Go Fighting Camels!

The themed doorhanger has been changed from valentines hearts to baseball!

We have been looking forward to this weekend since last May when baseball season ended. Justin has been working nonstop to prepare for Friday's opening weekend and I can't wait to prepare my bag for a weekend at the field!

It's funny to me to say Go "FIGHTING" Camels! When you look at the picture above do you think of a fighter, agressive, quick, athletic, or any other word that may go with a competative team?
No, I think weak, awkward, and slow. :)
The only thing that the team and the camel have in comin is spitting....but that is just grose.

But no matter the mascot, the Fighting Camels have worked hard this offseason and it is going to be a great season!

Good Luck
to my Husband and to the Fighting Camels!!!

PRACTICAL is how we roll!

Over the years my wonderful husband has come around to my need to celebrate Valentines Day! I think he realized that if the wife is happy the life is happy! :)

We have to be the most practical gift givers ever. But we focus on what we want/need and something we won't just go get for ourselves +food! Nothing in our life is complete without food!

Justin and I decided that we would each be responsible to plan a night out! He was in charge of Friday night and he took me to a wonderful restaurant called Peak City Grill. It is located in the historic town we were engaged in. It had a piano player, candle lit tables, and wonderful food. We enjoyed the evening talking about our week and goals for the next year!

Saturday was my night to plan. I chose to take Justin to a little place near our house called Steele Street Cafe. Justin loves live music and they were having an 80's cover band for Valentines day. The place was so precious and tons of fun! After a wonderful meal, we kicked our feet up and enjoyed the tunes! I really enjoyed our time together. It's not often we get hours of time to just talk. Valentines Day is just another day and just an excuse for us to hang out!

We both thought that planning a dinner date was going to be our gifts to each other. But no!

Justin came home with one of these.......

Yep, that's right. Nothing says I love you like an external hard drive! I have been asking for one to back up 6 years of photos that are on my dieing laptop. So he made me very happy!

I returned the favor and gave him these......

That's right, car floor mats. Don't worry I also got his car detailed. He always takes the time to clean my car but never his own and always is talking about his car being dirty. I know he doesn't have the time to do it himself and I realized his car smells like a shoe. He also has no floor mats and it drives me NUTS!!! So he is ready to roll!

Tonight I made breakfast for us with HEART shaped pancakes. They were festive and made me happy. I think Justin appreciated my thought and creativity.
I am already planning green saint Patty's pancakes. :)

It was a wonderful 4 days of celebrating. I always love a good reason to celebrate something, but my goal is to do more fun sweet things, just because!

I'll leave you with the most fun sweet thing in our house, The Luc!

Hope you had a wonderful day!

Oh-Christmas-Tree!!

So maybe I'm a little behind but it is only because I have been mourning the end of Christmas. It truly is my most favorite time of year. But I don't want my mourning to interrupt proper documentation of my most favorite time of year. :)

A few posts ago I told you about getting our tree and promised a few pictures of the finished product. This was our first Christmas as husband and wife and we started with 3 ornaments, all from my mom. HA By the end of the season we picked up a few sentimental ornaments for our "homie" tree!!

Justin and I at 6:00 am before leaving on a 10 day vacation. I had a panic moment....
"oh my gosh, we must rig a picture of ourselves with our 1st tree before it gets ugly!"
So here we are....with our HUGE Christmas tree.

This is one of my favorite Christmas items. My family gave this to us. I hope to get the wise men and camel next year.
I love it so much I almost want to leave it out year around. :)

We decided to have a meaningful tree rather than a beautiful tree...although I think our meaningful tree is beautiful. Our hope is that we can add to it each year with things we love or an ornament that sums up something in our year.
This year we knew we wanted a wedding ornament to symbolize our wedding year! This one is a bell shaped like a cake....on one side it says,
"First Christmas Together...." the other side says, " Mr. & Mrs. has such a nice ring to it..."
I thought that was too cute!

We decided to start our tree with lime green and red to jump start our collection and we found this "H" in our themed colors for $1.o0.....woorah!!!

And last but not least my tacky red bird. This is a tradition that was started well before my time but something my parents still do! Our bird started off like this beautiful bird....but is now featherless, beak-less, and is just a site to see. HA
But it holds lots of memories and it is always so fun to see where the tacky white bird is.

