Happy New Years!

As 2008 comes to end I sit back and reflect on what a year it has been. 2008 was such a big year for Derek and I. We welcomed our little Ellie girl into our home at the end of February. She was 8 weeks old when we got her. I will never forget the moment Derek walked in the house with her. This little fluffy, floppy eared puppy came running in the door. My heart melted.....it was love at first sight. In the beginning it was as if we had a new baby in the house. I now fully understand what new mom's go through with not getting much sleep at night. Ellie would wake up a couple of times a night needing to go outside. The night she slept all night long without needing to go outside.......was the best sleep I had in such a long time. Such a milestone! Heehee : ) Ellie is very much a mommas girl. She is the sweetest little thing. She has a way of looking at you with her puppy dog eyes that makes you give into her.

Ellie and dad. Awe....puppy girl. : )

In May we bought our very first house. What an exciting and stressful experience that was! I wanted to see EVERY single house that was on the market in our budget.....I didn't really like any of them......and Derek of course loved them ALL! (He is much easier to please than I am!) We found one house in an area we really liked and put in a bid. We were too late and missed out on it. We were so disappointed. The house hunt continued. Derek was getting to the point where he didn't even want to go out and look any more. I too was feeling like we would never find anything we could agree on and it was starting to not be fun anymore. Then one day our realtor friend Dianne suggested we go look at a house that she kept overlooking because it didn't have everything on our....well my....list of requirements (wishes). When I saw the pictures on the virtual tour I did not even want to go look at it. Derek convinced me to go. We walked into this charming little 1950's ranch. Perfect condition. It didn't have a lot of the things that I was hoping for in our first house.....but there was a lot of potential. Seeing it in person really made a difference. It was a little outdated in some ways, up it's nothing we couldn't update in time. Best of all it had a HUGE back yard! This was the first one that we both pretty much could agree on (other than the first one we lost). Sold! We put in a bid right away. We were so nervous waiting to hear back. The thought of getting all excited and losing out again was a little nerve wracking. We crossed our fingers and hoped it would work out. And here we are today living in our perfect starter home for us in a quite neighborhood just 3 blocks away from Lake Loveland. Perfect for walking the dogs. We have done a few changes......nothing too major. It's fun to think about all the things we would like to do to our home. And it's been even more fun turning this house into our home and making it ours. This past summer we spent so much time out in our backyard BBQ-ing and getting to know our neighbors......and making new friends. We had a blast! We are very lucky to have such good neighbors who all help each other out and help look after things. Ellie LOVES to run up and down the fence with all her new friends. We planted a tree the first month we moved in. (Thanks mom!) It will be neat to see how big it grows over time. We are looking forward to making more home improvements now that all of our money and time is not going to planning our wedding. : ) We LOVE being homeowners. All the joys and tribulations that come along with it.

The very first thing we did.....take out this 1/2 moon wall table in the kitchen. It had to go! It opened up the space so much more.

Here is Derek planting our first tree.....with Ellie's help of course.

October 1st I became Mrs. Derek Norton. It was the happiest day of our lives.....so far. We had the most beautiful fall wedding on the most perfect day of the month. We could not have wished for better weather. It was almost 80 degrees that day. A little warm while the guys were taking pictures that afternoon. But for those who know Colorado weather.....it could have been snowing that day. Our outdoor ceremony took place that evening and the weather stayed just as perfect. God was really looking out for us this day. It was meant to be. : ) Our wedding day was so much fun. I didn't want it to end. I don't think that I have even been so happy like I was that day. I was just walking around in complete happiness and bliss about how much I loved this man that I was marrying. We had all of our close friends and family with us to share in our joy. What could be better than that?! I love to look at our pictures and go back to that day all over again. I love weddings. They are filled with so much joy, love and laughter. Which is what we hope our marriage will be filled with. It's such an exciting adventure. My brother wrote this awesome note to us on our signature mat: "The past is a memory........the future is a mystery.....today is a gift, that is why it's called the present." All of our messages still make me cry when I read them. We will cherish them always. We are so blessed to have found each other and have such wonderful family and friends who love and support us.

All of our friends and family! We are so loved! Thank you to all of you.

