Our Merry Christmas

Well we survived our first Christmas as an official old married couple. Sadly I just realized we didn't even take any pictures of just the 2 of us. I think we may both be pictured out. I did not even take my camera to the Simpson get together on Christmas eve. I usually get a lot of crazy cute & fun ones of all the kids. It was still a fun day with lots of food, fun, noise, & love. Rhett managed to sleep through the entire unwrapping of presents. Haha! Jake was unsuccessful in waking him when he threw a few wrapping paper balls his way. Gifts get quite expensive since their are so many of us so we now do a white elephant gift exchange. If you are unfamiliar with this game let me tell you it is Fun Fun Fun! You search your house for an item you no longer want in your possesion. One man's trash is another mans treasure. Everyone draws a number (this year the 4 older kids played) so we had a total of 14 people. I got #3 and Rhett was second to last. In this game being first is not always the best thing. My father in law Justin was numero uno so he choose a present from the middle. If I asked 20 people I bet not one person would be able to correctly guess what lucky gift he picked out. DrumRoll Please.........old maternity clothes, breast milk storage bags, & a baby picture album. It was quite hilarious! Some gifts are definately better than others. A key part of this game is that if you like the gift the person before you received then you can steal it. When it came time for my turn I choose the budlight cooler that contained Erin's old knife set. (I might have had just a teeny hint ahead of time about this one) Let's just pretend I didn't though. When it came time for Max's turn he stole my knives. I was so sad but knowing Rhett was near the end meant we could get them back! The wonderful husband he is stole them on his turn. Overall it is just a fun silly game and afterwards some people swap items. We ended up bringing home the knife set and an american flag (which is what Rhett really wanted). Margaret had stuck a gift card on the back of the picture she contributed so it got taken off by someone and then the pic got swapped again. We took our annual family picture and not one single child was screaming or crying. MIRACLE!! I don't have a copy yet but will share once I get. Here is last years pic. I would love to show off every year since forever ago but a few faces have changed throughout the years so lets just stick with the most updated version.

On Christmas day my parents & siblings came to our house to celebrate. I made breakfast with some help from Andrew & Rhett. Luckily this year the driveway was not covered in snow so no vehicles getting stuck. My Mom did threaten that if it snowed they wouldn't be coming. Lol We opened gifts and then watched the slideshow video that Creative Bent made. Alex fell asleep within minutes and my Dad, Andrew, & Rhett looked bored to tears but us girls enjoyed it. I had to head to work at 12:30. We all take shifts throughout the day so no one person has to work the whole Christmas day. Once I got home from work Rhett & I just relaxed. We lounged and had a nice relaxing quiet evening.

Every year I get an ornament for Rhett and put it in his stocking. Some years are more creative than others. One year I wanted a black cow since we own several black angus cows. Of course every cow ornament I could find had a little bit of white on it or pink on the udders or spots ....I wanted a plain black cow so naturally I just made my own! This was many moons ago but Thank you Jeremy for helping me with that project. When we went to Gatlinberg, TN and I saw the store with all Christmas ornaments I was extremely excited. Flying gold pig with crystals. Long story but this picture should help explain why I thought this ornament was perfect.

 

 

This year I didn't buy one but did receive several. Jaimee gave us this adorable one! Love it!!! Creative Bent also gave us the cutest one with a picture from the wedding.

 

This is from last year!

Just have to share one special gift that Brooke, Madison, Jake, & Cole received this year.

Precious!!! She was a surprise to the kids and now is a very loved little puppy.

 

We had a wonderful 1st Christmas as husband & wife. We also had sadness as we said goodbye to Rhett's aunt Peggy this past Friday. She was such a sweet woman. I know she is already greatly missed by all her family & friends. May she rest in peace.

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to share our lovely Christmas card for this year. The wonderful & awesome Anna from Creative Bent took the pictures and designed it. Sadly they are quite expensive so I only ordered a pack of 25 but thought I could share with everyone else on here. Enjoy!!

 

 

We have Walls!

Once our basement had a ceiling and our main level had a floor it was time for walls to start going up. This is when everything starts looking very real and rooms begin forming. The square footage of our house was originally 1784 sq feet but we added on a small mud room so it is really ended up being like 1800ish. Adding the small room took away a portion of our porch but I am sure glad we did it. This is the little room where our keys, dog leashes, & random items hang from the coat rack. (never coats) The room that holds shoes, hunting crap stuff and other random items at any given time. Sadly it is also the door that everyone comes in through. Dakota also thinks this door is her own personal door bell. She enjoys scratching at it whenever she is ready to come inside. Ahhh Bad habits!! We just got a shock collar for Drake for hunting purposes but it may come in handy for other reasons. Our lovely front door rarely ever gets used. I bought the cutest doorbell. If you can't tell it is a doggie paw print. I can probably count the number of times on both my hands that it has been rung.

