The coop and the ladies...

 We have the coolest old root cellar in the back yard that is original with the house. But up until this point it has just been cool to look at, not a usable space for us. I was always afraid to go in there because I was sure it was full of black widows or something.

Husband got the idea that it would be cool to turn it into a chicken coop. So he asked our awesome landlord if we could do it... and she said sure! I was thinking that he would wait until springtime when the new baby chicks come out. Nope. He got right to work cleaning out the root cellar. It took a few days, he said there was a squirrel nest in there with a dead squirrel in it (RIP little squirrel) and it was FULL of walnuts. Anywhere a squirrel could have possible stuck a nut there was a nut there. So he cleaned out all the old nuts and stuff that had been stored in there for 50+ years and built a roosting shelf for some chickens.

Then he looked on KSL to see if there was anyone who was trying to get rid of some hens. Sure enough, there was a lady who had five hens that were a year old that they were done taking care of. So he went and picked up the hens for super cheap and we now have five ladies residing in the root cellar...

 They are super tame and pretty birds. They are really great with Blue which is wonderful since he likes to pick them up and carry them around. Now that we've settled on some names for them, here are the ladies.

And for the inside of the coop. I think it's the coolest chicken coop ever! I love that we can use this space for something now. Trent has built a big feeder and turned our old cooler into a watering station so we could leave for a while and they would still be fed just fine.

We've put hay down on the shelves and wood chips on the ground so that when it comes time to clean the coop we can sweep everything up and replace it with new stuff... hopefully it stays less stinky that way. I think that it's pretty awesome!

First morning after we picked up the ladies the boys went out to check for eggs... none yet!

But we've since been getting 3-5 eggs every day and they are beautiful! And yummy! I'm glad my husband was willing to do all the work since I've decided my only job in life right now is to nurse a baby.

Pioneer House - The livingroom...

 Tomorrow marks one year since we moved into this little ole' pioneer house. It's been a good year! We love it here. It's tiny, but it's good for us. It's taken us a full year to get our furniture where we like it and settle in a little. I'm pretty slow at this stuff. I love crafting and making things, but when it comes to decorating, I'm super indecisive as to what I like to do.

One thing I have a hard time with is color. I don't like a lot of color, which can make for a boring space, that's for sure. One thing I know that I do love is wood + white together. I have a whole pinterest board dedicated to my love of wood and white.... but as a result I have a whole lot of brown and white in the living room and not a lot of color. So I think that I need to add some color in here! I want to get my living room all put together before the baby comes, so the nesting has started! But just for fun, here is what our main living space looks like right now.

I love this rug that I bought a few years ago. But I feel like it sort of limits my color choices to green. I've tried putting some yellow pillows on the couch but it just looks wrong with the green on the rug. So I don't know... but I really need some colorful pillows on the couch.

Like I said, lots of brown... and lots of white.

One thing that drives me crazy is the red/blue/green flannel blanket that we have under the coffee table. It clashes with everything! It drives me nuts when the blanket is spread out on the couch and doesn't match anything in the room. So on the short list is to make a comfy quilt that matches this room. I'm thinking I want to do a herringbone quilt (like on the bottom of this picture)... I think it would be awesome!

And then there is this poor boring corner. I really need something on the wall there above the computer and printer. I have an idea in my head of a cool new family tree that I want to make, so maybe I will get that going and put that on the wall there. Also, I re-did this desk a while ago and painted it... brown and white! You guessed it! There are yellow knobs on there but it is so subtle... I think I need to re-paint to bring some good color into the room. Any suggestions?

I have a big open wall here. I think I'm going to find a long dresser to put here and refinish. This is going to be where I keep the babies stuff. You have to be creative when you live in a small space!

Here is my attempt at a gallery wall! It needs a little help! I'm going to trade out some of the black frames for white ones and most of the black and white pictures are going to be replaced with new colored ones, and add a few new things to the wall. Also, this two drawer night stand is going to be moved into our room. We don't use it in here and it's too big for the space. I'm on the hunt for a tree round that I can make into a little side table for this space. I'm thinking something like this. Ahhhh... wouldn't that just be amazing!

