Unplanned Weekend

Josh and I purchased our home earlier this year and although we love it there are few things that we don't like.  Aesthetically, some things just aren't quite to my liking.  The front door was a reddish purple and although a pretty color I did not prefer it for my door.  So, my Mom painted it for me!  It looks so much prettier and "cool" than the old color.

On Sunday, Josh and I were going to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary at the shooting range but it was closed so we hit up Lowe's instead.  Not quite how most people would spend their anniversary but it was nice to have a couple hours of alone time and be able to eat lunch without worrying about sippy cups, spills and straw papers being shot across the restaurant.  We know you are supposed to change your locks when you move into a new house so we were a bit behind the game but now that we have new color we also have new locks!

We have a sliding glass door in our kitchen.  It's lovely because it opens right up to the deck and on nicer days lets in a wonderful breeze.  The downside is that about 25 feet away is our neighbors kitchen window.  We have great neighbors but one night I looked over and realized that we were doing dishes together...in our pajamas!  So, curtains are in order!  I've had fabric since before we moved in but have not had the time to whip them together.  With my Mom up this weekend we tag teamed and got them done in a few hours!  Rory was fascinated by the sewing machine and wanted to help me guide the fabric through.  I was surprised but he sat patiently, followed my instructions and between the two of us finished one side of the curtain.

My Dad installed the curtain rod and voila!  It really made the space look complete and helped the doors look more polished.

See that small window?  That is our neighbor--they really are great people but a little privacy is a good thing.

As if all of that weren't enough excitement look at what else has been happening!  Behind our house is a huge pond and in front of that a small creek.  Rory is not afraid of the water and that made this mama quite nervous.  Although he is never in the yard without supervision he moves so fast.  I've heard similar stories from other mom's with toddlers.  For being only 3 feet tall they really can cover some serious ground so we felt like a fence was a must.  In addition to keeping Rory safe from the road and water our family is expanding (by four furry legs)!  More on that later but here is what the yard looks like....

Overall, I would have just been happy to have the house kept clean over the past 4 days so maybe it's better to go into things without having a plan!

How does your garden grow?

I haven't waited for this evening ever since we looked at our house before purchasing in December--time to plant the garden!  Rory and I have been talking about it so I knew he was excited too!  

Josh and Rory worked in the garden before I got home to get the ground ready.  I see my men have a thing for wearing shorts and boots!  Ha!

Today was an extra special treat because not only was there dirt to dig and seeds to plant but huge machinery at the pond behind our house.  You can kind of see an orange truck just above Josh's left shoulder.  A new bike path is going in so tractors and dump trucks of all sorts were just a short distance away.  To say Rory loved it would be an understatement.

The boys are perfecting their skills at mound building.  I didn't know this but some plants have to be planted in a mound.  Not sure why--I'll do some research.

Rory was such a good helper at counting out the seeds, digging the holes and patting the dirt back over the seeds.  It was much harder keeping him from plodding through all the mounds we had just built!  He kept calling them "mountains."

We did not have any plants around our deck and if I planted something tall it would block our view of the water so for now, I have strawberry starts, green peppers and tomatoes here.  I have 7 different kinds of tomato plants.  I didn't mean to do that but I bought 2 packs from a garden center after my order from a catalog didn't show up and then, literally today, 6 different types show up from the catalog company.  I need to review tomato and spaghetti canning recipes, stat!  I find it a bit ironic because none of us like eating just a tomato--we do however love spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce.

Here is the finished product of the "big" garden.  I'm hoping to reap a harvest of dry soup beans, zucchini, carrots, cantaloupe, watermelon and green beans.  I have two packets of green beans left to plant but will space those out over the next 4 weeks so they mature at different times.  I'm so excited for Rory to see this process from start to finish but also provide food for our family.  It's been a rough economy for everyone and once we buy some wire and tomato stakes we will still have less than $50 total in the entire project.  I spent at least that produce every 4 weeks...if not more.  Some things I will freeze but the rest I will can.  The jars can be a bit pricey but also last forever so it's a one time investment.  I'm looking forward to harvest time--the kid in me wants to go out tomorrow morning and see a beautiful crop but it will be at least 5 weeks before anything gets here!

