Wednesday, July 31, 2013

And then this happened

Like I said before, our kids have had a really hard time with this move.  They have also been asking to get a dog for a really long time.  They would beg to go to the pet store so they could play with the puppies.  My excuse before was that our house was to small for any sort of animals.  With almost twice the space Chris decided that was no longer a valid excuse.  He found a dog through petfinder.com that was going to be up for adoption at a local Petsmart, but when he called the lady told him there was a lot of interest in this particular dog so if he wanted it he would have to get there early.  The adoptions started at 11 am and I don't know if he forgot or if he just thought he had no chance (especially because I was still pretty much against it) but he and Ashton didn't go over until about 2:00.  The dog was still there and after playing with him for about 30 min, he texted me a picture and told me to come over and see him.  I was pretty sure we couldn't afford it and I wasn't going to give in, but I loaded up the rest of the kids to go see the dog.  Kaylee was in love the second she saw the dog and I was sunk!  Aiden is even more opposed to a dog than I am, but we both got overruled.  I'm calling him our therapy dog because so far he has helped our really sad kids (except for Aiden, he spends most of his day hopping from couch to couch so the dog can't touch him.  Poor kid)  He was found with his brother and the adoption place named them Phineas and Ferb.  We got Ferb and I wanted to change his name (because as my mom pointed out he shouldn't have to live with pound name) but I got outvoted so Ferb it is.  I don't know if it was sad or scared, probably both, but his first night home it actually sounded like he was crying most of the night.  He's sleeping in a crate so we don't have to worry about accidents, so Chris ended up sleeping on the floor next to the crate to help comfort the dog and take him outside (several times) to do his business.  I spent more than my fair share of nights awake with babies so it was fun to see Chris have his turn...kind of;)


The adoption people told us he was a stray and they think he is a mix of yorkie and shih tzu.  He's about eight weeks old, and okay even I will admit he is stinkin cute.

Monday, July 22, 2013

We bought a house!

Our house has always been small, which was fine when the kids were small, but they refused to stop growing and the house wasn't growing along with them.  We've been looking for a new place for over a year and finally we found one!  Chris and I are very happy,(it's almost twice the size of our last house) the kids on the other hand feel as though we've ruined their lives.  We tried really hard to find something in our area (I'm serious when I say we looked for a year) but we ended up about ten miles south.  It is still in Henderson, but a different ward, different stake and different schools.  It has been a really hard adjustment, but we're still working on it.  Speaking of working on things, we've actually been living here for a couple of months but I wanted to wait until I had decorated a little before I put up pictures buuut, buying a house takes mucho dinero!  There is a very slim budget for decor so fancy shmancy pictures will have to wait.  Luckily for us the house is in really good shape (just not my preferred color scheme) so it's ok to leave it how it is for a while.  Through the power (and inexpensiveness) of paint spray I have been able to make a couple of small changes.  It's not much, but I kind of love it.  Chris thinks my new mantra of "I can paint that" is amusing, but it's really kind of amazing the difference paint can make:)



I'm pretty sure these light fixtures were originally oil rubbed bronze, but after years of weather they looked pink.  I washed them down, cleaned the glass and gave them a couple of coats of oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  They look brand new and I love them!

This is still a work in progress. I want to stain the doors a darker color and I haven't figured out how to remove the middle part and peep hole to paint them and I want to stain the doors darker, but it already looks so much better. The previous owners left the doormat, but it's a good fit for us;)


Tuesday, July 9, 2013

#PINNING

You like that title?  I'm so out of date reference cool like that!  What do you do when you're facing outside temperatures of 115* and up?  Well you don't go out side if you can help it, that's for sure.  If you're me you spend a fair amount of time on Pinterest, sorry to all those who have to see all of my pins.  I probably only try like 10% (okay, okay 1%.  Sheesh call me out why don't ya) but it's free to look and I can do it inside.  Here are  few of the tip, tricks and recipes I've tried recently.

No Bake Watermelon Cake
from isavea2z.com
You all know Dalin loves watermelon, and lucky for him he has a summer birthday so he usually gets a watermelon "cake".  I found this way to fancy it up a little and it looked like it could actually be cake.  I only had strawberries on hand and he doesn't like almonds so it's not a fancy as the the picture, but it was a hit.
from mmmmisformommy.com
When Chris saw I was doing a post about pinterest he requested I add this recipe.  It is his FAV-O-RITE and he requests it for dinner weekly.  They are delicious but unfortunately for him when I made it for his birthday I was sick. Now it reminds me how blah I felt and it's hard for me to want to make them anymore.
from menumusings.blogspot.com
My family thought they were tasty (well the ones that will try stuff) but I wish they were a little crispier.  It calls for diced chicken, but I had some ground turkey and figured it would be faster.  The recipe says you can fry them, which would help with the crispiness but not so much with the healthy.
from happyhecticlife.com

This is probably my favorite pin ever!  This is my actual floor.   I was amazed at the results of this idea.  Just spray the cleaner on your grout lines then let it sit for a few minutes, scrub, then wipe it off with a wet cloth or mop.   I used a toothbrush and also a scrub brush on a pole so I didn't have to bend over.  The toothbrush fits just right in the grout lines so the results were much better, but they both worked great  We recently had an estimate for professional grout cleaning and it was about $350.  The can of Woolite...less than $5 and the results were better.  It sprays out in a stream, perfect for the grout line.  Make sure you shake it once and a while to keep the spray foamy.  We have maybe 300 sq ft of tile and I used 1 1/2 cans to clean it all.  And the Woolite smells good too.  I will admit that I don't know if this grout had been pre-treated with anything but I'm on week two after cleaning and it still looks great.

The summer heat is just getting started so stay tuned, I'll have more pins to post soon:)

Friday, July 5, 2013

Portland

Chris loves to travel, and he's always up for an adventure so when his sister needed someone to drive her car to Oregon, he quickly volunteered.  I have always wanted to see Oregon, and I like to hang out with Chris so I decided to tag along.  His sister and her husband paid for the gas, hotel and flight home so it was like a free mini vacation.  Aaaand it was still less expensive then if they had hired some one to do it.  It was a long drive, but Chris is good at driving and I am good at staying awake and thinking of stuff to talk to Chris about to keep him awake.  We had one day to hang out with Lindsay and her family and be tourists.  I think the thing Chris was looking forward to the most was visiting the food trucks.  He is a food truck fan and there are a few spots where several of them" park" (as in stay there all the time and don't drive around and use the truck feature of their food truck).  I couldn't believe it but Chris only ended up getting stuff from three places!  He might be losing his edge.  It was really short but a lot of fun!
Portland Temple.  It is so beautiful!  You can see it from the freeway and the neighborhood it is in is gorgeous.  Unfortunately the power was out in the area so we only got to see the outside.


Voodoo doughnuts.  It is pretty popular, I think this was on a food network show or something.  All the sites we looked up about Portland told us to visit.  It's open 24 hours, and there was a constant line.

The rose garden was beautiful.  It was pretty hot (for Portland) while we were there so the flowers were a little wilty, but it was still so pretty

I tried to be a photographer, but I was totally showed up by my niece.  This was the best shot I got .  I like it but I may have to get some copies of the ones she took

Chris and the Visentine crew.  They are pretty practiced in the art of the crazy face picture:)