Monday, May 31, 2010

Adventures in A Taste of Summer

School is (almost) out! Todd is done with school for the year, but I have a few more days. My last day with students was on Thursday, but we have a few professional days this week. I will be officially on summer vacation  starting on Friday! Although I'm not on summer vacation yet, I did get a taste of it this Memorial Day weekend.

The first project I want to do this summer is to paint the dining room/kitchen. But since I'm not technically on vacation yet, I decided to mostly lounge around the house and enjoy the weekend.

On Thursday to celebrate (almost) being out of school, Todd and I grilled steaks with Stephanie and Chris. We also had grilled potatoes, and squash. I didn't think about making a dessert, but we had fresh berries with fruit dip and it was pretty tasty (thank you baby shower left overs! I've really been enjoying the fruit dip Benay made!)

On Saturday we enjoyed the Paseo Arts Festival. We had a great time walking around and looking at all the booths and eating gelato.

On Sunday, I helped my sister move out of her apartment in Stillwater. And today Todd and I enjoyed time at Lake Thunderbird with his parents, Stephanie, and Chris. We met at the Clear Bay Cafe for lunch and then enjoyed a sail around the lake.

Of course this is the only day I remembered my camera... but here are some pictures from our Memorial Day sailing trip: (some of these are Jodi's)

The Clear Bay Cafe


Todd and I
(Todd thinks this looks like he's attacking me - don't worry - he's not)


Todd manning the helm.


Me trying not to get sunburned 




All of us (minus Jodi - who is taking the picture)



I did do one thing around the house, I put up my new dishes! Our church sometimes has a "bloom brunch" for the ladies of the congregation. Different ladies sign up to host a table and decorate it using their dishes from home. A girl at church had the cutest set of dishes and I fell in love with them. Turns out they are "Weil Ware" in the blossom pattern and are absolutely adorable! My mom heard there was a set of them at an estate sale and bought them for me. I love them and they look great in the dining room. I think they will look even better when I paint the walls. This is something think I will enjoy having to decorate with, but can also use to entertain or just for fun. I hope to add to this collection. Here is a picture:






Here is a close up:

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Adventures in...the cutest things you've ever seen!

Today, my mom, Benay and I - along with our shower group - are throwing a baby shower for a woman at church. We spent Saturday baking together, making adorable cupcakes and cookies.

Mom took these pictures, so she's not in any of them :(


I can never bake anything without getting batter and icing everywhere and alllllll over myself


We baked cupcakes and also made cookies that were shaped like a baby's onesie.




This was really my first attempt at baking for people other than myself or Todd. And also my first time to bake anything from scratch.

Here's how they turned out:




They turned out so cute, I'm kinda sad none of them broke while making them :(

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Adventures in Handyman-ness

Todd would kill me for writing this will kill me when he finds out I'm posting about him. I probably shouldn't do it while sitting a foot away from him. oh well.

Todd has been super handy around the house! I am so proud of all the work he's done (even if some of these may have been excuses to keep from writing long tedious papers)!

He put in our cat door right away. In this case, I was the brains and he was the brawn. Okay, he was some of the brains too. This cat door contraption is the best thing in the world if you have a cat! We put a cat door through the wall in our laundry room that leads into a nook in our garage. On the garage side, we have the litter box inside a large pet crate. This way the litter is outside of our living space, but the cat can't escape out the garage door. It's pretty amazing. Never in my life did I think I would get this excited about a litter box system. Let's face it, never in my life did I think I'd need a litter box system. But now that I have one, I'm glad it is this awesome.

Here are a few pictures:

The view from the laundry room. Zatara enters here.


and comes out here.

Other handy things my handy husband has handled.


Rick came over and helped Todd install the garage door opener. They also switched out the light fixture in the kitchen.

We took the ceiling fan that was in the dining room and moved it into our bedroom



Here it is in all it's glory.

Todd also fixed out leaky faucet in our master bath!

I am so proud of him and all he's done.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Adventures with Family

This past Sunday was Mother's Day and Todd and I were so fortunate to have both my family and his over to our new house! I have always wanted to get our two families together more often, and this was a wonderful opportunity!  Everyone brought something for lunch and it turned out beautifully (and deliciously!) We had my Dad's BBQ brisket, potato salad, hash-brown casserole, baked beans, strawberry poppy seed salad, corn on the cob, and wheat rolls. For dessert we had a yummy layered chocolate pudding dish and carrot cake!

We had Todd's mom and dad over, as well as my mom and dad, Benay (Nick had to work), and Mimi and Papa. Meghan was stuck in Stillwater :( and Stephanie and Chris met us for dessert!








Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Adventures in Decorating

I'm already a bad blogger because I forgot to take "before" shots of the house before we painted and started moving everything in. So just use your imagination. Picture everything empty with white walls, and then just blink your eyes for the reveal. 

When you enter the house there is a little foyer which opens up to the living room. This is one of the rooms we painted before we moved everything in. It is really a pretty green color but it looks more blue in this picture. 

Most of these pictures are were taken as soon as I realized I forgot to take before shots, so you will see the work in process.


I originally saw this mirror at Garden Ridge for $40 but passed it by. Then I was at Ross later that day and saw the same mirror for only $15! So I went for it.

This little table I got from Target. It was meant to be a buffet table, but I like the look of it here. I'd like to create a landing strip here à la Apartment Therapy. I'd like a place to sort the mail and a bowl of some sort to put keys in.


Since Todd had to be out of town for a conference and then had to take off the day of closing, he went to work and we decided to start moving after he got off. So I came over bright and early the day of the move to paint the living room before we moved the furniture in. Here are some pictures of the living room in progress.








Since then we've just added a few finishing touches. We've hung up our clock and filled in the bookshelves. Here are a few of those details.






Now, we just need something for the mantel!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Adventures in cooking

This just in:

paper towel + gas stoves = paper towel on fire

on the plus side, we know the fire alarm works!

A girl I work with said she likes to make "Pace Two-Step Chicken". This recipe comes was actually on the back of the Pace bottle.

1 1/2 cups Pace Picante Sauce
3 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tbsp. Dijon Mustard
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Stir the picante sauce, brown sugar and mustard in a small bowl. Pour the picante sauce mixture over the chicken. Then bake!


This is the picture off of the website. I served mine with mexican style rice, a salad and cheese quesadilla  wedges. I don't think you want to see our dirty plate, and I forgot to take pictures before we ate it. Now that I actually started blogging, I will try to get in the habit of taking more pictures!

The Pace website calls this Sweet and Spicy Picante Chicken but the bottle says "Two-Step Chicken".This was not my favorite recipe but I think I'll try it again. I think I just used too much mustard.Once I make a recipe I can usually eye-ball the ingredients, but I need to remember I'm not as good as I like to think I am! I should have just measured it!

So, added to the Lowes List for this week: fire extinguisher.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Welcome Home



Todd and I recently bought our first house! We had planned on moving this spring - probably to another rent house. But with the extra incentive of the first home buyer's tax credit, we decided to take the plunge! We looked at hundreds of houses online and quite a few in real life. One of the first things brides do when they become engaged is try on wedding dresses. I heard from quite a few people (and from watching "Say Yes to the Dress"), that many brides end up buying the first dress they try on. This was not the case for me. But I suspect it would have been so for Todd! We both fell in love with the first house we looked at. I think Todd would have bought it on the spot, but I wanted to look at a few more. We looked at a quite a few houses in the area, but kept coming back to "our first love". Now I am proud to say that it is ours! Here are a few pictures of our new house:

This is the front view from the street.


Todd even remembered to carry me across the threshold! I couldn't get a picture of it though, we were the only ones around.