Better to laugh about it...

As most of you know our cats are pretty quirky. Puck is a fantastic cat(/dog) except for the fact that he's hungry all of the time... I mean ALL of the time. Elle has always been our "special" daughter that chases her tail constantly, gets freaked out by any fast movements, and likes to pee everywhere except the litter box when she's mad.

Elle ended up having a UTI about a month ago, so she let me know that she was sick by peeing in our hallway. Okay no big deal -- we cleaned the carpet, and got medicine for her to get better. Wrong. Unfortunately since she peed their once, she decided that she would like to continue going there when she gets mad.

So what makes her mad? Kyle walking in the door, Tyson running or barking, Kyle walking towards her, Puck attacking/chasing her, Kyle talking or moving... I mean you get the point. I guess I raised her to be a 'girls girl' because she just doesn't like Kyle at all.

So we reached our breaking point of hand cleaning the carpet, and felt like we weren't getting to clean deep enough. You guys know cat pee is like the worst smell ever. SO we got serious and bought a BISSELL CARPET CLEANER!

We cleaned our entire house on Sunday afternoon... every room, hallway and staircase. They look incredible and I just love knowing that our carpets have been deeply cleaned. So that solved problem #1. But now that they are clean, I didn't want to risk the chance of Elle peeing in that spot (did I mention it's less than 5 feet from the litter box... I think she does that on purpose like "I'll show you guys").

Let me introduce you to our saran wrap floors:

Okay it's not saran wrap but it crunches like it every time we walk over that place. We taped a drop cloth down over the area with duck tape and painters tape. I'm not sure why but I just couldn't stop laughing while we were doing this. The things we do for the animals.

I think the funniest thing was that the cats wouldn't even walk on it for the longest time... Puck's face in this picture is like "really mom?"So if you come over to our house and see this we might just pretend that we are painting the ceiling or walls in the hallway... but now you know the truth.

Better to laugh about it then get upset:)

Wordless Wednesday: Pajama Day at KA!

Lovely Bones -- girls night!

Last Thursday we headed out after work to go see the new movie, The Lovely Bones. Angela got all of us hooked on the book, so we had been patiently waiting for the movie to come. We went to Thai Diner, a restaurant right next door to the theater in the mall. It was delicious!

Jen and I:

Lacey and Angela:

And then we headed to the movie! It was weird-- just like the book-- but we all really liked it. The previews make it look really scary, but if you've read the book there are no big surprises. Really fun girls night, can't wait for our next one :)

Date Night -- Old Mill and Cantus!

On Saturday, Kyle surprised me with a perfect date night! Each time we try to do something different , in a new area of town and it is just so fun.

We had dinner reservations at The Old Mill Restaurant in Acworth, a little north of our house. It was such a cool place, having only been restored 4 years ago into this amazing building. Click here to see the transformation! The restaurant is about 10 feet max from the train tracks so it was really cool to feel the floor shake as the trains went by. (We have grown to really like the sound of trains as we live so close to the tracks in Marietta)

The inside was so neat, with the high ceiling, old brick and steel beams. This picture is a little blurry, but you can still see how cool it is!
The food was amazing too. We had stuffed mushrooms with crab and shrimp, salads, steak (me) and tuna (kyle)! They were huge portions so we both had left overs that we ate later on in the weekend.

We then had an 8:00 show that we rushed off to on the campus of Kennesaw State University. We had tickets to see Cantus, a male acapella group from Minneapolis. They were all so talented with such control over their voices. I forgot so many times that they had no instruments and instead were just using their voices to make the sounds. Our favorite song they did was called "Your my little potato", sung by my favorite singer out of the group Paul.
We had such an amazing time. Kyle planned a wonderful date night, can't wait for our next one! Thank you sweetie :)

Rainy weekend in Georgia with the Turners

This past weekend our friends Sara and Joe made the trip down to visit us! After making it through the 9 hour car ride (they got stuck in traffic) with their son Ethan, they were ready to have a relaxing weekend. Well....

