My House Project #1

When we were looking at our new home, Christine and I noticed that the fence to our back yard didn't have a gate on the north side of the house.  Christine asked me to build a gate, so that is the first project I set out to do.  I purchased supplies a few weeks after we moved in, but after having surgery I wasn't able to work on the gate for a little while.  About two weeks ago, I finished the gate and Christine helped me hang it in place last week.
I feel really proud about being able to build something.  It was a fun project.  I even used my CAD software at work to design it and show Christine what I had envisioned.  I think it turned out pretty nice.  So without further a do, here is the before picture and the after picture. I think time and weather has faded the color of the fence, so we'll need to re-stain it to match.

Before

After

Fun Pictures

I thought I would share some fun pictures and moments from our lives recently.

Play-doh has been a fad recently.  I let Cosette play with it in the play room at first, but after smashing it (accidentally) into the carpet, it has now been regulated to the table.  She especially loves making pancakes that she breaks up into tiny pieces and feeds to her stuffed animals.

We drink a lot of smoothies at our house, and Cosette often enjoys them to the very last drop.  She's gotten pretty good at drinking from a cup, but she drinks the majority of the smoothie through a straw so it doesn't get too messy.  But I let her drink the last little bit "like a big girl" (without the lid), as you can see in the pictures below:

Tapping the bottom to get every last drop

Happy mustache 

Mmm, yummy

The other day Cosette found one of my t-shirts lying around and decided that she wanted to wear it.  She called it a dress, which I guess it is on her.

Overall we're enjoying life and all it has to offer.  I can't believe how big she's getting!

New Couch

We've been keeping an eye out for deals on furniture since we moved into our new home.  For the past few weeks we haven't had any seating in our front room besides the piano bench, and the leather couch in our family room downstairs is getting pretty run down (the cushions all have rips).  We've been looking for a love seat and two accent chairs for the living room and a sectional for the family room.
Our family room isn't very large, so I really wanted to have a sectional to be able to maximize the seating.  A lot of the sectionals we looked at were way too big, too deep, or not the right style.  For example, I didn't want the type that looks like a whole bunch of chairs put together, because it limits how many people can comfortably sit on the couch (and my goal was to maximize seating).
We were thinking that investing in a quality sectional was going to be a year or two down the road, and then we found one at Costco this past week that was both functional and economical.  So we decided to go ahead and get it.  We rented a truck to get it home, and then my brother and a neighbor kindly helped us get it in the house.
Here are some before and after pictures:

I love our new couch!  I'm hoping that it will last our family for a good long while.  We're not letting Cosette jump on this couch, for starters.  She wasn't too happy with this new rule, but we really should have enforced it long ago.  I just didn't care enough about the old couch to make her stop jumping on it, which probably led to its sad demise.
For now, we've moved our old couch into the front room.  It's really nice to have somewhere to sit when you first walk in our home.
Another reason I wanted a sectional in the family room was to divide the room into two spaces.  I've always wanted a computer desk in a high traffic area in my home rather than an enclosed office, and I thought that along this wall beneath the dining room would be a good spot for one.

This may be a space that evolves over time to meet our needs.  It could be an office/homework space, a reading nook with a bean bag or video rocker and bookcase(s), an area for toys if we convert our toy room into something else, etc.  We may build in shelving along the wall, to match built-in shelving we're planning to add around the fireplace.  But that's way in the future - probably 10+ years.  For now, I'm not exactly certain what we're going to put there, except maybe a video rocker for Cosette to play with.  But if you have any ideas or suggestions for this space, feel free to share.

Art project - I need your help!

I have an idea of making art from black and white photos that I've taken of plants in our yard.  I want to display them in some form in our living room.  I may print several photos and make a collage, or print a few on canvas.  I'm not sure yet.
I've posted my favorites below, and I would love your opinion on which are your favorites and what sizes and formats I should use.

Flower 1

Flower 2

Flower 3

Flower 4

Flower 5

Flower 6

Flower 7

Grasses

Lily 1

Lily 2

Lily 3

Lily 4

Shrub 1

Shrub 2

Shrub 3

Please give me feedback and ideas!

Funny Cosette Moments

I thought I would post a few funny things that Cosette is doing these days.
We've been working on having Cosette use a "big girl cup" lately.  Today at dinner she was enjoying the fact that she can put things inside of an open cup.  She dipped her fork in and out of her water and told us that she was baptizing it.  So cute!  She also tried to eat the water off of the fork, which of course didn't work very well.  And when she was done eating, she put the remainder of her dinner inside of her cup and proceeded to push it around the table like a car, talking about going for a ride and making "beep, beep" noises.
Whenever we sit down to say a prayer, Jeff and I look at each other and take a moment to figure out whose turn it is.  We then announce "It's Mommy's turn" or "It's Daddy's turn," and nine times out of ten Cosette announces that it's the opposite person's turn to say the prayer.  She never seems to get tired of it.  At first she was pretty sincere and would get upset when we wouldn't follow her directions, but now I think she does it just to be silly.
When we're in the car, Cosette gets very impatient when we have to stop for traffic, and she likes to tell us to "Go, go, go!" in a very impatient manner.  Now that she's in a front facing car seat, I'm trying to teach her about traffic lights, but she still thinks she's the boss and that we should go when she wants us to go.
Cosette is currently obsessed with wearing the t-shirt she got two years ago at our Bond family reunion.  She calls it "big shirt" and has worn it almost every day and night for the past month or two.  (You can see a picture of her wearing it two posts ago, when she's laying in the hammock.)  Fortunately, her cousin Darren was kind enough to give us his shirt as well, so she can now wear one while the other is being washed.  It's a struggle every Sunday to convince her that she cannot wear big shirt to church.  I'm sure that she'll grow out of this phase eventually, but it may not happen until she grows out of the shirt.  I took her to the store the other day and let her pick out a new Hello Kitty shirt, hoping to entice her to wear something else, but it didn't work.  She likes to carry the other shirt around and treats it like a toy, but she doesn't want to wear it.  She is so silly!  I sure love my little girl.

