24, 25 or 26?

I turned 26 last week. According to older brother Chris, that means I'm only 14 years away from 40! Woohoo!

I'm in trouble though because a few weeks before my birthday I couldn't remember if I was 24 and turning 25 or if I was 25 and turning 26. After a little math, I concluded I was, indeed, 25 turning 26. Thank goodness for math and awesome husbands. Math to help me figure out how old I am and a great husband to help make it such a wonderful day!

Kody knows the way to his wife's heart:



A new kitchen toy...Vanilla Coke...chocolate in the bag...funny and thoughtful card

It was a great day filled with sleeping in, a long run with Noodles on a gorgeous autumn day, lunch at Olive Garden with Kody, relaxing afternoon, dinner out with Kody and games at home to finish out the day.

But come Sunday, while Kody studied all day, I got my baking on and tried out my new KitchenAid. I made about a million muffins for us to take for breakfast/lunch each day, including a gigantic batch of my mom's refrigerator bran muffins (with chocolate chips) and a small batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I also got to use it to make mashed potatoes and I plan on putting it to use soon to make some pumpkin scones! Yum! I'm in love. Funny how happy kitchen toys can make you.

I also was hoping to take some family photos last weekend, but Kody bailed on me. I decided to see about take a few of Noodles by myself in the backyard. You can see the progression below. I let the photos speak for themselves.

Photo shoot = unsuccessful.

I'm frustrated even looking at these pictures again. ha! And no, we haven't raked our leaves yet. Kody tells me if we leave them that it'll fertilize the yard and I believe him.

Kitchen eatin'

While our Walmart folding kitchen table worked incredibly well for us for our first three years of marriage, one of the things we couldn't wait to upgrade was the folding table to a "real" kitchen table. Real = ability to seat more than four people, ability to have food and plates on the table at the same time and an inability to accidentally fold up on you.


Our new table definitely fits all those desires (although I often forget that there's room on the table for the food and find myself setting up a buffet on the counter!). It still does fold, but in a good way - folds out to seat even more people! One problem though...we're still so enamored with our couch that the table definitely doesn't get as much use as it should! Many meals are eaten on the couch. But not when we have company (hint, hint: come visit).

I haven't put up too many kitchen pictures here because we haven't made many changes to it, but I realized it does look a lot different with the new table. So here are a few pics of the kitchen...brand new table and all! The only thing you can't see if our bookshelf that you get a peek of on the right side of the first photo. You'll just have to come visit if you want to see that (re: I'm bored because Kody is always studying and if there's anything I can do to entice you to come visit us, I'm up for it! I realize a bookshelf probably won't do that, but I promise to cook for you in this kitchen if you drop by!).

Pumpkin Destruction

After church last week, Kody and I decided to stop and grab some pumpkins at the grocery store. We set them on our front porch and planned to carve or do something with them later in the week.

Last Monday morning, we came outside to this:

And Monday afternoon, I came home for lunch to three squirrels on our porch ... enjoying a nice pumpkin snack.

They're still sitting there by our front door. I suppose we should just throw them out, now that they're uncarvable, but I think I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that squirrels ate and proceeded to destroy our pumpkins. Less than 24 hours after we bought them!!

Apparently they're hungry little boogers.

a little fun before real school

Kody started classes this past Monday and it's goodbye life, hello textbooks.

But during the past eight weeks of "rotation vacation," as the vets call it, we've managed to squeeze in a few fun activities.

Waaay back, like when it was over 90 degrees, we sweat through an Illinois v. Arkansas State football game with some vet school couples. Unfortunately, there's no photo evidence of the fun we had cheering for the Illini, squinting our eyes and devouring s'mores in our backyard.

But there is evidence of the getaway camping trip with our favorite youth pastor and his wife a few weeks back - the Benders.

Austin and Amber are expert campers and we couldn't believe that this was our first time camping with them. We enjoyed chilly weather, food cooked over the fire, hot chocolate, great friends and a few other not so great things - loud neighbors late into the night, a dog pacing the tent until 2:30 a.m. and a gorgeous day of hiking that meant lots and lots of crowds.

Then last weekend our friends from St. Charles (okay, really DeKalb) - Brett, Kim and Halle Lu Mapel - joined us for another fun Illini football game against Ohio State. Not a great game, but definitely great company and a fun way to spend Kody's last weekend of freedom.

Kody gets another "rotation vacation" in about a year, so hopefully it'll be filled with as much fun, friends and memories. Until then, you can find Kody in the study with his nose in his computer and me in the kitchen using my new KitchenAid mixer!!!!

