30 things

Today is Pete and I's 5th wedding anniversary! I feel like in some ways he hasn't changed a bit since I met him way back in, uhh, 2004 at the Jackson City Pool. In other ways he has changed a lot. All good changes, of course (like becoming a husband and daddy). I never in a million years would have thought that you are who God had planned to be my forever mate, but boy and I thankful that you were placed in my path! 

I wanted to post a list of 30 reasons why I love Pete. Often times I don't do a great job verbalizing how important and special he is to me, and so I wanted him to be able to see some of those reasons written out as well as share them with you...maybe you don't know him very well, or even at all and this will give you an opportunity to see how blessed I am to have him as my husband!

In no particular order...

1. I love how Pete leads our family. He leads the way in making our big decisions, showing our children what its like to love his wife, giving of his time, energy and love to others and the things that he's passionate about.

2. I love how Pete will dance when the girls ask him to go "dancing in the wibing room".

3. I love how Pete remembers my favorites things and will surprise me with them, just because.

4. I love how Pete allows me to be a part of things that I'm passionate about. He supports me when I take time away from our family to be a part of something bigger, like American Caner Society Gala committee, or church functions. He supported me in my decision to be a wedding planner for a while and live out that dream before we had a family.  

5. I love who Pete is when he's around his close friends and family. He opens up and has such a great sense of humor. He doesn't always show this side of himself, but its when he's comfortable with who he's around, that you're able to see just how awesome he is!

6. I love how Pete is always willing to step in to help or take over cooking dinner and dishes.

7. I love how our responsibilities of having a house and raising two children is a team effort! We don't have assigned roles; we work together and help out when we see that its needed. Pete knows how to work the washer and dryer. He knows how to cook. He does a great job at cleaning, and he's the best when it comes to playing with the girls and keeping them calm during our "witching hour".

8. I love how Pete respects my parents and my grandparents. He is interested in knowing their background and hearing their stories of childhood and how things were for them. 

9. I love how hardworking Pete is. I have never met another person that can manage a family, a lot of really great friendships, and 3 full time jobs flawlessly. 

10. I love how Pete provides for our family.

11. I hate ;) love how Pete reminds me that not everything is a big deal and sometimes its okay to just slowww down. I can see his little "crank the breaks" hand motions as I type this! :) 

12. I love how Pete plays with the girls. Sometimes it makes me nervous when he's barrel rolling across the floor with them in his arms, but it brings so much joy and laughter, it doesn't matter!

13. I love that (for the most part) we enjoy the same kinds of movies and tv shows. I mean we have a few shows we watch separately (you know..walking dead, Real Housewives of the OC, Bachelor, etc) but making a point to wait for each other on certain shows is always a little special. 

14. I love how Pete gives me time away to be by myself or to enjoy time with friends, to be someone other than just a mommy. and he never complains about it!

15. I love that Pete enjoys traveling.

16. I love that Pete loves me for who I am and never tries to change me into someone that I'm not. He accepts my faults and still loves me anyway.

17. I love when Pete kisses me on the cheek.

18. I love when Pete will play with my hair.

19. I love how Pete takes pride in caring for our yard.

20. I love that Pete is a man of God. He wants to raise our children in the church and strives to raise our girls to be genuine, caring, and thoughtful of others.

21. I love how Pete will get up in the middle of the night with either of our kids. From the very beginning, he would be up in a second with me and never complain a second about being tired!

22. I love when Pete mans the music in the car. Music use to be a large "thing" in our relationship way back when. I love when I hear one of "our songs" and the feelings that instantly smack in my the face and remind me of how lucky I am to have him in my life. 

23. I love how Pete loves me. He is kind, forgiving, affectionate, supportive, and my rock!

24. I love how darn attractive Pete is. I'm one lucky lady! :)

25. I love how Pete cares for everyone else. He has always, always been a giver, but he is so humble.

26. I love how Pete will drop anything to help a friend. He is the most loyal friend, and truly wants the best for everyone.

