Meet Natty dog

I know, I know, another week of slacking. But really, it's been a littleeee boring around here! So I had a good idea! (Go with me here..) I've been blogging for a little over a year now, but haven't really given our family a proper introduction. I thought I would dedicate a post to each of us so as to let you better understand our little family. To get warmed up, I thought I would start with the youngest family member, so without further ado, allow me to introduce Natty!

Introducing the Volheim family:

Natty's edition

Meet our baby. This Natty Volheim. Born on December 3rd, 2007, but became a Volheim in January of 2008.

(How was I NOT supposed to bring this little precious home?!)

(Whoa.. we look like babies too!)

Stephen and I had been dating a little over a month and I decided one morning that I wanted to get a puppy. At the time I was living with two roommates in one of the girl's parents' rental house. I had always, always, always wanted an English bulldog(still do). I was browsing the classified ads in the paper and found an ad for English bulldog puppies for $100. I should have realized this couldn't be real since I had been looking for one for a while and hadn't seen one cheaper than $1,000.

Well, I convinced Stephen that we needed to make the hour drive to Alabama to check out the puppies in the ad. We were going "just to look". Well they were far too precious, and the living conditions were terrible. They had multiple litters of different breeds of puppies in chicken wire make shift cages all over the property. They had several adult dogs running around, not to mention cats, chickens, goats, and pigs. It was pretty gross.

After about 45 minutes of playing with all the puppies, I knew I couldn't leave without my little white baby dog. So our boy came home with us that day. Best $100 I ever spent! (Even if he turned out not to be my English bulldog dream dog) The whole ride home we debated over puppy names. Keep in mind we were 19 and 21, and we ended up settling on Natty (yes, as in Natty Light the cheap beer) I probably should have checked with my roommate's parents before buying the dog, because it turns out they didn't want pets in the house. Call me crazy, but I was already in love with this little furball so I ended up moving out of that house and into another rental with a friend.

Boy am I glad we did! Cause that little love has become my best friend. He follows me around, he sleeps curled up on me(yes, were those dog people that lets him in our bed). Since he was a puppy and to this day, if I'm at home alone and take a shower, he lays in front of the bathroom door until I'm done. He doesn't do it when Stephen is home, only if I'm alone. He's such a little protector!

He was my companion all of last year while Stephen was in BMT and tech school. He can be rowdy and crazy. He loves to swim, run, jump up on you, fetch, chase squirrels and about anything else. But when he knows I'm sad, he doesn't leave my side. If I cry he's still as can be and just lays by me and lets me cry all over him. He is my child until we have any human babies, and then it will be an adjustment for all of us!

But trust me, it isn't just me. He's a daddy's boy too! Those two can lay on the couch and watch tv together all day. He loves to ride in the car with him too, Nat doesn't care where he's going. He just likes to ride with his head out the window! He was so good at keeping me company while Stephen was gone, but boy did he miss his buddy too! You should have seen him. He learned quickly the sound Skype made when it came on, and he knew it meant he could see and hear his Dad. He could be sound asleep in the other room and as soon as he heard me turning Skype on he came running because he knew Stephen would be there to talk to him. Seriously, it was crazy! I wish I had a video of it because it was hilarious. The only proof I have are a few missing keys on my laptop from Natty's over excitement!

(Glad to have Daddy home!)

Our little furball grew fast into our strong, sweet, loyal, protective dog. Sometimes he can drive us crazy, but he's a good dog and we wouldn't trade him for the world! He makes our little family complete, and one day he'll make a great big "brother" to some human babies. In the mean time, he is our furbaby!

Now you've met our youngest family member, stay tuned to meet the rest of the Volheims! Up next: Stephen.



25

The BIG 2-5!

That's how old my sweet husband is turning today! WOW! Happy birthday Lovebug! Lucky for him he has such a young wife to keep him from aging ;)

Hehe.

This his 4th birthday that we're spending together, and in case you haven't noticed already I like to give my hubs a hard time about getting old. (He's almost 3 years older than me) Though, I'm fully aware that he's not. (Before I start getting hate mail and nasty comments!) I appreciate that 25 years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things. He's just getting started. We're both barely scratching the surface of adulthood, but then you think about him being a quarter of a century old, and realize my handsome man has come a long long way!

Just in the last year he has grown and changed so much in the last year alone! I'm so proud that I get to call him my husband for this birthday and all of the birthdays to come!

I have a few birthday surprises up my sleeve. (I usually do.) I'm the queen of birthday surprises! I learned that from my mom.

