Up and Running

by Ang

It's been a while, but I think we're up and running again after some minor maintenance on our blog.

I've written a 'Year in Review' post that I will put up next week, but for now I'll leave you with a few random thoughts and updates:

*It snowed here for the first time today this season.  And then it promptly melted in an hour.

*Our French lessons are going well.  We get more and more out of each meeting that we go to.

*I wish every weekend was a 4-day weekend!

*I just unpacked today from my trip to Nebraska.  I got back on December 25th.  Unpacking is not my strong point.

And because this is a random post, I'll leave you with some random pictures:

The pyramid entrance to the Louvre:

Row homes in Amsterdam:

The spiral staircase inside our apartment building in Paris:

Change

by Ang

This blog has been very quiet.  I can’t speak for my sister, but things have gotten way busier at our household and blogging (sadly) was the first thing to go.  But now that we seem to be settled in our new routine, hopefully my posts will become a bit more regular than they have been lately.

The biggest change that is happening with us right now is that we changed congregations and are now learning French!

This is huge.  I took 3 years of French in school and I learned a lot, however school was a long time ago.  And if you don’t use it, you lose it.  However, a lot of it is coming back to me.  I know the basic rules of pronunciation and can stumble through a reading and comprehend at least 50% of it.  So I have a pretty good head start.  But there’s still sooooo much that I don’t know.

I knew it would be a big adjustment, but I don’t think I fully realized how much TIME it was going to take.  Silly, I know.  Studying for the meetings takes at least 3 times as long (studying first in English, then reading over in French, then preparing a comment and learning and listening to the proper ways to say it multiple times if it’s a verse or just a sentence in a magazine, book, etc.).

Tuesday nights we (me, husband and mother-in-law) have a little French lesson at our house after dinner.  It’s usually an hour and a half or so.  But we have homework each week from our workbook that we are working out of.  I also try to print some extra handouts of various things (numbers, pronouncing that pesky French ‘r’, etc.), which require extra research and time.

Saturdays are a full day now.  Service from 8:00 (we start early) to 12:30, then French class from 1:00 – 2:00 (although it usually goes until 2:30).  It is also out of town a bit, so it takes us at least 30 minutes to get home.

I have amassed a collection of ‘learning French’ books, mostly by hitting up the 50% off sales at Hastings on their used books.  We have a designated cabinet now in our dining room (we sit at the dining room table for our study) that is our ‘French’ cabinet.  I also had some that were my own from years ago.

Learning a new language is hard.  But we are really enjoying it.  We’ve been at it for one month now.  And it’s actually pretty amazing to see how much we’ve learned already.  We’ve got all of the numbers down which is super helpful when looking up scriptures.  It’s nice to follow along.  And our comprehension increases a little bit with each meeting.  I’ve talked to a lot of the friends who have been doing this for years, and their advice was to just throw yourself into your studies.  And listen, listen, listen.  We have one friend who has been doing this for 7 years (she is fluent).  She told us that to this day she still doesn’t know the French alphabet.  She learned the language by listening.  And reading.  But mostly listening.

So we're trying.  And hey, maybe in 7 years we'll be fluent too!

(p.s. - sorry there's no pictures.  I tried to upload some and I got the message saying we were out of storage!  So Amy and I will get it figured out and get more storage)

State Love

by Ang

So, I have been reading this blog for at least 4 years:

www.younghouselove.com

I don’t even know what led me to it to begin with, but it is a great decorating/organizing/lifestyle/misc. blog. The couple, John and Sherry, started off by blogging all about their first house ‘redo’. They blogged about the good, the bad, and the ugly and the ups and downs of DIY projects. But they also shared organizing tips, traveling tips, cleaning tips, and more.

Anyways, they soon outgrew their first house (they had a baby), so they sold it and bought another one.  And blogged about it.  And then wrote a book!!

So of course, I had to pre-order it, because I feel like I know these people personally.  They are just so down to earth and real.  I emailed them once about something and Sherry (herself!) got back to me right away and she was so sweet.  I just really like them and I LOVE their blog.  My book arrived on Monday, and I was NOT disappointed.  I haven't read it completely yet, although I've flipped through every page.  It ranges from super simple projects, to whole weekend (or longer) projects.  They have step by step instructions and let you know how much work, time, and money is involved with each one.  It's great!

I immediately flagged a few I wanted to try.  The first one I did was state art.
I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while now. It’s just so simple!

I started by printing 3 maps.  I used maps from nationalatlas.com, because they were the right size.  I then picked 3 different patterns of scrapbook paper from my stash that complemented each other, but were not matchy-matchy (they are all from the same Basic Grey paper line).

Using my cut-out states as templates, I traced one state onto each piece of paper and then cut it out. It was arts and crafts time at our house last night.

And then I popped them into a frame.  I had previously used this frame to hold my black and white postcards I got from Paris. 

