Sunday, May 29, 2011

GRADUATION........again!




Friday May 27, 2011 I FINALLY GRADUATED
FROM NURSING SCHOOOL :)

This is definitely the best part of my life so far.......I have never felt more accomplished in my life. You cannot understand how happy I will be to go to work and come home WITHOUT having to worry about turning something in before 8AM the next morning! Homework is so over, and I could not be more thrilled to say goodbye to it. I'm hoping to go back to school in the future, but I just seriously couldn't take the step to keep going right now. I- NEED- A- BREAK, lol. All I have left to do is take NCLEX, and I am completely DONE with certifications, board of nursing fees, and standardized testing. WAHOO!! I must admit, although it was tortuously long, graduating at the Fed Ex Forum was a plus too. Keith came and took pictures for me, but none of them turned out really well. It was because of my subpar camera though , not his skills as an amateur photogtrapher.  This one is my fave, beause it's my name up on the board thingy that loops around the entire stadium.  Mine is the third one up top just incase you can't read it ;)


I must say that I am so thankful for my life. It's looking pretty magical these days :) I can't wait to take NCLEX and start working at Lebonheur. I am getting so excited about working with the little ones in the NICU too! Come on July 11th .





Wednesday, May 18, 2011

My New Job!!!


Monday afternoon I finally got the phone call I have been waiting on all semester. I got a job in a level III C Neonatal Intensive Care Unit @ Lebonheur :) I am beyond excited to get this job. The sickest babies in this area go to Lebonheur after being born for surgeries and just for being really small at birth, so I am going to learn so much. Anyone who knows me knows I absolutely love babies, so I truly feel like this is the perfect job for me. It's going to be hard and I'm sure there will be alot of stress when I first start just from the learning curve I'm going to have to catch up to, but I'm so excited for the opportunity. I start July 11th, and I can't WAIT! I know Keith is excited that he won't be the only one bringing paychecks home too :)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

ENGAGEMENT PICS



Just wanted to show you some of my engagement pics! Here is a collage of my faves. We took them in downtown Memphis. We were going to go to the Botanical Gardens, but they charge way too much to let photographers take pictures there. We probably just should have snuck in! :)


My favorite background is acutally this big red door that our photographer found at this Episcopal Church near Lebonheur. It's so pretty


I also like the bridge picture, just because I love Memphis :) I wish we would have know which hotel everyone goes to to take pictures, so we could have went on the roof at night and got one.



One of my other faves is the one with my ring. I love love love my ring and I think it pops off of the rocks



We don't know which ones we want to order, but I don't want to get carried away since we have limited wall space in our house, and I know I am going to want TONS & TONS of wedding pictures :) We do have a $50.00 print credit to use at least though since we won our engagement pics in a contest.

SAVE THE DATES


I ordered out Save the Dates today :) I'm so excited about them because they are magnets! People can just stick them on their fridge so they won't lose them. I know when I have paper invitations, they always seem to get lost. Lately I have been putting them up in my kitchen on the cabinets so I don't forget about going to things. They even come with some super cute address labels too :) Hope you likes!



Since I have gotten a little older, I have friends getting married like crazy. Baby Showers, Wedding Showers, Birthday parties.....I love it though :) It's fun to be able to go to things and stay connected to old friends. I still need to sit down and decide what kind of parties I want to have for the wedding. It's only 5 months away, and I haven't even thought about what kind of showers I want. I think I just want to do one big couple's shower somewhere, because I'm not so much into going to parties alone. I would rather have Keith there, since most of our wedding guests I have met through him and his family. I probably won't end up having one until at least the end of June though, since school is so crazy and I'm trying to find a job.

Speaking of job.....I am going INSANE thinking about everything that is about to change. I have never been at a point in my life where I didn't know where I was going to be in 3 months. I am a planner to my core, and to not know what my life will be like after May 27th scares me SOOOO much. I know everything will work out, but I also know that I have a dream for my career, and I have recently found an opportunity for that dream to become a reality. I am praying to the nursing job gods every single day, because I am dying to get my dream job. I worked so hard to get to here, so I'm hoping my interviews go well and my passion for nursing comes through to them. Wish me luck!

Today's countdown: 149 days to the wedding &
                                  43 days until graduation!!!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Ella Mae or Marley,Jr.?


I love my sweet sweet girl Ella Mae. She's a chocolate lab that Keith & I got back in September. She has been so much fun, and is such a smart girl. Ryder & Lucy are still getting used to her, but they get better and better with eachother every day.


Now I know that labs are crazy and adventurous, but I work really hard to train Ella to be a good house dog. I can't stand it when people have dogs that stay outside and only see their owners once a day for food & water. To me, that's a cruel way to treat an animal that wants nothing more than to love on you. Ever since we got Ella, she has been an inside dog and has been really good at not chewing stuff up. We can even leave our shoes on the floor without her messing with them. I wish I could say the same for my brush and my hair clips though. We are still working on that.

