The Shrine

Last summer, we FINALLY got rid of the wood paneling wall in our living room. YEAH!

Now you can call it a shrine to Collin and Liam. We don't light the candles, but still :)

I got this idea from my sister-in-law that she had on her wall. Ours is a little different, but I tried to have fun pictures of the two boys in their own frames.

Either way, it's SO nice to have the wood paneling gone. Our kitchen wall that also had wood paneling is also gone, but it's still just bare paint.

I fix it

Last weekend my parents were in town for the BYU game. My dad helped Ryan put in a new faucet (again), but this time Collin was ALL about helping. Who knows? Maybe he will be a plumber.

He just kept handing tools to Ryan and saying "I helping".

For a couple of days, Collin was all about wearing this "witch's hat". Don't ask me how he knows about witch's hats. Now the gummies that were inside, oh yes, he knows about those.

Collin LOVES the red spider at our house. It is "scary!"

The purples are here....finally!

The purple crocuses are always the last to come out, but finally, they have started! YEAH! I have noticed this year I even have some "mutant" colors of yellow in the crocuses. Yeah for spring starting to arrive....FINALLY! Minus the dumb hailstorm this morning...please be strong daffodils. You can survive to bloom!

Deep freezer heaven

Can I just saw how much I love our new deep freezer? I have wanted one for the longest time and we recently were able to get one. Here are the reasons I love it.

1. I was able to store all of Collin's breast milk I have pumped so far and stuffed into our little freezer in our fridge and it automatically went from being able to be stored from 3-4 months to 6 months! WAHOO! All 125 plus bags went into the deep freezer and we have so much space now in our fridge freezer, it is heaven.

2. I am FINALLY able to buy "bulk" things when they go on sale that require freezer storage. I just went and bought three packs of chicken on SUPER SALE and got to put them out in the freezer. I can't wait until I can do this with hamburger!

3. I just feel like we have finally become a "true family" now that we have more than one food storage facility.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my joys of the deep freezer people. It is GREAT! Makes me want to go out and buy only freezer food, and when those ice creams go on sale for $1 at Smiths, I'm TOTALLY stocking up now!

White dresser

Ryan and I got an old, but great condition changing table, from his sister awhile ago. So, no we don't have any needs for it super soon (no, I'm not pregnant), but it's been on my list FOREVER to paint for some future little SuperBaby O'Berry. This weekend, it finally got done. Doesn't it look AWESOME? I wish I had a before picture.
Oh, and PS, we finally have a new camera, no one called us with our old one and all our Cruise the Fourth pictures... oh well :( BOO HOO!

New front door loveliness

We have a MUCH better new front door now, complete with window and a deadbolt. Since our other door was NOT so good, this is a wonderful excitement for us. I'll have Ryan tell the story of how we got it.

Ryan says, "Yeah, it took a lot of work. I had to go cut down the mightiest tree in all the forest (with a herring!) and fashion it using primitive tools to make it look just right. Than I went through the desert on a horse with no name and found the purest sand to melt into the beautiful glass for the window. I than traveled in my time machine back to the days of Middle Earth and traveled to the mines of Moria where I obtained some mithril which the dwarves helped me to fashion into the door handle. Than, to top it all off, Alisa’s dad and I had to install it. It was rough but nothing is too good for my Alisa."

I'm SO glad I have such a wonderful husband!

The Garden Bounty

These are a few pictures from our first garden. We planted four different tomato plants, but they have now become the "tomato jungle". Every day I go out and pick at least 4 big tomatoes and eat about 8 cherry tomatoes for a snack. It is HEAVEN!

Our corn is going gangbusters FINALLY. We have eaten a few ears, and YUM!

We have officially found 6 growing pumkins. This one is starting to turn orange. We plan on providing pumpkins to a lot of kids :)

This is from our second apple tree. The first apple tree is transparent apples, for canning. These apples are starting to turn red and hopefully will be YUMMY eating apples!

I made a fresh batch of salsa with most of the things coming from our garden. In case you are interested in a sweeter salsa, this salsa is HEAVEN. I got the recipe from my sister, and honestly, it is AWESOME! However, you probably always want to double the batch because it goes SO fast and it is SO yummy!

Kari's salsa
1/2 red pepper

1/2 red onion

1/2 green pepper (I used 2 small green peppers from the garden)

2 cloves pressed garlic

1/2 c. lime juice

salt and pepper to taste

3 slices of pineapple, chopped

1/4 c. pineapple juice

6 roma tomatoes ( I used garden tomatoes and probably put an extra one in)

small bunch fresh cilantro, I used a little less, like maybe 3-4 TB chopped