husband – Page 3 – Casa de Berry

2013, house, husband, organizing, project, storage, wood

Sweet and Simple Storage Solution

April 22, 2013by casadeberry4 Comments

Our garage houses many things, except our cars. Most of our “stuff” is stored in large bins, but as always, it is the little things that are always bouncing from place to place, unless they have a permanent home.

We recently inherited, among other things, a few bins from Steve’s parents, who closed their catering business after thirty years. Given the unused space next to Steve’s desk and the new-to-us bins, he decided to build something to store small things like cables, computer parts, etc.

This idea is similar to Ana White’s Laundry Basket Dresser.

The area before:

Measuring (twice) and cutting (once)

The finished – and oh so useful! – storage area with bins in place.

As always, I have to thank my sweet husband for always looking for ways to make our lives more efficient. Less time spent spent searching for things means more time spent having fun. Yesterday I sat at his desk, while he measured and cut, working on a little project of my own, while our boys had fun in the front yard. But for now we are loving the orderly look and more streamlined area. Woot!!

2013, flowers, frame, gardening, husband, outdoors, project, wood

Redwood flower frames

April 15, 2013May 1, 2013by casadeberry43 Comments

We love our backyard, no question about it. It is a pretty decent size, it allows our boys to play hard and it allows us to entertain and grow fruits and veggies for our family.

THAT said . . .

Sometimes things out back get kind of, well, boring.

True, we will have lots of lavender and tomatoes bringing in the reds and purples of summer, and there will be fresh corn and plums, too, but we wanted some instant gratification and my husband decided to put together some frames for nature’s works of art.

The frames are made from redwood planks – we painted them using leftover spray paint and some mistints that cost $5/gallon.

I love looking outside the playroom/office window and seeing these bright pops of color!

We are very happy with how this project turned out, and it has been featured at:

Linked to:

2013, flowers, fruits, gardening, husband, lavender, outdoors, veggies

Springing and stretching!

March 4, 2013March 3, 2013by casadeberryLeave a Comment

These last few days have blessed us with glorious weather here in Sili Valley. The sun has been out, but it hasn’t been super hot, I’ve been loving it! This past weekend we decided to hit our local gardening stores – two of them!

Our front yard got some much-needed brightening up with these trailing white flowers on the hanging baskets:

My youngest was determined to get some yellow goodness ;D

In the backyard, we started our herb garden:

My husband added a brick border to define our salad greens area:

Caged and ready!

We also planted more potatoes, including some purple varieties. Our potatoes come back every year but we wanted some russets as well, and then we saw the purple sets. Can’t wait to eat some of those! Our onions and chard are doing great, they come back, too, and hopefully our garlic will do well this year. My husband planted two blackberry bushes in the side yard. We have a blueberry bush that is my boys’ favorite treat. Hopefully the vine will do well again this year so we can make some grape jelly again, and I look forward to the lovely scent of my lavender plants.

My husband and I have the sorest hamstrings ever from all the planting and weeding, I’ve been stretching because otherwise the pain doesn’t let me sleep very well. I hope you’ll follow our gardening adventures this year, I’m very excited to see how our veggies do!

2013, birthdays, craft, husband

Minecraft Party, part 2

March 1, 2013March 1, 2013by casadeberry5 Comments

So, when I woke up at 6:30am on the morning of my son’s birthday party, I went to the garage and found my husband doing this:

The poor man had spent all night working on the creeper piñata and diamond sword. They looked great, though, so I would say it was worth it. Our boy was very impressed:

The piñata was made out of cardboard but my husband made it so that the head rotated. All the candy was stuffed into the belly, so it didn’t have a lot of give. The sword is made out of wood and painted in various shades of blue to give it that pixelated look from the game.

After the complete destruction of the poor creeper, we saved the head, as we always try to do, and added it to our growing collection of piñata and costume heads.

And that was our Minecraft-themed birthday party!

