Bike Riding.

This past week Gioia learned how to ride her bike without training wheels. She is super excited and took to it right away. She had been asking on her own about taking off the training wheels. So Friday we did it and she was riding on her own right away. Now I have a promise to her to take her to the park so we can ride on a long stretch of pavement. However, she is doing quite well on the grass.

Cubby storage unit project!

This weekend has been really exciting. We got the chickens out of the garage and into their house for one thing. Thank goodness.

The really fun part is this: I have been playing with power tools. GRRR!!

We spent WAY TOO LONG at Home Depot on Saturday but came home with a table saw and a huge stack of wood. The guy at Home Depot cut the majority of my pieces for me which was a huge help.

Then I turned this:
Into this:



It isn't done of course. I have quite a bit left to do but I am super proud of myself for getting all this done. I need DH to cut some more pieces out for me and then I can start working on the next part.

Curtains

Here are some photos of the living room curtains I made. They are the print on one side and brown on the outside. Now I think i need to paint! I am thinking of painting it the light green color that is in the curtains.

New projects for Spring.

We are in full on project mode around here. Here is the run-down.

1) Chickens growing in the garage. Tomorrow my husbands coworker and son are coming to help set up the chicken coop we got. Hopefully those chickens will soon be outside.

2) Seedlings started. Hmmm. Lots of seeds sprouted, lots have died so far. I am not pleased. We got more grow lights and I got out the plant food to mix with the water. Hopefully the weather will turn and I can have them outside during the day.

3) Curtains for the living room. They are made and tonight we purchased the decorative rod. I hope to get hubby to hang it this week.

4) Storage unit for the basement. This is a new project. It is a building project and I am going to do it. I am recruiting DH to help with the cutting. Sutherlands cut half of it tonight and hopefully DH can cut the rest this week. Then I can get started on it. I am building this:
http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/cameron-creativity-storage-system-with-art-cubbies/popup/more-views.html

Well actually you can customize it how you want. I plan to do the top row all 4 hole cubby units. the middle will be the doors like in the picture. I will probably even paint the chalkboard paint on the doors. Then the bottom will be the bases but with drawers in them.

I am getting my plans from Ana over at Knock-Off Wood. www.knockoffwood.blogspot.com
Amazing stuff. I got the wood for the bases tonight. I hope to have them done this week. I will keep you posted.

This wonderful setup is going to go in the basement. Toy storage, book storage, homeschool stuff storage. Whatever! I can't wait. My husband is so excited that I am taking on this building project.

Henna hair

My hair has been many colors and I was wanting something more simple for summer. We plan on doing a lot of swimming this summer and I didn't want to mess with fading color or things like that.
I have been really wanting to try Henna. It is natural and doesn't dry out your hair. In fact, it has cocoa butter in it to condition it. So I got some Henna and a couple friends came over to do it with me. One friend has some grays and I have been telling her she needed to try the Henna because they say its great for grays. So we put the Henna on, put a plastic sack around our heads and waited 3 hours. Then the color takes a few days to end up the final color.

Here is my hair the day after Henna. You can see where my blonde pieces stayed lighter than the rest.



Here is the second day. It has gotten a little darker. Still redish in better lighting.

Food Processor!

Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! I got my new food processor yesterday and so of course, I had to try it out. OH MY GOSH! People, I seriously love it.

So you know how you have something and it works fine, but you don't love it. Then you upgrade at some point and realize there is a huge difference? Yeah that. My old FP sounded like it was chopping bones every time I used it. Very loud. Also it only chopped things good, not excellent like my new one.

So this morning I chopped carrots, celery, onion and I am making some veggie broth stock. I am gonna freeze it to have on hand. I hate onions but realize they do give good flavor. This machine pulverized them. Nice. I can't WAIT to have a garden full of tomatoes so I can chop them and can them, make salsa and all that stuff.

