Where did this weekend go?

I keep asking myself this question this morning...It was so jammed packed with great things that it flew by in the blink of an eye!  Saturday I spent the entire day at Empower Ladies conference with some of my favorite bloggers and friends. Let me tell you..this day was amazing!! The message was that we are all God's treasures even if we may feel inadequate. All we have to do is believe and let Him in!! The day was full of great speakers, amazing worship, tears, hugs, massages and manicures....it was so refreshing! Here are some pics from the day..all cell phone ones unfortunetly! 

AMAZING! I can't wait until next year!

Saturday evening we went out to a couple different restaurants for some yummy food, drinks, and music! It was so much fun...I love my friends...do I mention this enough?? I just feel so blessed :)

Sunday we went to lunch with my mom, little sister Jodell, and Sean's parents. It was so delicious, and great to catch up with family...I took the cutest picture of my sister and I, but my laptop is out of commission right now so it's stuck on the camera, boooo! Afterwards we looked at a few more houses...still haven't found our home but we are feeling more optimistic about it!

We ended the weekend with some relaxing and cuddling...I love my husband and doggy so much!

Happy Monday :)

Jamie Leigh

 

Decisions Decisions

I very much dislike making big decisions....Hate is a strong word but in this case it may be applicable. I am the most indecisive person ever..and now I am faced with a huge decision.

As most of you know, Sean and I have been house hunting for about a year now. We have had our ups and downs, played the waiting game for a very long time, lost a house, and there have been changes with our financing due to new jobs. It has been one big headache so we settled in our cozy town house for time being.

Well, I found this house for an incredible price that needs some work..new floors, paint, appliances, fixtures, pretty much cosmetic stuff. The house has great bones and we like the layout. I guess I never expected to get a home that had projects, but when I think realistically...am I going to ever find a house that is perfect to my taste, wants, and needs..probably not!  So tonight we are heading back to this house to get some estimates on the upgrades and to check it over again before deciding.

What would you do if you were in my situation? I love getting advice so please share!

Now onto 25 days of Christmas!! I can't believe how quickly it is coming, YAY! Today I wanted to share with you a few of my favorite Christmas scents.

Peppermint Crush

Icicle Mint

And of course....Cinnamon!

There is nothing better than a house that smells like Christmas! What scents remind you of Christmas?

Jamie Leigh

A New Chapter

Sean and I have definitely entered a new chapter in our lives now that we are moved out and in our new home. I am so thankful for all the love, help, and support we received from our friends and family this past weekend. I am also SO excited with our new home. It is cozy, beautiful, and most of all ours. Remi also loves it here and has adjusted extremely well. Here it is!

Living Room

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Master bath

Guest room

Guest Bathroom

Loft

Dining Room

3rd Bathroom

 As some of you may know, I LOVE to decorate! So here are a few pics of some of my favorite decor in the house.

Now that we are all moved in and settled I can take a deep breath and focus on the wedding. My mom, sisters, and I started on the invites a few days ago which was the biggest task left on my list! Just a little over 2 months and I'll be Mrs. Grady :-) 

I wanted to leave you with a few pics of Remi growing up. I know in my last post I had promised some!

I'm off to catch up on your blogs now!! 

Jamie Leigh

Update on Life!

Let me start by saying I have SoOoOoOoO missed blogging! My life has been extremely busy lately..full of big changes. Lately my time has been consumed by: 

- Our baby girl Remi

- Wedding planning. We're down to 2 months & 3 weeks

- Packing for the big move

- Grad parties

Remi has been growing and adjusting to her new home quickly. She is the biggest angel, and every day Sean and I feel so blessed we were chosen to give her a home. It is truly like having a baby...exhausting but SO fun! I will post some pics of her very soon! 

The wedding is also coming VERY quickly! Mostly everything is finished, now I have to work on getting the invites out ASAP! I also have some big news......A few weeks ago I found a different dress! I decided to look one last time just to see if there was anything that caught my eye even more than my original..and am I happy I did! I found the PERFECT dress...its absolutely beautiful and I cannot wait to walk down the isle in it!