Using What I Have: Saving the Soap Pump

So, now that Rory is nearly 3, he like any toddler, can be somewhat destructive.  Pages get ripped out of books, toys thrown across the room and stuffed animals tossed down the stairs.  I've been trying to instill in him that it's important to take care of the things we have so they will last.  I try to mend, tape, or sew what I can back together because toys are expensive and let's face it-he has plenty!

I know this seems like a long stretch but this lead me to an internal dilemma of my new soap pump.  After buying our house, I splurged and bought a fancy smancy soap pump at Home Goods.  It was $12.99 and had all the colors from my kitchen.  It was a bronze base and then a coat of plaster with pieces of colored pottery all around it.  Rory, being the helpful toddler that he is decided to wash it along with his hands a month after I purchased it.  Well-I now realize why this cute pump was at Home Goods.  When plaster gets wet it falls apart...literally.  After it's proper washing pieces kept falling off and it looked ridiculous.  So, I got out a knife and finally pried the rest of the plaster and pottery off so it looked like this....

It was still very useful but certainly lacked the original beauty that influenced my purchase.  I was "this close" to throwing it in the trash but then felt like a hypocritical mother--how can I tell Rory to take care of his things if I just toss this in the trash and don't make it work?  Especially, since I just bought it?  (A stretch I know)  I didn't want to spend anymore money on it but I did want to jazz it up--insert my love for a hot glue gun here.

I have glass beads in a jar that sits on the tub upstairs so I grabbed that and dumped out the blues/greens that I liked, plugged the hot glue gun in and some twine. 

The twine that I had was too thin so I did break down and buy a roll of jute for $2.50 from JoAnn Fabrics.  After some glue gun magic and burnt fingers this is what I came up with...

I think I like my version better than the original one I bought-which leads me to think maybe I could have done this project much cheaper than the original price I paid.  At this point Josh would tell me I'm thinking too hard about it!

This mini project has me dreaming now of other wonderful things to hot glue together!

Before and After: The Kitchen

We were so blessed to find our house.  It was literally the second house we looked at and had only been out once.  I'd seen this house online but my first reaction to it wasn't pretty.  I distinctly remember thinking, "that is one ugly house!"  However, after I kept searching online I kept going back to this house and looking at the pictures over and over and over.  Each time I looked the house was less ugly and held more potential.  In person, the layout of the house was exactly what we wanted.  The kitchen is large and most of the lower level is very open.  I wanted to be able to cook dinner and still keep an eye on Rory.  Something that became increasingly difficult in our condo in which each room was blocked off from the next.  

Part of what I loved about the kitchen is all the light that comes in the window.  It's like we crawled out of our cave, ahem, condo and we were craving the sunlight.  

This is "before" shot of the kitchen.  Let me just tell you about this wallpaper--I'm sure in it's day it was very pretty but it was a grey and purple, geometric design and even had a bit of silver sparkliness to it.  It was a bit overwhelming in the space.  I think it would have been overwhelming in any space.

We knew that an entire kitchen renovation was out of our budget so we were going to have to get the biggest bang for our buck.  The plan: strip the wallpaper, paint, and paint the cabinets white.  It took my Mom and awhile to get the hang of getting this particular wallpaper but after using this wallpaper remover and a little arm muscle it came right off.  (Actually, I kind of enjoyed taking the wallpaper off-it was therapeutic to see a big strip come off!)

This is the "final" product!!  I still need to put up curtains over the backdoor.  I've got the fabric but just need to sew them and get them up.

(Side note: the big blob on the floor is our cat, Zoey.  It was dinnertime for her and I'm not about to get in the way of her and her dinner, nor would she have appreciated eating elsewhere so I could take pictures.) 

One of my favorite things about the kitchen is the Fiestaware pitchers.  I registered for these when Josh and I were first married (nearly 7 years ago!).  I had to pack them away when we moved and they've been boxed up during our time renting.  It was a breath of fresh air to get them back out.  It sounds silly but I can remember who bought me certain ones.  The red came from my friend, Korie's Mom and the dark blue came from my Grandpa's wife, Judy.  

Josh worked very hard on the cabinets and they look amazing!  Paint is such a huge change for minimal cost.  Still to come-hardware for the cabinets and I'm on the hunt for a purple pitcher.  My favorite color and it will complete my collection.

