Organizing Life

I feel like we are just now finally getting our house settled.  I mean we have been moved in for about 3 months now but I am just now making somewhat final decisions on where I want things to be.  (And by tomorrow I might change my mind again… Oh well)

We are so blessed to have a full pantry.  Steven's family always sends us food whenever someone is passing through or they make sure we leave with whatever we need whenever we go visit.  I feel so blessed to have great family that is so giving!

However, having a full pantry means it's hard to keep it organized or to see what it is we DO have.  Making dinner was a challenge because I couldn't think of something to make and couldn't really see what we had to throw something together.  So… It was time to organize!!!  I bought a tiered shelf for some cans at the D.I., a couple of baskets from the dollar store, and a couple wire shelves from Wal-Mart.

Before…

Not too bad...

After… 

Ahh… I can see everything!

This is still somewhat of a work in progress. I added another wire shelf that I bought at Wal-Mart on the bottom to lift that basket and then I moved those jars of apple cider underneath that to make space for a jug of oil and vinegar. I love this basket method though! Each one has their own purpose so it's super easy to find exactly what I'm looking for!

I have tackled some of the kitchen cabinets as well but I didn't take pictures of those… But must I say… I love a clean house!

Steven has always wanted to try making is own wings so this Sunday we tried it out and they turned out great!!!  I think we will try a different sauce next time (Steven wants to try making his own) because it was a bit too tangy for us but they were still DELICIOUS!

Mmm…

I have finished a blessing dress that I had to make for my children's clothing class.  I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Puuuuurty

I used a pattern that my sister had to it's kind of similar to the one that she made but with my own little details on it. I finished it WAY before everyone else in the class (they are doing a different pattern together as a class) but it's so worth it to have it finished! I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Until next time!

Birthdays are the Best!

The first couple weeks of November are quite celebratory around our place. On the 2nd we have Steven's birthday and then one week later (the 9th) we have mine!

For Steven's 25th birthday I made him a 49ers cake (devil's food with marshmallow creme filling…YUM!).  The frosting ended up being more pink than the nice deep red that the 9ers usually sport… But he thought it was pretty sweet anyways!  To make the logo I used melted chocolate and piped it over a reversed printout of the actual logo so when I peeled it off the nice smooth side was the front.  I was pretty proud of how well this turned out!  I had the idea originally a few weeks ago but man I worried it would turn into quite a cake wreck.  Luckily for me, the wrecky-est part of it was the fact that my red food coloring didn't turn my white frosting red… *sigh* I'll get over it eventually.

The text and the footballs along the bottom were chocolate too. I had too much fun doing that!

Happy 25th, Steven!!

To begin Steven's birthday we had a wonderful little brunch together (since he would be working that evening we celebrated that morning and the next night).  We also did gifts right after we had brunch.

 Steven had been talking about getting a small deep fryer for a few weeks so I thought, "Hmm… Birthday present!"  He wants to try making his own wings for game days and everything.  I figure… If the man is gonna cook… LET HIM COOK!  I think he was pretty happy with his little present. :) 

He always has the best "LOOK WHAT AWESOME THING I GOT" face in present pictures!

For my birthday we did kind of the same idea having brunch together since Steven had to work the night shift again (oh well).  He got me the new Les Miserables movie on blu ray (SWEET!).  Somehow it completely slipped my mind to snap a couple of photos of our morning… Oops… After Steven left I did go to the hair salon and pamper myself with a new haircut and then swung by the jewelers to get my ring polished up (always a treat for me and it's totally free!).  Nothing beats feeling pampered a bit!  I did even stop by this shop in town (the Jean Girl is what the shop was called… Thanks Sarah for recommending it!!) to browse around and ended up getting myself my own little birthday outfit.  My mom would always get us some new clothes for our birthday that we got to wear on our special day.  So I felt it was appropriate to keep up tradition and treat myself to a cute sweater for my day. :D

New outfit!

So… After my own little session of pampering myself I had a girl's night planned with some of my old roommates to get together, watch a movie, paint our nails, and grab a bite to eat!  So, I go over and my husband texted me (like he usually does from work just to say hey or whatnot) and said he had a little party game set up for me… a scavenger hunt to be exact.  So he gave me the first clue and we were off to find the rest!  The first clue was the first place we got to know each other.  Naturally that was when we would chat and hang out at the Pines (his old apartment).  There I found pine tree car air fresheners and the next clue which led us to the movie theater where we had our first 1 on 1 date.  There I found a DVD of the movie we watched that night and a small bag of movie theater popcorn (YUM).  Next was the spot of our first kiss… His apartment he was living in at the time we began dating--Kensington.  After retrieving my bag of chocolate kisses the next clue lead me to the jewelers where he bought my engagement ring.  I then obtained a bag of ring pops and the last of the clues:

Aww… Someday!

