Our Back Yard

We have tomatoes!

Bunny rabbits love our back yard since it's right next to a grassy, weedy field

These little guys just started coming around lately.  Jake wants to get a feeder so they come up closer.  This is out in the field behind our house. There were probably 5-7 of them, but they are quick little suckers so this is the best picture I could get!

The "big bunch" has bloomed!

Our First Garden

This year we decided to try our hands at a garden. The people who lived here before us had already built 2 raised garden areas, but last year we had other things on our mind and let the weeds get the best of them. So, yesterday my mom and I went to Lowe's to get the plants and some top soil so we could get the garden up and going.

We love salsa so pretty much our garden was inspired by eventually being able to make homemade salsa. 3 kinds of tomatoes, onions, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, banana peppers, and red and green bell peppers are what we planted. All of these plants are pretty easy to grow-even for the non-green thumbers (like me).

Last year it was so dry that most of my flowers died off or dwindled to nothing so I'm hoping that its not that dry this year. Even if it is I'll have a little more time to tend to it if I need to.

We should have veggies in about 70 days-so by mid to late July!

Red and green bell pepper plants, jalapeno and banana pepper plants and rows of onions

3 large tomato plants, 2 Roma tomato plants and a salsa tomato plant in this bed

Potted cilantro plant...ready for use already!

Easy as THAT!

Our master bathroom shower is tiled and I like it, but where the tile meets the tub it gets a little grimy over time. It's been a while that the mold-like black stuff has been creeping in and it (even in very small amounts) is nasty. It makes me feel like our house is dirty, that I can't keep the bathroom clean, and that the place where I get clean is not clean and that's disgusting!

So, Saturday I went to Menard's and got all the tools and supplies necessary to re-do the caulk. Jake actually ended up tearing the old out and we both re-did the caulk & it looks fabulous and almost brand new! I hope it stays like this for a while, but even if not it was kind of fun re-applying the nice, new, white caulk to replace the black, mold-like dirty parts. It's too easy to not do!

He does it again...

Have I mentioned I have a very handy husband? Last week he fixed our water heater after hearing that we could either pay $250 to have a part cleaned...and hope that it lasts with no guarantee that it will last 10 hours or 10 years OR we could have them replace the part for over $550! Yikes...can't we get a new water heater for that price is all I was thinking. We found out that the thermocoupler needed replaced so Jake googled and asked around to see how to fix it.

Turns out the part at Lowe's was under $10 and he fixed it in less than 30 minutes...now I'll always question service people and how much we should really pay. $550 is just crazy! Good job Hubby!

Our Funky Furnace

Remember me saying there was something wrong with our furnace? We finally scheduled an appointment for someone to come look at it on Saturday and, of course, it was working perfectly and had been for a couple days. Anyhow, we needed to get it taken care of before Nora gets here because sometimes in the middle of the night it gets down to 60 degrees-fine for us, but not for baby!

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Having anything serviced is such a pain. They never show up on time and it takes a lot out of the day to wait for them. We had an appointment between 10-12 am on Saturday, the guy finally showed up at 2:45 pm (I'd say that's on time-wouldn't you?). After he was here for 20 minutes and doing some tests to the furnace he told us we just needed to change the filter!!

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We both felt like idiots! Apparently those need to be changed every month and not every 4 like we thought. He took the old filter-it was filthy. He explained that the furnace couldn't take in enough air because of the dirt to cool it down on the inside so the internal temp was up and above 151 degrees....which caused the furnace to shut down (hence getting below 65 degrees) to make sure we didnt have a fire. Makes sense.

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We changed the filter Saturday night, and it did it AGAIN that night!! Grr...now we need to re-schedule an appointmet to figure it out all over again, wait all over again, and hopefully this time it gets taken care of. Thankfully the service call was free because the guy came really late. Still doesnt solve our problem!

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These are the things I miss about living in an apartment. This is how it would go then....Put in call to office>our heater is broken>fix it>guy comes>fixes it>life goes on!

Cable High

We are on a cable high here in the Standeford house! After nearly a year...we had the cable guy come out and set it up again. We originally tried when we first moved in, but came upon lots of problems with the installation so we just called to cancel and not get it for a while. We knew throughout the summer we would be busy and not really watch it & that we would have a lot of things to do to the house so we opted to save money (imagine that!).

