We Have Walls!

Kylee and I took a field trip out to our house this afternoon, because it's been a couple weeks since she's been out there.  She was excited to see walls up (and so was I!).  It looks like they have finished putting up the drywall and have started taping it.

Looking out hew bedroom window

Standing in the shower in the master bathroom

A view of the theater room

Personal Organizer

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but I enjoy watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette (a little guilty pleasure of mine), and I'm looking forward to a new season that starts in January.  Note to self: set DVR to record the season when I'm done writing this post.  Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed when I found out that I had missed Ashley and JP's wedding.  Lucky for me, the wedding was online, so I spent some time yesterday afternoon watching the events surrounding the big day.  Made me think back to my special day... can't believe it's almost been a year!

Anyway, I digress.  Back to The Bachelor.  After watching Ashley and JP's wedding, I went to the ABC website to check out the girls on Sean's season of The Bachelor, ya know, how old they are, what they do for a living.  There were a couple models, stylists, a yoga instructor, etc, but what caught my eye was the Personal Organizer.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Can you imagine a job where you help people get organized?  How fun would that be!  Maybe it wouldn't be that glamorous, but I'm just picturing the end result being lots of beautiful spaces, kind of like I blogged about a couple days ago.  Hmmm, something to consider :-)

I Have an Idea!

As I'm sitting here preparing my Young Women's lesson for tomorrow (entitled "How can I prepare to establish a Christ-centered home?"), I have been thinking about my sweet girl and about how Matt and I are trying to raise her in righteousness.  It's amazing how much she pays attention to and remembers, so we always have to be on our best behavior :-)  Here are a few stories or sayings that I wanted to capture.  A couple of these I've posted on facebook in the past, but I always get my blog printed into a book, so recording these here will help me have a permanent record.

• Several weeks ago, I asked Kylee to get dressed while I went and took a shower.  She wasn't thrilled about getting ready for the day because she was watching a cartoon on television, so I brought her clothes out to the family room and told her she could change her clothes during the commercials.  The next week when I asked Kylee to get dressed, she excitedly told me, "I have an idea, and it's actually your idea.  How about if you bring my clothes out here and I change during the commercials."  Smart girl.  I couldn't help but chuckle.
• One Sunday morning Kylee was playing with her princess dress up clothes.  She asked me if she could wear them to church.  Hmmmm......

• This summer, Matt took Kylee on a hike up Table Rock. She loved hiking with her dad (and has asked to go several times since - we can't wait until it warms up!).  Well, one day this fall we drove past a church that had a large cross on top.  Kylee pointed to the cross and excitedly exclaimed, "That's where daddy and I hiked to!" 

• Kylee recently sneezed, and then informed us, "I bless you'd in my coat."
• When I was in Ghana last year, I brought home a beautiful carved wooden nativity.  Kylee helped me set it out this year, and we talked about each piece as she put it on the table.  She was really disturbed by one of the wise men, who was carrying something that looked like a machete.  She said, "That's not very nice.  He needs a wand." (the shepherd's "crook" was straight and had a star on the top, and looked like a wand to Kylee).  Every time I came out to look at the nativity, the machete would be missing, and I would find it and put it back.. except for when I packed it up to put it back in storage, I couldn't find it at all!  Maybe I'll find it when we move in the spring :-)

Canvas Photos

For Christmas this year, Beki made our mom a new family photo on canvas.  It was beautiful and was almost indistinguishable from the expensive canvas print I had done for my parents a couple years ago.  So of course I wanted to see how she did it and make some photo canvases of my own!  Lucky for us, Aaron Brothers is having a sale with 60% off canvases.  I also got some large scale photos printed at Costco (two 11x14 photos of Kylee and one 20x30 family photo).

• We started by painting the canvases (including the sides of the canvases) black.

• One they were painted, we let them completely dry.

• Once dry, we covered the front and sides of the canvases with modge podge.

• As soon as the canvases were covered with modge podge, we adhered the pictures to the canvases, and then covered the photos with modge podge.  The photo will look cloudy, but the modge podge will dry clear!

• And voila, a beautiful canvas for a fraction of the price!

Cost of this canvas project:

• 20x30 canvas: $11.19
• 11x14 canvas (2): $4.79 each
• 20x30 print: $8.99
• 11x14 print (2): $2.99

I used some black paint my mom had and some modge podge I already had in my craft supplies.  Total cost of project: $37.89

Pantry Prep

I have been loving looking at pinterest and on the web for organization ideas and techniques.  Here are some of my favorites.  Don't be surprised if I steal some of these ideas for my new home.

