Much Thankfulness

This year I find myself especially thankful. I feel for the things we so often take for granted. Such as calling mom for just the right measurement of flour my cookies may need. Or calling dad for direction on a project. Do I tell Tim how much I love him enough? Do I remind Michael Derek he's the best brother a sister could ever want? I worry I do not. Why? Who knows when our time is cut short? I have seen people around me lose husbands, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers recently. I don't know what those shoes must feel like to wear and my heart goes out to their reality. This holiday season I want to make certain I remind those whom I love just how special they are and just how much I love them. For them being in my life fills me with much thankfulness. 

Progressive Christmas Party 2008

This year we tried something new with our friends. We had a Progressive Christmas Party. We started at our home with appetizers. Then we headed to our friends Isaac and Susie's home where she prepared an amazing eggplant rigatoni and sugar snap peas dinner garnished with baked blue cheese stuffed mushrooms...YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD THESE WERE!!! Thank you Sus! We finished out the evening at Bryan and Ashley's where they had amazing desserts for us! We ended the evening playing White Elephant. We had a really great time with our close friends. Here are a few photos from the evening!

Tim's 30th!

Tim turned 30 December 3rd. We had a family celebration and then went to a Jason Mraz concert on his actual birthday. We took ten of our friends to enjoy the evening at a private table at the Hard Rock Live. We had a lot of fun!!!! Tim had a great time and is as adorable as ever! Enjoy some of our favorite pics!

And a few more....

I just love this soap dispenser...clearly a fan of snowmen! 

Hailey was so exhausted after all the decorating that she had to take a nap. 

So you might be wondering who those people are in our ornament??? What they don't look like us??? Um, yea, we still have to put a photo of ourselves in it. Cute though even-so. 

Our First Christmas: 2008

We went and got our first Christmas Tree as a married couple this evening and decorated it. Tim said the movie theatre opens at 9:30 pm. Tonight's showing is "Love Actually"...aaahhh! Love that movie! We had a great time decorating the tree and standing outside our home staring at the front window in pure excitement and awe at our first tree. Here are some photos of the tree and favorite ornaments that would turn out...I don't have too fancy a camera to capture all my fav's. We love you all and hope you are enjoying the start of your holiday season!

Our Home

We hope you enjoy the photos below of our home. We are still a bit away from being complete, but are really seeing it come together. What I really love is that you can see both of our tastes throughout the house. We have slightly different styles, but have found a way to melt them together. We still have a bit of painting, hanging wall decor/paintings, and figuring out how to best dress certain spaces. We enjoy coming home to our space. We are still working on organizing closets and all our things, but are finally seeing it all come together. My cousin Esther gave my mom and I a bunch of Amaryllis bulbs, so I'll be planting those in the front yard to add some color. Our landscaping is something we have to still work on. We want to plant a garden to enjoy some home grown veges. yay! We hope to have you all over someday! As you can see, we have made beds for you! If you ever want to come to sunny Florida with loving accommodations...bring your family and stay with us!!! We would love to have you!!! I still need to take pics of our master bedroom, master bath, and second bath. We're about to start remodeling the second bathroom. I'll make sure we have before and afters. We're really excited about that project! 

Love you guys! Come visit!!!

Our Home: Part 4

Photo 1: Our backyard (aka...Chloe's playground). Note the shed in the back left. Tim and Ian poured an 8 X 10 concrete slab themselves. Dad, Tim, and Ian put the shed up! I am so proud of how all the projects were done by ourselves. It has been a lot of work, but so fun to see come together. We're still working on the landscaping. Oh Steph, the wine barrel heart is hanging on the beautiful orange tree! 

Photo 2: Our patio. Tim just had the tile put in. He hung the light fixtures. Mom and dad got the patio furniture and swing (its outside the patio in the yard) for us as an engagement/wedding gift. We have really enjoyed this furniture for dinners by ourselves and with friends. I still need to hang better lights around the top. I want to hang the kind of lights that are more of a round bulb...like at Mozzarella's or Macaroni Grill. We love this space for breakfast too. It's great to look out on the yard. The patio looks directly at the tree/floating garden in photo 1 where the leaves are changing colors.