The big plans for tomorrow is to have a party at our house and have some friends and family over to help celebrate tomorrow evening. You'll have to check to see the surprises as well as pictures from his big night! :)

In the mean time I thought I would make a list of my 25 favorite things about my husband:

1.) His adorable smile

2.) His sense of humor

3.) The crazy nicknames he come up with for me

4.) The way he hogs the bed/covers at night

5.) His picky eating, but willingness to try new things at least once

6.) His zest for life and refusal to get old

7.) His HUGE heart that he wears on his sleeve

8.) His singing voice, especially when he's singing to me in the car

9.) The crazy things he'll do just to make me smile

10.) He's extreme love for Disney

11.) The way he acts like he's still a kid when we're at any amusement park

12.) How well he fits right into my crazy family

13.) How much he genuinely cares how other people feel

14.) That he will sit with me through any of my stupid shows or movies

15.) That he doesn't think I'm crazy when I talk about having kids in the not so distant future(not not too soon either!)

16.) That he will ONE day make the most amazing father

17.) The way he plays with Natty and gets him so wound up

18.) How I can still manage to talk him into walking with me in the evening after a long day of work

19.) The way he treats me like a princess all the time

20.) How he is such a baby when he's sick

21.) How safe he makes me feel even when I get scared after watching a creepy movie

22.) That he never gets bored of my cooking(even when we eat a lot of chicken)

23.) His love for traveling and new adventures

24.) The way that he can make any monotonous day seem like an exciting one with his crazy ideas

25.) How much I love him and continue to love him more and more everyday!

Happy birthday my love! And many, many more!

For the rest of you lovely readers, Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend!

Bring on the cold!

It's been a little dull around these here parts lately.(Yikes... channeling my inner redneck! ;)

I've been working(waiting tables and subbing) quite a bit and enjoying spending time at the house with my hubs and pup or getting a workout in. No fun projects. New recipes are about as exciting as it gets around here. I really need to find some fun new pinteresty things to take on. My walls have empty space and I have too much free time that I'm not using wisely!

The husband has been working on finding a full time job since his active orders ended and he's only doing the Air Force thang as a traditional reservist now. I'm secretly crossing my fingers that he gets offered one of the flightline jobs he has been applying for in a new city. I've lived in this one my whole life, and while I love it, I'm up for some new adventures! (And maybe find a big new job for myself there.)

In the mean time, the only blog worthy thing we've done lately is a nice little trip to New Orleans, Louisiana last weekend! Love that city! My beautiful cousin got married at Preservation Hall, so we made a family vacation and spent the weekend there. Complete with spooky old hotel, lots of yummy cajun food, and a few trips to Bourbon Street!

I'll spare you the gory details, and just share some of my favorite pictures from our weekend.

Who doesn't love a little rejuvenation in NOLA?!

But now back to the real world, and the hope that the weather people are right and we will be getting a cool snap after the rain today. Bring on the fall weather, AND...

Hubby's birthday!

That's right my sweet husband will be the big 25 on FRIDAY!

I'm thinking we'll have to have a little bloggy fun for him this week... there's some great pictures of him I'll have to borrow from his mom... so stay tuned!

Love you honey!

Happy Tuesday y'all!

Finally Friday!

It has been a week let me just tell you!

I fail at taking pictures though so we'll just have to go with my incredible story telling skills here. Let's start where we left off:

The furniture escapade on Tuesday. Whew! It was about as much fun as it sounds. We got up at a decent time got our old furniture moved out of our room, drove across town to borrow my dad's trailer, picked up our furniture(which wasn't even all there due to an ordering blunder, but luckily the floor models were in good shape and my impatient self took those), then got home to unload them.

The new dresser was MUCH heavier than I had anticipated for just Stephen and I to move. Eventually we got it into our room.. but it wasn't fun. By this time my sweet hubs was more than a little irritated, and to top it off, the new furniture didn't fit right in our room. It fit but not in the way I had anticipated it would. So the furniture required rearranging. Stephen wasn't keen on this idea, and I was tired of listening to him, so I kicked him out and I went to work situating everything. Nothing was heavy, I just slid it around on the carpet, but it wasn't easy manuevering an over crowded room. Eventually I got it all into place and we both love it now!

New night stands(bed set we bought after the wedding but I still love) Please excuse the uber lazy dog. Watching me move furniture had exhausted him.

New dresser, not a great picture(and the room is a wreck because I have yet to hang pictures and situate the little knick knack thing) but we love it! It's a huge improvement to our mismatched childhood dressers we both brought from our parents houses!(YIKES!)

