We've moved, AGAIN.

Check out our new home... On the internet!

Bigger and better!

So I am finally getting to write about our move. Just be aware... This post is super picture heavy... But that's how we roll in the April household! 

The week of our move was ridiculously crazy. While we loved where we were living before, it was definitely too small for us anymore. And we were reminded of that a lot during the week. The way our apartment was set up, it was nearly impossible to put anything anywhere that was remotely out of the way. There were boxes everywhere, and we were literally surrounded by boxes for most of the week. I was going absolutely crazy, and I will admit, I cried a few times. I never thought we would pack it all up or get it all organized or ever be able to fit it into our new apartment, let alone a truck. Yes, I was dramatic that week.

This is just a sampling of what our living room looked like. This picture was taken Friday evening, right before I disassembled the couch all on my own!

The following photo was one that I took for memories' sake. Short side story... One day, Matt decided to boil some water for his oatmeal while he took a shower (apparently something he had done many times before, unbeknownst to me!) and he turned on the wrong burner. That burner happened to have a plastic spatula and cooking pan on it... So the spatula melted, caught on fire, and the kitchen stove was all ablaze when Matt came out of the shower. I got a video of our smoke-filled apartment while I was at work, and when I came home, I couldn't believe the smell. It was awful. And it smelled like that for DAYS AND DAYS. In hindsight, it's a funny memory. Matt learned from his mistake, and hopefully that won't ever be happening again! Thank goodness we had to replace the drip pans before we vacated...

Ok, back to the madness.

One of the things we were really excited about was the fact that we were going to have a washer/dryer in our new apartment. Matt so kindly documented our VERY LAST QUARTER LOADS OF LAUNDRY so that we could remember how much we won't miss it. At all. Not one bit. If I never see a quarter again in my life, I will be just fine with it.

Our lease actually started a couple days before we moved in so that we could take our time bringing fragile and important things over and making sure we could do our inspections and such before we started bringing everything else over. 

We had this cute little basket waiting for us! Pasta, sauce, truffles, peanut brittle, other little treats, and our important papers! It was very sweet of our management to leave for us. 

Matt took some pictures of everything before it got filled up...

And so on Saturday, it began...

And then, this happened. Our friend Eddie beasted the crap out of our mini-fridge and carried it all the way down 4 flights of steps and into the truck. Beast.

Laura!

Hey, Nick!

Hey, Kelcie!

Strategizing.

Hey, Josh!

Eddie: "Dude, you have so many shirts!" Yes, yes, he does.

Chilling some beverages in the snow, duh!

I just love driving UHauls!

Before we unpacked anything, we got some super yummy pizza... And housed all of it.

Then, we started unpacking the truck. I actually didn't get a single picture of that because it happened so quickly. Seriously... We have the most efficient friends! It was an assembly line of people passing boxes up the steps. I didn't even touch anything coming off the truck. I just kept putting boxes in their respective places when they got to the top of the steps. It was a pretty great system!

The first empty box!

The whole crew once we were finished.

We honestly have the greatest friends. I was so overwhelmed with the amount of help that poured out of these people that day. We are so lucky to have these people in our lives! Thank you all again for being amazing!

And now, just a few pictures of life the days following the move...

Our first QUARTER FREE LOAD OF LAUNDRY!

Setting up our rope lights that I absolutely LOVE.

Ohhh, the unpacking of the clothes. The. Worst.

Getting through the boxes slowly...

And then we went to our old place one last time. Just to make sure everything was cleaned, emptied, and of course, to have a moment. It was bittersweet! D303 was our first place together, our first place as a married couple, and where we made so many memories about starting our life as one little family of two. It was a wonderful place to live, and we only left because we needed more. I hope the next family who lives there loves it as much as we did!

Yep, cried a little.

So here we are! Good old 2010. We actually took this picture on December 30th when we went for a tour. We walked through this one and knew it was for us. So we snapped a picture before we left!

This is what I meant when I said we were living life "pre-white walls" in our old place. See that huge white wall? With our little TV stand and not huge but not tiny TV sitting on it, that wall looked absolutely ridiculous. We realized that the chair rail and mustard paint that was in our old place actually did a lot for the place. We kind of miss it. But now we have our own style to work with! Thank you, IKEA.

