lambie-pie

Future Major Leaguer

2011-06-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Seriously, people, this kid's got quite an arm for a seven-year-old!

Super 8

2011-06-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

We went to see this movie last night and it was great! The perfect fun summer action movie. I was surprised at how much I liked it. It reminded me of all the great Steven Spielberg movies with the underdog kids, and the humor plus great special effects- a lot like ET (although it wasn't actually directed by him, it was produced by him). I won't tell you much about it because, for me anyway, the less you know about a movie before you see it, the better. Trust me, you'll like it!

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

2011-05-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

Good Morning Everyone!
Today I'd like to share a super yummy recipe with you for Lemon Ricotta Pancakes. My mother and sister-in-law introduced me to these a couple of years ago when I was visiting Phoenix. We went to this place called Wildflower Bakery Cafe- I think that's right- and these were on the menu and they were sooo good. With both buttermilk and ricotta cheese in them how could they not be, right? Plus I love anything lemon flavored.
A couple of weeks ago I hosted our Relief Society Recipe Swap, which is basically our monthly excuse to get together, talk and eat good food! The theme for May was breakfast and brunch which is some of my favorite food to make and eat. Here is a link to my friend Ellen's blog with some other pictures of food from that night (I stole this picture of my pancakes from her :) There was quiche, frittata, potato strata, crepes- it was all delicious. I am helping host a bridal shower brunch for my brother's fiancee this Saturday and I am going to make the broccoli cheese quiche that Ellen brought for the shower.

Here is my recipe:

1 1/2 C all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 C buttermilk
2 large eggs, separated
1/4 C sugar
3/4 C ricotta
1 T grated lemon zest (I also added a tablespoon of juice to make it more lemony)
melted butter

Whisk together flour, soda, salt. In another bowl whisk together buttermilk, egg yolks, sugar, ricotta, and lemon zest and juice. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir until just blended.
In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold beaten egg whites into ricotta mixture until blended.
Cook on hot skillet brushed with melted butter, about 1/4 C of batter per pancake.
I made a warm blueberry sauce by cooking blueberries with some cornstarch and water, and some sugar until thickened, and served the pancakes with the fruit sauce and powdered sugar. You could serve it with any berries, fresh or cooked. These pancakes are so moist, I hope you enjoy making them!

Songs I'm Liking This Week

2011-04-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

2011-04-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

We had a great time watching this today. My daughter is so into princesses that it was fun for her to see a real live one!

Easter Fun!

2011-04-28T05:30:00.000-07:00

Cousins at the Primary egg hunt at church

My little gal and Grammie hunting for eggs in the pouring rain!

My kids dyeing their eggs Friday night

The adult table at my mom's house

The big kids' table

Tons of yummy food!

Don't you wish you had a nice brother like this?!

We had a really fun Easter weekend including three different egg hunts (one in the pouring rain), singing in the choir, making homemade rolls and Jello eggs, lots of great food and fun with family and friends. All the boys in my family got plaid shorts in their Easter baskets. We were lucky that even though Saturday was cold and rainy, we woke up Sunday to beautiful sunshine and flowers blooming everywhere!

Easter Decor

2011-04-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

Is it too late to share a few Easter pictures? I hope not!

My real robin's nest with some faux decorative eggs.

My living room on Easter morning

On Friday I went over to my parents house and cut a whole bunch of forsythia. They have tons of it back there. Right now in our neighborhood it is at it's peak and it's everywhere. So pretty!

I added some fun Easter things to my springy mantle.

Tulips are one of my favorite flowers.

It was fun opening up some boxes of Easter stuff that have been in storage for a long time. I found things I had totally forgotten about, like these white bunnies.

Eggs everywhere!

My Kids

2011-04-26T05:39:00.000-07:00

Spring Mantle

2011-04-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

My favorite time of the year is here!

The trees are budding and turning that fresh light green color that I love, just like the world is blushing green. There are lots of daffodils and tulips opening up, and I've seen some magnolia trees beginning to bloom. Lots of forsythia too.

There is a clean, sweet smell in the air that makes me feel really happy. Winter is not my fave and I'm not at all sad to see it go.

I have to say that the temperature the last couple days has not been too spring -like, but next week is supposed to be really pretty- in the 60's.

This is a real nest that we found last year when my dad was cleaning under his deck. The straw is held together with layers of mud- pretty remarkable craftsmanship (don't worry, the nest had been abandoned for a while when we found it).

I bought these pussywillows over a month ago and they are still looking great.

Welcome Spring!

Entryway Before and After

2011-04-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

Good Morning!

