He's feelin 22!!

I'm breaking my social media fast to tell my husband Happy 22nd Birth(yester)day! 

Last night we had brownies and secret conversation with sweet friends and Sunday I threw him a camping themed surprise party! 

I've been planning his party for about a year and, let me tell you, I am NOT good at keeping secrets from my hubby. He's my best friend so when I'm excited about something he's the first person I want to tell! But I was a good sneaky sneak and mostly pulled it off at the end. He was only a little suspicious when he saw all the extra cars at my parent's house. 

Happy Birthday, Mr. Awesome. I love you always. 

Special thanks to my parents, brother, and Emily for all their help! 

Speaking My Language

Recently Husband and I took Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages quiz. It asked us each a series of 30 question with two possible responses and ranked the personal importance of five acts of love based on our answers. It may seem super cheeseball (actually, the more I type the cheesier it sounds), but even in just the past week it has made a difference in our closeness and understanding of one another. How awesome is that?!? After seven years together I am still learning about my husband and better ways to love him!

Two of my top-ranked love languages are Quality Time and Acts of Service and, boy, was he speaking my language this weekend!

As a Christmas gift/going-away celebration I was planning to take the girls to see Disney's Frozen and have a sleepover at our apartment. I was going let Husband off the hook and keep the girls by myself, but he chose a day and planned the movie all by himself so that we could be together. He offered to spend his Friday night with three hyped up little girls watching cartoons. What other 21-year-old guy would do that? Few, if any. 

(She's a lazy sloth)

 Not only did he make his grand gesture of self-sacrifice, but he bought me a Christmas tree! We're moving next month and had decided that it would be easier to skip out on a tree and decorations this year. It made me sad, but it made sense. Well, Friday afternoon I pulled up to our building just in time to see Husband sprinting across the parking lot with a little tree over his shoulder. I was so surprised! He had spent the entire day cleaning our apartment and finding a little tree. It was perfect. He loves me so good.

I love this picture of Lucy. When we finished decorating, all of the sparkly green ornaments were in one group at 3-year-old eye level. HA!

While it was very selfless of Husband to spend his weekend babysitting with me, I think he enjoyed the cinnamon rolls and sweet snuggles he was getting.

Married for 99 years or footloose and fancy free, it's important to know how you need to be loved. You can take Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages Quiz here.

make this tonight!

Pinterest in constantly amazing me! And with that statement I have already lost all my male readers. HA! But seriously, I am constantly finding wonderful, magical things on that nifty site!
Between moving and starting school last week I haven't done any real cooking (because frozen pizza doesn't count) and we've eaten a lot of take out, which stinks because I really enjoy preparing meals.  We're mostly settled now and I am finally back in the kitchen! Woo! Last night I pulled two recipes from my pinboard for dinner and they turned out to be delicious! I'm not usually one to brag about my culinary (can you call it "culinary" if you use a Crockpot?) success, mostly because Tommy is my only judge and he risks his chances for getting the good lovin if he doesn't eat everything, but my BFF Sydney had dinner with us last night and she scraped her plate clean! That's what friends are for, to tell you if your cooking sucks.
Anyway, I wanted to share these recipes with you because they are finger licking good and super easy! Try them tonight and let me know how it goes!

Crockpot BBQ Chicken

This is a recipe I've made before and it's Tommy's favorite. I like to use Sweet Baby Ray's Sweet & Spicy BBQ sauce and tear the chicken into chunks right before it's served. 

Cheddar and Herb Biscuits

WOWZA! First time making these and they were heavenly! 

We also had our favorite side dish, garlic brussles sprouts that are Sydney's mom's recipe and not from Pinterest. I know, I know, as kids television taught us to hate brussles, but they are so yummy when cooked this way: 

Cut the brussels in half and saute them in olive oil and garlic over medium-high heat, I like to use two big ol heaping spoonfuls of minced garlic. When they have turned a bright green and the flat bottoms start to brown, remove them from heat and place on a foil-covered cookie sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt and bake until the tops start to turn brown around the edges, usually about 3-7 minutes depending on how hot your oven is. I just pop mine in with whatever else I've got cooking, like the biscuits last night, and watch them to make sure they don't burn.

