house photos...finally!

we're not done with the house yet. but here is a sneak peak at some of things we've done so far...

mark and i on the day of closing in august

when you enter the front porch, this is the view to your left without furniture

with furniture, and a lovely view of the water

and more furniture

as you enter the front door, this WAS your (mint green) view to the left

this IS your far more neutral view

mint green view from the stairs of the living room and front door

netural view from the stairs, with a bunch of our junk by the front door, since we were about the leave for philly when taking these photos (yes, i snapped them in november and finally posting them now)

a close up of the living room. as a point of reference, the windows are to the front porch

our purpley powder room on day one

aside from putting the toilet seat down, not much has changed, but there are plans for a better paint color in our near future

the yellow kitchen on move in day

ah yes, much better as soft pumpkin

another view into the dining room (standing near the fridge in the kitchen, in the doorway to the study)

yay for pumpkin! also, we've added shelves to one of the walls now and plan to hang a beautiful piece of artwork on the wall above the buffet once it arrives

this was the previous owners laundry room, but we asked them to move the laundry machines to the basement so we could use this space as a study. it's a room off of the kitchen and on the other side of the wood wall you see is the front porch

a bit of a messy view from the kitchen

empty on move in day, from the brick wall (still in the study)

from the opposite corner of what you just viewed

i'm not going to show everything upstairs because we haven't painted any of the 3 bedrooms yet. the two smaller bedrooms are both this blue color. this is the guest room, and then there is another just like it, but a mirror image. the master is a gross brown, so we'll show those photos after we paint it the silvery green color we've had for a while now

from the back of the yard. that thing on the left was the POD the previous owners were using. it's since been replaced with our two cars...one of which is broken...but that's another post altogether

another view of the yard...

finito! we hope that if you haven't had the chance to visit yet that you will soon!

the holidays, 2010 style

 so i pretty much missed holiday blogging this year, but i feel like you'll forgive me once you see the brief overview below, outlining just about all of the fall and winter 2010 holidays...

me, clearing the guts out of our first halloween pumpkin (yes, it's true, we haven't previously carved a pumpkin together...shameful)

mark, doing some tracing on our REDSKINS pumpkin!

he's pretty amazing, that husband of mine

finito! SO good!

thanksgiving brought us to philly and my first cheese steak at pat's

i got a whiz with onions and green peppers. eh, it was fine, but i don't think i was prepared for all the meat on the sub, it was a bit overwhelming

we were lucky enough to be able to spend wednesday before thanksgiving with meghan and alex. we went to the mutter museum, saw some gross stuff, got coffee and a fabulous dinner in town- PG representin' in philly!

us on thanksgiving

and we'll just skip right to christmas! this is mark and i with our lovely nephew, andrew, and his cutie-pie sister, taylor, on christmas eve

she's adorable, i just can't get enough

andrew takes after his dad, he prefers to be shirtless.

the schmidt clan the day after christmas. taylor was christened on the 26th and mark and i were able to host the after-party since we're so close to the naval academy chapel- score!

these were actually baked in early december for a thing at work, but i thought i would throw them in here. my first attempt at sugar cookies from scratch. they were alright, a little crunchy, not so chewy. i always prefer a chewy cookie, so maybe next year i will perfect the recipe. or just buy them :)

mark and i also decided to host a little new years eve soiree. family-friendly, of course :) 

the morgan's gettin' their party on

like i said, prefers to be shirtless.

there may or may not have been a small fire on our porch involving sparklers. i'm just sayin...

the lovely louisa

andrew is such a friendly guy

the lovely ladies! louisa, rachel, susan, jenn, jackie, and rachel

we were a little  too boring for rock, but he tolerated us as best he could :)