Here is what I got: Cuisinart 11 cup FP.
Edited to Add:

Mom I am SOOO getting you one of these for you birthday, mothers day...something. You need one very badly. Although i think you should save your old one and put on a shelf somewhere. That thing has some memories. HA HA!!

More chicken stuff.

More fun with chickens. They were inside for one night and then I was just sick of fighting the kids to leave them alone. Now they are in the garage and the dog is chained up when he is in there. He expressed interest in eating the tiny peeping things. :)

A friend has offered to pass on her chicken coop to us. We go get it on Tuesday. I can't wait. I am very excited. Massimo is excited that he won't have to build one from scratch! :)

The Chickens are here.

Fun, Fun! Today we got the little buggers. They are super cute and I love hearing all the little cheep, cheeps.

Chickens!

We are getting chickens this weekend. I can't wait. We are all so excited! These will be the eatin' chickens. We are going to get some laying hens but have to get their house built first. Pretty sure we are doing a chicken tractor. Probably something very similar to this. CHICKEN TRACTOR The benefit to this is that you can move their coop all over your land but the chickens are not loose. This is ideal for us since we and our neighbor both have dogs that roam around. It also protects the chickens from other predators. Thirdly, it keeps them out of my garden! HA HA! My husband has a friend at work that has too many chickens and said he will gladly sell us some. We also found a business that sells those wood pallets for $1 each. We are hoping to get a bunch of those and use for some of these products.

Greenhouse update: The greenhouse was sold out, but we got a raincheck for the sale price that is good for a whole year. So with that in mind, we are going to wait a bit on the Greenhouse. First we are going to concentrate on getting the chickens set up and then work on the Greenhouse later in the summer.

Goodbye old friend.

We lost our dog this weekend. First he was just lost, then we found him. Pretty sure he was hit by a car. This part isn't a surprise, just unpleasant.

We got him the DAY we moved into our first house. He was this little white fluffball. We brought him home and named him Wickett (like the Ewok). I remember my parents watching him when we were on vacation and when we got back my little white dog was almost black. He had quite a time on the farm. :)
We nicknamed him Wicky Wild Man cause he was always so full of energy. I have a picture somewhere of him and Massimo snuggling on the couch sleeping. He was our first dog and SOO good with the kids. Gioia would put a leash around him and lead him around the yard, running and playing.

He will be sadly missed. :(

Grown up haircut.

After much insisting on my husbands part, I finally got both boys a haircut yesterday. This is the shortest Luca's hair has ever been. I hardly recognize him. He looks like such a big boy. *sniff, sniff*

What I am making this week.

Have you ever went to a restaurant and had an amazing meal and thought to yourself, "I should learn to make this, it doesn't seem that hard" . Well here it is folks. Seafood Pasta. This is a family staple around here and SOO easy and good. What you see in the pictures is what you need.

1 lb. Spaghetti pasta
2 cans clams
2 cans smoked oysters
1 lb crabmeat (imatation is fine)
5-6 large cloves garlic
large handful of fresh chopped parsley
Olive oil
Lots of grated parmesan cheese for topping

Put a pot of water on to boil. While you are waiting for the water, chop the garlic and parsely. In a skillet cover with layer of olive oil and saute the crabmeat over med heat. When water starts boiling put the pasta in. It should take about 12 minutes to cook, check your package for times. Next add the oysters to the seafood mix. Cook another 2-3 minutes. Continue adding olive oil as needed. You want about a 1/2 inch or so of olive oil in the pan all the time as it is the "sauce". You can add the garlic and parsley now cook another 2-3 minutes. Then add the clams. Cook them for another 2-3 minutes then take the mixture off the heat. The pasta should be about done. When it is drain and add a touch of olive oil to the pasta so it doesn't stick.
Serve the pasta with a heaping scoop of the seafood and topped with shredded Parmesan.


The other thing we made this weekend, was to start our plants. We started inside 5 kinds of tomato, 5 kinds of peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and eggplant. YUM!!