aye matey

Aye Matey! We spent the Halloween weekend up in Lafayette with family and friends. We headed up and stopped by Matt's mom's, my mom's (where we were entertained with my niece's choreographed dance haha), and then made our way to dinner at Outback with our friends Lauren and J Dan.  It was so awesome getting to spend time with them at dinner. It seemed like it had been way too long since we all got to hang out.  There are always lots of laughs when we all get together. After dinner, we went to a Halloween party at Troy and Ashley's house! We got all dressed up at pirates which was hilarious.  Matt was loving being a pirate :)

On Sunday, we went over to the Hills' to visit with Matt, Ashley, and Madi! Madi gets cuter every single time I see her.  She always has new tricks (ok not tricks, but you know what I mean) and milestones she is hitting.  I love it. She is the sweetest baby girl.  

On our way out of town, we stopped for lunch and then made a quick (yeah right) stop at Lowe's.  We have been talking about getting new ceiling fans and light fixtures for the house and I guess being so close to Lowe's sparked our motivation.  Luckily, Matt's mom met us there after she got off work because she helped pick out the new lighting system for our kitchen.  Right now we have an ugly ceiling fan and Matt is going to install a new light which will really brighten up the whole kitchen. We also grabbed a new ceiling fan (with a light) for our bedroom (the old one doesn't have a light and is stuck being turned on...no way of shutting it off), 4 lighting fixtures for the upstairs bedrooms (which do not have any kind of ceiling lighting) and 2 replacements for the hallways which are now yucky gold.  I am SO excited to see the final product.  Stay tuned for the progress!

26

Today is the 26th birthday of a very special person.

 26 things I LOVE about my amazing husband...in no particular order :)

1) you make me smile and laugh more than anyone else I know...daily occurrence

2) you are so devoted to our relationship and marriage

3) tall. dark. very handsome :)

4) I trust your opinion more than anything 

5)  I love the way you love me...I am the luckiest girl in the world

6) you can be on the same level as our nieces and nephews during playtime, but then talk theory and business with the best of them the next minute 

7) your cooking is the bomb

8) the way you look on the Harley

9) I am the most comfortable with you

10) you once told me I looked cute as I ran out of the house in workout pants, a sweatshirt, and a Purdue hat

11) you would do anything for me, your family, or your friends

12) the little things make you happy

13) you are my "Mr. Fix-It"
14) your laugh. oh I love it.  you can be laughing at the dumbest thing, but I can't help but laugh just as hard simply by hearing you
15) you are my protector. I feel so safe with you.
16) family man
17) dog whisperer...how do you do it?
18) the way you preventively hold down my arm and cautiously come close in to give me a kiss "good-bye" in the morning while I am still asleep (so I don't accidentally whack you in face or mess up your hair which seems to be the norm with me)
19) our conversations while you are talking in your sleep
20) I am so very excited to see you as a father to our children someday
21) you know me so well...like creepily well...and I love it
22) you will watch my brainless shows with me (Hello Real Housewives!)
23) you are my very best friend in the entire world
24) I know I can always depend on you for anything
25)  your surprises
26) everything...I could not ask for more :)

Happy 26th Birthday to the best husband in the world!

vanity before and after

We made a trip to Lowe's on Sunday.  Oh how I've missed that place.  We visited there at least once a week in the midst of moving/remodeling our home.  We've taken a much needed hiatus from Lowe's, but I was feeling the pull back there.  We decided to re-paint our awesome find of a vanity that has been sitting in our garage since the middle of summer.  It was back in July when we had been taking a drive in the neighborhood (mainly just to annoy my friend Abby who really wanted to just get back to the house, but when Matt is driving there is never a dull moment) and found the perfect piece.  

We had talked about buying a vanity for our bedroom for me to get ready.  I wanted a vanity with drawers all the way down the sides and a spot in the middle for me to sit.  On our casual cruise around the neighborhood, we passed a pile of furnuitre by the sidewalk in front of a neighbor's house with a "free" sign.  Amidst the rubble, I found my dream vanity.  It was perfect.  All it needed was some sanding and repainting and it would be my vanity.  We loaded it up into the back of Byron (Matt's buick) and brought it back to the house. We stuck it up against the wall and that is where is stayed...for months.

Riding home in the trunk with my beauty

Vanity before...

Matt actually brought it up this weekend.  He said we might as well wait until next Spring to re-paint it since it was starting to get cooler.    That was until Sunday rolled around and we couldn't be in the house any longer.  A trip to Lowe's and some new-found motivation brought us to this...

A little demolition to take out the middle shelf...more room for my legs

Before

We took all the shelves out, sanded them and the rest of the vanity, and then wrapped them in newspaper so we could get to work with the spray paint.

