Home Sweet Home!

Why Hello :]

As many (should be all!) of you know, Tom and I moved just north of Cincinnati last December. We are now nearing our one year anniversary of moving here (Time sure flies when you're having fun), and I FINALLY got to putting things up in our bedroom. Heck, we didn't even have curtains until about a month ago. Well, I have pretty much cluttered up decorated all of the other rooms in our house. So now it was the bedrooms turn! We got our engagement pictures done about a month ago, and I finally found some frames I like to put them in! Now keep in mind, we do not have children, so we have a lot of pictures of ourselves. haha. 

So oddly enough, this dresser belonged to my parents, they bought the whole bedroom set when they got married, so it has been around for quite a while! I have three Ball mason jars on the left with candles in them, and a candlestick that I got at an antique mall  with a candle on it. We just hung the pictures above today!

Here is a close up of the pictures. I bought the two thicker frames at Michaels today, the little one for $3.99 and the big one was $6.99. The three smaller frames were actually orange and I spray painted them brown! 

This is the collage photo frame I got today at Michaels for $14.99! What a steal! I have been looking for one I liked for cheap, so perfect!

Here's a close up!

I know, I didn't center these the best, but I'm not that worried! I grabbed these shelves up a few weeks ago from target for 6 bucks! The bouquet is from my sister Lisa's wedding, and the other things are stuff I had around the house!

This is a piece of metal art that my sister Lisa got me for my birthday, and it's perfect because it's big enough to not look small on this huge wall (at least in person) and the tone of the colors matches perfect with our ugly yellow walls. 

Now this isn't in the bedroom, but I spray painted this frame brown. It was white, but it was kind of scratched up when I bought it (it was $3 at TJ Maxx), and I knew I could fix it right up with some spray paint!

Here's a close up! :)

Please forgive my awful yellow walls. They're not my favorite! But we're renting, so we can live with it!

Hope you enjoyed a peak into our home!

Love,
Lauren

Wedding Madness!

Hellllllloooooo!
Yes, I am one of those annoying people who use too many letters in my words. It's the best! So, as we near our wedding deadline (EIGHT MONTHS FROM TODAY!) we actually have to do things for our wedding, not just talk about it. We now have invitations picked out, engagement pictures done, save the dates sent out, and are beginning to gather things for the reception. My's family is also beginning to plan my shower! Exciting I know. This transition is very strange though. We went from only talking and discussing, and dreaming, and now we are doing. Next, we will begin picking out cakes, flowers, food, and music! In the next few months I also get to go with my wonderful bridesmaids and help them pick out their dresses! We also get to discuss our ceremony with our awesome officiant, Jason Mims, who became an officiant just for us! How awesome! I am getting more and more excited as our day is rapidly approaching, and we cannot wait to celebrate with everyone!
Love,
Lauren
PS- Here are some of our engagement pictures, all courtesy of Blue Martini Photography

Sisterly love

As many people know, I have two amazing, wonderful, intelligent, inspiring, caring and all things wonderful, sisters. Since we were little, we have loved, hated, admired, and supported each other. Growing up with Rachel and Lisa was more then I could have ever asked for, at least for the most part (haha). I'm the youngest, so when we would play, I got the grunt jobs. At our old house we had a huge sandbox in the very back of our back yard. We always liked to make tunnels and rivers and little towns with our sand. Our town needed water to go in the river, makes sense right? Well, it was always my job to go get the water, which was all the way at the house. So instead of building tunnels, I would end up spending my afternoon running from the sandbox to the faucet, filling up a 16 oz cup with water, running back to the sandbox, and then back again. Over, and over, and over. At least that's the way I remember it happening. I just wanted to play with them. I am six years younger than Rachel, and four years younger than Lisa, so there was a big age gap, and didn't always understand what they were playing, or how to do the things they were doing. But they included me, which is all I wanted. And then we got a little older, and were in totally different places in our lives. I wasn't all that much fun to hang out with because I was in elementary school and Rachel was graduating from high school, and then eventually Lisa went to college, and I was in high school, and then I was in college, and they were both graduated and married, and had homes, and careers. It's really interesting how no matter where we were in our lives, we knew that we could count on each other. Having sisters is like having built in best friends. You get mad at each other, disagree, but then you get over it, you apologize, and you move on. There is no fight to end the friendship. Even if there was, we would just call mom and have her fix it. Now here we are, all three of us grown adults, with our lives, jobs, homes, and husbands (yes, I know I'm not married yet, but soon enough), and we still make time for each other, because we're built in best friends. We're each others biggest cheerleaders and supporters. I couldn't imagine not having my sisters. I couldn't imagine not having that bond and that go to best friend. I am so happy I have them in my life.
Love,
Lauren

