At Home for Christmas

This is my 4th year in Portland and it's the first time I've been here for Christmas.  While it's going be hard to be away from my immediate family this year, it's exciting to spend it with Aaron in our new home.

We went to a tree farm to hand pick and cut down our tree.  It's a beautiful Nobel Pine and it's over 7 feet tall.  I can see how going to the same tree farm every year could easily become a family tradition.  It was a fun day.

Cinnamon scented pinecones add a little extra holiday warmth

Our Upstairs Bath

(please excuse the grainy photo, this was from the original house listing)

Before:

After:

I am completely in love with this mint color.  It is a refreshing yet relaxing color.  Perfect for an old bathroom

Our Dining Room Makeover

Here is what our dining room looked like when we first moved in.  While I like this pumpkin color, it wasn't the look I wanted.  

Primer can be helpful.

Not at all attractive!

Dark Blue is so much fun, but I had no idea that I would need about 5 coats of paint.  And this is one ugly light!

Notice the new light!  This isn't the final lighting choice for the dining room, but it will do until we can afford to purchase the one that we want.  This light will then move into the fireplace room.  It was a great purchase from a rummage sale - and all the credit can be given to my man for finding it.  Great find honey!

The back wall picture is a silhouette picture of my family.  I wasn't sure how it would look, but I'm happy with the result.

I've always liked the look of plates on walls.  I spent an afternoon finding a few plates that I liked.  The common theme?  Gold edges.  It feels finished to me, but I imagine if I find a plate that I can't live without, I will replace a few that are currently in the mix.

I searched all over town for a long buffet table.  Aaron and I both liked the look of old merchandise counters and so I was bound and determined to find one for our dining room.  I felt lucky when I found this piece!  This is actually the back of the merchandise counter - The front is all glass.  It's a perfect piece for our dining room.  A few hours of sanding is all it took to make it look amazing!

So far, I've found the two awesome metal chairs and this amazing old church bench.  The blue chairs are for another table that we use on our porch in the summer.  They are a temporary fix until I find a better match.  Finding the perfect chairs can be a difficult process!

What's missing?  Curtains & a Rug!  I have my eye on the perfect ones, but they aren't cheap.  We've gotta save for a  bit before the room will be completed.

Here is a picture I took on Thanksgiving before everyone came over.  It was such a warm feeling to see the table all decorated for a holiday.  This is what a home is all about!

2011 Holiday Card Design

I had a lot of fun designing our Holiday Cards this year!  We enjoyed an extra long fall here in Portland and I wanted a card that gave a feeling of a little fall, winter and warmth.  Each card is made slightly different of course, but here is an example:

Thankful Board

I put together a Thanksgiving board for our buffet table.  All of our guests wrote what they were thankful for on the leaves.  I'll use the leaves as Christmas ornaments next month.

A Card for My Man

Aaron was out of town on a work trip for a few days and I was feeling a little creative.  We have a huge fig tree in our backyard and while we both love figs, there is only so much we can do with a million figs!  We've had fig preserves, Figgy pudding, figs with cheese and several other things.  I mean this tree is huge!  If you walk under the tree, chances are you will be hit in the head with a fig bomb.  Thankfully our Lab loves figs (she loves anything that is edible) and she keeps the ground fig free.

I'm happy with the Fig Card.  If I was a fig....he would be my newton!

Another Delicious Smoothie

My new favorite!

2 Bananas
Water
Vanilla Almond Milk
Protein Powder (I use vanilla)
Omega 3 liquid
Tbls or so of Almond Butter

Independence Day

Portland Fireworks

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Thanks to Serena for sharing such an awesome recipe!


2 cups of almonds ( I soak mine for 24 hours and rinse them once or twice during that time and give um a good rinse before use)
3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup melted butter ( I use coconut oil)
1 tbs vanilla or almond 
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa pwd

~oven 350
~glass baking dish greased with coconut oil ( or whatever you normally use)
~make sure almonds are drained well, add to food processor and grind till fine but not almond butter...may need to stir a few times
~mix boiling water and cocoa pwd till dissolved (I found I didn't need the water boiling just really hot and it works good to use a whisk)
~add above cocoa pwd/water mix, brown sugar, eggs, coconut oil, vanilla, salt to almond meal in food processor. ...mix
~(optional) add 1/2 cup chocolate chips and turn the food processor on again for a minute or two
~pour into pan
~bake 40-50ish minutes 

Weekend at the Coast

Getting Dirty

Talk about experiencing a day in the garden!  I spent 9 hours digging, moving plants, and building a patio. Which, I must say, made me lose every bit of desire that I had to learn how to lay tile.  Laying brick is NOT easy.   Getting all the dirt even and flat was nearly impossible!   To have a perfect patio I would have had to spend three long days making the dirt even.  My goal was to have a nice patio in the garden area for a fire-pit.  I accomplished that goal!  You can definitely tell it wasn't done by a professional, rather, most may guess it was done by a 15 year old.  It was a good learning experience.

Bring on the summer parties with friends around the fire!

Paint Job

Ugly paint can make a room look terrible!  Aaron and I decided our first project was to repaint the spare room.  The trim was orange and the walls were a smokey white - not attractive!

Painting always sounds fun, but when you are doing the trim, walls and ceiling, it isn't so much fun.  Four days into the project we are almost done.  We still need to get some hardware, hang a few pictures, a new light and hang the curtains, but the spare room is pretty much ready for it's first guest!  We have family coming in June, so they will have a nice comfy room where they can feel at home.


                                                                             Before

After

Our New Home

Buying a home is never easy, but for whatever reason I expected it to be.  I was determined to find a house on the third weekend shopping.  We looked at everything from brand new homes, to homes that needed so much work that we would have spent years house poor.

After feeling discouraged our last Saturday of looking, Aaron suggested we drive by a home a realtor had sent us weeks before while I was in NY.  He had driven by it and liked it, but didn't push it on me because I was hoping for a dining room and an eat-in kitchen.  The kitchen in this house was tiny!

We pulled up and I fell in love!  It was perfect!  It was the exact style we had been looking for and had everything else (minus the eat-in kitchen) that we had wanted.

Our realtor met us with the keys.  As soon as we walked in I knew it was "the house."  I started crying and got so excited!  Aaron was excited in his own way too.  By the end of the weekend we had made an offer.   I won't go into all the details of the drama we experienced trying to get everything to go through, but I will happily say WE MOVE IN THIS WEEKEND!  6 days before my 30th birthday.  Happy Birthday to me!

Here she is: