365 days in our house!

whoa man. can you believe it's already been a whole year that we've lived in our house? it doesn't feel like it's been that long since we were arguing negotiating with the sellers on the price and then anxiously awaiting all the approval things that have to happen.

lots has happened around the highland project in our first year here. remember what it looked like before we even moved all of our belongings in?

here it is on the outside when we first moved in.

and after 6 months of living here {looks so much better with green on the trees, too!}.

back in august i updated pictures of each room of the house showing our progress so far and i had intended on doing the same for the one year mark, but really not that much has changed since august. but i do need to share a few things we've done here and there.

first, we installed a new storm door on the front of the house. check out the old metal one in the picture above. yuck, right? now look at this beauty.

you can finally see all of my pretty teal door without aluminum blocking the view. and while we were at it we went ahead and installed a peephole {so i can know who's knocking on my door} and switched out the doorbell for a lighted and prettier one.

curb appeal is looking up!

next, we did a little update to our master bathroom. most recently the bathroom looked like this:

and the first thing we set out to do was to install a vent fan and light over the tub.

ta-da!

and as you can see, we painted the room as well {don't worry about those stripes in the picture, they're shadows from the texture of the glass in our light fixture over the sink}. this picture doesn't really show the true color of the paint.

it's much more blue-ish grey, like this:

we also updated all of the accessories in the room which were mostly oil-rubbed bronze, now they're brushed nickel.

quite a while ago we finally painted some chair to have around our kitchen table. oddly enough, they're pretty similar in color to the new wall color in our bathroom, but not on purpose. you can see the chairs around the table here from when austin and i had our little thanksgiving dinner.

and lastly, we got a garage door opener for the second bay in the garage so now austin is able to park inside, too! we got it installed just in time, really, right before it started getting cold enough to have to scrape ice off the car in the mornings.

i think that's about it for changes around the house lately, but we've got big plans for once i'm done with school and working {and getting paid for it-finally!}. i seriously cannot wait to get my diy on in that kitchen!

don't forget you can check out all the new house related posts here and see an entire list of all the projects we've tackled so far and what we've got left do here on the our home page.

also, a very happy, happy birthday to austin. on thursday we celebrated 27 years of austin by going to dinner at urban stack with some of his family.

p.s. don't get the mint chocolate chip milkshake at urban stack unless you like really gross, liquidy milkshakes that taste like leaves.

20th anniversary.

last weekend, austin's fraternity celebrated the 20th anniversary of the founding of their chapter. and in order to celebrate this milestone, they had a big dinner party with a band and everything. of course, the best part about it was seeing all of our friends back in town. lindsy and rj came in and stayed with us for the weekend and it's always so much fun when they're in town.

we got to get all dressed up and take pictures, as usual.

and then, we danced. on the front porch. with the neighbors watching and all.

the dinner was held at lindsay street hall and was so fun. and we saw so many of our friends!

pretty girls {and yes, i stole this picture from facebook. thanks, erin!}

so, yeah. pretty much an awesome weekend. can't wait to do it again soon!

2013!

so, hey. it's 2013 now. has been for a day. and since austin and i actually got together with bri and josh for new year's eve i thought i would share a few pictures from the night.

and just because i never really made a post about our christmas decorations/tree/allthatjazz, a quick look at how our house was decked out for the holidays.

you can see the three ornaments we've picked out for each married christmas starting with the wedding cake ornament for 2010, the heart ornament for 2011, and our first christmas in our new home ornament for 2012. i like this little tradition of having an ornament to kind of represent the biggest thing that happened during that year.

so. anyway, happy 2013!

2012 wrap up.

whoa man. can you believe today is the last day of 2012? and to think, we were all told we'd never make it past the 21st. just like past years, here's a recap of the year in my life/blog.

apparently the month of january was less than eventful. but the year did start off with champagne, so... no compaints.

in february we bought a house. kind of a big deal.

read all about our house projects here and check out our checklist here.

we also celebrated austin's birthday in february.

march was somewhat uneventful too. work on the house, go to school, work on the house.

we got lots of work done on the outside of our house in april when momma and my timmy came to see us!

and miss juliet turned seven!

school's out for summer in may. which, of course, meant more work on the house.

june is always a good month. this year kasey came to visit.

i blogged everyday through wedding week 2012 leading up to our second wedding anniversary.

austin and i took a little trip back home in july to visit the family.

dad and robin came out to tennessee to see our new house in august.

and lindsy and katie surprised me by coming in town for the adpi beta beta house opening. bri came, too!

september was a fun month, too. austin and i took a trip to gatlinburg!

you guys know my favorite month of the year is october. always. austin took me camping and i wore lots of camo.

and he made me a cake!

we did the usual thanksgiving thing in november.

and obviously december was full of christmas, family, and friends.

so that's that. 2012 in summary. i'd say it was a pretty good year. but i have to say i've got a lot to look forward to in 2013. big things. like graduation. and a job.

p.s. here you can see my year-end posts from 2010 and 2011.

happy holidays.

i know it's already after christmas, but i guess i just got too busy/forgot to post the 2012 edition of our holiday card for you all to see.

so here it is:

hope you all had holly jolly christmases!

you can see our 2011 christmas card here and our card from 2010 here.

holiday happenings.

austin and i just got back from a big trip to virginia to see my family for the holidays. but first, we started with a few christmas celebrations here in tennessee.

austin and i did our christmas gift exchange on the 22nd, just the two of us. and juliet, of course.

on sunday, we actually hosted austin's family for the first time for christmas lunch. i pulled some red and green stuff together from around the house in attempt to create a christmas-y table.

after that, we headed over to ben's house where their family always has the heards over for christmas dinner.

then on christmas eve, we crammed everything in to packed the car to head to virginia. we arrived just in time for dinner at tim's sister's house. and then later on that we went to see my dad's side of the family.

{i don't know why we continue to take group pictures in this terribly lighted room... next year i'll try to remember to set up elsewhere}.

christmas day started with lunch at mom's with the whole gang.

followed by some target practice.

and more food at robin's parent's house. and i got to see my cousin jj who i haven't seen in forever because she moved to california!

{please ignore my frizzy hair from being outside shooting guns all day}

the rest of the week in virginia was spent just hanging out with my family, going bowling, out to eat, and finally watching the twilight series. don't judge. i just felt like i needed to see what i have been missing out on. spoiler alert: not much.

it was so good to see all of my family for the holidays. hopefully i won't have to wait an entire year to see them all again!