That's it! Pretty simple and a huge pay off! I have chicken and biscuits left over for lunch today. Come on 12 o'clock! Let me know if you try out these recipes and how you like them. Have a lovely Tuesday!

Happy America Day, y'all!

"Read somewheres that the human body is 75 percent water. Not me, y'all. I'm 75 percent sweet tea, 100 percent Merican."

Every year on the 4th of July my granny wants the whole family to dress in red, white, and blue and take a great big family photo. But every year no one knows about it until we get there so it's always a huge disaster. This year my brilliant mother came up with a great idea to raise enthusiasm and make granny happy and that wonderful idea's name is Redneck Showdown! The idea is to be as patriotic and tacky as possible! You have to wear your costume all day for flag football, tug-of-war, and eating yourself silly. At the end of the day everyone votes for someone besides themselves and the winner gets a trophy! We're all super excited! Especially Tommy and I because there's not much we love better than dressing up in costume!

This year we aren't able to fully participate because we are going to the beach with the rest of the Snows (we haven't yet mastered sharing family time) so we have to send in our photo submission. We can vote, but we can't win. Honorable mention by photo submission. But they better watch out next year! Even Jack the Dog will be bringing his A-game! I am so looking forward to sharing this new tradition every year with my family!

Momma and Poppa Snow are here now to pick us up for beach fun so I've got to run! Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe 4th of July! USA USA USA!

Oh, hello there!

Wow, blog friends! It's been quite a while since we've run into each other and I'm so glad to be back!

I kind of gave up on blogging after the midterm because of a terrifying drop in my grades, particularly stupid Western Civ, but now I can proudly tell you that after finals they are much better and my scholarship is safe. WAH HOO!

Other than being buried in our books, not a lot has been going on at the Snow house.
Let's see... we had a wonderful Valentines weekend! We made dinner at home and I surprised Tommy with a weekend get-away to the cutest little B&B in Birmingham. Highly recommend it if you need a cozy, romantic mini-vacation!

I was finally able to see Wicked! It was awesome!! My sweet mommy-in-law bought tickets for Mom and I as my Christmas present so we made a girls trip out of it. Love girls trips!

Tommy and I went to Panama City Beach for spring break. We purposely avoided the crowds (Wrong place for that, am I right? HA!) but I still saw Luke Bryan! He was chillin on St. Andrews beach with his camera crew not ten feet from me! I didn't ask to get a picture because I didn't want to be "that girl" and let me tell you, totally not worth it! Why, oh why, didn't I just take a stinkin picture?

We've seen Avengers twice and it was amazing both times! Thor.. Oh, Thor, how I love you.

I had a secret stray pet for a while whom I dubbed Poor Kitty. Tommy is allergic to cats so I just fed and pet her/him on the front steps every day. Then it rained really hard for a few days and I haven't seen Poor Kitty since. I hope he/she is okay and found a family without allergies.

And we've just gotten back from the beach again. I love having a father-in-law who owns a grocery store because Tom and I get to tag along on these awesome food show trips! Free food and great family beach time! Also, the place we stay has the BEST fish tacos. Not that I've eaten fish tacos anywhere else, but I'm assuming that they can't be as good as these.

Tommy has come down with some pretty icky sick this week, but other than that all has been well in our little corner of the universe. We have succumbed to the sweet laziness of summer and are loving every minute of it!

Now enough about me, how have you been?

the big 2-0! woot woot!

Today my sweet hubby has moved into his TWENTIES!

That's right. Today Tommy has turned 20! He's a real life grown up now, you guys! How exciting! I feel so privilaged to be able to spend this milestone birthday with him and I hope that he'll let me stick around for many, many more. I think he will though because I'm the world champion of snuggling.

I had something totally rad planned but since we collectively had to spend $800 on text books (Yeah, we both bought all used and it makes me sick every time I think about it.) it fell through. So, we decided to just hang out and be lazy all weekend. That's Tommy's absolute favorite thing! If it were up to him we would be hermits and the only people who would ever visit would be food delivery guys.
I could resist getting him out for at least a little while though. We went to Cheesecake Factory Saturday for lunch and nearly bust a gut! Oh, it was so soooo good! Fried mac-in-cheese heaven. Then we came home and took the most glorious nap in the history of all naps!

