it's beginning to look a lot like christmas!!

I feel like Christmas just snuck up on me this year!! I have been waiting for it to come all year and now it's here and I feel like I'm not ready! Anybody else feeling this way?? And I've learned that I HAAATE wrapping paper! Lol.

I am AAALLLLL about the gift bags:)

So anyways, I have a large family, so Christmas day is always a little hectic, well now I am adding another house to my list of stops to make! Ay Yi Yi! LOL. But my problem is, nothing ever goes smoothly, so I'm trying my hardest to make this year different and not put so much stress on myself. So my dad's side of the family is having a get together tomorrow night with all the older cousins who are married and have kids now so it's hard for them to go on Christmas day, so it'll be fun to get to spend time with them, and on Christmas eve Jimmy and I will go to his parent's house and have dinner with his (very small) family and then go to my mom's house, then my stepdad's family function, then Jimmy's parents house again on Christmas day and hopefully my dad and brother and sister will come spend Christmas night with us at our house because I don't want to make another trip to Fresno again just for Kendall and Madi. Sad but true. We're traveling so much already. I wish everyone could get it together!! It was hard when we were kids, but now it seems even harder that my parent's are divorced and the kids are split up because everyone's schedules are different!! So yeah, a little annoying, Jimmy and I are discussing the idea of laying down the law once we're married and telling my Dad he needs to come to us, especially when babies are involved! It was no bueno traveling all day on Christmas when I was younger, and I have no interest in doing it anymore! LOL we'll see how that goes over. I'll keep ya posted!

On another note, I go back to work on Jan. 1st and I have to admit that I am a little anxious to see all my co-workers! Oh and 2 of my bridesmaids ordered their dresses for the wedding!!! YAY! I have less than 4 months til my wedding! I still cannot believe it!!

The rain has been nice, but man has it made me laaazy! I have been curled up watching disney movies for the last 2 days. Yes, I said disney. We have a DVD/VCR player and it is sooo much cheaper to buy disney vhs, so I ordered a box of 50 disney vhs on ebay for like $40!! Gasp, right?! So I'm in heaven right now:)

That's enough for now, need to get down to business around here!

Hope everyone has a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I'll post after Christmas to tell you what santa brought us! I've been pretty good this year;)

Where is my head?!

I almost forgot! I've been feeling especially crafty lately and I have decided to bust out my sewing machine and start.......

that's all I'm going to say for now.

I feel so good right now, my creative juices are flowing and I feel like a good business opportunity could maybe be in the works!
Can't wait to get started and see where it takes me. Now I just need to go get my sewing machine back from my mom's house lol

Where have I been??

Man, it's been a while!!! Sad to say I can't even say I've been that busy, but I have been doing a bunch of stuff around here lately! Well I had a fabulous Thanksgiving with my family and my soon-to-be family! Jimmy and I are so lucky to have so many good people in our lives, we're very blessed! And it was my first day up and walking, and it wasn't bad! So because I survived the day, Jimmy and I decided to tackle BLACK FRIDAY. Crazy right?! But I did great. We did great. Got in and got out and got our stuff done!

So since then, I have still been recovering from my surgery and I started physical therapy last week, and I am doing quite well! I am due to return back to work on January 1st--starting off the new year in good health! Speaking of good health, I found out that my thyroid disorder is back again. Yeah, if you know anything about thyroid disease you know that it affects EVERYTHING! But one thing that it is not supposed to do is come and go as it pleases! It's a disorder you deal with for the rest of your life, you take a pill every day to keep your level normal. The normal level is a 4 and I found out I am at 13!! So I'm back on medication. I feel like I'm feeling better already but I know it takes like a week to get into my system. I'm going to feel so much better! Oh and the BIG plus, once my thyroid level is normal then I will be a little fertile myrtle! LOL YAhhoooooo!

So my last post I was talking about painting and decorating our spare bedrooms. Well, it's a work in progress but we came to some agreements! We kept the pink room as a guest bedroom, we toned down the pink a little by painting some brown on the bottom part of the wall. It looks really good if I say so myself! LOL It's still a little girly but I didn't feel right about painting over the cherry blossom trees so any men that sleep in that room(which NEVER happens!) just need to zip it! And as for the red room, we decided to turn that into the nursery for our future sweet bundle of joy. It's green! Color: Kiwi Splash (Shade in between colors Kawasaki green and John Deere green--a simple agreement for us LOL) I love it! I plan to paint the walls green and accent some blue, yellow, and turquoise. It's going to be neutral for whichever little Cotter comes first. But I am REALLY (and so is Jimmy!) hoping for a boy! So anyways, enough about babies...I'm just working on getting settled now, with painting, hanging pictures, buying throw blankets, decorating for Christmas, lighting candles, and buying new furniture. And it makes a HUUUUGE difference!! It feels like home<3

