Man. That house is YELLOW!

We decided to see what it would cost to have the house painted.  I figured that since the "To Do" list doesn't seem to be getting any shorter that it may be wise to have the really big jobs done by the pros.  We don't know if this is the original paint or not, but it was in bad shape.  The trim was painted white and two different shades of green and the balusters on the porch were all green.  I took this picture the day they started the prep on the house.

Here is our yellow house after!  See, even the sky looks bluer!

They scraped the paint down to bare wood on most of the house.  Those poor guys.  The entire time they were working my 12 guinea's were squawking at full volume.  One of the guys asked me if we were going to eat them.  I think that was a hint. I tried chasing them all into the goat barn one day in hopes of shutting them up.  I think I just entertained the painters.  Have you ever tried to get 12 guineas to all do the same thing?  Didn't think so....

The after....  too bad they didn't have to take the satellite dishes down to paint.  I would have had them put back up somewhere else.  Like on the roof.  Where most other people have theirs.  Although I have yet to see another satellite dish quite as LARGE as ours.  Lovely.

This is down the hill outside my kitchen nook and master bedroom.  We had some wood siding replaced around one of the kitchen windows few weeks ago.  You can see the two different colors of green trim the best in this picture.

Here is the end result from this view.

Over all, we are very happy.  I love the white trim.  We are going to do the back deck as well, it just needed a lot more cleaning, repairing, and prepping.  I have new screens on order.  Most every screen on the house had rips or holes from the previous owners cats.  In the spring I'm going to order some shutters for the front of the house too.

Thanks for looking!

Catch Up...

The pizza extravaganza. 

 

I should have taken pictures of the finished pizzas.  Greg ate his, most of Teagan's and Maren's.  He kept saying he couldn't believe I had made them.  How's that for encouragement!  LOL!

Next is Halloween pictures.  Declan is Darth Vader, Teagan is Strawberry Shortcake and Maren is Cinderella. 

A rare photo with me in it.  Rockin the orange and my new boots.

We Trick-or-Treated in historic Georgetown.  It was very charming, and we had a great time. 

We've owned this house 1 year today!

And in celebration, we're making individual pizza's from scratch!  I'm taking pictures and will post as soon as I can!

Some House Pictures

Here is the entry.  We haven't done anything here, except clean.  To the left is the family room, and the right is the dining room.  Neither of which are in this post, I didn't take pictures of them yesterday.  I have been dragging all of the Halloween decorations out and spookifying the house.  One of my favorite things about this house is that it is neutral enough to change the accessories for the seasons.  I have Halloween things through the house!

ETA:  Here is a post I did when we first saw the house:  http://looptloop.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-house-cont.html

This is the hallway off the entry that leads to the laundry room (also not in this post) and the kitchen.  I'm looking for different wall sconces, or I may paint those white...

This is the little powder bath downstairs.  It had the red gingham wallpaper that made your eyes go wonky.  I painted the same color as my master.

Here is the kitchen.  We have installed the cabinet doors (new hinges and knobs), roman shades, baffles on the recessed can lights and the ceiling fan.  We still need to do base and crown molding, and I'd like to un-distress the cabinets.

Turns out that I love orange.  Another who knew....

This is looking into the master from the hallway.  Why, yes, that is a double vanity sink at the foot of my bed.  There is currently a single pedestal sink in the master so we bought this at Costco.  It's been sitting there since February and I think I'm going to miss it when it finally gets installed (possibly at the end of next week!!!). 

We changed all light fixtures, painted, new carpet and window coverings.

We just got those 2 chairs at Cost Plus last week.  Once the vanity is installed, I'd like to get a brown leather storage ottoman for the foot of the bed.  Initially I wanted to have a 4th bedroom built in-lieu of the large master, but then I would have had no where for my scrap space.  The girls will share a room until it's an issue

There's Jack Jack modeling the scrap space.  No, actually Otis is taunting him with that bone in the picture above!

And for the last photos of this post, the front porch.  Greg repaired several broken balusters and fixed and sanded many other areas.  Then he countersunk all the nailheads.  This was a huge job, as this was just raw wood.  We cleaned it too, it was filthy.  It may look dirty now, but at least it cleans up nicely.

Thanks for looking!  I'm going to do another post with the family room, dining room and kids rooms once I straighten them up some =)

So I Found the PERFECT car!

A 4 door CONVERTIBLE!  I can probably even get 3 carseats in the back.  Plus, can't you just *see* me driving it???  While wearing these cowboy boots and a sundress, of course.

   I didn't even know what this car was, but I have seen a few of them around and finally saw that it was a VW.  Now, I just have to find one that isn't up on blocks in someones back 40.

I'm honored to see that even after not posting anything on my blog for months that I have 9 followers.  Who knew????

I would like to take some pictures of the house to upload here.  You know, to show the progress of doing nothing but working on the house for almost a year.  The funny thing about me though, is that I want it to be perfect and clean before taking the pictures.  The logical side of my brain knows that: 1. you can't really tell if something is clean or not in a picture, 2. that none of you really care if it's clean and 3. it's probably clean enough by most normal people standards.  Plus, I love to see other people's homes and imagine that you would all really like to see what all we have done around here.  I will just move my piles of clutter and take pictures.  Solved.  Stand by while I do the above mentioned.....

It's been, like, forevah.