For his actually birthday I got him a few little gifts. Instead of getting him another card (he had already gotten a pretty sweet Jim Halpert talking card from someone special) I made him a message in a bottle.

I bought the little bottle at Michael's, rolled the letter around a pencil, and dropped it inside! It was really hard to squeeze it in that little bottle and even harder to get it out but he loved it :)

Tommy is my best friend and I can hardly believe he chooses to spend his every day with me. I can't imagine a more thoughtful, understanding, kind, funny, snuggly, HANDSOME man than the one God blessed me with. Happy birthday, Sunshine! I love you.

married christmas to us!

As you all know, this was our very first married Christmas! It was fantastic!
Of course I'm not going to lie to you, I seriously missed waking up at my parents house. It's just because it's different and the first year I was away. Tommy missed his old traditions too. But we still participated in everything we normally do and had fun figuring out new, grown-up-ish traditions!

Dec. 23rd we woke up early and went to my parents' house for gifts and breakfast before we left to visit my family in Ft. Payne!
Ps. I took all these with my phone, so they're pretty crummy. Bear with me!

Dad was really excited about his gift!

We spent Christmas eve at my aunt and uncle's house...

 ...having Tacky Christmas! I won.

 I didn't realize how long an actual game of Monopoly took! It eventually dwindled down to just Tom and I. Then he clobbered me and the bank took all my property.

 After a hard night of stealing my cash, Tommy used it to get his hair done at Salon Abby! He wasn't took happy about the pink and purple clips.

Abby and Sara found out that they are going to Disney World! They're sooooooo excited!

Christmas morning Tom and I packed our stuff up and met up with his family for our annual trip to Gatlinburg!

Tommy won this snowman/penguin man for me at a gas station on the way. He's the champion of crane games! Ha!

That night we exchanged our gifts to each other and to his parents.

I love how Tommy wraps my presents! Layers and layers of whatever paper he has on hand. He never cuts off the excess so he just folds and crumples it until he can tape the wad down! He also writes the recipient's name across the front in big, sloppy Sharpie! I get cracked up whenever I see his finished product! He's gotten a little better over the years, but I refuse to show him how its really done because I like knowing exactly which box from him. Underneath the double wrapping, packing tape, hand towels, old tshirts, and a broken hairdryer sat a Canon Powershot! I couldn't believe it! I've been so sad about my Cybershot breaking at Disney and I'm thrilled to be snapping away now! It was way too big a gift and made the Polo sweater I got him pale in comparison, but I'm extremely grateful for it! Now are better pictures!!!! Woot Woot!

 We had tons for fun in Dollywood!

 And the Ripley's aquarium! I swear, in Gatlinburg if Dolly doesn't own it, Ripley's does!

We had a wonderful first married Christmas!

i love me some Dwight K. Schrute!

Tom and I love The Office. Actually, love isn't a strong enough word. Let me put it this way: this year alone we have gone through all seven season three times. Yeah. Some might call that sad, but I like to refer to it as ultimate fan-dom.
Anyway I almost fell out of my chair today when I got this email from Tommy:

 Just wanted to let you know you are awesome :) 
    
    Love, your hubby
   Ps. watch the video!

birthdays make me feel awesome!

I'm Officially Nineteen!
as of last wednesday.

Thanks to Facebook you probably already know that my birthday has come and gone. And it was great! We've been so busy with school that I didn't really expect much in the way of celebration, which was fine because I feel like I've been way over blessed this year. But Wednesday when I got home from work Tommy said "Get dressed because I'm taking the birthday girl out!" Yay! Every girl likes a big fuss over her birthday, even if she says she doesn't. He took me to Bentos for dinner and I got to wear one of the super cute Forever 21 skirts that Sydney got me! When we got home he surprised me with a handmade card (made my heart melt!), chocolate covered strawberries and almonds, and a turquiose Patagonia pullover! How sweet is he?!? I have the best hubby ever!