So, our wedding is in 123 days! We put the deposit down for the venue and my MOH ordered her dress, now I just have to get my bridesmaids sized and get their dresses ordered, we need to work on the guest list, send out invitations, rent a DJ and send the boys off for the tux's....probably other things i've forgotten..but that seems to be the big decisions right now! I need to get it together here! LOL

Anyways, that's a little of what has been going on around here. I need to work on my Christmas craft, cuz Christmas is in 11 days!!! O.M.G.!!

it's me again!

Today is day 5 of my post surgery healing process...and let me tell you, day 5 has been quite a breeze! Not in as much pain and not as swollen as I have been, changed my band-aids today and my incisions are looking better already. Jimmy says I'm on the downhill now, but I have to admit, I've liked having him wait on me and do things for me, it's good practice for our upcoming marriage and future family life. Who knew that we'd hit all the bases in one?! hehe. So I'm not quite ready to get back into my wifey role yet, he needs to appreciate me and the things I do around here just a liiiiiittle bit more as far as I'm concerned ;)

My grandma went home today, and man do i already miss her! She's been a big help around her too!! Her and Jimmy make a great team, between dishes, laundry, food preparations, Kendra-watch, dog sitting and all the other things that go on around here, they have kicked butt!! I'm so proud!

So, as I said yesterday I am attempting to use a walker to get around, yesterday was very hard! Today...well today has been a little easier, even though I hit myself in the leg with the walker earlier (OWWWWW!!!) I joked with Jimmy about bedazzling it to try to make it look a little cool! But he just laughed. Yeah, i agree honey, i don't think that is going to help. Boo!

So because I cannot really get up and around right now, I spend most of my time in bed. Either watching movies, realityTV, reading magazines or goofing around on the computer. Looking at blogs today I became inspired to nest(again!), we have 3 bedrooms, 1 living room, 1 family room, 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, and 2 bathrooms in this house....so there is lotttssssss of space to organize, clean, decorate, paint, furnish...you name it!! We have lived here since August of this year and when we moved in I was working like a maniac so I didn't have any time to really decorate and in the last month or two I have had this urge to nest(definition: make a house a home--basically.) So I have taken a project here and there to help with this urge; painted the master bedroom, organized family room/office, organized 3rd bedroom, decorated 2nd bedroom, organized wedding stuff I have cluttering up in the 2nd bedroom, updating the bathrooms, hanging pictures and decorating the fireplace in the living room...and I'm sure lots of other little things here and there as well! So it's coming along, little by little, but this week I have the spare bedrooms on the brain. Our spare bedrooms right now are kinda crazy, one is basically like a storage room with a couch in it and the other is more of a spare bedroom with an extra queen bed and TV in there and lots of wedding stuff! The storage room was the bedroom of two little boys who lived here before us so it's a little scuffed up and has red paint on the bottom half of the walls. And the spare bedroom was the bedroom of a baby girl so it is light pink and green and has cherry blossom trees painted on the walls... cute right?! So instantly you think, you need a baby girl to go in that room, right? I know! Trust me.

So now that I've explained what the rooms look like, I'm hoping that you're following me as I continue trying to describe what I want to do to these rooms....

The "pink room" or the "girl room" is pretty much done, it just needs furniture. We have a queen bed, antique bedside table, a lamp, and a small t.v. in there. But that room just screeeams "baby!" So call me crazy, but I want to start getting it ready for the future..which (i hope) will be a baby. And when I say future, I mean near future, I mean not that near, but shortly after the wedding. Who's exciiiiiited???! OK, let's not get too excited, still have a while before any babies are here. But I want to start getting prepared now, start decorating, start buying furniture and fixing it up and making it ours. Like I said, the pink room is done, but the "red room" or the "boy's room" needs some help. It needs paint, a color scheme, we have lots of room decor (jimmy's tractor toys and little boy stuff)-- you guessed it, the room's scheme is JOHN DEERE/FARMER...hehe, perfect right?! So I want to start painting and coming up with ideas...buuut...is it crazy to start preparing for babies when they're not here yet?? They're definitely on the way and on the brain, but it might be a year before he/she is here. I just get bored and have a million ideas running through my head... so I've been just browsing online for DIY ideas to do here and there without going BABY OVERBOARD, maybe just a little paint or wall art for now. Yes?? Ideas to add to the theme of the boys room?

