Farming in the City

A few weeks ago Jonah had a field trip with his preschool to the Boys Town farm. I grew up so close to Boys Town and yet had never been to the farm and had no idea you could go for free whenever you want! I've put that in my mommy file of things to do on lazy summer days as we had so much fun petting and feeding all the animals and their babies.

Here's Jonah ready to go farming.

Farmer Mike gave us the tour and here he is holding a kid for the preschoolers to pet. Jonah was a little timid to pet at first, but once he warmed up he was petting everything in sight. Abby, however, was all talk and no game and was interested in the idea of petting, but when it came time she wouldn't pull the trigger. So funny to have a girly girl.
She looks cute as a farmer though, doesn't she?

They had a little pen where the kids would chase down and toddler (?) chickens. This is Jonah working up the nerve for about 10 seconds to hold the chick long enough for a picture. :)

And, we learned a little piece of trivia from Farmer Mike. Chickens with white ears lay white eggs and chickens with red ears lay brown eggs.

Watching the pigs run around.

Curious Abs.

Jonah got a little slimy feeding the cows...

And they're favorite part of the tour by far, feeding the goats. Abby actually had the nerve to join in on this one and they even discovered their own way of calling the goats over.

It was a fun day and nice break from the house chaos. So glad that Spring has finally arrived!

Planting Day!

What a beautiful day to garden! It also happened to be the right timing to plant the rest of our garden. First though, we got to harvest our broccoli. Can't wait to eat it! Not a ton, but enough for a dinner side dish and hopefully we'll get some more out of the plants.

We planted 4 romas, 2 zucchini, 1 oregano, 1 basil, and 1, hopefully soon to be 2, bell peppers. I'm hoping to make and freeze a lot of pasta sauce this summer as we very much enjoyed it last summer and fall. Hopefully it will last a little longer this year. Our spinach, carrots, onions and strawberries are all thriving.
This year we let the kids plant their own little flower garden under two of our trees with their choice of impatients. They enjoy having their own space and it's quite the improvement from the plain dirt that we had there last summer. Really wish it got enough sun to grow pumpkins, but oh well. We'll keep the trees.

I have a cousin who farms corn (if you read our blog, you might remember the corn picking post from last summer) and he also sells critter corn at local stores. Through another cousin of ours, who happens to be one of the workers on our renovation (following me?), he passed along this DELUXE squirrel feeder and a bucket of corn. We have endless squirrels that climb along the top of our fence and now they have a place to snack. The kids are too excited to see them eat.

Nothing to speak of going on inside the kitchen, but we have word that we will get the rest of the cabinets at the end of next week, so hopefully next weekend we will be baking and just putting in finishing touches and backsplash!

Quick Update

We have a kitchen table to eat at!!! And a gas cooktop, microwave, sink, dishwasher, and refrigerator all hooked up. All we are missing at the moment is the double ovens, but there is an end in sight. We have confirmed that the rest of our cabinets should be coming in towards the end of next week, so that will be amazing. For the time being, we have a functioning kitchen and that makes for a happy mom.

Our first meal at the kitchen table in our new kitchen. Daddy couldn't be here, but it was still monumental either way.

It's messy and there's still construction stuff all over, but we'll still take it!

Our double oven, patiently waiting to be installed, sits in our living room.

And we have a ceiling fan in our living room now. It is amazing how much of a difference it makes to the look of the room and we actually have some light in there now.

And in case you hadn't noticed, our floor is in! It's a bit busy, but we really love it. It sort of ties all of our wood finishes together and we love the feel of it.

And if you are in the market for a sink, we love ours. And the faucet too for that matter.

So that's where we're at! Getting closer, but still not there yet. We have a lot of trim work to do, cabinets to install still, and backsplash to put in. Not to mention window coverings... still looking for a good deal on roman shades. Any suggestions? Can't wait to get this done, but glad to finally have some progress.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

The eggs have hatched! As we were having our usual dinner picnic outside we noticed a few extra mouths at the table. The mama bird was feeding the babies worms when we first noticed, but we spooked her and she left some hungry birds. Sorry guys! How precious are they though! The kids are so excited to see them.

Our hungry babes. As I mentioned, this is our usual place of dining these days. Either outside or on a picnic blanket inside. I think the kids will be sad when we once again have a
"real" dinner table.

Now, for a tour of our current kitchen. Dinner prep.
Microwaving in the garage.

Dish washing.

This guy has been sitting on our porch the past few days and Brian and I had no idea where it had come from. My dad stopped by today and enlightened us to the fact that this is the trimmers' (the guys installing our cabinets the past couple of days) lucky monkey. Apparently it makes its way to all the job sites for good luck. The workers that have been coming in and out of our home as they please the last few weeks have been.... interesting. :)

Now for our future kitchen! The left is the pantry and on the right is where the fridge will be.

So excited! More upper cabinets are still to be hung. And you can't get a great look at the paint color, but it looks great. I am really happy with it, which is good since Brian spend about 20 hours the last week painting. :)

The appliances, some of which will make their debut hopefully this Friday.