Although I liked it, I am just not a huge fan of black and white...I like color!

So I took the postcards out and put them in my Paris book, and then popped the states in.

Voila!  A cute piece of art that is a little sentimental.  Nebraska:  where I'm from.  Illinois:  where my husband is from.  New Mexico:  where we live now.  I added a little heart to Albuquerque.  Awwwww.

The whole project took maybe 30 minutes. The cost was: zero. Nada. Zilch. I used everything from my own stash.

I was going to hang it next to our U.S. map, but I didn’t want that wall to get too ‘mappy’, so I hung it in our hallway instead.

I hope to do more projects from this book.  I'll blog about them if I do!

Do you speak this language?

 

 

KX 250 F

CR 125 R

RM 80

250 Trailblazer

 

If you don't know what this means, be grateful.  If you do...I pity and admire you. 

 

Because those letters and numbers are exciting and scary all at the same time. Heres what they mean...

 

Darren has a CR125 R

 

 

Hubby has a KX 250 F

 Micah has a RM 80

 And me?  I am the proud owner of a 250 Trailblazer.  No dirt bike for me.  They are to scary.  This is just my speed and size.  Isn't she pretty?

 Of course I had to get the gear before I could ride.  I felt like Darth Vader. 

 We went riding/camping last weekend.  This is my husband getting some air. 

 This is me.  With four wheels on the ground. Like my pink riding pants?

 This is Darren getting some air.  I can barely watch those jumps.

 I feel better when he rides like this.

 My boys

Hey look!  I'm moving! 

 Here is part of  the crew we went with.  There was two other girls there.  They are slow like me.  I'm hoping with time I'll get more comfortable with the quad.  I still never want to do any crazy jumps or hill climbs.  But I would love to keep up with the boys on the trails.   

I'm offically hooked. 

Mapping

by Ang

Ever since I got married, I’ve had a project rolling around in my head that I've wanted to do. I’ve seen it done before and always thought it was a neat idea. Finally about a month ago I finally did something about it. So I looked around online and in ‘real’ stores, got my supplies and got started.


A map:

Spray Adhesive:

A cork board:

And some map pins:

I trimmed the map, my husband taped off of the frame of the cork board, we took it outside, put a thin layer of spray adhesive onto the cork, then stuck on the map.  Easy-peasy!

And here is the final project!

I pinned all of the places that my husband and I have been together. At first I was going to pin the places that he has been, the places that I have been, and then the places we’ve been together. But I knew instantly that it would get way too cluttered (we’ve traveled a lot). I like this way better.

We've been to 7 states together.  We're hoping to add at least one new one each year.

It was a fun project, and I'm glad I can cross it off my list!

Office Details

By Amy

 

Hi!  I thought I would talk a little more about my office.  Just because I love it so much.  Then I promise I won't go on about it anymore.  I think my favorite feature is my picture wall.  I looked on Etsy.com for weeks to find things that I really loved. The center picture says.."You are Loved".  I liked it because not only did it remind me of that (sometimes my mind plays tricks on me) but I also wanted to tell everyone who came into my office that they were loved too. 

I liked the camera and book print because, well, I like cameras and books.  Haha.  And the baby cow print?  Adorable. 

The caged bird singing is another etsy find.

The Eiffel tour print is actually a notecard from a packet I got from Francesca's.  The boot I got at Hobby Lobby and the clock is something that I had but I painted the frame. 

 

 

 

 This picture is my favorite.  It's my dad and my Aunt on their Grandparents farm.  I matted them on some fabric that I had.  I love both of these pictures and i'm so happy that I was able to display them in a way that makes me happy.

Those cute little cowboy boots were my firstborns.  He's 16 now.  Sniff sniff.  But he still likes cowboy boots so YAY!  The blue barn is a Etsy print.  I bought the "A" at Hobby Lobby.  I spread bead glue all over it and dumped all my extra beads on it.  Sparkly!

 Nothing to exciting about the bookshelf.  Just full of office stuff and books. 

 When we moved in our house a friend of mine gave me a old window frame. I loved it but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I think it makes a great cork board frame! 

 This is kind of hard to see but its a street map of Paris.

The print is a painting by my favorite artist, Edward Hopper.  The picture in the purple frame is of my two favorite little people.  And the other is of my boys all decked out in their dirt bike gear.

 Pictures of my wittle boys.  (:  Ages 5 and 1.  I made the chalkboard with chalkboard spray paint and then painted the frame blue.  The quote I drew on there makes me happy.  It says "Shine on you Crazy Diamond!"

That's it!  The only thing missing is a window.  It would be really nice to have some fresh air and natural light in there.  But I'm not complaining.  It's near perfect just the way it is. 

Meals

by Ang

First off, I apologize for my absence lately!  We had a great visit with my family which I will blog about next time.  But I wanted to share my latest 'project' first.

