Chickens!

The next adventure for Ben and I is Chickens! Ben's always wanted to have chickens but hadn't acted on it. I saw a friend that had chickens and thought about the prospect of fresh eggs and trying my hand at something new and decided it could be fun. I think Ben was a little surprised when I said lets get chickens but he jumped right in. We decided to put the chicken coup outside our fence using the shed and fence as two walls, less walls to build right? I would have been fine with something small and easy but Ben dreamed up this beauty. No coyotes will be getting to our chickens very easily that's for sure. The wonderful before shot.

I know our weeds got a little out of control this year.

Laying out the walls using lattice we already had. Ben was pretty ingenious and designed the whole thing around the lattice we already had.

Supplies

We put the poles in on Saturday and decided to get at least one wall up Sunday afternoon. Since it was such a beautiful day we did carne asada tacos outside and had ourselves a little tailgate party.

Ever notice how well behaved your dogs are when there's food around?

One wall up. Ben putting up the roof supports.

A finished coup! The chickens! We got 5 total, 3 Leghorns, 1 New Hampshire Red and 1 Jersey Black. Their names are Big Red, Lafawnda, Moose, Duck, and Turkey, if you were wondering. They are living in the cage inside the coup right now because one is still small enough to potentially slip through the lattice. At they rate they are growing they will soon be allowed out of the cage.

We shall see how this adventure goes. So far it has been fun and interesting. The dogs are tortured by the fact that they aren't allowed inside the coup to chase chickens. We won't have eggs for a while either but so far so good!

My Nephew....

...the coolest little man I know! Ben and I delived some compost to my Brother and Sister-in-law's house. While the boys worked hard unloading and distributing compost, Henry and I played in the truck. Oh what fun! He had just found the panic button on the keys :) Driving

Painting

Looking at our taxes....haha

Annnddddd this is the picture Henry took of me. Not my best, but at least he got half my face.

Farmer's Market

Lately I have made a habit of going to the Farmer's Market on Brimhall on Saturdays. It's right down the road from the Fresh n' Easy I get groceries at. It is pretty small but they have exactly what I'm looking for. They always have fresh veggies which is what I went for in the first place but then.....I found the hummus guy. I happen to love hummus. I use it instead of mayo on my sandwiches, dip crackers, or veggies in it. When I saw the stand I knew I had to try it. I've been getting hummus, a veggie mix, dolmas and once in a while fresh pita bread there. This last week I got sundried tomato basil hummus, feta cheeese with sundried tomatoes and dolmas. I immediately went home sliced some of my freshly made bread and fell in love. It was a nice light lunch with so much flavor. Ben came home and loved it to. Go figure my meat and potatoes guy would dig the hummus and feta cheese! So needless to say the farmer's market is quickly becomming part of my routine. Soon they will have stone fruit and possibly homemade tortillas!

Living Room Makeover!

My last post was about a table makeover and this one is about my living room and its transformation. As I said before I was feeling unhappy with how it looked. It was missing personality and rather blah. Not anymore! New table, new curtains, a little homemade art and picture rails (or shelves) and voila! A whole new look that makes me smile everytime I walk in. It's amazing what a few relatively easy changes can do to a room. I'm so happy I jumped in and went for it. I'm learning to trust my instincts and decisions when it comes to decorating. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but who cares! I love it :) The living room, after a redone end table before curtains.

I'm in love with my new curtains. I was planning on buying some because for the price of fabric you usually can buy them at the same price or cheaper but that plan was quickly changed. The only ones I could find that I really liked where oh about 35$ for one panel. I was not ready to pay that so I was still browsing. I happened to be at Marshall's looking for shoes (quite unsuccesfully) and decided to go into Joanne's on a whim. Red signs all over the fabric section, SALE SALE SALE. Oh yeah baby I was all over it, I had some fabrics in hand for other projects when I saw this fabric. It was mustard yellow with these sweet white berries all over it. I was smitten, it was all over! I grabbed it and dumped my others and promptly got 6 yeards for grand total of 28$! 4.79 per yard. The next day I immediately sewed them and hung them. They are perfect. They add color and let in a lot of light because I didn't line them.

