Summer down!

At this time of year when school supplies are on display at Target, decorations of orange, red, and brown are available at Michael's and Pottery Barn, and people begin pinning remarks of cold weather and boots on Pinterest, summer is coming to a close.  Most people started their school year yesterday.  Since I'm now in nursing school, I'm on a whole new schedule and I begin September 10th.  I'm jealous of those starting so early especially since I've already quit my job for school and I now spend my days crafting and homemaking.  Sounds fun, but it gets old.

We were able to end summer festivities well.  All summer we've had barbeques, swim parties, and fishing trips.  In our last month, we got to do the final summer activities to close a great season.

First, went on our annual Lake Powell trip.

For the rest of the month, we spent weekends swimming and relaxing.  Clearly Jack is a pro at this.

We celebrated Karsten's 24th birthday.  I didn't get him a gun this year, but he still had a good time with his camo walkie talkies!

Married for a Year

This is over a month late, but I'm bad at this.  On July 16th, 2012, we celebrated our 1 year anniversary!  Doesn't feel like a year at all!  It feels like this has been my life all along.  Every now and then I run into someone Karsten hasn't met and it brings me back to the fact that he's only been in my life for 2 years.  Best 2 years of my life.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, we spent the whole day together.  The romance started Sunday night.  Vegas doesn't get rain a lot but every now and then we get dumped on, especially on this night.  Once our backyard started to look like a lake, we decided we should check on our chickens to make sure they were dry and our coop was doing its job.  Without an umbrella we ran into the rain and immediately got drenched.  After discovering our chickens were dry as a bone and passed out we ran back to the door.  Like in a movie, Karsten grabs me, dips me, and gives me that romantic kiss in the rain that I never got and always wanted.  It was the perfect reminder that even though we've settled down into everyday life together, there is still magic in our relationship.

This was the aftermath of our clothes.  I've never been soaked like this in a Vegas storm!

Our anniversary started with gifts.  I'm very impatient; good thing he loves me.  My gift to Karsten was a custom made stetson cowboy hat and Karsten gave me the most beautiful rose gold diamond heart necklace.  

We spent the afternoon swimming and sun bathing by the pool.  It was so relaxing and probably my favorite day since Karsten was able to take off work to just spend time with me.

After a romantic dinner, we concluded our awesome day with a fairly dated tradition.

This is the top of our wedding cake that my mom froze and saved.

We were told on our 1 year anniversary we had to eat it.  For the sake of tradition, we had a bite.  I'm sort of glad my mom wasn't there to make us eat more than that.

 It was an amazing day to end an amazing year!  For the rest of my blog, I won't be in a newlywed cloud.  I am still wildly in young love with Karsten, but this marks the end of the first year of giggles and glitches.  I can't wait for many, many more years with this guy and hitting more landmarks and growth.

Mean Girls

In this post, I'm going to take a moment to reference the beloved movie Mean Girls.  Like many girls, I used to be in love with this movie..... until I started living it.

As I've posted before, I have 9 chickens (3 brown, 6 white- I'm not racist).  They are about 5 months old and have begun laying their first eggs.  That was an exciting time in their growth.  But now they are going through a phase I have heard is called picking a "pecking order".  This means they establish who is the dominant hen by pecking at other hens until they give in- basically, bullying.  The hen on the bottom of the pecking order often gets pecked so much, they eventually kill her... seriously.

I watch these chickens enough to know each has a different personality.  If I were to give names at this point according to personality here's what it might be.

That's ^^ Regina George.  If my coop was US Weekly she'd be on the cover every week!  Just kidding, but for real.  She was the fastest to mature, the first to lay eggs, and established her dominance as the queen early on.

Gretchen Wieners.  Her comb is so big because it's full of secrets!  She follows Regina around and was next to lay eggs consistently.

Karen Smith.  Anytime I try and shoo her away or try to scare her, she sits and tries to get as close to the ground as possible.  Like if she gets far enough down, I can't reach her???  Not my brightest chick.

Janice Ian.  Digs little ditches to nest in and pecks at any chick walking by. Feisty and non-conforming.

 

Damian.  Not that she's gay.  I just picture her saying, "She doesn't even go here!"

These other 3 I'd consider the followers.  They aren't last in the pecking order, but they aren't first.  Because they seem so insecure about their spot, the just peck at whichever hen is the bottom.

Cady Heron- before she herself turned into a mean girl.  Vulnerable, bullied, and the bottom of the pecking order.  Since she is my favorite and I can't stand referring my favorite hen to Lindsey Lohan, I'll call her Rachel.  Rachel was the runt of my chicks and loved to cuddle with me.  Now she is the bottom of the pecking order.  Let me show you just what happens when  a chicken is at the bottom.

I found her like this today.  After cleaning and dressing her wound, I read more about this.  I got really concerned after I found out she could get killed from this.  I researched ways to prevent this and all I found was a cream to deter their attraction.  

Other efforts of mine include, distracting their boredom with fresh veggies, Vicks Vapor rub on beaks so they smell the same, cornstarch on her wound to hide the blood that makes the others go crazy, and pepper to lead them away. 

 I will report what works on my next blog, but pray for my girl.  If anyone knows another home remedy, I'm all ears!!

Married in the Summer!

Quick round of catch up on the Smith's:

Still no house- but in escrow with a short sale .  Fingers crossed.

I got accepted into UNLV's nursing program!  I start this fall!

Karsten is just about done building our chicken coop.  The chickens are settled in it.  We just need to fix the outside storage area.

