Curb Appeal: Growin' Grass

A nice green lush yard is hard to come by here in Colorado.  It takes A LOT OF TIME AND EFFORT to get nice green grass to grow.  That's why there are a lot of rock yards or xeriscaping here, it's just a lot easier to maintain.  But growing up in Iowa, both Craig and I appreciate yards overflowing with green grass so a rock yard wasn't an option.  (even though some of our yard resembled a sandbox)

We have lived in our house for 2 years and our first summer in the house we realized that the front yard needed some desperate help.  There were spots of grass, spots of sand, and spots of weeds- majority of the later.  Craig was gone in Georgia for the spring and early summer, so it was all on me to get the yard in shape!  I had no idea what I was doing : )  My next door neighbor fixed my sprinkler system and got it up and running.  Because it's so dry here a sprinkler system that runs several times a day is an absolute must if you want a lush lawn.  I spent a lot of time pulling weeds, raking dirt, spreading seed, fertilizing, laying top soil... but after two summers of hard work we still didn't have the grass that we desired.  Every year it's like we started all over again.

Desperate times call for desperate measures... it was time to start completely from scratch!  Craig rented a rototiller and up came the front yard...

Craig is supervising our friend Rodney who came to help

After laying grass seed and fertilizer there was a lot of this...

And whala....!

It's not perfect but we are getting closer to the lush green grass yard that we can be proud of!

The Deck: Project Complete!

After devoting many weekends and spare time here and there, I am happy to say that the deck is complete and up for business! 

Here are some pictures of the final touches:

Putting up the railing and making sure it's level

Putting in all the balisters... it's tedious work!

We re-used most of the wood from the previous deck and unfortunately, it was painted red.  So my major contribution to the deck project was sanding all the wood.  I'm bummed that there are no pictures of this, but trust me, it was hard and dirty work! 

It's starting to look like a deck!

Staining is finished

Yippee...the deck project is complete!!  Now it's time to concentrate on getting our grass to grow.  Since the backyard was our workshop for the past couple months, we didn't have our sprinkler system on so a lot of our grass is still dormant.  Time for some TLC to wake up our grass!  Fortunately, Craig has spent a lot of time on our front yard grass so stay tuned for that post!

Sunday Night Dinner

I really enjoy cooking but because of my daily schedule, I don't get to cook dinner every night of the week.  In fact, Craig and I usually eat leftovers or throw something together quick and end up eating around 8:00pm Monday through Thursday.  So Friday, Saturday and Sunday's are the days that I can spend time in the kitchen cooking and baking (and enjoying a glass of wine, or course!)  And on Friday and Saturday nights we often get together with our friends, so we don't always get to eat a good dinner together then either.  With our crazy schedules in mind, at the beginning of our marriage Craig and I decided to make it a priority to spend Sunday nights together enjoying dinner and relaxing before we start another week.  So Sunday night dinner has been a fun tradition in our family that we hope to continue even as our family grows.

Here is a new recipe that I made for Sunday night dinner this past week.  It was delicious!

Mediterranean Chicken Pasta Salad:

Adapted recipe and photos by For the Love of Cooking.net

Original recipe by Cathy at Wives with Knives

Salad:

• 4 oz farfalle pasta, cooked per instructions
• 2 cups of leftover roasted chicken, diced
• 1/2 cup of low fat feta cheese
• 1 cup of grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 cup of frozen artichoke hearts, thawed, halved
• 1 cup of kalamata olives, halved
• 1/2 cup red onion, sliced thinly
• 5 basil leaves, chiffonade
• 1/4 cup pine nuts

Vinaigrette:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp canola oil
• Juice of 1 small lemon
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 2-3 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

Prepare the vinaigrette first. Combine all of the ingredients together and mix thoroughly with a whisk. Set aside to allow flavors to mingle.

Cook the pasta in well seasoned water per instructions. Drain and rinse with cool water. Add the chicken, feta cheese, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olives, onion, basil, and pine nuts to the drained pasta. Toss the salad with the vinaigrette and serve immediately. Enjoy.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe - For the Love of Cooking.net

Amelia's 3rd Birthday

Our niece Amelia's 3rd birthday was at the beginning of May and I really wanted to go and surprise her... I mean who can resist this little cutie!!

Yep, she's dancing!  This was taken a while ago but I think she's so stinkin' cute in this picture!

I loaded up the car with two of my friends and we were off for a whirlwind trip to the Midwest!  I tell you what, traveling with two of your best girl friends is definitely the way to go.  We talked and danced and talked some more and before we knew it it was 2 am and we were rolling into Omaha to drop one of my friends off to see her brother and his family.  I dropped my other friend off at the rental car place and she made her way to the Quad Cities to visit her family. 

We celebrated Amelia's 3rd birthday on Saturday and I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures at her party.  Hopefully, my sis did a better job!  Here are the few picture I did capture:

The dress that Craig and I got her... she loves it and she looks adorable in it!

A horn for her bike- and very brave move for Katie and Chris!

My trip was short but as always, I really enjoyed the time spent with family.  The highlights of the trip were:
1) Hudson's signature open mouth wet slobbery kiss he laid on my when he first saw me on Friday morning : )
2) Slumber party with the girls in their room and sharing a blow up mattress with Amelia
3) Watching the girls play Michael Jackson Wii game

Lorelai was awesome at the game and Amelia had a sweet little shimmy shake : )

Happy 3rd Birthday Amelia!  We love you so much!