Thursday night we ate a special dinner at my parent's house! Mom made all my favorites: garlic brussel sprouts, yellow rice, and asiago lemon chicken. Mmmmmmmmm... now my mouth is watering again! For dessert we had something new from Pintrest called the Hefty Hubby and lemme just tell you, too much of that and you will be hefty! Its a layer of cookie dough, a layer of Oreos, and a layer of brownie batter. Baked to perfection and served with ice cream. It. Was. So. Good!

Mom also made cute party decorations! A cutesy bunting banner and my totally awesome princess birthday hat! It made me feel like I was in a Disney movie! I love my family :) I know that's the most obvious statement ever, but I really do! I think they're the greatest!

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It was so special!


**above: I'm not purposely smiling like a goober, I was in the middle of the Tangled song when mom snapped my picture!

i love festivals!

Last weekend Tommy and I went to the Kentuck Arts Festival with Syd and Lynda!
I love going to Kentuck every year and seeing all the cool art, but Tom had never been so I had to take him!

Let me say, I have always been a volunteer at the festival and got in free so I had no idea what everything cost. It was $10 a ticket to get in (not so bad), but they wanted $15 for a 3-piece chicken finger basket! What?!? And because there were no prices listed, we ordered two! We thought they would be about $5. Nope! Now we know to eat before we come!

Despite unintentionally spending a huge chunk of our money right off the bat, we had a really great day browsing through all the booths and checking out each artists unique style with good friends. I bought a cute little ring made from an old silver teaspoon! We got another cool something I can't tell you about because it's my dad's Christmas present! He is going to love it! Before we left we even got to see Kara's baby sister Anabelle at Justin's tent! I love his mixed media paintings! I'm determined to have them in my grown-up house.

See that stick in Tom's bag? Well he and Lynda decided that some of the "art" looked like something that could be done by a child or picked out of the backyard yet it was priced extreamly high. So they got a stick and Lynda bet Tom $10 that couldn't get someone to ask him where he'd bought such a beautiful "gnarled branch" before we left. We caught several people admiring it but no one said anything! But as were getting off the shuttle at our car I heard a woman whisper to her husband, "He bought himself a little tree! How nice! I wish I'd seen that!"
Score!

Labor Day Lazies

Happy Tuesday after Labor Day everyone!

How was your long weekend?
Did you make it through Noah's rainstorm?

Tom and I had a great, busy labor day! Friday night we went to Workplay theatre with Sydney, Mary Ann, and Rachel to see Dave Barnes!!! For those of you who don't know, he's the genius and original artist of God Gave Me You. Blake Shelton is ight but Dave is the stuff!

See what I mean? Can't be touched!

Saturday we all went to the Alabama v. Kent State game! Funny story: After I've paid $55 to get a student guest ticket for Tom so he can go with me, we get up early, dress in our game day attire, park a million miles away, and walk to the stadium only to discover that the Kent State game was not in my package and we had to buy a second ticket to a game that we probably wouldn't have gone to had we known. Roll tide.

But it's okay because we had a really good time with our friends! The excitement of game day was totally worth it! And I have to say I was very pleased with the courtesy our fans showed to the Kent State players! Roll tide!

Sunday we went to church, made tacos (my first time ever! thought they were purdy good) until I had to go babysit. As I was on my way there I got a message telling me not to worry about it! YAY! So we had an Office marathon! We love the Office! Hardcore Parkour!

That is Tom favorite Office moment and hearing him laugh so hard at it cracks me up!

Monday we had originally planned to go to Six Flags, but we had to cancel because of the rain and the heart  meds Tom is on right now. Instead, we caught a bad case of the Labor Day Lazies, so it made for a great day to sleep in, eat spaghetti, clean, and do mountains of homework! Personally, I'd have rather read Jane Eyre, but UA is funny about homework; they actually want you to learn something. Go figure! We lazed around in sweats all day and never even left the house. It was a good day :)

Oh and a funny tweet I read about today's weather:

"If I'm not breaking a sweat on the way to class, I'm trudging through an artic downpour...#alabama"    -Sam Light

So true! Thanks for the laughs Sam! I was not aware that it was cold when I left my house in shorts and a tank. Did anybody else have this predicament? Or were you a smarty who dressed appropriately?