Packing packing packing...eww! I do NOT like packing at all! We are moving to a gorgeous town home this upcoming weekend, but we can actually start moving smaller things as soon as Tuesday. This is very bitter sweet for me. I am excited to start a whole new life of my own with Sean and Remi, however I am going to miss my family so so much. I can honestly say I had the best childhood a child could ask for, and there are so many memories in my home. It has been hard boxing up my room.....I will take pictures of our new place as soon as it is put together! 

Grad parties have been all over the past couple weeks! The biggest being my little sister Jaclyn and one of my best friend Ashleys! I love celebrating with friends and family during special events like this! 

Miss you all! Hope everything is going well!'

Jamie Leigh

God is Faithful!

I have to say, I feel SOOOO incredibly blessed. God has answered so many prayers this past month that I am overwhelmed with His love and faithfulness. Not only was I blessed with an amazing job opportunity, but so was Sean, and both my sisters! How amazing is that??
Sean and I have also  been praying that we would get a sign as to what the right path to take is regarding our house hunt....and we got it! We now have one month until we move into a BEAUTIFUL town home! 
To top it off I want to introduce you to Dixie. She is a puppy that needs a home. We are meeting her within the next week, and hopefully from then on out she will be ours!! 

God Bless! 

Jamie Leigh

Exciting News!!

Hey friends! I hope you all had a wonderful 3 day weekend...I know I did. It was full of family, resting, NO plans, and some very VERY exciting news!

SEAN AND I FOUND A TOWNHOUSE!

With the wedding coming so quickly, we decided we better start thinking of a plan B, since we still haven't heard anything on the house.....we're thinking it will go into foreclosure. We are coming to terms that renting for a little while may be the best thing right now. It relieves the stress of not knowing where we will be living, and not to mention the townhouse we found is GORGEOUS! It has almost every upgrade you could think of and is almost the same square footage as the house we wanted. Not to mention we know the landlords and they are awesome :-)

We will be moving July 1st!! AND we will be adding a little edition to our family at that time :-) Can't wait!

I am also super excited that we found an incredible deal on furinture! We got a sofa, loveseat, chair, and ottoman all for 750!  It looks similar to this

The new jobs have also been going great for both Sean and I....we are finally adjusting and settling into our new schedules! I miss you all, I am off to read and catch up on your lovely lifes!

Jamie Leigh

The Small Things

I'd like to say I have always appreciated the small things, however I don't know if I truly did until now. 
Last night I had a little break down. I don't want to play the victim because the changes and things I am facing are all GOOD things in the end....they are just a lot to deal with all together. On top of starting a new job that has me waking up at 4:30 in the morning, I am trying to continue being a personal care assistant a couple nights a week. I will adjust, but this week has been more than exhausting....exhausted is an UNDER statement to say the least. 
On top of this Sean and I continue to struggle and be faced with difficult decisions surrounding our house hunt. As you know we put an offer on a short sale in November...and we still.haven't.heard.ANYTHING! With the wedding coming so quickly we need to find a place to live, and I am not feeling so confident anymore with this house. I have a feeling it will go into foreclosure and we may lose it. So plan B....Sean's old boss has a town home he is willing to rent to us on a month to month basis...this way we can leave our offer on the house, but if we don't hear at least we have a place to live by the wedding....hmmm big decision. We are going Sunday to look at it!
To put the cherry on top, we had our last marriage class last night. We finally got to plan the ceremony!! This is very exciting, but I felt so unorganized and super behind on my planning. I wasn't able to answer more than half of the questions they had and that was only for the ceremony! 
Needless to say, I got home and I was mentally, emotionally, and physically drained....I broke down and pretty much cried myself to sleep
Back to my original statement, I don't think I have really appreciated the little things such as 
-being outside-checking my email-taking a cat nap-seeing my family every day-watching my soap-talking to my friends every day-holding my kitty-having even 5 minutes to just BE home
All these little things I have really missed this week....and I now realize I took them all for granted. Now that I am so busy and my schedule is completely different these little things don't come so easily...and now I have grown great appreciation for them! Making every day, hour, minute, even second count is SO important!!
Sorry for such a sappy post! To brighten it up a bit I had to share a picture of my sweet kitty Oliver. He LOVES to watch the faucet drip, and I finally got a picture of it! Isn't this precious!?

