After....still so much to do!

Happy One Year House Anniversary!

We are still grateful for our home. It has slowly transformed into feeling more like a home than a house. Some after pictures but I realized that I didn't have pictures of all of the stuff that we have finished. Still so much to do! Both bathrooms and new kitchen flooring. New counter tops in the upstairs bathroom is a must and I would love to have them in the kitchen too. Oh, and I really, really want a dishwasher! That would be a dream!

Left to right: 1. The new wall color up the stairs. 2. The boys room - Jake's side. Refinished the hardwood floors and painted everything very neutral. I am liking there room colors - red, blue and brown. 3. Mia's refinished floors and new baseboards. The only new baseboards in the house. All the rooms need them. 4. New basement carpet and freshly painted paneling. 5. The front room. I waited to do this room for a while because I knew that it would be a huge mess. That carpet that I wanted I found at 50% off and couldn't resist. It looks as good as I hoped it would! 6. Mia's room. Very pink, but a good pink I think. Oh, and the desk is still, uh, 1/2 painted. 7. Basement family room all done! 8. The "new" kitchen table. I need to move the basket on the wall still since it's not centered anymore. 9. My favorite layer of wallpaper from the kitchen.

Almost one year......The Befores

Almost to our one year anniversary of buying our home. I can't believe that it has already been that long! Check out some of our before photos.

Left to right: 1. The lovely spare room. This room sports throw-up carpet, real wood paneling in less than pristine condition, blue and pink floral wallpaper and light blue curtains. 2. Going down the stairs to the basement. There wasn't carpet on the stairs so they were painted a bright salmon like color. The paneling on the wall was pink and the turquoise carpet. 3. Mia's room had red carpet from the 60's and shiny floral paper. 4. Peeling the paper. The vinyl layer came up easily but the rest, not so much. 5. "Master bedroom". Using the term loosely. Dark green and light green with a floral border and lace curtains. 6. The kitchen nook. Blue carpet, blue walls and blue plaid wallpaper. The curtains are handmade and therefore, they were sweet to me. Not enough to not pull them out though. 7. Boys bedroom. Jake was mortified when I told him that this was his room. It was pink and blue sponge paint with another floral border, pink silky homemade curtains and blue carpet that practically disintegrated when we pulled them out. 8. The basement. Turquoise carpet, pink trim and fireplace, country basket wallpaper and three different types of paneling. 9. My sister Teryn getting creative with her ladder. You can't see that she is standing on the paint cans. She's working on scrubbing off all of those layers of paper.

Now I am a winner!

Baptism invites are mailed. Phew. It's a bit on the later side, but with all the commotion over when we were going to have it and Mom and Dad going out of town, it was just up in the air for the date.

I also won a little something from one of Design Mom's contests. This fancy pants little bowl, plate, and cup with utensils finally came the other day. It's from Modern Minis and I do like the depth of the plate. It's kind of like a plate bowl. And they are microwave safe!! Thanks Design Mom. It was so fun to win something!! I have entered a ton of the these contests, so I felt that I could comment whatever I wanted. I sound a bit whiny, but oh well - I won!

Failed

• Failed hearing test (this makes twice)

• Also failed hearing test
  
  
• And I failed to send out the baptism invites, yet again. They are done though! (And there is no sun and I am not fancy smancy to figure out how to make these look any better. Very simple but I still like them.)

Sammy boy

What's not to love about this little guy. Fat cheeks and dimpled hands. He looks so cute sitting there looking through the Book of Mormon the other morning. He loves to look at books. Flipping intently through the pages until he got frustrated and bit the book. Huh?

Bending the Rules Sewing

Last Saturday, I went to a double baby shower for my neice Brianne and neice-in-law Angie. Both were due to have baby girls within a few weeks of each other. Brianne's baby Aubri came three weeks early! Angie is due on February 29th. Many, many moons ago, I bought some sweet pink fabric to make the girls the scalloped blankets from Bend the Rules Sewing. There it sat and sat and sat waiting for me to start the project. Finally, the week before I got started.