I'm so behind on blogging that I don't even know where to start. There have been 3 birthdays, 2 kids starting school, one kid hangin with me, company, my Mom moved here, my chickens started laying eggs, we stained the front porch, I talked my mom into letting me 'borrow' her wicker furniture for my front porch....... ummmmm..... Let's see, I know there is lots more.... Greg and I took a solo trip to meet Bart and Carla in Denver to see Rush, we're talking about getting a tractor (and a truck...... ) the fan broke on Maxivan, so I have no air in the front vents, lots of mice live in the wood pile, we have a contractor coming to fix a few things and install the vanity in our master bath (finally) and I'm going to design a hall/linen closet for upstairs.

Phew. I'll come back to elaborate and add pictures as soon as Greg puts whatever showed up in the Newegg box today (because our big computers took a big crap at the same time).

Just a few more...

We went to the Sacramento Jazz Festival this past weekend. Wandered around, got free salt water taffy samples and took a train ride. Here is a rare photo that includes me.

Greg drew the short straw and had to sit with the 2 wild ones. LOL! Well, one in particular is wild..... hint: she looks very sweet and innocent here....

Teagan's preschool had a graduation ceremony for the kids going to kindergarten.

So far no more snakes, but believe you me, I think they are lurking everywhere.....

A Few Things I've Learned...

These guys are pretty cute.

Even if it is nearly impossible to get a picture of all 3 without at least one of them doing this...

They always behave like perfect ladies and gentlemen. *cough* No elbows on the table, and we never, ever, not ever put our legs up with a skirt on.

This is what a stampede looks like around here.

This one crows....

Greg can build a mean goat playset.
People from the burbs can look like rednecks after only 6 months of living in the country!
In our defense, we were watching the Tour of California from the end of our property. Lance Armstrong rode right past our house!

Lance is in this bunch. He rides for Radio Shack, but honestly, they were a blur, riding past at about 50 mph.

After the riders went past, there were several cars with replacement bikes following.

And last, but certainly not least..... it is a really bad feeling to see one of these. Especially while wearing cute little flip flops. A dead rattler is the only good rattler. And yes, after locking the dogs in the kennel, going down to the house to get my boots (albeit rain boots...), camera and shovel, I personally dispatched this sassy little snake. I hope his friends saw and move on.....

The post.

Okay, so this will be a random catch you up to date type post. Well, in a brief, Cliff notes version, to save you from death by boredom.

We took the kids to an Easter Egg Hunt in Coloma. It was *perfect* exactly what I had hoped it would be, and look at the beautiful surroundings! They had it set up for the kids to hunt for eggs by age, but we let them all go together so we didn't have to split up and miss seeing everyone. The girls had a blast and Declan was a perfect gentleman, skipping past eggs if he thought someone else had spied it too. They cleaned up with over a dozen eggs a piece.

Next, moving on to the chicken tractor. This is a coop on wheels basically. Greg came up with the design and built it from that! I think it's pretty amazing that someone can picture this in their head, and then to see it actually appear.

It took us (ie; Greg working and me supervising.... and opening beers) just about 4 weekends of work. It began to seem like the chicken coop of the century, but I couldn't be happier with it. And most importantly, the chickens are safe and sound and out of my laundry room.
I sprayed it the same color as the house, which is a pale yellow with white trim. It turned out pretty pale though, and when we repaint the main house, I'll repaint the coop as well.
Here is a random picture of the typical quad ride around here. Kids, dogs, you know. They don't make dog helmets for needle nose whippets though so Greg just has to be careful.

We've had crazy weather, super warm sunny spring like one day, and overcast raining like crazy the next. It's made all the grass grow like mad and we've spent many a weekend cutting grasses, spraying grasses with Roundup and cursing the back 4 or so acres that are full of poison oak and thistle.

I've got the rest of my pictures uploaded onto the other computer that I can't access from the Netbook, so this post will have to be continued.....

Okay, I'm working on a post....

Got lots of photos to upload and lots to talk about. Will be doing my best to update today or tomorrow!

And then the chicken said....

whatchutalkin'boutwillis?

Well, it was inevitable......

Okay, I realize that anyone who has known me for a really long time is probably thinking I have gone completely crazy. Where did the Mall Rat Teresa go? Long fingernails and makeup??? Cute sporty little car (sigh). Honestly most of those went to the wayside after having kids (and maturing some too). I was on the phone with my Mom last night trying to remember if/what I used to say about when I moved to the country. Was I just going to get chickens? Was it going to be chickens and goats? Can't remember.

On Wednesday I answered an ad on Craigslist for baby Nigerian Dwarf does (that's girls to you city slickers - LOL!). They were available to reserve as they won't be weaned and ready to leave their Mama until the end of April. EUREKA! We can be ready for goats by the end of April, right?! Well, we'd better be because 2 of these babies are coming home with us!

The little white one on the left is ours.

The buff one on the top of the wooden thing (I'm sure there is a techincal country term for it, but I don't know what...) is also ours. Some other people came to look at the babies while we were there, which put me right into decision mode......
Here are 2 of my brood of 3. Maren is on the outside of the fence because as soon as we walked into the pen the babies all stood up on us. The one in front of Teagan liked hair and chewed holes in my new Banana Republic shirt..... Hey, I can't *look* like a country girl. I knew full well that going to look at goat kids (that's baby goats for you city peeps) wearing ballet flats and my new shirt were potentially dangerous. I don't get out as much as I used to......

Ummm... look at that face on the one looking at the camera!!! I wanted her too, but she was already spoken for. I'm going to call the guy who has them today to see if/who the people after us took. I would hate for there to be just 1 left or something.....