Happy Short Week!

and they lived happily ever after

It's the moment we've all been waiting for-- or that I've been waiting for, anyway!

The wedding pictures are in!

Scottie did such an amazing job! Thank you!

Feel free to browse the rest of our pictures here!

Ps. If I look miserable in a few, I'm crying. I just have an ugly cry face.



grown-up toughie: submitting

"Wives, submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord. For he is the head of the home..."

Ephesians 5:22-23a

I'll be the first to tell you this is not my favorite verse. I don't consider myself a feminist or anything and I'm very partical to the 1930s way of life for women, but I like to have things the way I like to have them! I mean, who doesn't?! So when it comes time for me to submit to my husband's judgement, I tend to pout. But God didn't say I had to like it, he just do it.

This particular time that I'm referring to involves the stove that came with our house. At this point in my life, I've learned use what is useable and ignore that ugly. This stove was uuuuuggggllly! But on top of that, it was in pretty bad shape. Three of the four coil eyes where popping out, the knobs didn't have marks so we couldn't tell what tempurature we had set the thing to and they didn't always turn like they should, so they stove could still be on and we wouldn't know unless we touched it. Can you say "major fire hazard"?!? I can!

We decided it would be safest to leave to stove alone and eat take-out and microwaveables until we could buy another. Didn't have to be new, didn't have to be pretty, it only had to work.

After being married for three weeks and not being able to cook my new husband dinner, I started to feel like a pretty crappy wife. How am I going to be a 'Leave It To Beaver' mom without a stove?! Then Tommy found someone selling a five-month-old stove for $200! I was so excited! AHHH! Instead of buying it immediately, he took a few days to think about it (side note: he always does that. he is such a resonable shopper. I, however, am an impulse buyer). I came home from work on cloud 9 one day, knowing that he had called the stove person and so excited that I would have it by the next day. But when I walked in, it wasn't quite the senario I had dreamed up. Tommy told me that he just didn't feel right about this stove. I threw a tiny tantrum and argued for a while; stomped off to our bedroom like a little kid. Remembering the verse in Ephesians, I took a deep breath, walked into the living room and told Tom through my hot, angry tears that I would sumbit to what he thought, but I did. not. like it. I pouted to my mom and Sydney for a few days, but saved face in front of Tommy. I even told God I didn't like it. I figure I might as well be honest since He knows my heart anyway. Tommy is my husband and the head of our family and I will do what God tells me, but it is HARD!

Oh, but God know better than I do and He always sees what I can't. Why do I fight and question?!
A few days later Tommy took me out to lunch and a movie and when we came home, this is what I saw:

a beautiful, brand-new Kenmore stove from my sweet, sweet husband! I love it so much! I am so grateful to have something this nice! We've cooked on it almost every nice since it came to live with us.


Basically, the act of submitting sucks because it's hard realizing you can't have what you want, but if you have a God-fearing husband who wants what is best for you and seeks God in every decision, it will be just fine.


(No, this is not the only experience we've had with sumbitting, the other ones just aren't long enough to blog about, but Tommy is always right! And admitting that tastes like vinegar!)

our first adventure

Hello friend! Welcome back! 

Tommy and I have been home from our wonderful honeymoon for a while now. It's taken me a while to post this because we've been super busy and my pictures are in all different places and I never can remember where I put anything! Luckily, my mommy got me organized today.

For those of you who don't know, we went on a cruise and had a fantastic time! It was a seven day Western Caribbean cruise. Beautiful, beautiful places. The water was bluer than I would ever have imagined! Anyway, here are some of my favorite pics! I'll be making an album on Facebook of all of them sometime, but don't hold your breath because, based on precedent, it will probably be a while!

Montego Bay, Jamaica- Horseback Riding

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands- Turtle Farm & Dolphin Swim

Cozumel, Mexico- Zipline