27. On that some topic, I love how Pete cares about my friends and is interested in making sure they are doing okay and things are going good for them.

28. I love how I have always felt safe with Pete.

Little side story to go along with this one!A story I will never forget and really confirmed that Pete is the most caring and thoughtful person I have ever been around...Back when Pete and I were dating (we only dated 6 months before we got engaged), we went on a bike ride with his family. It was on a gravel trail that was pretty flat and an easy ride. On one side of the trail there was a small hill that went down into a creek. Pete slowed down and switch side with me as we were riding and I thought it was so weird. When I asked him what in the world he was doing, he said that he needed to be on the outside because he didn't want me swerving off the trail and wrecking down the hill. It still bring a smile to my face that he is that concerned for my safety. :)
Sometimes I get a little annoyed by his overly cautious ways (like always wanting closed toed shoes on the girls, or wants them to wear pants instead of shorts in the summer to protect their knees when they fall :)). but when it comes down to it, I am so so thankful for the man that he is and how much he cares!

29. I love how Pete is always trying to find the best deal on anything and everything. Yes, it can get hectic when he comes home with 25 containers of Lysol wipes, 50 rolls of paper towels, or even 35 new pairs of pants for the girls. But, it is also really handy to know that he is always watching out and never has made me feel like shopping is only a mom duty. Most of our close friends and family know this about him as well, and he has a list of 20 different things to "watch out for" for everyone and he never forgets about anyone and genuinely wants to help everyone! No matter if it is groceries, appliances, carpet, clothes, electronics...you name it, he will usually find the best bargain for you!

30. I love that I get to be married to my best friend forever!

Thank you Charles, for being there for me the past 5 years. We have been through a lot of changes, some good and some bad, but you have always been there! Here's to praying for many, many, many more anniversaries! I love you! 

Weekend Recap: a get-away

This past weekend Pete and I headed to Columbia to celebrate his (super belated) birthday and our anniversary! It was homecoming at Mizzou so the town was a little crazy but it was still fun!

I met my mom at the park with the girls around 4:30 pm and headed our pretty quickly. I needed to pack and pick the house up a bit before Pete got home. I also wanted to make sure I had enough time to squeeze in a solo trip to Target and TJMaxx before we left! :) #reallife

Had to get the essentials! ha!

 Pete got home from work about 8 PM on Friday and we loaded the car and hit the road. It was a little later than we planned on leaving, so we ended up just eating dinner in St.Louis and spending the night at my sisters house. We didn't want to be driving until 1 AM and make us tired the rest of the trip. We got up fairly early on Saturday and hung out with my sister and her fam (thanks for the donuts and coffee!!) for a bit before getting back on the road!

 We stayed with one of our favorite couples and Hannah had made a "Happy Birthday Pete" banner to celebrate! She's the sweetest! :)

We headed out for lunch and then just came back to their house and watched part of the Card's game before heading to the Stadium. Unfortunately, the Cardinals AND Mizzou lost, but it was a great weekend!

Somehow I didn't get a picture with Hannah or Matt all weekend, but they were really there! ha! As we were sitting at the game the clouds and sky were so beautiful and then the sun started setting and it was seriously an amazing view!

After the game we went to this local Jazz bar that had great music and some delicious food! We got back around 1 AM and headed to bed ready to see our girls on Sunday!!

It was a great trip! Much needed adult time! The parts I like the best are the simple parts. Of course we were going to have a great time at the game and such, but going to dinner and getting to order whatever I wanted without trying to feed my girls off of it too, or the uninterrupted car conversation with Pete on the drive. Those are the little things that you take for granted when you have kids. It was a great weekend away, but I can't wait to go again and take the girls!
Thank you Matt and Hannah for being such AMAZING hosts! We are thankful for friends like you!!

What we're up to...