Can't get away

We got this in the mail earlier this week:

A junk mail letter from Allstate. Look familiar? We got a similar letter here.

Not the same...but unfortunately from the same company. The same junk mail letter I mailed every day for two years. The same junk mail letter I proofed every day for two years. The junk mail letter I thought I'd never have to see again.

Oh, TU Daily, I have not missed you at all.

Men v. Women: Coupon Clipping

One disadvantage of moving to Champaign is not being able to get the Chicago Tribune home delivery. The first few weeks we lived here I was a little "lost," as far as not knowing where to shop, where to get good deals and how to get coupons.

Basically, I probably spent more money on groceries in the last three months than I had in the previous six before that. Simply due to lack of planning and it didn't even feel like we had more food!

Well, the Coordinated Science Laboratory on U of I's campus came to the rescue and addressed my coupon problem. Each week, the facilities manager receives the Sunday Tribune, goes through the coupons for he and his wife and then brings them up to me! So thankful for him and coupon sharing. :-)

Over the last few weeks I've received a pile of coupons that look like this:

I thought it's an interesting comparison to see how men sort, clip and organize coupons: see above.

And how women "typically" sort, clip and organize coupons:

Living room updates

I think we can officially say we're done attempting to put together our living room! Hallelujah! At least we can call one room finished. Just don't ask us to show you our study or guest room :)

The room started out looking like this when we moved in:

We moved in, painted the walls a gray/blue color, refinished the floors and painted all the trim white - including the doors that lead to the living room.

And then after too many days of using an air mattress for a couch, we received this big guy:

At some point during this process, Kody refinished our entertainment center and removed the glass door:

Then with all the major pieces in place, we began adding pillows and decorations...switched the bookcase...painted our own wall art (yes, Kody painted that himself and did an amazing job if I say so myself)...agonized over a rug color...and found the perfect black ottoman!

The final touch was getting two side tables to finally have somewhere to put a drink and figuring out what would look good between the bookcase and couch on the left side.

And finally D-O-N-E:

Our first harvest!

Our garden is producing!

Maybe I should clarify...our garden is producing...lots and lots of weeds. Yay!

Unfortunately, not much of the green in that picture is actually anything I purposefully planted. But I'm too scared to pull any of those weeds, just in case it might really be a plant and I just can't tell! Our garden has looked about this productive since we planted it. I thought this was possibly normal until we visited our friends Austin and Amber and realized they actually have green, real, vegetable plants that grow up to your knees! They also had things like tomatoes and peppers hanging off of them. Ours aren't quite there yet :)

However, it hasn't been a total failure!

Meet Green Onion #1:

 And Green Onion #2:

Aren't they beauties?

I'm not sure if they were ready to be picked or not, but I gave it a shot anyway. While we did plant green onions, I'm not exactly sure if I planted these or if they're just leftover from the older garden. They were definitely not growing in the "green onion" row.

We also have a struggling, little, itty, bitty lettuce plant that, depending on the day, looks like it's about to die. I thought it was a goner a few weeks ago, but then it perked up again!

You think that's enough lettuce for a salad yet?

Veterinary Badge of Honor

About two weeks ago, Kody got inducted as a "veternarian-in-training," by donning a blue lab coat and participating in a graduation-like ceremony.

Kody's parents came down for the weekend and it was fun to have them here and learn a little more about Kody's next four years of insanity.

The first year students were given their coats by a few faculty members and student representatives. They'll wear them during all their rotations over the next 6 weeks and during the upcoming years.

One of the first people Kody met while getting his rabies shots before school started was the couple below - Nicole and Andrew. They're from Virginia and Nicole loves Young House Love. So basically it was friends at first blog post...or something like that.

Illinois has a unique vet program in that students do 8 weeks of rotations in the veterinary teaching hospital on campus during the first three years of school. Kody will do rotations until October and then begin typical classes. These last few weeks though, he's been loving learning to draw blood from a dog's jugular vein, tackling cattle and learning to tie knots to restrain sheep, goats, pigs, horses and cows. His first week was small animal internal medicine, last week was farm animal husbandry and this week he'll learn about diagnostics.

So far, he's really enjoying it and has already made some great friends. We spent yesterday sweating in the heat at the first Illini home football game with two other couples and then enjoying a BBQ inside at our house. While it was fun...nothing can compare to a Husker football game. The stadium wasn't even full! Even with the lack of quality college football, it was a fun day and the Illini did win!