2013, birthdays, decor, entertaining, green, husband, parties

Minecraft Party, part 1

February 27, 2013February 27, 2013by casadeberry5 Comments

Minecraft is everywhere. Just about every kid I know plays it, and just about every parent I know knows about it. It’s like Legos, but online, and each block has different properties. So of course, my oldest, a fervent fan of the game, decided he wanted a Minecraft party for his 8th birthday. Being the craft-crazy parents that we are, we happily obliged.

Can you tell I went overboard with the square/block theme?

I totally stole the popcorn baggy idea and creeper background idea from Puerta Bella. The popcorn baggies were a hit, every kid (and some adults) grabbed a baggy each and went on their merry way, eating popcorn. I loved that there were no hands grabbing popcorn from a big bowl, that each person could get their own popcorn. The Red Vines TNT idea was shamelessly stolen from Seaside Interiors, and I used some square candle holders I already had, the kids loved it!

I decided to make mini sandwiches, cut to look like blocks, of course. We had Chicken Pesto, made very easily by mixing cooked chicken and mixing it with some of the pesto I made last week; Peanut Butter and Jelly; and Tuna Salad.

My mother in law baked the yummy cakes and my husband decorated them. We had one creeper and two “dirt blocks”:

Aren’t those candles fun? My husband saw them at the store and grabbed them, I’d never seen them before. The sides of the dirt blocks are a mix of oreos and graham crackers. We also had block candies and starburst to complete the “block food” theme.

On Friday, I’ll tell you all about the awesome piñata my husband made!

2012, baking, friends, husband

Cookie monsters

December 17, 2012December 17, 2012by casadeberry8 Comments

Last Friday my dear friend J and her kids came over for an evening of sugar-filled cookie decorating. My husband, my boys and I had such a great time that we decided this should be a monthly event ;D

J brought her delicious sugar cookie dough and royal icing – nom nom nom!

and we turned it into these:

by “we” I mean she, while I took pictures.

I had a gingerbread cookie kit so I made those:

Tough to believe from this picture, but my youngest has a “more is more” approach to decorating:

He was still being somewhat restrained here:

But then all limitations went out the window 😀

See what I mean?

Yes, there IS a cookie under there . . . somewhere!

I did love his heart-filled Christmas tree:

My husband and oldest boy went the more “precise” route ;D

There was also impressive modern artwork from one of our small friends:

And much merriment as tray after tray of yummy cookies came out of the oven. It was a wonderful, fun-filled, sugar-laden evening, and so much fun watching my boys having such a good time. Thanks for coming over, J and the E-team!!!

2012, craft, display, holiday, house, husband

The Christmas Serpent

December 13, 2012January 1, 2013by casadeberry5 Comments

Okay, so the title may be a little dodgy, but really, check out what my awesome husband made this time!

The inspiration was one of the structures at a local park, which does a great holiday lights display for people to drive by. Last year, my mother in law commented that she really liked their Christmas sea serpent and my husband, of course, said, “you want one?”

He cut out the pieces out of plywood, then my in-laws helped with painting, drilling EIGHT HUNDRED HOLES for lights to poke through, and painting.

It looks pretty awesome, doesn’t it??

Here’s Mr. Awesome checking out his masterpiece, on his parents’ front yard:

Hope your weekend is wonderful!!! I am off to see if I should change the name of the blog to My Husband’s Awesomeness ;D

2012, holiday, husband

Two favorite holiday movies

December 11, 2012by casadeberry4 Comments

A few years ago my husband and I went to see Love Actually:

and it has become our Christmas Day tradition. At some point, after everyone is gone and the kids are busy playing with the new boxe-, I mean, the new toys, we curl up on the sofa and watch it. It has many of my favorite British actors and sweet stories, not all of them ending happily, much like in real life.

My favorite scene? When the Prime Minister is singing carols and reacts to his bodyguard’s voice — I won’t tell you any more than that 😀

The second movie is another Christmastime set story, but of a much different tone. This one not only has wonderful actors I love, but it has a historical background – even better! I give you, The Lion in Winter:

As a complete peasant who loves Hershey’s kisses above most other chocolates and is very happy drinking $20 bottles of wine instead of Cristal Champagne (yuck!), I will admit to having watched the original movie and not liking it as much. It’s probably due to the fact that nowadays acting is not so grandiose and standing around declaring things to the audience. Now I think these great actors bring a more “natural” feel, which I prefer. Which is not to say that Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close do not do “grand” here, but I prefer their subtle kind of grand, I guess.

