8 cow wife

Sometimes you know you're on birth control when a One Direction song makes you cry...or a holiday commercial for Dicks Sporting Goods or when you think you have gingivitis...sometimes this stuff is some crap...Sometimes Hide & Seek between Lyle and his nieces & nephew gets a little....creative haha

sometimes you have a gift card to Macaroni Grill and sometimes everything going great because you can color on the table...until sometimes someone breaks out in opera and then another and another and they are so close to your table that you start to feel uncomfortable and sometimes you ask your husband whats going on...?! We are never coming here again...sometimes you take two naps in one day and your realize that you need to get a life again...sometimes Murphy goes out back & gets lost in the snow because it is taller than he is and you really don't wanna have to potty train another dog so you have to go out and find him. Sometimes you brush shoulders with Jef Holm at Urban Outfitters and you get excited and debate following him but then you remember you have a hotter husband whose a foot taller and you're still kinda excited but not as excited as when you sometimes sit TWO BOXES DOWN from THOMAS S MONSON at the Jazz game and you know you two could totes be bffz because big Tom is a jazz fan. Talk about a famous people weekend....Sometimes last night you made chocolate fudge cupcakes and when you pull them out of the oven you decapitated half of them and when you tragically tell your man he laughs like it isn't a problem....even though sometimes the best part of the cupcakes are siting at the bottom of the oven. 

 Sometimes shower crayons are the best thing ever because you write cute love notes back and forth 

& then eventually they turn into things like this...

& then sometimes the hubs starts drawing things like this...and you don't know where you went wrong...

Sometimes Lyle and I are the type of people that go to Walmart on Black Friday...but sometimes its not even for the deals or anything cool but rather we are the type of people that think we can stroll in for some boxes and walk right out...but then we realize how dumb that is and walk out empty handed...Sometimes it is the cutest thing when your man brings you a piece of pie and he knows you dont really care for the crust so he scraped it off especially for you...even though sometimes it doesn't look the most appetizing. Sometimes a man in SLC sees your ring and tells you that you must be an 8 cow wife because of your "8 carat ring"....and sometimes that only happens in Utah and sometimes the same man offers to take a picture of you and your man in front of the temple and he cuts your body in half even though you politely keep asking him to take it far away and now your memories of that night resemble having half a body....and being blurry.

xoxo CAIT xoxo

Must Have Boots

I got 4 new pairs of boots this winter....probably because i love shoes...but especially boots- so if you still have your eye out for some new ones here are some that i LOVE!

Boots for every occasion 

Steve Madden

Steve Madden

Anthropologie

Anthropologie

Steve Madden- i just got these and love them

Hunter Wellies through Nordstrom

My cute husband just surprised me by ordering me a pair for reaching my goal & I am so excited!!

Enzo Riding Boots

Every girl should have a pair of riding boots

Happy shopping!

xoxo CAIT xoxo

Being married means...

well a lot of things actually, if you ask me all good things....although cynics may say thats its only because we've been married 2.5 months but I know it will just get better! Being married means...

GETTING BREAKFAST IN BED.

For no reason at all husbands like to do nice things for you. Whaaa?! I know. Boyfriends do nice things for you too (like surprising you with T.Swift tickets!) but they can't usually bring you breakfast in bed! One day Lyle even brought me cereal in bed haha which made me laugh a little but since I love breakfast and being in bed it was my favorite. 

GETTING TO DECORATE YOUR OWN PLACE

Now I loved having room mates, don't get me wrong...even the ones that were a little difficult because you learn so much about yourself and living with others. However, living with Lyle is hands down the best. He has no weird or annoying habits, he doesn't snore and best of all, he lets me decorate our cute home any way I want. I think most boys don't really care about stuff like this so its way different from having 5 room mates who all wanna decorate the apt in their own style. Like for instance one of my sweet roomies put up like 12 huge pictures of Jesus in our living room....Now I am all for Jesus throughout the house but this was overkill and everyone laughed when they saw it...so yes, in my own home it is nice to spread Jesus throughout the house....

husbands even let you put monograms throughout the whole house because you love them so much!

The one thing Lyle wanted a say in was this baby- and I can honestly say I had no problem with that! It may be a little big for our space now but it was our investment piece for a bigger home someday.

HAVING YOUR VERY OWN 24/7 TASTE TESTER

I absolutely love to cook and bake and we also love to have people over for dinner and lately I have been trying a lot of new pumpkin recipes so Lyle is my go to food tester. I think he happens to love this part about being married on his end too. Every year i love to test out new ones from pinterest and i found some good ones! The Pumpkin whoopie pie recipe is hands down one of the best recipes i have ever found. Lyle always asks me to make these now and seriously tried to eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner. The frosting is so good that it replaced my old frosting for my homemade cinnamon rolls. You will not be disappointed. 

Pumpkin Rice Krispies

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Pumpkin Dip

( I made this for a Halloween party & it was amazing! SO fluffy)

good thing Lyle likes pumpkin just as much as i do...