Browns Game

Lisa's bachelorette party

Lions game

Christmas

Rachel's Wedding

Lisa's Wedding (I'm next!)

L is for the way you look at me... :)

Come on, you all know the song! At the beginning of this journey (the living together and in a totally different city), we had no idea what would happen. We had never lived together before, and little did we know that we didn't really know what to expect. Up until that point in our lives we had obviously spent most of our time living with our parents. Sooo... no grocery shopping, no decorating, and no question as to our lifestyle choices. As you start this process of living together you learn those weird things about people. For example, Tom's family puts the syrup in the fridge. My family keeps it in the pantry. Every time I go to grab the syrup, it's not there. Sure enough I find it in the fridge. Then I have to put cold syrup on my pancakes. Who wants cold syrup on their pancakes?  My family would always go out for ice cream, whether it was after softball games, or just because mom & I had a hankering for some yummy coldness. This is something Tom was unfamiliar with (or at least not thrilled and thought of it as a waste of money), but this summer I have turned him onto ice cream parlors and now we are lovers of ice cream parlors. Aren't they ah-mazing? haha. Anyways, this is not about ice cream. This is about how Nine-ish months ago I thought I was as satisfied with our relationship as I was going to get. I did not think I could have been happier. I was soooooo happy. Now here we are... nine-ish months later and I can say that I am utterly amazed that I get to spend the rest of my life with Tom. He is truly a great man, and will be an amazing husband, and will one day be a great father. God could not have blessed me with a greater man. And this realization makes me so thrilled because I am so looking forward to the next time I have this realization. I hope every person gets to feel this way, at least once, and hopefully always.
Who knew you could learn so much about someone just from living with them. :)
Love,
Lauren

The last of the summer weekends...

So this weekend Tom and I really started to wrap up our end of summer-ness. We were fortunate enought to be able to have all of Tom's family down for the weekend (Pat, Sandy, Melissa, Eric, Connor, Zennon, and Nana), and what a great weekend did we have! Mind you it was very busy, but yet a lot of fun (and we didn't even drive three hours with a toddler and a baby!). We played at the park, had some tasty margaritas, took a paddle boat ride, ate some yummy crab dip (and cakes!), played Zoo Legos, watched some fireworks, and watched a lot of football! Busy I know! But this weekend taught me a lot. It showed me that kids grow up so fast, and you only get so much time with them before they don't want to be your friend anymore. Connor just turned three, and that completely boggled my mind! I remember when he was a baby and getting to hold him, and now he is a toddler, and soon he will be heading off to school! So Uncle Tom and Aunt Lauren spent a lot of time playing with Connor this weekend. We got to play a lot! Tom also managed to pick up a few "Connor-isms." Like, Connor wanted to watch the fire works RIGHT NOW! So now Tom is saying he wants to watch football RIGHT NOW! If only you could hear the way he says it! Connor just gets so excited about what's coming up, and Tom just does it to be silly :) Uncle Tom also learned how to build a zoo out of legos, and Grandma just can't quite do it the same way. We also got to spend a lot of time with Zennon, who is rolling over and almost sitting up on his own, already! It was so great to get to see the boys and spend time with everyone. They're growing up right before our eyes and we just can't believe it!

Looking at the big paddle on the boat!

Living out of town has taught me to appreciate the time I have with my family, because I dont get to see them all the time anymore. Differences need to be put aside, and you just need to relax and let yourself have fun and enjoy each other's company, that's why you're there in the first place! You only have so many memories, so they should be good ones. :)

What does living out of town teach you?