I can remember when they marked out the lines for our house thinking "that's it! geez that is nothing". Then when the basement was dug thinking "holy smokes it's huge." Then once the concrete was poured and forms removed it was back to looking even smaller. Once the rooms started being formed with interior walls that really made a difference. The space for the bathroom looked itty bitty. It is absolutely just fine and has plenty of space. Amazing the way it changed daily. 

 Marking off between a bathroom and a bedroom. The blue lines show where the walls went.

 Rhett with his brothers and father. Hard @ work!

Setting up our back bedroom wall.

Dining Room/Front door area

   

On a different note just have to say Hello weekend!!! I am off for the next 5 days. I do work on Christmas day but only for a very short period of time. I plan to thoroughly enjoy lots of family time all weekend. I just made my brother a cheesecake for his 19th birthday which just happens to be tomorrow. Happy Birthday sweet Alexander! Here are some great pictures from younger years! 

Alex, Me, Andrew, & Jaimee

Love my family!

Dick Brick

A major decision we had to make while building was what color brick we wanted to use. One main reason we chose brick is because it is maintenance free. Expensive to start with but no yearly staining, painting, or cleaning. We knew exactly what we wanted it to look like. Once while driving out in the country we saw a ranch home with brick that Rhett & I both liked very much. The crazies that we are--we stopped took pictures of it and knocked on the door. We spoke with the people that lived there about where the brick was purchased. Richard's Brick in Waterloo or as I like to call it Dick Brick. The man that we dealt with was not the greatest. (I'm trying to be kind here people) I will not use any choice words but if we had to do it again I would definitely choose a different company. I went to Mid West Brick & Block in Waterloo as well and the man was so so nice. He even drove me around looking at houses trying to find something similar to what we liked. They just did not have the exact color we wanted to use so we went with the other company. You live & you learn. The house we liked started out with a dark chocolate brown mortar and over the years it faded to a light pinkish tint. We decided to just start with the pink mortar. Yes we have pink mortar. It sounds crazy but I personally like the way it looks. This is the sample from Richard's Brick building. It is incredibly hard to visualize what a whole house is going to look like when looking at something this small.

This is jumping way ahead of the time frame but since I'm already on the brick subject. The guys started bricking in the last couple weeks of December and weren't finished until the end of February. I remember we had snow so that put a hindrance on things for a while. Recently Rhett asked me if I thought we could change our brick because he really doesn't like it. Tough luck honey. I know it didn't turn out exactly how we imagined it but it is what it is. We both preferred  the way it looked when the mortar was wet so maybe we should have went with the chocolate color.

We only did the brick on 3 sides because doing the backside of the house was way too expensive. It is siding and looks just fine.

It looks way different back behind there now. Now we have a deck, concrete, & a lake. I will talk about all of it another day though.


Since it is December this is what our house should look like now!!! This crazy southern IL weather is driving my husband bonkers. He wants it to snow! Please SNOW GODS bring it to us!!

Basement Beginnings

 From the beginning of the house process we had our plan of building a one story ranch with brick/siding and a walk out basement. Mid July 2008 we decided to meet with Klein's log homes in Milstadt. We really wanted a log home but after much thought decided against it. Cost & maintenance were the 2 main  factors that made our choice. Maybe one day many many years from now we will build a log cabin for a little getaway home. It is amazing all the little decisions and details that go into building. Rhett & I were involved in every single one. Their are so many things I had never in my life paid any attention to and then boom all of a sudden I was staring at every house's siding/gutters/mailboxes/windows.....the list goes on. Right now Erin & Mike are building and it's funny she is starting to notice and look at all those things too. The digging of our basement began on October 3, 2008. Its hard to remember but I am almost positive I was off work that day. Rhett had this little stick (a transit) that checked to make sure the ground was level. He would run out check and then move so Duclos could either dig more in that spot or move on.

This is my absolute favorite picture. I have no idea why but it just is! 

Early October consisted of lots of basement stuff. Forma drain was layed, footings for the back wall, forms set, concrete poured, rebar/plumbing. Sounds pretty boring but it was so exciting!! I really don't remember doing too much during this process. Running errands picking up items, making phone calls, and keeping track of bills is what I took care of. I am not a woman of manual labor. For sure!! 

Basement dug rock layed out

Forms set ready for concrete

Forms removed ready for back wall to be built

Amazing how much it changed so quickly!

The spot we chose already had a hill in it so the amount of dirt that had to be moved around wasn't very much. The concrete for the floor was poured October 15th. Then we got rain for 5 days. They began building the back basement wall & laying subfloor/floor trusses on the 20th. Which basically meant it was really starting to look like something! 

