I feel old

Do you remember this little squirt?

Well last week she turned 2.

Yep, 2.

And I feel old.

And here we are- eight weeks to go.

Did I mention that I feel old?

The big reveal- Part one

So, do you remember that one time, like 5 months ago, when we bought a house? And then I never really wrote anything about it since then. Well, consider this as what will probably be the first, of many house posts.

And, before I begin with the pics, I am just going to say that I married the most amazing man. I am so lucky to call him mine. Because I have been pregnant for this whole ordeal he has had to do basically everything alone. He moved us, he painted and cleaned the majority of the house before McKayla and I fully moved in, and all of the other projects that have happened since then have been done by him. He is not afraid to try things that he has never done before and he still answers the phone, even when he knows that I am probably calling with an idea for yet another project. I really love him a lot.

Okay, this is the view that we see from the back of our house. Open fields, rolling hills to the left and mountain straight ahead. It is gorgeous. And, we have found that being just a little further away from things has its perks. Nice views, it is slower paced, we can see the stars at night and we have had milder temps. We love it!

Let's just say that when we moved in, these cabinets were one of the only things that I didn't like about the house. In fact, I down right hated them. They didn't go with our color scheme and I just don't prefer the look of the light colored furniture. About two months ago I called Kyle at work and told him that we had to change them. So they went from this....

to this...

then this...

and finally this.

I don't even want to begin trying to count how many hours this took Kyle to do. But I absolutely love it. We have a lot of other kitchen projects for the future but we are thinking that we definitely got the hardest one done first- knock on wood. This, other than the fact that it is always fun to visit, it the main reason why McKayla went to Texas. Kyle needed to do the actual frame of the cabinets and we didn't want to get fumigated.

Our big bedroom project isn't done yet but there have been some big changes that I thought were noteworthy.

First, we finally got a King sized bed. And let me just say, not only does it fit Kyle and I, but it also fits the 9,000 pillow that I am currently sleeping with. Plus room to spare.

Second, as of two weeks ago we had no bedroom furniture. But, I happened to be spending the day at my parents house when my dad's business partner was getting rid of their guest king sized bedroom set. We realize that it is a bit retro, but the deal that they gave us was literally too good to pass up. And besides, some bedroom furniture is better than no bedroom furniture.

I think that some would say that the best part of us getting a new bed is the fact that we now have an actual bed for our guests to sleep on! -Cue in the Hallelujahs from every person who has slept on the beloved futon. So now, there is no excuse to not come and see us *Ted.

Here is the my first picture to show that I haven't just been twiddling my thumbs and eating swedish fish while Kyle is out slaving away. I wanted a really big H to hang on our front room wall but we didn't have the right saw for the project. So, after two weeks of literally asking everyone we came into contact with..

"Hi we are the Harrison's, welcome to the neighborhood. Oh and do you buy chance have a ban saw?"

"So if I buy some wood from you, will you take it back into your Home Depot wood shop and cut it with a ban saw for me?"

"Hi Elders Quorum President so and so, is there anybody in the ward who has a ban saw?"

I finally found an older gentleman in our neighborhood who had the saw and said he would do it for me. He was really nice about it, but when he finished he asked me not to tell anybody that he was the one who did it because it was much harder than he thought it would be. I thought it turned out nice.

Back in May, Kyle built us some garden boxes. We didn't want too many because we were just trying them out, but we will definitely be doing more for next year.

This is just a sidenote. The other night we almost had a huge tragedy at our house. Kyle let the chickens out to roam our yard now and we usually leave them out for a couple of hours. Well, the other night they were out and we had just left for a walk. We didn't find this out until later, but right after we left two stray dogs came and attacked our biggest chicken. Hence all of the feathers that are now all over our yard. Our neighbor was mowing his lawn and heard the commotion over the lawn mower. So, he ran over, saved the chickens and put them back in the coop for us. We were so lucky he was there. Kyle would literally be depressed if one of the chickens died.

Can you see the feathers going all the back to the furthest garden box?

Here is the coop. Kyle built it all and I think that it turned out really nice. He has been working on putting a wall with a gate a few feet away from the coop so they can have more room to roam around. And because of the dog attack the other night, finishing the wall has become a priority for this weekend.

The chickens

I also made a wreath.

I am convinced that one of the best kept canning secrets is canned chicken. We tried it for the first time last fall and I have fallen in love with how much time I save when making dinner. A couple of weeks ago, chicken went on an amazing sale. But I was really torn because I wanted to do some but didn't want to do it while 7 months pregnant. We knew that we would have to do more sometime in the next few months so Kyle convinced me that now was better than later. And he said he would help me. So I went and bought a ton of chicken for us to do that weekend. But as fate would have it, Kyle caught a virus and pretty much slept for five days straight, and I canned 72 jars of chicken by myself. It was worth it though and now Kyle can't say that he has done everything by himself!