Since December I have been craving more channels than 6, 8, 12, or 59!! The only thing that is ever on is the news-which I like to watch, but not all the time. Several weeks ago I was cleaning the house and needed a break. I sat down to watch TV and the only 3 shows on were the Magic School Bus (loved it when I was younger), the Suite Life of Zach & Cody, and a weight loss infomercial!! I stood up and went on cleaning-not. even. worth. watching. That night I cried because Jake was excited to watch the two football games that determined the Superbowl! Did I mention we were at Steak n Shake when this all happened. I was emotional and couldn't hold it in-it ended in a laughing hysterically with a combo cry! I couldn't stop! We laughed about it all night.

Before that night I had tried justifying that we were having our Life Group from Church over for the Superbowl and we needed it in case there was a storm and the bunny ears didn't work. He laughed at my attempt!

I think that's when he realized I needed something to do when I was "off my feet". And the baby is coming soon-I'll be home, busy with lots to do, but still some down time. So I'm soo soo glad to have it back. I've been missing lots of my shows I typically watch & DVR especially.

And.. the best part about it all is that Jake got a steal of a deal with Att Uverse where our Internet/cable (with DVR & 200 channels) was only $12 more than the Internet we were paying for previously. And...this lasts for 12 months!! Now that's cheap entertainment.

So, tonight I set up a million shows on the DVR (one that I'm excited about is Auction Hunters-I could totally do that) and am watching HGTV for the first time in our new house & loving it as I relax after a long day!

Ahh much better...

Last night I slept much better with humidifier going. Once I got to sleep I didn't wake up with chapped lips, stuffy nose, or scratchy throat at all! Loving the humidifier already.

Desert Like

Our house is desert like when it comes to the humidity in here. The past few weeks it's been hard for me to sleep at night because it's so dry. Jake says it's because we have natural gas that heats the house and apparently it is the driest kind of heat. Last night was my tipping point. I was up every 45-60 minutes getting a drink or trying to clear my nose even though it was so dry I could barely breath. Miserable was how I was feeling & I ran out of Sudafed so all I had for some means to breath was Vix Vapor Rub which, thankfully, gave me a few hours of non-consecutive sleep. (I guess it has been getting me ready for the baby!)

Today we decided to get a humidifier. When we turned it on it was 24% humidity in the living room-this was at 4 and 3 hours later its up to 29% on high and should be making its way closer to 45% humidity by the time we get to bed. I'm hoping this makes sleeping tonight better-I read on the Internet (I know, not always a good source!) that low humidity makes you at higher risk for developing cold like symptoms which I have scratchy throat, stuffy/running nose, etc and puts you at higher chance of getting a cold. So I'm not actually sure if I'm sick or the house is so dry I feel sick because of the lack of sleep. I'll find out after a few days.

What's funny about the whole deal is that one of the houses we looked at had a humidifier hooked up to the heating system & our realtor was hyping it up-at the time I was wondering why...now I know!

Making Progress with the Nursery!

Away with the blue! Friday I taped off the nursery in hopes to get the painting finished soon, Saturday I patched all the holes that were there from the previous owners (they had a baby boy-obviously) and the ones we made too, and Sunday I sanded and then Jake primed the room. Pheww....that was a lot of work-well for him, not me, but still. Here's part of the room before:

Last night Jake painted the cream/beige/whatever color it is, but it needs a second coat-darn that blue! Good thing is we bought a gallon and since we have the bead board up-he only used 1/4 of it so we have plenty, bad news is its another 90 minutes of painting for him. But it looks so much better with just that different touch. I'm excited to see the entire nursery come together!

Here is the dresser I was talking about-isnt it cute? Perfect and distressed, black, tall, wide, long...everything I was looking for!

And I just love the mirror that goes on it! Thanks again to Jake for going to a "bad neighborhood" (38th street-didnt end up being as bad as he thought) to get it for me on a whim! I can just picture the changing pad and basket full of diapers ready to go on it, can't you?

Oh yeah, one more thing....right before I uploaded these pictures, the door bell rang and I jumped up-knowing that it was the crib-ran to the door and it was sitting up against the house! Exciting, except its raining, cold, and the crib is not light. So as the UPS man drove away I was stuck thinking of what to do with it! I ran to the garage and pulled out a tarp-and there it will sit until my buff hubster gets home to bring it in. Side note: I actually tried to lift it. Which is only funny if you can picture the shape and akward lift I would have to do to get it in the house...I guess that's the next project!