So home we went to find my birthday brownies with 21 candles and a husband walking through the door that was SUPPOSED to be in Idaho Falls at work!!!!  

Come to find out, when Steven had originally quit his Saturday job a few weeks ago he told them he could work the rest of the schedule they had already lined out, which would have had him working until the 16th of this month.  Apparently the schedule had changed a week or so after he put in his notice and his last day was the weekend BEFORE my birthday.  Actually I think they originally gave him HIS birthday off too but he asked to keep that day because of this little diabolical plan he had already set up.  He needed me to think that he still had to work on my birthday.  

So my old roommates, Sam and Kayla (some super awesome friends of ours), and my sneaky and really sweet husband and I went out to eat at one of our favorite local restaurants.  It was great and the staff at the Hickory even came out and sang to me and gave me a delicious little apple pie dessert!

My honey and I

April and Erica

Me and Maddie

By the end of the night I was surrounded by some of my closest friends and my wonderful husband who successfully surprised me!  What a great way to spend my 21st birthday!

Fall Adventures

Steven and I FINALLY bought silverware.  We had just been using some old utensils that I had from my single college days.  I had registered for a really nice set for our wedding but we never received it from anyone so I finally just used our 10% off (for whatever was left on our registry) and a few gift cards we received as gifts and bought a nice Oneida set!  I love them! They are so shiny and pretty!  See?

WOOHOO!

Steven has been working as a sandblaster for a local fabrication and powder coating company here in town.  He works until about 11 PM most nights and sometimes I think I am going to stay up and wait for him to come home but I end up falling asleep on the couch by accident.  He always scares me awake… But not on purpose… Because usually I am awaken by this:

This photo doesn't even do justice to how dirty he is...

You'd be scared to, eh? I thought so. Anyways… his job pays pretty good for Rexburg so we are grateful that he has it regardless with how scary he can look when he gets home. 

This last Sunday we had a quiet evening here at home and Steven cooked dinner for me again! This week's specialty was meatloaf.  But not just ANY meatloaf… It was meatloaf topped with BACON!  Mmmmmm.  That's what's meatloaf has always been missing!

Meatloaf (and BACON), corn, and garlic mashed potatoes.

Also on Sunday night we had a couple visitors stop by our place…

Hmm… Looks like it's time to rake the leaves...

I didn't realize we were far enough out of town to see these around!  I saw another one kind of hidden across the street in the trees one day when we were heading out the door to go to school.  Super fun!

So Steven admitted he isn't very good at carving pumpkins so I just decided to do some simple carving in the pumpkins we bought a long time ago. The other one is just a monogram "D" but this one I did especially for Steven.

I think he was pretty happy with what I came up with ;)

He may or may not be turning me into a 49ers fan… He keeps me updated about the players, the team, and the game of football itself.  I actually look forward to watching the game with him each week!  I am always so surprised with how much he knows about the game.  I mean, he played in high school but he has the whole technical/theoretical side of it down pat!  Someday I think he should coach a football team… Either league or high school.  He would be a great coach!

Steven has officially quit his weekend job at the gas station in Idaho Falls.  He decided he can make just about the same amount of money just donating plasma which is both closer to home AND would take up about 1/4 LESS time than working a full shift every Saturday.  I am excited because recently he has been working the super early shift… which starts only a few hours after he gets home from his sandblasting job… It really wears on him when he has to do that every weekend.  But thankfully he only has to do that one more time and then his Saturdays will be free!!!  I am super excited to have at least one day a week where we can just be together, get stuff done, and start attending the temple together regularly! 

Steven and I's birthdays are coming up (his this Saturday and mine next Saturday). I am kind of super excited to get to celebrate together!  

That's all from us for now!

Date Night!

Last Wednesday Steven went to work only to find out that the equipment was down and they didn't have a part to fix it so he actually beat me home and then decided to take me out for a real date night! I was pretty excited to have him home for the evening! We went to one of our favorite local restaurants here in town (that Steven actually used to work for) called The Hickory. It's a local barbecue and hamburger place and the food is pretty good and VERY reasonably priced! We ended up getting a full rack of ribs (date nights like this are quite rare as of late so this was definitely an occasion to celebrate!) and split them and still had plenty of yummy leftovers to enjoy the next day for lunch! 

