Today I’m thankful that we were able to get a real frazier fir Christmas tree this year. I haven’t had a real tree since I lived at home, which was almost 10 years ago. I’m also equally grateful that we purchased our tree from TROSA, a substance abuse recovery program. I’m happy to contributes funds to their programs because I think they help give a lot of people second chances, and there’s really nothing better than that.

So we got the tree home and decorated it, and it looks awesome. We were able to retire the artificial tree I’ve been using for the past three or four years. It’s pretty small and scraggly so we lovingly nicknamed it the Charlie Brown tree. Our real tree smells fresh and wintery and it’s much bigger so we had to buy a few extra ornaments. But it looks beautiful and fits perfectly and I’m excited to have it up for the next month. Definitely makes the holidays feel warm and cozy in our new house. For that, I’m thankful.

Today is Thanksgiving, which is my second favorite holiday ever  (my first favorite is Halloween). I love the emphasis on family and good, two things I love dearly! So I have a lot to be thankful for today. I’m thankful that we were able to successfully host our first Thanksgiving meal and that we get to spend this day with my parents, with Nick’s mom, Laura, who is equally as awesome as my parents, and with our little doggies. It was a really great day.

Our First Thanksgiving Spread

As I was making breakfast one morning, this is what I saw out of my kitchen window. It’s Nick and Mia, playing around outside. And it’s one of my favorite things about my life 🙂

We’re all moved in to our house! We unpacked the last box on Sunday. Most everything is in its place and there’s still a lot of work to do to make it ours, but it’s starting to feel like home.

The move itself went pretty smoothly and surprisingly fast.

It took a few hours loading the truck; a special thank you to my parents and Alex for taking the time and helping us get everything into the truck and all of our cars – you guys are awesome, and it took less than an hour unloading it all at the new place; special thanks to my parents, Alex, Reid, Jess, Maria, Karissa and Ryan for gently loading armfuls of our crap inside while we directed them in and out of rooms. Later that night, my mom and I put everything away in the kitchen and were able to cook our first meal in the house: easy chicken and cheese enchiladas. (These are seriously the best chicken enchiladas that we’ve made at home)

Last week we replaced all of the doorknobs with Kwickset SmartKey knobs and Nick replaced a wonky light switch in the office. We bought some little things this weekend, like the organizer trays we put in the drawers in the bathroom, thus freeing up a ton of space on the large counter – which was one must-have feature on our list after living for a year with a teeny tiny bathroom with no counter (we really wanted a double vanity, but you make sacrifices!).

Today the plumber is fixing the drain motor on the dishwasher. I think next on the list is new appliances considering both times we’ve used the oven this week, it’s smoked up our house (the first time causing the ADT alarm to go off) which is super annoying. After that we’ll replace some leaking vent boots in the roof and look into some landscaping in the backyard. We have to get it in tiptop shape for the wedding!

We’re working on getting some good photos up for you guys. But in the meantime:

I got this great little fortune at Pei Wei the night before the move that made me feel very positive about the house and our future. I envision warm summer nights grilling out in our awesome back yard surrounded by our closest friends, laughing about this and that. Now, if only the weather would start to warm up a bit, we could actually do it.