He's Got Skills

This is the last of our projects before winter comes and we (really mean Jake) squished it in right before the frost the past 2 weeks. Our deck was in need of a face lift. Its a nice size, but the people who built it didnt treat or do anything to it. So for 4 or more years its been being weathered and this is what it looks like...not a color any kind of wood should be! Actually, I dont have a before before picture up-this is after we cleaned it with some kind of cleaner we got from Lowes. If you can see the fence in the background-that was the color of the deck before before.

So we had to clean it-which was step 1 and then it had to dry. The lady at Lowes told us NOT TO POWERWASH and gave us tons of reasons why. So we picked up some cleaner for $15 sprayed it on and washed it off 10 minutes later. Easy as that.

Jake started out staining the railing since he knew it would be a multi-step process just for the stain. This picture (below) shows the color the best out of the rest of them. A nice cedar-mahogany color to brighten up that ugly dull deck.

This started step 2 of deck staining-the actual deck.

And a couple final pictures-although the sun was so bright you can hardly tell the color.

After 3 days and days between waiting with about 10 hours of work-its complete! And looks great :) Now the fence still looks like crap-so we are trying to decide what we are going to do. Jake thinks he wants to stain it too....I told him I'm not in on that project-its going to take weeks! He's ambitious when it comes to these projects. He has mentioned spray painting the fence, but oddly enough it doesnt bother me as much as the deck did. Its not getting done or even on the list until spring/summer time.

Now, we are going to get started focusing on the nursery which needs painted first-only a project for daddy!

Which do you like?

Of course I'm finding all options at the price that is not even desirable, but I need help with these three I really like and are in the budget. We are planning on either getting an espresso or black colored crib so keep that in mind. The room we are making the nursery already has white wainscotting, but blue walls-that are changing as soon as I get a handle on what color we are using. I love, love, love green, but is it too non-girl (like in the black and green). I also, if you couldnt tell, love the pattern in all three.

I like the purple, but not a huge fan of the overly used brown and ______(insert any color in here). If we had this one I would paint the top part of the room the same hue of purple, but way darker-no Easter colors here!

Look how cute and girly this pink and green (are these colors over used now a days?). I could paint the wall dark green-but we have the wall in our living room and accents of green. Is that too much?

Or this one, green and black-great pattern in my opinion. Girly, but not bright pink or purple. I think it has some kind of sophistication about it. Clueless on what I'd paint the walls-not sure green would look good-might be too overpowering. If you like this one the best-what kind of wall should I paint?

I'm very indecisive on these three and all Jake does is laugh! He's color blind so the green looks brown and the purple looks blue-he really is just concerned about the price. He has already said, "if our daughter is anything like her mother, she will change her mind a hundred times"...hope, he has hope for her! What a great daddy!

Even if you have never commented before, please on this one-it will be a lot of help to me!

Finished Product

Jake is so proud of his finished electrical project! The lights look great and have been nice lately since its been getting dark earlier. We are no longer living in a dungeon! The project has been done for a while now, but I just had a chance to take pictures of the finished product the other day!

He is now moving on to cleaning/staining the deck which is much needed before winter comes since the previous owners didnt do anything to it. We dont want it to fall apart so we are taking action now!You can see the 2 chairs we put at the end of the once empty area. Slowly, this house is looking more and more like our home! The picture doesnt do the lights justice, but you get the idea!

Jakes DIY Project

Our house has been in shambles this past week while we, I really mean Jake, does his real first DIY project. Our living room has no overhead lighting and that bothers me that its so dark at night or on days like this where its gloomy. It was one of the top things we were looking for in our house and this one had it in most rooms which was 30 times better than most of the houses we looked at. I couldnt believe the number of people who live in a lamp lit home 24/7. Dont get me wrong I like the way lamps have that sutle glow, but come on give me some light!

We started off with 2 estimates for the overhead lighting in the living room, a rough in in the office (the other room without lighting) and a ceiling fan in our screened in porch. The quotes....$2800 and $1200. Whoa! How they could be so different for the same thing-I'm not sure, but that didnt include the patch work for the ceiling since we have a two story house and no access to over the living room. We estimated the patch work to be at least $500, but we are horrible estimates because we had no clue the lights would have cost that much-our estimate was no more than $600. Of course, we're cheap!

