Birthday Boy

So Thursday is Brandon's birthday. As of yesterday this became is "Birthday Week". He thinks that we should celebrate his birthday all week long. Conveniently the birthday boy has his birthday week off. His office is closed President's Day and they give all their employees a day off for their birthday, so Brandon decided to take the other 3 days off this week. So his birthday present to himself is the week off. Friday night we are going out with family for his birthday.

Saturday I have a surprise little trip planned for us. He HATES not knowing what is going on. He is a planner and loves to find restaurants for us to visit. But this trip is a secret. Everyday he tries to trick me into telling him where we are going, but I am keeping my lips zipped. While we are gone Bella Rose will be staying with her Granny. She enjoys staying there because her Granny spoils her rotten. Pretty much anything she wants, she gets. So we will have a little diva coming home with us when we return on Sunday.

I will leave you with a few pictures of where Brandon has guessed we might be going.

Greenville, SC

Asheville, NC

Shelton Vineyard
Dobson, NC

Exciting News!

We are going to have a nephew! I am sooooo excited. We found out a few days before Christmas that Amber and Andrew are having a little boy. We can't wait for him to arrive. Hudson Reid is going to be one spoiled rotten little boy! Brandon and I are already thinking of things that will make lots of noise that he will need as he gets a little older!

Amber and Andrew had a gender reveal party a few days before Christmas. This is what we all saw when Amber and Andrew unwrapped their present that had the gender in the envelope.

New York

Over Thanksgiving we took a trip with my sister and brother-in-law to NY. We had a WONDERFUL time. We left Thanksgiving day around 7:00am. After arriving in NY around 9:30 our 2 day mini vacation began. We definitely saw almost everything there is to see in NY in 2 days. We had a wonderful time talking, laughing, and just hanging out together. We ate at some delicious places and even had to take a subway around 9:00 one night for a visit to Gray's Papaya, the boys just had to have it. Here are just a few pictures from our trip.

Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge.


In front of the BEST pizza place in the world, in Brooklyn.


This is how we felt after walking 40-50 blocks. We were told it was just a little bit further, 40-50 blocks later we arrived.


Brandon and me in front of the Christmas tree and ice skating rink.


In front of Ground Zero

Weekend Recap!

So this past weekend was a pretty busy weekend at the Tipton house. Brandon had the day off Friday so he began rocking a grill area he built last year. It took him a total of 2 days to rock the entire area and build a door, but it turned out great. The door is still not finished. We have to stain the door and get a handle to put on it. I think he did a wonderful job! Here is a picture of the project.



Brandon and I found this cute sign at Michael's yesterday. It was 40% off! Can't beat that!


My mom found this chair at the Habitat store. When she bought it, it was painted white and had a super old cushion on it. I painted it black, Brandon used some sand paper to ruff it up, and I covered the cushion. I think this chair turned out great and I love it for my front porch. We have a small front porch, so it was the perfect size.


My mom bought us some orange mums to help celebrate fall.


I have had these pictures for a long time. I just never bought frames for the larger ones. Well I decided this weekend was time to hang them up. These pictures are by Brian Andreas. I absolutely love his pictures and all of the neat sayings they have on them.


We found this wreath in a Martha Stewart magazine. We changed it up a little by putting spiders and an orange bow on it. We are still going to add some snakes to it to make it a little more Halloween like!

A Most Memorable Trip with the Tiptons

So a few weeks, maybe months, ago Brandon and I went Kayaking with his mom, dad, sister, cousin Julie, cousin Lauren, and her husband Scott. Well, this girl has never been kayaking before, EVER! So I had no idea what to expect. I was so nervous about the experience. Once we got there and got started we had a great time. My father-in-law and sister-in-law were out of their kayak more than they were in it, which made for good laughs! I just thought I would share a few pictures from this most memorable day.

On our way to kayak, all we heard from Ashley was how she was going to buy herself a kayak. After falling out of her kayak numerous times and having to receive help getting out of the water to be shuttled back, she hasn't mentioned much about purchasing her own kayak!


Professional!


This is after he fell in the water and we had to wait on him for over an hour to figure out how to get himself back in the kayak!


Brandon's self portrait.


Just sitting back and enjoying the view!


The whole gang!

Back to School

It is so hard to believe, but I only have 7 more weekdays off before I return to school. I have really mixed feelings about it. Part of me is excited about getting back in a routine and working again, but another part of me is going to definitely miss the sleeping in, lazy days, and doing anything I want to do. Wednesday I am going to school to work on my room so I am going to post some pictures of what my room will look like this year. The beginning of the year is so crazy and so much of our workdays are taken up by other things we need to do. So hopefully Wednesday I will get everything where I want it and all of my things back up on the walls. Pictures soon!

DIY

A few posts ago I made a TO DO list for myself for my last few weeks of summer. I have checked off 2 things on my list and completed a lot of things that were not on my list. I made myself a coupon book, which I LOVE because I can see my coupons so easily and I completed my jewelry boards! I made 2 jewelry boards, a picture board for school, and a board I can use to hang memos on at school. So here are a few pictures of my completed project.

I bought a pack of 4 cork boards, 4 individual pieces of super cute fabric for $1.00 each, brown ribbon, and clear push pins.



Here is the first jewelry board in the works!



The completed jewelry board!



My picture board for school!



Making these jewelry/picture/memo boards was so super easy! I actually got the idea from another blogger. I thought they were the perfect things to hold all my jewelry and I can easily see all of my options!