Kitchen Remodel and paint job

Here are some post-pictures of our house so far. We redid the kitchen ceiling, lighting and paint and made a big difference in the look of our home we think. Matt put in many hours with his dad and friend, Ray. Shellie, with the help of many people, Henry, Lorna, Uncle Peter, Aunt Harriet, Camille, Sarah, Erin, my momma (who came up for a surprise visit) did a lot of work on the paint:) So, they
1) Removed the lowered ceiling, framing, etc and the cabinets that separated the kitchen from the living room
2) Dry-walled everything above the cabinets, created new framing and re-dry-walled the existing sky-light.
3)Put in the can lighting
4)re-textured all the new stuff
5) Painted
all while painting the rest of the house!
6)moved in with a lot of great help!
7) had Christmas!

Again, pictures taken with me turning continuously clockwise about 360 degrees, the cabinets were taken from the far left of this first picture

Our new home!!

We have been looking at houses for about two years now, never finding the right place. We put a few bids on houses here and there (always a total lowball!) and either were rejected or pulled out ourselves because it just wasn't right. Well, Matt came upon this house a year ago while browsing the "way too expensive" range of houses. He really liked it (which means a lot coming from him), it was on an acre, it was a good sized home, with a HUGE deck! Shellie was ho-hum about it but really liked the floorplan (it is VERY rare to find good floorplans around here, I'm not sure if that is always the case, but it definitely is here). We put in our low-ball offer and were rejected because there was a better offer already on it. To make it worse, the house was a short sale which means that the buyers are trying to sell it at a loss for the bank that financed the purchase, AKA, this is gonna take FOREVER! Several months went by, Shellie forgot about the house, but Matt remembered. Several offers also went through on the house but the buyers pulled out due to the bank being ridiculous! Eventually, the sellers' agent called us and told us that if we offer a certain amount (still a low-ball offer), she was pretty sure she could get it through. Well, true to a short-sales reputation the process of getting our offer accepted took FOREVER, about 5 months! We had peace that God rarely does things quickly and having to wait is never a closed door from Him. we knew that if this house was not meant to be ours that doors would definitely closed. Meanwhile, we were living in our great little Honeymoon cottage and happy as clams. So, around the second week of November our offer was finally accepted and we went into escrow. So many things could still close the doors on this home so we kept our excitement to a minimum. The Pest inspection went well, the Home inspection went really well and the Septic was great! We had already gotten ourselves ready financially, so the financing went through without a hitch and we got an amazing interest rate! blah, blah blah.... We are now painting the new house and packing up our old one. We move on December 12!! Here are some pictures from when we were still waiting, it already looks a bit different.
All of these pictures were taken with me standing in the dining area, I'm doing a 360 going clockwise. Gotta love that 80's kitchen!

By the way, we have already done a ton to this kitchen and I will post the remodel pictures very soon. Or you can look at my facebook to see some in-process pics.

Squaw Bread Recipe

For all of you out there that want my bread recipe, here it goes
Shellie's Squaw Bread,
I will list the ingredients in the order that you should prepare them

3/4 c. milk (any sort of milk will do. I have used rice milk, whole milk, 2%, 1% and it all tastes fine
1/4 water
1 c. bread flour
1 3/4 c. wheat flour
3/4 c. rye flour
YEAST! Place these three ingredients in a small cup or bowl, mix the sugar and yeast and then add water, set aside until you are ready to start your bread
2 1/2 tsp. active yeast (I get Red Star in bulk for VERY cheap at Smart n Final)
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 c. warm, not hot water
2 Tbs. Oil
1 1/2 Tbs. Honey
1 1/2 Tbs. Brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
Add Yeast mixture (it should have risen and rounded itself in the cup)
Place pan in breadmaker and set it for Dough. This should take about an hour and a half. When finished (take pan out within an hour of it finishing), put a handful of flour on a smooth surface, dump the dough on top, coat the dough in flour and then place into a greased loaf pan.
Place in a pre-warmed oven (just put the oven on the Warm setting) with a very light towel over the top. Allow to rise until it is an inch or two higher than the side of the pan. This should take about 30 minutes, more or less depending on the freshness of your yeast.
Open the stove, remove the towel and turn the oven up to 350 degrees. Set the timer for 28-30 minutes for a glass loaf pan, 30+ for dark pan.
Do not cut immediately! Set out on a drying rack.

