I passed!!!!!

This is the best day ever! Results were released early today and I passed! That's right, stick a fork in me folks, I'm done! No more tests, papers, homework, or studying for this girl!

I'm beyond excited! This makes my life soooooo much easier! I can bill for anything now and I don't have to retake the test. That was the longest 4 hours of my life! I'm officially a Board Certified Behavior Analyst!

Add this to the amazing news Matthew and I received about a house in Petaluma this week and I'm having the best week ever! But I'll leave those details for another blog . . .

Kelly Smallcombe, M.S, BCBA

We're Movin' On Up! (To the North Bay!)

I know I haven't posted in a few months but Matthew and I are about to embark on a new chapter in our lives that I would like to document so I thought I should start blogging again!

A little recap, I got promoted to an assistant Supervisor in September, finished my master's degree in November, and aced my first quarter in the new position and was promoted to Supervisor! My BCBA supervision was completed in December 2012 and I sit for my boards on February 25! Lots going on which is why I haven't posted here in awhile!

Anyhoo, my company has been expanding over the last year and has opened many new offices around the Bay Area. Matthew and I have always loved visiting my sister Gail in Petaluma and hoped to one day end up near her. So when my company opened up a Santa Rosa office, I couldn't help but express interest in helping out!

The initial plan was they would move us up to Santa Rosa if I passed my boards so Matthew and I were hoping for a move over the summer. However, I just found out that they need me up there whether I pass or not so our move will be happening a little sooner than expected! We expect to be done with the move by April 1st.

Kind of scary, very exciting, and extremely bitter sweet. We will be a 2-hour drive from most of our friends and family, but as I've been saying all week, "It's not Virginia!" (Sorry van der Kleuts!) while we won't be buying a house right away, rentals are significantly cheaper up there and we are looking to rent a house big enough to have room for visitors!

I really enjoy looking back at all my blog posts that documented our engagement and wedding and I want to do the same with this move. It will surely be one of the biggest shifts in our lives and I want to chronicle it as well. We are so excited to move into a bigger place and there are lots of home DIY projects to come as well!

We will miss everyone so much and hope that everyone can understand how amazing this transition is for us. Ok, gotta go study for my boards. Only 15 more days!


Kelly Smallcombe

BCBA Countdown 5 (Plus some work and school updates!)

Wow, I'm really behind on this post. So behind, it's almost time to post my 6th update! It took me a few days to get clearance and signatures on my hours so I wanted to wait to post about it.

April was a busy month! I totaled out at 120 hours which brings my running total to 559.50! That means I'm a third of the way done, yay! Right on schedule!

Work has been amazing lately too! I am about to start level two of my supervisor training, which means I get to learn how to do assessments and write reports! I've actually always wanted to do assessments so I'm really excited about that!

In even more exciting news, I just found out that I won employee of the month for March! (Yes, they are a little behind lol.) It's actually a huge honor because usually only supervisors get nominated and I think only one other BI has ever won! The clinical director announced it over an email stream and my inbox was flooded with congrats from all the other supervisors and program coordinators. It was a very exciting day! They are getting a plate with my name engraved on it to add to the plaque in the office, so exciting! The best part though is that it will have my new last name on it, woo hoo! I will have to post a picture when it goes up!

I've also decided that I am so sick of being in school and just want it to be over, so I'm going to double up on classes for my next term to get it done with! This means that I should be finished with my masters degree in November! I will officially be done with school FOREVER!!! I can't wait! Seriously, no more! I'm not a PhD. type of person haha!

Cheers!
Kelly Smallcombe

6 months!

I think this is my second blog post titled "Six Months," but the last one was to commemorate six months until the wedding. This post celebrates six months of marriage! We couldn't believe it when we did the math, it still feels so new! We decided to go out to dinner to celebrate!

We'd had a coupon for The Rok Bistro in downtown Sunnyvale for over a year but never used it because it wasn't valid on Fridays or Saturdays so we decided to celebrate early on Thursday so we could use it. Around here, the Rok Bistro is known as the poor man's La Fondue (even though it's still pretty expensive!). They are known for their yummy fondue and for serving meat on hot volcanic rocks where you get to finish cooking it yourself at your table!




Here's my handsome (and blurry) husband!




The before picture of the delicious onion and gruyere fondue we ordered.




The after picture. I am so trying this at home!




Holy crap, Matthew actually took a picture of me?!




Our main course: filets of sirloin, buffalo, ahi, and chicken. All seared and then served on a volcanic rock for us to finish cooking to our liking. Served with sides of mashed potatoes and veggies. The sides weren't anything to write home about ( or blog about lol), but everything else was very tasty!




