Settling In...

Well, it seems that we are starting to settle in to our new life here. Things are becoming routine and we are learning our way around.

We finally got the chance to go to church on Sunday. We tried out Reality LA in Hollywood. Although it seems to be a great church it's not quite our style. We both come from small church backgrounds so we knew that a mega church would probably not be the place we settled down. We are hoping to try out another church on Sunday and hopefully find a place where we fit in. We are really missing the support and love from a church family.

Last week we started our childbirth preparation classes. We were both excited about the class because it meant we are just that much closer to meeting our baby girl. The first class was definitely interesting...we both learned a lot and realized that we still had things to talk about and decide. Our instructor is very good at what she does and we both liked her. She gave us a list of good things that husbands could say to their wives during labor...some of them were pretty funny and cheesy!

Marley has had several adventures since we moved here. His first adventure started with the move itself when he traveled in the car for the first time ever. He did so well and was a trooper. His next adventure came when he decided that he wanted to see what the other side of our new fence looked like. I went out back to call him inside and found him standing on the other side of the fence. If dogs could talk I am pretty sure he would have said, "So, I came over here to check things out and now I can't figure out how to get back on the other side." He looked so scared and confused. It definitely scared me but I eventually found a way to get him back under the fence. His 3rd adventure was another road trip when we went to Phoenix to visit B's sister and her husband. Again, he did so well. His last adventure (I use those words loosely because I know that it will most definitely be his last adventure) happened today when we were on our morning walk and his collar broke. Again, it really scared me but he was a good listener and he came right to me so that I could fix it and re-attach his leash. He has become such a good dog since we got him 18 months ago and we cannot imagine life without him. We are very confident that he will be a good big brother in just a few weeks.

This weekend we were finally able to start in on the nursery. We put the crib together, sorted through her clothes, and we were able to get some of the other stuff organized. I cannot believe how much stuff we have for her already and she isn't even here yet. I also can't believe that she is going to be here so soon. When we first found out that I was pregnant I couldn't believe that I had to wait so long, but now looking back I can't believe how quickly it has gone. I know that we still have a few weeks to go (and from what I have heard they will be some of the slowest and longest weeks yet) but I honestly did not think that I would ever make it this far. We are so excited that we will get to meet our baby girl soon and we cannot wait.

Keep checking back for more updates...like I said, we are just getting settled but all of that is going to change soon!

Life Changes

So, obviously it has been established that I am not very good at this blog thing. For some reason I do not do a good job of remembering to blog...which is a problem since I have a blog. 

However, since we have recently had some major life changes and have more to come, I thought I would give the blog thing a try...again! 

About a week ago B and I made the biggest and hardest transition we've made this far in our married life. We moved from our little cozy town of Petaluma, CA to San Fernando, CA (which is in LA county). Never in my life did I think I would live in LA...but here we are.  When we were newly married we made a big move from San Diego to Petaluma, but it wasn't quite as drastic since we were moving to a place where we already knew people and had many connections, including B's parents. Here in LA we know a few people scattered throughout the county but the closest family is about 2 hours away.

The reason for our move was because B accepted a new job that was located in Glendale, CA. When he got offered this job we knew in our hearts that this was an opportunity that we could not pass up but at the same time we could not imagine leaving our sweet town full of family and friends. Also, when we accepted the job, I don't think it really hit us how hard it would be to leave. 

Our 4 years in Petaluma were more than we could have ever asked for. We both found jobs that we enjoyed and made great friends through them. We lived about 5 minutes from B's parents and I think all 4 of us would agree that the times we spent together at our weekly family dinners and many other events have greatly blessed our relationships. (Thank you BE2 and SKE for everything you did for us over the last 4 years and simply being our friends). The friendships that we formed or renewed (B grew up in Petaluma and had many high school friends still around) while we were there are life-long friendships that we cherish and greatly miss everyday. Our church family is another thing that we will greatly miss. We have not had a chance to visit any churches here, but I am already anxious about the whole process. We have been spoiled the last 4 years and I am not sure we will be able to find something that will compare...but we will trust in God for that and know that he will lead us to the right church. 

There is so much more I could say about our life in Petaluma and all of the things we will miss: our roommate (who I think we will continue to try to convince to move down here with us...what do you say AB?), small town life, The Tea Room, Two Rock burritos, food pantry, our CLG, my hair stylist, and the list goes on and on but for now I will leave those for another day. 

Although this transition has been incredibly hard we are excited about all of the things that will come from living here. We know that we will find a church to serve in, friends to fill our home with, and many memories will be made along the way. Someday when we leave here to take on our next adventure I am sure that it will be a hard move also and we will be sad to leave many people here...at least that's what I can hope for.

So, to all of our friends and family in Petaluma we say Thank You for everything you have given us over the last 4 years. Our hearts already ache to come and visit and can't wait to be back in town sometime soon.

