Things I Love about Provo

I have taken quite a few walks around Provo, over the last two years especially because of Lucas. On my walk the other day I brought along my camera so I could take pictures of some of my favorite things. Probably top of the list are all of the flowers in people's yards. It's amazing how many pretty landscaped yards there are, considering the number of students. In the early spring I love the smell of all the lilacs, it's incredible how fragrant they are. Right now there is an abundance of roses. Even though it's slightly cliché, roses are my favorite. I will definitely have roses in my yard someday.

Speaking of yards, I love this house and the yard. I would have loved to live here as a student. I would prefer all the roses and stuff to be in the back yard, it is a bit much, but I like the idea. I've always wanted a secret garden.

It even had a cute cat for Lucas to chase after while I was taking pictures.

The bright colors of the house are also one of the reasons why I like it. You can't really tell in the pictures but the roof is green and white striped. There are such cute old houses with garish exterior colors and it's another one of the things I love about Provo.  These are some of my favorites.

And the oldest ones have cute borders and stuff too.  Old houses are fun.

The other thing that I like that I've noticed while on my walks is there are some random art things on some of the sidewalks.  I don't know what they are for, but they are kinda cool.

Provo is a fun city.  I've lived here for almost 10 years.  I will be sad to leave it, but I'm excited for find things I love about a new city.

New and Improved Duck Pond

Lucas and I went to the duck pond the other day. Turns out they built this walkway around it and put in some landscaping and benches. It looks so pretty, and it's much easier to walk around now too.  The only problem was, there were no ducks. I guess they got scared away with all the construction. Lucas threw a few pieces of bread in, but then he got bored of nothing eating it so he just ate it himself.

The turtles were not interested in our bread.

Then someone told us that there were ducks up by some stream further up the hill. Apparently they have been doing tons of new landscaping. This whole back side of campus looks so pretty.

We had to hike up the stairs to get to the stream.

Throwing rocks...

We found the ducks at last.

Now time for a snack of our own.

On the way back past the duck pond we actually did see that some ducks had come back to the pond.  Maybe they just like to go back and forth.

Running through the Sprinkler

Lucas has become fascinated by sprinklers lately. On our way to the park one day we decided to go through them instead of around them and he has been hooked ever since. One especially hot day every apartment complex on the block had their sprinklers running and I couldn't keep him out of them. His clothes got soaked but he was so happy. We decided we need a sprinkler of our own. We have a hose hook up at the side of our building, so on the days that we don't have a pool to go to, we just break out the sprinkler. Lucas calls it "Lucas's pool".

Say Cheese!

We got some pictures taken of Lucas about a week ago. The weather was perfect and the location was beautiful. Too bad Lucas is two so he was crazy and all over the place. Luckily the photographer (one of my best friends) was patient, and we actually got a lot more good pictures than I thought we did. Even still, there were an awful lot of these...

And he was really fascinated by the drains. Apparently all holes need rocks dropped into them, and I think Lucas took care of pretty much every hole there.

But we got him to slow down long enough to smile at the camera a few times...

and cuddle with mommy...

There are way too many cute ones to show you all of them, but these were just some of my favorites. He sure is one cute little kid!

Brazilian Feijoada

We had a "Brazil Night" a couple weeks ago with a bunch of families in our ward that have ties to Brazil. Most of them had served missions in Brazil, although one family is actually from Brazil. Everyone brought Brazilian food to share, and there was a lot of guarana. I've had it before but I got re-addicted, it is so good. One of the dishes that someone brought was Feijoada. It was seriously amazing! And Lucas loved it too which is a plus. Anyway, I got the recipe and I made it for dinner. It was actually pretty easy and it was just as good as ever. You just put everything in a crock pot and let it stew. Within 2 hours of starting it, the whole house smelled heavenly. I would definitely recommend trying this dinner. The recipe has been Americanized a little bit. Brazilian's would use different meats and cuts and stuff, but this is still really good.

Brazilian Feijoada

1 lb of Sausage (The Hillshire Farm big long kind)

1 lb of Beef Short Ribs (3-4)

1 bag of Black Beans

1 Onion, chopped

3 T Garlic, minced

4 cups of beef broth

1 lb of Bacon

salt and pepper to taste

Throw cut up sausage, beef short ribs, blacks beans (I soaked mine for like 5 minutes before to clean them), onion, garlic, and salt and pepper into crock pot. Add beef broth and just enough water to cover everything. Cook on low for 6 hours. About 30 minutes before it's done, fry up the bacon until it's crispy. Break it up into pieces and add to the crock pot. This is actually the recipe doubled, but I just don't see any point in trying to keep half a thing of uncooked meat for a week, instead of just reheating the leftovers. But you can decide what's easiest for you.

So yummy!!!

Growing Up...

Lucas has been acting so grown up lately. I feel like he understands a lot more than he used to, and his vocabulary is really growing too. He called Ryan by his name the other day. I didn't know they did that this early, but I thought it was pretty funny. Also, Lucas was being naughty so I told him to go to his room. He totally went and shut the door and then started crying, and when he was done he waited for me to come let him out. He is so smart sometimes.

He's doing great with potty training and he hardly ever wets his pants anymore. He's really good about telling up when he has to go too. He is having a really hard time with the whole poop thing, though. He used to be just fine but now he thinks that going in his pants is much better. I think he doesn't like the position the toilet puts him in. He much prefers to squat. Not sure what to do about that one.