To complete your disdain for me, I watched the classic film “Anne of the Thousand Days” and fell asleep, preferring The Tudors — like I said, I am a complete peasant. I like what I like.

I just realized both movies came out in 2003, the year when we got married. Awwwwww. 😀

2012, entertaining, husband, thanksgiving

Food coma

November 23, 2012November 23, 2012by casadeberry2 Comments

Holy crap, that was a lot of food. And I didn’t even have turkey! Steve made an awesome bacon-wrapped pork loin so I went for that. And my mama’s world famous sweet potatoes with marshmallows. And Steve’s fabulous apple crisp.

My mom’s neighbor makes these adorable turkeys — mom bought a bunch and sent them to me for my table settings:

Don’t they look sweet?

I had set the table like this:

And then I remembered we were also having butternut squash bisque, so I had to re-do my settings to add the bowl – oops!

The little guys had to move to the chargers:

Here is the aforementioned pork loin; it was so moist and yummy!

And the bisque, which I will be enjoying later:

We have a silicone mold that we used for the cornbread:

They turned out so cute, little leaves and pumpkins.

Huge biscuits, gingery honey carrots, and the sweet potato/marshmallow casserole in the back:

We also had delicious turkey breast made by my in-laws, stuffing and gravy, green bean casserole, spicy lentils (kind of random, but I made them last year and people liked them), garlic mash, sweet potato medallions with caramelized walnuts, and I am sure I am forgetting more stuff, but it was all yummy and most of it was made by my awesome husband. Our cousin J brought a fabulous veggie basket with all sorts of goodies, including my favorite olives from Trader Joe’s.

We had a great time, and the boys had a blast playing with their cousins. We have big bellies and happy hearts. I hope your thanksgiving was a great one!

2012, house, husband, living room, neutrals, paint, painting

We’re not letting it mellow

November 19, 2012November 19, 2012by casadeberry6 Comments

When we moved into this house eight years ago, the living room was painted a dismal grayish-peach that made the space look small and drab. Wanting to lighten it up, I chose a buttery yellow for the walls. My husband Steve wanted a tan color for the trim so this is what we went with:

Both colors by Behr.

Eight years later, I’d had it with the yellow walls. So had my husband. We knew we wanted a warm neutral since those are the colors we gravitate to, our living room is filled with browns, creams, tans, reds, so to throw a grey or pure white wasn’t going to work. Steve picked Chamois Cloth by Behr, which looked lovely on the paint card, but it turned out to be pink. We don’t do pink. I do pink occasionally in my clothes, but pink walls are not us. Here are the painted and unpainted areas side by side after the Chamois Cloth snafu:

So it was my turn to get paint, and since it’s closer, I went to Lowe’s and got Valspar’s Cream in my Coffee:

Yes, that’s my youngest helping out, and you can see the difference between the yellow walls and the new color. Not a huge difference, just a subtle de-yellow-ing that left our walls looking brighter.

The color was a bit lighter than my husband had imagined, I think, he kept mentioning tans and that he wanted “color”, but he ended up liking it because a) our house is so dark that we need all the brightening up we can, and b) because it made for a peaceful, serene backdrop and accents in bright colors could then shine.

Speaking of our youngest, Alex, I have to say that one of the things I love the most about Steve is that he encourages the kids to jump in and help with whatever we’re doing, as long as it’s safe for them. Alex asked if he could help so out came a little roller he could handle and after covering up the floor, off he went to roll paint on the wall to his heart’s content.

Alex kept saying how happy he was to help — it was such a big deal for him to work alongside mommy and daddy! It was a big deal for us, too 😀

Another shot of the new color on the walls:

I love how our wrought iron “pops” with the creamy walls. Even though the color is lighter, the living room feels calmer without all that yellow. We are super happy with the results and if you ask Alex, he will grab your hand and show you the wall he helped paint ;D