Christmas with Dakota Barker

We picked up this adorable little guy on Christmas Eve as my present! He was the spunky, chunky, fun one I'd picked out. We are loving the guy! He is the cutest thing I have ever seen, and I just am so in love with him. (I know that it is going to be 10x that when we have our baby). This Christmas has honestly been the best I have ever had, and it was the first married Christmas I had ever experienced.  Russell seriously has made this Christmas so special for me by really putting thought into the gifts he gave me. He knew I loved the wooden headboards I'd seen on Pinterest and he actually made me one while I was away at a girls Christmas night! I'll post pictures once we've completed it all the way. I just love my little family and love that it's growing!!!! Merry Christmas Everyone!

We're having a BABY!  We couldn't be more excited! We are really so excited to meet our sweet little one.  We both had been feeling the promptings that we needed to start trying to have a baby. I will be the first to admit that I ignored those promptings trying to counsel God that we needed to wait for Russell's schooling, but God knows best. When I finally gave into these spiritual feelings and told Russell, he told me he had already felt it too. We are 8 weeks and 2 days along and baby Barker should be arriving around July 27th.  We can't wait!!!!  Russell has been so amazing during the morning sickness. He really is the greatest husband and I am so lucky to be his wife.

Christmas Presents

All I asked for Christmas was a Shih Tzu puppy! I love Shih Tzus!!! Just look at the fur ball!!!! Russell and I were so happy when we found a batch of puppies in South Jordan for sell! To make it a surprise I picked out my two favorites in the litter, and Russell got to choose the 1 out of the two to buy. My two choices were either 1) the thick, chunky, spunky, puppy that was running around or 2) the oldest and wisest of the bunch. I really have no idea which one Russell will pick, but we get to pick it up on Christmas Eve!

All I can say is we are so excited to be welcoming these two new members to our family!!! 

Hope everyone's Christmas's are going to be as exciting!!!

Our House

I want to apologize that this post is long past overdue. I wanted to show pictures of the house we just purchased. Russell, and I know that this isn't our "dream" house right off the bat, but we were excited for the chance to find something and MAKE it beautiful.

Our house has 2 bathrooms, 1 car garage, a backyard, 3 bedrooms, 1 office,  laundry room, attic storage, storage closet under the stairs, kitchen, and living room with a fireplace.

The first two weeks that we moved in we had to get right to work re-painting the entire upstairs and re-carpeting. I LOVE Pinterest, it helped me not only find the paint colors I wanted, but also gave me ideas on widening the baseboards and painting the doors dark walnut. Here is a picture when it looked like a construction zone in our house. My parents, and Russell's parents were at the house pretty much every day for those two weeks helping us paint! LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

FINISHED PRODUCT...

THE ENTRYWAY

THE HALLWAY

THE BATHROOM (paint color Harvest Brown)

THE KITCHEN

 (paint color Benjamin Moore's Providence Olive, and we painted the counters to look like granite)

MASTER BEDROOM... 

(paint color Benjamin Moore's Tennyson White)

House Hunting

I am so in love with my sweet, sweet husband and he has given me the greatest gift in the world: himself!  When we got married I never would have imagined what our first year of marriage would have in store for us but I wouldn't do it any different and I'm loving every moment of it.  I married the greatest man on earth and I love being his wife. He is my better half and makes me a better person.  We have the best time being together and he truly is my very best friend.  We are starting the mad hunt for a house and I can't wait for the day we get to sit on our very own porch swing and hold hands knowing that we have a house! Wish us luck with this process!!!!!

Trip to the InstaCare

I cut my finger for the first time in my life while cutting sweet potatoes. Being me, I didn't want to rush to the InstaCare so I just smacked  5 band-aids on the wound and called it good. The next morning Russell saw that the band-aids had bleed through and it was still bleeding. When we arrived at the local InstaCare they told us that once it's been 8 hours you can no longer qualify to get stitches. The doctor was honestly surprised I hadn't gone in sooner to get it stitched.  As you can see below they just wrapped it up good and tight and sent me on my merry way.