I decided to use flannel for the back and Warm and Natural batting in the middle to make it nice and snuggly since it's so cold right now. I made the first one and it seemed so tiny. I followed the directions for cutting the top at 30x34 but must of not got the scollops on right because it was tiny. It's now a very warm, new blanket for Mia's babies. Second attempt I tried to make the size bigger, but only had 30 inches width for the batting. So it made kind of a oblong quilt, but it was okay. Until I put it in the wash and the flannel didn't wash that good and I didn't know that I was supposed to hand sew the scalloped edges that were open and well, they were a bit on the wonky side.


Okay, let's try it again! The day before the shower, right before work, I ran to the store with my fabric stashes in hand and found the cutest fabric and started it at 9pm when I got home from work. I found a much better size, using a yard of fabric for each and used flannel for the lining like the, uh, directions said to use. They turned out sooooooo darling!!! I only had two seconds to snap picture of each after then came out of the dryer before I headed to the shower.

Luckily, I found out that Angie didn't want pink for her baby so I changed quickly and matched some cute purple gingham fabric with the sweetest floral top. I was very excited about it! I made the diaper wipes container with some fabric from my stash.


Brianne's blanket took a whole new turn when I found the vintage looking rose print. Found the perfect dark rose for the backing and I was sold. I made her travel wipes container with the matching dark rose background and pink braid trim. I wish that I would of used red thread, but otherwise, it turned out great! It's hard for me to decide which one was my favorite!! Of course, they each got 9 billion blankets. I just really wanted to make them and I am glad that I did so I know how they go together.

(Wish Blogger would fix spell checker!!)

Happy Valentines Day!

Hope you enjoy your day!

Tulips from Ryan. Very beautiful! I love them everytime I pass them! And a virtual bouquet from my very talented sister Sharmyn's floral shop.

The Birthday Party

I haven't done a friends birthday party for a few years so I felt it was high time to have one. I asked Jake what he wanted to do for his party and of course the Star Wars theme was the only one for him. He was very excited about it.

The fun thing about Jake is that he helps make the party. He started by writing out his invitations and handing them out to his friends. Of course, he reminded them on a daily basis. We decided to play just a few games; Star Wars Bingo and Pin the Chest Plate on Darth Vader. The Darth Vader game was easy. That was premade from the party store. Jake and I made the bingo game. It took a little more time, but was completely worth it. It was the hit of the party! We could of played it several more times. It was fun to sit with Jake cutting and glueing the boards together. Even Jake's friend Carly helped. I don't know why I missed getting a picture of the game. I guess we were to into playing it!

Next up, pictures with Darth Vader and a lightsaber with your best Jedi face. And finally, Pin the Chest Plate on Darth Vader. Didn't go so well. They were crazy hyper by then. There were six boys and one girl who is a very cool girl. She's pretty good at playing with the boys, but even they were a little too crazy for her. One little guy was always climbing on the furniture. He was a monkey bouncing over the sofa to stand on the table behind or standing on the window sill. And do you know how loud one little boy is? Times that by the six little boys all hyped up at a birthday party that has lightsabers AND long sqiggly balloons that can be used as lightsabers so they can beat each other senseless? What? I can't hear you. My ears are still ringing.

Moving on to presents, I tried to teach them "Heavy, heavy hangover thy poor head. What do wish with a bump on your head?" I know, dangerous territory for the above mentioned situation but they decided that meant to pour their gift bag out over his head. Hmm.....interesting and apparently a blast.

Quickly over to the brownies and ice cream where Jake helped name them "Deathstar Doom Brownies" and "Hoth Ice Cream" because, ya know, Hoth is an ice planet. We also had "pretzel sabers" - Pretzel rods that were supposed to be covered with green or red melted chocolate to resemble lightsabers. I couldn't find the colored chocolate anywhere, so they were just as is and also a big hit. Anything that you can battle another with is all good fun.

Cake, ice cream and presents were over in eight minutes. I kid you not. We still had fifteen-plus minutes to spare. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day outside! We sent them out and Ryan got them started on a game of P-I-G. The boys ran around like mad men, climbed the tree, swung on the swings, played ball and dared each other to run through the snow with no socks and shoes on. They each got a bag of goodies that included a sheet of Star Wars stickers, Star Wars tatoos, a chocolate gold coin, and a small bottle of bubbles.

We were glad to see them leave and even more happy to see how happy Jake was. I am glad that we did it for him and glad that Ryan was able to be there to help and even more glad that Sam took a nap during the party. He must like it loud while he sleeps! Next time, his party is going to be at a venue that allows those loud, running around crazy boys to be loud, crazy running around boys!

