Faux Wainscoting anyone?

Well, this week, we've been working on our kitchen. I've been wanting to do a few things to make our kitchen look nicer. One of them is the faux wainscoting. This seems to be the new big thing to do out in blogland and I really like it. One of the blogs I follow did it in her kitchen and that gave me the idea to do it in ours. Here is the link that I based this project of off.

Here are some before pictures, that I took last summer when I painted the kitchen.

I loved the paint job at the time and still do, but the bottom part has always seemed kind of bare, like something was missing.

So, let's introduce a little bit of faux wainscoting, shall we?

It's basically just painting the bottom half of the wall white, adding molding in the middle and then putting up square molding.

I love it! I love how it just instantly makes the dining area look more classy, more put together, etc.

If you looked at the link, where I got the idea from, she explains how to space the squares and stuff. We bought the trim at Lowes. Dan's parents were very kind to us and gave us a Lowes gift card for both of our birthdays. So we really didn't have to pay for this project, which is always nice. :) I did something I've never done before and bought the paint at Wal-Mart. I got the cheapo walmart brand. The paint in the kitchen is flat and a gallon of flat paint is $7.77 at walmart, as compared to $15 at Lowes. I decided to try it out and it wasn't bad at all. They color matched the white, to the white that is on our floorboards, so it would be similar in shade. I also got another gallon of red paint and painted another wall red, that I'll show you later. I did notice that the red paint seemed kind of runny. I don't know if it was because it was cheaper paint, or because they had to put more tint in it to make it red. I didn't really notice this with the white paint.

I started off by measuring where I wanted the middle piece of trim to go and taping it. Then I painted the wall white. Dan cut the trim for me. The thicker trim came primed, but the trim for the squares wasn't, so he primed them with spray paint, then I painted them. And it wasn't very fun. Probably because I'm pregnant and had to sit on the tile floor and paint them and I did it later in the evening and was tired. There were also small crevices that on the trim, so I had to make sure the paint got in there. Also, I wore a mask when I painted, in case anyone is thinking I'm crazy for exposing my unborn child to paint fumes. :)

Here is all that trim that I painted.

Then we put up the middle line of trim. I'm very grateful for Dan's help and know how when it comes to cutting and measuring the trim. We then measured how far apart the squares would go and Dan got his nail gun out and we put up the squares. That took a while and little Anna was up and wanting to be part of the action. At one point, we were both kneeling down in front of a square, trying to level a piece of trim. Dan had the nail gun in his hand, I was trying to hold a piece of trim on the wall in place and she comes up, puts her arms on our shoulders and starts swinging herself! It was so cute, but annoying and just one of those moments where you have to laugh about the whole thing.

So, after all the trim was up, I filled in the nail holes with putty. Another annoying and not fun project, but it had to be done. I then sanded the covered nail holes and painted over them and then it was DONE! Overall, this wasn't a terribly difficult project. It probably cost about $70 or so. All we bought for it was trim, paint and some new outlet covers which are 44 cents each. This price will obviously vary depending on the size of wall you're doing.

I love it and am so glad we did it!

Our Growing Garden

Our garden has done very well this year! When we left for vacation in Utah, it was still pretty small. When we came back two weeks later, it had exploded in growth! We were amazed. Here are some pictures I took a few days ago.

Here, we have basil, arugula, and some tomato plants. In the back we have corn. Dan decided to experiment with the corn and just plant it in the dirt that was already there. They did well, but have since stopped growing, so they're not as tall as the other ones in our other garden. They are growing corn, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Here, we have corn, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, onions, a strawberry plant, a pepper plant, and basil. The lettuce finally stopped producing. Well, it actually starting flowering and I kept picking off the flowers, but then the lettuce wasn't as big and some parts of it were bitter. So we just let it go. We had spinach too, but we just didn't eat that much of it and it started flowering too, so we just let it go. Hopefully, because we let it flower, it will come back next year.

Dan wanted to grow a pumpkin this year. It's grown a ton, but hasn't actually started any pumpkins yet. There are a lot of blossoms on it, so I'm not sure if we'll actually get a pumpkin.

