Thursday, July 31, 2008

Two Years!


Our two year anniversary was July 29th! It was a simple celebration this year! Josh made a really good dinner, which was Curried lentils with rice and chicken!!! Yummy! He also made brownies which are in the background with our cake toppers in them from the wedding! If you can't tell, they are "R & J" That was kinda a small theme at our wedding. Well, they were the cake toppers and on the invitations. If it's on the invitation though that counts as an official wedding theme! He also bought me chocolate milk, which I love!!!!

We are very thankful for each other and all the blessings we have had in our short marriage so far! First being that we feel like we have a healthy marriage and we strive to work at it everyday together. Secondly, we have Norah. She has been such a wonderful baby and we could not be more thankful for her. She is so much fun and she brings us such joy!

Speaking of, we had a special guest at our second anniversary dinner!




Here was her anniversary dinner...



You never thought Cheerios could be so romantic!

Norah is really moving up in the food world. She loves to eat Cheerios and we gave her spiral noodles tonight which she devoured! We usually have to pick up a few handfuls from underneath her legs and put back on her tray, but she shoves it in.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Crawling!!!!

Norah started crawling yesterday! It's not the real deal crawling, but she can up on her hands and kness and inch forward! It's really fun to watch!

We went to the beach on friday after I got home from work. The picture above is from then!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

New Header...Midwest....

Josh made a new header for me and I love it!!!! Don't you?

I told him awhile ago that my blog looked so boring and he surprised me at work today with a text message that said he changed it!





I meant to write about the "Midwest" the other day so here goes.

So I live in the "Midwest" now. It's so weird to say because I still think I'm on the "East Coast." The other day we were at the bank talking to the funniest guy I've ever met and we said we moved from West Virginia and he said, "Oh I used to live on the East Coast." I got all excited and was waiting for him to say Pennsylvania or DC or something and he said, "Yeah, North Carolina, I love it there!" I thought to myself, "That's not the "East Coast." Your "East Coast" is like 12 hours away from my "East Coast."

Turns out no one else thinks Beaver Falls, PA is the "East Coast" expect for me.

Now onto the Midwest. First I need to complain that Illinois roads are terrible!! I mean terrible. I can't tell you how many times my cd stops playing because I am just driving and slowing down often to try not to hit a big pot hole. I cannot get over how bad the roads are. There are so many people that complain about PA roads but those are nothing compared to here.

I am having to adjust to the accent here too. I have to have people repeat themselves all of the time. I feel bad because once I realize what they are saying or spelling it's like, Adam Smith or apple...back to the basics for Rach here in the Midwest!

Anyways, I know this post was not anything to write home about, but I wanted to share my thoughts!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Work, Apartment, the Midwest, Visitors and 7 Months!

This will be a long update! Sorry it took so long to get pictures of the apartment up. First, I started my job on Monday! I only worked until yesterday, Wednesday. I have Thursday and Friday off! The first week of work was good. It was a lot of reading orientation manuals and taking little quizzes on the info. If you have ever worked in a hospital or medical type setting the orientations for those places are always usually similar and long. I am still not finished with it all, but have a huge chunk done.

Everyone I work with is so nice. I will be working between two hospitals that are about 10 minutes apart. I have only been at one of the hospitals so far though. I am a Patient Ambassador, so I basically make sure that patients are comfortable and pleased with their rooms and care for their rooms. I work in the Environmental Services department. My office is in the basement of the hospital, so no windows. Fortunately I will be on the floors of the hospitals alot, so that should balance that all out nicely. There are times I like to be in a dark room organizing! :)

I've done pretty good being away from Norah. The hospital has a thing where they play a lullaby over the loud speakers when a baby is born, which is nice, but I instantly tear up and have to distract myself so I do not start to cry.

Ok, on to our apartment! I put up a bunch of pictures so I will just start going through them and explaining.

This is from the door, you walk in and look right and this is the kitchen/dining room.


The cupboards are much bigger than we expected and we can get a lot of stuff in them. We actually have a lot of bare space, so we could not be happier.


This is our baker's rack which has proven to be well worth the money.
We have used it so much in the last two years!


This is the dining room looking into the living room.
Hopefully our wireless will work soon so we do not have to sit at the table!


This is Norah's seat that she eats in, her play pen which is not usually there, but has been helpful for dad when he needs to get a shower during the day while I am at work. :)


This is our living room area. It's a nice little area to be in. We actually do not use the AC too much because there is always a nice breeze. Unless it is near 90 then we turn it on.


This is the entertainment corner, lots going on, but fun!


This is the beginning of the hallway where the pictures are. We put tons of pictures up of family and friends so we think of you all often! That is also a free desk that we got, but we will be replacing it down the road as it does not meet our decoration appetite!


On to Norah's room! This is her shelf that Josh built that holds all of her goodies!


Here is her bed! She loves her crib. She slept in the pack n' play from the time she was born because we were all in one room in Wheeling. It's nice for all of us to have our own rooms!


This is a handmade mobile made by dad for Norah! She loves watching it blow in the wind!


This is a close up of the carpet we got, which I love! We had received something from Pottery Barn Kids that we returned and once we moved out here to Chicago we bought a carpet for Norah's room that I think goes perfect!


The other side of the room!


Here is Norah sleeping in her swing while I take pictures!
(Yes, she has a mohawk in case you are wondering. We will get to that later.)


This is Norah's closet. The closet's are huge! You will see our bedrooms in a minute. There is also one in the hallway by the door, but I must have forgot to upload that picture. It took me awhile to get all of them organized the way I wanted.


Here is the bathroom. The window freaked me out at first, but now I like it because it airs out the bathroom really quick after you take a shower.


The bathroom is very small. I am still trying to figure out my "getting ready" routine. I just cannot lay everything out in the order I use it, so I get frustrated. I'm working on my attitude! :)


Here is our room!


Corner bookshelf which we love and were glad for the tall ceilings.


Here is another purchase that was well worth it! We have an elevator, so this laundry organizing cart is awesome!!! I really love it more than I probably should. :)


And the big honking closet! I moved stuff around so many times in that first week we were here. Josh would have to see what I did each day and be questioned as to whether he thought the space was being used to the best of it's abilities!


The End of the tour!

*********

This past weekend Tim, Marisa, Grandma and Grandpa Elek and the best of all Bailey came to visit! Now you may ask yourself, why would you put a little baby on a German Sheppard?! Well, you don't know Bailey, she's very calm and well behaved and Norah loved her!
They both gave kisses all weekend to each other! Baily just has better aim!


Well, Norah got a mohawk from dad yesterday! He was so excited about it!
Norah didn't seem to mind either!


Happy 7 months Norah!!! Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!

 
I wonder how long it will take Rachel to find out that her husband wrote a note at the bottom of her blog. (July 9, 2008) ;)