Be Mine!

Mia and I finished her Valentine's for her preschool class and teachers this morning. They turned out so cute! Very pleased since they really only cost pennies to make. Check out how sweet little Mia's handwriting is. She just wrote the letters wherever they would fit, thus Ms. Diane's mispelling. I think it just adds to the charm. She is very proud of herself and is excited for her party.

I also got a beautiful bouqet of red, white and pink tulips from Ryan this morning and have had fun looking through the package of Valentines from the Valentine swap I did from Sarah's blog. I am such a sap for Valentine's Day. I love all the handmade goodness of it all. It's all very fun!

Eight is Great!

I can't believe that my baby boy is already eight years old!! It just seems like yesterday when you were running around as a toddler. You were cautious yet busy, interested yet somewhat reserved, and excited to be a part of anything going on. You are still like that now. You love to play computer and video games, yet shy away from learning to ride your bike. You love playing with your friends. You will play hours on end with any of your little figures. Army guys, Star Wars guys, Lego guys. It's all fun for you. You work hard on setting it all up just the way that you like it. It's hard for others to get in on the action since you tend to be a bit on the bossy side. You like it how you like it!

You are doing well in school. Your teacher says that you remind her of her great-grandson. She was at your tumbling review to see her great-grandson and laughed that you two were even more alike then she thought! She is a good teacher to you. Reminding you to take your folder or one of your dozen sweatshirts and coats that get left behind. You are testing well and ahead of where you should be. You have the best little memory! You have always remembered things well. You learned your colors without us teaching you by the time you were about 18 months old. You quickly learned your alphabet and numbers and sounds before you were in kindergarten. This didn't seem much to us at the time, but as we have worked with Mia to learn her abc's and 123's, we realized how easily it came to you.

This memory of yours can be frustrating too. As a toddler, we could never distract you away from something you wanted. You remembered no matter how much we did a song and dance. Yet, as you are older, you forget simple instructions from us. Things such as "get dressed then brush your teeth" are easily distracted from and translated into "play with your toys" or "turn on the TV". I am regularly reminding you your simple routines. I wonder if it is that you just don't want to do it so it easily slips out of your mind or if you are just plain flakey? I guess time will tell.

Time does show that your enthusiam is endless. You love all things social be it school, church, or playtime. It's all play to you! You love to be the center of attention and have a lot to say! You have always been a good boy and I hope that you continue to be that way. You know right from wrong, choices and consequences, and love without conditions. I have never heard you say "If you don't do this, I won't be your friend!". You are loving to your brother and your sister even though she does annoy you. She does it on purpose you know. She loves to get your goat! She's good at it too!

You are so sweet with Sammy. I love to see you play with him and talk to him. Often, I hear you and Sam wake up before I am out of bed. You will take him out of his crib and go downstairs to play together. I love that you want to do that for him!

Today was such an exciting day for you! You were excited for school because as you said, everyone gets to make you a card and you get to make a folder to hold them in. You bounced around at home waiting for your friends to show up for your party. You ran around and giggled and showed off and played. After the party, we went to dinner and said that you could order anything that you wanted. Chicken strips and mashed potatoes with raspberry lemonade is exactly what you wanted! The waiter was reminded several times that it was in fact your birthday today and you would be looking forward to the free dessert. Too bad the dessert wasn't that good. No complaints though. That was good of you.

We came home to a gift on the porch and a visit from Papa and Grandma and fun playing with your new dart gun from your party. I am happy that you have had a wonderful day!

With all my love and kisses (because I still can!)

Mom

We don't need no stinkin' hill!

We just use our front yard.

Easy, convenient and close to the hot chocolate.

Ruffled Lady

At work, there is a card exchange that is held monthly at the store meeting. I haven't joined in because I felt intimidated by these pros. I haven't made many cards in my little lifetime. But every month, they pass out their cards and I really want them for myself. This month, at the last minute, I decided that I would join in. I found this idea in the latest Card magazine. The scalloped edges reminded me ruffles which made me of the Tinkering Ink papers. I heard the designer was a fabric designer. Tinkering Ink is too bold for my scrapbooks, but perfect for this card. Best part is that I took five sheets of very unpopular scrapbook paper and turned it to something that I think looks good. Even better that the paper was 75% off! Gotta love that!