hawaii we were pretty good at being patient. But I must say, it was completely worth the wait :)

On Thursday the Watford's came through Auburn and picked us up... next 5 hours to Jacksonville. We had a great night of hanging out with Meaghan and Brandon (thanks for being such good hosts!) The next morning we were up early and ready to head to Cape Canaveral where we would ship off around 4 o'clock! Luckily we got all checked in and got to board around 12:30 :)

Goofy greeted us!

Right away we went straight for the food, YUM :) We got settled in our rooms, explored the ship, had a lovely dinner at The Enchanted Garden, and enjoyed the AWESOME show The Golden Mickey's! It was a GREAT first day!

With the girls before dinner!

Saturday we enjoyed a little shopping in the Bahamas and then fun stuff on the boat! We first waited in line for the AquaDuck a water roller coaster (the first ever on a cruise ship!) It was way to short but super fun (we took video on the coaster, please excuse our silly screams and exclamations! haha) Enjoyed some fun Goofy putt-putt and had another great dinner... this time at the Royal Palace! The show for the night was Villains Tonight! The shows were always a favorite for the day!

docked in the Bahamas, ready to shop!

we got to meet Lilo right before riding the AquaDuck!

SO FUN !!

after dinner with the family!

So come to find out I loved most of my pictures from the first half of the trip. Anyways the next day was spent at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay! We had fun relaxing on the beach, floating in the ocean, and enjoying yummy food! A rain shower sent us back to the ship early and we enjoyed some chill time (and lots of chicken fingers!! I couldn't get enough! haha!) Went to dinner at Animator's Palette and celebrated Pirate Night with fireworks, a show, and a dance party!

The last day was 4th of July and we spent it at sea and we enjoyed lounging on the boat all day! It was great, great, great! The whole trip was wonderful and I am incredibly blessed to be able to spend such great quality time with my NEW family :) Thanks Nan and Daddy Butch!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies.

Two words: Simply. Delicious.

Well along with every other girl I know... I am now obsessed with Pinterest :) Besides loving almost every crafty house idea, I'm in love with how it connects me with a million recipes instantly. And even better than that, I get to judge them simply by how they look. YUM. So this afternoon I was casually browsing through Pinterest when I come across these delicious looking cookies. Three clicks more and I find out that I HAVE all the ingredients needed. Wow! That never happens!! Well if you know my husband, you know he loves some chocolate and peanut butter. Not only is it a "surprise" cookie... but it was a surprise dessert :)

Here's some photo's to take you through the process...

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies (found on Pinterest, originally from Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen)

Birthdays.

In the Thaxton family birthdays are celebrated all out! But, I am now a Watford and have had to do some adjusting. :) One fun thing we have as a couple is having close birthdays. I probably enjoy it more than Matthew.

For my birthday I, of course, extended it for a "birthday weekend!" The Saturday before the big day we met my fam in Birmingham for a birthday dinner and super fun trip to the Vulcan!

Sunday night Matthew took me to Amsterdam Cafe for a yummy dinner. We had planned to go see Something Borrowed but the website had it wrong so we missed the last showing for the night... I was slightly disappointed! Instead we rented Life as We Know It, and it was goood!

So then on my actual birthday, the 30th (which happened to be Memorial Day so everyone was off of work and school!) Matthew brought me some chickfila for breakfast! Later we hung out with some sunday school friends at Blake and Katherine's. That night we went to Niffer's with some friends and then played some dancing on the Kinect!

Next up... Matthew's birthday!! We got a little pre-celebration while we were at the beach this past weekend. Mom and Dad let him loose in the Under Armour outlet and he came out with a new pair of shoes and shorts! He was a happy boy :) We went to The Crab Trap before heading out on Sunday so Matthew got a little birthday cake there!

Unfortunately we had to work/school on his big day. Of course I wanted to try and make it as special as I could! So me and my kiddos worked hard to make some orange and blue cupcakes and took them up to his work to surprise him!

When he FINALLY got home from work Matthew opened his present. :) I gave him an Apple wireless keyboard. He sure does love his gadgets! For dinner we went to Matthews favorite restaurant, Olive Garden, or lovingly referred to as the O.G. We weren't doing dessert there so this is what the waitress brought out! How clever is she :) Little did she know he loves those things!

After we headed to Mammaws for some dessert! I made Matthews favorite chocolate pie and Mammaw had made Blackberry cobbler. Little to say we didn't leave hungry. YUM.

So that is all of our fun birthday fun. We're now 1 year older and wiser ready to take on life as a 22 and 21 year old :)

Hawaiian Honeymoon.

What a wonderful trip!

Basically everything was perfect... From all the wonderful food and sites to the great rest we got after a busy wedding season!

After traveling straight up across the country, and an ocean we landed in Honolulu, Hawaii at 9:30pm their time... Sowe felt like it was 2:30am. We liked the time change though, it got us to bed early and up early. It was a nice change:)

Day 1
We went to a free breakfast through our traveling agent and got to sign up for some later tours/events. Lunch at BurgerKing... This is when we figured out that everything in Hawaii is so so so expensive! After some shopping and a little time on the beach we went out to Atlantis Steak and Seafood for our first dinner in Hawaii!

Day 2
Skipped breakfast and headed straight for Diamond Head! We really enjoyed the hike, view, and especially the shaved ice after! We feel like it may be better then SnoBiz! After that fun, HOT morning we had togofor beach/swim pool time! Finally got some underwater camera action :) Then that nightwasthe big Luau!! It was yummy food, a good show, and a great night!

Day 3
We woke up early and headed for TheBus (public transportation) and started our longggg journey to the Dole Plantation! So the journey to get there wasn't so bad but what followed was... To make a long story short we ended up taking the bus around the whole island enduring a full bus of high school kids, freezing air conditioning, and many many bus stops! When we finally got back we decided to dodinner somewhere close. We went to PF Changs (We're not the most adventurous eaters!)

Day 4
This was our eating day... Seems like everything we did had to do with food! Haha! First we went to a popular local breakfast place called Eggs N Things! It was super delicious! For lunch we decided to head to another local place we had seen on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives called Rainbow Drive-in! They had the local "plate lunches" and I got a mahimahi one... It was yummy! It was almost a mile and a half walk to get there. Yay, exercise! Some more beach time and then some Cheesecake Factory for dinner... We LOVE food.

Day 5
Leaving day! Early early went on a tour to Pearl Harbor/USS Arizona Memorial and around the city! When we got back we had to go straight and check out but then had a tonnnn of time before we had to leave for the airport! So then we ate lunch and wondered around for a long time! Finally we found a little Hawaiian/Japanese show that was good! Then it was off to the airport to head home. Our flight left at 10:30pm so we flew through the night and lost lots of time! When we finally got back to San Francisco we headed to Atlanta where we had a four hour layover :(ughhhh! Come to find out when we got back to Huntsville Nick Fairleywason our flight! Such an awesome end to a WONDERFUL honeymoon