Let me catch you up to speed on where our lives are right now! We moved into our new house over the summer. It is the last house on a quiet, dead end street and we love it! We renovated this one more to our taste than any in the past. It was a fun process, but a bit more stressful than usual considering we are planning on making this our home for a few years! Which who knows if that is even true. If we find something else that we like more, than I am sure we will move but, right now I am just enjoying this house and all it has to offer! Zetta got a major upgrade in floor space in her room, so that is a plus. The minus for her now though, is she get's to share it with her baby sister! There is another room upstairs right next to her's that Pete is currently using as his office that we could make a nursery if we wanted to, but I loved sharing a room with my sister when I was younger and I also really like having Pete's office upstairs. I don't know why, but I feel like if he moved it down to one of the bedroom's in the basement I wouldn't see him as much! So ridiculous, but oh well. We will see how it works out and if we need to make a change, we will! So onto the topic of baby sister! Can you believe it? We are going to two babies, 16 months apart! We knew after we had Zetta that we were going to just let it all be in God's timing on when we were going to have another child and boy, did he surprise us! We just thought since I was breastfeeding and it took us over a year to get pregnant with Zetta it wouldn't be too soon. Which some days I think that 16 months apart isn't too soon but, then others, I selfishly don't want to give up my undivided attention on my first baby just quite yet. With all that being said, we are extremely excited that we are having another girl and know it's going to have it's challenges, but nothing that we can't handle!
I started working full time when Zetta turned 10 weeks old. I started out at a rehab facility being a technintion and really enjoyed the people and interacting with patients all day long. When I was two weeks into that job, a lady I use to babysit for called and said that she was good friends with the owner of LeBounce (a local bounce house in our area) and that I would be perfect for the job! I went and applied, and ended up getting the job! I put my two weeks in at my brand new job (oops) and worked 2 jobs for the next two weeks. It was an incredibly stressful time for me. Not only was I adjusting to motherhood and all that comes with it(pumping at work, waking in the middle of the night, etc, etc), I was working 2 full time jobs. This was my first full time job since college to begin with, so it was just a hard time. Anyone who has made that transition from college student to 40 hours a week job, knows how much of a shock that adjustment is. I truly do not think I am use to it yet!..someday! Since I started at LeBounce in February, there has been a lot of changes there, and all for the better of course. There was 2  facilities under the name LeBounce, and as of November 1st we separated the two facilities, and I work at a place called "Orange Monkey"! It is still a kids entertainment type place, just bigger and better(I will do a whole post on what I do exactly at another time)! Life as a manager has it's challenges but, is also rewarding!
Pete is still flipping foreclosure's and becoming quite the stud if I do say so myself! He has been lucky enough to buy, flip, and sell at a pretty good pace, so he only has about two or three houses he is working on at one time. He also has one rental property(3 separate units though) through his business that he manages and we have two personal rentals that he takes care of as well! He is extremely busy but you would never know it! He is the most calm spirited guy! God knew exactly what he was doing when he put us together! I need someone like him to keep me from going insane!! That is the basics of where we are now! I am hoping to get before and after pictures of our house uploaded soon, I am so pleased with the outcome and can't wait to share!

Just the Two of Us

My sister recently did this and I thought since my blog is pretty new it would be neat to do!

1. What are your middle names? Erin Mae and Pete's real name is Charles then his middle name is Peter

2. How long have you been together? We have been together a year and five months...married a MONTH TODAY! :)

3. How long did you know each other before you started dating? 5 long years :)

4. Who asked who out? He asked me out

5. How old are each of you? I turned 21 in January and he turned 27 in August

6. Did you go to the same school?  We both went to Jackson High School, but not at the same time of course. He went to Mizzou for college and I go to SEMO

7. Are you from the same home town? I would say yes. Pete lived in Idaho for the first five years of his life, but I would think he would consider Jackson his home town..never asked him so I could be wrong..

