Thanksgiving 2012

Greg and I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving visiting our families in St. Charles.  As we grow older, spending quality time with our family and friends becomes so important to us.  We had a weekend full of events in order to make the most of our time. 

We were able to run in a 5K Thanksgiving Turkey Trot with Greg's sister, Danielle.  Abby was able to run it with us as well.  There were around 3500 participants in the race, so we had pretty decent times considering how much we had to maneuver through the crowds to pass people.

Thanksgiving was a little different this year because my family pushed their get-together off until Saturday because my parents were sick the prior weekend.  So, we went to the Turkey Trot, had lunch with my family, took a short nap, and then went over to Greg's family's house.  At Greg's family's house, it almost seems like a tradition to look through all the Black Friday ads.  We haven't gone shopping in years on Black Friday, but it's interesting to see all the items on sale.  Hopefully some of you got up early to face all the crowds and started your Christmas shopping. 

We always look forward to Greg's Mom's Thanksgiving meal because she is a dietitian and she always has a different side dish for us to try.  Last year it was an amazing pomegranate gravy, and this year there was a salad with a beet dressing and blue cheese.  It was delicious!  We didn't play many games because a lot of us kept falling asleep.  I blame it on working out that morning.  We will be ready for games during the Christmas break, and we will have to start playing earlier in the day so we don't get too tired. 

I just can't leave out the fact that Greg's brother, Alex, was growing a mustache.  He had his tonsils taken out the two weeks prior, and while he was off work he thought he would give the mustache a shot.  He looked a lot like his Dad... and a creeper.

On Friday morning, we helped Greg's Mom and Dad put up the Christmas tree and holiday decorations around the house.  Greg and I only have 2 plastic totes of decorations and Greg's family had at least 10.  It's amazing how many decorations you can accumulate over time from gifts every year from friends and family.  Decorating definitely made me ready for Christmas to come already. 

My Aunt Patty had my Mom's side of the family over.  It is always nice to see relatives when we are home and my cousins that were home from college.  Greg and I were talking the other day about how he knew Kevin when Kevin was shorter than him.  What happened!

Greg and I couldn't stay too long because we had plans with our friends.  They all came over to my parents' house for dinner and games.  The night ended very well with us all playing "Just Dance" on the Wii.  Kala and I started first, and then Greg and Derek decided to try it.  Jeremy just couldn't resist his urge to dance as well, so he joined in next.  The boys should have took pictures of us girls while they could, but they didn't get any.  The pictures below are priceless!

On Saturday, we relaxed around the house and spent time on our computers.  My Dad and I took Abby and Joey to Wapplehorse Park and allowed them to run around.  It finally got a little chillier when the weekend started off so nice.  My Dad's side of the family came over for Thanksgiving that evening.  We hung out, ate turkey again, and played some games.  The highlight of the party as usual is my cousin's daughter, Bella.  She made us some plastic cake dessert, yelled my name repeatedly and pretended to be a cat for most of the night.

I picked up the "cat" that wanted to get away from me.  She learns from Chase so well.

We wrapped up the evening back at Greg's parents' house watching football, while I browsed Pinterest for Christmas decoration ideas.  Like I said, I'm really ready for Christmas to be here.  It was a long weekend full of family activities.  Now we're back at home ready to decorate for Christmas and counting the days down to another vacation.  We're happy Christmas is on a Tuesday this year and not just over the weekend so we can have more time at home.

Early Christmas Present for Greg

Every now and then packages show up at our house with Greg's name on it.  Sometimes Greg will tell me about them before they arrive and other times I am surprised.  Typically the packages contain more light switches or outlets for the Z-Wave system, but every now and then it's a gift that both of us can enjoy. 

This time I did hear that Greg ordered the ladder that he wanted.  I was thinking to myself, "Great, we will finally have a ladder, rather than borrowing Jeremy's when we needed it."  BUT, this is no ordinary ladder, this is The Little Giant Ladder. 

The box itself was around 9'hx3'wx12"d.  And, I should have assumed that Greg would overdo it a bit because when Greg finally decides to purchase something for himself after all the research he has done, it's typically the best of the best.  This ladder can be an A-frame, extension, 90-degree ladder, and can also come apart to be set up as scaffolding. 

Greg was thinking about all the projects he could accomplish with this ladder, and I was imagining all the renovations we could now do like painting our 2 story foyer and the outside of our house, or at least just start by hanging Christmas lights on the house.

Well, Greg has proved that this ladder was a good buy when I caught him cleaning our front window from the inside and out. Chase jumps from the second floor on top of the closet and sits above this window. There's a lot of little nose prints that we've been wanting to get off the window. We can also finally dust the lights on the chandelier and on top of the closet. And maybe even decorate above there.