We skipped dessert (not very big chocolate fondue fans) and strolled around downtown for a bit before walking home. What a relaxing and romantic night with my love! We didn't get each other cards but we told each other what we would have written in them had we exchanged them while on our walk, so fun!

The next day (our actual anniversary) I got my new driver's license with my new name in the mail! It'll be nice to finally change everything over to my new name. I feel like I'm living a double life because I have a different name for different stuff. Whenever anyone asks me for my name I always have to stop and think about what they think my name is. I can't wait until this is all over and it's second nature. One exception though, I will be Kelly McBride Smallcombe at school so there will be some continuity between my BA and MS diplomas.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Kelly Smallcombe

Ceremony Pictures

So excited to finally get to the ceremony pics! I wish I had video to post with them but that will have to wait. We really lucked out with the weather that day with temperatures in the seventies and beautiful sun that wasn't too hot!

These blue mason jars were supposed to hang off the sides of the chairs on the inside of the aisle, but the chairs ended up being different than the ones in the pictures. We were expecting brown wooden chairs but ended up having white folding chairs instead. This was a big "Oh well" moment. I was sad but I had to let it go. My helpers ended up putting them behind the chairs and that worked out just fine. 

I was so happy with how the altar ended up! Burlap was a bit over done by the time I got around to getting married but I still wanted to find some unique ways to include it. I found a picture of burlap curtains on Pinterest and loved it. I didn't feel like building a wooden altar to hang them from, but I had experience renting piping from my wedding planning days. It was only $40 to rent the metal piping and it was delivered for free with all our other rentals. It was also a lot easier to move, which is good since we repurposed the altar as a decoration behind the cake table during the reception!

This candelabra was an amazing find!! I wanted something rustic and vintage looking to hang from the altar and found this gem on Etsy for only $60! It will be an heirloom that we hope to hang above an outdoor dining table in our future dream back yard some day. When people ask us about it, we'll just say "Oh, yes. We got married under it!"

Although, the best part of the ceremony decor was the view behind the altar!

Back to the chairs. Note to future brides: make sure you confirm the exact type of chairs/tables etc so this doesn't happen to you. I really didn't care about the look of the chairs, it was the fact that the chairs we were expecting had slats on the tops that the mason jars and reserved seating signs would easily hang off of. The white chairs we ended up with had round tops that didn't hold anything. I think someone is holding up the sign for this picture but the signs had to rest on the chairs otherwise.

Connor holding the ring pillow I made. 

I made this pillow out of leftover burlap. I loved the look of the exposed burlap with the inset border sewn around the pillow. I then hand stitched some lace I found at JoAnn's Fabrics and weaved some teal yarn through some eyelets in the lace. I would have preferred ribbon but couldn't find any in the teal I wanted. I asked Liv to make a large boutonneire for the middle of the pillow. The final touch was the mock wedding rings which were my maternal grandmother's wedding rings. They were just for show and were actually gold which is funny since ours are silver!

I had seen pictures of little boys carrying signs down the aisle that said "Here Comes the Bride" and was planning on doing something along those lines. I found this awesome frame at Michael's for only $2 and used some yellow spray paint I had lying around the house to make it awesome! At the last minute, I thought of writing "Here Comes McBride" instead. Pretty clever I think!

I love this picture of Brad preparing for the ceremony! We were so lucky to have Matthew's brother in law do the ceremony for us. We didn't want a stranger to do it, but Matthew wanted it to be someone that we would take seriously so he was perfect! Thanks again Brad!

Matthew walking his Mom down the aisle, so sweet!

My cousin Jeffrey walking my Mom down the aisle. I loved her dress!

Matthew's friend Khoi walking my sister Gail down the aisle.

Skyba was quite the ladies man, walking Melanie and Sarah down the aisle!

Matthew's Best Mate Liv and my Maid of Honor Jenn walking down together. So obviously, everyone saw Jenn's heels get stuck in the grass while she was walking down with Liv. What you all didn't know is that the same thing happened when she walked down the aisle at her own wedding! Jenn and Alex seem very happily married, so I considered it a good luck charm!

Aiden looks so proud and we were so honored for him to be a part of the ceremony too!

This picture just kills me! Look at Ollie's swaggar! He's having a serious GQ moment here, love it!

My beautiful nieces and flower girls! I'm in love with their dresses, although I was sad that I couldn't find one of their dandelion necklaces I bought them for the wedding. I ordered two of them from Etsy but could only find one the week of the ceremony. I may have just finally ordered another one to give them. Perhaps . . . 

