State Fair

So this past weekend... I met up with my friend, Shanna and her kids at the great State Fair of Texas. It was so much fun, but very tiring. I felt like the entire day was spent walking from point A to point B. But besides that, I was able to get my State Fair staples... Fletcher's Corny Dogs, funnel cake and some Salt Water Taffy. Yummy goodness!

Here are Dalton and Dillon with Big Tex... good times...

After meeting up with Shanna, I met up with my sister at the fair. We ended up staying for the Third Day concert that night which was really good. Perfect weather, great concert, made for a great day!


On Sunday, we spent the afternoon at my parents house eating lunch with my parents, sister and my aunt and uncle. Here's a shot of Zach and Bailey waiting for lunch. Zach and I were trying to get Bailey to look at the camera, but it just wasn't working out.
Hopefully, this weekend I will have some pictures from our concert. Of course, I don't think that I will be able to take pictures inside Nokia Theatre, but I will take before and afters, that's for sure. I'll leave you with a little video of our pup...

D&B Birthday Extravaganza

Happy Birthday to Us!!! Zach and I spent last night at Dave & Buster's with our friends. It's a nice thing to work for a restaurant because we were able to treat all of our friends. Zach's birthday was two weeks ago Friday and mine is October 10th, next Wednesday! It was a great night and fun was had by all.

The whole gang ... back row (l 2 r) Bri Wollman, Jordan Wollman, Tyson Kirksey; front row (l 2 r) Shevawn McSpadden, me, Zach, Sarah Kirksey, Angela Hindman and Jason Hindman (and baby Issac). So fun!
All the girls, dressed in black. Totally not planned, but it was perfect! What a great group of girls!

Time to play some games... Time Crisis 3 with Jordan and Zach.Ghost Squad fighters with Tyson and Zach...
Daytona racing with Zach and Bri... the orange seat was the always the winner. Go figure.
Shevawn and Sarah racing away...
Overall, it was a great night and we're so thankful to be able to celebrate our birthdays with our friends!

All about my man...

So I was just tagged by Lindsey for the game of my man...

1. Who is your man? Zachary Reid Shirley
2. How long have you been together? 2 years and 9 months
3. How long did you date? 5 months and engaged 4 months exactly
4. How old is your man? 27
5. Who eats more? Zach, no doubt
6. Who said "I love you" first? He did.
7. Who is taller? Zach, by a long shot.
8. Who sings better? hmmm... good question.
9. Who is smarter? We both have our talents... we'll just leave it at that.
10. Whose temper is worse? Me, he's so laid back.
11. Who does the laundry? Me, myself and I.
12. Who takes out the garbage? Zach's supposed to, but we take turns.
13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you're looking from the foot of the bed, Zach sleeps on the right side.
14. Who pays the bills? Me.
15. Who is better with the computer? Zach.
16. Who mows the lawn? Zach, I can say that I have never mowed the lawn in my lifetime.
17. Who cooks dinner? Me
18. Who drives when you are together? Zach
19. Who pays when you go out? Whoever can get to their wallet the fastest.
20. Who is most stubborn? That's definitely a toss up!
21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Hard one as well... we are both so stubborn.
22. Whose parents do you see the most? Mine... we live in the same town though.
23. Who kissed who first? He did.
24. Who asked who out? He asked me.
25. Who proposed? Zach
26. Who is more sensitive? That would be me.
27. Who has more friends? Probably me, but we share most of our friends now! ;-)
28. Who has more siblings? Zach does.
29. Who wears the pants in the family? Well I'd say we share this one and make decisions together, although I do end up doing the finances of the family.

So now the game of tag goes to... Amy, Neena, Amanda, Shevawn, and Laura.

The sleepy place

I thought since I hadn't ever posted pictures of our bathroom that it was about time I do so... this is the only room that we didn't touch as far as remodeling. There are a lot of things that we would love to do to this room, but that will be further down the road. Right now, it suits its' purpose and we love it! As you can tell the color scheme is blue and brown in this room. The shower is behind the door in the corner that I didn't take a picture of.



Finally, I can show you one of my favorite rooms in the house. We put some finishing touches on our master bedroom this weekend- hung the mirrors above the bed and put up the curtains. The curtains are my birthday present from my parents and I absolutely love them. They match the accent pillow on our bed and are kinda bronze in color. They look so pretty and they block out a lot of light in the mornings. It's wonderful!!!

This is our reading nook on the other side of the room. It's also where the tv is so that it's not the first thing that you see when you walk in the room. The tv was intentionally put on Zach's side of the bed because he watches it to fall asleep. I can just roll over to the other side and it's nice and dark.
And lastly our dresser... there's still a couple more Florence pictures to hang up in the room, but for the most part it's done. It's a relief!All that's left is the office and garage now. Not too much left in either room, but it will be wonderful when it's all done. Until next time... enjoy!