8. Who is the smartest? Pete, no doubt

9. Who majored in what? I majored in Hospitality Management and he majored in Economics

10. Who is the most sensitive? Me for sure

11. Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? A placed called Maranatha in Michigan

12. Who has the worst temper? It depends on the subject, but Pete doesn't really have a temper at all, so I would have to say me...for sure

13. How many children do you want? As many as we can financially support. 3 or 4 for sure.

14. Who does the cooking? Normally me because he does get off work until 7:15 which would make for a late dinner if I waited on  him, but when he is off or on the weekends we like to cook together. 

15. Who is more social? I am pretty shy around people I do not know, Pete is defiantly more social

16. Who is the neat freak? We are both neat freaks about different things. I could care less about my car and he is a freak about his car. I hate the house being dirty and he hates when stuff is laying around, like shoes, clothes, etc. He will pick up a lot!

17. Who is the most stubborn? We are both pretty stubborn I would have to admit

18. Who wakes up earlier? Me hands down, even on sleeping in days, I will wake up at least an hour before him

19. Where was your first date? Oh gosh, is it bad that I do not really remember..yikes. He will be mad about this! I feel like we went and got a snow cone...I know one of the first places we went out to eat together was O'Charleys...ooooppps

20. Who has the bigger family?As for immediate family we both came from families of 5. Now take one step out from there and his is way bigger!

21 How do you spend the holidays? We have only been together one year during the holidays so we really haven't had a "plan" but his family is very flexible, so we do my family traditions from when I was a kid and then go to his families in the evening of the holiday usually.

22 Who is more jealous? This has never really been an issue for us...

23 How long did it take to get serious? We knew each other so long before we actually were together that we knew once it was offical, it was serious

24 Who eats more? This is honestly a tricky one, ha. I snack A LOT so I eat a lot of little things throughout the day but he eats larger meals than me, because he doesn't snack..

25 What do you do for a living? I still go to school and work at a local gym part time and Pete works for AT&T

26 Who does the laundry? I normally do, but Pete sometimes helps out :) We both put the clothes away together though if he is there when I do the laundry

27 Who is better with the computer? Pete hands down!!!

28 Who drive when you are together? Pete does, always. He does not like to ride with me very much! ;)

29. What is your song? We have lots and lots of songs...just to name a few Sea Breeze-- Tyrone Wells, Whenever Were Alone--Brantly Gilbert, Better Together--Jack Johnson, the song we danced to for our first dance was When you got a good thing--Lady A, I could go on and on forever, we have like 3 cd's full of "our songs"

That's it! Have a good day!

Date Night!

Pete and I have a really bad habit of eating out, when we were dating all we did was eat out. But now that we are married and have our own house and kitchen we are TRYING to eat in at least 3 to 4 nights a week, that is a big deal people. Well, this week we ate in all 4 days(Mon-Thurs)! So last night we decided to go out to eat and go to the movies. One of my best friends works at Beef O Brady's, and she was working so that is where we went. I feel like when we go out to eat we always go to the same places, so this is always a good change for us. We had to go let Pete's/Pete's moms dog out first, so by the time he got home at 7:30 we drove to Jackson played with Darcy a while and got to Beef''s we had to hurry to eat, go to the gas station for candy of course, and be in the movie by 9:30. But we did it! A lot of his friends said the movie Due Date was really funny so that's what we went to see. It was really funny! Some parts were a little inappropriate, but there is hardly any movies these days that do not have inappropriate parts, in my opinion.

 Zach Galifianakis was one of the star actors who also played in The Hangover, which was really funny so we knew it was going to be good. The movie got out at 11:30 and since it was suppose to rain this morning, we had to go over to our other house we are working on and tarp the trailers. We just ripped all the carpet out of the house and to take it to the dump, you pay by weight. Needless to say we wouldn't want to pay for soaking wet carpet to be thrown away. I did not want to do that after the movie, but when I woke up this morning to go to work and it was pouring down rain I was happy that we did it! So that was our Friday night! We are both working this morning then, I/we have to babysit tonight then we are both off Sunday so we can go to church together for the second week in a row! YAHOOO!

Have a good weekend everyone!