Hopefully, I will be more successful at blogging this time around and will be able to keep everyone updated on our new life as well as the newest addition to our family (who will be joining us in just about 2 months!). So, keep your eyes open for exciting LA and parenting adventures to come. :)

Love, 

Sarah 

I know...it's been forever!!

I know that I have not updated the blog in months-and for that I apologize. My sister keeps saying to me, "the last update was Crafty Tuesday, I'm waiting for more!"

Now that school is in full swing hopefully I will be able to find a little more time to update the blog. Plus, I just found out from another friend's blog that there is an iPhone app for Blogger-so that will make it a lot easier!!

I have been working on so many projects lately and I have been wanting to get them posted. It will probably take me a few days to get to everything. Plus I don't want to put everything in one blog...I gotta keep you comin' back for more!

So the project I will share today is my awesome homemade vanity!! I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this. I have been telling B for probably a year now how much I wanted a vanity. There are several reasons why: our bathroom is really small, my make up is a powder so it is messy and gets everywhere, and of course because they are super cute. The problem is that they are really expensive and I was not willing to dish out that kind of cash (and neither was B).

So, a few weeks ago I was out garage sailing (not sure on that spelling?) with my mother in law and I came across this old changing table (looked like a desk to me) for $2!! I was pretty sure the price tag was wrong-but it wasn't they actually sold it to me for $2! I was so excited and knew that if it didn't work as a vanity I could use it as a desk or sell it.


I went to OSH and found one of their mis-marked gallons of paint for $4 in a color that was pretty close to the one I wanted anyway. I painted the table and tried it out in the bedroom. My biggest concern was that it would be too big for the space I had in mind. It turned out to be perfect!

Of course the table is not the only piece to the vanity-I still needed a mirror and stool/chair.

I had purchased a round lighted vanity mirror at costco and was happy with that...but then I found the most amazing find at a garage sale this past weekend. It was a rectangular mirror in a wooden frame with a small drawer at the bottom. It was perfect!!! I bought it for $5. I used the same paint from the table to paint it because it was very dirty and needed new paint, plus I wanted it to match the vanity. I also had to give the mirror a good cleaning with a razor blade and some goo gone.

I am so happy with the outcome of the vanity. It is perfect. I am still on the hunt for a stool but I am determined to find one at a garage sale or thrift store so I can keep the entire vanity under $20!

So far I have spent $11!

Check out the pictures of the before table and now the completed vanity. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the mirror before I painted it!)

Next up on the blog...my frame projects and the Christmas Boutique, be sure to check back soon!

Crafty Tuesday

Yesterday I sat down to make a little gift for my friend's birthday. In the process I was totally inspired to do some crafts for the afternoon. Over the past few years I have accumulated a bunch of scrapbooking stuff, but I just don't have a lot of time to scrapbook or the need to scrapbook. I decided to use all of the supplies I had to make some fun greeting cards.
Here is a little preview of what I was working on...

 This is my Christmas 4 pack...

 "First Day of School" cards

 Happy Thanksgiving!

 These are "miss you" and "hi from San Francisco" cards...

 "Sorry"

 The one on the left says "home sweet home"and the one on the right says "home" on the outside and on the inside says "congratulations on your new home"

 This says Family and Memories

 Friendship cards. The one top right says "I call you friend"

and the one on the bottom says "friendship".

 Engagement/Wedding Cards

The one middle right says "happily ever after"

The one on the bottom says "harmony"

 This one should have been on the engagement/wedding ones, but I missed it..."Together Forever"

 Just because cards...

 Happy Birthday

 Baby Boy Cards

Top right says "Welcome Precious Baby"

Bottom right says "Children are a gift from God"-inside says "Congrats"

The 2 on the left say "It's A Boy" on the middle ribbon

So, that is all of the cards so far...we will see if I feel inspired again today. I am now trying to decide what to do with all of them. They obviously are not good enough to sell on Etsy or anything like that, but we are having a garage sale in a couple of weeks and I was thinking about maybe trying to sell some of them there. We will see, maybe I will just keep them all for my own use. :)

Don't forget to check back for an update on the garage soon...

The Dreadful Garage

Lately I have been absolutely disgusted by our garage. It has (like many garages) become a place to throw all of the junk that we do not know what to do with. My first thought was, "where did all of this stuff come from?" We have not even lived in this house for a year and the garage is so full of stuff. Before we lived in this house we lived in a townhouse that did not have a garage, or any storage for that matter. So, somehow in the last 10 months we have accumulated enough stuff to fill the garage. Ugh.

Today I decided it was time to start going through all of this junk and organizing it. First I had to start getting rid of all of the cardboard we have accumulated. The problem is that we have made some big purchases in the past 10 months and they have all come in cardboard boxes, but the boxes are too big to fit into our recycle bin so we have just been letting them pile up. Bad idea. We will be making a trip to the dump to get rid of all of them in the next few days.

