Christmas

It was the first Christmas in our new house! I had been wanting to create a nature or woodland theme for years and this was the year to finally do it! With how face paced and technology driven things are now days,  I decided I was not going to give a single gift that was electronic in any way so I thought the two themes were perfect together. Our tree was adorned with; berries, acorns and pine cones, owls, birds, and squirrels to name a  few. It turned out to be one of my favorite trees ever.

I absolutely love hosting Christmas at my house. I feel very blessed that my family is willing to bundle up in the icy cold to spend the day at our home. Especially because I don't like going anywhere at all on Christmas.

My kitchen was filled with homemade treats,  plenty of comfort foods and warm drinks. My living room looked like something out of a magazine but the company and Christmas spirit was even better. It was wonderful.

Copper was so funny, he could smell the treats in his stocking and went straight for them in the morning.

Russ had wanted a deep fryer for a couple years so the kids got him one for Christmas. They wrapped up a 5Lb bag of potatoes to make french fries with but they gave that to him before the fryer and the look on his face was priceless (the kids thought it was hilarious). I'm not sure how I would have reacted to getting a bag of potatoes for Christmas. Haha

After all the gifts under the tree had been opened, I told the kids there was one more thing for them in their bedroom that was too awkward shaped to wrap. They each had gotten new furniture that they had wanted. Ashleigh got a make up table, chair and chevron blanket for her bed. Jackson got a couple tall bookshelves, cool display items and pillows. They had no idea, I loved it!

 

Christmas Eve

We spent a few hours at my Mom's on Christmas eve. She had a full dinner with all the trimmings and more pie than we could ever eat!


 This year we did something new and had a white elephant gift exchange. It was hilarious! There was everything from an old umbrella to a stuffed mouse, chocolate pudding to a pocket sized box of tissues. The funnies where these crazy looking garden hooks that looked like a combination of a sea horse and a flamingo...on acid. It was so fun!









We exchanged regular gifts with the people we wouldn't see on Christmas day and opened our traditional Christmas Eve PJ's.

House Eddition - Moving Day

 I tried to be as organized as possible for the move, I had color coded and labeled everything from the old house.

My Mom and Mark helped us move with their horse trailer. My little brother and his wife helped us with both of their vehicles. Russel and I had a friend from work offer to help as well so with our 3 cars also, it only took 2-3 trips each.

The only real hiccup was the new refrigerator not fitting through the doors but Russell and Justin had it in the house and set up by the time I got to the house. They moved in the washer & dryer and had them set up before I got back from the next trip also.

I was so appreciative of all the help. My kids were a great help too and didn't even complain... much. The only casualty of the entire move was a small glass lampshade. I was pleased.

After the few trips back and forth (a whopping 1.5 miles from the old house) we took a break and my mom bought everyone lunch. She is fantastic. Everything went pretty smooth.

The house was a wreck for a while. At least it was organized chaos. It's been fun seeing everything come together.

House Edition -

At the beginning of this year, my Mom had  casually mentioned something about how great it would be to take a trip together for my birthday. We would head to San Diego and visit my cousins. On a whim, I took a week off work for that trip and the way the weekends fell, I had about ten days off in a row.  Funny how things just seem to fall into place.My cousins ended up being out of town and I closed on the house during that time off! Everything lined up as if it was meant to be. I had plenty of time to purge, pack, clean, paint, move and unpack. I can't imagine having to do all that while still working every day!

 I was so excited to close on the house, even more so after I had forked out a couple hundred dollars to have the main electric breaker to the house replaced before it was officially mine.

It was a quick snap into reality that being a home owner is expensive. The day after closing, with my title paperwork in hand, I was able to get all the utilities turned on. Now, remember how I had mentioned the inspector said there was evidence of the main water valve in the crawl space leaking?... it was not a small leak. The crawl space would have been flooded in no time had we left the water on, so we had the utility worker turn it right back off. Great that we noticed right away.. bad that I then had an entire house to clean and no running water to do so with. Not to mention, no use of bathrooms.

Thank goodness for bottled water and a coffee house right down the street if someone needed a bathroom run. One of our friends is a plumber and his company was able to fit us in pretty quickly. I figured since the valve was being repaired anyway, I might as well have the pressure regulator replaced at the same time. Another couple hundred dollars. Feeling even more thankful for the great deal we got on the fridge at that point. My house now has fantastic water pressure.

First order of business was to remove the carpet in the living room to expose the hardwood floors. They were in really good shape! Removing the old tack strip around the room took forever because it kept splintering into a hundred pieces. Totally worth it.

As we started removing switch plates around the house to get ready to paint we started to notice a trend... they were all different. Ashleigh and Russ tried to convince me to keep the moose but no amount of convincing was going to change my mind. He had to go.