I really hope you make it and enjoy! It is great for sandwiches and amazing for plain toast.

Growing up! 15 months

I really needed to post, so instead of stressing about getting 10 million pics on here, i'll just put up a little snippet of Caleb's life at this moment. He is 15 months old and finally growing! He is such a joy as always. He is running around like a toddler, but he has not reached full toddler-hood yet! We are enjoying how beautiful he still is, as he will soon be a grubby, lanky little boy:) He is our baby!
Matt and I are doing great.
Take care and enjoy a few pics that we took with our new camera

You have no idea how much we adore this smile!
He's finally looking at books!

Much too long!

I am so sorry it has been so long since I last posted. I also am so sorry for how long this post is! I have been uninspired to spend time on the computer while my beautiful son is at my side! I will start this post with Matt and I:)

We had our 4 year anniversary on thursday, but we celebrated it last month with a trip to the Kern River to go rafting. We did this on our first anniversary and really enjoyed ourselves. Henry and Lorna, aka Grammi and Grandpa, watched Caleb for one morning (we left at 4:30am) and one night. They all did great and we were able to be fairly relaxed away from him knowing that he was in good hands.

Random Fun Pictures
He LOVES it when DaDa comes home for lunch, Matt is like a superhero!

He is SOOO close to walking! I think he is not confident enough, which makes me happy. He is great at pushing anything though. The object does not even have to have wheels, it however makes it much easier. He was pushing his stroller in circles the other day and I am so glad that I was able to capture his delighted expression!
Water day at church He is sucking out of a water bladder that we use for hiking. He is way beyond his months!
De-stuffing the Kleenex box, gotta give mom something to do! Caleb loves our pots and pans so much that he tried to join them in their drawer!
San Diego trip to see family
Madyson and I Madyson loves her cousin Caleb! Cute Braydon! He is such a delightful little boy - ALL BOY!
Beautiful Madyson!
So bummed that I didn't get any pics of CaysonTroy and Matt doing a CrossFit workout in Troy's street. They did this, tossed that other wheel between the two of them, did squats with kettleballs and then sprinted with sandbags! My baby beat all of the guys! I'm so proud of him!

Matt and Troy got to go shoot Troy's MP5, temporarily made fully automatic. Troy is a police and swat officer in San Diego. I think it is funny how close they have to be to the target. I guess automatic guns are only accurate at very short distances. I figure this is how in the movies so many bullets can be shot at someone and yet that person never dies!

Matt looking all stealth, shooting his .223

Caleb's Dedication
Hanging out afterwards

Janel and Ethan

Fun times playing the piano with Aunt Harriet and Uncle Peter. He had his first claps whilst playing:)

Rockin out!

Caleb has discovered that my phone plays music. He LOVES this feature and carries it all around with him. ENJOY!

Moving forward and upward!

I haven't blogged in a while and I'm gonna blame it on Caleb. He is now moving, ALOT! So, we are now at that stage when parents say, "Just wait till he's crawling!" Well, he is and has been for about three weeks now. He now is mostly self-entertained by things like toilets, crescent wrenches, dog crates, refridgerators, anything electric, etc, etc.... It is a dangerous time to say the least! (for all of you out there who will tell me to baby-proof the house, well it is, don't worry!) It is also just so fun watching his little brain try to understand things, figure out how to get where he wants to go and how to play, especially with Addie. I finally uploaded some pictures and the whole time, I'm just "oh my goodness(ing)" every picture. He really is such a joy and I love sharing that with all who look at this blog.

Here is is climbing over and in
An, "oh my goodness pic"
every so often, you MUST have some naked time outside!
An action shot with Matt and Dan playing some ping-pong, the sport of choice in the summer. Down below is his girlfriend Liz hanging with Caleb.
I thought the expressions here were priceless
Dan and Caleb

SWINGS!
Caleb was mesmerized by Addie's "lick-it." When you touch the bottom piece, it allows water to go through. I have to say that Caleb figured this out much faster than Addie!
HE LOVED IT!
Addie isn't this biggest problem-solver. So she is the recipient of Caleb's ability to open doors for her. Too bad he closes them on her too.
Oh, the refrigerator....
He figured out a new way to crawl when the surface hurts his knees. He figured this out as I was running inside to grab him some pants. Apparently he didn't need them.
Don't forget, Caleb is being dedicated on the 19th at 9 am at our church!