And I'm sure you're wondering what I'm going to buy myself for Christmas... We were at the Sears Outlet the other week, and we think we saw the drawers for our washer and dryer there on sale for around $100 each.  For those of you that have these, you know it's a great deal.  We haven't pulled the trigger on this one yet, but we may pay them a visit after Thanksgiving and make some needed changes in our laundry room.

A Means to Help Countertop Chaos

This project may not be needed by everyone, but it is certainly needed by us, and I'm hoping it is a means to helping out our countertop chaos.  This is another Pinterest project that I decided to try.  The woman with the idea had a family with 3 children who needed to designate a location for each of their cups so they would know which one was theirs that they could use throughout the day.  Greg and I need it because our countertop is simply a mess with all the dishes by the sink.  I can't imagine what it will look like when we have children.

This is our kitchen on a good day, and yes I did clean up a bit just to take the picture.

We have a routine during the work week, where we typically eat the same breakfast all week - Greg typically has peanut butter on toast, and I switch it up between cereal, oatmeal, poached eggs or my latest favorite, rice cakes with peanut butter and apple slices on top.  Mackie introduced this to me on our trip to New York.  With the same breakfast throughout the week, we are using the same dishes.  We never brought new dishes when we got married, so we have mixed sets of 6 dinner plates, 7 salad plates, and 8 bowls to use for a week before we have to do dishes.  So if you do the math, we don't have a lot of dishes divided among all the meals before we have to do dishes, and we really don't like running the dishwasher more than once a week. 

So, if you have figured it out by now, we do a lot of rinsing and reusing...  Most people are not okay with this, but it works for us and we haven't gotten sick from it yet.  However, for some reason Greg doesn't like to drink out of my cup or he gets a new cup out when he doesn't know for sure if it is his cup.  That is why this coaster tray will work for us.

The picture below is what the woman on pinterest made, and I also combined the idea with another pinterest project that used small picture frames and wine corks for coasters.

 

I started with purchasing a 1"x6" board, (3) 3"x3" frames and (2) handles, and round wooden knobs from a craft store for the feet.  Greg helped me cut down the board to 5" wide by 24" long.  Then, I beat up the board with a hammer to give it a distressed look before I stained it.  I should have drilled the holes for the knob legs first before I stained it, but it just took an extra coat of stain to cover up the wood filler.  I used the same polyurethane finish that I purchased for the nightstands that I refinished for a protective top coat.

I could have purchased longer screws to fit through to the knobs, but I didn't want them to show from the top,
so I drilled down the hole and covered it with stainable wood filler.

Then, it was the fun part with the wine corks.  I removed the back of the picture frames in order to make the frame sit flush with the board.  I used a flooring sample from work to build up the inside so the corks would sit at the face of the frame.  I cut the corks in half as well hoping that I can use the other half in another project.  My poor collection of corks were almost all used up.  I cut these with a razor blade and it was easier than I thought.

The flooring sample I used to build up the frames looked pretty similar to a cork.

Then, I used a hot glue gun to glue on the corks, and then I used the glue gun and a multi-purpose glue that works on steel, wood and glass to glue the frames to the board.  Then, I used the drill again to fasten the handles.  The handles really aren't necessary, but they add to the look.  I think the ones I chose look like wine bottle openers. 

So, there it is!  Another Pinterest project success.  It has helped up keep organized so far.  Let me know if any of you have other kitchen organization projects that don't just involve loading dishes into the dishwasher.  Please don't judge us!




 

Halloween 2012

This fall has been really busy for us.  Greg has traveled for business a week as I was wrapping up my project at work.  We added in 2 new operating rooms at a medical office building, and the Superintendent and Project Manager decided to go on vacation the week before we turned it over to the hospital, so I was working days and nights to finish the space while Greg was traveling for work.  The next week didn't get much better, so on Halloween, the last thing we wanted to do was to spend our evening opening up the door to children. 

We bought some pumpkins to carve, but it just seemed like so much work.  All we wanted to do was drink some wine and relax in front of the TV, but it seemed like such a waste to not do anything with the pumpkins.  So, Abby and I ended up just cutting off the tops of the pumpkins and digging out the seeds so we could have a snack, while Greg worked on his computer in the office.

Earlier in the week, I made a recipe for Starbucks' pumpkin poundcake, and it was delicious!  Even though I don't typically share recipes on this blog, I going to do it today because it was so good, and I think you should all make it.  I found it on Pinterest.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp. Ground Cloves
• 1/4 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Fat Free Vanilla Yogurt
• 3 Egg Whites
• 1 cup Canned Pumpkin

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a load pan, and set aside.
2. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl, combine the sugar, yogurt, and egg whites.  Whisk thoroughly until blended.  Stir in the pumpkin.  Add the dry ingrdients and stir until completely mixed.
4. Pour into Pan and bake for 60 minutes, or until toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.
5. And ENJOY!  Try not to eat half of it in one night like we did.  The suggested serving is 8.



