Dilapidation, be gone! (Sort of...)

Anyone who has seen our deck in the backyard knows that it is one of the great eye sores of our house.  The wood is warped and unsecured in many places, and the whole thing is painted this nasty shade of red--a shade of red that, oddly, appears in various parts of our neighborhood.  It must have been a "thing" a few years back?

All the same, with the help of our amazing friend/realtor's power washer, Traci and I went to town on the porch.  Traci spent almost all of yesterday tearing up as much paint and she could while I removed the railing.  We think it looks MUCH better.  What say ye?

Still on the agenda for the deck:
Repair wood where necessary
Cover up bottom
Paint/stain
Build two sets of stairs
Build come sort of shade/covering on half (eventually)
String lights across top (eventually)
Host crazy BBQ's on top of it (eventually)
Host a straight up crazy romantic dance on it (eventually)

Before Photo

 Giving the kids a bath

Triumphant!

Admiring her work

The Power of Paint

We painted the kitchen and the living room last night, HUGE difference. I actually like my cabinets now. There still is nothing on the wall, no curtains or blinds, but no more green!  I am really loving the color we picked. It turned out more blue, but so much better then the alternative.

Before

(After) we are going to paint that table and jazz up the light fixture.

Before, those couches are classy.

(After) We are getting an amazing sectional tomorrow, and then those couches are going up into the media room.

I hope you are enjoying the updates! Next room to be painted is our bedroom. Stay tuned as we conquer bead and batten as well as refinishing our deck!

Playroom

This is our playroom. Clean! Eventually I want to add some rain gutter bookcases, a reading area, and some sweet Dr. Seuss-esq light fixtures, and we need to paint the top half, but I am loving it so far. Paint is Sherwin Williams in Naval. We added non sanded grout to make it chalk friendly.

Pretty Obvious...

It's pretty obvious that we have taken a break from blogging.  I usually post pictures and things on Facebook. I have gotten a lot of requests to post some pictures of the new pad though, so I decided to put them on the blog  instead of bugging all of the Facebook world with it.  Now, I contemplated whether or not I wanted to put pictures of the house up yet. It is NOT ready! We moved in with basically no furniture or anything to put anywhere.  We are still waiting to even get all of our stuff here in Texas, (it will hopefully arrive next week), but I decided to post the before/during projects pictures so that you can get a feel of what the house looks like, and hopefully to see a HUGE transformation take place!

Magnolia's Room (as of right now the most put together room in the house)

 Guest Room

 Kitchen

 Living

 1/2 bath downstairs

 Playroom

 Maxster's Room

 Media Room

 Formal Living (I suspect this room to be the last one to be touched)

 Entryway

Be kind to us, and see some vision when you look at the place please, at the very least, maybe we can blow you away when all of our projects get completed. There is a master bedroom and bath but I don't have any pictures of it at this time.  I will keep posting pictures as projects/decorating/painting/unpacking occurs. We love you all and thanks for all of the support in our new adventure!

Happy New Years!

I know a lot of us are trying to shed some pounds this time of year so I just thought I would share some of these recipes with you that I came up with. Just two light versions of two of my favorite things Quesadillas and Ranch Dressing! Surprisingly Derrick LOVED both! (I don't really measure things, Sorry)


Turkey or Chicken BBQ Quesadillas 6+servings

2-3 cups cooked and chopped chicken or Turkey (I used our Christmas Turkey Leftovers)
1 chopped bell pepper ( I had an orange pepper in the fridge)
1 cup of shredded cheese (I used cheddar, you could cut even more calories using a reduced-fat cheese)
Handful of cilantro chopped
Handful of White Mushrooms sliced
3 sprigs of Green Onions sliced green and white parts
3/4 cup(ish) of your favorite BBQ sauce ( I used Sweet Baby Ray's)
6+ large whole wheat tortillas

Mix ingredients minus tortillas and spread onto half of a tortilla, finish cooking however you cook quesadillas, (Skillet, Microwave, George Foreman or Panini Press) Feel free to serve with Fat-free sour cream.

Low Cal Ranch Dressing makes 3 cups of dressing
(about 35 cal. for 2 tbsps.)


3/4 cup fat-free sour cream
3/4 low-fat mayo
1 1/2 cups fat-free buttermilk ( I just made this by mixing skim milk with a tbsp of lemon juice let it sit 10 mins)
3 tbsp of Hidden Valley Ranch Mix

I just put all of the ingredients in a air-tight storage container and shook it together. Let stand at least
30 mins before serving

Cilantro Ranch Variation:
Make above recipe but add it into a blender with a handful of Cilantro, some Green Onions, and Jalepeno.

We will be eating the above dressing with a platter of veggies tonight for New Years, and the Cilantro Ranch Version later on in the week with some grilled Tilapia on a bed of greens.

I hope you try these out and give me some feedback!

A little bit more of catching up...

Yesterday, we went to a lighted boat parade.  It was awesome! We found this little beach that wasn't crowded, and put our blanket down. Max and Hudson were running around loving life, and we found out that our dog LOVES water.  (Pirate's Cove, Newport Beach, CA)

 Super Dad.

Sponge Bob boat.

I also wanted to post some pictures of our fantastic Thanksgiving celebration with the CUSHINGS, and the Missionaries. The pictures were too good to not post.

Merry Christmas! Love, the Sheen's

Monster Blog

 Max finished up his first season of soccer! Yay! He did a FANTASTIC job and we are so proud of him!
This is Max and Coach.

He got a little medal and a t-shirt, he was so happy. He's pretty good at soccer, but I can't wait until next year to see how much he will improve. Next sport that Max says he wants to play, "BASKETBALL!" we'll see how that goes.  I can't even imagine 4 yr olds playing basketball.

Also, Maggie had her BIRTHDAY! We kept it small this year, but we had a ton of fun, and some really awesome cupcakes! She didn't even make a big mess. Bummer.

Our good friends to Markham's came by.  I get to start watching little Calvin in January, I am excited to have a job!

The Markham's also helped us out with our family pictures this year, we took some but Lynn took all of the family one's. He did an amazing job! We love going to the beach, it is so beautiful there!

And last but not least we would like to introduce you to the newest member of the Sheen Family.
Hudson Pilot Sheen (he was already named Hudson, I gave him the middle name)

Hudson is a Maltese mix (maybe shi tzu, or poodle), he is less than 2 yrs old, and weighs 12 lbs. We got Hudson from the Orange County Animal Shelter. Hudson in a stray that was found roaming a field somewhere. He must have had good owners at some point because he was already neutered.  He is super playful, doesn't bark, and loves the kids! We are so happy to have him in our home! He needs to be groomed pretty badly, so he will probably just get shaved and start all over. (Some of his hair is pretty matted), but after that I am going to do some research and HOPEFULLY do the rest of the maintenance grooming myself.

We are crate training him right now and so far we haven't had any accidents. Hudson is the perfect addition to our family!