So that about sums up our Tuesday. The aforementioned night stand for our guest room that I was working on is still under construction. I'm hoping to finish it and have pictures tomorrow! :)

After all that we went to Stephen's grandparents' for dinner and a little family time since it's the first time we all had a chance to get together since our wedding in MAY! Never a dull moment and we both had a lot of fun laughing and catching up with the whole fam damily!

I slept soooo good that night!

Stephen left Wednesday and has been in Orlando visiting his brother and enjoying Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios in Orlando ever since.

I've been holding down the fort here.

Dinner with a long lost friend Wednesday night and thenvisited my parents.

Worked Thursday and then took my first Zumba class. (AWESOME!!!) I think I'm hooked. I had the VHS tapes when they first came out(yes, I realize this is making me sound older than I am.) when I was in middle school and absolutely loved them. I had been meaning to go try one of the classes since that's become all the rage around here, but just hadn't gotten there til Thursday. But I think I will become a regular. The hour flew by, I had so much fun, and I could feel it working! I'm sore today and getting more sore by the minute! I definitely recommend it to everyone looking to shake up their workout routine.

After Zumba I had dinner at my parents house.(Yes, I do spend pretty much every night hanging out over there when Stephen's gone.) Then mom and I watched Grey's Anatomy, and I made the trek home to crawl in my bed and see my sweet boy, Natty!

This morning was my first attempt at subbing in an elementary school. I filled in for a 4th grade class and it was quite the adventure! I love the school, teachers, and admininstration, but this particular class was more than a little trying! I'm not swearing it off yet, but boy did they wear me out! I will elaborate more on that later, I'm pretty tired from my adventure!

I also had a 4:00 shift at my other job after my long day of subbing. I got off about 7:15 though so it wasn't so bad. I still had time to meet my Mom, Aunt, Cousins, and Trae man for dinner and margaritas and made it to the mall to continue my hunt for a dress for my cousin's wedding next weekend. Whew.

I'm wiped!

Stephen gets home tomorrow and I could not be more ready to have some company! I think even Natty is starting to think I'm crazy for talking to him so much! Unfortunately I have to work 5-cl tomorrow night and 10-3 on Sunday so I probably won't actually get to spend any quality time with him until Sunday night, but it could be worse so that will be the end of my complaining!

This girl is hitting the hay! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I can't wait to get caught up on all my blog reading tomorrow morning after my gym sesh!

Happy Friday y'all!

Truly disasterous.... marriage mishaps part 2

Seriously.

That sums up my life.

Ok, maybe not my life so much.. but definitely my clumsiness.

I kid you not. I should really write a book about the disaster that has been my married life as I attempt domestic goddess status. "The Misadventures of a newlywed", "Beautiful Disaster", eh? Who am I kidding? This didn't just start when I got married.

I've been a klutz my entire life. I think my depth perception is off. (Ok, I'm making excuses again...) I was ALWAYS running into walls and counters(still do, actually.) It's a joke at my parents' house that I can't walk upstairs without falling. Yes, I fall up the stairs. And let's not forget this fun little story!(oh yeah, have I mentioned the lawn mower is STILL broken.. yes, go Lauren!) 

Well, today was no exception to my gracefulness...

My wonderful, amazing, awesome parents bought us new bedroom furniture as a wedding gift. (I tried to tell them that the wedding they paid for was a HUGE gift, but my mom insisted they still had to get us something.) We had both been using the dressers we had at our parent's houses since we were kids(they don't match at all) and a night stand that came from my room at my parents house that had been painted several times. Needless, to say I'm ECSTATIC to get our new furniture and *finally* feel like the house is all together. If all goes according to plan, I should have pictures for you tomorrow!

Anyhow, I digress...

The new furniture was supposed to be here last Thursday or Friday so we had both cleaned out our dressers to prepare, and our clothes have been ALL over our bedroom floor. I considered taking a picture to show you, but was far too embarassed! It's driving me crazy. Well, we finally got the call that the furniture is in and we're both off all day tomorrow so it's new furniture day!

Today we were reorganizing to prepare for the new furniture and worked on a few other projects. Before we left to hit up Lowe's for supplies, I slammed my *own* hand in the sliding glass door letting the dog in. Not one of my brighter moments, and it began to swell almost instantly. I should have taken this as a sign to go back to bed.

I didn't.

We went to Lowe's and got what we needed. When we got home I started painting the afore mentioned nightstand to prepare it for it's new home in our guest room.

Here's the before:

Yikes, right?!

Well wait til you see the new and improved night stand tomorrow!