I hope you all are having a fantastic week, only 2 more days until the long holiday weekend! Wahoo!!
Jamie Leigh

Weekend Update and a VERY happy birthday!

Happy Monday friends! It is sure cold here in MN...I am starting to feel like summer will never be here! Tomorrow I hear it is suppose to be warmer and sunny though, hopefully they are right!

I wanted to give a little update about the tough situation Sean and I were put in. He was offered a great job opportunity, but we found out it may affect us qualifying for the house that we love and have waited for for so long. After a lot of talking, and listening to families advice, we made a decision. We decided that there are too many unknowns on the house and that Sean WILL be accepting the new job. We couldn't be more excited! I want him to be happy, and this job will open up many new doors for us.  God wouldn't have given Sean this amazing opportunity if he wasn't suppose to take it.

As for the house, we aren't giving up on it yet. Our Realtor said to just leave our offer on the house, and wait until we hear from the bank. Who knows when that will be anyways...its already been 7 months! When we do hear back we will deal with it at that point. Again, there are many unknowns and what ifs....like if I get a new job I may qualify on my own.... :) Please send us your prayers!

On to this weekend! It was a blast. We made enough money to pay for the wedding flowers, and then still had a TON to donate to the church! Sean and I also looked at wedding bands and both found the ones we want! I am so excited!! We are getting close to 4 months only! Finally I hit the jackpot shopping on Sunday! I got over 500 dollars worth of clothes for 140 bucks! AMAZING!

Last but not least, I wanted to wish one of my best friends a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! You should check our her BLOG, it's great!

Jamie Leigh

Wonderful Weekend come and gone

I feel so blessed today, this weekend was wonderful and everything I could have hoped for....today is a happy day!
Friday night I went out with some of my favorite ladies! We ate some delicious mexican food, shared LOTS of laughs and chit chatted the night away!
Saturday we went to the Twins game that I had been anticipating for a long time now! They didn't win...and the game wasn't very exciting, but I LOVED being back at the stadium and watching some baseball! Afterwards we met up with some friends and had a blast!

Sunday we went to re look at our house as well as a couple others to compare it too.  I am SOOO happy we did this. The feeling came back as we walked in, it is our house, it feels like home. We love it even more now, and know it is the right decision to continue to wait patiently even though it has gotten frustrating! None of the other houses came even close to comparing...Praying we will hear this week! 
I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!
Jamie Leigh

Impatient

It is one of those days.....one of those days that my mind has been racing through all the stuff that we are waiting for to happen.  
ImpatientAnxiousIrritatedYet....hopeful still
Now that I am graduated there are some things that I am ready for...I am anxious about finding a job....nervous I won't......I have been applying and applying every. single. day. 
I am also getting extremely impatient and irritated that we STILL haven't heard anything about the house we have an offer on. We put in the offer back in November, and put a close date of April 29th thinking that would be plenty of time, it would be after graduation, and praying I would have a full time job by then.....it sounded perfect. Well now it is April 5th and we still have no news. The house has been off the market since we put in the offer because we requested that, so I'm not worried were going to loose it....but I would like to know WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG! We are SO ready to move...we both miss the house and want to start making it our home. Short sales should definitely NOT be called a SHORT sale...there is nothing short about them. 
Something that is making me even more anxious to hear something is the fact that if we don't have a signed purchase agreement by mid April our monthly payment will go up 30 bucks due to some change in the way the loan is calculated...I know 30 bucks isn't a deal breaker or anything, but it will definitely add up. 
I am trying to stay hopeful and optimistic...I keep telling myself I WILL find a job sooner than later, and at least my current job is full time in the summer...I also keep reminding myself the longer we wait to move the more time we have to save....I'm getting to the point though where these little bits of hope aren't doing it for me!
Sorry for being a bit of a downer today..I am a ball of emotions and the unknowns and waiting game is getting to me! Any advice?
Jamie Leigh

The start of a new chapter!