So there is a little sneak peek into our living area! It needs some help... but I've got a list made and I've started working on some projects to make it a little more bright and lively.

Here are some color combo's that I like that I'm going to try and work with...

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Any ideas on what colors would look good in here? Hopefully I can get it pulled together soon!

Yellow daffodils...

 In those many months that I was trying to get pregnant I thought a lot about how I would tell our boy the news when the time came. I wanted to make it really special, since he had been waiting for so long to have a little sibling. I saw the most adorable house bag and little doll family here that I was pretty set on making. Even though he is a boy... and boys don't really play with dolls, I was set on making our little doll family complete with a house bag to break the news to him about our new addition.

Well, the time came and I made a bag that looks like this little pioneer house we live in. But that's as far as I got. During the first 14 weeks of pregnancy I was taking progesterone pills to help reduce the risk of miscarriage and support the pregnancy and they made me super sick. It was awful. Every time I took them I would have to go lay down and they would make my head spin for hours. It was not good. The longer I took them, the worse it got... so I never got around to making our little family of dolls. But in the end being able to keep this baby cooking is way more important than feeling up to sewing dolls right?

And now I have a bag that looks like this house that I have NO CLUE what to do with it!!!

Sorry, it's a bit wrinkled because it's been sitting in my sewing cabinet, and there it is likely to sit. When I made it I sewed a little flower bed of yellow flowers in the front. Now... I had never seen yellow flowers in front of this house before. When we moved here there were red tulips in the bed and when they were done that was it. But I LOVE yellow flowers! They are so bright and beautiful! So I put yellow flowers in there just because I like them. This doesn't look exactly like the house, but it's pretty close, with some of my favorite features.

The back has a garden with the walnut tree that I love so much. I even put our little squirrel friend that lives in the tree on it.

This squirrel doesn't like us very much. Things got a little heated in the fall when Trent was harvesting the walnuts that had fallen on the ground and the squirrel did not like us touching his walnuts! But I guess he was still able to gather enough because he's still back there, and made it through the long hard winter that we had... and he doesn't yell at us so much anymore.

Anyway, the point of this whole story is that I was a little shocked and so happy to see a bed full of yellow daffodils pop up last month!!! They were so beautiful! We even had some red and yellow tulips come up in the last few days! So my little sewn flower garden turned out to be right on!

I'm a little sad to say that in the last day we've had a really bad wind storm up here, and all the flowers are gone now. They didn't make it through the 70+ mph winds. But they were gorgeous while they lasted! Till next spring little yellow flowers...

The hotel room...

About 1 1/2 years ago I had a dream... This dream came just after I had my one year post chemo appointment with my oncologist. I had one question on my mind that I had been scared to ask for a while... when would I be able to try and have more babies? My husband and son were in the room with me when I asked him this question that had been burning in my mind. He took a look at my boy and said, "He needs siblings doesn't he? Your scan was clean, there is no need to wait anymore."

We were elated and planned to start with my next cycle. Before that happened is when I had a dream that left a big impression on me. 

I was in what I thought was a hotel room. It was a place that I didn't recognize, and it was small. There was a living area with a couch and a bedroom behind it. On the opposite side of the rooms there was a small kitchen and a bathroom. In this dream I walked though the living area and past the kitchen into the bathroom. There was a small mirrored cabinet above the sink that I opened and pulled out a pregnancy test. The test was positive. As soon as I registered what this meant I heard a loud, booming voice say, "Everything is going to be alright." The voice was so loud that I woke up startled. 5 AM.

I'm going to find out I'm pregnant when I'm in a hotel room, I thought... and for some reason, I need to know that everything is going to be okay. Why would I need to know right off the bat that everything was going to be okay? What was going to happen?

Month after month went by. No positive tests, and no hotel rooms. We had a family camp out and my sister in law had stayed in a hotel with her twin boys. I stopped by there on my way out to take a shower before driving home. But it wasn't the right time of the month, and the layout was all wrong. This was not my hotel room.

Then we moved back to Utah. I thought we might get a hotel room on our way back to Utah but we ended up doing the whole drive in one day. No hotel.

