Wednesday, October 28, 2015

What's Up Wednesday

I've been off my blogging game the past two weeks, and I'm hoping to change that this weekend! I should have some time Saturday to finally sit down and blog a little bit! Work has been SO busy, we are gearing up to roll out one of our biggest  projects of the year and it has EVERYONE running around the office trying to get everything done in time, so by time I get home and we eat dinner blogging is the last thing on my mind. I thought it would be fun to join in with Shay with What's Up Wednesday!

What we're eating this week:
New recipes!! Monday night I made this slow cooker chicken bacon ranch sandwiches and we loved them! It does call for a lot of cream cheese so we'll probably knock that in half next time we make it. Last night we met my parents for dinner and tonight we are having this pot roast

What I'm reminiscing about: 
This time last year. We were in Cookeville and wrapping up the end of Matthew's last semester at Tech. It was filled with a lot of late night intramural games, late night singings, devos, lots of time hanging out at the SOC house and a ton of memories being made. 

What I'm Loving: 
Snapchat! I love following new people and seeing their snaps throughout the day. If you are on Snapchat follow me

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What I've been up to: 
Friday night our class from church had a girls night. The theme was "dirty scarecrow". We were to all bring a finger food and fall decoration $15 or under and then we played dirty scarecrow (same thing as dirty Santa!) This is the present I got
and here it is after I finished! 

and it came with lights!


What I'm dreading: 
Winter coming...I only want it cold on Thanksgiving day, Black Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And then I would love for it to be 70 and sunny :) 


What I'm working on:
We are working on our November budget! Trying to throw every extra penny into savings for a house!!!!!

What I'm excited about: 
THIS WEEKEND

What I'm watching/reading:
Quantico! I love having a show to watch on Sunday nights together. After church and dinner we get home in time to get things ready for the week and then sit down and watch it before bed. The perfect way to end our weekends!

What I'm listening to:
Our wedding playlist. It will never get old, and I still tear up listening to it! 

What I'm wearing: 
This COZY cardigan from Forever 21.

I bought it in burgundy and loving the tan one! I pair it with a solid v-neck and my favorite pants from Gap and it's the comfiest outfit for the office or out of the office!

What I'm looking forward to next month: 
Thanksgiving. Family. Food. Decorating for Christmas (the Saturday after Thanksgiving!) Taking our Christmas pictures. 

What else is new:
It's almost November...I can't believe this year is already almost over!

Monday, October 26, 2015

THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 3

This is a few days late, but I thought it would be fun to share Vol. 3 today...we've been married 100 days today. For the past 100 days I haven't woken up without him beside me. It's funny how we've fallen into routines and the new normal. I remember our first week back from our honeymoon and waking up each morning beside him before work. It was strange and so different, but I loved it (and still loving it!), and now I can't imagine waking up and Matthew not being there.
100 days of morning talks together while he gets ready for work, one of my favorite moments each day.

I've been describing each month in one or two words, I don't know if I'll do that every month, but I will continue that for this month. So if I had to describe our third month of marriage it would be: Thankful. There have been so many moments where I have just stopped and became so overwhelmed with thankfulness. Thankful for Matthew, thankful for his friendship, thankful for his forgiveness, thankful for his selflessness, thankful for our jobs, thankful for our apartment, thankful for two families becoming one through our marriage, and thankful for this sweet life we are building together.

We've shared meals together, lazy nights watching our favorite shows, driving around looking at houses for "someday" (one of our favorite things to do!), uncontrollable laughter, prayers, tag teaming the dishes, furniture projects, silly moments, and sweet moments. We've also shared disagreements, compromises and long talks. We've failed to communicate, and annoyed each other. We've loved so deeply and failed to love at some moments. Just like month two, we are still adjusting and learning to compromise, and I plan on doing that, Lord willing, for the rest of our lives together. 


I have a lump in my throat as I type this because my husband is falling asleep beside me. We've been married for over three months now and I still can't get over the fact that this is my reality. Thankful, so incredibly thankful. 

Friday, October 23, 2015

CHRISTMAS CARDS

My mom has sent out Christmas cards all my life and I have often thought about when I would be able to send them out for MY family. I sent standard Christmas cards out the past two years while living on my own just to family, but now that we are married we are sending out REAL Christmas cards (real as in the kind with pictures on them lol) to our family and friends. I have put so much thought into these little things and I am SO excited with how they turned out. I checked different websites and finally found the one that we like best through Minted. I finalized our order and they should be here by the end of next week. I know it's early, but that's when the best deals are and I want to have them ready to go and mail out the first or second week of December.


Last week I put this together and it will really help when it comes time to address them and send them out! 

I can't show you the card we designed yet, but I'll share some other ones that I really liked from their website.


I absolutely LOVE the gold foil, and I think it really adds to the Christmas card.

I really like how they give you the option to change the shape and color of each card. That makes even more options!

A Newlywed Christmas card...absolutely adorable!


Of course we are using a wedding picture for our Christmas card this year, and probably the next 5  years because I just love them all. 

Do you send out Christmas cards every year? A friend of ours sends out a little update with her Christmas cards every year, telling how their year went and any big events or trips they took. Matthew and I love that idea and will probably do one next Christmas since we've only been married a couple of months.
Do you send out anything special with your Christmas cards? I love hearing new ideas! 

Also, in case you were wondering, 63 days until Christmas! :)

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

CPA

Today Matthew officially becomes a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) and I am SO proud of him! 

If you remember during the summer of 2014 Matthew was among the first class at Tennessee Tech to take the "fast pass" and studied and sat for all four parts, and passed every one of them on the first try. He ended up being the only one from that class to pass all four parts that summer. It didn't come easy, and he sacrificed a lot of events that summer to study for them. He was studying anywhere from 8 to 10 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week. We had many library date nights, celebrated with ice cream each time he passed a part and celebrated big when he got his last score in. It was a crazy, busy summer but it was worth it and I know he is SO relieved to have that behind him. If you aren't familiar with how intense the CPA exams are, most people have compared them to sitting for the bar.

So yes, we will CELEBRATE today! We started with breakfast this morning and will continue for dinner tonight before church. I ran by Panera yesterday morning and got his favorite bagel and kept it in a sealed zip lock bag to keep it fresh until this morning, because I knew if I tried to leave the apartment early this morning he would have known exactly what I was doing lol. 

I printed these off yesterday and taped them to some books this morning while he was getting ready for work...so creative, I know ;) 

Cinnamon crunch bagels toasted from Panera with plain cream cheese is his absolute favorite! And starting today he gets to add CPA to his title! We will be needing to get him some updated business cards!

Today is a big day full of celebrations in the Coats' apartment, and I am one proud wife!!

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

NEWLYWED FAIL

Yesterday was going so good for a Monday. I had my new blog design and Christmas cards ordered by 10:00 am, and had knocked everything off my to do list by lunch time at work. I was feeling pretty good and was really excited to get home and try out a new recipe and tackle some laundry.

It was getting to be about that time so I wrapped up some things I was working on and organized my desk. I always feel MUCH better coming in the next day if my desk is nice and clean and I don't have anything from the previous day to work on, this doesn't happen everyday but I try to make it happen more often than not! 

So I left and Matthew called and said he was already on the way home. I got super pumped because I thought he was going to be working really late. He was also almost home since the client he is at this week is close to our apartment. We were mid conversation when I see the exit ramp that I take BACKED up. As in people at a dead stop. So I just kept on going another route and got on my GPS really quick to see which way would get me home quickest. The quickest way would still take me 45 MINUTES. Keep in mind that my normal commute is usually about 15 minutes and that's if traffic is a little heavy. I was pretty bummed because I knew I would need some extra time in the kitchen with my new recipe. I always like to give myself extra time when making a new recipe because I like to read the directions 500 times to make sure I'm not forgetting an ingredient or step. So the 45 commute was taking away that time lol. Matthew called when he got home and offered to start on dinner but I told him to wait because I wanted to be there and if he wanted to help we could make it together. The recipe? Cauliflower pizza crust, the directions didn't sound too bad when I read it the other day so I was telling myself it still wouldn't be too late when we got to eat. 

I finally got home and went straight to our kitchen and Matthew was helping me get everything out. He was reading through the directions and then said, "uhh Shel did you read the directions on this?" Still frustrated at this point I looked at the directions (this is the recipe we were using) and WHAT THE HECK IS A CHEESECLOTH?!?! Matthew started laughing and I started freaking out a little more. I told Matthew I would do without the cheesecloth that we obviously didn't think to register for and come up with my own. I was going through all of our cabinets looking for something to replace the dang cheesecloth and couldn't find anything. So what did I use? Paper towels. Yes, paper towels, and YES this created the biggest mess Finally I got the cauliflower as dry as it was going to get and mixed in the last ingredients and started putting it on the pan to bake. Matthew comes into the kitchen at this point and can see how frustrated I am and was so sweet and gave me the biggest hug and said it was going to turn out the way it should and that I was doing great. I popped that sucker in the oven and told Matthew he should probably go grab us a real pizza at Little Caesars while I cleaned up the MESS in our kitchen. He didn't ask questions and left to get our dinner. That sweet husband :) I decided to continue on with the cauliflower pizza just in case it turned out like it should....it wasn't looking too bad in the oven. So after about 20 minutes I took it out and put our toppings on and popped it back in there. Matthew got back with our pizza and we decided to try the cauliflower pizza, it actually wasn't that bad! We just couldn't get over the cauliflower taste with the pizza toppings. So the recipe turned out we just can't do cauliflower :) So after some tears, cleaning, and a cut from cleaning a knife (seriously y'all, seriously!!)  we sat down around 7:30 with our CARB loaded pizza and had dinner, finally. 