I'm painting black, and it already looks a million times better! My sweet  husband thinks so too. He was sitting outside with me while I was painting since the weather is soooo nice. He had just complimented me on how nice it looks now, and I was getting a little cocky with my handy work. I turned to tell him something when I KNOCKED THE WHOLE can of paint over onto the drive way. I grabbed it pretty quick, but half of the can still managed to end up in a pool on the driveway. (Wish I had pictures of this!) Thank God it was outside, but have I mentioned that we rent the house we're in? Yup... not our house, not our driveway.

Disaster.

The water hose managed to wash away some of the paint, but there is still a fair amount of black paint on the driveway.

Lovely.

Thank God Stephen didn't marry me for my grace right?! He likes to call me his walking disaster. Gotta love pet names!

Whew... Happy Monday y'all!

First day..

Thanks again to Ashley at Be Bright and Jovial for the award! That was such a sweet surprise today! :)

I don't know about where you are, but here it has been raining ALL day. The dreary, nasty, makes-you-want-to-stay-in-bed-all-day, kind of rain! If I didn't have to work today I would have stayed in bed all day, but since I did work today I have a feeling an early bed time may be in my near future!

It's already been a long week and it's only Wednesday! Sunday night I went to the Jason Aldean concert at the wharf with one of my best friends, Whitney. I posted a little about the concert before. My sweet sweet husband bought us tickets as a surprise back in July, but the original show got rained out. (BOO!) So it was rescheduled for Sunday. It was an AMAZING concert! Aldean puts on one heck of a show, for any of you country girls like me out there, if you ever get the chance to see him live, GO! He's well worth every penny. It was a late show though, the opening acts didn't start til 8, and Jason didn't end up going on until a little before 10. The concert ended around 11:30 and we still had an hour drive home and traffic to deal with, so it was about 1 a.m. before I crawled into bed(this is late for me now, sad I know!)

Me and Whitney at the concert

Jason Aldean!(we were pretty close)

Monday I caught up on some errands and housework and got in a good but long overdue work out at the gym.

Tuesday was the big day! I subbed for the first time! My Mother-in-law has been subbing at the high school for several years now so she's pretty well known by all the teachers and gets called on a regular basis. Now that she's also a flight attendant she can't work as many of the sub jobs as she used to. This is convenient for me because I can take a lot of the jobs that she can't instead of waiting to find an open job online. Monday she called me and asked if I would be interested in taking a 9th grade class for Tuesday. Boy was I! Initially I was really going to concentrate on subbing for elementary schools, but I was open to anything to get started.

I was a little nervous. I didn't go to this high school so I wasn't real familiar with the school lay out or the policies of the school and teachers. I was also nervous about subbing for freshmen all day, because let's face it. They're not always the most well behaved! I didn't know how well they would listen to me, since I'm not all that much older than them.(Except I realized that I'm actually 8 or 9 years older than them.. YIKES! Didn't realize how old I'm getting!) But to my pleasant surprise, they were all really good and very respectful. I didn't have any problems! I can't wait to sub again, and I'm still looking forward to working with different ages so I can see what I like best.

I was also a little afraid that I would just blend in with the students and teachers would stop me for a hall pass. But only one administrator at the very end of the day stopped to ask how my day went, and told me that I blended in with the students and it took him a minute to realize I was a sub.

My "teacher" outfit

I don't think I mentioned it before, but this is the high school that my husband went to. He graduated in 2005. #oldman

At the end of the day when I was signing out and turning my stuff in to the office, I found this little beauty on the wall of the main hall way:

Oh yes, you guessed it! That's the Hub's senior picture! Gotta love living in a small town! ;)

Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week! Happy Wednesday y'all!

Blog award!

Well I logged in to post about my first day as a substitute teacher when I found out that I had won an award!



RULES:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them.

Thank you SO much to the very sweet Ashley over at Be Bright and Jovial for sharing this award with me! If you haven't already, check out her blog, she's pretty awesome!

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

*I hate paper.

*I call my mom at least once a day even though I haven't lived at home in about 5 years

*I bleed garnet and gold(I'm a die hard Seminole fan!)

*I am a very proud Air Force wife

*I currently have no direction in my life. It's exciting and scary.

*I'm addicted to the show How I Met Your Mother

*I can't roll my "Rs"(Taking Spanish was very difficult LOL)

3. Pass the award along.

I'm sharing this award with some of my all-time FAVORITE bloggers:

 

Mrs. Yellow Ribbon

Mrs. Alana's Miscellany

...Dogtags and Devotion...

Moore to Love

Me 2 We Est. 2011

 

Go follow them, you won't regret it I promise!