Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

We woke up this morning to find a layer of snow covering outside!! How exciting! Bella had no idea what it was and it was hilarious trying to get her to go outside! We decided to take a walk to check out the neighborhood. How pretty!

After a few awkward steps Bella decided she loves the snow. Here are some action shots!


Our winter house

Thanksgiving as host and hostess

We were brave this year and decided to try to host our first Thanksgiving. My favorite part (of course) was the decorating. My friend Summer and I painted pumpkins and gourds from Halloween gold for the fall season and I used them to decorate the table.



My least favorite part about hosting was cooking such a big bird. The night before I had a medley of dreams about all of the tv shows and movies and commercials about messing up the turkey. I love to host and cook, but the turkey proved to be a new challenge. Thanks to a perfect fool-proof recipe from Dad our turkey was fabulous and we barely even had any leftovers!!

Leaves and Ladybugs

Fall in St. Louis has not been what I remember it being last year. In one weekend it jumped from 80s to 50s!! We still had our share of fall fun, however. Bella LOVES the leaves. We have a few in the backyard and they keep her busy for hours! Below are a few pictures from a walk on our street last week.



Halloween came and went (both Dan and I's least favorite holiday). We dressed Bella as a ladybug and relaxed at home waiting for trick-or-treaters. We had about 25 of them- perfect for the amount of candy I bought. Later on we took Bella the ladybug on a walk and happened upon a Halloween block party that is a well-known tradition in St Louis- just one block from our house! All of the houses on the street decorate and the owners dress up and block off the entrance to the one way street. It was actually pretty fun- and Bella had her share of doggie treats and oohs and aahhs.

Dan has been studying quite a bit as Thanksgiving and finals are approaching, so I have been on a mission to finish the updates on our house. I have a friend from high school visiting this weekend (yay Jolene!), so with that in mind I painted and reorganized the guest bed/office and made a new bedding set for the daybed. For whatever reason it is really relaxing to sit in that room and I love how it turned out!

South Hampton

Soon after moving to the area we picked up an issue of St. Louis Magazine featuring our neighborhood- South Hampton- abbreviated "SoHa." The link below takes you on a "walking trip" of our favorite places to eat and shop- all within two blocks of our house!!!

http://stlouis.about.com/od/neighborhoodscities/ss/Southampton.htm

Our House (is a very very very fine house)

In March 2007, we decided to take the plunge into homeownership. After 8 months of looking at about 200 houses in the area we settled on this one. We absolutely LOVE having our own place. Every weekend we ask eachother "what did we ever do before??" Though we once dreaded the responsibilities we now look forward to learning how to do new things. And learning we have done! Dan installed our bathroom sink and new kitchen appliances and has been a handy electrician. I have spent a lot of time painting all the white walls and tiling- the kitchen floor, the fireplace, and a backsplash! We haven't taken as many before and afters as we'd like, but see below for a few.
BEFORE:



AFTER:










(I realize these pics are sideways and hope you don't get a crank in your neck. I'll fix them soon...)
Thanks for reading!!!

Our First Post (Jenna)

So, I suppose this is what it feels like to finally be a blogger. My only hope is that Dan and I can gleen enough interesting events from our life to fill this page. Perhaps writing here will help us to appreciate the smaller details of our life and learn more about what it means to "keep in touch." Here goes nothing...