YUMMY! Oh... And the food looks good too. ;)

On Saturday we made a day trip down to Preston for my Grandfather's 80th Birthday party. We caught a ride down with my brother, Glen, and had a great day spending time with our family. I was super excited to see my parents and catch up because I hadn't seen them since our wedding festivities this summer! Thankfully they are coming down again for Thanksgiving to spend it with us and a few of my other siblings and their families. Overall, great weekend! (And a shout out to my husband for his favorite football team winning their game on Sunday! Go 9-ers!)

Officially Disliking Mondays

Today has been quite a day... I don't think I like Mondays... I never had a pure dislike for them-it was always just another start of a new week but I haven't DREADED them so much. However, these past 2 Mondays have really kicked my butt! Last week I overslept an hour and was a little bit late for work and was rushed and flustered up all that morning and today our land lady thought that we hadn't paid her rent and so she swung by to pick it up while I was at school and poor Steven was all like... "Uh. Well you have already been paid but even if I wanted to I don't have any way to pay you this second..." Our land lady is almost 90 but she is quite forgetful and hard to deal with in that way sometimes. I had paid rent this month. Early in fact. She just had forgotten that I had come by her house TWICE to smooth out things when our post lady decided that she would just directly deliver our rent payment to our land lady whom then just immediately deposited the check... *GROAN* So then I had to get online and find a proof of payment sheet which (thankfully!) had scanned images of the original check that she had deposited with HER OWN signature on the back to endorse it. Thankfully she understood that and (finally) would write me a receipt. *PHEW* Thank goodness that's over. 

On a happier note... Here is what I have been working on in my sewing class the past couple of weeks:

It's a bib out of a kitchen towel!

Baby sleeper jammies!

Now... I remind all of you... I am in a children's clothing class.. No baby is on the way, nor will be for a looooong while. But it's still fun to make things for super cheap that I see retailed for 3-4 times more than the cost of my materials! Maybe I will almost completely outfit our kids someday with homemade articles of clothing... Hmmm... 

Next we are finishing up a t-shirt and pants (I am making these cute navy leggings!) and then a blessing dress and coat! 

Maybe someday I'll start selling stuff like this... Hmm.. Quite tempting seeing as at the cost I could get some materials I could definitely compete with regular retail stores and produce much higher quality products... Maybe... Someday...

Steven is still working evenings and so the house is always quiet and lonely when I get home. We are hoping he can get switched to the day shift for the winter semester while I am in school and he is off-track so that we have more similar schedules and will actually get to spend time together on a regular basis. He keeps saying he wants to do that so we can have (and I quote) "date nights." Oh wouldn't that be lovely! You bet I am praying that he gets the day shift!!!

Fall is Among Us!

Alright... The weather here turned to fall WAY to early but now that it is actually October I am finally excepting that it's O.K. that summer is over. 

I decided since Halloween is coming up that I needed to get into the spirit of things (even though Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday...) so I crashed the dollar store for 2 or 3 items and made some autumn looking garland out of paper today. It's not a ton but considering that I don't really care for halloween a ton I think it's just fine. :) For the garland I made I just took some autumn colored card stock and punched 1.5" circles out of it then ran each circle through my sewing machine to make an instant garland! How clever, right? (Thank you Pinterest!) I bought a small glitter pumpkin hanging to put on my lovely carpeted front door and some grungy-looking halloween fabric stuff I found at the dollar store to hang over a window.

Kitchen window garland

Living room window garland and weird fabric thingy...

Steven and I also went and bought some pumpkins to carve! I am pretty excited, actually. Of all the Halloween activities, pumpkin carving is definitely my favorite!! Steven didn't seem quite as pumped as I am but it will be a fun activity we can do together. 

Also, this week we had a surprise visit from Steven's dad and brother. They just were passing through and swung by to drop off some food his mother sent from home. Thanks to them my pantry now looks like this:

FOOD!!!

And yes those jars on the bottom are home pressed apple juice for cider. :D YUMMY! It's so nice to have family that thinks of you! What a blessing!

The Durf Burger

Since Steven works every evening and most Saturdays he has taken it upon himself to cook Sunday dinners.  His specialty is definitely steaks but he has impressed me with what else he is really good at making.  A week ago Sunday he made a really yummy sesame chicken in the crock pot and this last Sunday he made what we like to call "The Durf Burger." Oh. My. Gosh. It was so good!  I helped this week by making homemade french fries but man... The burger was DE-LISH! I think someday he should run a restaurant.  He is all about the flavor of his food and I am always impressed with what he can come up with.

Home made beef patty, cheese, sautéd onions, bacon, and of course the secret sauce!

SO GOOD!

I also have to brag a bit because my husband is so sweet.  This morning I woke up to this:

Warms my heart! Love this man!