NHL All-Stars Superskills Challenges

Kyle and I stayed in town this weekend again, which is always a treat getting lots of sleep and projects completed around the house. Our first project was turning Tyson into a rapper...
haha okay not really but we thought it was hilarious Saturday morning.

As for recent news, Kyle and I have decided to give Nick my 4-Runner. He fits perfectly in it, and it will be a perfect car for what he needs! Kyle and I went car shopping Saturday afternoon, and test drove different kinds of cars in our price range. We are hoping to find a Volvo S40, so keep your fingers crossed!
Saturday night Kyle and I were given tickets to the NHL all stars super skills challenges, by Warren. Kyle had a smile on his face the entire time, and it was a lot of fun to see all the players with their helmets off having a good time.
It was actually a couple different contests that they all competed in: fastest skater, young stars game, hardest shot, elimination shootout, breakaway challenge, and obstacle course. Kyle's favorite player, Eric Staal from the Hurricanes and his brother were both there which was fun to watch.
Sunday we went to church, then came home and REPAINTED our master bathroom. I originally painted it last weekend while Kyle was in Colorado, and afterwards HATED IT. We both are still unsure about this color, so we are leaving it on for a little while to see. I also painted and REPAINTED our guest bedroom last weekend when Kyle was away. If you can't tell by now last weekend wasn't the best on Leah's productivity scale :( I am terrible at picking out Yellows and Greens unfortunately, and we can't seem to find a color that matches the comforter AND looks good on the wall.

and .... MORE SNOW!!

It snowed for a couple more hours on Saturday. Tyson doesn't even seem to notice it, except when he'll shake his head to get the snow off of his Frisbee or new red toy!

I caught him before he shook it off!

Pretty red berries showing through the snow:

First Snow in Marietta for the Guenthers!

Yesterday afternoon, snow began to fall in Marietta! It didn't amount to very much, but it was still very pretty coming down in big flakes! Kyle wasn't here to enjoy it, but Tyson and I sure did!

What we are up to during the week!

Over Christmas Kyle and I went in one of those photo booths to get the strip of pictures taken.... A first for us. Laughed hysterically the whole time.

I read the books "A Memory Keepers Daughter" and "Kite Runner", both of which are from the NY Times Best Sellers list. I hated both! Reading is an outlet for me, something I do when I relax... Not to read about terrible things happening to people. All around A Memory keepers Daughter was just boring, and a sad story.
The Kite Runner was interesting, but focuses on a terrible events that happen to children and for me was really hard to keep reading.
On a lighter note, I also read "The Choice" by Nicholas Sparks, one which I would definitely recommend to anyone. I love him!
Kyle started school last week, and is really excited about it. His classes are Wednesday and Thursday from 6 to 8:45. There are a couple people in the class that like to hear themselves talk and try to prove the teacher wrong, but all around Ky thinks he is going to learn a lot during this MBA program.

Last week while Kyle was in class both nights, I decided to take on painting our hallway upstairs. It didn't take too long at all! This weekend when Kyle is gone, I am going to try and paint our Master & Bath, as well as the Guest bedroom and bath. So we'll see how that goes!

Kyle heads to Colorado on Thursday to go on a snowboarding trip with his bromance partner, Marshal, and a couple of Marshal's friends. They are going to travel around to a couple different resorts, and are thrilled about. I'm sure I'll post pictures when he returns on Monday.

Last night we had a date night, went out to O'Charleys (we both LOVE the soup there) and then went to see the Great Debaters. We both love Denzel Washington, and Oprah actually produced the movie. It was good and had a happy ending, but based in the time of slavery, so some parts are hard to watch. Okay so that's about all the updates I'm done now!

Apex Birthday weekend!