I'm really excited to show you the before and after pictures of our home's entryway today. Like everything else in our fixer-upper, it has sure come a long way. Here is a picture of this table before I made it over. The bottom shelf was all warped and broken so I asked my friend to cut me a new piece out of plywood, then attached it and painted the whole thing white. Now it's one of my favorite pieces of furniture.

I am a huge fan of barn stars, I bought this one at a really fun shop in our town that unfortunately went out of business. I did get a whole bunch of cool stuff there on sale first though.

I thought about painting this little dresser white at first but the color grew on me so I left it as is.

I ordered this photo of my kids from Canvas People.

This little metal angel is a replica of the angel that flew on top of the original Nauvoo Temple. We bought it in a shop in Nauvoo on our trip across the country when we moved here from Arizona almost 6 years ago. Seeing that Temple that was burned so long ago rebuilt was an absolute miracle to me. I love that there is a little piece of our church's history here.

Here is your view as you walk in our front door. One of my favorite changes is the light fixture in here.

Here is a before picture:

It seriously grosses me out to remember how smelly and disgusting this house was before we practically killed ourselves fixing it up. Ugh. In this photo the wallpaper has already been removed but before there was dirty beige wallpaper on the walls.

Another shot of our much improved entryway looking into the laundry room. There are shutter doors to the laundry that I still need to paint white and rehang. The tile is not what I would have chosen but I can live with it. The good thing about it is that it doesn't show any dirt, which is a big plus in this house!

I'm pretty proud of the work on the stairs since I did most of it :) You may be able to see in that above before pic of the stairs how scratched and gouged the dark stained wood was all up the staircase on both sides. I had to spackle and sand all of that wood, then prime it (3 coats of primer) and then paint it all. It was really, really hard work.

The wood floors and stair treads were professionally sanded and varnished.

Really ugly original light fixture:

Not to mention the filthy, tobacco stained ceiling. Yuck.

This little chair is a favorite find of mine:

I love how you can see 3 or 4 layers of different paint on it. It was chipping a lot so all I did was scrub it well and sand it down so the paint wouldn't continue flaking off.

This little basket is one I made a long time ago. Yes, I actually took a basket weaving class in college!

I wanted this area to have a really beachy feel to it, so I filled different containers with some of our ocean finds from Cape Cod.

I realy like wreaths too, I think I have at least one in almost every room in my house.

This other glass jar is filled with some shells I've had since childhood, and some from a trip to St. Thomas.

Here is the view looking down from the top of the stairs:

And here it is after:

The color on the wall is Quiet Moments, by Benjamin Moore. The name makes me laugh because with 5 kids- 4 of them boys- there aren't too many quiet moments around here!

This color is a beautiful grayish blue that reminds me of the color of seawater- exactly what I was going for.

Thanks for stopping by!

Metal Table Makeover

2011-04-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here is another one of my latest finished projects that I'm excited to finally have finished up!. It's a little metal table that was destined for the landfill, and in the before photos below you can really see why. It was a rusty, crusty mess, but I loved the shape of it and knew it could be an adorable farmhouse chic piece with a little love, elbow grease and lots of spray paint.

It's the perfect thing to hold some pretty white dishes and things in this little corner of my kitchen..

Here is a picture of the table before I started working on it:

See what I mean? Tons of rust and corrosion. I started out by scrubbing the whole thing down with soap and water using an SOS pad. Then I did a whole lot of sanding. It was impossible to get all the rust off but I tried to get as much of that and the flaky paint off as possible.

Then I broke out the Rust Stop primer- I think I used the ACE hardware brand, but I've used Rusoleum in the past. Normally for wood projects I use Kilz primer but for rusty metal I think it's good to use paint made to block rust. It took about 3 coats of primer and sanding in between to get it ready to paint.

Here it is in all it's glory after a whole lot of primer and 2 or 3 coats of glossy white spray paint.

The one mistake I made is not completely taping off the black edge around the top shelf before I primed, so I kind of messed up the black paint in some areas, mostly underneath. I'm kind of sad that I did that because that's one of the things I liked most about this piece was that black edge,so I need to see if I can fix that up a little. The black paint has some rust spots too so I thought I'd need to repaint that whole stripe so I wasn't very careful, but that was kind of dumb. Live and learn I guess. I think I can sand most of it off and then hopefully find some non-spray black enamel paint to touch it up with.

My one other big piece of advice- don't try to use spray paint outside on a windy day! I had to keep respraying spots where little bits of leaves, dirt, and a few bugs got stuck in the wet paint. That got super annoying! If you have a garage, that's even better than outside.

