Domesticated

Never did I ever think I would become one of those really domestic people. Not that there is anything against it, I just didn't think I had it in me. Well, I think that might be changing, and I think I like it!

Here is what started it all....

Birthday present from Mom!!!!!

So, I had these curtains in the guest bedroom.  I got them at Ross for about $6.00 the day we moved in. I really just got them because Dad was here helping us move in and he needed something to cover up the windows for privacy while he was using the room, and had no extra time to shop for some I liked.  Well, they were AWFUL! They were about a foot too short and did not block any light at all. 

So after searching for new ones that I loved unsuccessfully, I decided I would add some fabric and line them myself!

But I had no sewing machine. A couple days after asking my mom if i could maybe borrow her sewing machine, this showed up on my doorstep!!!! I was SO excited.  She got this refurbished BROTHER sewing machine at overstock.com for a great price.  Sewing machines are NOT cheap so I would recommend going this route if you are just learning to sew, and it works beautifully! 

I looked everywhere for a great book to read to help me learn how to make curtains and this is the one that I ended up with.  It was amazing! It teaches you how to so all of the basic skills you need to know for curtains, and has everything from really simple designs to elaborate window treatments (I am dying to make some of these for our bedroom).

Heather Luke's Complete Curtain-Making Course

I also used this site to help me when I got confused reading the book.  Reading the same instructions from two different resources helped figure out what they were talking about.

About the fabric: I chose a really heavy black embossed fabric for the bottom third of the curtains to make them look more elegant.  I got this fabric at Hobby Lobby. It is pretty expensive at $21.99/yard, but it was on a 30% off sale, plus since I was just using it for the bottom of the curtains, I didn't need much. Here it is.

I also bought the curtain lining at Hobby Lobby. The book talks about lining curtains with another color or pattern of fabric, to keep it more decorative, but since the curtains I had were so light in color, I wanted to use real curtain lining to block out as much light as possible. The lining was $5.99/yard and was not on sale, plus I needed 9 yards of it.  BUT did you know if you go to the Hobby Lobby website, there is ALWAYS a 40% off coupon for on regular priced item? Well there is, and it works on fabric too! They will even let you pull it up on your phone if you don't feel like printing it out.  

When I finished the first panel, I realized I accidentally sewed through the black fabric with my ivory thread. I was bound to mess up something on my first curtain-making experience, right? There was no way I was going to take it out and re-sew it, so I went to JoAnn's fabric store and bought some trim for $2.99/yard. I glued it on with Liquid Stitch and it looks great! Easy fix, and I think whenever I make curtains with separate blocks of fabric, I will always add trim now. It just makes it look more finished.

Finished product!!! The ivory part on the top is what I already had hanging. I just added to them.

The lining.

Close up of the trim.

I am overall really happy with how they turned out! It was a little overwhelming at first. But I just took it one step at a time and after making one panel, I hardly had to look back at the directions, and the second panel took about half the time of the first one.

I am so excited about this...Now I can start making curtains exactly how I want instead of just finding ones that are just okay. Thanks so much mom for my sewing machine! I will be able to make so many things with it for so many years! I love it!

Happy curtain-making!

Love,

Mrs. Wise

Christmas Cards!...#2

I already talked about our choice of Christmas cards this year.  Just wanted to thank all of our friends and family who joined in the fun and sent us the best Christmas cards! We love seeing pictures of all of our friends and family, their kids and their pets.  Thank you all who sent us your sweet Christmas cards and at the same time decorated our "mantle" (we have no fireplace so we made a makeshift mantle from West Elm...whatever works!).  I will be a little sad to take them down, but hopefully they will stay up most of the way through January :)

This isn't even all of them, and there are lots overlapping. Thank you for thinking of us!

Our First Christmas as Mr. and Mrs.

We had a great Christmas together! I went home the 21st-24th. and celebrated with some friends and family (separate post coming as soon as Sara e-mails me the pics :) ).  

Eric and was on call Christmas Eve until noon on Christmas day and I had to work on Christmas day, so we celebrated our Christmas together after I got home from work Christmas night.  Since I was out of town and Eric was working, we didn't really have any groceries to make dinner with, so we had frozen dinners! We didn't mind though.  Then we read the story of the birth of Jesus and opened our stockings and presents! It was really special just spending the night together and remembering the Reason we celebrate this holiday! 

The wreath I made!

Decorations :)

Our tree!

Centerpiece

M&E stockings!

Poinsettias that my sweet father in law sent me all the way from Egypt for our first Christmas 

Eric being goofy

My stocking! 

<3

Love our tree!

Eric sporting his new Thunder gear from my parents!