This weekend Kyle, Tyson and I traveled to Apex for Pop's 95 birthday and Mrs. Guenther's birthday! We ended up not driving there until Saturday morning, since we both had had long weeks at work and Kyle started school last week. Saturday afternoon we played the annual Guenther football game. The teams were as followed: Mrs. G, Kerry, Rach, and Ky. Then Mr. G, Mike, Brad, and me. Ky's team won, but we all had a good time playing. Saturday night we all went out to dinner to Kabuto, a Japanese Steakhouse where they cook right in front of you. It was absolutely delicious like always, and Pop kept thanking all of us for coming to celebrate his birthday.

Pop, Rach and Mike:

Kyle and I:Mrs. G, Mr. G, Kerry and Brad:Blowing out his candles:

We came back and opened presents for Pop and Mrs. G. Sunday morning we all had a brunch to celebrate Mrs. Guenther's birthday, and then headed out of town.

Here she is modeling a new coat that Kerry gave her:

We stopped by Lauren's townhouse to pick up my dress for the wedding, which is WAY to big and is going to need some major alterations! We also stopped by Chapel Hill on the way home and took Nick out to lunch and got a chance to see all of his new snowboarding gear! It was great to see everyone we did, and we had a great time spent with family.

Notice anything different?????

See how observant you really are! AHHH!!!

Around the house weekend

Since we both have head colds right now, Kyle and I stayed around the house most of the weekend. Kyle went to bed at 7:45 pm Friday night and woke up at 10:30 Saturday morning, SO he had some energy on Saturday. We took down Christmas, ran some errands and our last stop was Home Depot! Kyle traded in some little gifts that he had received and bought an air compressor and 2 nail guns! He is so excited, and ready to do more projects around the house now!

Compressor & nail guns:

Kyle put up his new stool so he can finally sit while he works down there!

We also got our new desk primed and painted, that is going in our office. We still have to get glass for the top of it, make the shelving for the other side, and put some feet on it, but it's coming along.
I organized the office closet to be my craft closet, taking it all out of the guest bedroom closet finally!
We then put shelves in the guest bedroom closet, so we could store some of our linens there. So when you come visit you'll actually have a place to store your clothes! YEAH!

Sunday night Kyle and I started the "n-weds biblestudy"! It stands for nearly & newly weds. We have been trying to make it for forever, and it finally worked out where Chris and Kathleen could go with us. There is an hour of fellowship and dinner, then an hour of talking/learning. We had such a great time, meeting a lot of great couples, and are so excited about getting involved with our church. It is every other Sunday night, so hopefully we'll be able to make most of them! Kathleen and I also signed up for a girls night next week within the church for all ladies in their 20's to learn organizational tips in our homes (one of the ladies who I really like from n-weds is teaching it).... right up my alley :) Anyways, a great way for Kyle and I to start off the new year!

Christmas Goodies and Good Friends!

This year for Christmas Gifts I decided to do something home-made for our friends, since we have a lot of expenses from the office and school to pay for. I came up with the idea to bake goodies, put in a box, and then attach the recipe to the top. Sounds easy, but leave it to me to make it complicated! I found these cool red envelopments to slide the recipe cards in, but they were $3.00 each - which was too much on the Leah scale. SO I made my own :)

And they slip inside:

I bought one sheet of thick red paper and cut to make my own... Which came out to be about 15 cents each! I then went to work and made & printed my own recipe cards and Merry Christmas stickers to put on the envelope. I tied some brown raffia around the card and held it with the stickers I printed!
Kyle and I made peanut butter haystacks for everyone, and put some shredded paper around to help them not bounce around. I found these cute boxes at a local art store, which came out to be a little less than $1.00 a box (that was the most expensive part). Decorate the outside of the box with raffia strands and you get a home made gift for around $2.50 each! I really enjoyed doing this and getting to be creative in this way, so I thought I would share!
Usually Kyle and I never get to visit that many friends when we travel to Raleigh or Charlotte on trips. This break we actually had time to see a handful of friends, which was a nice change! One night we were able to go over for dinner at Bobby and Lara's new townhouse. They just got married about a month ago, so we got to hear all about their honeymoon and funny memories of the wedding. We also got together with some of Kyle's good girl friends from high school. Katie Sayre, and fellow ASU grad, is actually in the Peace Corps now volunteering in Albania. She has some crazy stories and it was great to see her for her short time home over break. We also got to visit with Michi, during her break from PA school at Wake Forest University, which is always a blast! We all went out for some coldstone icecream!