Stationary Station - I Heart Organizing

Bathroom cabinet - I Heart Organizing

Drawer Organization - I Heart Organizing

Garage - The Family Handyman

Laundry Room Cubbies - Family Brings Joy

Linen Closet - Better Homes and Gardens

Beautiful Pantry - House of Smiths

So... seeing all of these beautiful spaces is making me anxious (as you may be able to tell from my recent post about my new spice rack).  So what did I do today?  I started organizing my future pantry, of course!  Using some money I got for Christmas, I bought some new dry food storage containers.  I read rave reviews about the Oxo Pop storage containers and decided to go with those (over my other option of heavy but beautiful glass jars).  I also bought some bins to store misc items such as cookie cutters, sprinkles, cupcake liners, etc.  I still want to add some cute labels, but that will have to come later.  Anyway, here's my start!  Now if only I had a pantry to put all of this in :-)

Selections, Selections, and More Selections

Yesterday was full of more decisions for our house.  Luckily, we (I) had already done a lot of looking, pinning, and discussing different ideas, which made our decision making much simpler.

We first met with Joe Bradley to review our cabinet design one more time.  The thing I am most excited about... we are going to get soft close drawers in our kitchen!  I didn't think that we would be able to afford something like this, but thanks to an unfortunate mistake made by another cabinet maker (that Joe gets to clean up), we are getting soft close drawer slides at a discount!  I am almost giddy.  If you don't know what a soft close drawer is, just wait a couple more months... I will be posting videos of some of my favorite house features!

After meeting with Joe, we had a meeting with John from Builders Lighting (who was great to work with, by the way) where we made our final light selections.  Thanks to everyone who previously provided input (here and here)!  We have recessed lighting in several of the rooms (play room, theater room, family room, master bedroom, hallways, exterior, etc) so we didn't have to make as many selections as you might think.

Entryway

Stairwell

Kitchen Island

Closets/Pantry

Bedrooms

Dining Room

Bathrooms

We also made the decision today to add a sink in the garage, which Matt is totally happy about.  The siding is almost done, the drywall has started.  Yea hooray!

My Ears Say Thank You

I don't like to run.  And I really don't like to run by myself... but that's what I've been doing the past couple months as I prepare for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon that is in only 23 more days!  It has been too cold for me to run outside (I'm kinda wimpy like that), so I've been running on a treadmill.  I've never been one to run with music, but I found that watching television while I run helps the time go by faster... or at least make running mile after mile more bearable.

The problem was these were the only headphones I could find.

I mean, seriously, who wants to put those nasty looking things in their ears?  Well, since that's all I've had, that's what I've been using.  Until today :-)  Thanks to Matt, I now have some amazing, new, comfortable, washable earbuds that made my 9 mile run this morning not quite as awful (I was ready to be done 2.5 miles in!)

My ears are definitely saying thank you this morning!  So now the question is... should I start trying to run with music, and then take an iPod with me to the half marathon??  There certainly won't be a television along the route :-)  Or what about listening to a book?  That might be kind of fun... wonder what music or a book might do to my pace?  Hmmmm.... I'll have to think about this.

I've Conquered My Nemesis!

For years, the most painful part of of cooking has been getting spices in and out of my cupboard.  The cupboard that holds my spices is up high (middle shelf of the picture below), so I have to pull half the jars out of my cupboard to find the right spice.

I have (on more than one occasion) had a glass spice jar fall out of the cupboard onto the counter and shatter just because it is so stinkin' hard to find what I'm looking for.  I have HATED my spice storage!

Knowing that we are building a house, I've been searching and searching for the best spice storage solution.  And I found it at the Container Store - The Acrylic 20-Bottle Spice Rack.  When my in-laws took a trip to California in September (wish we had a Container Store here in Boise!), I had them pick me up a couple of these spice racks... which I've been storing in my garage ever since.  I knew they would be perfect sitting on a shelf in my beautiful, giant, walk-in pantry in our new home, and every time I cook, I have wished we were in our new home so my spices would be organized and easy to get to.  As I've started thinking about packing up our house (what a daunting task!) I decided that it didn't make sense to move a bunch of spice bottles when I was just going to get rid of them in our new home.  We decided we could just leave the new spice racks on our kitchen counter for a couple months until we move.  Hooray for me!  That meant I had a small project this afternoon, and I smiled the entire time :-)

• I first pulled all the spices out of the cupboard... over 30 jars!

• Using the handy dandy spice funnel (that I also got from the Container Store), I transferred spices from my old jars/containers to my new jars, and labeled them using the stickers that came with my new jars.

• I put them in alphabetical order to make them easy to find.  I even have a few empty bottles in case I want to add additional spices to my collection.  Any suggestions???

• Ahhh, what a thing of beauty.  These racks are awesome.  They have little rubber feet on the bottom so they won't skid on my shelf or counter, or you could choose to mount them to the wall (they have small holes in the back and came with hardware if you choose to do this).  I can picture these puppies in my new pantry as I type this, but for now, I will smile knowing I have conquered my kitchen nemesis!