I don't have a picture, but Eric got me a SNOWBOARD for Christmas!!! We are taking our first snowboarding trip in January to Breckenridge! We are so excited!

We were so blessed with so many sweet and wonderful gifts this year and are so thankful! 

Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!

Love,

The Wises

My birthday/ Tiffany's visit!

Last week was my birthday! I love celebrating birthdays, so you can imagine how excited I was when I found out tiffany was flying in from her travel nursing job in Washington to see me for a few days! It was SO good to have a little piece of home with me here over my birthday, especially since Eric was working those crazy long hours.

We ate out at great places, shopped at great places, went to see a movie, rented a couple movies we knew our significant others would not watch with us, and just had a great time.

Self pics=not so pretty.

Story time: We were walking around Desert Ridge waiting for our movie to start. Then all of a sudden, about 20 moms with strollers with babies/toddlers in them start running around us, pushing their strollers. After they all make a few laps around the fireplace, they stop, pull out their yoga mats, and start doing yoga...in the middle of this shopping center. What in the world? Tiffany and I got a little scared of the intense-ness of these moms. So, I was trying to take a picture of the madness here, but then a mom looked at me and I was afraid she might beat me up if she found out we were making fun of them. 

Tiffany had more guts and took a better picture of the moms...

Sitting in the theater waiting for "Tangled" to start! Such a cute movie by the way.

Yummy sushi

Okura in OKC is still the best.

A Christmas tree in the middle of palm trees.

Tiffany gave me this cute necklace for my birthday! I love it.

After Tiffany left on Saturday, Eric and I had the Mayo Clinic Urology Christmas party.  

A few of the girls

Story time: There is this thing called "Movember." It is recognized around the world and the whole month of November, guys grow their facial hair out in hopes to raise money for mens' health.  Men's health, like prostate cancer etc. gets hardly any attention, and therefore barely gets any money for research. So every time someone asks about the guys' crazy shaped, or just creepy mustache or beard, they tell them about Movember and how they can donate to the cause. Here are the Mayo guys all lined up for everyone to get a last look at their Movember facial hair.

Omg.  Props to all of the wives/girlfriends who put up with this for a month! But hey, it's for a good cause.

Click here for info on Movember!

I love you even with gross facial hair.

After the party, Eric and I went to the Cheesecake Factory to get some birthday dessert. 

I got this: the banana cream cheesecake...my absolute favorite!

Eric got this: the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake!
It was SO good!

It was a great week!

Love,

Mrs. Wise

Mom and Sara Visit...day 3

On the last full day Mom and Sara were here I had a swim meet at the ASU pool. It was freeeeeezing for me since I was in and out of the water, but it was a pretty nice day for the spectators.

It was so fun to compete in a swim meet again! Can't wait for the next one.  Here are some pics from the meet!

After warm up!

Eric finished his test in time to meet us there and see me swim!

Not going to lie...I was a little nervous.

Take your mark...

GO!

Before another event!

Racing!

After the meet was over! Exhausted!

After the swim meet we all came back home, got ready and went out to dinner at Yard House. Eric and I love this place.  The first time we went there, we started talking to the manager who sat us at our table.  We started talking about how we had just moved to Arizona, and as a welcome gift, we got a free appetizer and a free drink each! So nice.  

After dinner we walked around the Desert Ridge District for a little bit.

Sara and me!

Mom and me!

Sara and Mom

The girls!

Love you!

And that was their trip in a nutshell!

Love,

Mrs. Wise

Mom and Sara Visit...day 2

Day 2 was a blast! We slept in a little, made ANOTHER stop at Sprinkles (the Holiday flavors were coming out that day so we had to try them...and we ended up getting 2 free cupcakes because we said their secret word from the Sprinkles Facebook page...so cool!), and then headed home to our house to get ready for the practice Thanksgiving dinner! So, we didn't make a FULL Thanksgiving meal...really I just wanted to take advantage of Mom being there so she could teach me how to make a turkey.  It wasn't that hard at all and it tasted really good! So we just made turkey, green bean casserole (because it isn't right to eat turkey without green bean casserole), and rolls. Enjoy the pics!

2 trips to Sprinkles in 2 days...why not?

Decisions, decisions.

I cannot even believe I touched a raw turkey...story time...One year Mom made me pull all of the guts out of the turkey she was cooking for Thanksgiving.  I was so grossed out I didn't eat turkey for 5 years. This was a big deal for me.

Ready to go into the oven!

Carving my first turkey!

Sara's GB casserole. She is the self-designated GB casserole maker of the family.  No one else is allowed to make it.

Our mini-Thanksgiving meal!

Eric got home just in time for dinner and a cupcake!

Click here for the recipe I used for the turkey!