Right after we got back from our honeymoon we had the crazy idea of getting Ellie a playmate. She was getting pretty bored at home alone and needed someone to play with. She couldn't go to work with mom everyday! We called the breeder where we got Ellie from just to see when they were thinking of having another litter. It turns out that they still had one puppy left from Ellie's litter. This little guy was spoken for twice and it just didn't work our for one reason or another. We decided to take the 4 hour car ride and go get Ellie's brother.....Chubs.....and bring him home with us. Chubs was 9 months old when we brought him home. Chubs was the name the breeder's gave him because he was the chubbiest puppy of them all. He is not chubby now.....just a very hefty boy. HUGE paws! We were going to change his name and then just decided to keep it. He very much knew his name already. It was just easier that way. He has the same coloring that Ellie does. Black and white with brown eyebrows. So CUTE! I love that they look so much a like. You can definitely tell which is which though. Ellie is our petite little girl. No one can mistake her famous "ellie look" on her face she gives you. Chubs is all boy. What a lovable and dopey dog Chubs is! Oh we love hims so! Ellie was not too crazy to have him in the house at first. She was VERY territorial and still is at times to this day. Brother and sister and inseparable now. We love to watch them play together. It's so funny. They wrestle any chance they get, chase each other in the yard and fight over toys. Ellie always wants to have what Chubs is playing with or chewing on. Chubs is a super sweet and lovey, dopey dog. He just looks at you with this innocent blank stare. I call him "butters". He just melts into the floor like butta when you pet him. I was very much hesitant to get another dog. Our house just didn't seem big enough for all of us. I am so glad we did. They are monsters at times and my house seems like twice the mess now.....but they are so worth it. I can't imagine not having the two of them. They are our "double trouble". They are so happy to have each other to play and love on. Tomorrow on January 1st my baby dogs will celebrate their 1st birthday! I can't believe they are already 1 yrs. old. They have grown up so fast! Stoli was our first fur-baby. He wasn't crazy about Ellie. He was a little mad at me. He changed a bit. Over time they got used to each other. Or should I say Stoli got used to Ellie. Ellie loved Stoli......he was someone to play with! When we brought Chubs home......he really wasn't happy with us (well me). Thankfully Chubs and Ellie pretty much keep to themselves. However Stoli is still pretty grumpy with them. Anytime they even just walk by he growls and swats at them. Every now and then I will catch him walk up to one of them and start to give them what seems to be some kitty kisses.....and then he will just bite them. It's pretty funny. He is such a stinker. Stoli doesn't completely dislike them always......most the time you can find him piled on the bed with all of us.....one big happy family. : )






Wow! What a year 2008 has been. This year has flown by so fast. We have so many good things going on in our lives. We have been very blessed. I am so thankful and so lucky to have such a wonderful husband. Derek works so hard to take care of our family. He is absolutely my rock. I know we have a lot of good things planned for us and I can't wait to see what 2009 brings us. Here's to another great year! Cheers!

xoxox
mrs. norton

Twas the night before Christmas....

I can hardly believe that it is Christmas eve......even more that Christmas is tomorrow! In some ways it just doesn't feel like it. I think that it just came upon us so quickly this year. Don't you agree? I baked up a few goodies last night for Christmas dinner including a rum cake. Mmmmm it smelled so good. I hope it turns out. : ) Tonight we will be going to my mom's house for dinner. I think my mom mentioned watching....you guessed it....Christmas Vacation! Derek will most likely not be joining us. He has been working nights and will be off tomorrow with all of us and will return to work on Friday for a normal day shift. So......his plan is to try and stay up as long as possible today....sleep like normal people do tonight and get up tomorrow morning for Christmas breakfast. My dad, Grandpa and Grandma Mein and my brother are all coming over in the morning. My dad is making his famous biscuits and gravy. Oh yes....they are famous! And so good too. He taught me how to make the gravy.......I had NO idea you could make gravy out of milk and flour (and the sausage and sausage grease of course too)!! Wow. Amazing. Derek thinks I am strange....he of course knew that this was how it's done. Must be that Iowa home cooking thing. Heehee : ) Then tomorrow afternoon we will go to my Grandma Clark's house. We will have Christmas dinner around 2 o'clock. I sure hope we won't be too full from breakfast. We plan on having prime rib. I am bringing my Brandied Steak Side Mushrooms (OMG I *heart* mushrooms) and I am also going to be bringing homemade Chunky Chi Apple Sauce. I have never attempted to make apple sauce before. I didn't get Grandma Norton's recipe (I wished I would have thought of it sooner) so I found a different one. We will see how it turns out. You can't really mess up apples, cider and spices too much.....can you? I am also making a Chocolate Pie (I'm going to cheat on this one just a bit......semi-homemade we shall say). To make up for the semi-homemade....I am going to make REAL whipped cream. The LAST time I tried to do this.....I forgot to add in some sugar and a splash of vanilla! OOPS.......not so good. I sure won't forget it this time by golly!! Teehee I'm sure my pie will be good (who doesn't love a slice of chocolate pie with REAL whipped cream) but I know it will not be as good as Connie's. She makes the best I have ever had so far.