Homemade Fire Starters

When I saw the idea of homemade fire starters using egg cartons, dryer lint, and paraffin wax, I immediately thought of my dad and brother.  We ended up making these fire starters for them and for my father-in-law for Christmas.  They are AWESOME!  They are lightweight (nice for backpacking) and burn for about 15 minutes.  Here's how we did it:

• Cut apart an egg carton and fill with dryer lint.  The dryer lint doesn't have to be packed super tight.

• Take a large, clean can (we used a 26 ounce tomato soup can) and squeeze to make a spout.

• Fill can with paraffin wax.  We bought this one pound box at Hobby Lobby.  Using a 40% off coupon, it was less than $3.00.

• Melt the paraffin wax by placing the can into a pot of water on the stove (this was our homemade double boiler so we didn't ruin one of my nice pans).  We melted the wax over medium heat.  We also added a crayon to add color to the wax, and stirred with a skewer to mix the color.

• Once the wax was melted, it was time to pour the melted wax into the egg cups.  I placed the egg cups on a foil-lined baking sheet - the wax will soak through the egg cartons, and if you're like us, then some wax will spill, so this will protect your pan.  You'll want to pour plenty of wax on each egg cup, getting not only the dryer lint, but also the cardboard of the egg container.

• Let dry and there you have it, some awesome fire starters!

And That's a Wrap!

As I wake up to a quiet blanket of snow on the ground this morning, it's crazy to think the hustle and bustle of Christmas has come and gone.  But I can tell you, this was my best Christmas yet.  Matt and I both feel so blessed to have two loving families that we were able to spend Christmas with.  Their love and support was overflowing.  As we traveled back and forth from our house to Matt's parents' house to my parents' house for the last three days, I couldn't help but feel lucky that we live so close to our families.  And as I watched sweet Kylee watch in amazement at the Christmas video message Santa sent her, squeal with delight when opening the smallest of gifts, and give hugs to all her 16 extended family members here in town while wishing them a Merry Christmas, my heart melted.  It was a merry Christmas indeed.

Here's a picture recap of our activities over the last few days.

• We made Christmas cookies with some of my friends and their kiddos (instead of exchanging gifts).  Kylee's favorite part was licking the beater after making the frosting :-)

• Matt's family has a tradition of going bowling on Christmas Eve day.  We spent that evening with my family for our traditional crab and prime rib.

• And for the first time in years, we put out treats for Santa and his reindeer... so much fun!  Kylee left treats at my parents' house and at our house, and he left her stockings at both places!

• Christmas morning was a blast.  Here is Kylee with some of her presents Christmas morning.  She loves her new tablet!  Funny story - a couple months ago when I asked Kylee what she wanted for her birthday and for Christmas, she said a pretend phone.  I was thinking of a plastic phone, which I thought that was an interesting choice since she already has one she likes to play with that came with her kitchen set she got for Christmas last year.  When I told Matt what she wanted, he helped me realize what Kylee really wanted.  When Kylee thinks of a phone, she thinks of a phone like Matt and I have... a smart phone that she can play games on and watch movies on (Kylee is always asking us if she can play with our phones).  Of course that's the kind of phone she wanted!  Hence, the tablet (which we got a great deal on the day after Thanksgiving)!

• Matt and I got some awesome gifts... complete with an authentic blue turf door mat (watch for that in our next house!)  I was spoiled, and got several gifts off my Pinterest "Wishlist" board.
• Matt and I ended Christmas Day with a trip to the movie theaters to see the Hobbit.  Awesome start to the three-part movie!

Christmas Hair

Thanks Beki for the inspiration for Kylee's hair this morning!

Christmas Countdown

My mom gave Kylee two ways to count down to Christmas... they are both adorable, so I thought I would share them here!

The first is an advent made with a mini muffin tin.  The numbered papers are held to the muffin tin with small magnets, and a little prize is found under each number.  The first 10 or so contained stickers of the nativity (along with a piece of candy of course!)  The rest have held a piece of candy or a small toy.  Kylee loves it and hasn't forgotten a single day.

The other is a computer advent.  My mom purchased a Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar that was downloadable, with little ornaments you can click on each day to unlock a magical experience.  Some days you just watch an animated clip (like a polar bear trying to catch a fish or cats playing with Christmas tree ornaments), and other days there is an interactive component (like building a snowman or making Christmas stockings).  One really cool thing is that each day, something new shows up in the village based on what the activity of the day was... Can you see the upside down snowman to the right of the tree?  That's the snowman Kylee built.  

And if you click on the cottage, you can see inside... Can you tell which stocking Kylee made for me?? Blue and orange for Boise State!  She has had so much fun with this!

With only two days left until Christmas, we're pretty excited around here.  I think I might be more excited than Kylee though... my first Christmas as a mama, and we have some fun gifts in store for our little angel.  We also have a couple days packed with fun family activities.  Merry Christmas!

Family Christmas Run

I love that my family did the Christmas Run together again this year.  Go us!