Fall Favorites

For some reason, I have been looking forward to fall a lot this year!  I think it started around the time I made our wreath, and then Matt said we needed to start decorating for fall, and then his favorite, Halloween!

Ever since, I've been looking forward to all things Fall related!  Plus, I'm just really excited to have all of our own space to decorate! {I know he's dreading the day the Christmas decorations all come out, though. haha!}

To start of the week, and since we're officially a week into Fall, I thought I would share some of my favorite things about Fall!

Food For Friday: Cherry Coke Chicken

When I was home during the summer, I was always looking for new crock pot recipes to try.  They're easy to prepare and good to eat.

I found this barbeque chicken was a great discovery, from Pinterest of course.  At first, I was very hesitant about it, but then I remembered I've had something similar to it!

My absolute FAVORITE meal from Cinebistro is their ribs in a Cherry Coke BBQ sauce.  This chicken didn't taste the same {because how awesome would that have been??}, but it was definitely worth trying, and I'll for sure make it again sometime!

Here's the recipe that I found online, but I ended up halving it for the two of us.  However, I did add in more than half a can of Cherry Coke, because I really wanted it to be flavorful, haha.

Our Fall Wreath

It feels like I just shared my summer/wedding wreath with you all, but a couple weeks ago, we took that wreath down and replaced it with a new one!

Since yesterday was the official first day of fall, I figured it's now time to share with you the fall wreath I made!  I had this idea since the summer, so I couldn't wait to finally make it and hang it up! And we didn't wait two seconds to hang it up!

Once school starts, it feels like summer is really over {even though it isn't officially over yet}, so we started putting out some fall decorations, and this wreath was the first to go up! :)

The materials I bought were the wreath, a stem of fall leaves, twine, and a letter N.  All of these were at Michael's, and I was SO excited to find the N in the clearance section for just 49 cents! And, if you've been

Married Life: Meal Planning, Grocery Shopping & Fuel Perks

I know..this title sounds so exciting already. haha.

When it comes to shopping, I'm always looking for a good deal! Red tags and Clearance sections are my best friends in a store (especially Target!), outlet and factory stores are amazing, and I love coupons!  I RARELY by anything for full price.

When buying our food and drinks to have at the house, I wouldn't say that Matt and I are cheap.  I would just say we use our money in the most reasonable ways possible for us. {I realize it's not the same for everyone.}  Instead of spending roughly $100.00 a week eating out every night, we spend almost $100.00 a week to buy everything we need for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks for the week + whatever we might need, like paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc.  But those last few things aren't every week purchases.

On Sunday afternoons, we'll figure out what we want to have for dinner each night of the week.  From there, we see what meats we need to buy, what side dishes we want to have, etc.  I use the same notebook every week to write our grocery list down.  The left side of the page is designated for what we need to buy, and the right side of the page is our dinner plan.  {After we get home from shopping, I cut out the dinner plan and keep it on the fridge for the week!}

We do ALL of our grocery shopping at Martin's.  After making our list, we'll make sure we have a Sunday paper with a Martin's ad and go through to see what deals there are

Matt's Grandparent's 50th Anniversary

This weekend, Matt and I were just talking about how ever since we've been together, we've been to almost all family events for each others' family....with the exception of our first Thanksgiving together, when we'd only been together a few months, and I later told him I didn't know I was "allowed" to bring him. haha.

What's neat about having been to so many of these events, is that we've been there for a lot of major milestones.  We've seen some of each others' cousins basically grow up from the time they were born.  I just think that's really cool!

At the end of August, Matt's grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary!  It was such a fun event, and I LOVED all of the details that Matt's mom put together for the dinner at the Boathouse!  I initially planned to do this blog post last Thursday, on Matt's mom's birthday, but once we got home from her birthday dinner and were

Food For Friday: Reese Cup Pie

Back in July, Matt and I had two of our friends from Longwood, Ashley & Zack, over for dinner.  Matt was going to be grilling steaks & veggies so I wanted to make dessert!

Naturally, I've come across MANY desserts on Pinterest, but I wanted something that would be relatively easy, taste good, and most everyone would like it! And, everyone did.....well, as far as I know! haha.

For me, I also needed something with easy directions.  This is coming from someone who messed up boxed macaroni and cheese.  Twice.  Luckily, the directions were dummy proof, and I successfully made a good, edible dessert!  {Notice, that I seem to always say that I made something "edible." haha.  I can always make things, but they may not always be edible or good! haha}

Even though it's a frozen dessert and might seem more summery, I

Our Experience at the Redskins Preseason Game

I know, I know, I DIDN'T post a blog yesterday.  I had every intention to {according to my blog calendar}, but, due to several things, I just needed a break!