Well, I hope everyone is ready for Thanksgiving!! I cannot wait to see my family..and eat lots of foooood!! And stay out of bed for longer than 20 minutes. But booooo on not being able to go Black Friday shopping!! :(

Goodnight everyone

Unwrapped!

Well, I took my bandages off my knee today and was able to see my battle wounds! Yikes! GROSS! LOL Just kidding, it's actually not that bad, but I'm a little out of my comfort zone now because I replaced the gauze and ace bandages with two little band-aids to cover the surgery holes...weird right?! I'm still very sore but day 4 has been a lot better than day 2 and 3!!! Attempting to use the walker to get around the house today has been a JOKE! I should've practiced beforehand.

On another note, I have had so much help around here the last couple days, I am so greatful to have people who care about me:)

Anyways, I just wanted to give an update on my healing process!

Talk to ya'll soon!

It's over!

Hello There!
Well like I said before, I had to have knee surgery today! And I was quite nervous! But I must say, that wasn't bad! hehe. Not that I plan on doing this again(hopefully!) but it went so quick and easy I was quite impressed. So now I'm home in bed recovering. Feels like all i've done is drink liquids, eat a lot and use the bathroom every two seconds! ha! But I feel great! Now tomorrow I hear will be a different story.

My grandma, Jimmy and my in-laws have all been great. I'm not allowed to get out of bed so I have to rely on other people to do things for me which is something I'm going have to get used to, at least for the first few days. So Jimmy has brought me my laptop, magazines,my walker (try not to laugh!), a TV tray (for all my snacks and beverages!), an extra pillow, and now her just brought the DVD player from the living room with a bunch of Disney movies for me to watch. Yahoooo! Talk about spoiled! Lol.....but actually it was the only way I would sit still! I hate being cooped up in here!!

Jimmy has to work for a couple hours tomorrow so I will have my sister, grandma, and mother-in-law here to take care of me! Lol it seems so silly, I can't do anything anyways! But i've definately needed the help to get out of bed to go to the bathroom and someone to bring me things. So I guess I won't gripe about so many people being here, I know they mean well and are worried.

Anyways, just wanted to update and say surgery went well I am feeling good....especially thanks to the vicodin!! haha. I'm all curled up in bed watching Sleeping Beauty. My FAVORITE<3
And my poor husband-to-be has to sleep in the living room on the couch with all the doggies so noone hurts me in the middle of the night. This should be an interesting night. Let's see if Jimmy decides to change his mind tomorrow after sleeping on the couch tonight HAHA I told him i'd sleep out there but noooo...he's so good to me. Let's see how much he can handle though! And I'm already putting our wedding vows to work these days between being sick two weeks ago and now having surgery..... "for better, for worse, in sickness and in health..." let's just say we don't even have to say those on our wedding day because it's basically a given now! hehe. I am so lucky!

Ok, enough mushy stuff from me!

Going to bed soon....hope everyone has a great weekend! Hope you're ready for the rain!
<3 Kendra

my first surgery!! ahh!

Well, I could think of a million other things I would like to talk about today, but it seems that the biggest thing weighing on my mind right now is my knee surgery that is scheduled to happen in less than 16 hours! O.M.G.!

I've never had surgery before! I'm only 22. I'm not ready to add knee surgery to my lists of things i've gone through in my life! Thankfully, it's only a little orthoscopic surgery procedure just to clean up my knee and shave off a little piece of ANNOYANCE that is bothering me and causing me pain, but still! It still involves a knife, holes in my skin, and a recovery process..which involves vicodin (ew!) and being stuck in bed! This is not going to work for me!

Could be worse I guess?!

Holes so small doc says I won't even need stitches!

ANYWHO, on a better note, Jimmy will be here to take care of me and let me tell you, it will be quite a nice change!! Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and takes care of me and our little family already, but this time is different. Because I won't be able to go behind him and do the things he doesn't do or just doesn't think about doing. So now I get to sit back and watch as he realizes all the things I do around here! hehe.

So, I know that God will be with me in that surgery room, but I'm still a little uneasy about the situation, so I hope everyone has me in their thoughts and prayers tomorrow. I'd appreciate it!:)

That is all.

I'm going to make something to eat, feed the dogs, take a shower then go to bed and wait for tomorrow.

Take care (:

 ~Kendra~