One weekend about 10 months after this dream... Trent's grandma told us that she had reserved a condo down in St. George that was not going to be occupied for a week. We decided to go down with Trent's sister and her kids for a little getaway. I knew this was finally going to be it! I was 5 days late for my period. I was never on time... but 5 days late was a lot. It was a time-share condo that was sure to have a living area and a small kitchen. I truly believed that this was going to be "the hotel" that I had seen in my dream. I was eager the whole drive to see what awaited me when we got there.

We walked in the door... living area, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom. This was going to be it! I just knew it! That is until 10 minutes after we got there, "it" happened. I was devastated. So disappointed.This perfect hotel room was not my hotel.

I started to second guess this dream. Was it really a premonition as to what was to come? Or was it just a stupid dream? A dream that meant nothing. I started to really hate this dream. It haunted me. I thought about writing down every little last detail that I could remember and light the paper on fire. Watch it burn to ashes and disappear so that it would go away. But I couldn't. It was the only thing that I had that led me to believe that someday I would find out I was going to have a baby. Even if it did turn out to be a stupid dream that meant nothing, it was all I had to hold onto at times.

One year after I had the dream we moved, into a tiny little pioneer house. One day I walked through the living room, past the kitchen and into the bathroom to get something out of the old medicine cabinet. Then it hit me, like deja vu. This was the hotel room. This is what I had seen in my dream. I hadn't recognized it before, and it was such a small area I was sure that it was a hotel. But it was this house. This told me a few things. One, that we were right where we needed to be at this time in our lives... and two, that I would find out I was pregnant while living in this house.

The day was December 24th. I woke up early to get ready to meet two of my best friends from high school for our traditional Christmas Eve breakfast. The boys were both asleep. I was 3 days late after one month of trying a new to me fertility medication, among other things to try and get pregnant. Surely it was way too soon to test for pregnancy, but I had a spare test tucked away... why not? I took the test and then put it up in the medicine cabinet in case one of the boys woke up and came into the bathroom and saw it. I was too nervous to look at it, so I went into my room to finish getting dressed. Then I walked through the living room, past the kitchen, into the bathroom... and opened the medicine cabinet.

There it was. The faintest little pink line. It had worked! I was pregnant. The best Christmas present I could have ever dreamed of.

There was no loud, booming voice... telling me that everything was going to be okay. But I didn't need the voice, I already knew that this too was part of the message. The dream had really become a reality, and I felt peace believing that whatever was going to happen in the next few months... everything was going to be okay.

But what was it? What was going to happen that I needed to know for the last 1 1/2 years, that everything was going to be okay?

It was only a week and a half of pregnancy bliss until I started to understand what this message meant...

Winter...

Winter is here!!! We had a big snow storm a few nights ago. It was fun to watch the huge snowflakes fall. Not so fun to drive home on I-15 in the middle of a huge blizzard. So grateful that we made it home safe on Saturday night.

This place never ceases to amaze me. The pioneer house looks so good in whatever season is upon her (can a house be a gender?)...

My garden covered in snow...

I'm not sure how many inches fell, but it was a lot!

Poor apple tree with it's weighed down branches.

I love this walnut tree. I'm glad that we were able to get the leaves all raked up before the snow fell. The day before the storm we spent the day outside raking, putting things away, covering up my husband's duck hunting boat. So glad that we did all that!

And last but not least, the first snowman of the season!

Now all I want to do is curl up under a warm quilt and knit...

grapes, walnuts, and apples...

Aside from the stuff that we grew in our garden this year, we've been harvesting other food around the ole' pioneer house. I've been working so hard to get all of this stuff processed and in bottles/bags for winter. I'm starting to feel like the squirrel in our walnut tree... work work work work, gathering nuts for winter.

First came the grapes. The fences surrounding the property here are covered in grape vines! All different types of grapes in a whole variety of colors. For the whole month of September the yard smelled like grapes, it was amazing! I wasn't going to do anything with the grapes because we don't have a juicer and the one we found was $170!?!? (one can buy a lot of grape juice for that amount of money). But our friends had one that they weren't going to be using this fall so we borrowed it.

Oh boy...

Over a two week period of time we filled 102 quart jars with grape juice. INSANE!!! It took forever. Once I had the juicers going on the stove I didn't want to stop until I had all of the juice out of those little grapes, which made for some very late nights.