Here is a picture of our cauliflower pizza. We felt bad throwing it away as that is practically throwing away money and food others could be eating, but we just couldn't get past the cauliflower.

So now that we know we aren't fans of cauliflower that throws cauliflower mashed potatoes OUT! However, last night while I was waiting on Matthew to get back I decided to make his favorite chocolate oatmeal cookies. They turned out better than the last time I made them or he was just telling me that so I didn't have a serious meltdown, ha!


So here's to trying to be a domesticated newlywed and trying to figure out my way in the kitchen!
Fingers crossed the other new recipe I am making this week is actually edible and doesn't make me cry. 

Monday, October 19, 2015

NEW NAME + NEW LOOK

Good morning and Happy Monday!!!! As you can see my blog got a little big update over the weekend! A big thank you to Erin over at Love, Fun and Football for completely re-designing my blog. To say I absolutely love it would be an understatement! I am absolutely thrilled and so excited my little space is UPDATED. It's not like we've been married 3 months or anything... ;) 

As always Erin was great to work with, helpful and patient with all my ideas I threw at her! I gave her some ideas and color schemes and she went with it. I was really wanting to clean up my blog and have a fresh, clean and really simple design. From the font to the color scheme I think Erin really did that for me, and not to mention she did it quickly! If you are a blogger and you are wanting to have your blog design updated then I highly recommend her services. You can check out all of them here! Also, she took an exciting step with her design services and opened up an Etsy shop with another blogger, Amy. So if you are wanting to add some color to you planner then check them out. Seriously, so many cute things!


In other news, this weekend was a busy but good one! My brother-in-law got married and I got a new sister! Matthew and I took off Friday and headed to Murfreesboro as soon we got off Thursday. We met my family for dinner and then headed to his parents house for the night to help with the last minute things and load up the cars with stuff for their rehearsal dinner! Here are a few iPhone pictures from their wedding!


They had their ceremony at Fall Creek Falls State Park and it was absolutely gorgeous! The trees are starting to change colors and it made for a beautiful drive up there!


And last one...I snapped this one on my phone right before we left and headed to the reception!
Absolutely beautiful!

And this is how we ended our long and busy weekend...watching Fixer Upper until it was time for bed! Perfect Sunday night if you ask me :)
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Tuesday, October 13, 2015

My Best Friend's Wedding

On October 3rd my best friend since third grade became a wife. I was filled with so much joy and emotion that entire weekend! Thankfully I have some vacation days that I have to use or I'll loose them at the end of this year so I took Friday, October 2nd off to help with whatever was needed.
She had planned on having the ceremony in her beautiful backyard and the ceremony in her neighbor's barn (he had a barn built for wedding's...seriously it's gorgeous!). Well the weather was not in our favor and literally rained Thursday-Saturday night and was SO chilly. Thankfully some family members had the big heaters we were able to use. By Friday at noon she had decided to move the ceremony into the barn as well. So we decorated ALL day Friday up until it was time to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. She put so much time and thought into all her decorations and everything turned out so beautiful! I was the matron of honor and Matthew was the best man, we got to walk down the aisle together again - HOW FUN! 

Kathleen, wore her mom's wedding dress. Since she is the only daughter (she has two older brothers) her mom was more than thrilled to let her. Kathleen changed it up quite a bit from her mom's dress, but she had a picture made in it before she had any of it altered. 
and here is it after she had it changed up a bit!
Absolutely beautiful!

And here are the rest of the pictures from her wedding weekend via iPhone!
Thursday night officially started her wedding weekend with pedicures and dinner! As soon as I got off I was on my way to Murfreesboro for a few hours!

Maid of honor, the bride, and matron of honor!

Kathleen, her sister-in-law, and mom 

I was back in Murfreesboro bright and early Friday morning to help decorate and get everything ready. It was STILL raining and had gotten even cooler so we layered up and used the golf cart to get to and from her house, since the path way they had made was a complete mud hole filled with water by that point. 


We rehearsed in the barn and every single time she walked down the aisle with her dad we all cried as soon as the music came on. I'm telling you our emotions were EVERYWHERE! The rehearsal dinner was at the church her parents got married in and the church Matthew and I met at! We haven't been there in years and it brought back SO many memories. Such a sweet night.

My two very best friends




Matthew and I stayed with his parents Friday night and his mom fixed us a big breakfast Saturday morning before I headed off to Kathleen's for her WEDDING DAY! I got to her house and we went straight to the barn and started working on the last little bit until it was time to go back to her house to start getting ready for her wedding!

That morning and early afternoon was so relaxing! We all sat around talking and telling stories from our childhood growing up together. Then Sarah and I made a trip to Sonic to get all the bridesmaids a sonic drink to get us through the day! Kathleen got us all matching monogrammed button downs that we loved!