Katie's sister, Laura, Katie, Michi, and Kyle:

We also got to finally visit with Sara, my best friend since age 6 and her husband Joe. They hadn't seen Kyle since our wedding, which is completely nuts. We went over to their house for dinner, and had a ball as usual. While Sara and I talked the guys played guitar hero 3 which Kyle and I don't have yet. Needless to say it was very entertaining watching Joe dance to each song and Kyle only talk when he wasn't strumming. The night went by way too fast, and hopefully we will all spend a weekend together soon. We miss you guys more than you know!

On the 31st we drove over to Charlotte to spend the day there with friends. I dropped some goodies off to my old co-workers at Sports Business Journal. When I walked in the security guard screamed "You're back! You're back!!" ha which was very sweet. We then headed over to Molly & Marshal's place to visit with them and eat lunch that they had picked up. Marshal and Kyle leave to go on a snowboarding trip together to Colorado in a little over 2 weeks (MLK weekend). They are both so excited, that's all they can talk about! Next, we headed over to my friend Tiffin's townhouse and visited with her and her boyfriend Matt. Tiffin just moved into her beautiful townhouse a couple months ago and she already has all of her boxes unpacked! Her scrapbooking/craft room is unbelievable with all of her stuff, looks right out of a magazine!
Our last stop was to Cory's townhouse in Huntersville. Cory was Kyle's boss at Irwin, and they became good friends. We finally got the chance to meet Cory's girlfriend, Mada, who is super sweet, and hang out with both of them for the night. Cory bought HUGE steaks and HUGE baked potatoes for us for dinner, and then Mada baked a cake for us for dessert. Since they didn't see Kyle and I on our wedding anniversary, they decorated the cake with the exact number of days that Kyle and I have been married. It was very thoughtful of them!

Cory & Mada:

We woke up the next morning and headed home to Marietta. We are very glad to be home now and sleep in our own bed with all of our animals! Happy New Years Everybody!

The Baker Family Christmas Reunion

As you all probably know, The Bakers have an annual get together around Christmas break. We have done this our whole lives, and up until a couple years ago all of us would make the trip to Black Mountain, NC where our grandparents live and would hang out on top of the mountain for days. As we are all getting older, with college, spouses, children, and working full time it was getting too hard to drive to Asheville so we have been hosting the gathering in Wake Forest between my moms house, my sister house and my aunts house. They all live within a 3 mile radius of each other. We got together from Friday the 28th till Sunday the 30th. My sister, Tara, and my cousin, Mindy, both had babies this past year (4 days apart) so our crowd grew from 22 to 25 people, with 8 dogs. We did a number of events: hiking, kickball, home-run derby, bowling, decorating gingerbread houses, playing numerous board games, games of poker, movies and more.

Here are the gingerbread houses, with awards given:

All the guys playing poker:

Some of the bowlers:

On Sunday morning (31st) we celebrated dad's birthday with a delicious breakfast with a desert of Monkey Bread. We gave him one of Nick's typical cards with hideous pictures of the kids, created in Microsoft Paint and some money towards a new leaf blower, since his broke.

Happy Birthday Daddy Baker!

Some of the gang that came over for his birthday:

Overall we had a great time with family, and enjoyed being around everyone. The twins are adorable and Kyle and I hold them as much as we can!!

Natalie loving Kyle's new skater hoodie!

Both of us with the kiddos

Here is a video of what Nathan does now with straws and water. It's dark because we were in a restaurant, but he's hilarious.

While we were at home we also got the chance to get dads help making a desk for our office. After looking for MONTHS on craigs list to see what deals we could find on executive desks, we didn't find anything. We both need desks down there, so we ended up making a partners desk that we can both use. It has the beaded board shelving on one side to match our bookcases. Here they are working on it, and I will post more as soon as it's painted!