I’m just going to come out and say it: I don’t enjoy cooking. I never have, and honestly, I probably never will. When I DO cook, I’m not bad at it…I just don’t enjoy it, therefore I don’t do it much. And I’ve always been the type that HAS to follow a recipe exactly. I can’t ‘wing it’ and just start tossing things in ‘according to taste’. That is a recipe for disaster! No pun intended. Ha ha.

Anyways, I have had three consistent problems with cooking over the years:

1) I don’t meal plan regularly, so when I don’t have a plan, we eat out.

2) When I DO meal plan, I will go to the store and get everything I need, but when I get home from work, the LAST thing I want to do is cook for an hour (or more, because most likely I forgot to take the meat out of the freezer).

3) What to make, what to make, what to make. I get in a rut.
So I needed a solution to not only save us time, but also money. Enter this program:
www.5dinners1hour.com

I stumbled upon it through another blog. The idea is just how it sounds. You cook 5 dinners in one hour. And then store them in the fridge for consumption that week. I was intrigued, so I signed up.

At first I was a little skeptical…I didn’t want just casseroles with all processed food. But when I got my menus for the month, I was pleasantly surprised! BBQ roasted salmon, slow cooked beef tacos, almond crusted chicken, slow cooked Mexican vegetable soup, orange teriyaki chicken bites, tangy baked chicken, etc. Those were just a few of my monthly selections. All served with vegetables, salad, rice, etc. I chose a weekly menu and went to the store. Ooooh and this is another really good part. Each weekly menu comes with a weekly grocery list, that is categorized by area of store (frozen, produce, bread, etc.). It was incredibly helpful.
Each weekly menu comes with 5 meals, although I eliminated one of the meals (tilapia….my husband can’t have tilapia), so I only made 4 this week: Deviled Legs, Hot Ham Cornbread Sandwich, Orange Teriyaki Chicken Bites, and Slow Cooked Italian Sausage Soup. Sounds good, right? I could have made the 5th meal too, because they always give a substitute for fish (like use chicken). But I decided to start off with four for now. Also, each meal serves 4-6, but that will work just fine for us, because we will have lunch leftovers the next day! I even bought some nice Pyrex containers to take my leftovers to work to re-heat.
So today after work I came home, and set out all of my stuff (which is recommended….set out EVERYTHING you will need, which is listed on your weekly menu, even down to the utensils!) and filled up my sink with hot soapy water.
And then I got to cooking! That part went really well. I timed myself, and it really did only take an hour! And the food looks really good. My plan is to do this every Friday so that we will have dinners for the weekends (which is our biggest ‘eating out’ time). I am so excited that I don’t have to think about dinner until next Friday! And even then I don’t really have to think about it….i just have to take my list to the store. Next week’s menu: Slow Cooker White Beans and Ham, Almond Crusted Chicken, Hawaiian Beef, Italian Sub Sandwich, and Slow Cooked Mexican Vegetable Soup.

Sorry there's no pictures....I took one of all of my pretty food ready to go, but I'm having some computer issues and can't upload it right now.  So you'll have to use your imagination!

The Office Reveal!

By Amy

 

In my defense...I have tried to write this office post twice before and everytime when I was almost to the last picture my computer would stop uploading and I would have to start over.  So this time I didn't chance it.  I only uploaded five pictures and I will do another post with details this weekend. 

So!  I have a office!  My very own room to decorate however I wanted to.  My own little space.  Our basement is really just one big room and our desks were in the corner.  My husband got tired of the kids using his desk as a dumping ground for various things.  So he decided that he needed a office.  With walls.  And a door.  So I just sort of suggested..."Hey!  Can I have one too?"  And being the sweet man that he is...he said yes.  So here is the before picture....

 

 

See the brick wall?  That's where my office starts.  He covered the brick with paneling so all the walls look the same.  Bascially where the weight bench is?  That's where my office is now. 

 The outside isn't finished yet.  And I need to paint and put knobs on the door.

 My desk...I will post more detailed pictures in the next post.  But you get the idea. 

My most favorite part is my picture wall.  And the red chair comes in second.  A fabulous craigslist find for forty bucks!

The other wall has a book shelf stuffed full of odds and ends.  Like I said...I didn't want to take my chances with uploading any more pictures.  I will try to post more tomorrow. 

What Makes a House a Home

by Ang

There are many things I have to blog about (Fantasy Football, our little day trip northwest, cooking, etc.) but today I’m going to talk about home. For some reason, whenever fall approaches, I really start wanting to hunker down and be home (more than usual). I don’t know if it’s the leaves changing, the football, the crock pot cooking a nice soup, or the chill in the air (which we  haven’t seen yet here). Fall is definitely my favorite season and it’s definitely my favorite time to be HOME.