Saturday we woke up early, made breakfast and played with Ethan for a while then decided to head into Atlanta for lunch at Carolyn's, a sandwich place that Ky and I love. For some reason it was closed. Plan B was to go to Flip Burger, a yummy burger joint but the second Joe and I walked in we knew it wasn't good with a 40 minute line and not so baby friendly environment. Plan C & D were restaurants nearby that were also crowded with a line out the door. Plan E was to eat Willy's Mexican Restaurant that is less than 5 minutes from our house... hahaha now we know to skip Plans A-D and just go straight to E.
Oh did I mention Sara and I dressed like twins on accident:
It rained the rest of the day Saturday so we were held captive inside, but that didn't stop us from making some good meals and having a lot of fun playing Dominos that night.
We also played with Ethan in the bath tub to distract him a little bit before bed time:
Sunday we decided to be brave and try to go hiking up at Amicalola Falls. It's about an hour drive each way from our house -- up closer to the Georgia Mountains. By the time we got there the rain had stopped, but it was too cold for Ethan to do much hiking outside. Kyle and I even bought a poncho (that S&J liked to refer to as "a plastic bag") for Ethan & his carrier... hey at least it made for a hilarious picture.
We walked for maybe 5 minutes outside, saw the top of the waterfall and started the trek back home. We did stop at a BBQ place up there that literally had the nicest waitresses ever.
After we made it home, Sara and I had some girl talk while the boys went mountain biking and drove Levi around for a little bit.

Tyson did really well with Ethan, only growled/groaned a couple of times when Ethan would pull his hair. He was like "WHAT IS THIS THING"?
We ended the night with 2 rounds of scrabble... man we are addicted! Thank you guys for making the long haul down to visit us on a cold rainy weekend. We had a great time!

Tuscan Beef Stew!

Ever since the temperatures dropped I have been craving food that is warm and filling! I am a huge fan of crock pots (I seriously wish I could cook EVERY meal in there) so I tried out a new stew recipe.

It was absolutely delicious so I thought I would share the recipe. Most of the ingredients I already had at my house which was a huge plus too.

Campbell's Tuscan Beef Stew
Makes 8 Servings-- Prep Time: 5-10 minutes -- Cook Time: 8-9 hours (low) or 4-5 hours (high)
1 can Campbells Tomato Soup
1 can Campbells Condensed Beef Broth
1/2 cup red wine or water
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 can diced Italian-style tomatoes
3 large carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning, crushed
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 cans white kidney beans, drained **I am not a huge bean fan, so I think 1 can might have been enough**
(I added 4 potatoes cut up in 1 inch pieces-- what's stew without potatoes?)

1) Mix soup, broth, wine, beef, tomatoes, carrots, Italian seasoning and garlic powder in the Crock pot.
2) Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours or on high for 4-5 hours or until done.
3) Stir in beans. Turn heat to high and cook 10 minutes.

Oh I also wanted to share another wonderful discovery I had last year. I found a coupon for these bags-- SLOW COOKER LINERS by REYNOLDS. So I bought them, but I had no clue my life would be changed for forever. Normally I would have to let the entire pot just soak for hours after we ate and then have to clean it the next day. NOT ANYMORE! You just stick this entire bag inside and fold it around the edges of the pot, cook everything like normal, and after you are done you just throw the bag away. NO CLEANUP! It's amazing! Definitely worth the money!!

Our flights are booked... we're ready to go!

This year is our year to vacation with Kyle's family (We try to plan 2 vacations a year. One week goes with family--so we switch every year between families--and one is just Kyle and I). We are getting so excited! We are going to Telluride, CO for the annual ski/snowboarding trip that's been happening since Kyle was little... you can click here to see what we did in 2008. We booked our plane tickets last night (cheaper than we have EVER seen, plus we had a $150 voucher!), and it worked out where Mike, Kerry, Brad, Kyle and I will all be on the same plane! Unfortunately Kyle's mom and other sister Rachel won't be able to make it this year, but we all might try to go to the beach for a long weekend over the summer!

We are only taking 3 days off, which is perfect since this time of the year we all have so much to get done at work and not that much vacation to take! So we fly out there on Thursday, February 25th and get home Monday, March 1st! Normally we stay at Cuzzie's house (Kyle's dads cousin) when we are there, but this year it's booked so his friend owns a place that we are going to stay in! Did I mention there is a private hut tub here too?

I'm mostly excited because this lodge is located off of Sundance (my favorite run!) so if I get tired and want to warm up inside for a little bit, I'll be able to with no problems!!

WOO HOO we are pumped!

Prayers for my Dad! - *update!

