Speck Gaddy

Meet Speck. (sorry it's turned sideways)

This picture is over a month old so I bet he/ she looks quite different now, I definitely do.

Have a good weekend!

St. Patrick's Day Party and the upcoming weekend

Look at my new spring purchases: (I love target!)

Last night we had a St. Patrick's day party.  I usually have class on Thursday nights, but didn't last night so we decided to spend some time with friends we haven't seen as much as we would like lately.  Then we decided to add a few more friends. Eventually it turned into our entire "friend group" which, when counting all of the kids is a large group.  The St. Patrick's theme was an after thought.  But fun!  It was potluck, everyone had to bring something Irish or green.  We enjoyed lots of food and sat on our back deck  enjoying the spring weather for most of the evening.
I made these:

Spinach Dip ("green")

Shepherd's Pie (Irish)

Mint Chocolate Trifle- we still have a little left- its dangerous!

I know I already took a picture of my tulips, but now they are in bloom.  It looks like spring around here!

This weekend we are hoping to see some family friends visiting from out of town.  And then to the cabin with my parents!  We love going to the cabin. Imagine a place with peace and quiet and time constraints do not exist...

This is one of my projects for today.  I froze these tomatoes from our garden last year.  I think Michael was tired of them taking over our freezer, so I am doing something about it.  I am thawing them out for tomato soup.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes. 

Have a great weekend!


**Update on project tomato: After they thawed out, they didn't smell good.  Not a good sign.  I'm throwing them out.  Lesson learned.  This summer I will can my extras.  We are turning into Little House on the Prairie over here.  Now I need to learn how to can them...

Coming out of Hibernation

Now that spring has (almost officially) arrived, I am coming out of my blogging hibernation.  Really it has more to do with the fact that I feel my life is going at lightening speed and if I don't document what we are doing, I won't remember a thing.  Which is why I started the blog in the first place.  I am not going to try to recap everything I have done since my last blog post.  I'm going to start much more recently.  

 This is by no means a full account of what I have been doing.  Its just the things I have taken pictures of on my phone.  I am terrible about taking pictures with friends, so you won't see any of my social life here.  And neither of us care to see pictures of my school work.  Which is a lot more this semester. 

In no particular order...

Cooking. I do as much of this as I can.  I am not a crafty person so this is my domestic hobby.  I love the whole process- planning what I am going to cook, making the list, grocery shopping, preparing the food, and of course eating it! (Maybe not the whole process, doing dishes is the worst, luckily I have the BEST husband who does them a lot).  I have collected more cookbooks than I will ever use, plus the internet has infinite recipes, so rarely do I cook the same thing twice.  I should probably start blogging about what I cook so I will remember what I have made and whether it was good.  Below is a picture of quinoa with cranberries, carrots, apples and cinnamon.  It was delish, but second place to my favorite spiced quinoa recipe.  If you follow Michael on instagram he added a photo of a new dish I cooked last night off of my good friend, Melissa's blog.  Thanks Melissa for the Lemon Chicken recipe, its was INCREDIBLE!

Easter!  I try to keep a few small seasonal decorations in my house.  Its fun to change it up!

Terrible picture, but proof that I crafted.  This is hanging on the mirror on my mantle. 

One of my favorite times of the year is quickly approaching- planting season!  I don't usually plant seeds for our garden, we prefer to buy seedlings. But these little experiments are not our staples, so I thought it'd be fun to try.  There are carrots, sunflowers, dill (for home made pickles), and kale.  

Our garden.  Its a little bit of a mess right now.  But our spring crop of strawberries is quickly growing.  Today I planted some lettuce, spinach, basil, cilantro.  These do not like summer heat (except basil) so they do well as spring crops.  

I've been wanting a bird feeder since we moved into our house ONE YEAR ago!  I finally bought one.  They ate the entire feeders worth of seed in just a few days.  I am going to wait a little while before refilling.  We have so many birds in our yard anyway.  And I don't want them to be like stray cats and rely on me for food.  We can't afford to feed hundreds of birds. 

Spring time at our house is the best.  I'm always wondering how it is we get to live here.  Look at all that peace and quiet!

I have had a blank space on this wall since we moved in.  At first I was waiting to decide how to arrange the furniture.  Then I decided the furniture just wasn't right, so we bought a new couch ( thank you michael for your patience) .  Finally I bought some frames for the space, now I have to decide what to put in them.  Will it ever end?!

Hyacinth in our front flower bed!  This little guy sprung up very early.  It has a fun story- most saturdays from early spring through late fall we go to the farmer's market and Michael usually buys some fresh flowers for me.  One saturday last spring I picked a still planted (as opposed to cut) hyacinth and kept it potted inside.  After it died, I planted the bulb...and here it is.  Reincarnated.   

We went bowling last weekend with some friends. It was the first time in over a year that I bowled.  I'm not telling you what I scored, but it was a new low.  

Last weekend Michael was doing some garden prep, pulling weeds.  I saw these tops, and told him I thought they might be carrots instead of weeds.  And, obviously they were.  The strange thing is we planted carrot seeds last May and this is the first we have seen of the harvest.  Did they grow this spring?  Have they been down there since last summer?  Wouldn't they have rotted?  We don't know.  But we do have carrots.  

