Christmas 2011

Christmas is simple this year around our place. No garland, simplified decor. I'm going for easy, homemade and CHEAP! Here's a little glimpse into Meliza Christmas this year!


I'm into yarn lately. Not a great picture, but I am enjoying the jingle bells, cranberries and yarn balls this year. Goes with the cheap, simple, homemade theme this year.

My Black Friday buy! This is all I went out to buy black Friday and I saved $5 too :) Didn't want to go with the bow, so I tried my hands at some posies. I was inspired from thepleatedpoppy.com. One of my favorite blogs to follow.

My posies up close. I love them.

We found it! Took a bit of looking. The place we went I don't think shaped the trees at all, which is fun to have a natural looking tree, but I wish I would have taken a pic when we got it home. It was wild and outta control when we got it in the house. I did some major pruning and shaping and this is what we ended up with.

Pretty!

When we went through the stuff in the garage, we found Steve's old ornaments. These sweet little skates were recovered and I am just in love with them.

Well that is it for now. Stay tuned as I may add more as we actually get closer to Christmas. But first, did you catch Linus' monologue on what Christmas is all about? No? Allow me to link you. I am simply in love with this kid and his delivery of the Christmas message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn10FF-FQfs

Merry Christmas!

Giving Thanks

Well, we hosted our first official Thanksgiving this year. If you don't count the one we did in April for Dad's birthday. I think it turned out pretty well. Here's a little glimpse at what our celebration looked like :)

Here is the whole table. Before I remembered that people need silverware to eat. I kind of forgot that detail as I was having fun figuring out how to decorate the table.

Aren't they cute little turkeys? Found this easy and cheap craft projects from a website called OurBestBites.com

Steve is my baker. I am the cook. But when it comes to a BIG cooking task, he enjoys the challenge. I didn't tackle the turkey until it was on my plate! It was delicious too! It looks like they were getting along great without me right?

Everyone being a good sport about my photo taking as they are ready to dig in!

And that turkey cooked up some yummy homemade broth for soup at the end of the night!

This and That

Well, I have nothing much to report on exciting things in life. End of October and beginning of November were SUPER busy working with Compassion First for their banquet. Thanks to all who joined us and helped us raise just over $172,000 for our girls in Indonesia. And since I was so busy I have no pictures...

... except for what busy little beaver Steve has been up to with home (well, garage really) renovation.

Here is a little bit of what weekends have looked like around here.


Operation clean up and clean out.

This has been so far the least fun part of re-doing the garage. It was a LONG day but we got rid of lots of unused stuff, donated more and found ourselves some more SPACE!

Here is what things looked like after being cleaned out. Then things started looking worse as Steve is getting into the project. But that is how it always goes right? Things have to get worse before they get better.

All the old particle board came down and new OSB went up.

Here is where we are now in the project. OSB is up, new sub panel is in and conduit is almost all up. I am not doing much to help on this project. Me and garage dust/wood dust just don't get along. But I am excited to see a pretty work space out there and MAYBE get to have some input on how to organize out there. Oh and don't tell Steve I called his workshop pretty.

I have been doing some crafting. This is my latest crafty thing. Maybe in the future I'll post my Thanksgiving table (we are hosting this year) and my kitchen craft I am working on. Pinterest is just a fantastic place for homemade ideas. Love that site. Ok, one last pic of my craft. A new way to organize earrings and I LOVE it!



Hope you all have a happy Turkey day! Gobble gobble. It's my favorite meal of the whole year!!!

Catch Up

It's taken me a while to get these pics up, but alas, here they are. We took a day trip to Tillamook during my vacation time and it was a super fun day. With so much focus on projects all summer it was a nice get away for us both.

I could not remember ever going to the Tillamook Cheese factory and so that is where I wanted to go for our adventure. It was a BEAUTIFUL day at the coast.


Exploring the beach. We spent a lot of time scoping out potential camping sites for later days. This is on the beach by the Barview Jetty campground in Garibaldi. It was a HUGE campground and we had lots of fun exploring. Can you see how pretty it was? I just LOVE love LOVE the coast, especially on days like this.


I'm hereeeee, and I love it!

Squinty photo. Not too many people around to take a picture on a Monday morning on the coast.

Steve had to take a picture of the boat outside. It is a cute boat, but I was there for the cheese!

And boy did we find it. Look at those huge blocks of cheese. Yumm-o.

I was so excited to be there :) I was disappointed that they didn't have the cheese curds or squeeky cheese everyone always talks about from back in the day when they went. Mostly the factory was watching the packaging process. The cheese making happens in big vats you can't see in any more.

Steve didn't want to be the farmer. He was happy to take pictures instead. We also had lunch, shopped for cheese and had ice cream while we were at the factory. I had a 5 mini scoop sampler, couldn't make up my mind.

We took a little detour to see Cape Meares. What a cute little town. We found a bench to sit on and enjoy the view. (It was right next to a little beach house we dreamed about owning for more frequent beach getaways. It's fun to dream lol )


Another chance for a photo. Another squinty photo. Steve loves it when I whip out the camera. After this stop we headed to Cape Lookout to scope out that campground as well. Good thing we did. The map of the campsites online and reality are very different indeed.

Well there you have it folks. Our day trip outta Portland. I'm ready for another beach trip. I just love it there, especially with my hubsters as my travel buddy :)

Project Update

The shed is complete! Well it's complete in my mind. Steve still needs to install downspouts but the door is up, the lock is on, and I got to move lots of stuff out of the garage! YIPPEE!!! It's a beautiful shed and MUCH improved over what used to be out there.

BEFORE : Little lean- to that couldn't

AFTER: The big shed than can!


Other projects? Using the vegetables from the garden. I made my first homemade marinara sauce using tomatoes from our garden and my parents'. Here is is being featured for dinner this evening. A little sweet, but still wonderful to have homegrown food on the plate.



And while my parents frolicked in Hawaii, we watered the yard for them. Ask a thank you for ourselves, we picked a HUGE bouquet of flowers from their yard and there are SO many more flowers left to welcome them home.




It might be time to refresh our supply as well. I love gardens and summer time. I think next year I'd like to plan to make the garden last more into the winter, but we'll see how space allows next year.

The summer of projects

I never liked the yellow house color. I was VERY excited when Steve agreed to paint the house this summer. Then the actual project arrived, specifically painting trim, and I am wavering in my enthusiasm.

The new color? Love it!

The process we are in the middle of to finish the project? I don't love it. Trim is not a fun thing to paint. It just isn't. Being in awkward positions high on a ladder that isn't quite stable... gives me the shivers. It's the price I must pay for my pretty house though. I know I'll appreciate it more having done it myself, well with a lot of work on Steve's part too ;) A lot.

Here's the latest photos of our home improvement project.


Gettin' ready


The transformation begins

Break for lunch!


Clean up the supplies


My worker bee, very dirty from painting!


End result. *sigh* so much more clean and crisp :)


And changing paces a little bit, the beautiful shelves in our shed. All that's left is hanging the door :)