We probably spend more time in the kitchen than any other so I'm so happy that it turned out the way it did.  I can see many wonderful memories cooked up here!

Our weekend at home...

We've had a great weekend--for the first time in what seems like forever, the sun was shining and it was a "warm" day in the mid 60's.  My Dad came for a visit and to help us with a few projects.  Rory really enjoys his time with Papa and it's pretty funny to see them two of them together in action!

Josh and I enjoyed having a home before we moved and I don't think I realized it until now.  The condo and renting was nice but it wasn't "ours."  Although, along with that does come some responsibility.  My heart sank last week when I noticed the basement wall around the sump pump was wet, not dripping or pouring but just wet to the touch.  Yikes!  Part of this was caught in our home inspection and the previous owners were supposed to fix the pipe outside.  We thought they did--and it looked like they did but I think that is all--it just looked like it.  After some investigative work the pipe was broken.  It's now fixed so the basement should dry out in no time.

One thing I miss terribly about our old house, is not the house at all, but the time spent in our garden.  Most of my landscaping came from friends and family that split what they already had.  Some of the plants I had came from people who didn't see our house or weren't even alive when Josh and I got married.  It was comforting to know as I walked around the yard, that "those peony's are from my Grandma S, that hosta with the white stripe is from my Grandma N and those lilies are from my Mom."  I had to leave all of that.  Today was the first day I replanted some things my Mom had split from her yard.  It's like having little pieces of my family here with us.  Rory may have inherited the gardening gene...he LOVED digging in the dirt.  I know all boys do but he was interested in all aspects of the process.  This weather leaves me just itching to start our vegetable garden!

Once we planted everything, Rory went back and gave all the new plants a nice drink of water.  He was such a good helper!  What's not to love about a Mickey Mouse watering can?

I think it's safe to say, "We are home!"

Bye Bye Condo!

The last week and a half have been crazy but as I sit here and type this, I look back and it was all worth it.  Our families spent many weekends helping paint, watching Rory and taking loads of things over to the "new house."  Josh was at the house most nights before and after work which meant some nights being over here well past 1:00 am and I was here before work, sometimes as early as 5:00 am to paint and get to work by 8:00.  It was a team effort and we are so happy with the outcome.

There was a lot of this....(A LOT!)

A little of this...

I did learn that if you take someone's picture while they are doing electrical work you should forwarn them.  I may have given my Dad a heart attack!

Moving Day went so well and much fast than I had anticipated.  The past couple weeks we had been taking a load of things over to the house each time we went.  We got up early on Wednesday and had pretty much everything moved.  By 1:00 were waiting on the movers to get the beds, mattresses and my piano.

I have also never been more thankful for pbskids.  Watching TV is a treat for Rory and we try not to make it a habit.  He was so happy that he got to watch TV all morning while we moved boxes.  In fact, if we got too loud he would let us know that he could not hear the TV!

The official moving crew!  This was at the end of the day and we were all tired...and Rory insisted on wearing pajamas.  Not sure why but usually toddlers don't have an explanation!

At the end of the day we did a lot of this....

I've had lots of people ask me if I will miss the condo and that is a loaded question.  Josh rented the condo and found it with his Aunt Sue.  I was busy in another city with Rory and trying to sell our current house.  The condo was like a little present that Josh picked out for us.  Although small, it was clean and in good shape.  It was in a perfect location.  So, will I miss the condo?  No.  Will I miss the memories that we made and that particular lifestyle?  Yes. It was the home that Rory learned to walk in and may be the first home he will have faint memories of.

Rory and I spent many evenings walking across the street to the grocery.  We could head either due east or west and be at an ice cream or yogurt shop in 16 minutes.  Yes, I timed it.  We made some amazing friends that were in a similar situation and moved in one week after us and one door down. I will miss the amazing park that was behind our house.  We spent many sunny afternoons and evenings there.  Rory loved the baseball diamonds.  We'd play ball or I remember one evening we spent nearly 30 minutes just picking rocks out of the pitchers practice mound.  I watched the sunrise on my morning runs and watched the sun go down as we tried to convince Rory that it was, in fact, time to go home.