Another craft!  I wish I would have taken a before picture.  I bought the supplies for this last fall.  Its one of the projects I have put off for a long time because I thought it would be time consuming.  But it really wasn't. Glad to check it off the list. 

Planted some tulips!  My favorites.  They are coming early this year, just like everything else.  The great thing about these is you can plant the bulbs and have them in your flower bed next year.  If critters don't dig the bulbs up and eat them.  Which happened to my tulips from last year (I think).  I also bought a lot of pansies from Lowe's (on sale for $1 a package!) I'll take a picture once they are in full bloom.

I'd say thats a pretty good update for now.  I should have a fun update after tomorrow.  What started as a casual dinner with a few friends has turned into a St. Patrick's Day party at our house.  I hope the weather is nice, we will need the back deck to fit everyone!

Before and After

I want to begin by saying that we love our house, and I do not want to sound the least bit unthankful in this post.  But, like all houses, there are improvements we would like to make.  Our house was an estate sale purchase in a round about way (complicated but boring story).  The last, and only family, to live in it before us was an elderly couple, therefore it can be concluded that some updates are to be desired. Although, we are very grateful that everything is in working order, and the only changes we might make are cosmetic.  Here is a small, inexpensive, quick, easy change we made, that I think makes a big difference:

Please ignore the decor on the mantle.  Its the only close up picture of my fireplace, decorated for a baby shower.  

Before:

After:

(Obviously the Christmas decor is only temporary.  I took this on my phone just for this, so it isn't the best quality. )

You really can't see the full effect this close u, but I have more "before and after" posts up my sleeve for this same room, and don't want to give anything away.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, we certainly did!

Christmas Ornament Tradition

We do not have many Christmas traditions of our own yet.  I think that happens when you have your own kids.  But we do have one - the ornament of the year.  We do not have one of the "matchy-matchy" trees, although I think those are pretty.  Instead, our tree has ornaments with meaning-even if mismatched.   Each year we add at least one (but usually more) ornament that represent a significant event of that past year.  In ten years from now, we will be able to look back and remember what we did each year, just based off of our ornaments.  Here they are so far...

2007-
We were engaged this Christmas.  The ornament isn't the cutest or Christmasy-est, but we bought it at Vanzant's orchard, where Michael proposed.

2008- The year we got married!  The first ornament is obvious, the second is from a (mission) trip we took to Egypt just a few days after Christmas.  

2009- We spent a lot of this year overseas. The two ornaments are a (mini) shoe and a cooking pot commonly seen in the country we spent the most time.  

2010- The year Michael started working at Field Agent- this ornament is obviously homemade and is hiding on the back of the tree- but until their company has an ornament, this will have to do.  

2011- This year we went to Scotland and Ireland on vacation.  The cross is a Celtic cross from Ireland, and the other is self explanatory from Scotland.  We also became homeowners this year- ornament coming soon. 

Not all of our ornaments having meaning.... yet.  Hopefully by year 50 of marriage they will.  

Where I Have Been: The Baby Boom

Well, I stopped blogging. But I have been BUSY!  I will finish my first semester of grad. school this next week.  Woohoo!  And then of course there is the normal holiday business this time of year.  But,  mostly, I have been a baby shower marathoner.  5 of my closest friends in the whole world are pregnant, and one just had a baby.  Not only does this make for lots of fun and excitement, but lots of baby showers as well. I helped host 4 in 5 weeks, which involves traveling and having company in our home.  These are some pretty special babies.
Now to hold you over until the next post, some Christmas card photos our great friend Ryan Klintworth (of Klintworth photography) took of us!  Since we are such great friends we had some bonus play time experimenting- turned out super fun even if I can't take myself seriously when I try not to smile.

http://www.klintworthphotography.com/p592248747

Middle of nowhere, Arkansas

My family owns a cabin in the middle of no where.  We have only had it for about a year, but it is one of our favorite weekend activities.  We can easily travel there for one night, and its sort of half way between us and my parents, so we meet there a lot.  Its very rustic.  It was once a church, long ago, but since then has been converted. In the past year my family has improved it from camping with a ceiling, to adding running water and a bathroom complete with toilet and shower, along with basic kitchen appliances such as a stove, and coffee maker.  We went last weekend. Here are some pics.

Its hard to see because of the shadows.  Its me, Michael, and my parents.  It is hunting season right now, so better safe than dead with the orange. ( We weren't hunting just going for a walk)

It was a beautiful weekend to go!  This creek is just a short walk away.  Last time we were here we found some bear droppings in this very spot.  Its really in the wilderness.  No cell phone reception either, which is part of the appeal. 

Look at these cuties! my parents new dogs.  They are hunting beagles.  I have a soft spot for beagles, my favorite pet ever was Chip, a miniature Beagle.  

These are some cookies I made for  a Halloween party that we had at our house.  Cute huh?  I probably won't post about the party, I am ready to move on from Halloween to the really good holidays.  If you are curious, look on facebook.  I was a hot air balloon!  It was fun.  

This weekend is exciting!! Its Michael's birthday and Katy is coming to stay with me!! woohoo! AND we bought a new couch, light fixture, and side table today.  Pics to come (when we get them in)