Sunday, May 27, 2012

Mother's Day

For mother's day, I figured we as a family could do something for my mom my brother Kyle & I haven't been able to do for years.  Pictures, as a family.  We got them taken at our wedding, but, very few was I smiling in.  I kinda fell down the stairs that morning, sprained my ankle and had a migraine.  Fun right?

All of our pictures were taken by my best friend who is getting into photography.. you can find her site here.
 Kristee & Parker
 Parker
 Mimi (me) & Parker
 My brother Kyle & nephew Isaac
 Kyle, Isaac, Debra
 My amazing parents Michelle & Al, a beautiful 29 years of marriage
 All of us
In love
 Kiss me goodnight.
2 years of love

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Happy Anniversary

Hard to believe it's been a year since we said "I do".

Cory made me a wonderful dinner the night before our anniversary, it was a recreation of our wedding dinner, roast and all the fixings, even homemade bread.

We've learned a lot about each other in the last year.  Most people say the first year is the hardest.  We've crossed some obstacles this year, between sickness, migraines, and our struggle with fertility... I think we both spent some time going back to the day we married to remember what we said in our vows.

I wrote our wedding ceremony, everything right down to the commas and periods came from me.  I meant every word, I know he did as well.  We've found strength and sorrow together.  We've fervently hoped to be parents, we've faced cancer in a family, debt, nothing ever going right, and held on.   I would say these vows all over again.. because today, they have even more meaning.


I, Kelly, choose you, Cory.. as my best friend, my love for life.
Today I give myself to you in marriage.
I promise to encourage and inspire you, to laugh with you,
and to comfort you in times of sorrow and struggle.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad,
when life seems easy and when it seems hard,
when our love is simple, and when it is an effort.
I promise to be faithful to you, I promise to love you, commit to you and support you.
From this day forward, you shall not walk alone. My heart will be your shelter and my arms will be your home. As I have given you my hand to hold, I give you my life to keep.

 

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Flowers




 Well.  I started some of our flower planting.  Here's the beginning. I have to clean up the leaves that were in the ditch.  This is on the left side of our yard.  Small start, but everything will expand!





Saturday, May 19, 2012

Figuring out Spring Moves

One of the things I have not been able to fix quickly around our house that I don't like, is.. well.. the house, and the yard.  We go back and forth between colors, landscaping.  Cory is good with mowing the lawn.  Not me.  As you can see in the first picture... the color of the house, is not special to the neighborhood. 

 I think we'vd decided the spot where the a/c unit is, we are putting a slider we already own in & laying a cement patio there, it's right off the front of our kitchen.


 We have so many trees it's ridiculous. 
 As you can see, no one has loved the landscape in a long time!
 I have some grasses and things to liven up the side of the garage, until we can figure out what to paint the house.

I'm putting my own mark slowly, the chairs are two of my favorites, I bought them on clearance from target and placed cute pillows on them.  I love sitting in them, we never use that door.


I purchased some flowers for this corner.  The lily's drive me nuts.  No one loves lilies that much, do they?  The multiply like rabbits!  Or maybe rabbits multiply like them?


Thursday, May 17, 2012

Dry Cream Soup

In an effort to "DIY" our house and save money on stuff we spend a ton on, like.  Cream soups, a dollar a can, and.. a lot of recipes we use take several cans.  

So I found a recipe online that gave a base of powdered milk.


 4 cups of powdered milk, 3 cups of corn starch, 3/4 cups onions.

1 cup bullion
 4 t each of basil, thyme and ground pepper.  Much like the original creator I didn't have Thyme so I originally planned on using parsley.
 I then remembered I had Thyme that was dried in the fridge.  So I  chopped it up.
To use in a recipe of a substitute of one can of condensed cream soup, mix 1/3 cup dry mix with 1 1/4 cup water. Cook until thick.  I do a lot of these recipes in the crock-pot, I've just been tossing in the ingredients, for cream of mushroom, I used canned mushrooms and used the juice in place of some of the water.  Boiled down a bit of broccoli and used that water and chopped broccoli. 

It's much less fattening.  Enjoy!

Dry Cream Soup

4 cups non-fat dried milk
3 cups cornstarch
1 cup bouillon of your choice
3/4 C freeze dried minced onions
4 teaspoons each dried basil, dried thyme & pepper
One can of condensed cream soup= mix 1/3 cup dry mix with 1 1/4 cup water. Cook until thick

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

So begins the sewing

 Well, It's been busy around here.  Cory and I hit our one year mark of marriage, started our garden.  Oh yes, that's why I'm here.  To show you our garden!  Well.. the start of it.  I had the jiffy sets, so I started seeds that needed a jump.

 It was almost too easy.  Pour in 1 3/4 cups of water.

 It took maybe 30 seconds to go from lake of stuff to: Pods.

I shook out the seeds on the counter.  These are some of the Roma Tomato seeds


 The ones below are the peas.


Looking at the dirt as I was beginning my first ever garden..  I wondered how I was going to tell which leaf from which leaf?  So, I made a drawing.  Very thought out wasn't it?

 

My seeds are started. We will pick up the supplies for our raised garden beds.