Karsten is working hard inspecting fire alarms and put in an application for Clark County Fire Department for the first time.  It could take him a couple tries to actually get hired on, but it would be cool if he got it in his first try.  Fingers crossed.

We got our first eggs!

The first one was pretty.

The second one... not so much.

Jack is enjoying life and is getting bigger.

We got a brand new nephew!  Levi Thomas!

Am I allowed to have favorites?? 

Our other nephew, Lynken, had his 2nd birthday.  I made the cake, and Litany frosted it.

                                     

I learned I can't make shaped cakes.

Take 2...

 And my awesome roommate Jacqueline Peck-Swainston got married.  Her wedding could not have been more suiting for her.  Perfect!

The rest of my summer I have been trying to fill my time with as many productive things as possible: fashioning my first quilt, scanning all of our baby pictures, and every hum-drum young wife thing you can think of until school starts and I'm lost in books!  I have been working on provident living and a few dreams and skills have arisen this summer.  Stay tuned for posts on my newly found provident living!

Married with Jack

Since I have no kids, I can't help but take tons of pictures of my sweet baby Jack.  He is getting so big and awesome.. I just love him!

Jack has interesting ways of getting comfortable..

Jack discovered swimming and finally got in... with a little push from Karsten.

He has learned he can usually get what he wants by looking up at me with those big brown eyes.

And finally.. Jack has learned that digging is a no-no.

Married with disappointments

WARNING:  This story doesn't have a happy ending.  Not for the faint of heart.  

Okay, Okay.. This whole time I have been telling stories about how fun marriage is.  We've been doing fun things, we love just being with each other, and life is made of rainbows and smiles.  In all honesty, this really has been how our marriage has been... until now.

Karsten and I faced our first bump in the road.  We have been looking to buy a house for nearly 16 months now.  We have put in offer after offer with no success.  If you are in the process of looking for a house now and think you have bad luck, you don't.  Karsten and I get swooped on with cash offers from investors EVEN WHEN WE ARE IN ESCROW (which is illegal, by the way).  We lose out on houses we love because of greedy banks and awful realtors of the seller.  All at no fault to our amazing realtor (my sister).  We have just had bad luck.

Karsten is better at this than I am.  I tend to get attached fall in love.  And as a result, my heart has been broken tens of times in the last year or so.  Very recently, I thought we found it.  I thought we found the house we were meant to had.  I thought our prayers were answered and we missed out on all of those houses because we were meant to have this one.  I got strong feelings and made plans for our future family.  I was practically picking out paint colors.  I really felt like this was the one.

It wasn't.  The bank got greedy and as of a few hours ago, I found out they raised the price and it is out of our reach.  I'm currently in tears.  Blogging usually isn't the first thing I do when I'm upset but I feel I need to.  Since this is a blog about our marriage, I need to mention our bumps.  Everything won't be exactly as we imagine it.  This is especially difficult for me since I plan everything and freak out when things go wrong.  Things have gone very wrong.

At the end of the day, however, life goes on.  Karsten will wipe my tears and we'll pick up right where we left off.  Karsten and I have a lot of things going for us.  No, we don't have a house of our own.  No, we don't have a backyard of our own.  But I would trade all of that for what I've got now.  

Married in the Spring- March

Weather warming, spurts of showers, plants start budding, and pollen ruins everything.  Karsten and I began our spring but we were sick together.  So, we decided to celebrate anyway.

Of course we celebrated Oreo's 100th birthday.  Who do you think we are?

 Granted, we aren't very Irish.  Maybe just a tad for both of us.  But I love holidays so we did it right.

Corned Beef and cabbage, baked potatoes, scones, and watched "Darby O'Gil and the Little People".  Gotta love the Irish.

Married with Chickens

I have never had chickens before.  Karsten has never had chickens before.  This was an experiment.  We learned everything we know now through friends, the internet, and "Raising Chickens for Dummies".  So when a problem came up, we panicked just a bit.

This is what Karsten woke up to one morning.  Looks like she's dead, right.  Wrong.  Her neck is completely twisted around and in between her legs, but she is still alive.  Even after Karsten gave up and said she wasn't going to last much longer.  We quarantined her then I did my research.  At first, we were scared it was New Castles (which is fatal and contagious) but then we found it was more similar to crook neck.  The cure was a vitamin B supplement so I booked it to the pharmacy and slowly nursing my little chick back to health.

I'm going to make a great nurse. :-)

We have also began our plans for a chicken coop.  This is the one I like.

It's from a chicken blog I found on pinterest.  The couple who built it said they spent over $1000.  Karsten and I are planning on doing it for a couple 100.  Stay tuned for more on chickens...

Married in the Winter- Misc.

It would be hard to get through these long winter months and this semester if you didn't have a few projects.  

Of course I had to start with my new embroidery machine.  My first project was personalizing Jack's bed.  Even though he can't read it, I'm sure he enjoys it.

Next I tried to combine my sewing skills and my embroidery skills.  So I decided to make this apron to match my new recipe box.

Next, I found a flag similar to this one hanging in a house of a tv show Karsten and I were watching.  I decided our house needs to be patriotic like that.  So I went to Michael's, bought 13 strips of wood about 1 inch wide and I painted each one.  My star stencil didn't work so I had to paint the stars by hand and try and get them to match as best as I could.  Then I hot glued the strips to vertical strips with small gaps in between.  Then I stapled the wire to the back to hang.

Of course, Karsten had some projects of his own.  He is working on creating his own army.