It was time for us to go and I'm excited for the new memories that we will make in our home.  It's exciting to see the empty pages that lay ahead and I wonder what fun things we will do to fill them with memories.  The possibilities are exciting and endless!

Menu Plan thru March 17, 2013

What a weekend!!  This is just a small glimpse of what my weekend involved.  We are down to "crunch time" with our move being 9 days away.  Other than the hall closet and the hallway itself the upstairs is done!  Hooray!  Painting is hard work.  I've done it before many times but it must be one of those things that I block from memory.  It also takes roughly double the amount of time originally allotted to paint!  My Dad and I were on a painting frenzy and able to get a lot done!  I never knew that my Dad has excellent paint rolling skills so he rolled while I trimmed.  Josh has painted all of the door frames white (which I think is the worst job every so kudos to Josh for taking that job) and once white doors are on it will feel like a completely different house.  I'm so excited!

With more painting/cleaning/moving this week the menu plan is about as light and easy as I can get it.  I do strive to keep a stocked pantry but I'm working to clear out what we've got because I really don't want to move food.  So, it's use it up week at our house!

Monday-Annie's Mac n Cheese
Tuesday-Toast/pancakes with strawberries
Wednesday-Spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread
Thursday-English muffin pizzas
Friday-leftovers
Saturday-take out
Sunday-leftovers

I'm linked up to orgjunkie and erinbrans.

Happy Cooking!

Wallpaper, Paint and Trains

 

Oh my-home ownership is hitting us hard and it's been so much fun...work, but fun!  I can finally say that after this weekend the wallpaper is completely down and paint has begun!  Josh has been working so hard painting trim and doors.  I think him and his buddy are having a good time!

 

 

Today, Mom and I took down the last of the wallpaper.  I feel like a professional now...wallpaper is like a living breathing entity and you have to treat it as such.  I had to get to know my wallpaper and what worked and didn't work with it.  Happy to say that it is now gone! 

 

Dad took down the track lighting so the wallpaper and paint project would go easier.  I think we are going to put something up a bit more sleek.

 

 

 

Rory has begun a love of taking pictures.  He took this all by himself and I have to say his viewpoint is quite artistic!

 



 

He was such a good boy and played so well today.  I set him up with a movie, trains and snacks and worked in the kitchen where one of us could still see him.  It was a long day but he did a great job powering through and I'm quite proud of my boy!

 



More pictures to come of updates!

A Christmasy Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend and it was chock-full of Christmas goodness!


Friday night we went to Josh's work party. Dinner was served and afterwards Santa came and delivered presents to all the kids. Rory was one of the last kids to be called and he sat here just like this.....

I was so proud of how patiently he sat!  This was our first Santa experience that Rory could somewhat be involved in so I wasn't sure how he would respond.  One of the little girls that sat across from us was so excited that she couldn't eat her dinner and Rory just fed off that excited energy.

Once his name was called, Rory wasn't quite sure what to do so I helped him up to sit on Santa's lap.  He wasn't keen on staying there long...he wanted to get his present and move on!

Saturday we got to spend some time with my parents.  My Mom brought a Christmas tree kit for her and Rory to assemble.  Rory LOVES projects like this.  Just about every food project involves some taste testing....

This is their finished product.  It's an awfully cute center piece to keep through the Christmas holidays.

That evening we headed to the zoo to check out the lights.  This was the second time for me and Rory.  The first time we didn't get to ride the train because we were with a big group from our church.  He was REALLY looking forward to riding the train.  However, it had been raining and the train was closed!!  This is cause for state of emergency in a toddler's world.  We walked around for about an hour and then came back and it was a miracle...the train ride had opened.  Rory was one happy little passenger!

Oh, and we bought a house this weekend!!  We had such a great weekend and we are so happy!  In light of recent events in Connecticut we are so thankful for our precious Rory and the opportunity we have to buy a home and live together as a family.  We are truly a very blessed family and we couldn't ask for more.  Rory has brought joy and light in our lives that we didn't even know existed.    May we all remember the light we have in our lives. 

'The Scriptures say, "God commanded light to shine in the dark." Now God is shining in our hearts to let you know that his glory is seen in Jesus Christ.' 2 Corinthians 4:6