Working on the Kitchen....

Ok...so here is the "before" picture of the kitchen.  We are not done yet, but I thought I'd show you the progress.

Here we started painting the cabinets.  Primer is on.  We bought new stainless steal appliances at the end of December.

So the cupboards are painted a creamy beige color, but they do look a little "buttery" as well.  NOW....the goal is to purchase an apron front copper sink (which we have already picked out), put in new countertops & the seating area is now painted a greenish/turquoise color & Mark is working on a barn wood table top for that.  I'll show you that when it's finished.  The one light fixture over the sink has been changed out, but we still need to work on that hideous one on the ceiling.  All in time.  I also bought new rugs....hmmm...I guess I should post a newer picture of the kitchen soon. lol ;)


A - WORK - IN - PROGRESS - !!!  We'll keep you posted.......

Ready to POP!

Oh  my!  I seem to have forgotten about my little blog.  I will do a quick update on Mittens and hopefully by this weekend we will have kittens to show you! ;)  She is really getting BIG and she's a tiny cat.  I'm not sure she can hold much more in her little belly and she's getting crabby.  Who can blame her?  

So she should be due any day now!  So excited to see all those babies in there. :)

Expecting....

So this sweet girl is our "Mittens".  She appears to be about 5-6 weeks pregnant!  We're so excited that she'll be having babies. ;)

Here is picture of her to show how she is growing.  She's around 5-6 weeks here.

 

We also think our Angora bunny is about to have babies.  We think she's due in about 17 days.  We'll have to keep you posted on all the babies on the farm that we're expecting. ;)

Here is a picture of our bunny "Paisley" that may be expecting soon.

"Say Please"

I found these cute little encouraging cards to give to my kids.  They are supposedly for their lunchbox, but I use them to put in the kid's desks (or under their pillow, on their dresser, bathroom mirror, etc.), since we homeschool. ;)  They are super cute and the kids love them!  They have a sweet, encouraging message for the kids on the front and on the back it reveals a cool fact about something.  Here's an example of what a card would say:

{front} Spending time with you is one of my favorite activities.  {back} An earthquake in 1811 caused the Mississippi River to flow backward for a short time.

I thought I'd share, so you could give them to your kids as well! :)

Have a great week!

Check back for more renovation photos!  We've been busy this past weekend and got the kitchen cupboards all painted! 

Click here for the "Say Please" website!

All Seasons Room....

This room is off of the kitchen.  It's a nice, long area so we can have lots of dinner guests.  We actually have 3 different areas for eating and I love it.  We always have enough space for dinner guests. ;)

The BEFORE:  it had blue carpet and the walls were just primed white.  They had never been painted.

So the first thing we did was paint the room a light celery green color.  We put in grey/white wood floors and 2 new ceiling/light fans. (we have LOVED those the most)  The only difference now is the black chairs...are now painted WHITE.  It looks so much better, but this was taken right after we moved in.  I didn't have time to paint the chairs yet, but they definitely look better white. ;)  

The old church pew was in the barn.  That was from my church a LONG time ago...from the old building.  I love old church pews. ;)  It's a cozy space to hang out and chill.

This is just another angle of the room.  

So that's it for this room.  We use it a lot and we really love all the windows.  It looks over the whole property and it's just gorgeous.  Plus, there is heat in the winter time, so we can enjoy it all year long!

TODAY...the kitchen is being painted!  Can't wait to show you the end result. ;)

Have a great day!

A Slight TWEAK to the Granola Bar Recipe

Ok....so I made the granola bars again (I've been on a long lost search for a really perfect granola bar for a long time) and they are perfect for us now!  I love them and so do my kids!  Yay!  Win/win is always good. :)

So I thought I would share the changes I made to the recipe to make them super good! (or at least to our liking)

The original recipe is below....

The first 5 ingredients are perfect. {you can use peanut butter instead of almond butter or sunflower butter or whatever you want there}  I did all of that the same, but I added 3/4 cup of honey and completely eliminated the brown sugar.  I also added a generous amount of peanut butter.  Maybe closer to 4 T.  It was TOO sweet for me the last time I made them with the brown sugar and honey is better for you anyway.  The less processed and refined ingredients the better, right? :)

Moving on.....I also eliminated the cinnamon and ginger (I love cinnamon and ginger a LOT, but it was too distracting for me for some reason.  I feel it didn't fit here.), but did keep the vanilla and salt the same.  I added the 2 cups cereal (our fav is Special K....rice crispies would be good too!)  

{sigh}.....

 My kids do not enjoy dried fruit that much. (although 2 out of the 3 will eat them)  I decided since I eliminated the refined sugar, that I could add in a few dark chocolate chips (per their request).  The dark chocolate really isn't that sugary anyway, but SO yummy!  And....because I put chocolate chips in the bars, I skipped putting it on top.  

They were perfect!!!  

They didn't taste overly sugary at all and had a nice peanut butter/chocolate flavor.

If it were just ME eating them.....I'd take out as much sweetness as I could (only use some honey) and add in a bunch of nuts, seeds and dried fruit!  I love them that way.  However, I also can't be eating a whole batch of granola bars by myself, so I need to listen to the opinions of my littles.  I feel like we had a good compromise between the chocolate and the sugar.  I hope you enjoy them as well....however you may like them! ;)

Granola Bars

1 3/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup coarsely chopped almonds
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons almond butter
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups crushed cereal (whatever you have on hand)
3/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Heat oven to 300 degrees F. Line an 11x8-inch baking dish (you could probably sub an 8x8-inch dish) with foil; coat foil with cooking spray.

Place oats, coconut and almonds on a large cookie sheet. Bake 5 minutes or until light golden brown and fragrant.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together butter, almond butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, cinnamon and ginger until well combined; stir in oat-coconut-almond mixture, cereal and apricot until well combined. Press mixture into prepared dish. Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown and fragrant.

Cool completely before lifting foil out of pan and slicing into bars. (I would recommend refrigerating them a while for easier slicing.) Melt chocolate chips in a small ziploc bag, in the microwave, for about 1 minute, or until melted and smooth. Pipe melted chocolate onto bars and allow to dry.

Makes 12 large bars (you could cut them smaller and get more)

Laundry Closet Reformed!

Here is the BEFORE of our back mudroom/laundry room area.  There is a laundry closet, mudroom and small 1/2 bath.

So we painted the room a light mustard yellow color and put in wood floors.  We took off the bi-fold doors and opened up the laundry closet.  Mark built me a pedestal for the washer/dryer to set up on.  I love the height of them now! :)  So much better than sitting on the low floor. 

He also built me some shelves from old barn wood that was in the barn.  Then I gave him an old window and asked him to make me a little cabinet out of barn wood and he did!  I love it and now I have a place to hold some of my cleaning/laundry room stuff.  Looks so cute too. ;)

We're not totally done in here.  I want to put something on that top shelf, but I'm not sure what yet.  I like it for now though. :)