A Busy Week ... Again

This week has been a doozy! I felt like we had barely a minute to catch our breath with things planned back to back. But we've survived to tell the tale.

Monday I started watching the cutest little fellow. The family lives just down the road from us and the dad serves in Young Men's with Kellan and asked if we'd be willing to watch their little five month old two times a week. So he shows up in the morning while Kellan is at classes & then we hangout for awhile until Kellan gets back home.

Tummy time!

The rest of the week went by in a blur of homework and was punctuated only by the arrival of my favorite cousin Monica back from her mission to Vancouver, Canada! We wanted to be there at the airport, but I had classes & we both had YM & Activity Days that night so we had to miss it.

Friday was interesting because I had an interview for a position as a nanny from a woman who found me on a nanny site. It went really well but we'll have to keep you posted about it because we're not sure what's going to happen yet. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the first Friday of Spring with a picnic and soaked up the warmth. Kellan added to our gardening space and thought up lots of fun outdoor projects to spruce up our home while I worked on some projects for the living room. 

Saturday was crazy! We had to put our home back into a presentable state, which meant moving all of the piles of wood and paint out of our living room, because we had a home presentation for a friend. They wanted to win a food processor and needed us to allow someone into our home to make us a meal. Basically they were trying to sell us some cooking ware.  I don't even remember what it was called but it seemed a little hokey & it ended up making Kellan sick anyways.

Hopefully this next week will be much calmer.

Blessed

We went grocery shopping this morning after we finished our early classes and when we got home I started putting away the food and was having a bit of a difficult time finding room in our cabinets and pantry to get everything to fit, when it struck me (not just the Teddy Grahams) how incredibly blessed we are. We have so much food that we seriously have no place to put it all! 

We've been talking about poverty in my Sociology class and I felt incredibly selfish and ungrateful for not being more mindful of all the wonderful blessings we've been given; so I felt the need to express to someone just how lucky we are & writing it down seemed less awkward than calling someone up for that sole purpose. 

But all joking aside, we truly have been so blessed. We have a wonderful little home that we've made together and it fits our needs perfectly. We might not have the grandest place or all of the fancy things we'd like but we have everything we need and then some. We were so lucky to have found where we're at and in such a quick time with no difficulty and we've since learned we're paying far less than others in the same units! We love our ward and our callings and through them we've been able to meet some of the sweetest people ever. 

We have enough to meet all our needs & have extra that we can play around with. I have an incredible husband who puts up with my craziness & helps me with all of my hairbrained plans. He's a thoughtful and honest man who treats me like a queen and is generous with his time and resources. & he's handy & is willing to use his skills to help make my dreams come true. 

We have a supportive & loving family. We're healthy and have physical bodies that let us accomplish so much.

Basically everything about my life has worked out so spectacularly well & in a way so much better than I could have ever planned. You can't help but see the Lord's hand in all of it & I am so grateful for that. 

Everyday I'm hustlin'

This week has jam packed like crazy! But first some background.

Kellan & I have wanted to fix up our place since like forever, but we've always been so busy it's just kind of taken a back seat to everything else. We [okay I] disliked it so much we really never invited people over because we felt like it was a poor reflection of ourselves. ...does that sound super materialistic & shallow? I hope not, but lets move on. So I'd been eyeing this area rug from Ikea for awhile now, but Kellan loathes, and I mean loathes, Ikea so we've only been twice and each time he would just lag behind twirling the cart in circles down the aisle. Yup folks, that's the man of my dreams right there. But he knew I'd been wanting to go pick up the rug so last weekend he finally agreed to go with me! It was incredible. He let me walk through the WHOLE store & only complained like once!

We picked up my rug, I thanked my man, and home we went. All was well....expect things generally never work out so easily for us. We laid her out and I realized the square rug just wasn't jiving with our long rectangular room. I thought all was lost until Kellan offered to go back to Ikea with me again. Twice in one day, let alone month?! What universe was I in!

But it wasn't a joke, we went back, got my new perfectly sized rug, & picked up two more project pieces, score! Then we hit up Rita's Italian Ice to reward Kellan for being such a good sport & so he could introduce me to one of his mission time favorites.

Okay so that was all just last Saturday, but it sparked a fire in me & we've torn our house to pieces since making everything a little more us. Take a look.

