A Little Bit About My Job...

Hey thanks you guys for taking a look at my work blog and for your questions. I apologize for not being very specific about what I do. Here's a little bit about how we work.

We are a furniture and home decor consignment shop--meaning that we sell used furniture and accessories that the public brings to us. When items in the store sell, 50% of the proceeds of the purchase go to the consignor and the other 50% to the store.

The furniture and home decor that we accept must be new or in great condition and currently marketable.

A great deal of the furniture on our showroom has been consigned by builders of model homes, too, so some of the furniture is essentially brand new and has only been staged in a home for a short period of time.

Shopping at our store is very economical. Our general rule for pricing consignment is half of the retail or purchase price.

Just today, we had a lady come in and buy a Ballard Designs Rug that retails for $1699 and bought it through us at $699. She is thrilled!

The fun thing about our store, also, is that we get in new consignment everyday, so everything is constantly changing from day to day around the store.

If you've never been in to visit either our Salt Lake or Pleasant Grove locations, please stop in even just to say "hi." You will be hooked! :)

Salt Lake City Location:

7817 South Highland Dr
Cottonwood Heights, UT 84121
(801)453-9888

Pleasant Grove Location:

285 East State Street
Pleasant Grove, UT 84062
(801)701-0603

Craig keeps telling me that I need to share with you the blog that I have been keeping up since early May for my work. You could say it's what keeps me from blogging on our personal blog.

Hope you all enjoy.


thefinerconsignerhome.blogspot.com

Shopping Spree

I guess right now is the time to buy and so we've been buying a few things to prepare for our baby, Olivia! Jacquelinne is all about finding great deals online and here are a few pictures of things we've bought this week.

New Car Seat
We saved over $100 and it shipped in 1 day for free!

New Microsuede Rocker found on KSL.com

Saved Almost $200

Comfortable Chair for Jac to rock baby Olivia

Gone Fishin'

...or sumthin' like 'at! We're going to Lake Powell!! It's my first time ever going and I couldn't be more excited. I've been watching videos about Lake Powell for weeks and tutorial videos about how to do a back flip on wakeboard. If I succeed, we'll have a HD Video on here in a couple of days. Back flip or not, we'll be posting our favorite memories from this trip when we get home. Thanks to all those who read these posts.

Olivia's "Mini" Marvelous Crib and nursery thoughts...

First things first, I just want everyone to take note that I am finally writing a blog post on our blog. This will be the first one..so we'll see how it goes and if there will be any more to follow.

I have been tracking our crib online through Fedex for the past few days and am so excited to announce that it finally arrived today. I ordered it over a month ago, so if you can imagine, I have been anxiously waiting for it for weeks.

Much to our surprise, the crib is very "Mini." I had no idea when I ordered it that the size was any different than any other crib. I should have called my mom before ordering. haha So I guess I will be custom making sheets and a bed skirt to go with it--which I wanted to anyway.


Working at a consignment shop has definitely had its perks. I picked up these darling Hot Air Balloon prints for only a few dollars that I will have matted and framed custom for the nursery. They remind me of a wallpaper that used to hang in a bedroom at my grandparents'. I am so excited about them and love that they will be very charming and unique.

I found these fantastic hanging hot air balloons while I was working on a playroom for the parade home this spring. You can get them in many colors and sizes. I intend on making a mobile out of a cluster of them. I just love how vintage they look.

Blast From the Past

First Ultrasound

We went in for our first ultrasound on Monday at 11 am. It didn't take very long which was nice and we found out a lot of good information. When the sonographer started doing the measurements she told us that the baby wasn't as far along as we thought it was. This news came with some mixed feelings. For me (Craig), I was excited that we are able to go in for a second ultrasound in 6 weeks so they can get some good measurements on our baby's heart and brain. For Jacquelinne, however, she was a bit disappointed because they pushed back the due date by 2 2 1/2 weeks (from November 5th to November 23rd) and she feels like she's going to be pregnant forever. We're both excited to be having a Thanksgiving baby!

Although our baby was smaller than we anticipated, everything seems to be healthy and normal. The placenta was in a good position, the hear rate was 143 beats per minute, and although Jacquelinne hasn't felt much kicking yet, we saw the cute little feet, legs, arms, hands, ribs, and spine. The sonographer kept saying "look at that cute little baby!" We couldn't agree more. :) The best part of the ultrasound for us was finding out the gender. I had learned from reading some online articles that if it's a boy we would see one distinct line and/or "stub" which would mean "boy." However, three lines between the legs would mean "girl." As the sonographer was probing around for different positions, I saw three lines and said, "it's a girl!!" She didn't acknowledge my comment and continued to do more measurements. Then when it was time to reveal the gender, she turned to me and said, "I think you're right." It was such a tender moment to finally know that we'll be blessed with a little BABY GIRL!!! Jacquelinne was teary-eyed and there was a special spirit in the room as we held hands and saw the first images of our beautiful baby.

Jacquelinne goes in for a regular follow-up appointment in two weeks and we get to go back on August 3rd for the second ultrasound. We're very excited and feel blessed to have this awesome power to procreate and bring this precious spirit into this world.

Here are the pictures we got to take home with us.

Obviously a Girl!!

Mission Accomplished

After 2 1/2 weeks and much planning, we finally got our couch into our basement apartment!! It is no longer sitting vertically in the landing at the top of our stairs in the entry way. As mentioned in my previous post, the couch would not quite fit. We have some workers over today to cut out some of the entry way and refinish it so that we can get furniture in and out with more ease in the future. Even with the cut out, we still had a difficult time getting it in because of the narrowness of the hallway that is perpendicular to the stairway. However, with some stiff pushes and strong pulls, we were able to negotiate the sofa around the corner and into our living room. I'm not sure we'll ever get it back out but that's a thought and worry for another day.

Not the best picture but here's proof!

P.S. We are going in on Monday for "THE ULTRASOUND" where the sonographer will be able to determine the size and weight of our baby and let us know if the heart and brain are functioning properly. Pending the cooperation of the baby, we are also hoping to find out its gender. Stay tuned! :)

trying to fit a square peg into a round hole

When we moved into our new apartment we thought that we could use a day bed that Jacquelinne used when she was in college for our sofa in our front room. That ended up being a good idea until we set up the day bed and tried watching a movie. It was so uncomfortable and we needed a solution.

I spent last week finding what I thought were suitable candidates for our new couch on craigslist and ksl. I would then send the links to Jacquelinne for approval and she would politely tell me that she didn't like them and we needed to keep looking. Last night as I was getting in my car to go home after work, I got a call from Jacquelinne and she told me she found a couch that she absolutely loves! I'm not very picky so when I got home, I looked at it, liked it, and we called the sellers to let them know we wanted to buy it and went to look at it right away. When we got there, I gave it a good eyeball and measured it to make sure it would fit in our house and it seemed that it would so we bought it.

We don't have a truck so we called around and a friend knew a friend with a truck who was willing to help us so we picked it up at 10:30 last night. When we got back we took off the legs and got it down the stairs. When we reached the bottom my biggest fears were realized. When we first moved in, we had a hard time getting our box spring in and I was somewhat worried about the couch but figured with some pushing and prodding, we could negotiate the corner and get the couch in. I was wrong! We got within about an inch of getting it through but we didn't want to break the couch. We ended up giving up at 12:45 am and I woke up frustrated with the analogy of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole running through my head all morning.

I called my brother Brian this morning and we're going to send him some pictures of the ceiling where it's getting jammed and see if there's any way we can make an arch which will help us get things in and out. For now we're keeping the couch at the top of the stairs in the entry way with just enough room to open our door to get in and out. We'll use day bed for a little while longer and hopefully we can get this fixed soon because we really like the couch. It's deep and very comfortable. Just what we were looking for. Wish us luck!

From Orem to North Salt Lake to Provo

We moved out of our apartment in Orem at the end of April and Jacquelinne's parents were nice enough to let us stay in their basement for almost a month. They live in North Salt Lake and it was fun to be close to family and friends for a couple of weeks.

Jacquelinne stayed busy by changing jobs and working on her brother's wedding. She is now working for The Finer Consigner in Pleasant Grove. The first couple of weeks they gave her time off so that she could do the flowers for the wedding and she also did the bride's hair. She is also pregnant (17 weeks) and this week she woke up with a little baby bump! The morning sickness is over and for the most part she is feeling great. She does get car sick but fortunately our commuting days are over now that we've moved into our new apartment in Provo.

My grandparents own a fourplex in Provo and there was a vacancy so we decided to move to start saving money to get ready for our baby! It's a 1 bedroom apartment with some upgrades and we've gotten the go-ahead from my mom to do some more. We're going to start with the flooring in the hallway and the kitchen and are looking at different bids for either bamboo or tile. Hopefully we'll get that done in the next couple of months. There are a lot of young couples in the area/ward so we're hoping to make lots of friends! Moving is not fun but getting to know a new area and new people is! We don't have internet at home but I spend the majority of my time at work online so hopefully I can get some pictures up soon... Thank you to anyone who still checks up on us at this blog!

p.s. I fixed the background but I'm color blind so if anything needs to be fixed, please don't hesitate to tell me what I can do differently.

Quick Update - I know, it's about time!

So it's been about 5 months since we last updated our blog. A lot has happened and I still don't have a lot of time to update you on everything but I'll try to give a quick rundown on how the past few months have been for us.

Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went. We had a wonderful time with family and friends. On December 31,2008, we were able to celebrate our one year anniversary since the day we met. To celebrate, we went to Red Robin in Layton where me met and then spent the evening with friends playing games and the Wii in Clearfield.

With the New Year, Craig started school at LDS Business College in Salt Lake City. Because we live in Orem, he has been riding the bus to and from Salt Lake. School gets out next week and he's excited to have a few months off to work and enjoy some free time.

Jacquelinne is still working for Alice Lane Home Collection in Orem. She spends most of her days at work doing renderings for her clients. They are designing and staging 2 out of 8 model homes in Utah Valley!!

At home, we usually enjoy watching HGTV, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, The Office, and Jazz games. We also enjoy playing Scrabble and other strategy games. We've started a wonderful tradition on Wednesday nights called French Toast Tuesdays where we get together at our place with Jacquelinne's brother, Chris, and his fiancee', Kimmie. We welcome any guests that are interested in coming and always have a good time.

Once school is out, I'll try to update this a little more often. Thanks to anyone who gets on our blog to see what we're up to!!

Halloween: A Few Days Late and a Few Bucks Short

Halloween was almost a week ago but we wanted to do a post showing how much fun we had. Just after we started dating, Sean Huggins from our singles ward in Kaysville came up with a nickname for us. We've used it many times since (including the name of our blog). It's Cracquelinne so we decided to dress up as Cracquelinne the superheroes. We bought some fabric from Walmart for the capes and bought some other things at Savers. Craig ended up wearing some spandex and Jacquelinne bought little girl leggings to complete the ensemble. We had so much fun trying on and wearing our costumes. We were fortunate enough to be invited to two parties.

We stopped in North Salt Lake at Jacquelinne's parents' home that they are building. We didn't get a great reaction but it was funny. Jacquelinne's mom said she looked like a racoon and her dad told Craig that he must be fairly confident with his manhood for wearing a costume like that. HAHA!! Then we went to Mike and Holly Flake's for a couples party. It was a lot of fun and nothing beats Mike's homemade rootbeer! It was great to catch up with everyone that was there and see all of the awesome costumes everyone else had.

Jacquelinne got her cape stuck leaving the house

"Protect and Serve"

The sword of Laban

Rollin' out!
The Ladies
The Flakes
The Gents
The Morris' (BEST COSTUMES OF THE NIGHT)

After the Flakes, we drove up to Layton to visit Craig's family. Daxton was so cute while we were there. He even pulled out his cape from his drawer and put it on to be like us. Finally, we went to Hallsoween at the Halls home in West Kaysville. There were loads of kids from our old singles ward and it was fun to see old friends and have a chance to catch up with them as well. Jacquelinne got to go upstairs and chat with one of her best friends, Kelsey Halls, for a while.





Our Halloween this year was great!! Thanks to everyone who made it a memorable one for us!!

Mt. Timpanogos with my Dad on 9.15.08

On September 15th I had the opportunity of hiking Mt. Timpanogos with my Dad. He came up Sunday night to stay with us in Orem so we could get an early start on Monday morning. Although both of us had been to Timpanogos Cave, it was our first time hiking to the summit. It was a cool, crisp morning which was really nice for the hike up. We started on the trail at 7:15 am and reached the top around 11:15 am. After I got altitude sickness and we spent an hour at the summit, we started are descent. It was a slow go back down the saddle and I felt very weak. So my Dad asked if I would like a Priesthood blessing and I consented. Just after the blessing, a couple that was going up, stopped and helped out by giving me some "energy paste" made by Gatorade. It took about 15 more minutes until I felt better and so we continued to go down the mountain. I was very grateful for the power of the Priesthood and my faith in Jesus Christ that he would give me the strength to make down. We ended up getting back to the car at about 4 pm. It was great to spend time with my Dad and share this experience together.

I'm posting some photos that we took during the day. The scenery was incredible and it was fun to see all the mountain goats that are up there.

The moon was still out when we started

Potty Break

Sippin' on some H2O at the Saddle

Overlooking Utah Valley

My Dad, the energizer bunny

Stopping for a rest on the saddle

Almost to the top!!

The heavens opened up when we reached the summit

The view east of Timp

Me trying not to die

Me, alive and going down the mountain

Mountain Goats

More goats on the side of a cliff

My Dad and me with Timpanogos in the background

Honeymoon part deux

Here is a continuation of yesterday's post with more pictures from the honeymoon.

IN-N-OUT

Craig piggin' out on some animal style fries

The fountain at the Bellagio

A video of the Fountains

tree hugger

un bacio sull'isola delle palme

Jacquelinne loves palm trees

More Vegas

The pool at the Resort

Dip your toe to jacuzzi baby!!

life guard on duty

Go Carts!!!

Jacquelinne took the lead

neck and neck

La cucina

Front Room

Front Room II

Master Bedroom