So, because I like before and afters so much, here is one more pic before:

And after:

Little Girl's Bed Makeover

2011-04-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone! After a kind of long blog break I am back. For the last few months, every time I thought about doing a new post, I would then think- eh, don't feel like it. Don't really have any better explanation that! Anyway, I am back in the groove and have a bunch of new projects to share with you.

Here are some photos of my little girl's new bed. I found this bed a few years ago and have been patiently waiting for her to have her own room so I could finally make it over.

A few weeks ago (as soon as all the snow was melted out of my back yard) I got it out of storage to get going on fixing it up.

Here is what it looked like before- not so cute! (speaking of not so cute, these pictures make me realize that our back yard is really pathetic looking and needs major help)

And here it is after an entire afternoon of sanding with both the electric sander and by hand to remove most of the chipped, peeling paint and smooth out all the gouges in the wood. Because of all the curvy lines and grooves it took forever! The sanding is definitely my least favorite part of any furniture transformation project.

Detail of the cute bedposts

I then primed and painted it white, I used spray primer and plain white semi gloss spray paint. I would have preferred to use White Dove (Benjamin Moore) like I did on her bedside table, but I just couldn't stand to think about trying to paint all of those curves and grooves with a brush or sponge so I stuck with the spray paint for this one. I took a few days to get all the coats on, and overall I probably spent a week with all the touching up and multiple coats (I usually lightly sand between each coat, esp after the primer).

This bed is perfect for her room because even though it has both a headboard and footboard and posts they are pretty short so it doesn't overwhelm the room which is kind of small..

Here is another picture of the duvet without the cover. The bedding will probably change again at some point because I have been saving my favorite fabric- Moda's Seaside Rose- to make a quilt for her. That one is at the top of my long quilting to do list!

Some info in case you're interested:

Wall color- Sugarcane by Benjamin Moore, lightened 25% with white which I mixed with measuring cups
myself because I am dumb and didn't know you could ask the paint store guys to do that for you :)
Duvet- Target; duvet cover and pillowcase was a major score a couple of years ago at our elementary school's community yard sale. It is Garnet Hill and I think I paid a few dollars for it, and it was in the package and like new. I don't know how well you can see in the photos, but it's a really cute print of little ballerinas.
Dust ruffle- Shabby Chic from Target
lamp- Target but it was a few years ago
quilted cat- antique store in Maine
quilts- made by me :)

Mom and Dad's House

2011-01-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

On Christmas afternoon we went over to my parents to hang out with the rest of the fam and open presents and have dinner. The kids always have a lot of fun with their cousins.

Dad got nose flutes and kazoos for everyone (why, I couldn't tell you!)

This kid was actually really good at nosefluting and even took it to church the next day and was nosefluting along with the organ (until I told him to stop).
Well, I think this is my last Christmas post- finally. We had a fun New Year's Day too and had a bunch of friends over for our traditional brunch of abelskievers (Danish puffy pancakes). I was so busy cooking though that I forgot to take any pictures. The holidays were nice and I'm kind of sad that they're over, but kind of relieved too.!It will be nice for things to calm down a little for a while.
Hope you all had a nice Christmas season also!

Christmas Breakfast

2010-12-31T06:53:00.000-08:00

We had my parents, my brother and his girlfriend over for breakfast on Christmas morning. Later on my other brother stopped by with two of his kids on their way to my mom's.

I've used this same table setting for several different parties this year, advent, Christmas, and a get together of my HS friends the other night. It's pretty simple, drop cloth tablecloth, little silver trees from Crate and Barrel last year, silver snowflake table sprinkles, my new red dishes, and votive candles. I'll be using it again tomorrow when we have some friends over for New Year's brunch.

Our traditional Christmas breakfast is Pannakaku, which is Finnish pancakes. You blend the batter which has a lot of eggs and then pour in a pan and bake. This is actually only traditional the last 5 years or so, when my kids were little they didn't like it so we just had waffles. We make a yummy fruit compote to go on top, or you can have powdered sugar, syrup or jam.

This girl has gone from a baby and toddler that absolutely hated having her picture taken to now where she is a total poser! Everytime you point a camera in her direction, she's got the hands on hips, with a little tilt of the head, it just cracks me up! I guess that's why there are a bazillion photos of her.

Christmas Morning 2010

2010-12-31T05:47:00.000-08:00

We always make them line up in age order to go into the living room together.

At her age it's nothing but excitement!

I took so many pics of this little gal I had to make a collage to fit in all the cute ones! You can click on it to see them better.

The boys got a big package for all of them from their Nana and Papa. Luckily it is an outside toy!

Unfortunately this poor kid woke up with the stomach flu. He still managed to open some presents but I don't think it was quite as much fun as usual for him. It seems like we just can't have a holiday unless at least one person is throwing up!

