Life Lately

For the past few weeks we have been busy, busy settling in to life in our new house and back in Benton!  Although we are SO glad to be back in our hometown, it has been a little bit of an adjustment settling back into a new routine!  Here's some of the things we've been up to lately (between Grant studying for his boards, of course)

 

Grant's uncle Kurt has a huge pond behind his house.  Grant, Ray, and I went fishing a few Saturday's ago and racked up!  We caught about 42 bluegills! 

 



 One of my best friends from high school had a baby!  I went to the hospital to meet sweet baby Annabelle!

 Grant's grandmother keeps our nephew, Lovett, on Monday's.  I went over to visit with them one Monday during lunch.  Isn't he the cutest :)

Grant took a study break one night and we headed to the drive-in!  It had been raining that night, so not very many people were there and we ended up getting to watch two movies for free!!  I baked us some brownies, we got some cheeseburgers there, and had a fun night relaxing outside!

 

 Grant and I drove 5 hours to Peoria, IL for his NAPLEX.  I drove around and got my hair done in the mall while I waiting on him to finish.  He's cramming in some last minute info here at Chipotle!

 We've spent a couple days by the pool at Grant's grandparents...Ahhhhh

 Mac, Justin, and Tucker came over to play cards Memorial Day night

 Tucker is cracking up at Justin's attempt to shuffle cards...hysterical!

 The week of graduation we went with our friends and entered a drawing for a $100 gift card to Cindo de Mayo.  I got an email and I WON! Yahoo!  I never win that stuff!  So, we met up with Josh and Amanda, Curt and Lindsey, and Weldy and Lauren at the restaurant after Grant's law exam last night and treated everyone with our gift card!  Curt and Lindsey are moving tomorrow, so it was kind of goodbye Nashville for all of us.  Boo...

And finally, Rimmy (Ray and Kem's dog) came and visited our house!  She's the sweetest :)

 

Whew!  Between Grant studying 24/7 and throwing in some random fun activities, we've been busy!  So far, we are loving being back in Benton.  Bring on summer!!

Kelly's 40th Surprise Birthday Party

Last weekend we had a surprise 40th birthday party for Kelly.  Kelly is Grant's aunt!  Her husband, Jason, had the bright idea for the party, but needed quite a bit of help getting it together :)  I worked all week on a few projects, made a few trips to Paducah to get supplies, and it all turned out great!

 

We got to the venue around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon to get things all set up and decorated.  I had made a 40 out of pictures of Kelly and thought I would use fishing wire to hang it from the ceiling.  We didn't have any scissors to make a hole in the top, so I had to improvise with a knife.  Not. a. good. idea.  I sliced my finger wide open!  Blood was everywhere!  Luckily Grant was there to catch my blood and keep pressure on it.  I thought I lost my finger (not really) but gave it a pretty deep cut!  It was traumatic!!

 

 Wincing through the pain!

 

Kelly thought she was going to someone else's surprise party, and her birthday is actually still a couple weeks away, so she was super surprised that it was for her!

 

 Cake table!  I made the 40 out of cardboard that we had from moving, the garland from ribbon, and I made the background out of paper plates.

 

 I snuck into their house while Kelly was at work and found all of the terrible pictures that I could find of her and blew them up on a copier machine to hang all on the walls.  We came up with funny phrases about being 40 to write on each one.  They were hysterical!

 

 For the centerpieces we did dead twigs and plants that Kem spray painted black, and put them in mason jars wrapped in depend diapers!

 

 We were afraid we wouldn't have enough food, but we ended up having a ton!!

 

 More décor!

 

 Kelly modeled her depends for us!  Kem gave her some boob lifters, so she modeled those as well! Ha!

 

Hysterical!

 

The surprise party was a hit!

Happy 40th Birthday Kelly!  We love you!

 

 



Grant's Surprise Pharmacy School Graduation Party

I had been planning a surprise party for Grant's graduation for a few months and was SO happy that it was finally time!  I am terrible liar, like I usually want to tell him his Christmas presents as soon as I buy them, and I might have been known to unwrap presents under the tree and then re-wrap them! :)  So, keeping a secret for multiple months really tested my patience!  I saw an idea for an invitation from this blog and knew I had to do something similar for Grant's!  She had the template for the labels available, so I changed the info to Grant's and ordered some pill bottles off of eBay.

 

 

I made my own invitations in Publisher, had them printed and cut at Staples, filled the bottles with Mike and Ike's (to look like pills) and then they were ready to send out!

 

 

With so many family members in town already for the Saturday graduation, it was a miracle we pulled off the surprise without anyone spilling the beans!  There were several slip ups, but luckily Grant didn't catch on!  We arrived at Puckett's Grocery downtown and the whole place erupted in surprise!  I thought Grant might pass out from shock!  It was hysterical!  I had a cake made at Nashville Sweets to look like the invitations.  It turned out awesome!!