My husband bought our home five years ago. It’s in a good, QUIET neighborhood, which is very important (to me, anyways). We are the ‘young couple’ (in our mid-30’s ha!) in the neighborhood. It’s a quiet community where everyone knows everyone else, and you can be sure that your home is being watched out for. Some people may not like this, but I have peace of mind knowing that if we leave our garage door open, someone will definitely shut it for us. I like that I can think of 6 neighbors on our street that know (and love) our dogs. It makes me feel good that probably 75% of the people in our neighborhood are home all day while we’re out working. I know we’re being watched out for.

But it’s not necessarily the neighborhood or the house itself that makes a house a home. It’s what’s on the inside (that sounds kinda cheesy, huh).
Our house is not perfect.  But no one has a perfect house. There are a couple of areas that need some work (nothing major), and there are times when I wish we had just a TEENY bit more room. But then I remind myself that we really don’t need it, and we’ve managed just fine with the space we have. And I love it. I love making our house a home. Here’s just a few little things that I think are important to have when making a house a home:
1) A pet.

While I was living in Nebraska, I moved a few times. But no matter where I moved, as long as I had Macy and Howie with me, my place felt like home. The very first night I spent in this house (alone) was the day I moved here. I had been driving for 2 days with 2 unhappy cats and a moving van full of stuff and we were all exhausted. I was trying not to stress out about the tons of boxes strewn about the house, my upcoming wedding, and finding a job. I holed up in the bedroom with my two cats and shut the door and we must have slept for 12 hours straight. It was wonderful and they calmed me down a little bit. I firmly believe that every house should have at least 1 pet if possible!

2) Light.

Pretty obvious, but I’m talking about natural light here. Open those curtains! Let the light shine in! Even though our house is a condo and is sandwiched between two other condos, we get amazing light. Skylights work wonders! To me, there is nothing more depressing than a house that is all closed up and has no natural light coming in.

3) Fresh flowers. Unfortunately, this is one that I don’t put into place that often, because I have a cat who shall remain nameless that loves to eat flowers. Ahem. However, we have roses in the back that are still blooming, and my husband snips some every day. I have little bud vases around the house that I can set in places that the cat can’t reach. It’s so nice to have a few fresh flowers in the house every now and then. Even if they are in odd places.
4) Candles. Pretty obvious….I love them for not only the look, but the smell! Again, I have to be careful with these due to the animals, but I love when our house has a few candles lit.

5) Blankets. We have a bucket of blankets in the living room.

Sometimes we have spur of the moment guests over to watch a movie or have a quick dinner, and these blankets get used (by me year round, by everyone else in the fall and winter). It’s so cozy to be on the couch wrapped up in a blanket watching a good movie.
6) Limited ‘stuff’. I think that when a house has too much stuff, it becomes almost suffocating. I don’t think there should be something in every corner, on every wall, stuffed in every nook and cranny. Give your house some room to breathe. This is something that I have to really work on, particularly in our 2nd bedroom which is used as an office. I try not to shop at all, but when I do bring something home, I have the ‘one in, one out’ rule. We always have a Goodwill pile going in the garage.
7) Have at least one thing you love and that’s special to you in every single room. It’s so easy to look at these beautiful rooms in design magazines and think ‘wow, I wish my house looked like that!’. But what makes that space beautiful? Where’s the personal touches? Where’s the family photos?

Where’s your great-great-grandmother’s apron?

Or your childhood stuffed animal?

I’m not saying that every single memento must be displayed, but a house without any personal touches is not a home. A few interesting things that can also be conversation starters are completely necessary.

8) If you have an outdoor space, use it! This is one that I need to work on. We have a small, but nice outdoor space. The other night we sat out there for maybe 30 minutes and it was beautiful! We talked about how we are going to make a real effort to try to be outside more. Even if it’s just for dinner or a glass of wine. It’s a nice place to unwind and relax.

That’s my list. I hope it was a little helpful. I think everyone should love their home!

A & M (and I don't mean Texas)

Because that would be a fatal error to even mention Texas A&M on this blog. These are not my rules people. Its just the consequences of living with three boys who have strong opinions on what football teams to support and which ones to hate with every inch of their lives. Even though A&M isn't as bad as the Longhorns.  The color orange is banned from our house.  Unless it's worn by someone really cute.  Or if it has stripes.  And there isn't a long horn in sight. 

 The A & M I am refering to is my adorable niece A and scrumtious nephew M.  Just take a look.....

 He's so chunky!  And smiley! Just a really good baby all around.  Little Miss A was a flower girl a few weekends ago.  She did really good!  Here she is showing off her very pretty dress....

She didn't wear her crocs down the isle...she wore pink cowgirl boots. Yeehaw!

This was her most of the evening.

Running and dancing and just having a good time. 

She's a good little girl and busy, busy, busy!