YOU GET TO PLAN YOUR OWN FHE

Married FHE is great. Having 2 people agree on a fun activity is a lot easier than having 20 people agree so needless to say it used to be a lot of awkward getting to know you games in college. I am not one to do charades or things in front of people that I don't know where I embarrass myself so planning FHE now is a lot of fun! One night we booed a neighbor and made treats or one time we went to a jazz game or we watched a halloween movie. Although you will have to say the prayer or give the lesson a lot...unless you plan on having tons of kids and then you can have them do it.

WHEN YOUR SPOUSE GETS COOL TRIPS SO DO YOU

Exhibit A: Pirates Cove. Spouses are more than welcomed, fiances and girlfriends are not...much to the dismay of the unmarried reps. A place that is about $10 grand a night, Pirates Cove was amazing. Exhibit B: Cancun. We are going to Cancun in January-the first week of school actually haha whoops. Or when his work gets box seats to the Jazz games or free tickets to the Imagine Dragon concert...all in all having a husband with a cool job makes me a lucky wife.

& there are a million other awesome things about married life. It is the best.

xoxo CAIT xoxo

Meet Murphy

"I thought you were gonna wait?!" whoops...

These are the first words that came out of my dads mouth when I told him Lyle and I spontaneously bought a puppy. And by spontaneously I mean I had spent at least half my day for the past two weeks searching for puppies on KSL, pet finder, adoption websites and so forth....but yeah totally spontaneous...I guess in a way it was because Lyle and i agreed to wait until Summer or so but when we saw Murphy we just fell in love and had to meet him. And honestly if anyone knows me and my love for dogs they understand my lack of patience in waiting all the way til summer & now i have a bud when Lyle goes on his work trips! Murphy is seriously the best puppy- i don't know how we keep getting so lucky in everything! We don't let him anywhere in the house with carpet until he's trained and he has already picked up potty training. He loves to be with us. Having a puppy makes everything more fun- like for instance, doing the laundry.

Caught red handed. He runs right up the basket and not so sneakily runs away with socks or other small things he can trot away with. Its probably the funniest thing ever. I like to call him my little helper although he's not really helpful at all...but at least he makes things more entertaining. 

here he is stealing other kitchen items for his bed...

yup, that is my brand new mat.

or, going to the park.   

 

Our neighborhood has a couple of parks that we haven't really gotten to take advantage of and now i don't feel weird going over to swing or play without children cause we got Murph...although it may be weirder to pretend our puppy is our child... Our "child" is always the quietest one though so i don't think any of the other mothers are complaining. 

or, watching t.v. or movies

Lyle and i watched Elf the other day (which btw is the first movie we ever watched together) and Murphy loved it. He would pop his head out of the covers and just stare at the t.v. I would try to cover him up again but he would just move around me until he could see the t.v. again. He just snuggles up with us and watches too. Its pretty great.

he helps me do with my hair

Murphy loves my hair or should i say grabbing a strand and then trying to run away with it, not realizing it is still attached to my head. Lose lose situation for both. Its pretty entertaining though because usually he just winds up entangled in it. And here i am being the best mom and taking pictures instead of teaching him that pulling hair is wrong...keep your hair up when you come over ladies.

 xoxo CAIT xoxo

in 4 days...

I will be getting MARRIED. what. the. crap.

Due to the fact that I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off I have forgotten to post about some exciting events in my life as of late!! I can not believe how perfectly things are coming together. Lyle & I stopped in Utah post his time in Texas and we went house hunting! The first house we looked at I axed immediately because well quite frankly the neighbor gave me the creeps but the second home we looked at was the one. I LOVED everything about it. What an absolutely perfect neighborhood. The view of the mountains from the front of our house is stunning. All the houses look so new & pretty and there was a bunch of really young families and lots of little parks and its very green. It even comes with a neighborhood pool, clubhouse, gym and movie room.

The kitchen was love at first sight. There are so many possibilities for it!! I'm thinking a mint blue & black.

 I loved how open the living room was and the two toned paint.

Lyle and I didn't look at any more houses and made an offer on this beauty. We are now under contract and will be signing papers after returning home from the Dominican!!

 I have already been picking out paint colors & looking at cute little things for our home. This little M is going to look great on our door!

Etsy has the absolute cutest things ever! I seriously should have registered there. oh my.

And just yesterday I got to go through the temple and take out my endowments!

What an experience that was. 

& THEN Lyle took me to see one of my favorite singers ever! He surprised me with tickets a bit ago and last night was amazing. Lyle made it so fun and even stood up and sang and danced with me. He makes everything better. Lyle wont admit this but he may not a good bit of the lyrics...

Pre all the craziness, we got to enjoy some lazy days in Texas. My favorite was spending the day in Galveston. 

xoxo CAIT xoxo 

Sometimes

Sometimes your man is holding your hand in the car and he goes "take a picture of our hands and say something like "I miss riding in Lyles car and holding his hand" and sometimes you realize you've created a monster (because he knows you blog about everything). Sometimes you tell your niece to put her hands on her hips to take a picture and you have to tell her about three times until she gets it. There we go!