I am so happy we have a decent sized basement to store all of our extra crap lovely stuff we own. In only 3 years we have accumulated a lot. When we moved some stuff got thrown down there and I think it is still laying in the same spot. Today I spent the day cleaning & organizing it and Jake & Cole hung out with me. Jake enjoyed riding his scooter and helping me windex the windows. They ran around like crazy fools chasing the dogs. Their can never be too much space!! I imagine in the future we will finish a bathroom/office/living room area down there. For now it serves quite nice as storage & play area for the dogs, nieces, and nephews. My handyman husband built a door at the bottom of the steps to keep the dogs pinned up. We also have our laundry downstairs. Yes that is correct we purposely did not put a laundry room on the main level. As in everything in life people have their opinions. Their were many people who kept telling us this was a silly choice. Absolutely do not regret this choice one bit. If our laundry is a mess then it is in a place no one sees. I have a ton of space. I work my tush off because I have to walk up & down those stairs. Maybe in 50 years when I am 77 I will wish my laundry was not in the basement but for now I am happy as a clam! 

Enough about basements here is a peek at the mini slideshow Anna from Creative Bent made of some of our reception pictures! 

Our Happy Home

Well peeps since the wedding is officially over & I am not pregnant YET (I know you can't wait for all the fun baby love) I have pondered over what to write about....My life really is not that exciting day to day so I am going to rewind a bit and talk about when we built our home. We had our floor plans drawn up in February 2006. Holy moly that was a long time ago but it really feels like it was just yesterday. At this point in our relationship we would've been together for 5 years long enough in our opinion to take such large step. I found a floor plan we both favored in the back of a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. We took the picture to Mr. Weseloh (a former drafting teacher at RBHS) and he drew up our official plans. I can remember when we got the bill to pay him for his services I thought oh man that is expensive. I think it was like $1100.

In 2004 we got a second dog with the intentions of breeding her with our male. All the $ we made from the puppies we raised went into our house savings account. We had puppies in our 1st & 2nd trailers & in our home now. Lots of fun & work & $!! I think we had a total of 6 litters and 64 puppies. Never lost a single one in our hands. Dakota was such a good little mommy.

After getting our floor plans drawn up it was basically just save $ and let the time pass. I don't really even remember if we had a set amount or just couldn't stand it any longer and decided to take the plunge. That plunge happened in 2008. After deciding where we wanted to build we filled out an application for a zoning meeting in January and the meeting was on March 6th. Throughout the whole building process I was extremely keen on writing everything down and in true Phegley fashion taking pictures of every single detail possible. Thank you Mother for teaching me well. Rhett said he can remember standing right there in the field and deer coming out of the woods like crazy. We do still see them quite often but now they occasionally get run off by 3 brown dogs.

Here is the exact spot our house sits now.

 

Field south of our house.

 

 

Ammo hanging out at our new place!!

 We both wanted to be off the road quite a ways so that was an important part of choosing where to build. One thing about the spot we choose was it did not have a convenient road to it so we had to clear a path through the woods. The driveway was a large portion of our expenses but it was well worth it. For some reason I didnt get any pics pre tree removal but here is the first glimpse we got of it. They started clearing the trees on April 6th 2008. Looks pretty sad in the first pictures on the left. The ones on the right side are after all the dirt was smothed out but pre rock.

 

 



 

 

Here are the cutest pictures ever of Brooke & Madison! So little & tiny!!

 

 

Eating corn from the field and standing on the pull box for our power lines.

 

Our power had to be trenched right down the middle of the driveway. The pull box has something to do with the power line. We drove to Troy, MO to pick that sucker up and it rained the entire drive there. It was horrible. I am so glad I was not the one driving and pulling a large trailer behind us. I think we ended up having a total of 6 culverts placed in various spots. This was the largest and sits at the bottom of the hill. Little blurry but you get the idea.

One hiccup the guys encountered was this lovely hunk of rock.

They had to rent some piece of equipment to break that huge thing up. My sister was flying into Chicago from Argentina at the end of July so I went with my parents to pick her up. Rhett worked so hard out in the heat the whole time I was gone. His comment last night when we were reminiscing was "I think I had heat stroke." It was hot hot hot!! Their was a good little gap of time in between the trees being removed and actually trenching/shaping the dirt. I do believe that was because it kept raining like crazy at that time of year. It finally was finished the 3rd week of August!! Then came strawing along the edges. That I clearly remember sucked a big one. The one and only time in my life I have ever had poison ivy/oak/sumac (whatever it was)

 Overall our driveway was a lot of hard work but turned out really well. I get to mow all 2000 feet out to the road and occasionally get stuck so Rhett can come pull me out. It's also fun in the winter when you invite your family over and they get stuck in the snow. (happened in 2010) Haha!!

3 years later and still making changes--------we recently had this done!

 I can now take nice walks & will be able to push a stroller on it in the future!