Our current fridge, which I usually have to climb over a few things to access.

I have to admit that I am running out of steam on this project, but I know that it will pay off and be beautiful. We really don't have that much longer! My dad has promised me a working kitchen sink, dishwasher, and stove by Friday, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And countertops tomorrow! Can't wait to be able to put stuff away again and start to get our lives back in order!!

Princess in the Making

Little Miss Abigail has become completely enamoured with all things princess. Out of the blue, she really became in love with the Disney princess characters and, realizing she had never seen any of the princess movies, I saw Snow White was on the Disney Channel one Saturday and DVRed it. We had a movie night (well, actually we split the movie into two different nights) and a bit to my surprise, Abby and Jonah loved the movie, poison apple and all. Abby could watch it everyday if I let her, and I will say she's gotten many extra chances these pass few weeks with the remodeling mess containing us and rainy days leaving us with not much to do indoors. Anyway, her favorite song is the Wishing Well song and I am asked almost every night to sing it to her. Today on the way home from the store with me she started singing it in the car and I had to get it on video for others to enjoy. Can you deny that the girl is her own mini princess? Since many of you probably aren't familiar with the song or movie, I put the youtube version of the sing she loves on here first so you might actually know what she's singing. :) I think I'm getting a sneak peak of what having my starry eyed girl will be like when her true "Prince Charming" comes along.

The Good and the Bad

First, a few non-disaster zone updates. We have eggs once again this year! This will be our third summer in this house and every summer we've had a nest with eggs. How fun! The kids keep getting lifted up each day to see if they've hatched.

Second, the garden has begun. These pictures were actually taken about a week ago and we have tall green onions, carrots sprouting, and spinach leaves appearing. And, something new this year, we have two broccoli plants with the broccoli starting to come in. Abby, our broccoli girl, is very excited. Jonah, not so much.

And the strawberries are already promising to be much more plentiful this year, which is great considering how fast the kids devour them.

Now for the good and the bad.

The good: Our drywall is almost complete and should be finished tomorrow.

The bad: Our house is dusty. Everywhere.

The good: We can paint the kitchen tomorrow and I have actually picked out a color I love. Sherwin Williams Silver Gray, which actually looks a bit green for whatever reason. This swatch doesn't look anything like it looks to me on the wall, but whatever. I like it.

The bad: The cabinets that were to get installed tomorrow (and the entire reason why we started the remodel in the first place) aren't going to work. Back to square one on the cabinets. Not good.

The good: In a frantic search to find new cabinets, we stumbled upon 3 cancelled orders for kitchens of the exact same wood, stain, and style that are at about a third of the normal price. Complete score! Here is a stock photo of the exact cabinets.

The bad: They don't have exactly the right pieces we need, so some would maybe need to be ordered. They will take 4 weeks to come in. BIG OUCH!!

The good: We have almost enough base cabinets from them to make what we have work and keep forging ahead.

The bad: There is essentially no way the kitchen will be completely finished for at least another month. Usable perhaps, but the project done, no.

The good: I am selling the cabinets we can't use on Craigslist (among other items from our former kitchen that are no longer needed) and we are making very good money on it. Enough to buy hopefully a new kitchen table that is bigger and better suits our needs and a few pieces of furniture for our living room.

So, that's where we're at. Hopefully the next pictures I put up are of painted walls. Can't wait to get this dust out!

Blank Canvas

We have walls!! The two rooms have officially become one. We still have a few more days of the drywallers mudding and sanding, but the majority of the drywalling is done. This window at the end is where the sink will be and was the dining room window.

This window is where our old sink was. To the right of it will be our fridge and to the left of it will be our pantry.

Our new ENORMOUS doorway. Brian will no longer need to duck. :)

This is looking in the kitchen from our living room. The opening on the right is now closed and things are taking shape!

And... probably what those of you who are actually interested have been waiting for... our finishes! Having a dad as a builder can be a bonus in remodeling I've found for many reasons, one of which being excellent deals! On the left is the flooring we will be putting in the kitchen and dining room. It's hickory and we love it! The slats will actually be an inch wider than these. In the middle is our granite-looking laminate countertop. And on the right is what our cabinets will be tentatively antiqued and painted to. We have gotten a set of cabinets for free which perfectly match ours, just the wrong stain. So, we're rearranging everything, mixing the two sets of cabinets here and there, and then painting and antiquing everything to match. I have a paint color picked out, but it's not set for sure and we're waiting on the backsplash for now until these other elements get put into place and we can see what we like.

The same stuff in natural light, in case you care. :)

So that's it! I think I will be blogging the layout soon as we're currently working on laying all the cabinets out in the garage making sure they work as we planned. The kids are enjoying all of our picnics outside and on the family room floor! I am working on a better game plan for meals this week, as cereal and bagels are going to get old quick.

In other news, Brian and I went to Ohio for a quick trip without the kids as he was inducted into his high school hall of fame on Saturday. We're proud of him! It was fun to get away and I was certainly thankful to get a break from the mess! Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for keeping the kids. They had a blast!