Hello Again!

I made a New Year's resolution to get back to blogging.

My husband tells me all the time that he misses reading it.

True story.

He sent me an email yesterday with a link to this very blog.

The Soladay Family

His message said, "look what I found..."

I gave in and tried to log in
but couldn't even remember my password.

Long story short, here I am!

I guess the best thing to do is to recap a little of

what's been going on since my last post...from APRIL!

 

*The boys are still the same.

I love them so!

 



 

 Halloween!

We only have 1 child left that wants to trick or treat with us or wear a costume.

That is if you count wearing Ryan's trucker hat, with a built in mullet, a costume.

Why must they grow up so fast!?

Notice The Teenager missing in these pics?

That's pretty much par for the course these days.

He's much too busy to hang with us.
Teenagers.
Oh, and he drives now!
It's scary, my friends.

* Ryan and I are still

living like newlyweds.

It really does keep getting better!

 

 I still love my job teaching elemenary art!

I even did and art camp this past summer

and can't wait to do it again this year!

 

*We took an incredible vacation to Destin

with my whole family in July.

The house my parents rented was awesome.

They hired a chef to come in and cook meals for us.

THAT is the way to vacation, friends!

We cannot wait to go back in August!

Memories in the making!

 They spent hours on their skim boards.

 

What handsome men!

 Life is always better at the beach!

 My husband, the hopeless romantic.

Love him!

We took one night out for just the siblings and spouses

while my parents corralled the pack of 9 grand kids!

Love my brother and sister!



The last night, we took some family pics on the beach.

My world right here, ladies and gentlemen:

The WHOLE family!

What a fantastic week of memory making!

See you in August, Destin!!

 

*Ryan and I celebrated our 6th anniversary in October

and made this little token below to commemorate the occasion.

That's a good man who will willingly take his wife to a mosaic class!

 

*We are renting a cute little house until

the perfect house house pops up for us to buy sometime

between now and August.

I know it's out there somewhere,

but until then, I'm having fun changing up our decor

from dark and heavy to light and happy.

Remember this ottoman?

It used to be covered in a zebra print.

I found this new fabric online at Pottery Barn

and fell in love.

Ryan thinks I'm obsessed with putting everything on trays as seen below.

Trays and faux coral.

I'm pretending we live by the beach.

A girl can dream, right?

Remember these lamps Ryan gave me over a year ago from Pottery Barn?

They finally work in our house.

The side tables also used to be black.

I stripped the paint off and stained them.

Never again.

It was a total beating.

 See....more coral.

 I bought this bar cart from Target

after Christmas and saved about $90 of the original price.

I gave Ryan the monogrammed whiskey decanter for Christmas.

In about 2 more weeks,

there will be white slip covered club chairs on either side of the bar cart.

And yes, I said white.

It's one of the perks of having older children!

You don't have to worry about sticky hands all over the furniture.

The frame with the drawing in it is one I did.

It has the words from 1 Corinthians surrounding roses.

Our rental has a great little bar area off the family room.

It really is a cute house.

 More trays =)

Everything just looks better on a tray!

Okay.

When I brought this home,

Ryan thought I had lost my mind.

He gets it now.

It was even his idea to hang him here!



I used to have lots of blue and white porcelain

but sold it in a garage sale years ago.

Now I have to start all over!

Our kitchen

 

Yep.

It's on a tray.

Love the color palette.

There will always be monograms in our house. =)

 

*To close out this post,

my birthday is coming up this month

which is never a big deal to me.

BUT, this year's a big one.

40

I have been dreading it for a long time,

but I can't wait now because my sweet husband

surprised me on Christmas with this:

He sent me on a scavenger hunt

with clues in the form of poems that he wrote himself!



The final clue led me upstairs to this:

 And this:

We're going to Vegas for my 40th!!

Turning 40 doesn't seem so bad after all!

 

*Well.....there it is, friends.

Our life since April.

A lot has been left out, I'm sure, but you get the gist.

So until my next post,

have a great week, friends!

It just Keeps Getting Better...

Today is Ryan's and my 3rd anniversary.
My parents gave us this card.

It's so us.
Please don't throw up.
I waited a long time to be this happy.

Ryan,
You continue to surprise me.
You continue to inspire me.
You continue make me happier than I thought possible.
You love my children as your own.
I love and respect you beyond measure.
Three years...it feels like I have never known anything but you.
It just keeps getting better!

Love,
Your Wife =)

Weekend Recap!

Weekend, oh glorious weekend...

Where did you go?

How quickly you're gone.

How you do it, I'll never know!

We attended a wedding on Friday

of a couple so precious and in love

We visited with close friends

and our own wedding, we reminisced of.