The pretty grey color

The master at work :)

he's so cute

And now for the finished product.  We carried the vanity upstairs after it dried.  We had talked about making the area an entire place for me to get ready.  Matt talked about getting a big mirror and some vanity lighting for the wall.  He even wanted to do a dimmer switch for the light so I could adjust it.  I thought it would be awhile before this all was completed.  Well, I came home from teaching my class on Monday afternoon to this...

ALL DONE!

Isn't he fantastic?! He had to get up in the attic to do some re-wiring for the light which involved disassembling the closet system (which was fixed when I got home too). All that is left to do is for me to fill the drawers, get my little mirror up on the top, hang hooks on the adjacent wall to hang my blow dryer and straightener, and get all my hairspray and other getting-ready goodies on the top.

I LOVE the way it turned out.  I spent some time looking on Pinterest (my new found obsession) searching for a good color for the vanity. It turned out exactly the way I wanted.  We may even go search for some cool knobs to put on the drawers.  Right now there is a little nook under each to open, but it will spruce it up a bit if we add knobs.  One man's trash is another's treasure!  

I am very proud that we got it done!  Go Team Dunn!

update

I am a little slow on the blogging.  It's times like this that a nice little hodge-podge of updates will do.

Here's whats going on these days around the Dunn household...

*Matt is loving his job as a supervisor at UPS.  His hours are weird, but it allows us more time together which is awesome.  He goes in at 2 am on Monday and then 4 am Tuesday through Friday.  Gets off by 10 am on Monday and 12 noon Tuesday-Friday.   Weekends and holidays off.  He is loving the type of work and is doing a great job at it.  Minimal stress and no need to bring work home..the best part :).

*We are slowing down in the NICU.  This Spring and Summer we were steady at 65-75 babies and the need for us to work overtime was high.  I worked a ton of overtime all Summer and am finally getting a break.  We are down to 45-55 babies right now.  Still a lot, but low for us.  It is nice though to give nurses a chance to have a day off if we don't need all nurses on that shift that day.  A much-deserved breather.  I feel like we can all rejuvenate and get ready for the next blast of busyness.   I am still loving my job.  I actually got the chance to do some new employee orientation in the past couple months.  I oriented a new Student Nurse and also a new Registered Nurse for a couple days.  I really love teaching and orienting new people to the unit.  Just like I love having students follow me.  

*I have been getting some great experiences teaching BodyPump.  I have my class every Monday and then I have been subbing at least one class/week.  This past week, I accidentally offered to teach 2 classes in one day...one at 9:30 am and the other at 5:30 pm.  Whoops. It's such an awesome hobby to have.

*Jax is as cute as ever.  I told Matt the other day that I love him more and more every day...he looked at me like I was crazy.  I don't know what I would do without a dog.  I never really thought I wanted one, but now that we have him I can't imagine not.  We almost got another dog a couple months ago, but I am glad we didn't.  I would love for Jax to have a buddy, I'm sure he'd be so happy, but I just don't want to do that whole training thing all over again.  Plus, we don't need the added expense right now.  So I guess I'll just stick to being his best friend :)

*We got sucked into an "Extreme Couponing" marathon today.  This show is crazy.  It makes me feel inadequate as a shopper.  I've used coupons before, but nothing like these people.  Their "stockpiles" are impressive and the money they save is insane.  A lady on there bought $906 worth of groceries for only $25...which was the tax and that is it.  This other lady had 31 separate transactions just to save more money.  I can't imagine being that cashier.

*I am not excited for Winter, cold weather, or snow...but I am excited to decorate for Christmas.  It's been an off-year for me as far as seasonal decorating.  My favorite season to decorate for is Fall. I tried to decorate for Fall, but Matt put all the decorations up in the attic one day and I don't feel like bugging him day after day to get it down.  So no Fall decorations this year.  I blame the move. 

*I love our house.  It becoming a home and I love it.  We are doing little projects here and there and checking things off the to-do list.  I'll post on our latest project this week.  

*I am super excited that my friend Abby is coming to visit in November.  She booked a last minute plane ticket to come up for the Purdue vs. Ohio State game.  Good ole' West Lafayette fun :)  Our other friends from nursing school, Amy and Kylie, are able to come too! A lot of our friends are going to be there as well. It will be so fun to get everyone together!

*I love watching all the babies grow.  A lot of girls at work have had babies and I love seeing their updates.  I especially love watching Madilyn grow.  It's so fun to have a best friend have a baby. My friend Ashley is such an awesome mom to baby Madilyn.  She is getting so big!  I need photo updates at least daily :).

I love the feeling that everything is slowing down and we can spend more time just "being".  It's fabulous :)

all dressed up

These pictures are a little overdue.  They are from our friends Tracy and Sarah's wedding at the end of September.  I saw the pictures on the computer so I had to post! I was a bad picture taker that night...I didn't even get a picture of the beautiful bride and groom together!  So unlike me.  They looked amazing and the wedding was so much fun!  It was like a high school reunion which was awesome. It is fun to see our friends getting married...the next batch is right around the corner hopefully!