When I was a kid our tradition for Christmas Eve in my house was that my brother and I always got to open one present. But this one present was the same each and every year. A new pair of pajamas!! It was so fun to go to sleep all cozy in our new jammies. One year I remember that we complained about ALWAYS getting pajamas. So my mom tried something new that year and got us something else. I think it was some sort of hand held games or something. We were so disappointed not to get p.j.'s even though we complained! That was the last time she did that and it was p.j.'s every year after that up until I moved out (for me anyways). Long gone have been the days of Christmas Eve's with new jammies. I sure do miss it sometimes. I think everyone enjoys new pajamas. I wonder if we will continue that tradition with our kids??? I would guess probably so. It's so much fun!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa is good to you all. : )

(get to bed early and don't stay up listening for the reindeer)

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas......

Last week my mother in-law was out here for work. While she was here she took Derek and I to the Carousel Dinner Theater in Fort Collins to see the musical White Christmas. What a show! It was so much fun. The actors were really great and had such enthusiasm. I could tell that Kathy really wanted to jump right in and belt out most of the songs and sing along with them. She got her moment at the end when the audience got to sing along to a song. I have never seen the movie before, so I wasn't familiar with the story line. A White Christmas is a BIG deal in Derek's family on his mom's side. Kathy grew up watching this movie every holiday season since she was a little girl. Apparently she even got to skip out on her school's Christmas program one year because it was on tv that evening! Too funny. Derek too has grown up with this movie. It's so weird that all these years I have never seen it. But now after watching this little musical, I would like to sit down and actually watch it. Derek has the movie on VHS (I know....so ancient) and he loaned it to my mom last year. I think we both completely forgot about it until I mentioned us going to the musical last week. My mom told me that she still had it and needed to return it to us. I told her not to worry too much since we don't have a VHS player any more and Derek was talking about going out and getting a White Christmas on DVD. So what does my mom do.......she went right out and got Derek his movie on DVD to add to his gifts. : ) Derek will be so happy. I have a funny feeling that this movie will make it's way into our own family tradition of watching this every holiday season.....along with the movie that I remember ALWAYS watching.......National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation! : ) Teehee

Derek's Christmas movie pick

My Christmas movie pick : )

Sweet faces!

My two bestest girls....taken the other weekend while holiday baking. What a picture! Awe...I love these two girlies. This picture always makes me smile. : ]

3 days until Christmas.....

Oh my goodness we should be put on the naughty list......Derek and I FINALLY went out on Saturday to do our Christmas shopping. Can you believe us?! It wasn't as bad as Derek was anticipating. I was SO glad for that because Derek HATES to go shopping and he always gets so grumpy. I was going to just go myself but Derek said he wanted to go. It actually went pretty easy. It helped that our list was simple and we went early in the morning so there really wasn't too many people out yet. I still have to buy for my mom, dad and brother....but that should be pretty easy. I will just have to make time some day after work or on my lunch hour to finish up. So because of our lateness with Christmas shopping......Derek's family will be getting their gifts in the mail late. Oh I feel so bad! I am really sorry Kathy, Ben, Dennis, Connie, Grandma & Grandpa Graham and Grandma Norton. The worst of it is that I left the house this morning with out grabbing them so I will not be able to get them out in the mail until tomorrow! Arg!! Sorry!! :(

Oh Christmas Card....Oh Christmas Card

So........we FINALLY took our family photo (Stoli is missing...he would not cooperate) for our Christmas cards that I hand-made about 4 weeks ago with some friends. Good thing since Christmas is less than 2 weeks away. I thought we would never get it done. I was starting to think that I was going to have to save them for next year. I worked so hard on our cards and I REALLY did not want to save them. I was out until 2:00 AM with the girls making cards. You should have seen us.! It was so much work.....but so worth it. Gotta run....I am off to go start to address envelopes!

Awe.... : )

(I couldn't fix Chubs' eyes....no matter what i tried)

Lovin' from the oven

Jessi and I baked up some yummy goodness yesterday afternoon. We got all the way through our list of goodies except for the toffee. I did not have a candy thermometer. : ( Oh well. We were pretty tired by the end anyways. If you couldn't tell......Jess and I LOVE our coconut. 3 of the 6 items we made had coconut!

