Wednesday, May 28, 2014

god made puppies cute

.....otherwise we would strangle them for peeing on the carpet. Again. After they came inside after a literal hour-long romp in the hay. Or grass. Or maybe it's the teething. Sven is great at not chewing on things, but he is days, maybe minutes, away from losing those baby teeth, which means that suddenly everything in the house looks like a chew toy. Yesterday two of the girls left their American Girl Dolls out on the floor. Yes. On the floor. Practically calling Sven's name to come see how their arms taste. Luckily we found them first and picked them up, but I had the girls each write a contract stating that they understand that leaving their dolls on the floor means that eventually they will be full of holes. ("They" of course refers to the dolls, not the girls) I think they get the point. Hopefully.
He's quickly outgrowing his favorite windowsill. 

Either way, I love my puppy more than anything except maybe my husband. Ok definitely not more than my husband, but sometimes it's a pretty close call.

Our favorite way to describe Sven right now is that he'll be a smart dog, but he's one dumb pup. But who doesn't love a little, clumsy, lick-y, body-bigger-than-his-brain puppy? Especially when he likes to cuddle like this:
He loves the girls. The feeling is very mutual.



 And if you're wondering how the cat is taking in this new adorable ball of fur, she's fine. She's taken to watching him from some unusual places though, like the hallway closet. (Side note: we live with a bunch of girls who don't know how to tell us that they just used the last roll of toilet paper, so we stock up. It saves my sanity.)

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

apple pie

There's nothing in the world I can think of better than a piece of homemade apple pie a la mode. I don't even like pie that much. I pass it by at the bakery. I don't order it at restaurants (even my favorite ones) and apples aren't even my favorite fruit. That being said, last summer my mom taught me how to make the perfect pie crust and since then I've been obsessed.



 I spent the summer and fall making fresh fruit pies and the winter making chicken pot pie, and pecan pie. 
My favorite part about pie is that it brings back so many nostalgic memories. Everyone has something they only like when made by their mother, and mine is pie. And besides the nostalgia, I'm making new memories with my girls. I announce I'm making pie and I get a resounding "YAY!" which feels pretty good. It's guaranteed that at some point one of them will wonder into the kitchen and ask what I'm doing. Why do you sift the flour? Why do you use ice water? How do you roll it out? What is that red thing for?

(side note: the red thing is my favorite pie-making tool. For whatever reason, putting foil on my crust just doesn't work for me. I either have to squeeze the foil down so tight that I mess up the crust, or I'm too light-handed and the foil won't stay on. My "Tan don't burn" is a life saver. You can get one here.) 
I get to share these pie-making memories with my girls, and I know that pie may not be their favorite thing either, but when they come and help me in kitchen like I helped my mom, then all of a sudden it is. Needless to say, it makes all the effort worth it.  

Sunday, May 18, 2014

DIY industrial ceiling chandelier


Our living room, our personal apartment living room, has no over-head light. And just one tiny little window in our back door. What I'm trying to say is, we live in a cave. When we moved in these lamps were randomly all put up on the bookshelf and it's been our only lighting. For over a year. Yikes.

I've been wanting to do something about it for some time, but haven't found a great solution until recently, and it was so easy (and awesome!) I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner.

Step 1: gather all necessary materials.
I went on a hunt to my local ReStore and found this amazingly hideous ceiling lamp. Actually, take away the huge (and surprisingly heavy) glass shade and you have this awesomely industrial light fixture.


Other stuff you need:
-pliers
-a drill (and safety goggles)
-cool sphere light bulbs
-a ceiling lamp kit (One of my issues was that I'm not replacing an existing ceiling light fixture- there just isn't one. And I really don't want to go through the ordeal of getting one mounted. Especially because some day in the very distant future we will move and I'm taking this baby with me!)
-two flower baskets (I was thinking about buying an old lamp shade and doing something along these lines, but one of my girls (with a fantastic eye) spotted these baskets and I really like how putting the two together makes it so globe-like. )

step 2: deconstruct the lamp (aka unscrew the top loop and take off the shade) and remove the chain with pliers.

step 3: drill a hole in the top of one of the baskets
I looooove any project that requires the use of my drill. I may or may not rev it a million times before starting.