I feel like he's gotten a lot taller, but he seriously eats nothing all day long. How do kids do that? He used to be such a good eater so this one has been really hard for us. I just feel bad when all he's eaten all day long are a few pretzels and two bites of his dinner. This morning I was congratulating myself that I got him to eat a whole half a piece of french toast. He used to eat a whole sandwich no problem, and have broccoli and watermelon to go with it. Oh well, I'm sure it's just a phase.

He has been very friendly lately, and he's very sweet and gentle with little babies. I hope he can keep that up. We went to the park today and he gave pretty much every kid there a hug. This is a new thing because he used to run screaming if anyone at the park looked at him. I like this new development much better.

He is getting so much older and changing everyday but, every once in a while when I look at him I see my little baby in there. Like when he curls up on the couch and falls asleep.

We sure do love this little guy!

Cleaning

I decided I would start cleaning a few things early. I figure I'll clean the things that will take an hour or more now, and then it will only take a few minutes to wipe it down when we're moving, instead of all those hours combined in the same day. I started with the refrigerator. I pulled it away from the wall and it was terrifying! The floor and walls were dirty, and the side of the fridge was super nasty.

Luckily, it actually wasn't too bad of a job. Most of the stuff wiped right up with soap and water. The grime on the side of the fridge was the worst of it.

The tub on the other hand is another story. It has those non slip things on the bottom to keep us from slipping in the tub, but no matter how much I scrub and bleach them, they are permanently gray. I was talking to a neighbor yesterday and she said that she used a Brillo pad and the non slip stuff came right up so now she doesn't even have to worry about it turning gray cause it's not there anymore. I went right to the store and bought some Brillo pads. This is the before.

And after an hour of scrubbing with bleach and Brillo pads, and then scrubbing with more bleach and a scrub brush after I saw what the Brillo pads were doing, this is what the tub looks like.

Those things did not come off, a few of them are a little cleaner but now all I see are the gray streaks left behind from the Brillo pad. I scrubbed for a long time to get those streaks off, and they refuse to budge. I feel like I'm in a Dr. Seuss book. Should I get some shvoes, or maybe a new dress and see if those can get it up? What do you guys think? I think I'm going to try Bar Keepers Friend next. I've heard it works wonders but I've never tried it before.

After that depressing tub cleansing, I decided I needed a frozen strawberry lemonade. I juiced some of the lemons that I have. Then I pureed some strawberries, strained out the seeds, added water, sugar, and ice and popped it all in the blender. It was very refreshing!

I Love my Crafts!

In preparation for our move, I've been finishing up all the crafts that I've been meaning to get to. I'm getting really worried that I'm not getting anything done for our move right now and in a month we're going to have to try to do everything in one day. But what else can I do? I can't pack up our stuff right now; we're still using it. But there were crafts that needed to be finished, so I started there.

On Memorial Day I went to Joann's and bought a bunch of stuff for this endeavor, everything was on sale and I made out like a bandit. Also, I had a gift card so double score!

I finished up some baby blankets that I had cut all the pieces for but hadn't gotten around to finishing them. These probably look familiar because, when I got the material I got enough to make two of each - one to keep, and one to give away. I made the first ones a while ago, and I'm just now getting around to finishing the seconds.

One of these goes to my almost nephew due in a few months. I wanted to get it all packed up and sent out before we move into a hotel and don't have access to anything. Baby stuff is so cute!

I'm really nervous about packing up my silhouette. What if I need to cut out cute letters or shapes and stuff? Scissors are just not going to cut it. Hahahaha! I'm hilarious. I did my last scrapbook project for a while. I had Ryan write down what he said for Lucas's blessing on the day of, so now we have a copy of it in his scrapbook if he ever wants to read it.

This is a project that I've really been wanting to try out just to see if I can do it. Answer, yes I can! I took an old tank top I never wear anymore, and made a shirred sundress for a little girl. It was super easy. I might even make a big one for myself. For the full tutorial, go here.

The problem is, now I'm done with all the crafts I was supposed to do, and it's still too early to pack. I mean, I've been going through some of our stuff, but we really haven't accumulated that much. So what now? Should I start a new craft (I really want to, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go through withdrawals), or should I start tackling the bigger cleaning projects like cleaning behind the fridge? How does one clean behind a fridge? Will it still be clean in a month? Ideas? Suggestions?

Thai Chicken Wraps

I wanted to do something special for dinner last week, so I went to my favorite food blog and found something yummy and light for summer. These Thai chicken wraps were just calling my name. Also it was an excuse to use fun attachments for my immersion blender.

I made some rice and lentil pilaf to go with it. Maybe not exactly a Thai dish, but I love lentils. I just chop up some veggies and then boil them with the lentils in chicken broth until tender. So easy.

Look how pretty and colorful everything is.

The peanut sauce was amazing. I kinda just wanted to eat it with a spoon. Next time I make this, though, I will use just a bit less red curry paste. It wasn't even that difficult to make - definitely worth trying!

Couch Forts are the Best

Lucas has been really into making forts lately. Good thing we have an excellent fort making couch. Even though there was a door, Lucas liked climbing in and out the windows best.