Another day I was feeling quite creative and got an idea in my head. I'm pretty sure I've seen something like this somewhere but I'm not sure where. What do you get when you combine the following: a wine bottle, puff paint, spray paint, branches, felt, and a hot glue gun? Original homemade art obviously!

Fun, modern, felt, mustard yellow, what's not to love? (yes mustard yellow is slowly replacing green in the favorite color spot)

And last but not least the grandest part of the living room makeover. My picture rails that I have been dreaming about for a month. If you don't know, my father is a custom cabinet maker, and a darn good one at that! Whenever I have come to him with little projects here and there he's always been wonderful and never said no. Maybe we both share that love for creating things and it just makes it so fun! I proposed and idea, Daaddddd what if for my birthday you made me some picture rails ( or really narrow shelves) out of some nice rustic crown molding? He was up for it because he's great like that :) My description was rustic (wood with knots and imperfections in it) crown molding, 8ish feet long, medium stain, no preferrence on type of wood, and distress the wood a little bit. I could not have dreamed up anything more beautiful than what he brought over! They're perfect! Rustic alder with medium distressing, and a flat stain finish.

Obviously they aren't filled up yet. That will not take me very long though!

I feel like the pictures just can't do them justice. They are the crown jewel in my living room and I'm spilling over with how to fill them up. Thank you Dad for taking the time to make them and they are exactly what I wanted! It's crazy how making something your own just makes you feel so great. I think I'm liking all this home-maker stuff!

Mod Podge, Decoupage, Whatever You Please

We have had this end table since the day we moved in. It's not very stable, the fake wood veneers were starting to get scratched and bubbly, yet the cheap dutch girl in me refused to let it go. After having this thing for almost 2 years I decided to take action. Why not try something fun with it? If it turned out to be a complete disaster then I would only be losing an ugly end table. I have seen different applications of "Mod Podge" or "Decoupage" or whatever you want to call it. After much contemplation this table pressented itself as the perfect opportunity to try my hand at this.

First I spray painted it white.

In the words of some old friends, "it was just ok"

TaDa! A whole new end table. It's got a couple coats on it so Ben can still set his lunch on it while he sits in the recliner playing video games during lunch (I know, its just what he does :)

Looking at it, it's kind of retro.....I love it.

Much better!

I feel like it has added a much needed pop of color in our living room. I have been looking around the living room lately and I have been putting off doing more decorating because I wasn't exactly sure what my style was. Now I'm discovering I really like dark and neutral furniture but I am desiring more color. I'm thinking new curtains for starters. Anyway, things I would do differently with this table? I would sew the pieces of fabric together for a cleaner look in the transition area between the fabrics. I would also pay much closer attention to the edges and making sure they were amply glued down. All in all I am very pleased with the result of my first attempt at Mod Podge and hope to find another project to utilize this on soon!

Projects

I did a couple little sewing projects before we left on vacation. I sewed my mom little pouches for sunglasses, a camera, and whatever else she could think of putting in them. I lined them with some nice soft batting. I was inspired and made myself a make up bag. It came in quite handy on our trip.

Cancun!

Ben and I decided a long time ago that we would take a big trip sometime. We didn't do a very big honeymoon and wanted to do something bigger after we had been married a while and all that. Well we finally found something we liked and a time that worked. Cancun was amazing. It was warm everyday. The hotel (we did all-inclusive) was great. It was a very relaxing fun in the sun trip. Side note: we booked our trip through Costco travel and loved it. It was a complete package with flight hotel and transfer to and from the hotel. Everything was seamless!

Our hotel room


Ben on the beach.


Me on the beach.


First walk down the beach.


Ben loved the shade (and no setting up needed :)


My book. We spent lots of time lounging in the sun reading books.


Our view at the beach.


The view from our balcony.


Happy to be on the beach.


On our way through the mangroves out to the ocean to fish.



Ben's big fish. A 40 lb. Amber Jack.


Me fighting my fish.


My 25 lb. tuna or "Bonita"


Riding back to the dock.


Last day on the beach.

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