 

 

 



Smile at every chance

One of the best parts about our reception day on the 27th was having Creative Bent capture the entire day. When choosing who would be taking our pictures way back in Fall 2011 I met with 4 different photographers. I immediately knew exactly who I wanted to use within literally 2 seconds of speaking with Anna. I think driving to the appointment I had already made up my mind before it even started. If you have not met Anna and her mother Judith then you are missing out. They are so sweet & happy & talented & wonderful!!! From my hair appointment at Artistic, to our house, then to our church grounds, Ratz park, & St. John's they took lots of photos. They made everyone at ease all day and embraced everything our group had to offer. Even the silly photo idea that Derek came up with. (this would be the one with everyone hiding behind Rhett & I poking their heads out.) Haha!! I really enjoyed being able to take pictures in our home, in our field, and our driveway. It does make them even more special. Here is the link to view our photos. Go to  weddings then proofing and enter password.

Enjoy! 

http://www.creativebent.net/

password simpson

Thank you Creative Bent for doing an amazing job! I am so so happy!!

All Things Baby

LOVE HER!

 

If you've been living under a rock & haven't heard..... I am getting a new niece in less than 2 months. January 10th 2013 is the due date. ( I think thats right) In the Simpson family we already have 11 nieces & nephews ranging from age 13 to 1. Never a dull moment EVER! Rhett is now the only one of his siblings who does not have a child or one on the way. Imagine the pressure. Haha!! Lets break it down for each family.

Jeremy is the eldest and he has 5 children

Erin is next she has 4 children

Rhett------3 furry children

Meghan is currently pregnant

Luke is the youngest and has 2 children

 

On Sunday we held Meghan's baby shower for sweet little Roxy.

 

 

Erin made the invites. So cute!

Everything with the shower turned out great. Erin, Elizabeth & Jenny (Meg's good friends) Brooke, Madison, & I had a lot of fun planning and decorating for it. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Elizabeth brought a pinata for the kids, we played pin the mustache on the baby with a picture of a kid created by merging Jason & Meghan's pictures together. We had delicious food-chicken salad, mini corn dogs, pizza rolls, many dips with chips & crackers, lots of appetizers. Cupcake centerpieces, goey butter cake, cherry delight. I made the punch and used a new recipe which turned out to be yummy! So easy too because you can make ahead of time and then just pull out of freezer. One day Rhett said what in the world is all this red stuff taking space up in the freezer??

 

Luscious Slush Punch

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 5 Minutes Ready In: 8 Hours 20 Minutes Servings: 50

"A fruity concoction is frozen into a slush and then placed in a punch bowl with carbonated beverage. Makes enough for 2 punch bowls."

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar 6 cups water 2 (3 ounce) packages strawberry flavored Jell-O® mix 1 (46 fluid ounce) can pineapple juice

2/3 cup lemon juice 1 quart orange juice 2 (2 liter) bottles lemon-lime flavored carbonated beverage

Directions:

1.

Bring the sugar, water, and strawberry flavored gelatin to a boil in a large saucepan; boil for 3 minutes. Stir in the pineapple juice, lemon juice, and orange juice. Divide mixture into 2 separate containers and freeze.

2.

Combine the contents of 1 container with 1 bottle of the lemon-lime flavored carbonated beverage in a punch bowl; stir until slushy. Repeat with remaining portions as needed. Erin made cute decorations out of baby gourds. She also painted this adorable picture and everyone stamped their fingerprints on it.When she sent me the picture via text I think my exact words were, "I can't wait to get pregnant so you can make me one of these with a baby deer." Such a cute idea!     I got together some baby pictures of both Meghan & Jason. Thank you Sunny & Margaret for helping me out with that! I also found this cute idea on pinterest. The picture sucks but you get the idea. Thank you Jenny, Erin, & Jaimee for contributing outfits to hang too. So many cute baby girl clothes!!



One thing I was extremely excited about was the diaper motorcyle I made. Jason is into motorcycles so I thought it to be fitting. I found this idea on pinterest as well. I watched the you tube video and it was easy as could be. We had a little mishap one night when Drake snuck into the bedroom knocked the cycle over and stole the elephant but I got it back quickly. I used 1 package of 36 diapers to make it. If you have an upcoming baby shower I highly suggest making one. So easy, cute, and can be used as decoration too.

I don't have a front view but the bib on front says Auntie's cupcake. The back bib says Grandma Love me.

 

 

 

Meghan & Jason received many wonderful gifts from friends and family. I am so looking forward to the moment when little Roxy arrives next year. I am getting very excited and can't wait to spoil & love her to bits. She has a wonderful family waiting for her. I know Meghan & Jason are going to be great parents! Meghan & I have always said we must have our kids close together so they have cousins close in age. Everyone else is pretty well done except for us so who knows what the future holds!!!

 

Erin & I with our mustachio & unibrow