Greg and I had a Halloween party to go to the Saturday after Halloween, and we had no idea what we wanted to be.  It worked out well that the party was after Halloween because all the Halloween costume stores had 50% off of their merchandise.  We went on Thursday to look at some of the costumes and just couldn't justify spending money on them.  I borrowed a tool belt from a guy at work and decided that I was going as a construction worker.  Greg couldn't come up with anything on his own, so I went back on Saturday before the party and bought the costume that he wanted the most.  Needless to say, he had the best costume at the party.

The night ended up being really fun!  My friend decorated the house, as you can see the blood dripping from the ceiling and creepy old people in the frames in the picture above.  It makes me regret not doing much around my house for Halloween, but it gets me excited for Christmas because I want to start decorating in a couple weeks!

Dreams of a Beautiful Landscape

Before we moved into our house, I lived with a friend that lives only about a mile away from our neighborhood.  I would actually run by our house since we had a few months from when we bought the house until we closed on it.  I would call Greg after my run and tell him how beautiful the house was and how all the flowers are starting to bloom and we have a gorgeous flowering tree in the front yard.  The grass looked pristine at the time.

We got married the summer we moved in, and if you can remember Summer 2011 was extremely hot just as this summer was.  The week we were gone for our wedding and honeymoon, temperatures were in the 100's, so our grass all died; but, let's be honest, we have never watered a day in our life until recently.  The last time I can remember watering a yard or plants was when I was a child when my mom made me.  I didn't like it then, and I certainly do not like it now.

Too much time has gone by with us neglecting our yard.  Practically our entire street has nice developed landscaping and sprinkler systems to water them, and our yard just keeps getting more clumps of crab grass and "milk" weeds spreading throughout.  I can honestly say I'm embarrassed, and it's time for a change.

I've done a good amount of research on plants in the area and what type of plants do well in our zone, but bottom line, the beds have to be low maintenance.  There are several websites, such as Better Homes & Garden, that will give you a landscaping design for your zone, so I used a lot of these websites to find a design that I liked.  I also had a hard time deciding between hearty bushes and some color from flowering plants.  I like to think that we ended up somewhere in the middle.  I saved several types of plants on my computer that I wanted to look into.  Greg just wanted me to have a plan since he thinks I just wing everything, so I convinced him to start by visiting a Nursery, and then I could see the plants that I was thinking of, and then group them together as I thought looked good.  It was a total plan!; however, when we were at the Nursery,  I couldn't find any of the strange names that I was looking for.  We did take some pictures of bushes that did well in the sun, and we decided to skip the perrenials until the spring. 

We also bought metal edging to separate the beds from the lawn.

What we did end up buying was 3.5 cubic yards of top soil that we were going to have them deliver to our house.  One of the websites that I visited said to elevate your flower beds so they stand above the grass.  I really liked the way this looked, so we needed some dirt to fill them in.  The woman at the Nursery helped us do the calculations, but we ended up with a lot more dirt than expected, so we were able to use it all around the yard to fill in our post holes from the fence and other low spots in the yard.

That evening, I decided to draw up a plan in order to give Greg some assurance that I had a plan for the front yard.  I broke out the old markers from my architecture classes and made it look pretty.  Needless to say, Greg approved of the plan and suggested that we purchase the plants on Monday so we could plant them as we were filling in the beds with our top soil.

So, I'm sure you haven't forgotten about our beautiful flowering tree in the front yard that is no longer in the plan.  The problem with the tree is that the roots were so shallow and the wind blows too hard around here, so the tree always leaned to one side.  Our friends suggested that we list the tree on Craigslist so that others could have it and dig it up for us.  Not a bad idea, but I just wasn't ready to get rid of it, so we moved it to the backyard!  There were also some other bushes in the front that are barely surviving from lack of water that we moved to the back as well.  The tree isn't so pretty anymore from the shock of relocating it, but hopefully it will come back next year.

Please ignore all of the dirt piles.  Those will eventuallty get moved.

As Greg was digging holes for the bushes along the sidewalk, he was realizing that the flowering tree's roots were so shallow because it was planted on top of concrete and rocks, as if the builder was really sloppy with his work when he poured the sidewalk and driveway.  Greg thinks he got the holes wide enough for our bushes to grow, so hopefully we won't have the same problem.

These are supposed to grow to 2'x2'.

These boxwoods are supposed to grow to 4'x4'.

If you're still reading to this point, then I'm sorry this post is so long.  I could go on forever about the crab grass and how we are pulling it all up by hand.  We have filled in all the dips in our yard, and have planted fescue grass seed.  We are slowly getting the hang of watering and being patient waiting for the grass seed to grow. 

Look for future updates on our progress in the yard.  Greg is slowly designing a sprinkler system, we will plant more ornamental grasses and flowers in the spring, and hopefully be able to fill the beds with rock.  We are also very excited about planting a garden if we can get the sprinkler system in.  Let's not get too ahead of ourselves and think we can actually water a garden everyday by ourselves.