Landscaping Birthdays

Friday, Zach turned the big 27. It's been a celebration all week, but on Friday night we spent the night at home with a nice dinner and a movie. I made a homemade lasagna (even though I can't have cheese) and set the table all pretty just for the special occasion. This was really one of our first warm meals in the house. It was a great evening and one that we'll remember for a long time. The night was topped off with a little Will Farrell/Jon Heder action in Blades of Glory. Pretty hysterical movie... too bad in the middle of it we had to take it back to Blockbuster and trade it out because it kept skipping. Oh well. ;-)



Zach's birthday present this year from me... a set of nut drivers. To me this sounds like an odd request, but it's what he wanted, so it's what he got. Next time I buy any tools though, I'll make sure that I read the measurements... he had asked for Metric and I got Standard. How's a girl supposed to know. He exchanged it today for the right set, no problemo.

Zach's birthday present from my parents... a cabinet for the garage. This was an incredible deal on the HD because they were literally going to throw the cabinets away... it was marked off like 85%, so we now have beautiful storage in the garage and Zach has his very own workbench. He's thrilled!!! Also pictured is Zach's bday present from his parents... the mini fridge. It's perfect for holding all the cokes. I love that it frees up the fridge in the kitchen! Birthday present not pictured... is the one that my sister gave him. We have tickets to the Relient K/Switchfoot concert for October 26th. I can't tell you how excited I am about this concert. Two of my favorite bands and they are on tour together. (I know Zach is excited too, he's just not the one posting on a blog.) How amazing is that!! Can't wait!!

After birthday celebrations... we spent this weekend in the yard. It was time to get the shrubs in the ground. Zach worked hard with our friend, Tyson to get all the holly bushes dug up. The only one left was over 100 lbs. and it took a chain and my dad's truck to pull out. See that monster of a bush in the corner... there was no way Zach was getting that out by himself.

Now that all the holly is gone... here is what our front yard looks like. It's beautimous !!
The three shrubs in the middle are Indian Hawthorne, the two on each side are Texas Sage. We also have a fringe flower in the gap on the left hand side.

One the other side of the front door we have three oleander plants... they are supposed to grow to 8-10 feet. Right now, they are only 3 feet tall. We'll see. They bloom pretty pink flowers, so I'm excited about them.
And lastly, our yard gnome who faithfully watches the yard that we now have to put him in.

Work, Work, Work

Since my last post, we still haven't gotten the office in complete order yet and there are still some pictures left to hang in the master bedroom, but one day it will be a finished product. So until that day comes, I'll let you see some pictures of definite finished products.

Here is the wall of plates. I got these for a steal in Canton. Zach's mom and I tried to arrange them randomly on the wall, but my random is very orderly if you can't tell. They are vintage black and white plates and they have sorta squared off edges. Love them.

Here is the picture wall at the top of the stairs in the little hallway between the office and the master bedroom.
On the way up the stairs....

So today, my mom and I went and did a lot of errands. We took back a whole bunch of stuff to Home Depot that has just been waiting for the right moment to return. Then we went to JoAnn's and got fabric for my mom to make curtains for our bedroom. This is my birthday present. ;-) Then we went to Calloway's Nursery and got lots of shrubs for the front yard. Now you know what our project will be next weekend. In the process of getting shrubs, we got some little petunias for my red pots to go on the picnic table. So cute!

After planting them tonight, Bailey went crazy and couldn't contain herself because she loves water so much. Here she is nursing the water hose (which is not turned on) hoping that there will be just a drop of water for her. What a crazy dog!

Here are the shrubs that will go in the front yards, once we have pulled up the holly bush stubs. That's definitely going to be a project. We definitely need to get these in the ground soon. Can't wait for the front yard to look nice!
Hopefully we'll get this all done in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep ya posted.

First Floor

This weekend was very productive and very busy. Zach's parents were in town for the weekend and they helped us around the house with a lot of little projects and some big ones. Zach and his dad finished the wall in the garage (more pictures to come later) and they also put a turbine on the roof. Those were the big jobs. Zach's mom and I hung lots of pictures in the house, some of which you can see below.

This is the downstairs bedroom, guest bedroom, the one that Zach had to rebuild the wall in... it has now officially become Zach's car room. We got the big pictures of cars from an auction at my work and they are perfect for our black and white themed room.

The type case is holding all of Zach's special Matchbox cars... mostly Mustangs. We're working to fill up the extra spaces with more Mustangs.
This is the entry way to the living room also right next to the front door. Our little mirror from IKEA is perfect here as well as this little table that my mom gave me. It used to be my Papaw's table that sat next to his chair in their living room collecting newspapers. It's a perfect little entry table and will eventually be painted black, but not anytime real soon. (I'm done with painting projects for a while.) I also need another little basket to complete the bottom shelf, but I think that it looks great!

Here's the massive China Cabinet that we were so thankful we hired movers for. It doesn't come apart... once we got it in the house, my mom unloaded everything and arranged it very nicely for me. What you see in the picture is actually only half of the cabinet, if you can imagine. Now to the living room... it's complete and very comfortable. It's much bigger than our living room in the apartment. We are loving it!


I know you've seen the kitchen many times, but this is the finished kitchen... the last touches were done this weekend. The little light above the sink was installed this weekend and I call it my little space ship. It's very unique and fits the rest of the kitchen well.
And now for the top of the refrigerator... Upstairs is still a work in progress, but I hope to have some things cleared out by the end of this weekend. ;-)