Love,

Lauren 

Playing with Uncle Tom

Yikes!

Hiiiiiii!

I know it's been a while, but I have been a busy lady! Between work, visiting friends, and general life thrown together it gets busy. We had an awesome weekend (last weekend), but it was very quick and very busy! On Friday Tom had his first football draft, so I spent my evening at the gym (glamorous I know!). Then on Saturday Tom worked in the morning, and after work we headed up north for Tom to draft in his second league. He got to play a few games of horseshoes with family and spend some time with our adorable nephews. After the draft we headed over to Katy and Jason's (Check out my uber talented cousin Katy here: South Paw Studios) for a beer tasting (Jason and my brother in law Matt are super into Craft beer, check out Jason's page, Everything Brewed). They got all sorts of yucky different cheeses for us to try with the beer, it was a lot of fun and good to see Matt, Lisa, Katy, and Jason! On Sunday morning we headed back down to the Cinci area and made our way out to our friend's family farm and spent the evening visiting our friend Ben who was in town from Augusta, SC. So good to see him and meet his new-ish lady Anna. On Monday (after work that is) we headed down into cinci to watch our Redlegs lose to the Phillies, but hey, at least the game was good! As far as this weekend goes we are home bodies. Tom is on call so leaving the house can become a pain. But football is on now, so it makes our Saturdays spent at home much more enjoyable! (And I got to put my Buckeye's jersey on again, FINALLY!) As far as the future goes we will have lots of visitors next weekend when Tom's parents, sister (& fam) and Nana come to visit us! We're going on a Riverboat ride and I cannot wait to see the excitement on Connor's face!

Till Later!

Love,
Lauren

decisions decisions...

So Tom and I have been facing a lot of grown up choices that I dont know if we're ready to make. We were looking at houses and then chose a house and were getting ready to decide to make an offer, and then we changed our minds. I think more then anything it scared us. We wouldn't have the freedom to do things as we please (financial freedom), and that's not exciting to us. I know owning a home is an investment, but at this point it's not something we NEED to do. But going back to pre-not buying a house, I was getting really excited. I was going to be able to pick out paint, and tile, and flooring and learn how to frame (we want a finished basement), and all of these things would have given me something to do. I am a very project focused person. If I am given a project to work on, I really focus on it. So, I was getting very excited about the idea of picking out patio furniture, planting a garden, and being able to have people over! But! We changed our minds, and it broke my heart. I know deep down this was a choice we needed to make though. Waiting until after the wedding will free up a lot of cash (we're currently saving over half of my income each month to pay for it), and will also give us a chance to adjust to paying our student loans and all the randomness that comes up. Once this choice was made I was in a bit of a funk. I was just like, "what now? What am I going to spend all my time thinking about and planning and gathering ideas for? Because it's not a house anymore..." And then Tom kindly reminded me that I WE have a wedding to plan, and that apparently I am lacking... I had no idea. So there we are. Confused, overwhelmed, anxious, and excited all at the same time. We will continue our home search in the spring, but at that point will be able to afford a much larger (Nicer) home. Confusing I know....

Day One... Right?

For those of you who don't know... I'm Lauren, 22 years old, engaged to the wonderful Tom Duris (I get to become his wife next June =] ). We recently made the bold choice to move to Cincinnati (Hamilton actually) to begin our adult lives together. Why Cinci you ask? Well, it's a long story with a lot of decision making and discussions. BUT, the short version is that Tom was offered an awesome opportunity down here to work with a Funeral Home that will offer of great long term opportunities down the road. As for me, I have my teaching degree and know that there are few to NO jobs in Toledo, so moving down here would hopefully lead to a teaching job. As for now I am a Nanny for a wonderful family in Mason, OH. They have two children (three and two months!) and I couldnt be more thrilled that they chose me =].

So that's enough about me... The point of this here is to let my family and friends in on what is going on in our lives. Tom and I are not the best at communicating and need to start doing a much better job! This is one way to start for sure. It is also going to be about our journey. We are starting to make very adult decisions that we haven't had to make before and it's really intimidating. Things like buying a house, making wedding plans, and planning for our future are here, and I want to share the process. =]