Russ was able to take a couple days off and it was just the two of us. It was fun working on the house together and our picnic lunches in the living room felt kind of like a date in a cheesy sort of way.

I thought to check the mail after lunch one day, thinking things may have started coming in my name. I was almost positive there would be nothing since it had only been a couple days. I was in for a shock!

 It's as if the mailbox was a black hole with no end... there was months and months of mail that had been shoved in the box. I was laughing so hard I was crying as I kept pulling more and more mail out! Of course, none of it was for us. But I now know who lived in my house before me..and that my mailman is some sort of magician to fit that much mail in there!

I wanted the kids to be involved as much as they could with their own bedrooms. Jackson removed a lot of the wallpaper border in his room and they both helped paint. A big thanks to my Mom, who helped remove wallpaper from the entry way hall, and Jackson's room. Defiantly one of the less glamours and more tedious projects that needed to be done.

I wanted to pain the laundry room floor since it is just cement. Russ had the idea to use the garage floor paint. It was like a giant art project flinging colored flecks into the wet paint. One of the more fun painting projects. It turned out great.

Time went by fast. Everything seemed to take longer than I was picturing in my head. My mom, later told me, to plan on everything taking twice as long and using twice as much money as anticipated. So far that has been true. The living room, dining room and both kid's rooms got a fresh coat of paint before we moved. All the carpeted areas got professionally cleaned and new toilet and sink were installed in the main floor powder room.

New Fridge

After I closed on the house, Russ and I went refrigerator shopping. The house did not come with one and I wanted something decent without spending a fortune. We went to at least six places and ended up with this beauty. It was on clearance because this particular appliance got scratched when it was being delivered to someone that had already bought it. So they brought it back to the store and marked down the price. I, of course, talked them down even further and got it for what the store paid. Score! Retails for $1600 and I walked away at $999.

It's energy efficient and has two.. not just one but two LED lights in the fridge side. It's like angels sing every time I open it. The freezer is at least double the size of our old one, and the ice and water in the door is the first time I've had this convenience. I love it

Later to find out, it did not fit through my front door, or side door, or sliding glass door. Lucky for us, the handles could easily be removed and it now sits beautifully in my kitchen.

Happy Halloween!

Clown & Ringmaster

 Halloween was pretty mellow this year. I took Ashleigh to trick-or-treat with some friends and stay the night (lucky for them the term was over so there was no school on Friday). Jackson decided he was too old to trick-or-treat this year. We did play a fun prank on my Mom though. I had talked to her earlier in the day and she told me she missed seeing the kids all dressed up, she wasn't expecting to see us at all but we were dropping Ashleigh off just a few min away. Jackson trick-or-treated her house while I stayed out of sight to see if she would recognize him all Zombiefied. Jackson and I had come up with an elaborate plan in the car on our way over.. but we were laughing so hard about it, by the time we got to my mom's he couldn't pull it off without breaking his cover!


She didn't recognize him at first but did a bit of a double take thinking he sure looked an awful lot like her grandson. It was pretty funny. We stayed and visited for a bit before Jackson and I headed home. We snuggled up on the couch and watched a movie we got from Redbox, The Croods.

 In the background above you can see Jackson's dragon jack-o-lantern and my owl sitting on the ground. Below is Ashleigh's Tinkerbell (compete with pixie dust) but the picture doesn't really do it justice.

The frugal mom in me is pretty proud of this halloween all together, the kid's costumes were both made from stuff around the house and the pumpkins were all on sale for less then 2 bucks each!

Crock Pot Chili

For some reason, crock pot meals seem much more fitting once it gets cold. One of the many reasons I love Autumn so much. I told my Aunt Glory, I would share so here is a chili recipe I came up with last week that my whole family liked. This was a mix of a couple different recipes I found online with the addition of my own touch.

Autumn Chili

1 lb, extra  lean ground beef - can also use ground turkey, chicken or omit entirely for a veggie version

1 small yellow onion (chopped)

1 small red onion (chopped)

1 green bell pepper (chopped)

1 can pinto beans (drained & rinsed)

1 can black beans (drained & rinsed)

1 can kidney beans (drained & rinsed)

1 can diced tomatoes (do not drain)

2 T tomato paste

2 cups water

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp chili powder

salt & pepper to taste

olive oil or butter

Saute onions and peppers in a little olive oil until onions are translucent. Add meat, garlic powder, onion power, cook meat until no longer pink. Add to crock pot with all other ingredients and lightly mix together.

Cook on high for 4 hours or low 6-8 hours. (You can easily simmer this on the stove instead) 

Before serving, add salt and pepper to taste if needed. 

Optional toppings: sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, shredded cheese, chopped green onion, or tortilla strips.