I stopped taking pictures of each step at this point because it started to feel like I'm insulting everyone's intelligence. Of people I may or may not know. Over the internet. How rude.
step 4: put the bare light fixture into the new hole and screw the top piece back on and attach the bottom basket (I just used the chain clips from one of the baskets)

step 6: attach the new chain and thread the lamp chords through the chain. Add the new cord to the chain and then wire the new and old cords together. I seriously know nothing about this stuff, but it was as simple as twisting two pieces of wire together and covering with electrical tape. (but you can tell your friends it was super complicated!)

step 7: install swag hooks in the ceiling

step 8: plug in and swag! (and I mean that in both senses of the word. Ok, nope, nevermind, I take it back, too dorky.)


I couldn't be more happy with the final result! My living room is much less cave-like now. Of course it exposed all the dust bunnies we had living in the corner, so I had to vacuum immediately, but that's a small price to pay.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

sidewalk chalk

Middle school girls and hormones. Enough said, ammiright?? Sometimes it seems to be a daily struggle to get them to act their age and stop pretending to be 18. Sometimes they just need to relax and be kids. So we bought some sidewalk chalk.
 

Do you play THE GAME?! If you do, then you just lost.


We escalated to Frozen quotes pretty quickly:


I actually got him to sit for this photo! Squeal!

I love hanging out with our girls and being kids together.

Monday, May 12, 2014

who's the funny looking donkey?

Is there a Belieber or Twighard version of Frozen? A special name for all those of us who are obsessed with the movie, have watched it too many times and still find ways to quote it every day? Me included. Every girl in my house included. We need a name. I'm naming it. I dub all of us "icicles."
Aaaaanyway...... All this to say we got a puppy. And named him Sven. Because we are icicles. And we have been wanting a puppy for so so long. An obnoxiously whine-to-everyone-we-see long time.

You may ask how we obtained the most perfect little Golden Retriever and it really happened in a matter of minutes. Hubs and I walked into the puppy farm and went right for Sven. We took him out of his sad little kennel and within three minutes Josh announced that "this is our puppy." To which I said, "whoa there killer. Let's hang out for a bit and make sure. We're in no hurry!" We were there another 5 minutes before we walked out the door with him. Seriously. It was destiny. You just can't fight destiny.
{3 months old, 20 pounds}

All the way home we were brainstorming names and I finally said we should just forget it- something will come to us and we will know. We're in no hurry! (famous last words...) So after we got home we brought little Sven out to meet all the girls and one thing led to another (aka one Frozen quote led to another) and we instantly knew his name had to be Sven. Which is of course the best, because now we are constantly saying "stop it Sven!" Then we all died with happiness.
{He follows Josh around like.....well, like a little puppy dog!}

We love him so much already. He follows us around and just wants to be everyone's best friend, which everyone is fine with, I mean, come on, you can't see him and not be smitten. I know we are! (He's currently nestled right up to me. Eeeeek! So cute!) And if his just plain-old puppy cuteness didn't win you over, then watching him roll around in the grass definitely will. (or watching him play with an ice cube! But I don't have a video of that yet.)

{video from my phone. I'm all about quality} 
Rest assured you have not seen the last of this little guy.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

.... is this thing on?

I logged on and found a draft of a post still just sitting there.....from 3 years ago! Sheesh! It's like a virtual ghost town.
Old broken links... ::Que the western music::
Photos no longer available....  ::rolling tumble weeds::

So. Let's just jump in like no time has past, except that everything is different. You know, like:
-my hair is down to my waist now
-I live in Omaha, Nebraska

Ok wow. I started a list because I thought it would be long, but ok that's really it! I still have a husband I adore. I spend my free time making things. Lots of things. Any things. And the other stuff is just a little different. My job is different now, and I have one kitty and one puppy now (Long story. No really. I love telling long stories where you wonder half-way through where it's going and sometimes I forget too, but this one is boring. Even to me) And oh yea!  I'm still not great at taking photos so you can pretty much just expect phone photos. Although I just discovered this thing called instagram and they have filters, so yeah, color you impressed #i'mawesomenow #allthecoolkidsthinki'mcool.

I think at least once a month for the last 3 years I have told Josh that I'm going to start blogging again. Mostly, I really miss having this record of my life. I'm not a journaler, or a journalee, or a journal-keeping-type-person, so I love having this place that I can write down my thooughts and feeeelings and stuuuuff. You know, not like a journal at all. I'd love to stick to posting once a week, so stay tuned! And ignore the last post (from three years ago) that said I was going to keep updating....

I almost forgot! A photo to prove I am still alive (Unfortunately this is not where we live. Its from vacation in Temecula last weekend. )

Us in temecula