I have to brag on my hubby for a bit though. He's pretty much dominating this vet school thing so far. Over these first 8 weeks, the students are required to complete about 40 online quizzes, along with weekly assignments related to their rotations. He's almost done with the quizzes and was even jokingly offered a summer job wrangling mean bulls that need tying up, due to his incredible knot tying ability. And if you know anything about Kody, you'll be super impressed that he joined three clubs (Surgery Club, Animal Hospital Assocation of American and the Christian Veterinary Club) and wants to get a University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine license plate holder! Completely different man from undergrad :) Love him!

Surprise, surprise

Before moving into this house, I had certain assumptions about how things would be, what things I would like, what things I hoped to change and what I already knew was going to drive me crazy.

It's funny how all that changes. Really, whenever you are faced with a new situation it almost never turns out how you'd expect.

Same with houses, I guess. So here's my top 5 list of things that have surprised Kody and I around the house.

1) Keeping dirty dishes out of the sink hasn't actually been that difficult!

• I knew I'd be okay not having a dishwasher for a while, but I was concerned about the piles upon piles of dirty dishes I imagined would stack up in the sink. I'm not sure whether it's because we've been doing a great job keeping up with the dishes or whether I just haven't been cooking, but I can proudly say that there have been very few nights where we've gone to bed without doing the dishes. That never could have been said back in St. Charles! I originally thought we'd try to find a good deal on a dishwasher around Thanksgiving, but now I'm thinking I might be able to hold out even longer! And I bet it'll make me appreciate a new dishwasher even more when we finally get one. Now putting the dishes away is another story.
  

2) Sweeping isn't all that bad either.

• One of the things that concerned Kody and I moving in was all the hard wood floors. We're carpet people who like to have something soft under us...as is our dog.

I love the clean look freshly vacuumed carpet gives a room. The awesome thing about hard wood floors though, is that even if they're not swept, they look freshly swept (unless you get up close)! In our apartment, even if the room was picked up, it didn't look clean to me unless the carpet was vacuumed. In the new house, if it's picked up, it always looks clean! It's awesome! I also have a "clean feet" problem that I don't like walking on carpet without shoes, socks or clean feet. Mega weird, I know. The nice thing about wood floors is I can wear shoes around all the time without having to feel guilty about getting the carpet dirty! Kody got me these awesome "ballet" slippers to wear around the house when I don't want to wear shoes. As for cleaning though, I enjoy the floors because they do hide the dirt/dog hair really well. However, when I sweep (which I have been doing quite regularly), I about want to go insane with the amount of grossness that apparently blends into the floor. And don't get me started about how dirty my rag gets when I start to mop the floor. I try not to think about it and I make sure to avoid sitting on the hard wood. I'm already anal, so I just hope these floors don't tip the scales and send me straight into the looney bin. That said though - sweeping is slightly therapeutic, but only when you don't look at the ridiculous amounts of dog hair in your pile and when your dog doesn't ruin all your piles.

3) Laundry in the hallway.

• Not that I've actually been doing much laundry these days (thanks Kod!), but I kind of like having the washer and dryer in the hallway. It's super convenient and I walk past it all the time. When we didn't have curtains up in the past, it was so easy to throw a load in. Not that curtains do much to block that, haha. Can I also say that it is awesome to have a full-size washer/dryer. I used to do 4-5 loads each week...now I do 1 load per week! Amazing!! Only thing that has me concerned - I use the same amount of detergent in my one large load as I previously used in each of my 4-5 small loads. Can you say detergent happy? Maybe now we won't have to buy detergent so frequently! Kody and his dad also installed these magnificent cabinets in the "laundry room" that certainly help with having a good attitude about the laundry.

4) All the small pleasures.

• I never would have thought I'd get such a kick out of the little things about owning a home. Our own mailbox. We get to tip the mailman and trash man at Christmas. Our own recycling bin. Trick-or-treaters for Halloween. Neighbors who you can't hear through the wall. Decorating our house for Christmas. Taking good care of the stove because it's actually ours now. Kody playing the piano at midnight. Blaring the tv/music. Opening our front door when it's nice outside. All such little things, but so fun!

5) White painted doors.

• I have always loved the french doors that lead from the living room to the kitchen.
  

Kody, however, not so much. He told me he was going to take them down before he started school, but I stalled long enough to convince him to paint them white and now he loves them! He says they kind of give the living room a sunroom-like feel, which I definitely agree with and they really do look great! It lightens everything up and now there's only a few small places that show the original wood color that was everywhere when we moved in (not that we didn't like it, but we just really like the white).

And now for your funny Noodles picture-of-the-week:

Caption contest, anyone?

I'll go first -

"This chair ain't big enough for the two of us."