Kathleen's family is so close and the funniest to be around. I absolutely love going to their family events! She is really close to her aunts so I had them, her sister-in-law, mother-in-law, mom and bridesmaids write her a letter to read on the morning of her wedding and it was really fun and she really enjoyed them!

It was still raining so we couldn't make any pictures outside but were able to get some good ones inside her house and eventually the barn!

In our dressing room in the barn right before the ceremony started. She gave her parents their gifts and by the end we were all sobbing lol. Seriously so sweet!

Right before the ceremony started!

The barn! It had the most beautiful lights strung up ALL over, and those breathtaking lighting fixtures all throughout the barn. Her plan B was the most beautiful "Plan B" I have ever seen. 

The ceremony was beautiful and I don't think there was a dry eye in that barn when she walked down the aisle. 

The BRIDE & GROOM!

Sarah caught the bouquet!!

Two best friend's with our moms!

My family!



A fun picture I put together! Us at our wedding and us at their wedding!

and last but certainly not least...
Celebrated the beginning of our best friend's forever with my forever.

The weekend was so perfect, even with the rain. All that mattered is that Kathleen and Braden got married and they did! They had a wonderful honeymoon in Asheville, North Carolina, and the pictures were great!


Now this weekend my brother-in-law is getting married! We are so excited for them and to see everyone all together again! They have been together for 4 years and we have made so many memories with them over the years and can't wait to make many more!

Monday, October 12, 2015

#CoatsApartment Tour: Living Room, Dining Room, & Kitchen

This past weekend we didn't have much planned until Saturday night so we cleaned and organized our apartment. I took pictures to continue on with our home tour and to share our fall decorations! A couple of weeks ago I shared with y'all our bathroom and today I am going to share our living room, dining room and kitchen!

A couple of things to note:
- We haven't bought any curtains and we don't plan on it. Like I said the other day our lease is up in about 4 months and we aren't completely sure what we're going to do yet, so we don't want to buy decor that will only work in this apartment and not in our future place. We still have some gift cards from our wedding that we are saving for our future place!
- We have had the windows opened ALL weekend. We have had the perfect fall weather here and took full advantage of it. We turned the air off and had fresh air all day Saturday and Sunday. So that's why the windows are open in these pictures, I thought about closing them for the pictures but we love having our windows opened so they stayed open until we went to bed last night!

This is our small entry way into the living room. I added some fake fall flowers to some of our milk glass vases from our wedding. My mom gave me the "Thankful" piece last fall and I found the small pumpkin at Hobby Lobby and painted our last name on it.



I put a cute fall piece on our laundry room door. It's leaves and spells out FALL on it. I found it at Hobby Lobby last fall.

Our living room opens up into our dining room, which we really love.

I think we have decided to put some wedding pictures on canvases behind the couch, since we really like that look and can use canvases somewhere else in the future if behind the couch doesn't work in our next place.

Our guestbook at our wedding was a photobook from Shutterfly of our engagement pictures. We keep it out on our end table to read through people's sweet messages and for people to look through when they come over if they want to!

Our fireplace is one of my favorite things about our apartment and I am counting down the days until we can use it! I absolutely LOVE decorating mantels and have had the best time decorating ours! The mugs are from Anthropologie. They are the limited edition gold monogrammed ones. I bought them last year around Christmas when they were on sale for our wedding. They spell out our last name and we had them on our sweetheart table at our reception. Matthew really likes them and we decided our mantel was the perfect place for them. I had intentions on changing out the flowers with each season in them, but just haven't gotten around to putting fall flowers in them yet. The pink flowers are from our wedding. I found the leaves banner at Target in the dollar section!

I found this candle holder on clearance at Bath & Body Works last year.

This candle is actually from Wal-Mart. $5 and is just as amazing as Bath & Body Works candles. I'll take $5 over their high prices any day! Our apartment smells so GOOD all the time. 


We added a bookshelf beside our mantel and TV and I have had fun decorating it!

Our glass bottles we drank out of at our wedding (don't worry I've washed them) and our cake topper!

View of our dining room from our living room.

Our newly re-done dining room table!

That flower arrangement is from my best friend's wedding over a week ago. They are still going strong and just as beautiful as they were on her wedding day! We haven't really styled this console table as much yet. I kind of just threw a few pieces we already had on there. The fall sign I picked up at Hobby Lobby last month and the pumpkin is from my apartment last year!


View of our dining room from our kitchen!

Our kitchen!




I don't remember where I got these but I had them in my apartment last year.

Another candle of the same scent! We really love it. 


And that's it! To see picture of our apartment when we first got it and when we first got our furniture then look here and here! It's fun to go back and look at pictures from when we first got the key and to where we are now. We are so thankful for this apartment!