Just got a call from Dad in the hospital and he's in no pain... Praise the Lord! The doctor said that they got a large number of samples for pathology to test and we should know around Tuesday of next week the results. They did find out during the preop that the cells are in his sacrum, not surrounding it like we thought. He should be heading home in about an hour. Please keep up the prayers for benign and favorable test results on Tuesday!!

Original post:
My Dad has been dealing with serious back issues since late this past summer. He had an MRI done last week and it showed an area of abnormal cell activity around his lower spine/tailbone. At 10:00 am this morning he is having a CT-driven needle biopsy to find out specifically what is causing his pain and determine what kind of cells are present. Please pray for a smooth procedure, doctors' wisdom, favorable test results, as well as comfort and peace for our family. I'll update as soon as we know more.

As we head into the testing today, our family is clinging to Isaiah 41:10: "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

Thank you for your prayers for us today.

KA January Launch!

I know I've mentioned we've been swamped at work, but I wanted to show you some of the things we've been working on! Our KA homepage had not been redesigned since before I joined the company, so it was time for an overhaul! We wanted to make it more user friendly, modern, and also change the width to 1024 instead of 800 pixels wide. It's definitely a breath of fresh air! Click here to see it in person!

Out with the old:

And in with the new:

You'll have to go look around the new site. Our product designers launched lots of cute products today as well... click here to see them.

We also completely rebuilt the blog look to match more with our current neutral scheme rather than going SOO pink and orange. ("Kate" was having a hard time having those colors compete with the images she uploaded for her posts).

Old:

New:

We also added inspiration boards and stuff on the blog as well, so hopefully that will help give brides ideas of what will match their favors. Click here to see the blog.

Busy busy! We treated ourselves to Mexican food and Strawberry Margaritas for all of our hard work! Love our team! (and I've finally convinced both Jen and Lacey to start blogs!!)

Jen and I:Lacey and I:

Lazy weekend

So lazy in fact that I didn't even take one picture! So here are the few things we did:

1) We FINALLY got all of our Christmas decorations taken down. Our tree was so dry the branches would literally break every time we took ornaments off... haha.

2) We watched "17 again" with Zac Efron. Dang he is cute.

3) We FINALLY went grocery shopping. I'm going to try my hardest to keep all my receipts this month to see how much we are actually spending on groceries, compared to the number that's in our budget. With all my coupons I normally save about $70 a trip, but maybe I can do more!

4) I worked... and worked. I don't like bringing work home with me all the time (I work to live, not live to work) and the reason why I'm having to do that is all from miscommunication between departments. Lacey and I are having to redo and redo things just because people aren't giving us the correct information the first time. Needless to say it's been a very frustrating couple of months.

5) Kyle packed (he's in Miami this week).

6) Started a new bible study! Chris, Kathleen, Amy, Matt, Jen, Chris, Kyle and I all met last night for the first time to dive into our new study "The Progical God" by Tim Keller. Kyle and I are really excited to be in this group with new friends!

7) Kyle went mountain biking. It was about 10 degrees out and his gears froze, but overall he had a great time.

8) Played LOTS of scrabble. My brother, sister, and Grandma have Kyle and I completely addicted to "Words with Friends" app on the iphone. We all play scrabble against each other at all points of the day and it's really fun.

And that's about it. Very interesting I know. But Sara, Joe and Ethan are coming this weekend and we'll have lots of fun stuff to post then!

Snow in Georgia!

Last night Georgia got some snow (mostly sleet though so lots of ice)! It hasn't gotten above freezing, so most schools are closed and businesses are delayed this morning!
Kyle, Tyson and I ventured outside for a second to get some pics... and this is the one Kyle chose to be on the blog. haha Windchills are 0-4 degrees, so we didn't last long out there!
We are both working from home this morning as we have SO much to do, but it is very nice sipping on hot chocolate and eating cinnamon rolls with each other! Great way to start out the morning!

Baker Christmas

Almost every Christmas when we were growing up was spent with my dad's entire family in Black Mountain where his parents live (we visited there about a month ago... I posted about it HERE). As Grammy and Pop Pop have gotten older we have switched to hosting it in Raleigh because our family keeps growing and it's a lot of work to host everyone. My sister, parents and aunt & uncle live within a 2 mile radius of each other, so it has worked out pretty well. This year everyone was able to make it except Grammy & Pop Pop (they had a bad ice storm and didn't want to leave) and my cousin Matt. You can see how big our group is!
We played a lot of rock hero. I think Nick won the award for best all around performance with Jesse McCartney's song on lead vocals.