 

So cute!  And Delicious!!

 

 Best picture of the whole weekend!! So funny!  If you know Jeff, you know he isn't a hugger - much less a kisser!!

 

 

 After dinner we went to the Franklin Family Entertainment Center and played mini bowling.  It was a great way to finish off the weekend, and we were so happy to be able to celebrate with all our friends and family!

 

Trent made us a huge tournament bracket that ended with Dax and I in the finals.  Unfortunately, Dax beat me!  Grrrr

 

The surprise party was a hit and I am so glad its finally over and I can talk about it!! Yay!  Thanks to all of our friends and family to driving to Nashville and for all of your support over the last four years of Pharmacy school.  We love you!!

 

 

 

 

House Tour: Entry Hall

Who knew so much could change in just an entry hall?!  This has actually turned out to be one of my favorite spaces so far.  Just like the others, I still have a couple things to finish off the decorating and maybe will add a bench or something eventually, but for now, I'm loving it!

 

 This is the original look.  White tile, old and extremely dusty light fixture, nasty carpet on stairs, dust encrusted baseboards, and almost a white on the walls.

 

 View straight on from the front door looking into the living room.

 

 Ray and Grant ripped that white tile out! Ew!

 

 Carpet ripped out in the living room - Our Rams chair went everywhere in the house!  It was our only seating for awhile :)

 

 Prepping for the tile

 

 Paint on the walls, carpet ripped out on the stairs, and tile starting to go down!

 

 New carpet on the stairs and the entire upstairs!  Love it!

 

 Tile is finished!  We saw the tile first at Lowe's, but it was WAY out of our price range.  Grant, being the money saver that he is, looked online and found it for over $1.20/sq ft cheaper!  We took that to Lowe's and they price matched!  We saved a couple of thousand by doing that, because we had about 800 sq feet of tile throughout the whole house.

 

Entry looking to the right into the kitchen.  P.S. That's not our kitchen table - haha - that table is in the corner in our living room now, and this picture was taken before our new table and chairs came in.  That door is just a small coat closer.  We changed out all of the knobs from the brass to the bronze as well.

 

After new tile, new paint, new baseboards, new carpet, new light fixture, and some new décor...The new entryway!!

 

When we first viewed the space, the previous owners had this huge buffet piece right here.  It is kind of an awkward space, that definitely needed something, so I went with this chalkboard dresser from Hobby Lobby and ordered the poster from a pin I had on Pinterest for years!

 

 LOVE our M wall!  I have been collecting M's since I came up with this idea a few months ago.  Most of them came from either Hobby Lobby or Etsy, but I have picked them up from everywhere!

 

 Several of these I bought from Etsy unpainted.  They are way cheaper that way!  I then bought some paint at Hobby Lobby and just played around!  Most of the frames came from the Nashville flea market.  We bargained for about 8 frames (without glass) in the colors that I wanted for about $10!

 

 I've got a couple more to add to fill in a few spaces and places that I couldn't reach, but it's pretty much done!

 

 View from the front door into the living room now!  Living room tour coming soon!

 

Entry way before and after...

 

 



DR. MATHIS - Saturday Edition

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early for the entire University's graduation!  Grant had to be there early for a walk through and a breakfast, so the rest of us got ready and then headed over to get a good seat early.  Kelly, Jason, Alec, and Walker joined us for the Saturday festivities.  We were so thankful to have so many of family there to celebrate with us!  (Little did Grant know a whole bunch more were coming that night to really help us celebrate!)

 

The doctoral graduates walked across the stage first and were hooded by the Dean of the pharmacy school.  I don't know what was wrong with me, but I cried again as they were marching in to take their seats!  Sorry, Grant! Ha!

 

 The stage all ready!

 

 Walking across the stage!

 

 Diploma in hand!  Yay Dr. Mathis!

 

 This was Clay during the ceremony...haha After the doctoral candidates were announced we had to sit through all of the Master's degrees.  It was a little boring!

 

 SO PROUD!

 

 With the graduate!

 

The whole Saturday morning crew!

 

 Excited!

 

 The girls!

 

 The proud wives (and Amanda who is both!)

 

 These boys are hysterical!  I'm glad they had each other for entertainment over the last few years :)

 

 Love!

 

Curt, Josh, Grant, and Weldy - I'm already trying to plan a weekend that we can all together this fall.  (Be thinking Lindsey!)

 

By the time we finished graduation, took pictures, and got back to the hotel it was almost time to leave and head to the surprise party I had planned for Grant.  He had absolutely no idea!

 

Congratulations Dr. Grant Mathis, Pharm.D.