My boys used to get star wars toys and blocks, now they get phones, razors, and video games. So weird to have such grown up kids!

This is my stocking I've had since I was a baby, made by my grandmother. It's still in amazingly great shape.

This kid is a Nutella freak.

The boys all got nerf guns.

I'll admit that this was kind of a gift for me too :)

The only thing she asked for from Santa was a "brown haired doll." Luckily Santa was able to find one, and it even came with a baby sister doll.

She's had this mini doll house for a while but none of the guys to go in it so we got her a bunny family. I love Calico Critters, they are the cutest toys.

Her brother gave her a baby Jesus that he got in primary. This Sunday, she'll be in Primary too!

Christmas morning was a lot of fun this year. It was fun to have it in our new house. Next I'll be posting some more pics of the rest of our Christmas day.

Stormy

2010-12-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

The window above my kitchen sink:

Well everyone, we are in the middle of a bona fide Nor'easter at the moment. I don't know if I've ever seen or heard so much wind in a 24-hour period before! Yesterday they said we'd get 2-4 inches but it's more like a foot, plus with all the wind it's drifting a lot too. So, it's a real Winter Wonderland around here.

I walked around the house taking a bunch of pictures both inside and out. I guess I was excited to see how our new surroundings looked in the snow. Unfortunately our car is not the best in the snow and we had a bit of a treacherous time getting home from church and then over to my parents for leftovers yesterday. By then it looked like the snow was coming down sideways.

When we left for church in the early afternoon it was just barely starting and was pretty heavy by the time we got out, even though they just had Sacrament Meeting and cancelled all the rest of the meetings so we were only there for an hour and a half.

Doesn't my house look cute in the snow?

This is the house across the street, it looks really pretty too.

The view down the street.

Our backyard gives you a good idea of how snowy it is out there.

We are doing what we can to keep ourselves entertained while being cooped up in the house all day.

Today I watched the movie Camille on TV. It was kind of bizarre and sad but then had this beautiful ending that I loved. You should watch it, I was very surprised at how much I liked it, and I'd never heard of it before at all.

One of my boys actually braved the storm and went out sledding with his friend. He said the snow was swirling in the wind so much it looked like there were clouds on the ground.

I also read an entire book last night and today- "The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance." It was hilarious and insightful and I loved it and couldn't put it down.

My bedroom window covered in frost:

We're drinking lots of hot chocolate. And gorging ourselved on Christmas candy and pie.

Good thing we are prepared with the important things on hand!

This is my other across the street neighbors house. Our neighborhood really is extremely cute.

My husband can't believe these wreaths he hung outside the windows with fishing wire are still hanging on.

I think the worst of it is now over, it's not snowing anymore but it's still really windy. I guess tomorrow we'll go out and make a snowman. My little gal is a total snowbunny and loves to play in it, whethere she's properly dressed or not makes no difference! It's been a fun weekend.

More Christmasy Little Girl's Room

2010-12-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

I saw this glittery teal and silver trees on a blog- maybe Cluck, Cluck, Sew?- and thought they were so cute, but it was from Hobby Lobby which we don't have around here. So, I told Nana in AZ about them and she was nice enough to send one to us! My little girl's room was the perfect place to put it. I hung some clear glass star and angel ornaments on it and I LOVE how they look (they're from Ikea this year). Towards the top we clipped a little silver star.

Here is her little bedside table that I rescued and painted white. I'll share some better pics of it with before and after sometime soon.

On Christmas Eve I found an extra string of white lights laying around and strung them around this side of the room. I stuck the end of the lights inside the mini doll house to make it glow.

There are several things, like this little pink plaque that really never had a good place to go before. It's fun to have a place to decorate with pink!

I'll probably expand on this next year but it was a fun impromptu project to make her room a little festive just a couple of days before the BIG day. I think she had fun going to bed in there on Christmas eve.

I'm still working on her room, I have an old-fashioned wooden bed to paint for it that I think is going to be really adorable when it's done. I'm also contemplating the dresser paint color- white or green. Then I have a ton of fabric to make a quilt and curtains and things out of. Hopefully sometime I'll get it all done and be able to do a whole girly room reveal.

The paint color in her room is Sugarcane by Benjamin Moore, cut with white by 25%. Sometime I'll tell you about how I painted her whole room three times just to get the perfect pink. (and how I didn't know that you could just ask the guys at the paint store to lighten up a color for you until after I did it myself using quart jars and measuring cups- oy).

I'm linking this to Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Night Special too.