Sometimes you and your man get approved for a really good house and you get so excited even though you have yet to find a house. AH. Sometimes you get your engagement pictures back and the ones where the photographer told you to get in a tree don't turn out as planned and sometimes your sister says they look like they could be on the cover of a harlequin romance novel...uh. Sometimes you get a zip file of your engagements and the file says Caitlin and Travis and you're really confused and you open them and sometimes its actually Caitlin and **Lyle...and sometimes your sister thinks it annoying but then funny and decides to call him that. Sometimes there are so many new great country songs and this one reminds you of your man because he's the soft sweet side in this relationship and not to mention my best side. I just hope that i'm hot enough to get rid of his tickets, like in this video ;)

Sometimes your family stops to help two turtles across the road...in one day. And sometimes you realize that's probably not normal...but you are grateful that everyone loves to help. Sometimes your fiancé sings to you until you fall asleep and his song of choice? God must have spent a little more time on you. Sometimes your man is so hard working that he wins you both a trip to Cancun and he and his team are this close to winning a trip to Pirates Cove too! Sometimes you are so proud of the man that he is. Sometimes you love being at home because you overhear conversations like this:

CJ: "miss your horse is going way to fast!"

Cass: panicking "don't sue me!!"

where she heard that word I could not tell you

or Cj says things like "I like Chinese food! I really like those graham crackers with paper in them!" also known as fortune cookies for us adults.

 

quotes: "did she just say captain crunch was a pirate...?!'

 

"no its a movie that you watch in the dark"

"well that's how I normally watch my movies..."

"oh no I meant to say its a movie where you eat dinner in the dark."

 

"juliets at the country club!"

"i just pictured two dogs walking on their hind legs with towels on their arms walking to the sauna..."

(on Juliet at the country club)

 

"we will see everyone tomorrow then Mammaw and Pappaw will come down for Aunt KKs wedding because its right around the corner and then everybody will leave and life will be sad."

Sometimes Meghan is really good at cheering up her children haha. Sometimes your man surprises you with TAYLOR SWIFT TICKETS. (insert freak-out) because if you knew just how much i love her and how bad I've wanted to see her for the past three years you'd get it. But sometimes around here she sells out so fast. Sometimes he really needs to stop sending you flowers and surprises in the mail like your every episode of your favorite show! Sometimes you really need to stop talking and praising him but you just cant. Sometimes you think you may change your mind about the whole waiting 2-3 years to have babies when your fiancé sends you pictures like this and your heart seriously melts because he will be the best daddy ever. And sometimes you want little babies just like him.

and then sometimes your niece is very confused about this picture and she doesn't know whose baby that is and when you ask her she looks at you all confused and keeps looking at your belly like she missed something. Sometimes you miss your beautiful room mates wedding in July and you check her facebook everyday for pictures because you know she just looked so beautiful! Congrats K&J! I cant wait to see your new place in three weeks! Love you both.Sometimes this is a weak sometimes post but you gotta ease back into the blogging scene.

xoxo CAIT xoxo

 

a little R & R

that has been my last week. Rest & relaxation. Everyday Lyle goes what did you do today or what are you going to do today and I respond with "nothing." Normally we will come down to Florida and go to Orlando and do city walk or all the theme parks over and over but this trip was to relax. I woke up everyday no earlier than 10 and sometimes I slept til 11...and I am not ashamed. Matter of fact, most days it was 11. The one thing I continually keep telling Lyle is I love my sleep. I used to run off 4.5-5.5 hours of sleep in high school with early morning seminary when I would get up at 5:45 every morning but I'm done with that phase of my life. Thank goodness...Even today, someone tried to wake me up for breakfast and I replied with "leave me alone." I'm not proud of it but I was half asleep so I cant be held 100% accountable for that... I guess it stands sleep > food in my book. After my excessive amount of sleep I mosey on out to the pool. I find myself there until about 4, laying out and listening to country music. This trip did have a lot more of my favorite Florida storms than normal but those are awesome. Then we'd finish the night with cards and dinner and it was great. One day we did manage to make it out to the springs but other than that I did nothing. That is something I haven't been able to say all summer and something I probably wont be able to say again until the Dominican. I did manage to take tons of pictures though! Mainly of Bray who loves pictures and if you give her your phone she is all about selfies. She was the easiest to shoot this trip because she's such a doll. I wish I could say I didn't stress about the wedding once but that's not possible but oh well! Here's some pictures for ya:

silly face

our attempt at a family photo

 

don't let bella fool you, she loves the water

mom & dad

the springs

we all have an infant picture with Pappaws hat

I bought her this outfit when she was born...for a year later because I liked it so much!

Shane also needed floaties...about 10 sizes bigger than this haha

the 1st of two turtles we stopped to help across the way. Go Shane!

I am also not ashamed that this is how I have won her over...

the second turtle we saved

one with all my little nuggets. ignore my face and the red eyes...

guess we have to get a good one at the wedding :)

Now back to Maryland! Goodbye Florida.

xoxo CAIT xoxo