Once the cardboard boxes were out of the way I was ready to get started going through everything else. First I went through the stuff that I knew was mine. Most of it was stuff from high school and college that had been in the same plastic bin since then and I just kept toting it around for some reason. After looking through it, I realized that most of it was just stuff that I didn't need. Most of it went to the garage sale/goodwill pile.

All of my hubby's stuff that I came across I put in a pile for him to go through when he gets home from work. I have no idea what most of it is, so I don't want to through something away that looks like junk to me but is actually his most prized possession from high school. :)

My favorite part of the day was when I came across a box that his mom had dropped off a few months ago. It is his keepsake box and has tons of stuff from when he was a little kid. I spent probably 20-30 minutes looking through his baby book. Precious.

For now, I am done with the garage. Although it is not finished I am very satisfied with how it looks now, opposed to how it looked at 11:00AM this morning. My next step is to go through all of the Christmas boxes and organize them. Luckily, we have not accumulated too many Christmas decorations yet.  Once the garage is completely done I will post some pics.

Brad and Sonya's 30th Anniversary Party

My in-laws recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. My hubby and I decided to host an intimate dinner party for them and some of their close friends. We had so much fun prepping, hosting, and serving. Their actual anniversary was on June 27th but we hosted the party on July 1st. The dinner menu was as follows:

~Pear, walnut, and gorgonzola salad
~Homemade Focaccia Bread
~Grilled Asparagus and Grilled Sweet Potato
~Stuffed Pork Roast or Spinach and Cheese Ravioli
~Dessert: Creme Brulee

I made all of these courses, down to the salad dressing, myself (except for the ravioli). Everything turned out amazing...which was good considering it was my first time making all of these items.
If you are interested in any of the recipes I am more than happy to share. All of the recipes except the creme brulee came out of a cookbook that my mom let me borrow called "The Gathering of Friends."

I also did all of the decorating for the party. We decided to have the party out on our back patio. I hired my good friend Julia to do the flowers for me.
If you like what you see check her out at http://www.flowersbyj.com/Site/Home.html

We went with 3 cylinder vases filled with water, yellow floating orchids, and a floating candle on top. In the middle is a large cylinder bowl that has pieces of the floating orchids and several floating candles.

 One of my favorite things to see at an anniversary party is the bride's dress. My mother-in-law graciously let me display her wedding dress. Beautiful. (P.S. The secret to making it stand up is an ironing board.)

 On a table I had displayed their wedding picture, their wedding album, Sonya's bouquet from the wedding, the tie Brad wore when they were leaving the reception, the newspaper clipping announcing their wedding, and an arrangement of yellow roses (also done by flowers by j). The flowers they used in their wedding were yellow roses.

 My father in law brought me a bunch of pictures that he had recently found to display. I found 2 trellises in our backyard that I used to display the pictures. One of them had pictures from the wedding and the other one had pictures from Sonya's bridal shower and one from Brad's bachelor party.

 Our 8 dinner guests...

 Brandon decided to use the blow torch (that we were using for the creme brulee) to light the floating candles in the centerpieces. He was quite the entertainer that evening.

It was a great parry and we had so much fun doing it. Congratulations to my in-laws!! You are a great example of marriage for us.

So apparently I am not very good at keeping up on this blogging thing but life has been a little crazy lately. Summer is now in full swing for me. The hubs and I spent about 2 weeks in San Diego with both of our families. It was a great time to be with everyone.  Then when we got back from San Diego we were planning and preparing for a dinner that we hosted for my in-laws 30th Anniversary (blog to come about that with pictures soon).

For now I want to update you on the garden. Can I just say that I am pretty much in shock because this whole gardening thing is actually starting to work!! I was SO skeptical in the beginning because in the past I have killed just about every plant I have touched.   A few weeks ago we cut the cilantro and used it in some fabulous guacamole. We are hoping that it will continue to grow back throughout the summer.

Exciting News: I HAVE 7 TOMATOES!!! Woo Hoo!!!! It is so funny because I planted 3 different tomato plants from seedlings and one plant does not have any fruit on it yet, my biggest plant has 2 tomatoes, and my smallest plant (seriously, like a little midget tomato plant) has 5 on it. The small plant is a Roma  and the biggest one is a Better Boy. I also planted some tomato seeds and those plants are really growing but I think we are still a little while away from seeing any fruit.

My zucchini plant has a HUGE flower on it this morning, which if I remember correctly means that the zucchini cannot be too far behind.

My cucumber seeds all failed! BOOOO!!! Oh well, next time, I guess.

My bean plants continue to take off, but I have not seen too many "bean" looking things yet.

The other exciting thing is that my Dahlias have started to bloom and they are so amazing. Each plant is a different color and each day there is a new flower. They might be one of my new favorite flowers.
The hydrangea have also really taken off. Even though the plants were completely dead when we moved in, they have come back to life. I cannot take any of the credit for those though, my hubby is the one who did all of the maintenance on those.

I am just so excited to continue to watch all of the plants grow and change. And I really can't wait to eat my first tomato and zucchini!!