A few of my favorite things...

 These are the flowers that my awesome husband gave me for my birthday. Aren't they pretty? He did the arrangement himself, too. :-)

 And here is the orchid that my coworkers gave me. As you can see, I haven't managed to kill it yet...hopefully it stays alive and happy! Any tips are more than welcome!

 Here you can see our new bookshelf with our fish tank perched atop it. We used to have a fish tank when we first got married and loved it, but we got rid of it because we were moving too much (fish don't like to be moved, even just across town). Now that we are "here to stay" we have reinstated the fish! I really like having a fish tank because it's fun to pick out the fish, and also because it's kind of mesmerizing and relaxing to just stare at them (like a living screen saver!). Yeah, kinda dorky, but hey. Don't knock it till you try it. We currently just have 4 zebra danios, one algae eater, 1 betta, and 1 gourami because the tank is still cycling, but I'm excited about adding more soon! We do have a few too many books/DVDs for our bookshelf, but that's okay. This is in our living room.

 My "nest" on our couch. :-) The oddly piled pillows are because it's not comfortable any more for me to sit on a deep couch without some funky back support. The Bible is on the top because I was kind of half sitting-half lying down at 6 this morning when I had my sanity time. :-) And the computer...well, although I don't do nearly as much work from home as I used to (hooray!) I DO study for the OCS exam on the computer (taking that in just a few weeks...yikes!) and I am too lazy to move it every time I'm done. The weird Wii control is all Josh. Don't ask me.

 This is our guest room/craft room. Or it will be a craft room someday when/if I set it up and start doing crafts again. I like it a lot though, because of the textured walls that Josh did. I think they look really nice, and I also like the colors that we chose in this room. There are diplomas all over the bed because I'm not sure what to do with them...in Austin, they hung up at work, but here we only hang up licenses, not diplomas. They will probably end up in a box or on a shelf at some point.

 Here is the baby room! The walls are teal with one chocolate brown wall, and that's kind of the general color scheme we are going with. It's gender neutral (I do NOT want to have to repaint the nursery if a future sibling is a different gender!) and the colors go together well. We don't have much in this room yet, but you can see our little stash of baby stuff piled on the rocking chair.

 Here is my classic Pooh swing! We got it at a sale called Just Between Friends (it's a consignment sale that happens on weekends in lots of different places in America) for only $40. I checked, and this swing costs almost $150 new. It looks to be in really good condition, it works, and it's super cute besides! (and also gender neutral...I do not want to buy new equipment for different gender babies either!) There will be another sale in Columbia in April, and so that will be fun to go to...we'll know gender by then, so we can buy clothes (they had tons of super cute clothes for $1-$3 per outfit) and maybe some more of the big stuff (though I'm planning to be as minimalist with that as possible...but I am going to need a crib at the very least). I'm also hoping if I get there super early, I might be able to pick up some cloth diapers.

 This is our eating area. My poor, sad table still counts as one of my favorite things, but it has no legs (they were broken in the move). :-( Just buying a new set of legs is very expensive ($400 is the cheapest I've found) so for now, it sits forlorn against the wall. And although the moving company is supposed to compensate us for breaking our table, they have up to 150 days to process our claim, and even if they find in our favor, they are probably only going to give us around $50 for it. Oh well...we will see. I'm hoping to maybe find someone local who can make legs for us for less than it would cost to order them premade. This room also has the texturing on the wall, and it is really cool! Josh is so talented...and patient! My texturing rarely turns out this well because I get in a hurry and start being sloppy.

 Here is the view from our kitchen. I love this about our house...the kitchen is wide open to both the eating area and the living room, so you feel like you are "together" and can interact even if you are actually in different rooms. When we have friends (don't laugh, it will happen!) we will be able to have them over and all hang out even if some of us are cooking, which is so much nicer than being confined in separate areas or having to stuff 10 people into the kitchen so you don't feel like you are missing out! Sorry for the dishes in the sink...I keep forgetting to take pictures, so figured I should do it while I'm thinking about it!

I don't know if you can really tell from this picture, but look up at the ceiling. See the glow? That's because there are little lights installed around the perimeter of the higher part of the ceiling. The camera flash kinda took away the effect (plus I took this picture in the daytime), but trust me, it's really cool. I especially like it at night-there is just enough light for it to be cozy and so you could talk or just relax, and it is very soft. Definitely not enough to read by, but sometimes that's not the point. I also love that my walls are purple. :-) We have curtains that I hope we will be able to hang up soon, and that will complete the look.