Saturday was spent relaxing

and spending family time together

Then a father-son outing

in the cold and snowy weather.

Sunday morning Ryan cooked breakfast

and the kids played out in the snow

We prepared for a busy week ahead

full of school, sports, homework, you know!

Spring break is over

time to go back to school

but what a great time we had

It really was super cool!

Ryan and I went to a wedding of a guy at his office named Steve. He and his new wife, Mary, are such a sweet couple.  It was fun to see some of our really good friends:

Kristin, Kelly and I

I am so happy to be standing next to this man in this picture....I'm going to get sappy for a minute, so if it bothers you, TYA...if not, stick around, my friends! When you go to a wedding, you can't help but reflect on your own, and this wedding was no exception.  When they read 1 Corinthians 13:4...Love is patient, love is kind...you know the one...Ryan squeezed my hand and we smiled at each other, remembering it being read at our wedding. I remember Ryan texting me the entire scripture early in our relationship...He so had me at that moment!  It has special meaning to us because it describes to the "t" the way we want our marriage to be...patient, kind, not envious or boastful, truthful, honest, not easily angered...and we work to make sure it really is. We're not perfect, but we're perfect for each other.  Damn it's good, and how handsome is this man in his suit!

 

On Saturday, Trysten called Ryan on the way home from Houston with his mom, and asked if he would take him out to eat....Ryan JUMPED at the chance for some father-son time, so these 2 handsome guys below, went to Dave & Buster for some male bonding and then to see The Lightening Thief. They had a great time...I love seeing them together.

On Sunday, we woke up to massive amounts of snow, so the boys went outside to play!

Ryan and Trysten made an igloo!

Carter came back inside, and I found him with all of his books at the bottom of the stairs...I love this little guy.

I hope your weekend was just as great!

Here's to the beginning of a new week!!

We're Back!

What an awesome trip!  I am so glad we decided to forego our vacation to Vegas and opt for Florida instead since we had never been there together.  In all seriousness, after spending 4 days in the beauty that is Florida, we could absolutely see ourselves living in the Ft. Lauderdale area.  There is something so calming about waking up near the water.  I can't quite put my finger on why, but when you hear the sound of the waves, the calls of seagulls, and feel the sun on your shoulders, you can't help but have a little pep in your step!  Here are a few pics of the fun...unfortunately, our camera bit the dust midway through our trip, so there aren't that many!

Pro Bowl and Super Bowl Mania was EVERYWHERE! These 25 feet tall Roman numerals, representing the 44th Super Bowl, were right on the beach close to our hotel!

A sports lover's paradise!

The view from our balcony. BEAUTIFUL!

The first night, we met Steve and his sister and her husband for dinner. Caroline is absolutely precious, and we had the best time with them!  Okay...please ignore the obnoxious cleavage in this picture...The way I was leaning made "the girls" look ginormous!  Ryan was all smiles about this picture. Men!

I love what the name of the restaurant stood for!

Ryan and I spent all day Saturday hitting the beach, shopping and people watching along South Atlantic Blvd! This was from lunch at Lulu's where we had the hugest oysters I have ever seen!

Check out this Man of War we found on the beach!  It was really cool to see them so close up...you know...things that you don't see everyday when you live in suburbia!

Sunday was Pro Bowl day!!! A limo picked us up at Caroline and Keith's house and was loaded with food, drinks and lots of laughs! Pulling up to the stadium was a really cool experience!

Game time!

I think Ryan and I arrived back at our hotel around 12:30 and were up around 5:00 to catch our flight back to Dallas...talk about tired!  It was totally worth the lack of sleep though!  Poor Ryan had to go straight to the office for a full day of work!  However, it paid off since Ryan won a $3,500 trip voucher for 2 during the first of the month sales meeting yesterday!  Last night, we sat down and looked at possible destinations for our next getaway possibly during spring break....Skiing? Aruba? Acapulco? Mazatlan? =)

Dear Ryan,

What an incredible trip!  You are so great about making sure we always have the best time possible wherever we go.  I love that we are having the opportunity to see new things and experience them together.  The time we spent in Florida was filled with so many memories...and laughs....Here are a few of my favorites:

• The "busty" mannequins
• Is it "You Only Live Once" or "You're On Las Olas" ?
• "Have a 'suntastic' time in Ft. Lauderdale!"
• PHP: People Helping People....that's why we're here.
• Hot water while you're taking a shower is overrated.
• "The balcony" =)
• The voice in the elevator...."Poooooool"
• Debbo!
• Elbow Room....the girl who was 26 from the back and 62 from the front
• The "police escort" back from the Pro Bowl
• Our ghettofabulous camera!

What a great time!
I Love you, Mr. Soladay!!!

- Your Wife =)