Our Home: Part 3

Photo 1: Small spare bedroom. We still have to work on the window treatments and paint. Currently, the walls are lavender. I absolutely love my antique desk! 

Photo 2: Another view of the spare bedroom.

Photo 3: Large spare bedroom (aka...the blue room). Tim, his mom, and I went through about 7 colors trying to find the right blue. Once placing blue on the walls I was really nervous as blue is a lot to commit to, but just loved the idea of blue walls with crisp coastal white! Oh, I just love this room! It's not complete, but we're near there. Our plan is to put white plantation shutters on the windows and still need a couple accent pillows to complete the bedding.

Photo 4 & 5: Additional Views. The bed is a sleigh bed. You can't really tell. It all looks really beautiful in this room.

Our Home: Part 2

Photo 1: Looking from our family room to the Kitchen. Tim was just starting to remodel his kitchen and master bathroom when we started dating. 

Photo 2: The family room. We just got this entertainment center...it is a bit barren, but we'll get it all together. Note our Wii instruments! Tim and I are in a Rock Band named "Dirty Dog". Chloe was really dirty when we created our band...we're having a great time rockin out!!!

Photo 3: Looking from the entertainment center view to the couch.

Photo 4 & 5: Our Kitchen. Tim did a great job picking out the granite when he was remodeling! I also like the stainless steel appliances.

Our Home: Part 1

Photo 1: This is looking from our Dining Room to the Living Room (still have to paint the french doors and walls)

Photo 2: The piano is what Tim's mom grew up playing. It lives just outside the Dining Room. Our bay window is a work in progress as I'm still working on what to place in it. Tim hung the curtain rod (wink wink...he's awesome around the house).

Photo 3: This is looking from the front door foyer. I should have gotten pics of the bohemian light time hung in the foyer...very cool! Chloe thinks she owns the furry rug! It's her favorite spot in the house!

Photo 4: This is a corner shot of the Living Room. Again, still a work in progress, but certainly coming along. We really need to paint these walls. 

Photo 5: Ahhh...my favorite spot in the house is in the Living Room. I love this faux wall we did. It's called "antique leather" which was the perfect backdrop for my baroque mirror (Tim touched up the paint on the mirror)! We picked out new pillows and really love the feel of this space. 

Stay tuned...more pics to come of the other spaces in our home! 

Thankful in 2008

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! This was our first Thanksgiving being married. We spent the day with my family while Tim's family was in NYC at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. We had a wonderful dinner followed by AMAZING apple pie and a Christmas movie. As you can see the baker behind this amazing pie was my Husbando Del Sol!!! That's right, he can pour concrete, hang light fixtures, cook amazing dinners, wear fancy suits, AND BAKE FROM SCRATCH! He made the whole pie from scratch!!! Needless to say, there was no pie left! We had a wonderful time and hope all our family and friends did too! Much love from our family to yours!

I might like this....

I think I like the Blog.... Now that I am scooting around...Steph, my sincerest apology. I didn't know I copied you on the template. Ugh, sorry bub! How do you customize them? I find myself needing to take lots of pics and catch everyone up on things, but I'm so stuck to the couch. It's like there's velcro on my pj's and I'm just not able to budge. I've had that problem lately...a bad case of lazy-do's. 

Prom 2008: Florida Hospital Gala

Last weekend we had the best time get all fancy for Michael Buble' at the Florida Hospital Gala. We had hope to marry Heather off, but Michael Buble' was no where to be found. We know he has been in dire straights since meeting his true love in Vancouver, but unfortunately, they were not reunited. The gala was beautiful and so much money had been raised for furthering our company's mission, "Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ". I have come to very much enjoy what the gala brings to the community and thankful to join in the celebration. My Husbando del Sol, aka...Tim, had both Heather and I draped on his arms and was clearly very happy to have two great dates! We had a very good time! 

Ode to Blogging

And so the blogging begins. So much has happened and life seems to fly by. Therefore, I am going to follow the lead of my dearest friends and twins, Kera and Kristi! I think this is going to be the easiest way to keep everyone up to date and throw in a few pictures for fun! I always enjoy following their blog site. I hope I can keep this up to date. :) We shall see. I hope this blog finds you well. Much love from The Reiner Casa.