5 Years

It doesn't feel like it was 5 years ago that Mark and I got married on a small beach in Hawaii. Ah, Hawaii. I think my sinuses would much rather be there right now. I've been looking at our pictures from the last 5 years and man, have we been busy!

Mark started graduate school right after we returned from Hawaii. Just 14 months later, he earned his masters degree and his thesis project won us a three week trip to Europe - Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, Paris. We must have caught the travel bug there because since then we have been to Minneapolis, Portland Oregon, Seattle, New York City, Toronto and Chicago a handful of times.

We purchased and completely remodeled our first home. We helped flip another. Mark passed all 9 of his registration exams and officially became an architect. I was on the design team at my favorite scrapbook store. We purchased our second home (yeah, we closed yesterday!)

We became parents.

To my husband and my best friend, Happy Anniversary Mark.
I love you more than you'll ever know and I can't wait to see what the next 5 years have in store for us. =*

A Day at the Park

We spent most of our day outdoors today, soaking up the sun and enjoying this beautiful, albeit short-lived, weather. At Heritage Park they had an Earth Day event with booths and demonstrations on all things "green" including recycling, composting and rain barrel collection. We hung out on the lawn for a bit and enjoyed a picnic lunch and later checked out the rest of the park, since this one is very close to our soon-to-be home. We were excited to see it is decked out with a big children's playground as well as volleyball nets and trails to hike.

After Morgan's afternoon nap we took a walk to Shiawassee Park and took Morgan into their kids playscape. She loved it - especially the swing.

Walking through the park with daddy.
And of course, eating the woodchips!
Hope you fellow Michiganders got to enjoy the day as well!

You have 48 hours

We need your vote!

Mark and I entered our condo in a small space contest at Apartment Therapy. Check it out here and feel free to give us a thumbs up and comment! You have until Sunday...go...now...please!

Longer, Stronger, Farther...

Yup, another walking update - had to share this video! Love those chunky thighs and the way she buries her head in the couch, almost like she is psyching herself up for a big run.
Her teachers at school call her Frank. Can you guess why? :)

P.S. The little blanket she is carrying is her noo-noo, a baby gift from my good friend, Jeanette. Morgan adores this little blankie and I recently tracked another one down (not easy since they are an English/UK company) because I was so worried about losing it. Plus, the original is so well loved, she's worn a small hole in it. Luckily, she hasn't rejected the back up.

Have a super weekend! This mama is getting a much needed haircut and hopefully we will be heading to Heritage Park for some Earth Day festivities.

Easter recap and what's new?

Morgan had a wonderful Easter - complete with plastic eggs (and carrots, her fave!), fruit for her and chocolate for mommy and daddy. She was especially fond of the paper grass and green apple, which she promptly took a bite out of.We spent the day in Lansing and had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Goulding and all of the aunts and uncles. It was a very nice day!

All is going as planned with the new house. Our inspections were completed last week and everything is in great shape. Just a few minor things that we should take care of, but it's nothing that we weren't planning on replacing. Tomorrow afternoon is the appraisal and hopefully we will have a closing date soon. In the meantime we have been doing some shopping, mainly for appliances, and today we scored a huge deal on some great high-end appliances through our connections in the design world. I've also been fiddling around with a kitchen design and choosing materials - having lots of fun, but boy is it hard when it's your own and not someone else's!

Gotta go - time for 24! Have a great week.

Happy Easter!

Baby Steps

At one day shy of 10 months old, Morgan decided to take her first steps! Here is a short clip from her practice session tonight.

5 favorites for Friday

I've got about a million things going on in my head right now, I need a serious brain dump of all these ideas. Ideas for the new house, ideas for Morgan's first birthday party, new spring and summer clothes, recipes, scrapbooking ideas, things to do, things to buy...yup, my head is going to explode.

Here are a few of my favorite things I found online this week:

I LOVE Girl Scout cookies and Samoas are my favorite. I'm kind of intrigued by this recipe for Homemade Samoa Bars. I haven't baked anything from scratch in a long time and I'm tempted to give these a shot.

SouleMama is a new blog I found. You mommies may get a kick out of this sweet (but long) story.

Elise Blaha has a workshop that starts on April 13. She is quite the creative cookie and she knows how to work a letterpress machine - something I dream of learning to do. I recently purchased a letterpress card to frame for Morgan's soon-to-be bedroom from her etsy shop.

Simple Mom is another fab blog. She's a hard core list maker and you know how I love my lists. Even though Morgan loves to spend time in the kitchen when we are making dinner, we obviously aren't at that stage yet where she is "helping" (other than helping make a big mess). Nonetheless, I still had to star this post about kids in the kitchen for future reference.

House Tours! I can't get enough of these either. Apartment Therapy is a fun site to browse if you are remodeling or redecorating. This Chicago house tour is way cool - reminds me a lot of our style and our condo (which is available by the way!) . Check out the slideshow if you just like to look at pictures.

I'm going to get back to lunch now and see if I can't catch up on the 1000+ items sitting in my Google Reader. Happy Friday!

Offer: Accepted!

She is ours, all ours.

Mark called me this afternoon with the news and I thought for sure it was an April Fools joke. This was the perfect situation to pull a prank, so it took a little while for the news to sink in. It's not a joke, is it Grammy?

So, here are some more details. The home is in Farmington Hills, just a couple miles away from our condo, near Farmington Road and 11 Mile. 2100 square feet, 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on .8 acres. Tons of space - inside and out and we are so so excited.

Here is the back of the house:
The living room with one of two fireplaces:
This kitchen won't be here for long:
The sunroom off the living room with a view of the backyard:
Thank you for all the good luck wishes. Let's hope everything continues to go smoothly through the inspection and closing process. We will keep you posted.