Happy Birthday to ME!

I woke up to discover that Russel had decorated the entire basement apartment we are living in. His sweet Mom, and grandmother also gave me gifts to celebrate turning the big 23! I'm a month older than my husband and he loves it, so he had a lot of fun teasing me about being married to an older woman. :) That night we met my parents for dinner at Red Robin to enjoy their sweet potato fries. After dinner Russell and I went to go see the movie the Vow, totally a tearjerker. When we got back to our apartment Russell had a pie waiting for me! A pie might sound odd instead of a cake, but for some reason I always preferred fruit pies over a birthday cake. This day seriously was the happiest, best birthday I've ever had! Having my best friend, my soul mate this year made it! Now that I have Russell I know that every birthday is going to be amazing!

Honeymoon

A lot of people have asked where we went on our honeymoon. When Russell was planning this I told him I wanted somewhere warm, where I've never been before, and not St. George. It seemed like all the young married couples were going to St. George for their honeymoons in our singles ward. When we went to the Hilton Hotel that night I had no idea where we were going. This picture shows us waiting at the airport. 

He finally told me that we were going to...

PHOENIX, AZ

 Russell had researched all the best places to go eat and this was one of our all-time favorites. If you live in Phoenix I highly suggest going and hitting up the Carlsbad Tavern Restaurant! It serves authentic South American crusine which obviously was a hit with Russell cause he served his mission in Chile, Santiago. 

 I love horseback riding and consider it one of the best activites you can do. My dad had given Russell the tip to include horseback riding but Russell already knew that was something I loved and was planning on us doing that on the honeymoon. 

 On the trail we saw a bald eagle in it's nest and we got to actually cross a river while riding the horses. I loved the setting and the desert landscape of Phoenix. Russell was taking all the pic's so I didn't get a good shot of him on his horse. 

Wedding Day

We were married on Feb. 17th at 11:20am in the Salt Lake City Temple. This was the beginning of the happiest life I could have being married to my man, my best friend, my Husband handpicked by God. :)

Yes I did have 13 bridesmaid (1 couldn't be there till the reception), but I sincerely love each and every one of these girls! I'm so blessed in  my life to always have an abundance of girlfriends! I love the women in my life and draw so much strength from them! Thank you to all my bridesmaids that were there for Russell, and me on our wedding day!

Reception

My two older sisters, and sister in law.

Our version of a wedding cake, Fruit Tarts.

Our first dance to Lady Antebellum's song "When you Got a Good Thing"

I'd changed into our going away clothes when I remembered we still needed to do the garter toss... even though I wasn't in a wedding dress we still did it anyways!

I love to see the Temple....

Hey Amber here! So I went through the Oquirrah Moutain Temple to recieve my endowments on Saturday and couldn't be more on cloud nine!

I love this gospel soooooo much! The church is true, and I just hope to continue to learn more, and become more and more Christlike as days go by. Seeing Russell in the temple dressed in white coming towards me with the temple president will be a sight I will never forget. We both had our parents there, I had my grandparents, and my two sisters and sister-in-law. We definitely want to say a BIG thank you for anyone that came!

We are getting married this Friday at the Salt Lake Temple. Russell and I are soooo unbelieveably excited and anxious for this to go down. We both HATE having to say goodnight to each other. Since the beginning of our dating the longest we'd go without physcially seeing eachother was two days. Since we'd gotten engaged we never go an entire day without seeing eachother. We are just excited to be man and wife! 

We are going to be moving into Russell's grandmothers empty basement rent free for a semester! We are both very grateful for this blessing! :) We're just needing to finish up moving into it this week before our wedding. We're both excited to have our first Valentine's date together as a couple as well this week. 

Our Bridals

Courtesy of Elizabeth Kate Photography in Utah

Wedding Invitation

Front

Backside

Bridal Shower hosted by friends

Bridal Shower hosted by my Mom