It started when we had to move the sectional to put in the rug. I wasn't here when Kellan bought it & set it up so I had no idea how it really broke down but I was shocked to discover there was a whole sofa hidden under all those pillows & we spent the evening rearranging furniture.

Monday after class I decided the console table just wasn't doing it for me & I wasted no time priming it for something new. We threw in Catching Fire, put down the plastic from the rug & I got to work!

From day one, Kellan has wanted curtains for our living room but we have such an irregularly shaped window, finding curtain panels and a rod were never easy. So I decided to improvise, and stay within our teeny tiny budget by making our own curtain rod!

I got some electrical conduit pipe & cut it down to the right size. That was the easy part, next I had to find finials I liked but Home Depot didn't have anything other than ugly wood ones. I wandered over to the hardware department in the hopes that they might have some extra large glass cabinet pulls I could use but no such luck. I was about to give up when it dawned on me. Doorknobs! I turned around & found these beauties!

The doorknobs only came with one long screw though, so I had to send Kellan back to find something that would work for the other side. He had to get a bolt sheared off at the store & the employee told him to not let me on Pinterest anymore. Jokes on him, I came up with on my own!

A sneak peek of the console too

The curtains are my own project so I got to do all the setup! There was a slight hiccup when I installed the supports the first time so this was round two & ended up being golden.

While I was working on the curtain rod, Kellan was putting in new outlets! FINALLY! We'd had crummy, broken, yellow outlets since we've moved in and always hated them because the plugs never stay in. We put in white decora outlets and it was like the whole wall got a face lift. I've never been so happy to turn on the lights.

So that's some of the crazy projects we've been up to this week all while being busy with school. Friday Kellan spent the whole day on the couch working on a big research paper while I painted away on our new nightstands. Exciting!

Today we took it easy and hosted a dinner with my sister and her cute family. We made some lasagna & a chocolate chocolate chip bundt cake. Delish! Then we took Shelby to the park by our house and put her on the swings for the first time ever! She was a champ and LOVED it!

Shelbs & Uncle Kelly

Hope you've all had as great a week as we have!

Paint & Sawdust

It's been awhile, I know. But let's skip all that & just say we're alive & occasionally remember we have this thing called a blog.

Lately we've been incredibly busy with school and all that comes with it, but we've also gotten caught up in some incredibly fun projects. 

You guys it's official. I'm obsessed with power tools. Like a super unhealthy amount because one: I don't have any clue what I'm really doing & two: those bad boys are pricey! 

I've also become obsessed with copper and literally drooled all over my computer screen when I came across a stunning satin copper KitchenAid at Williams-Sonoma. I haven't been able to get her off my mind since February. & yes, I know it's a she, because she's just too pretty to be a boy. This love affair sent me calling every body shop in Provo hoping beyond hope they could paint ours and that Kellan would let me go ahead with it. 

Sadly, my man just didn't see my vision but I haven't given up hope yet. That beauty will one day be mine and we'll ride off in the sunset creating culinary perfection together. 

But enough about my daydreams. That took a turn I wasn't expecting. 

So back to power tools! Kellan & I recently came upon some free time after he quit his job and I quickly filled some of it with my crazy DIY schemes. First on my list was creating some extra counter space in our dismally small kitchen. We borrowed a friend's miter saw (I NEED one now) and got the rest of the tools thanks to Kellan's birthday monies. It took some time because we started it a bit before he quit but the end results were better than I'd even hoped for!

We really wanted a butcher block top, but couldn't find anything in a price range that fit our budget so we decided to make our own faux butcher block top. It took a lot of work & resembles a jig saw puzzle but we love the result.

We also had to do a lot of the work inside because it was snowing pretty hard outside, but it would get sawdust EVERYWHERE. I vacuum got a good work out. 

Why yes I do wear jewelry & chemistry goggles when I work, don't you? 

Do you see all that sawdust flying?!
& he kept arguing with me that he didn't need to wear a face mask.
That boy. 

Please excuse the horrible mess, we've since cleaned & organized.

Building this took lots of nourishment in the form of pizza & cheese dip.

We sanded, painted and stained all while it snowed around us.
That's commitment for yah.

It took some work, but it was so much fun to make! I'm already planning our next big wood working project and have a few smaller projects currently going on right now. Our living room looks like a construction zone but we have some big changes to reveal soon. :)