peaks, pits, and prayers 2012

I've never really been the type to have a new years resolution, mainly because I know I will never follow through with them and I am not good at failure... so why set yourself up for it has always been my outlook.

BUT... this year is different. Marriage is a very new thing for the mister and I and making it last is our top priority.

SO... Thanks to Pinterest I've come up with a couple things that we can do daily to strengthen our relationship.

 A JOURNAL

We will be keeping a  journal of our peaks, pits, and prayers of the day. It is a small something that I think will truly make us realize how much good we have in our life and how the pits of the day are just small meaningless speed bumps in our long road of happiness.

PRAYING MORE AS A COUPLE

We both find ourselves praying individually more than as a couple and with the new year that is something we want to change. With the busy life we lead it is so easy to get sidetracked and not make time for daily prayer as a couple and it is something I personally think brings couples together and strengthens the bond between husband and wife, so this year this is a major resolution of ours.

Twenty twelve is sure to bring many changes in the Gautreaux household and we are strapped in and ready for the ride of a little thing called LIFE.



Happy New Year!!!



P.S.   I wouldn't mind loosing ten pounds and having a six pack by summer too ;)




XOXO

Christmas Craziness

We hope everyone had an amazing Christmas filled with tons of love and laughter and enjoying family and friends. Christmas is our favorite time of the year and beings as this year is our first year being married it was extra special to us! As Christmas approached I found myself stressing out way too much over the silly things... presents!!! I have a big problem with being creative with my gift giving; I would so much rather a gift card and let them get what they want! So I spent a lot of time worrying about presents and if they were creative enough, until one day James looked at me and said "Baby, this time of year is not about the presents it's about spending time with family and friends. Just calm down and enjoy it!!" and I am so glad he said that because at that point I stopped stressing and really started enjoying the holiday season! 

We had an amazing Christmas this year! We celebrated with James' family a couple of weeks ago and we spent the last couple of days visiting all of my family (four different houses)!!! It can be quite chaotic and very overwhelming but to me that's Christmas and I wouldn't have it any other way!! Since we had to be at my moms on Christmas morning at 9, James woke me up and we did our own family Christmas at 6:30am!!! We didn't give each other much but it was so nice to just have such a special moment together!!! After we opened presents we took our first Christmas morning family picture and decided it will be a new family tradition!!! 

Overall Christmas this year was a success!!! 

now bring on 2012!!!!!

XOXO

fall festivities

Sorry for the blogging delay but we have finally purchased our new computer and now I am ready to blog my little heart out!!! We have been extremely busy the past few months. But recently we have really been able to take time to spend with family and friends and most of all we got to enjoy each other and being married! 

Here is  little of life lately for the Gautreaux's

Ever since I can remember James' dad has been talking about the fact that I had never been to an aquarium and that I had never been to the state capitol! I know seems silly, but it has been an ongoing joke the whole time we have been together. So we decided to take a weekend trip to New Orleans. We had a lot of things on our list, so we woke up early Saturday morning and headed to the big easy! We spent the weekend going to the WWII museum, the Aquarium, Bourbon Street, the French Quarter, and just being a real New Orleans tourist! While we were there we even witnessed a protest, a wedding march, and a funeral procession down the French quarter (which were all firsts for me!) Overall we had an amazing weekend with the in-laws. It is so nice to have them to enjoy these fun trips with us! Next mini-trip we will be heading to Baton Rouge to visit the State Capitol!!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip!

This year we decided we would go as a family (James, Teddy, Daisy, and I) to get our pumpkins for Halloween! I know it sounds silly, but we had a really good time walking around with the puppies looking at pumpkins trying to find the perfect ones! We probably walked around them three times before I finally picked the ones I wanted! The puppies had so much fun being the center of attention while all of the little kids played with them. We eventually picked out a few of our favorites and headed to check out! As we were leaving I realized we hadn't taken a picture so I hurried and went back to take a quick family picture!

Here is the one picture I have from our family trip to the pumpkin patch!

James' grandparents invited us to spend the weekend with them about a month ago and it was an absolute blast! They live about an hour and a half away and we never really get to see them, so we were thrilled when we got the invite. We were really looking forward to spending some QT time with them and getting to know them better! During our trip we were able to go to Saint Francisville and see historical houses, eat at a few amazing restaurants, watch LSU kick some Alabama booty, and spend some time with James' sister Jenny and her husband Joel.

Here are a few pictures of us with Papa and Nana at Rosedawn Plantation 

After months of putting it off James finally got his wisdom teeth taken out in November. It was an interesting situation... to say the least! I barely remember getting mine taken out so I really wasn't sure what to expect from him. Especially since we all know men whine WAY more than women, so I had mentally prepared myself to spend my weekend with him being a total baby. Well much to my surprise he was a trooper. Surgery always makes me super nervous, so the whole time he was in surgery I was a mess! I have this bad habit of always thinking about all of the bad things that can happen, which then makes me freak out and think something is the matter the whole time I am waiting!!!! But of course everything was fine and after they brought him to recovery I was able to go see his goofy drugged up self! It was a sight to see! He was acting so silly and flirting with all of the nurses!!! He spent the next few days being very sore, but by Monday all was fine and he returned back to work!!! All in all, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and I am so glad we have that behind us!!!!

Here is a Before and after pic of the silly goose!

Can you tell he only got two on one side out?!?!

