Like this, but less...

Kyle and I headed down south this past Sunday for a couples wedding shower hosted by my grandma. It was a great shower and my grandma had this really awesome cake made for us!

That's us on the top! And the sides!

After the shower, we headed over to Ikea because we decided we wanted to purchase our bed before the wedding+honeymoon. We've had our eye on this guy for quite a while now:

The Hemnes King in Black-Brown

Our own little piece of Hemnes heaven...complete with King-sized memory foam mattress! While Kyle planned ahead on bringing the van to Ikea, we didn't quite have an "official" plan on how we were going to get the mattress inside the van. Leave it to Kyle to get SUPER crafty and literally fold the mattress in half!

Sorry for the poor quality photo. And please excuse my outfit - it was FREEZING
outside and I was wearing Kyle's huge sweater over my dress.

Fortunately, we got the mattress home and it recovered perfectly from being folded in half:

The box around it makes it look smaller than it is, but Kyle and I laid on it and you
could definitely fit at least 4 people! Not that we'd ever want to do that...

The idea is to put the black bed frame with white bedding in the teal bedroom, like these people have done:

Like this, but less girly...

While we were at Ikea, we decided to check on some other items on our list just to see how they were doing. We headed over to check on our couch, and found out that if we bought it before the 20th of the month, we'd get 15% back on our purchase!

The glorious Ektorp in black!

 We did the math and realized that would MORE than cover the deliver fee, so we went for it! The couch is scheduled to be delivered Christmas Eve :) The idea is to put the black couch up against the sage green accent wall, like these people did:

Like this, but less modern...and no weird leafy branch on the wall...

It's all coming together! Slowly, but surely...

Giving it grace: Moving in together, despite all the Ikea excitement, takes a lot of grace between the two of us. Kyle has been hands-down much better at giving me grace than I have been to him. God has blessed him with an endless amount of patience and ability to see the bigger picture. Meanwhile, God is growing me to learn how to "let things go" and trust His perspective on things. And there's the never ending battle of teaching me to have more patience (ironically, it takes a long time to learn patience...something I don't really have the patience for...). Getting our bed and then making the quick decision to get our couch at the same time has definitely quelled my furniture anxiety for the time being. The end goal is to make sure that we have a home that we can invite people over to do life in, and a place for Kyle and I (Kyle especially) to re-charge each night as we keep up with life's demands. We are both very blessed that Kyle already has a condo that we've been able to transform into a home (i.e. make it more girly!) over the past few months.

Still Moving at the Speed of Sound

Next on the list:

Back to home depot for spray paint for my next home project...

Painting frames to go in our future bedroom.
 I got all of the frames at the Good Will for a total of $20!

Kyle had to help me get the backs of some of the older frames.

Only one of the frames needed to be sanded.
Sanding it a lot of work. I decided against any
future projects that involved sanding. Ever.

Spray paint primer.
In case you're curious, yes we did this inside
and no that's not a good idea. Fumes everywhere!

Project complete!
A mix of white and coral frames to match
and accent the colors in our future bedroom.

While I painted, Kyle burned boxes (and boxes) of old files. 

Then, we organized the spare room/office/garage (henceforth
referred to as the Combo Room). 

 I decided against the before picture of the mess on the floor because it was just too disastrous to look at. We opened the door and moved right into clean-up mode. We got these racks at Home Depot and LOVE them. I still need to pick up big storage bins to put everything in, but at least it's up off the floor now.

If you know me well, then you know exactly how much I am
delighted by this particular shelf on the rack :)

On Monday, Kyle and I picked up our marriage license!
I made him take this (super dorky) photo of me - 40 days and counting!

I started my new nanny job on Wednesday.
Day 1: assemble a new hair chair...

Little Guy helped me by banging the screw driver on various surfaces...

Perfection!
It even stayed together when Little Guy triumphantly climbed up into it for lunch!

Today Callie (my dear friend from childhood) and I took
her daughter Bella for a girl date around Downtown Edmonds.

We shopped at KinderBritches for Christmas gifts
for little Adelaide (my soon-to-be niece)...

And got treats at the Edmonds Bakery (check out all those cookie jars!).
Then we got candy at Namas Candy Shop. Fun day!

Giving it Grace: Holidays will make you crazy. Writing a thesis will make you crazy. Planning a wedding will make you crazy. Preparing a future home will make you crazy. You get the idea...combine them all together and you get random outbursts of tears from me and general fatigue from Kyle. Would we change any of it? Never! Jeremiah 29:11-12 says "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you." We know that we are living out God's plan for us and our lives, and our only job is to make sure we are listening for His calling and giving the glory back to Him. His grace is sufficient to help us live out His plan for our lives!

Moving at the Speed of Sound

It's been a while since we did a song reference with the blog title post, so today we're doing a nod to Pearl Jam's Moving at the Speed of Sound because it's very descriptive of how fast things are moving around here!

In the 10 days since we last posted, a lot has gone on:

Kyle and I enjoyed our first Thanksgiving together.
We did dinner at his Aunt Marjean's...then
dessert and Watson rummy at my Aunt Shirley's.

Huskies win Apple Cup!
We went to Apple Cup at Qwest field with Pete, Mary Ann, Zeke and Bekah.

Our marching band is so talented!

I found these cute snowman jars at Safeway for $4 each!
We gave these as hostess gifts at Thanksgiving...

And I made some Christmas decorations for my dad!

Clearly, we need to work on our Christmas cheer...but this is a good start!

Chandler helped me finish a 10 page literature review for my thesis...glad that's over!

More to come...