Went bowling. Kyle and I helped the twins bowl this year and they did really well!

The guys played some poker. Kyle almost got Nick at the end!

Before Kyle and I left for Boone we celebrated Dad's birthday (Dec. 31st) with monkey bread and a breakfast casserole. Kyle and I gave him a webcam so that he can skype with us and Nick if he wants to!
After breakfast Kyle replaced Mom and Dad's old fan (that was literally hanging by a wire) in the family room, to the new one they had bought with a nice downrod. Nick was his assistant and kept Kyle in a humerous mood. "We're the 3 best friends that anyone could have...."

Tara and I spent some time burning a dvd for Grandma...looking niceeee! Thanks again Tara for your help, AND for letting us stay at your house the entire time!!

Great Christmas, just always lots to do!

Christmas with Kyle's Family!

We headed over to Apex on Saturday to have Christmas with Kyle's entire family. We had a wonderful time opening presents with everyone and getting some time to relax. Everyone gave really thoughtful gifts, and the 4 dogs loved their presents as well. I didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple I snapped while we were there.

Here are Ky's parents with their "mountain man" and "mountain girl" shirts:

While the girls were inside talking and playing cards, the guys were hard at work building Mr. G's workbench. They put it up in no time and it really looked good in the end!
Next project was hanging more lights in the garage and above Mr. G's workbench. Check check check!
Kyle also worked with Mr. G on putting up bead board around his parents eat in kitchen area. I wish we had thought to take a picture of the before, but here is the after! It looks great!
It was so nice to spend some quality time with our family this break. Normally our time that we spend together totals up to 1.5 days max when we're in town, so we were really happy that this time was different! Merry Christmas!

Boonetown over New Years!

Last Thursday morning, Kyle and I headed up to Boone to celebrate our 3 year marriage anniversary and New Years! We were so excited to get up there and have some time to relax since the holidays were so busy. The power had been out from a bad ice storm there for a couple days, but by the time we made it up to the cabin the power was back on.
Picture to document our anniversary!
So when we got in town we rented Taking of Pelom 123 (with Denzel and John Travolta in it-- total guy movie) from the red box and got enough food to last us about a day. We didn't want to spend much time in the grocery store as we wanted to make sure we could make it up to the cabin before dusk. Luckily one of the cabins across the street from ours is a rental so now they are scraping our road (MAN that would have been nice when I was in college!). On one of the steep curves there was some pretty bad mud that we got stuck in, so we had to back down and try another route up. Needless to say I was very happy when we made it inside the cabin!

I had caught a pretty bad head cold from my family (THANKS NICK) when I was home, so the rest of the night we just laid around ate lots of chicken noodle soup.
Friday morning we woke up to no new snow but a little colder weather. We took showers and made a trip into town to get more movies and groceries. Luckily the mud had frozen, so we had no problem getting down or back up. I don't know the last time we've rented this many movies -- we got 500 days of summer, all about steve, and my sisters keeper (I wanted to see that b/c I read the book a while ago). Friday night we celebrated our anniversary with a delicious meal--Flank Steak and Twice Baked Potatoes!!

Literally my favorite food:

Saturday morning we woke up to fresh snow and 10 degree weather. Even though it was freezing out there, it was just so pretty! Tyson gets so spunky in cold weather, he was dragging sticks to us every second.
We took a walk around the neighborhood and even sledded! Tyson was absolutely hilarious as he would chase down/jump on whoever was on the sled until he stopped us completely. It made us laugh so hard.
I was very glad we didn't plan to drive anywhere on Saturday, as we were both unsure whether we could make it back up since everything was ice. We had considered going snowboarding this weekend, but after the freezing temperatures and holiday pricing we decided against it. To end the night we cooked Chicken Parmesan for dinner, YUM!

Sunday morning we woke up to the clock saying that it was 3 degrees outside!! I cleaned the cabin while Kyle worked on getting some of the pipes unfrozen, and then we headed down the icy roads to BLACK CAT! Our friends Molly and Marshal were in town skiing, so we met them for a quick bite. What a wonderful way to end this year. Can't believe 2009 is over, but we are just so excited about all the things 2010 has to bring!