Settling In

So we've been in our new home for two weeks now.  Wow, it feels like it's been a lot longer than that!

We've got most of the boxes unpacked, and we're slowly hanging things on the walls.  This is one of my favorite parts (and Jeff's least favorite), because I feel like it makes the house our home.  I'm especially pleased with how the wall next to the dining room turned out.  (I'm sorry that the picture quality isn't very good - my camera has been temporarily misplaced in the move, so I'm taking pictures on my iPod.)  It was especially tricky getting the large painting hung over the stairs without a ladder.

I'm really grateful that Cosette has adjusted so well.  She loves being in her "new home," and there are days when she just wants to stay inside all day.  This has made it a little tricky to run errands, and I have to reassure her that we're coming right back.  She loves jumping off of the stairs, having a play room, and she enjoys looking out the windows (they're nice and low throughout the house, just her height).  She also loves spending time outside in the yard, which she calls the "garden."  An appropriate name, since the previous owners named this home Golden Gardens.
I feel like I'm not quite staying on top of the yard work, but I try to do some every day.  Most days I get up early and work in the yard before Cosette gets up.  It's quiet and peaceful, and I really enjoy it.  Another fun thing I've discovered is making flower arrangements from yard clippings.  I try to only use those that I have to trim back anyway, not cutting any flowers just to put them in a vase.  I filled a few vases last week with roses, and this week I combined trumpet vine flowers with the leaves of a variegated dogwood.  I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I look forward to experimenting more in the future.

One downside to our new home is that we don't have air conditioning.  It got pretty brutal last week as we started getting up into the 90's and 100's, so I called a few companies to come out and give us bids on air conditioning.  We're not sure if it's going to be in the budget for this summer, but we hope to put it in in the next year or two.  And one really helpful thing I learned from the people who came to give the bids was how to properly run our swamp cooler.  I don't know a lot about swamp coolers, so I was doing it wrong and it was barely making a difference on the really hot days.  But now I've learned the secret of how many windows to open and how far they should be opened.  I feel like the house will be livable this summer, if not exactly comfortable.
I wanted to share a good recipe I tried out for the first time tonight.  We've started picking the first of the zucchini in our garden, and I know that there's a lot more to come.  So I decided to try fried zucchini for a side dish with our dinner tonight.  They were really good!

Here's the recipe for anyone who's interested:

Thinly slice 1 zucchini (this filled two of my frying pans, single layer)

Mix together cornmeal, flour, and seasonings to taste (I used garlic salt, seasoning salt, and italian seasoning).  I don't have exact amounts, but I ended up running out partway through making them, so I would say do a little more than you think you'll need, around 3/4 cup - 1 cup.

Heat olive oil in frying pan(s) over medium high heat until the oil is rippling but not smoking.

Dip zucchini slices into milk (could also do egg or an egg/milk mixture, but I was out of eggs and they turned out just fine with just milk), then dip in dry mixture.

Place in skillet in a single layer.  Fry until golden brown (about 3 minutes), then flip and brown on the other side.

This is all I did, but the recipe said you could sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top and cook for 1-2 more minutes until the cheese melts.  I didn't try this since we're avoiding dairy for Jeff, and I thought they were fine without.  They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside - yum!  You can eat them plain or with tomato sauce or ranch dressing for dipping.

Well, we hope that everyone is enjoying their summer so far!  I'm going to continue to experiment with items from our garden.  The previous homeowners were generous enough to plant it for us before they moved, but I'm not sure what to do with all of these vegetables.  Please let me know if you have any favorite recipes that include the following:

zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, tomatoes, beets, cucumbers, and pumpkins (they also planted green peppers, broccoli, spinach and carrots)

Our New Home

Jeff and I are now the proud owners of this beautiful home in West Jordan, Utah.  These first few pictures are from the listing - today there are a lot more leaves on the trees and flowers in the yard.  I don't want to post any indoor pictures until we're settled.

Although the materials are different, the general layout of the outside
of our home is very similar to my childhood home in Virginia.
(go to http://www.homesnap.com/VA/Springfield/6810-Gillings-Road)

Our home from the side

A view of the back yard

I love our bridge and garden!

We drove over to the house this afternoon to spend some time in the yard.  We set up a hammock in the patio space and had fun relaxing in the shade.

Trees along the back fence

I love the red foliage throughout the yard. 

Rose bushes under the bay window

Our flower bed in front of the house

I believe these are called Columbine flowers
(I'm going to have to study a lot to learn the names of everything)

Cosette having fun in the hammock

Relaxing in our backyard