Day Two

We started the day by going to see Hotel for Dogs. One of our local theaters shows two free kids movies a week. They are always packed full but well worth the free show!

They loved the movie and only had to get up once to go the the bathroom!

Andy desperately needed some new shorts for work so we all went to the mall. We were in and out of the store and yet it was still like wild animals let loose in a zoo....

This is while Andy was trying on his shorts. Kenna is on an iphone, we use them often to keep them entertained for two minutes!

After dinner and getting our p.j.s on we went to a special treat at the library. It was bedtime stories with some songs and dancing. They each got to pick out a book to check out for our bedtimes.

The theme of the story time was arts and crafts so they were both feeling crafty when we got home!

Day One

Day one was a fun filled day! We learned that it is helpful to keep them busy in our non-child proofed house.

They started by building a tent over the coffee table while I was getting ready in the morning.

This park is one house away from ours and was a great way to get out some energy while we were waiting for Andy to get home from work.

They could have stayed on these swings for-EVER!

You can tell our lawn is in desperate need of watering!

James waited all day to go fishing! These are some ponds close to Keizer that Andy claims you always catch a fish at....

James used a big pole because Andy was skeptical that the frog on the end of his would catch anything.

They fished for a good two minutes and then found something else to do. That left Andy and I to find the fish that James so desperately needed! Did I mention that I hate fishing?

Kenna found a huge field of wish flowers!

It was time to go and we still had caught nothing (so much for that great pond!) The very nice guys next to us, who were catching a ton of fish and were very tolerant of James asking them many questions about them, let him hold one of theirs! Kenna didn't get much closer than this to it. She wasn't so sure.

At least he got to hold a fish!

They fell asleep very easily and slept in past me this morning!

The Drive Home

We went to the lake this weekend and came home with James and Makenna! They are staying with us until next weekend when Mom comes up to go to the zoo with us and takes them home with her. It's the first time they have been away from our parents for this long and not staying in their own house. I think Mom is as nervous as them! I thought I would do a day by day picture diary to keep her up to date!

Starting with the car ride home! It was 5 hours with a detour at the end because of a car accident making it last for-ever! Makenna said that our car wasn't as cool as hers because it doesn't have a TV. Luckily they slept for the first 2 hours! The rest was not nearly as quiet! (This is the first time I have ever tried posting videos so we will see how it goes.)

As soon as James woke up this is what we heard on replay:

The nap really gave them energy and this lasted a LONG time:

Then we started playing the quiet game!

Paint and Plants

This is what the wall in our back room looks like right now:

Andy doesn't understand why it's driving me crazy! The problem is we have so much natural light in this room that colors look completely different on the paint card than they do on the wall.

Thank heaven for whoever came up with the idea to sell paint samples. They have saved us a lot of money! This is the other wall that we have been painting at the same time because the colors look very different on the other side of the room. I'm determined to just pick one and paint everything next week!

We got our first tomatoes!!! I can't wait to eat them.

and I can't believe plants that I planted and am in charge for taking care of are actually growing the way they should!

The only other plant that survived:

We are going to Seattle this weekend to celebrate our anniversary (kinda late!). Then Andy starts his new job on Monday!

Before and After

This was our very first home improvement project! Luckily it didn't turn out like Tim the Tool Man Taylors projects :)

Our house was build in the fifties and even though it has been updated multiple times between then, there are still a few areas calling for a bit of TLC. Since it has been close to hundred degree weather for the last few days this project became a must!

This is the before shot of the light figure in our bedroom:

After two hours of hard work by my wonderful husband (the second hour in the dark with a flashlight) this is the after picture:

It's so hot that I didn't even turn off the fan to take the picture! It made a HUGE difference in the temperature of our room last night and looks a heck of a lot better. Now I just need some paint on those walls behind it :)

This is a picture of Andy drinking the first beer from his first batch of home brew beer. So far so good! He still has two cases left to drink but is already planning his next batch!

From Field to Can!

On Saturday we went and picked a huge bucket of fresh strawberries. I found on one of my favorite blogs an easy recipe for strawberry jam and thought I would try my hand at it. We kept a few around to eat on ice cream, shortcake, and right out of the bowl! Fresh strawberries don't last long around this house though so I had to make the jam quick!

Here is a very small portion of what we picked all clean and cut:

It took me for-EVER to mash up all of the strawberries. I meant to buy a potato masher at the store but got all the way home before I realized I forgot it. That would have made this whole process a lot easier! I didn't even take a picture of the huge amount of sugar that I had to add because I don't think anybody would eat it. Here are all the strawberries, sugar, and surjell mixed together and ready to be canned!

These three are all ready for the fourth of July! Those lucky enough to join the Iron Gate celebration just might get one of these!

These two are my favorites! I know that it's just strawberry jam (and super easy to make) but I still had to make it look adorable!

This is how much two batches makes. It's all a frozen now but should be more than enough to last us for the whole year and lots to give away!

I followed the directions from Sarah at the Thrifty Decor Chick but it also follows very closely to the directions on the surjell box.

June 13th

Two years, two great things to celebrate, two days filled with bad luck!!

Our wedding day was beautiful! I have wonderful memories that fill that day. All of our favorite family and friends were there and we really had a great day. But it rained on our outdoor reception...

And our caterer (don't even get me started on her) brought the wrong size table clothes. On top of that she didn't even seem to care and my mom was the one running around to find something, anything to cover the wooden tables. She found these blues ones at the hotel next door and I am grateful but look at them! The blue didn't quite fit with the rest of my soft green and pink decor. Every time I see pictures of these I cringe! (Thankfully because it rained nobody sat at these tables for very long)

One year later and it's our one year anniversary. We decided that instead of doing gifts we wanted to take a mini-vacation to celebrate together. We want to wait though until I am off for the summer so that it can be a three or four day vacation. So our actual anniversary day was spent going to church, cleaning, laundry, Andy smelling up my house with beer brewing and was supposed to end in a nice dinner. This is us right before we left the house for dinner....

Let me rephrase that, this is us right before Andy locked us out of our house without any keys to get back in or start up a car. This is my very unhappy face :(

To make things worse while he was using my phone to look up a locksmith it died. He didn't have his on him. No better time than this to meet our new neighbors! While we were waiting for his Dad to send a locksmith Andy decided to try his own hand at breaking into our garage door. He was successful!! I am freaking out! If Andy can break into our house that means that anyone can! Needless to say we are making sure that our garage to house door is always locked now and the deadbolt lock is always locked! We finally made it out to dinner that night. This picture is before all of that bad luck struck.

When we got home we tried our year old cake top! The white cake part wasn't bad but the frosting and filling were nasty! It made a long trip from Medford to Salem when it got the most beaten up, then moved from apartment to house and has been squashed in the back of our freezer for awhile so it's not aesthetically pleasing either! We both took a bite and then threw it away :)

At dinner that night the waiter gave us this free cupcake because it was our anniversary so we ate it instead! It was delicious!

Needless to say, so far we have not had the best of luck on June 13th. Fortunately we did have a great honeymoon so hopefully the next few weeks will bring some better luck!