Sometimes I had to just admit defeat when situations like this happened at 1 AM... it was just time to call it a night and go to bed.

My awesome sister in law's came over during Priesthood session one Saturday night and stayed until 11 PM doing grapes. They picked, washed, and separated while I worked the juicers. Oh... and 14 kids between all of us were playing in the living room the whole time! It was a mad house, but we got so much done. It was so much better to do this with them instead of all by myself.

Trent did help (since this was his idea), but he would usually get it started and then have to go to work and I would finish it up. I was really happy when all of the grapes were finally gone and I was able to de-grape my kitchen! I don't think I will be doing this next year, it was sooooo much work.

There is the most beautiful walnut tree in the back yard that I'm sure is over 100 years old. It is gorgeous, and it makes hundreds of walnuts. They started really dropping a few weeks ago and we have been gathering them up everyday almost.

We have the walnut process down now. We rub the husk off with our shoe on the grass unless they fell off already out of the husk (those are my favorites). Then we crack them and put them on a cookie sheet and roast them in the oven for a bit. Once they cool off we bag them up, easy peasy... right.

Sad thing is... I can't eat walnuts. They give me canker sores if I eat them. So we've been making them for Trent and his family to eat. They are beautiful.

Last but not least, we picked a box of apples from Trent's grandparent's house (because we hadn't had enough craziness I guess) and we made a 8 quarts of apple pie filling. The rest of the apples we dehydrated into apple chips like we did last year. And with that I. am. DONE! None of this trunk full of apples this year. I would like to do something else with my life other than process and can food. I need a break, so we are calling it good with the apples.

*** I realize you may be wondering why on earth our apple pie filling is red. You see, for some reason I have yet to figure out, Trent thinks that apple pie is suppose to be red. I don't know why he thinks that, I'm blaming it on the fact that he is color blind. But every time we make apple pie he sneaks in the red food coloring and dyes it red. And my friends, sometimes you have to pick your battles, am I right? I let him have his red apple pie filling this year, with the agreement that next year they will not be colored, and if they are red there need to be some raspberries in there or something... no more fake dye.

Red apple pie anyone? Does that even look good to you? I don't get it...

Charming...

We're all moved in and starting to get more settled. I love this place so much. It just feels good, and feels like home. "Fits like a glove" is something that keeps coming to mind over and over again. This place fits our little family like a glove.

I feel like I'm going to be hit by a truck... because it just is working out so well, it feels a little too good to be true! (My husband reminds me that I do have to wash dishes by hand and I do have to mow the ginormous lawn with a walk behind mower... so it's not too good to be true). Is this really my life? Do I really get to live here? I'm just so amazed that this crazy plan we had really worked out. That we are really home, my husband really found a job, and we are really living in this beautiful place nestled by the mountains. With trees, and grass, and dew in the mornings. I feel undeserving of being so happy. But I also feel like the way that everything has fallen into place so nicely and the people and situations that have been put in our path that we are exactly where we need to be right now. Where we want to be. Where God wants us to be. We've been very, very blessed and I am very grateful for that.

This little home we are in is oozing with charm. So many things to fall in love with here. Here are a few sneak peaks of the charm of this little pioneer home.

Lets start with the doors shall we? They don't make door knobs like this anymore. I wonder if I can get a skeleton key somewhere that will work in these old knobs...

Glass windows above the doors that actually open...

And tiny pioneer sized doors (husband has to duck under this one)...

View through the sky light in the kitchen. Hello walnut tree...

And my favorite feature yet, 130 year old root cellar. It's beautiful...

Walnut shells galore from the walnut tree. I think we are going to have to make some walnut boats with these (and if any of you want to make walnut boats come on over, we have a ton).

Pretty snowballs...

I have a lot to do to get the inside settled more. We need a couch, we are couchless right now. We left our last couch in a dumpster in Vegas, it was time for it to go to the junkyard. I also need to make some curtains, some little book shelves for the boy's room, figure out where to hang pictures, and other odds and ends like that.

But we are here, and very happy to be here. I'm sure I will share more of the pioneer house in the future, since she's quite the charmer...