Tracy waiting on his guys to get into position

My super handsome hubby behind Tracy...I love seeing him dressed up in a tux!

My partner in crime for the night :) it was a good good night

Hill brothers

Getting a good picture is impossible when we get these boys together...

I can't stop laughing every time I look at Matt's face on the left...click to enlarge for the full effect

Try # 2...nope

Just SMILE!

trying to whip him into shape while he is still goofing off :)

better

<3

promotions and settling in

A couple weeks ago, Matt was promoted to a Supervisor position at UPS!  I actually thought I had already blogged about all this, but since I haven't here's a belated update...

His bosses at UPS saw something in him from the very first day he interviewed.  They asked him what his thoughts were on management at some point while working at UPS during his first interview.  I guess everyone else sees in him what I do :).  He rocked it out his first couple weeks there and he was getting more attention from his superiors.  They made comments to him almost nightly about how they thought he belonged in management and how good of an employee he was. He was even mistaken for an under cover corporate member at one of his trainings because he "looked the part".  After a couple weeks, his supervisor approached him with an application for the management program and encouraged him to apply.  After much debate, we decided it was a good step to apply.  He applied for the position and waited.

Matt started to catch wind about lay offs coming for drivers some time soon.  With him being the lowest man on the totem pole, he would have been the first one cut.  He got a phone call from the district manager one afternoon asking him to come in for a meeting.  At first, we were both so excited since we believed this could be a meeting about the management application.  Once he got there, Matt texted me after he remembered the news about the lay offs.  We were both pretty sure he had been called in to be laid off that day instead of talking about management.  The high turned very low.

A couple hours later, I got a phone call once he was done with his meeting.  After making it sound like not-so-great news, he surprised me with the news that he had been promoted to a supervisor!  I am so proud of him.  This is exactly where he is supposed to be right now.  He already has all these ideas of ways to improve things at work.   The hours are a little funny right now, but we see each other way more and even get to have dinner together some nights :).  It's been such a long time since we could do that!  

We are finally getting settled into the house.  The walls finally have some stuff hanging on them and we even hosted our first get-together this weekend. The Mays and Marandos joined us for an awesome night out by the fire with pizza and a late night soak in the hot tub :).  It was so awesome to get to hang out with them and to catch up on everything.  I can't wait for more fun nights in our back yard with friends.

I'm settling in to my new side job as well....teaching BodyPump.  It's still going really well and I absolutely love being a part of the team.  I love getting up there and teaching.  I love motivating others to get stronger and get in shape.  My favorite time is talking with the participants after class and really making relationships with them.  This Saturday is the Quarter 3 launch!  We have 4 launches a year with the new release-new music and new choreography that we make big plans for and put on a good weekend.  I am actually getting to be part of launch this time! I teach with another instructor on Saturday at 9 am.  Our theme for this launch is Go Pink! for breast cancer awareness month so we got super cute tanks made to wear.  Matt and my mom are actually coming down to do launch with me. I am really excited to see if any of my Monday regulars come on Saturday :)

it's done!

Our kitchen that is! It's finally DONE! This has been such a long process and a lot of hard work, but I am so amazed and happy with the final product.  The original plan was to have the kitchen completely done by the time we moved in.  What were we thinking?!   

Please refer back to here for how the kitchen looked before our remodel and which products we chose :).

In a condensed story...

First we ripped everything out.

Then we installed the new cabinets.

And sanded, primed, and painted.

Next we had our new countertop and sink installed.

Then we installed all the trim molding, baseboards, soft close function, and door/drawer pulls.

This past weekend, Matt installed our new over-the-range microwave.

And now it's done!

And I LOVE it!!

LOVE

We added this entire section in. There used to be nothing in this corner. The previous owners put a table and chairs in this spot.

I love how this whole thing turned out.  We had to move up the top cabinets a bit to be able to fit in a microwave above the stove.  I guess the microwave installation was a pain (I conveniently had to work when he installed it). Matt had to rearrange siding on the outside of the house and rewire and do something with spray foam? to get everything to fit in and work.  Gotta love him.

Love having a window in the kitchen above the sink

Complimentary cutting board to match our counters.  We were so worried about these countertops.  We actually weren't even 100% sure that we even liked it when we picked it out.  It just matched everything best.  I absolutely love it though and think it was the best possible choice!

We got free special edging and chose the "large ogee" whatever that means...

My beloved pantry!!

SINK! LOVE this.  It's a 70/30 sink.  The right side is perfect for thawing stuff.  I've never had a sink this big or deep.  It's amazing.  The faucet on the left is filtered water!

Just a random picture of my favorite candle to put in the kitchen.  It makes it smell exactly like a fresh-baked donut in there! :)

Close-up on the Mocha Granite