One of our tomato plants is on fire and producing like mad. Unfortunately, we thought we had a big boy tomato plant, but I guess it was mislabeled, because the tomatoes are yellow. I'm not sure what kind it is exactly, but they're not quite as flavorful as red ones. They're still nice and juicy and have that nice garden taste, as opposed to grocery store tomatoes. We have 5 or 6 other tomatoes plants that have a ton of little green tomatoes on them, so soon we'll be swimming in tomatoes. I'm hoping they'll all be nice and ripe at the same time. I'm planning on canning them. We shall see how that plan goes.

Anna's 2nd Birthday!

Well, Anna turned two! I can't believe my little girl is two already. Two years ago today, we brought her home from the hospital. Aaaaahhh, so sweet...

Well, we had a birthday party for her the day before her birthday. I ventured out and made her cake out of fondant! And it actually turned out. I was very happy because I was nervous about trying fondant. There is a blog I follow that has been doing tutorials with how to make and use fondant. I made what's called marshmallow fondant and it was really easy. Here is the link for the blog where I got the recipe from. Here is the link for all the posts about cakes that have been done so far, starting with the most recent post.

I decided to go with green and pink for her colors. I was contemplating using brown, but wasn't sure if I would be able to dye the fondant brown very well. And her bedroom colors and pink and brown, so I need to get away from those colors for a while. :)

Here are the pink and green flowers I made the day before. They look kind of like stars, but they're not.

Side note: If you're making fondant decorations, I guess you're supposed to make them before hand, so they have time to dry a bit before you put them on the cake. Well, if you're putting them on the side or wanting them to stand up on the cake.

Here is the cake, just after I covered it with fondant. Surprisingly, this wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. This was the step I was most nervous about, but it was easy.

The decorated cake!

I would have liked to have done more, as for as decorations go, but seeing as how it was my first, I decided simple was better. To get the flowers to stick on the sides, all you do is get the back a little wet and stick it on there. You have to make sure it's not to wet, otherwise it will just slide down. I was a little wary doing this and was expecting to have to fix them later, but they stayed, so I guess I did it right.

A better view of the cake.

I just have to say, that I was very blessed when it came to purchasing the cake pan and cake stand for this party. I don't have a round cake pan and really didn't feel like shelling out money to buy a new one. So I went to Goodwill, hoping that would have one. It took a little searching on the shelves full of stuff, but I found a very nice one for $2! Then, a few days later, I realized I needed a cake stand. So back to Goodwill I went and walked back to the aisle where it would be and lo and behold there it was. I grabbed it as fast as I could. It was $6, a little more than I would normally pay for something like that at Goodwill, but it's a really nice one. For those of you who shop thrift stores, you know you can't got expecting to find something specific. It's really hit and miss. So, I know the good Lord was helping me out there. :)

Here is a banner I made.

The birthday girl with her cupcake. I really wanted to make her a little mini cake, but just didn't have time with everything else I needed to do.

We also had a pinata! I love this shot of her. Priceless. :)

Then this one makes it look like she's just in awe of it.

I love this one, because her dress looks so cute. (The dress I only paid $1 for).

All the kids had fun trying to hit it.

All the kids getting their loot. We never give Anna candy, so she didn't really understand the significance of what was going on. She just got some candy and held on to it, while the other kids were filling up their bags. :)

Some of our guests: Katie and her daughter McKenna.

I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked.

Anna, opening her presents. It was funny because as time went on, we had more and more kids around the coffee table, looking at what was being opened.

Anna loved all of her toys! Thank you for everyone who came.

Here is one of the toys we got her. She LOVES it! The tunnel is her favorite part. She keeps trying to get Dan and I to crawl through with her.

Overall, it was a fun party. Anna had a lot of fun and I hope everyone who came did as well!

50 Cents of Fun and Our New Car!

I lucked out while in Utah. While shopping one day with my mom and sister, we ran into D.I. (a thrift store). I found a ton of toys for super cheap! The best toy by far was this one. I didn't have a price tag on it, but I grabbed it anyway.

It wasn't working, but I figured it probably just needed new batteries. And if it wasn't too expensive, it was worth a shot. So I get to the checkout stand and the lady charged me...50 cents!!! I got home, put new batteries in it and it is now Anna's FAVORITE toy. She loves and plays with it constantly. I ended up getting 6 toys for $5. SCORE!!! I got another alphabet toy, two little magnetic drawing toys (I forget what they're called), a Winnie the Pooh block set thingy, and a toy that has a lot of beads in it and it makes noise.