Most of all this season we have focused on our relationship as a married couple! On October 1st we celebrated our 6th date-anniversary and on November 28th we celebrated 6 months of being married. We live such a busy life and sometimes it is easy to forget about spending one on one time together focusing on each other. Most of the time we have weeknights off together but after dinner we always seem to be distracted by homework or night class and we rarely just get to sit and relax together. Lately we have really tried to just enjoy each other. We have been renting a lot of movies and cuddling up on the couch together to watch them. We both love movies so much and it is a way for us to just relax. Another thing we have recently started doing is having coffee together every morning. James has to be at work at 7am, so he wakes up at 5:30 and showers and gets dressed then at 6:00 he wakes me up with a cup of coffee. At first I wasn't really a fan of the idea because I am not really a morning person! I love to sleep and hate waking up early, but honestly now it is my favorite part of the day. It is the one time in our day there are no distractions we just sit in bed and drink our coffee and talk for thirty minutes. I have come to truly cherish our mornings together and look forward to it everyday. 

So this is a little of what we have been up to lately. It has been so much fun and we are really looking forward to Christmas and the New Year!

xoxo

Pasta Problems

Hello everyone!
Well I would love to be blogging more than I am now but unfortunately our computer is on the fritz and we are being forced to use my grandfathers mini-computer and let’s just say it is not working so well, but I feel like I have so much to say I am just going to suck it up and continue blogging!

A couple months ago I decided to cook spaghetti, which is a regular in our house, so I went to the store and got all of the ingredients and when I returned I immediately began cooking. After getting my sauce started I put the water boiling for the noodles. When the water began boiling I went to pour the noodles in and they spilled out of box and before I even realized what was happening half of the box had fallen into the burner!! I started screaming and trying to get them out, but they were burning and burning FAST. Not long after that the smoke detector started going off! I didn't know what to do. James started waving a towel to make the smoke go away and I opened the patio door to try to get all of the smoke out of our apartment but nothing was working. Ten minutes later it was still going off and I was started to choke on the smoke so I walked outside and two of our neighbors were standing outside trying to figure out what was going on. Can you say EMBARRASSING?!?!?! I told them our apartment wasn’t burning down, I had just dropped noodle into the burner. I was so frazzled and apologetic but they just looked at me like I was stupid. I felt like such an idiot. It wasn't until I walked back inside that we realized we could unplug the detector to make it stop going off!!!!! All we could do was laugh at how silly we were and how stupid we must have seemed to our neighbors. Needless to say the spaghetti came out amazing and we spent the whole night laughing and joking about it. It ended up being a great night and such a learning experience. We now know to unplug the detector every time we cook just in case another incident would happen. We want to save ourselves from the embarrassment!!! By the way... our apartment smelled burnt for at least a week!!!
Hope everyone gets a good laugh reading this!!!!

XOXO

After years of secretly reading my sister-in-laws blog and totally wishing I could have my own, I have decided to take the plunge and start my own blog!!!  

SOOOO... I guess I can give you a little background on us!!

We have known each other since we were five years old. We were in the same kindergarten class and he was my first "BOYFRIEND" (yes i had a "boyfriend" in kindergarten).  I remember thinking I was so cool because a boy liked me until Valentines Day. James went ALL out and filled my bag with candy, stuffed animal, flower, etc. You name it, it was in the bag and my friends laughed their buts off at me. They all started teasing me and I was totally embarrassed, so I dumped him.

 Eight years later James asked me to our freshmen homecoming dance. We didn't know it then but that was the start to a life long relationship! After one year of dating James surprised me with a promise ring! He gave me a gift bag and when I opened it there was a pack of gum (I still haven't figured out if he was trying to tell me my breath stunk or not) but anyways I tried to act excited because I didn't want to hurt his feelings but then like five minutes later he pulled out my promise ring. I loved and still love that ring so much. It is so meaningful to our relationship. 

The night James gave me a promise ring

James proposed to me on October 2,2009 in Orange Beach, Alabama. We had decided for our four year anniversary we would take a long weekend to the beach together, little did I know it would be one of the best trips ever. We woke up that morning and decided to spend the day laying on the beach relaxing. After an hour or so it got a little chilly so we decided to go to the hot tub. While walking back up the beach he started walking slower and pulling on me so i turned around and he stopped looked at me and got down on one knee!!!! I was freaking out so much I don't know what exactly he said and it took me a couple seconds to say YES, but eventually after I realized it wasn't a dream I started jumping up and down and screaming and kissing him! It was such a great moment that we shared together. That day in general was so special, calling our friends and family and telling them the great news and just spending the day together and being so  in love!

The only picture I have from our  get-away/ proposal weekend

A year and a half later we finally got married!!! We were married on May 28, 2011. It was absolutely the best day of my life. I was so nervous in the last few weeks leading up to the wedding but on the wedding day I woke up so calm and so ready to be married to the most amazing man i have ever met. That day went by so quickly but it was so perfect in every way possible. All the things I had spent months worrying about didn't even matter anymore, everything and everyone was great. All the people that mattered were there and no one else mattered that day.(Wedding Day Blog Coming Soon!!!)

A picture from a friend's camera

We have officially been together for almost six years and I can not imagine my life without him! He is such an amazing guy. He is my knight in shining armor who is ALWAYS there to protect me. My life could never be this amazing without him here with me. He is my best friend, he pushes me to better myself, he never lets me down, and most of all he loves me for the person I am. 

We are now four months into our marriage and everything is going great.  

I can't wait for my future blogging experiences and I hope you like what I have to say!

XOXO