Wow, I don't even really know what to do with myself today. It is the first day I have without homework! I know I graduated last Thursday, but I usually don't have homework on the weekends anyways...so today it really hit me that I'M DONE! You can read about my Graduation HERE if you didn't get a chance too Friday!
So now that I am basically starting a new chapter in my life, I have to regroup, reorganize, and figure out what I am going to do! A little overwhelming, but I am SOO excited to see what the future holds!
Okay now for a little weekend recap! Friday was a lot of fun taste testing dinner entrées for the wedding. The food was AMAZING so we have a difficult decision ahead of us! We also went to see my little sister's first dance competition for the middle school dance line! She did so good! Sorry the pics aren't that great, it was hard to get a decent shot! 

Saturday we helped Sean's brother and his wife move into their new home! We are so excited for them, and helping out got us even more anxious about our house! We are hoping and praying we hear something soon! Saturday night we went to have dinner with our friends Jessie and Justin at Kahn's! It was super yummy! I love stir fry, and this place you get to create your own, so good!

Sunday we had a lazy day! We organized all the stuff we have been collecting for when we move out, and just hung out...I LOVE days like that!
I hope you had a wonderful weekend! 
Jamie Leigh

Thankful on a Thursday!

I am SO thankful and feel so blessed today! It is a good day :)
101. Blogging friends! I am so excited to meet up with some of my favorite blogging friends (Steph,Ria,Jessie, and Laura) for a delicious dinner at Olive Garden! Can't wait ladies!

102. Another house to look at! We have been waiting to hear on an offer we have on a short sale since November. We LOVE this house and it felt like home...however I like to check for other options as we wait just to see whats out there. One really caught my eye yesterday so my Realtor is doing a little research on it's situation and if all turns out good we may look at it this weekend!
103. Daylight Savings! Can you believe it is already this weekend??! Wow time flies! I can't wait for it to be light out until 9 though....Summer is coming :)
104. A restful weekend ahead! I am definitley looking foward to another weekend of just hanging out and doing whatever we want. It is nice to not have the whole weekend planned out, it feels like they last longer!
105. Spring Break! Tomorrow is the start of spring break! I still have school, and I don't get to go anywhere warm, but I am thankful to be picking up some extra hours at work!
Happy Thursday everyone, I hope you have a spectacular day!
Jamie Leigh

How did I get so lucky?

So yesterday I was working on my computer and I hear a knock at the door....I go down to get it and its Sean! I was so excited to see him, he normally heads to work around the time I am getting off so this was a treat! Even better, he surprised me with lunch, my all time favorite soup that I have been craving the past couple days chicken wild rice soup! As I have said many times, Mondays are NOT my favorite...He definitely made my Monday 100 times better! It is crazy how the little things are often the ones that make the biggest difference! I sometimes wonder how I got so lucky to be blessed with such an incredible persons love, commitment, and devotion. I can't even express how thankful I am! 
I have a little update on our house hunt! Our Realtor got a call yesterday from the sellers agent saying she hoped we were hanging in there. The bank is moving slowly but surely on our offer...so its looking good! Hopefully our patience pays off! In the mean time we have been collecting and collecting stuff for when we finally move out! Sean specifically has been gathering things for his garage lol. My good friend and coworker just gave him something he was SO excited about....can't you just see how happy he is?

Well I hope everyone has a wonderful day!! 
Jamie Leigh

Back to Reality...

Yesterday I started my final quarter of school...I was so excited until I saw the workload I will have the next 3 months.....my life will consist of school and work! It is really hard to get back into this routine, and I am finding myself feeling lazy towards homework now that the end is in sight.....the countdown begins...12 weeks!
For Christmas my Grandma gave me a Pier One gift card. I absolutely LOVE this store, it has the coolest things!  She knows Sean and I have been collecting stuff for when we move out, and that I have began to put a color scheme/design together in my head, I have so much fun designing and decorating! My mom, sisters, and I went shopping there over the weekend, we spent a long time wondering around looking at all the options I had! 
I ended up deciding I wanted to get a centerpiece for either the table or the island in the kitchen. Remember the rug my mom bought us for the upstairs living room?

Well I found the perfect centerpiece, and then my little sister Jodell had the idea of pulling colors from the rug for the candles....what do you think?

I just love all the color, it is so fun! Earth tones are my favorite! 

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Jamie Leigh