Several weeks ago, Matt and I had a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Seriously.  We were able to do something we'll most likely never get to do again. 

And we have to give a big thanks to Matt's brother--unfortunately, he wasn't able to use these tickets he got, so he shared them with us! I will forever be thankful because it was so cool!

Neither Matt or I had ever been to a big sporting event before.  I mean, we've been to baseball games here in Richmond, but honestly, those aren't BIG. You know what I mean?  So, number 1: this was our first time going to a big game like this!  Number 2: we got to watch the game from the Cintas Corporate Box. Super cool!

D.C. Day Trip

A couple months ago, Matt and I headed up to Northern Virginia for the weekend for a wedding! One of Matt's Phi Mu Delta littles, Ben was getting married!  It was so cool to go to our of first "college friends weddings," as we knew Ben and his fiancee, Carrie, through several organizations at Longwood!  Of course, Matt and Ben know each other through Phi Mu Delta, Carrie and I were in Longwood Ambassadors together, and we all worked for RCL!  It was also fun to have see some Longwood friends we hadn't seen in a while!

Since the wedding wasn't until late afternoon/evening, we decided to make a whole trip of it!

We left bright and early Saturday morning so that we could head straight into D.C.  We spent some time walking from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial and back, and then went to one of the Smithsonian Museums.  Did I mention we lucked out with a

Food For Friday: Chicken Fajitas!

Even though Matt is the one who does most of the cooking
around here, doesn't mean I haven't liked to try.  I'm usually not too great at it, haha.  But Matt enjoys it and likes to make new things, so I've told him I'll eat whatever.

Over the summer, though, since I was home everyday, I had some chances to try to make dinner....and it was mostly in the crock pot, because you usually just can't go wrong when cooking in a crock pot.  Which I've learned is true!

Every time I made something, though, I was always worried that the meat wasn't really cooking or it would just come out tasting gross!  But, I've proved myself wrong and actually made a few good things!

Today, here's the recipe for the first crock pot recipe I tried, Chicken Fajitas!

Our House....is in the middle of our street

...but really, it is!

I know these pictures have been a LONG TIME COMING for so many people.  It was funny when a dear family friend, Melody, commented on my blog on Tuesday saying she'd love to see pictures of my house, when I just knew they'd be coming a couple days later {so, Melody, I hope you like!}.

We officially signed the papers and became homeowners back in May, less than 2 weeks away from the wedding! Needless to say, if life wasn't hectic enough, we added more to the mix with trying to pack and move, as well. {We're STILL slooowly moving things here from our old homes.}

We have been in our house for over three months now, but with the few weeks of no blogging around the wedding, being in Jamaica, and then sharing so many pictures from the wedding and honeymoon, I just haven't gotten around to posting them.  But wait no longer!

Here is a tour of our very first home!  I took all these pictures the day we bought it, to really show how different everything is after moving furniture in and decorating.

Meet Annie!

Two weeks before the wedding, Mom and Abby went to pick up this cute little puppy!

This little thing has had many names in her life already, but now she's stuck with Annie forever :)

On her first day home with the family, Annie got to go with us to the Memorial Day Parade in Sandston.  She was such a good puppy, and only got scared when the marching band came by! haha.

Our Summer/Wedding Wreath

When it has come to making our house more of our "home," we had really been focusing on the inside the most.  But, about halfway through the summer, we started working on the outside, too, and have lots planned for future projects :)

We really needed some color on the front of our house, and I knew I wanted to make a wreath.  We had already bought a new colorful rug to put at the front door {which happens to be in our wedding colors....total coincidence, I promise}, so I started brainstorming what I could do for the wreath.

I knew I didn't want anything too overwhelming right now, but I wanted it to be colorful and definitely "us."

I ended up using all leftover decorations from the wedding & our gifts, and all I had to buy was the wreath, which of course I got on sale at

Married Life: Adjusting to new schedules

Once we were married, we knew that we'd have to get adjusted to each others' schedules and would have to figure out a schedule that works for us.  Actually, we had been thinking about this long before the wedding, as our work hours were drastically different.

For those of you who don't know, Matt wakes up at 4:30 for work and is gone before the sun comes up.  Because we're in the same room, his two alarms naturally wake me up, as they should.  They're just doing their job.  Most mornings, after we both wake up, and he gets ready for work as I stay laying in bed, I'm usually up for the day.  Over the summer, that was fine, because I didn't have a set schedule, as I had the summer off.  Now that I'm back at work, it's sometimes a problem.  I'm now waking up about two hours earlier than I need to be, to have an adequate amount of time to get ready.  However, I do get out of bed earlier intentionally, so that I don't have to rush, I can finish packing my lunch if I need to, and to make sure my blog post is up for the day ;)