I love this picture of my Mom watching me come down the aisle! So sweet, I will cherish it always.

My Dad looks so handsome and my flowers look amazing!!

So much to love in this pic! The way my Dad is looking at me is so sweet, but the look on my face is priceless because it was when I caught my first glance of Matthew!

I also love this pic of Matthew watching me walk towards him!

Connor and Aiden were such good boys standing nicely with their Mommys!

One of my favorite shots of the day! Who cares about the kiss, I like the "We did it!" shot after!

Just when you think Matthew can't get any taller, my photographers figured out a way to make him look even taller haha!

Karrie photo bomb! Thanks again for capturing video of the ceremony!

I wish I could go back in time to tell wedding-day-Kelly to put her damn arm down!!

Since I don't have video yet, I wanted to share the music from our ceremony. After months and months of trying to find the perfect music, I finally heard the song "Home" on the radio. Honestly, I thought it was Dave Matthews and was very surprised to see it was by Phillip Phillips, the current American Idol winner. Yes, I'm a bit of a music snob and would probably not have considered using the song had I known before I heard it. Luckily, I fell in love with the song before I found out. I introduced Matthew to the song in the same way, not telling him who it was until he loved it as much as I did. 

Here's the video for Home by Phillip Phillips!

The lyrics were just perfect and the music fit perfectly with our rustic vibe we wanted. Another awesome part about picking out the music way in advance is that listening to this song when I got nervous or stressed out really calmed me down because I knew that at least the ceremony would be perfect!

I knew that I wanted my sister Gail to play something on the violin when I walked down, but I was really against the traditional wedding march. Just never pictured myself walking to it I guess. I ended up asking her to learn the melody from "I'll Do Anything" from the musical Oliver for so many reasons. First, the lyrics are really sweet. Second, I was in the play Oliver at the Sunnyvale Community Theater and Matthew proposed to me at the fountain outside of it. Third, I thought it was really sweet that my dad was the first man in my life who would do anything for me and he was about to hand me off to the only other man I've ever met who would do the same. I don't have the video of Gail playing it yet, but she totally killed it! Thanks again sis!

At the end of the ceremony, we walked down to Jackie Wilson's "Your love is lifting me higher." This song is a special one for us. Matthew included it on the first mixed tape he gave me!

Even with all the little things that went wrong, the ceremony was perfect and everything we wanted! After sitting through many long ceremonies in the past, we decided to make ours short but sweet. No readings or candle/sand ceremonies. This also kept the costs down since cutting all that stuff out meant programs weren't really necessary. The one thing we had considered doing was having us blow at some dandelions to make a wish for our lives together, but we couldn't find any around the ceremony. Oh well!

Cheers!

Kelly Smallcombe

BCBA Countdown 4

With all my wedding posts lately, I forgot to post the latest BCBA countdown numbers!

Even though I had so many cancellations in March, I was still able to pull off 114.08 hours. This brings my grand total to 439.50 with only 1060.50 hours to go. That means I'm about a third of the way to my BCBA and half way to my BCaBA, yay!

Also, last weekend was my first event for the promotion I got and it went perfectly! I'm also almost done with the first quarter of my BEA checklist too. Busy, busy, busy!

Kelly Smallcombe

School break DIYs

I love what school is doing for my career, but man do I live for my breaks! I can DIY all the time and not have to feel guilty about putting off homework! Here's how I kept myself busy while Matthew was in Sacramento this week.

A few weeks ago, I went to Bed Bath and Beyong and started completing our wedding registry and I finally picked up these huge jars for flour and sugar. I always make such a mess when baking scooping these items out of bags so I wanted jars big enough to scoop a cup out of. These were cute, but they needed some labels. Sound the Etsy alarm!





I found these gems from Let's Talk Chalk. Really cheap, super cute, and very easy to use. I also ordered a chalk pen which allowed me to write without smudging. I think my cursive gets an A+




My baking station is complete! For now . . .




Then I finally made Connor his tooth fairy pillow! I found the project from Martha Stewart Living on Pinterest. It was super easy and I finished it the same day I started it. This website has a template for the tooth and very detailed instructions, check it out!




This project was also the first time I got to try embroidery. Embroidery hoops are so awesome! They are only about $1.30 a piece and I think I will buy some to frame some of my favorite fabric scraps in my sewing nook!




I stitched the face by hand then used the hoop to stitch the tooth onto the blue fabric. Pretty easy, but now I'm totally considering getting into embroidery!




I'm sensing a new obsession here . . .




Totally making us one of these (but with Cake and Bear of course!)

Alright, off to find something else to redo!

Nighty-nite!
Kelly Smallcombe