Now onto our new car. We got a Mazda Mazda5. It's like a compact minivan. It's not quite as roomy as a normal minivan, but it does seats 6.

There's a little bit of room in the back.

Here are some nice features about it. The middle seats lift up and provide extra storage. It also provides this cup holder that flips out from under the seat. There's also a little basket type thing that holds stuff.

The middle seats fold down, as well as the back seats.

It has a CD player and all that jazz. Ours is silver with black interior. We got a pretty good deal on it. It was used, but it was a rental car before. This is our first "new" car. The car we had before, and still have, was given to us by my in-laws (thank you!) when we moved out here to CA. We were very fortunate not to have a car payment until now, but we're hoping to pay it off faster than what our loan is for. My mom had a Mazda while I was growing up and they're really good cars. She never had any problems with hers. I would have loved to have gotten a bigger one, but this one fits our needs.

The Phelan family update!

Wow, it's been a LONG time since I've blogged. A lot has happened. The most exciting news is we found out what we're having. A BOY!!! We're really excited. I actually teared up when she told us it was a boy. I had a feeling it was going to be a boy. It was just something that I've been feeling for a while. It was so fun and awesome to see the baby on the monitor. He was moving around a lot and it was just so fun to see everything the technician pointed out-his kidneys, heart, spine, etc. We got the cutest picture of two of his feet together. We have even already found a name that we both agree on so far. We're not decided for sure, but this is a big step for us. Since with Anna it took months and months to agree. I am now 21 weeks along. I can't believe I'm halfway done with this pregnancy. I'm still feeling good, but it's starting to get harder to bend over.

So, the last 2 weeks, we were in Utah, visiting our families. We started out by packing. We thought we could save some room in our car, by putting Anna in our bag, but she didn't quite fit. :)

Anna had SO MUCH fun in Utah. It was so fun for her to be with more people and especially the two cats and two dogs.

Here, she's playing with the ball Grandma Phelan bought her, to replace a ball that go ruined by one of the dogs. She loved it!

Here she's playing with her Uncle Ben. It was so funny because she knows everyone's names in Dan's family. We haven't really used the Aunt-Uncle titles a lot, just names. One time I called Ben, Uncle Ben, and the Uncle just stuck and soon his name became Ugan Ben, all the time. I think she just thought the whole title was his name.

While in Utah, Anna learned how to play the drums! She was a natural. :)

Anna loves going outside and Utah was no exception. She would say all the time, "I go 'side." Then try and open the door.

Our first part of our trip was spent with Dan's family. His brother was leaving for a mission in Germany. We went out for lunch at Tucanos, a Brazilian restaurant, that is REALLY good.

Anna was being less than cooperative for the picture. She wanted down to run around in the grass.

My mom was able to come down to Utah the same week we were there. We spent a few days with her and my sister Kathleen, and brother Steven. We went to the SLC zoo. Anna had fun, but I think she was still a little too young to fully appreciate it.

We didn't get a picture of it, but her favorite animal was the giraffe. She was able to get fairly close to them and I think she really understood that it was a giraffe.

She wanted to walk around at the zoo, but that only works for so long before she's going everywhere you don't want her to. So, luckily my sister had this little backpack/leash that she had brought for her little girl. It looked so cute on her!

Here is some of my family. My mom, brother and sister and her little girl, Kaia. Anna is 5 months older than Kaia.

Probably one of the funniest things she did was here. We met up with my mom's cousin and his wife at a campsite. Anna LOVES rocks and decided that Uncle Steven would be the recipient of all of her finds.

This is how many rocks she ended up bringing to him!

We made roasted corn on the cob, cooked by the fire. Anna wanted to try some. Her face here is priceless.

Here is Anna and her grandpa. Anna LOVES to get up on people's lap and eat their food. She's gotten so good at taking their spoon as well to feed herself. Luckily, she's cute enough that most people don't mind. :)

Overall, it was a fun trip. But as with most vacations, it's always nice to come home and get back in the swing of things. We also bought a new car in Utah, but I'll post more about that later!