LOOK HOW BIG OUR KITCHEN IS! Ok, it might not be huge, but anyone who knows our old kitchen knows... A cook/baker didn't do so great in it. It was teeny. This one is so much bigger!

My baking corner!!

And that beautiful rope lighting I put up! Love love love it.

Our bedroom is MASSIVE.

The hallway with our closets into our own half bath. The washer/dryer are in there!

Our full bath. Also huge.

And the not so lovely 2nd bedroom/office. This room is slightly disorganized. It will be a nursery/baby room someday, so until we need that, it's kind of an office, kind of a catch-all room. Either way, it's almost as big as our bedroom, so we are finding it really nice to have the extra space.

So there you have it, friends! Welcome to our new place! Where we plan on expanding our family, making new memories as a married couple, and entertaining more friends since we actually have the space now. We hope you all come visit us soon!

Clean Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Oat Protein Bars

To continue the trend of using the kitchen before everything else is completely unpacked, my dear husband asked me to bake something for him. Granted, this was a recipe he could have easily done himself, but he doesn't enjoy baking as much as I do, and sends anything remotely baking-centric my way. 

Matt eats a lot. I'm talking almost 3000 calories-a-day a lot. So he's always looking for things to fill him up that don't take a whole lot of time once they're already prepared. We try our very best to keep things clean. Yes, it's hard, and some days are better than others... But for the most part, I think we do pretty well, and over time, it's just gotten engrained into our habits. We are always trying new recipes and looking for new ideas to incorporate clean ingredients. 

Matt had been looking for a clean recipe for granola bars that was high in protein, low in sugar, hearty, and easy to make. He noticed that a lot of the protein/granola bars in the organic and gluten free sections of the grocery store still contained a lot of other ingredients, so he wanted something we could make at home. Not only would it be clean, but it would be cheaper, too!

He came across this recipe, and we adapted it a little bit. If you would like to use the original, feel free. This is the recipe I used:

• 2 cups of oats-- roasted without oil
• 1 cup natural peanut butter
• 1/2 cup agave nectar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 tablespoons mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup whey protein powder
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Layer your oats in a thin layer on a baking sheet. 

Toast oats for 10 minutes, moving them around with a spatula halfway through to prevent scorching or burning. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 325ºF. Combine all of the other ingredients into a large mixing bowl, stirring with a spatula. 

We use all natural peanut butter. This means there is nothing else but peanuts and salt. Period. JIF, Skippy, all the "big name" companies make "natural" peanut butter, but they all have added sugar. Do yourself a favor and try actual natural peanut butter. Our favorites are Giant brand and Smucker's.

When measuring peanut butter, wet your measuring cup and spatula. You'll be able to remove the peanut butter much more easily.

If you're not familiar with agave, it's a wonderful thing. It's all natural and doesn't change the taste of whatever you're putting it in. Plus, since it's liquid, it dissolves in beverages much more easily than sugar. If you choose to use honey instead, crank your oven up to 350ºF. I reduced my temperature because my research told me agave burns faster than honey. Word of advice: always know your ingredients when making substitutions. This includes the ratio of substitution (honey and agave are 1:1).

 This is the whey protein we use. It's nothing but pure protein and tastes like nothing at all. We buy it in bulk from Amazon and add it to many "regular" things (smoothies, yogurt, milk).

Once incorporated, stir in cooled oats. Press into a 9"x13" baking dish and bake for 20-22 minutes. Allow to cool and cut into desired size bars (we cut into 12).

I found this mixture to be very sticky. Once I dumped it into the baking pan, I wet my hands to spread out the "batter" with my fingers. Much easier and cleaner than trying to spread it with my spatula!

The end result.

The only thing not clean about this recipe is the chocolate chips. If you would like to keep this recipe 100% clean, either omit them, replace them with something else, or use grain sweetened chocolate chips.

Our opinion of these is that as far as protein bars go, these are pretty good. I'm not going to run and tell the neighbors we've got a sweet treat for them to try after dinner tonight, but I would definitely not call these a bust at all. I will probably try to tweak some things to make them better, but for now, they get the job done, are filling, and are pretty tasty!