OPEN WIDE! : )

We had lots of fun getting messy. Derek couldn't hardly stand it for us to finish SOMETHING! So while we had the 7-Layer Bars baking....we made HIM some Muddy Buddies! Him was so happy. : ) As we continued on our marry baking way at one point it was awfully quite in the living room. I said to Jessi... "what do you want to bet Derek is sleeping"? Giggling she went to check on him. Yep, fast asleep! Content with his finished snack of Muddy Buddies.

Shhhh.....hubby sleeping.....visions of Muddy Buddies dancing in his head. Haha : )

Once we were done at the end of the day.....well evening I should really say......we made up some plates and took some over to the neighbors. Hope they enjoyed our treats and didn't mind that the Ginger Snap cookies didn't come out quite as I hoped. And we hope you like coconut too!! heehee

-Made with love xoxox

Holiday baking

Anyone who knows me knows that I love love love to bake. I am so excited to do some more holiday baking. Jessi is coming over on Saturday and she really enjoys it as well. I love that she likes to bake and enjoys learning about it. This just reminded me of last year when she came over to help me. She was oooh-ing and awww-ing over the smell of the vanilla extract. I let her put a dab on her finger and taste it......and she made the most horrific face! That was so evil of me.....I know! She just couldn't believe how something that smelled so good, tasted so bad. Hahaha Sorry Jes! : ) So here is my list:

-7 Layer Bars (maybe my all time fav)

-Haystacks (I over toasted the coconut last year, so hopefully we do better this time)

-Rice Krispie Sandwiches

-Muddy Buddies

-Coconut Snowballs (never made these before....so we will see how they go)

-Toffee

-Ginger Snaps

We are going to be busy little baker elves baking away. I really want to make my mom's Buttermilk Cookies and decorate them (they are the BESTest Christmas cookies EVER and so much better than sugar cookies in my opinion).....but they are pretty much a two day project and I don't think that we will get to them. Maybe I will make them later on. I will make sure to take pictures for us girls covered in sugar and spice and everything nice. : ]

We're Back!

Happy December everyone! We just got back last night. Oh my goodness is it good to be home. We missed the pups and Stoli so much. They were so excited to see us! We were so tired from the long drive yesterday. We left at 3:30 a.m. Colorado time and walked in the door at about 5:00 p.m. Sigh. We did stop at Derek's friend Clint's parents house for a late lunch and visited for a while....so that is why it took us as long as it did. The drive was clear just windy as heck! It was so not fun waking up this morning for work. We both hate to come back from a trip and go right to work the next day. Oh well....that is how it worked out. Iowa was so much fun. We really had a good time. The trip was too short as always. It was so nice to spend time with the family. It always makes me miss my side as well. My thoughts were with them though and a few phone calls helped. : ) We had a really wonderful Thanksgiving. There was about 25 or so of us over at Grandma and Grandpa Graham's house on Thursday. (that is Derek's mom's side) What a household! The kids got to decorate grandma's tree. I think only a few ornaments got broken. The little ones really enjoyed wrestling with uncle Derek. Poor Derek. He really took a beating! They wore him out pretty good. At the end of the day there was a bunch of us piled on the bed looking at all the ads for Black Friday. I contemplated going, but luckily aunt Sandy goes every year and was happy to pick up the one thing I crazily was going to go out at 3'o clock in the morning for....which was a Dirt Devil Broom Vac. It was such a good deal and I am anxious to try it. I hope it works good. : ) Nick made sure to let us know he almost had to go to blows over this thing and that we were indebted to him by naming our first child after him. LOL Thank you Nick for being so brave. Maybe a middle name. Maybe. Heehee On Friday we had 12 of us over at Grandma Norton's house for Thanksgiving. I don't think there is anyone who can resist that lady's home cooking. : ) We played the game Catch Phrase. It is so much fun!! It was hilarious! It took us a bit to figure out just what we were doing and we finally got the hang of it. The boys won over the girls. Dang it! They just got lucky. It's so funny to watch each other figure out the word or phrase and see how everyone tries to get their team to guess it as well. We will for sure be busting this game out more often at gatherings. : ) Saturday was a busy day for me baking cookies with Derek's mom, grandma Graham, his sisters, Ben (yes even Ben was there having a good time) and aunt Sandy. We baked so many different kinds. My job was manning the oven. Although I did burn a batch or two (including my finger). I wanted to fire my self...but grandma wouldn't let me. : ) It was a messy day for sure. We were there for 4 hours baking. We all got to take home some of each along with some chex mix Kathy made earlier in the morning. We were definitely loaded up with plenty to snack on for the car trip home. I will try and post some pictures that I took. I just haven't made time to get them off my camera. : )