So, based on the fact that the estimates were so high we decided to only do the living room right now and get the other 2 smaller projects finished later. Also based on estimates we knew we didnt want tons of holes in the ceiling to run wire and then have to patch it. Jake is briliant and comes up with the idea to have is co-worker, who is a floor guy that works at Lowes (hes probably killing himself that I wrote "floor guy"-I dont know his title though) pull up the carpet, padding and flooring upstairs in our 2 spare rooms which are right above the living room so they could have direct access. This meant cheaper and no holes! Well, that is if the flooring wasnt coming up...so Jake told me...minor problem (of course you know what I was thinking at that point). Here is what the spare rooms look like still:

And all those holes would have been on the ceiling needing patched up if we had not done this, but this is scarey! I'm still wondering how it is going to look 'just like it did before' as Jake has told me. At this point I think he is going to do the job well, but in the mean time our house has looked like this:

The once roomy loft with the carpet and furnishings from the spare rooms!

The living room, empty to avoid getting everything dusty when holes were drilled.

The kitchen, holding everything the living room had in it!

Preparation for the lights to go in. We decided on recessed lighting since it would make the entire area bright and we dont really have enough overhead space for ceiling fans.

Today, our living room is back together with all lights installed and a minor problem that should be fixed when Jake gets home today-one of the 3 way switches isnt working right. The spare rooms and loft remain as in the pictures above and should be back to normal on Sunday (I hope).

The project wasnt cheap for materials: $160 for trim and CFL lights, $250 for wiring, can inserts, extra tools we didnt have, and probably $50 I dont really know where it went, but it was a lot cheaper than the estimates given and it gives a little self confidence to my hub for doing something he isnt trained to do! I say a successful project! I'll post pictures when everything is 100% finished! So far it looks great and as Jake says "lights up like a Christmas tree".

Our Red Juice Drinkers

My mom and Alan visited back in July and bought us a hummingbird feeder to stick on the kitchen window that faces the back yard. For the first month we didnt have any hummingbirds at all, but lately we've had so many that we purchased another feeder. The one my mom and Alan bought was hard to see from the screened in porch and deck so we found the perfect spot for the new one-on a thingy that the old homeowners used to hang a bird feeder. Side note: I wanted a bird feeder, but Jake said theres already enough birds out here and that we would only draw the nasty, black, mean ones closer to the house and it would cost a lot of money to feed all the birds in the neighborhood! I agreed since behind our house is an open pasture with a woodsy area filled with birds. We even sometimes see hawks (I think thats the bird) and other weird, not normal birds with long legs flying around usually landing on a dead tree behind the walking trail. Back to the hummingbirds...We were up at my grandparents and they said that this time of year they drink more to fill up and fly south on the wings of some bird (I cant remember which) and then in the spring/summer they hitch a ride back up and they swear they have the same ones every year. We've probably spotted 6-7 in a 5 minute period. They sit in our only tree in the back yard and wait, take turns to get to the feeders. They arent used to the new one yet, but hopefully they will understand its there too. This "bird" feeder is cheaper since I make the food as needed and out of water and sugar with a little food coloring-even though my mom said they will come if its not red-I just think it looks prettier! Sitting out here now, I havent seen one yet...bummer. I'll post pictures if I can snap one of them...those suckers are fast! Spoke too soon-theres one, gotta go!

Long Overdue House Pictures!

Here ya go Rach & Britt...only have the downstairs and backyard so far. (we did a little move the mess to a different room trick to provide nice tidy clean house pictures when its less than tidy right now)

Notice how Jersey is in almost every picture...she loves to be around us at all times! Living room starting from the entry way looking through to the sitting area (where the blue ball is). In the 3rd picture wraps around to the kitchen. We are still unsure what to put in the empty space, but like it for now the way it is.

Deck-sealed the deal for Jake although we still need some patio furniture-that stuff is expensive. Its like buying regular furniture. We plan on waiting until late summer to get a nice dining set. Jake also has plans to power wash, seal and stain the deck before fall too.

The rest of the house to be continued! P.S. dont look at my flowers...they didnt do so well this summer. Next year I'll do better half of them died. I never have had a green thumb!