Our New House!

Finally I am getting around to posting some pictures of our new house! These pics were taken before we even moved in, hence the no furniture.. and I'm only going to post a few pics, not one from every room.. yet anyways:) As we continue to complete projects and decorate I'll add more pics!

Just if your are curious our house has 3 bedrooms 2 1/4 bath (master bath only has a toilet and sink..). The house came w/ brand new carpet and they had just repainted all of the walls. We are looking forward to painting some of the rooms but it was nice that it wasn't an immediate need.

Our first big project we are planning on completing is repainting the house. I won't actually be doing any of the painting, Matt will get to head up that project along w/ some other guys:) We aren't quite sure on color yet. The blue doesn't really bother us.. it just really needs a new paint job. So we will begin looking at colors probably pretty soon!


We also are excited about doing some yard work! It has been kind of fun watching to see what kind of flowers are popping up!


In this picture is the fridge that came w/ the house... we opted to get a new fridge as this one was pretty gross and small.. We love our new fridge! It even has the ice and water in the side door. You don't know how excited that made me! OH and notice that we have a dishwasher again! :)


Our house is a split level and this is a picture from the bottom portion. It has a little family room w/ a built in entertainment center in the wall. There is also a finished full bath downstairs as well as our laundry room and storage.


This picture is one of the things that sold Matt on the house. One of the three bedrooms had built in floor to ceiling bookshelves across one wall. You wouldn't believe how fast he got his books up on those shelves!


This is a picture from our upstairs living room. We love the little window seat:) Currently this room still has no furniture in it.. but we do have plans to pick up some in Wichita hopefully w/in the next month. We love all the natural light that pours into this room/kitchen!


And finally this is a picture of part of our deck. Right off the kitchen there is a door that goes outside to our fenced in backyard. We love how big the deck is and can't wait to host a BBQ!

It's almost April!

Here's my rundown for the week!

Goals:

Quiet Time

Work Out at least 3 times

menu plan for next two weeks and organize coupons

continue getting settled in our house!

Menu:

Tonight we are having company and so I'm making:
BBQed Meatballs, mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus, cornbread muffins and cherry cobbler w/ ice cream for dessert!
(the cherries are from when we picked cherries last summer that I froze! Can't wait to enjoy some tonight!)

Tuesday- Tacos, rice and beans

Wednesday- Teriyaki chicken stir fry w/ peppers, onion, maybe some pineapple over rice

Thursday- I'm thinking a homemade pizza.. well semi-homemade, I have a crust mix to use!

Friday- OUT!


....Thursday is our ULTRASOUND! I'm very excited but sort of nervous at the same time. We can't wait!

Homemade Oreos.. YUM!

Well.. since it has been FOREVER since I have posted a recipe I thought I would take advantage of this snowy day and finally post a new one. These cookies are great. I have made them a couple times now and they are easy as can be...

Homemade Oreos
I found this recipe on Macaroni and Cheesecake, her original Source was Retro Desserts, Wayne Brachman
Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

Ingredients:
For the chocolate wafers:
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
¼ cup (½ stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
¼ cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

***This is the original filling. I never have shortening so I have just used the follow ingredients to make the filling.. except sometimes I even half it.

3/4 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp. milk

Directions:
1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375 degrees.
2. In a Mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. On low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2-3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream.


ENJOY!!!

Well, what a week...

We are in our new house and it is WONDERFUL!! This week has been a lot of unpacking and arranging and we have actually gotten a lot done! We do have one room (the baby-to-be's) room that has become a dropping place for things I'm just not quite sure where to put yet... but other than that we are pretty settled. Now my house does look a little empty, more space means you need more stuff apparently:) SO w/ time we will hopefully work on fixing that. I will post pictures sometime. I have taken some just need to upload them. I'm very behind in posting pictures just in general!

We had our March appointment yesterday. Nothing really all that new occured. We got to hear the heartbeat again. It was harder to hear this time.. we could hear it briefly off and on but our doctor said that the baby must be moving around quite a bit.. she was having a hard time following it! (For those interested the heartbeat was in the 140's) According to my book the baby should be measuring around 4-5 inches and my doctor said sometime in the next few weeks I should start to feel some movement! We also got to schedule our Big Ultrasound! It will be three weeks from yesterday, April 2nd! Time has really been going pretty fast w/ all that has been going on. I can't believe in three short weeks we will know what we are having! This will also be our first ultrasound so I can't wait to see our little one. I'm adjusting more to the idea that I'm going to have a baby but it still doesn't feel completely real yet. I keep hearing that once my stomach starts growing and I start feeling the baby it will really start to set in.

Even though I haven't posted recipes in FOREVER.. I actually have been cooking! I even used a couple new recipes this week so I will also try and update my blog w/ those.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy Monday!

This past week is kind of a blur. Matt and I flew out of Kansas City last Friday to attend a conference in Atlanta. The conference was actually Monday and Tuesday but we went up early and spent time w/ our friends who live in the area. We got home Wednesday evening about 10 pm. So needless to say, Thursday and Friday at work were a little rough for me:)

We attended a church planting conference. We had gone last year and really enjoyed it. This year was just as good. We came back once again invigorated, encouraged and ready to once again focus on the church. This past Sunday Matt talked about a new "challenge" for us to set aside 30 minutes on Wednesday evening to pray w/ your family for our church. (P.U.S.H.- Pray until something happens) We are then going to gather together the Wednesday before Easter and pray all together. We are hoping to do this prayer meeting together at least once a quarter. We will see where this takes us. We are really excited about what the Lord is doing and will continue to do in our church. I'll try and post more often on what is happening in the life of our church.

Also, this past week we got the keys to our new house early so that we could go over and clean! My mom was a lifesaver this weekend as she drove up to help us out. She is even coming back next weekend to help us move and to help me get things set up. I love my mom:) So now this weekend will just be finishing up packing and getting our rental house in order to turn in the keys. I am sooo looking forward to NEXT Monday when we should be somewhat settled into our new house! I'll post pictures soon!

And finally.. not much to report on the pregnancy end.. other than another couple weeks have past. I'm 14 weeks along and I have my next doctors appointment next week. I really cant' wait for my April appointment.. we will find out if its a boy or a girl! I'm feeling so much better lately. My stomach is still a little upset when I first wake up in the morning but I am thinking that might just be from my vitamins. I have so much more energy than I did even just a few weeks ago. All my clothes still fit fine.. although I do have a little more curvature along my stomach:) Maybe in a few weeks I'll actually have something worth posting a picture of!

So.. after all of that catch up.. here's our plan for the week!

Menu:

Monday- Pulled pork sandwiches, mac and cheese and probably a veggie.

Tuesday- probably leftovers

Wednesday- chicken tacos w/ rice

Thursday- I honestly don't know. I didn't really buy much this week as far as groceries go. I just wanted to focus on eating what we already had in the fridge so we had less to move. One of these evenings we will be closing on our house. Whichever night that is we will probably grab something out.

Friday- night before we move- I doubt I'll be cooking:)


Goals:

finish packing!

clean rental!

get everything switched over to new house!