 It took us 4 months to potty train her, which was rough, but we finally got it! Part of her problem is that she got a UTI that slowed down the process. We had to put her in diapers because she just constantly peed in the floor for a week.

Anywho, we made it through all of that, and now she is almost 9 months old! The last time we weighed her, she was 67 pounds! Hopefully she won't get any bigger, but I bet she does since she is still a puppy. She has learned to sit and lay down, and right now we are working on stay and come. I'm hoping one day she can be a pet therapy dog, and those are the 4 tricks she has to know really well to become one. She learned fetch in 2 seconds, but that's probably because she's a lab and it's in their blood to know how to do that. I love her tons, but I have one SERIOUS problem with her behavior. THIS:

She refuses....and I mean REFUSES to stop digging in this one spot in the yard. I have GOT to figure out a way to get her to stop,because Keith may or may not kill her. (I kid, I kid, but really.....it's bad). There is this one spot in the yard that just stays muddy because she goes over there and just dominates it with her face every time we leave her outside for more than a few minutes. Here is what she has done to it:

Keith had it covered up with an older pot and some boards, but she just pushes those aside and gets to it. PLEASE STOP DIGGING ELLA!!! PUH-LEASE! Everytime she does it I have to go hose her off and I get soaked. At least the weather is warmer now, so I don't freeze when I'm doing it :) Other than the digging, I love her so so much. Isn't she pretty when she is all nice and clean?

The other funny thing about her that drives me crazy sometimes is that she is always in the way when you are trying to get stuff done. If you are cooking or doing laundry, you are constantly tripping over her. She just likes to lay in the weirdest places too, like the doorway (which is right in the way, of course!)


I love this picture. I told her to look at me so I could take the picture, and she decides to only open one eye. Smarty pants ;) The only other crazy thing she is obsessed with is water. I'm talking about drinking from the toilet, running into the bathroom every time you go into it, ripping down the shower curtain and jumping in the shower with you obsessed with water. Yes that really happened, but I don't think you want to see pictures of me trying to get her out of the shower while I'm in it :) In conclusion I'm so glad that we have Ella, if for no other reason that to make us laugh every day. If we can get this digging thing under control, she will be such a great part of our lives for many years to come :)

Friday, April 1, 2011

Trying to be crafty ...

One thing I wish I were better at: crafting! I LOVE LOVE LOVE to read other people's blogs about how they make all these neat little things for their homes. I am super jealous of anyone who can sew too. It takes me 30 minutes just to get the thread ready, and I still don't know how to tie it right. I need to learn before I start having kids, or Keith is gonna kill me for spending a million dollars on cute little boutique stuff for them to wear. I just love it so much :) All the cute little applique shirts, and the tutus, and the monogram on everything & (okay I'm stopping now!) The one thing I have taught myself to do is to make letters to hang on the wall with ribbon. I just love it for baby rooms. I got to experiment with Marlee's letters first, and they look a little rough, but still alot cuter than if I paid someone 12.00 a letter to do it for me (crazy price!)


After I did Marlee's letters, I decided to make some for baby Tinley's room too.
I think these turned out a little cuter, but I'm biased because I'm in love with black & green, and that's what
 April decided to do Tinley Jo's nursery in:



I finally figured out how to tie them in a better bow when I got to do Emme's letters for my friend Ashley, and now I'm obsessed with making these things! I can't wait to make some for baby Garrison's room once Patrick & Juli pick out the decorations and the bedding :)


So now I'm even more obsessed with personalizing everything I buy as baby gifts, since I figured out how to make these cute :) I hope you guys like them!

 I also personalized some wedding presents for Marlee, Rylee, & Tyler (ringbearer & flowergirls for the wedding). Aren't these just so cute?! They look even better with their initials on them than they did before I put them on there. This will be cute for them to carry around on the wedding day, so they don't spill drink all over their outfits :) I got lucky finding them, because they are the perfect size for them!



162 days....

162 days seems like so much time. When I say 5 months though, I start to panic inside a little :) I have only had one change or new development when it comes to wedding planning.....the Bridesmaids' shoes I ordered before are a no go. You know how stuff always looks better online? Yeah, that happened to me. They looked so great, and seemed to have all the bright fall colors I was looking for to tie in all the dresses. When you look at them in real life though, they are full of pink and purple and don't work with my colors at all (sad face). I never really have been a fan of wedge shoes either, and now I just hate them more. It just seems like an awful lot of shoe to be lugging around all day long. Anywho, I decided with a few of the girls to just pick out a pair of shoes from David's Bridal and have them dyed the color of all their dresses, since all brown or all black shoes wouldn't match everyone. Pretty simple solution, but David's Bridal shoes ARE NOT cheap. The cheapest ones I could find that were pretty were $59.00! Thank goodness the dress is super cheap, and they can actually wear it again. Dyeing them only costrs $4.00 too, so that's also a relief. Here's a pic of them, except they will be the same colors of the girl's dresses when they are done :)