The story behind the bird, told my Father.....An old friend of my grandmothers named Ed was what we would call these days a "fashonista". He had a niche for decor and my dad and some buddies came across a tacky white bird and insisted that Ed have it. "He just couldn't, oh he just couldn't!" I assume it was too tacky for his taste, but that was part of the fun! Well the bird went back and forth from my parents to Ed as a joke! Well for Christmas one year the bird came back to my parents and never left and it has been on our family tree ever sense. Strange how traditions come about, but it is one I remember and I knew my family tree HAD TO HAVE A TACKY BIRD!!! I was so proud the day I found it, I text my parents pictures, I knew they would be so proud!

I hope we have many many more traditions to come, I am counting the days until we can decorate for Christmas this year.

Fairwell to Doggie Heaven

Those of you who read often know I am an animal lover. I have one puppy, Lucy that I talk of often. She lives in NC with me. But back home at my parents I have 4 dogs. Today my parents had to make the hard decision to say fair well to one of our dogs.

She was the oldest at 13 or 14, so old no one really remembers but she was given to me by my parents on Valentines Day when I was in 5th grade. I told them I wanted a little puppy that would stay a puppy forever. So they gave me a Yorkshire terrier and I named her Carmel.

After leaving for college and moving to North Carolina, Carmel was old and "settled in her ways" so she stayed in Arkansas with my parents and their pack of 4. She was the smallest in the pack weighing just 7 lbs and wasn't scared of putting our 165 lb. English mastiff in his place. She ruled the roost and let every guest know it as they came in our house she would greet them with a vicious bark and a little nibble at their ankle. ;)

She was a great dog, a fun dog, and a little pup that we will not be forgotten.

Those of you who are pet lovers, you know the heartache that comes along with putting an animal down.

Say a little prayer for my parents tonight as they have a little extra room on the couch and in the bed.

Also, squeeze that four legged pup at your own home and let them sit on your furniture and bend a few rules....one day they won't be around the break them.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Haire's.

We hope you enjoy our our first Christmas card!

Picture taken by Image Forward Photography

Marriage and Compermise (or NOT)

I spoke on my last post about me compromising for a real Christmas tree and I also mentioned an issue that Justin and I were having that I am just not budging on. I'll share hoping that others can relate and make me feel like I'm not a crazy wife, just a maturing wife. :)

From day 1 of this little relationship Justin didn't make his bed with a flat sheet. Nor did I. I was known for actually sleeping on top of the comforter with a quilt. We had multiple discussions about having this in common and making note that we liked it that way. We felt that a flat sheet made things complicated and messy and often made sleeping difficult.

But I have had a change of heart. Is that so wrong? When we got married we got a new bedding set that I love. It looks like an adult bedspread, not something from college. We have nice sheets and I am liking the idea of my bed being made nicely and keeping the comforter clean! Justin could care less....and every night when we straighten the bed he says, "Hey, I have an idea....why don't we just take this sheet off?" He is hoping that one night I say, "YES!" But I just keep responding with,

"We are grown-ups now and grownups sleep with a fitted sheet."

He is so over being "grown-ups!" Is it really worth it? I'm not sure. He really seems to think this is effecting his sleeping. I personally think it is all in his head. I can always replace the set if it is going to upset him so badly, in fact....

that may just be a good compromise.....

No flat sheet=New bedding set more regularly.

SOLD. ;)

We will see what he thinks about that deal!

'Tis the Season for Compromise...

Being married gives you many opportunities to compromise with your spouse.

This year was the first year for Justin and I to decorate and have a tree. I mentioned in my last post that my family came to visit. When they drove out, they packed an artificial tree for Justin and I. See I never had a real tree, we always had fake. Justin, well he always had a real tree.

The moment my parents pulled away, I began to cry. In an effort to distract me Justin mentioned going to the Christmas tree farm to get a real tree. I weighed my options....

1. go to our storage closet, drag out a fake tree.

2. Drive to the Christmas tree farm and pick the "perfect" tree with my husband and then watch him cut it down.

Ding! Ding! Ding! #2 was the winner it just seemed like it had the potential to help us build a number of traditions. However, I hope to someday be fortunate enough to be able to have multiple trees so I can have 1 real and 1 fake tree.

Take a look at our day at the tree farm....

It was a beautiful day and we got to search for the perfect tree....

My husband cutting down our 1st tree. There were men to do the work for us...but he wanted to do it, he even brought his own saw.

The shaking process. They shake out all the dead stuff and wrapped it for us. This was a neat process for me because I had never seen it.

The moment of truth....Will it fit??
It fits, just by a smig. We have done some trimming, decorating, and admiring. We still need a topper and a skirt...then I'll show you the finished product.

I'm happy about this compromise.

Next post I'll be telling you about an on going heated discussion at our house. It happens every day and I'm not ready to compromise.