Christmas Lights

2010-12-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

This is the new light fixture my husband was installing on Christmas Eve day. He had to go through quite the acrobatics to get it up there since it hangs in the stairwell. He also had to paint that part of the ceiling that was all stained once he removed the old brass light.

Our house is kind of funny, it's like a split level but you enter on the downstairs floor and then go upstairs to the main floor with the kitchen, living room, main bath and three bedrooms.
Here is a picture of this area before:

We spent most of our Christmas money on light fixtures, and kitchen/bath hardware and a few other things to finish up some house projects. That might not sound light a very exciting Christmas present for some people, but I'm really happy with it! I thought of just using this light fixture and spray painting the metal part black or oil-rubbed bronze, but all the light fixtures in this house had this beveled glass that created a prismy shadowy effect on the walls, plus the light was very glaring and we just didn't like it at all, so we've been slowly replacing all of it. Only one more to go- I bought a chandalier at Ikea for my birthday and it was broken- so annoying! So, we need to exchange and install that one and then all the light fixtures will be done. The only other thing to finish up here is that little strip of the wall at the top that's not painted. Slowly but surely, we're getting there. At least at this point we feel like we're living in an actual house rather than a construction project!

Christmas in My Bathroom

2010-12-26T02:43:00.001-08:00

So do you think it's sacreligious to put a nativity tree in your bathroom? I hope not because that's exactly what I did on Christmas Eve! I found this little set of mini Nativity ornaments I hadn't used yet and thought this would be the perfect place to display them on a little tree I pulled out of a box.

This bathroom has come a long way since it's days of being a powder blue 70's nightmare! It was completely gutted and given a whole new, beachy look.

Someday soon I'll do another post about it with before pics so you can see the amazing difference. But for now here's just a quick glimpse. If you look closely you might notice that we still have a little more hardware to install. Hopefully that will be done in the next week or so as my hubby is taking some time off. Poor guy, he spent Christmas Eve day installing two new light fixtures! These pencil starfish and sandollar will stay up all year, but they are perfect for Christmas with their starshapes.

I like little bits of Christmas in every room.

(bathroom wall color is Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams)

I'm linking this to Donna's Saturday night special.

Little Girl's Christmas Eve

2010-12-26T02:07:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T14:14:00.000-08:00

First Snow and Scotcheroos

2010-12-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

Guess what? It's snowing outside! First snow of the season, and just in time for Christmas week. Our street looks so cute, all the houses have Christmas lights and are looking very cozy. Three people have asked me for this recipe in the last few days so I thought I'd share with you all. If you take them to a holiday party, I guarantee you that the plate will be emptied and at least one person will ask you for the recipe!

My Grandma introduced us to this recipe so I always think of her when I make it. They are the perfect Christmas treat because they are really yummy, but also really simple. You don't even have to turn on your oven. Here are some of the ingredients you will need, and here is the recipe:

Enjoy!

Christmas Decor 2010

2010-12-19T07:35:00.001-08:00

I love going to concerts and parties at Christmastime, but my absolute favorite place to be is home. Watching Christmas specials together, drinking hot chocolate, baking pumpkin bread, sitting in a room lit with tree lights and candles, with Christmas carols playing. This is an extra special year since it is the first year in our new home. It has been really fun to decorate our house that we've been working so hard to renovate for the last several months.

Probably my favorite feature of this house is the living room fireplace and mantle..

I wanted the it to have a really natural feel to it and be mostly green and white with a little sparkle. I used greens and lots of things I already had including my salvaged window and pinecone wreath I made last year. I was so happy to discover that I have several cedar bushes in my backyard. I mixed this with other greens and used them throughout the house.

I got this vintage looking enamelware pitcher at Ikea when we went for my birthday last week. It reminds me of the vintage French ones that you can find on ebay- but those are pretty pricey. I love that it is unbreakable (kind of a necessity in this house!), and I used it as a water pitcher when we hosted advent last Sunday, so it's not just decorative but useful.

(kitchen wall color is Silver Sage by Benjamin Moore)

Here is our entry way. It has taken a lot of work to get it looking like this! Think horrible dingy brown wallpaper, gloppy white painted banister, dark wooden stairs and woodwork. It's such a huge improvement! The wall color is called Quiet Moments by Benjamin Moore.

I considered painting this little dresser white but I already have a lot of white furniture and the pale yellow shade has really grown on me. I love decorating with wreaths of all kinds. I really don't think you can have too many.

My Christmas living room. Before picture here. Pretty scary, huh?

(living room color is Manchester Tan by Benjamin Moore)

This little table is the first thing you see as you walk in the front door. I love to just plunk a big bunch of mixed greens in different types of antique buckets and call it good!

I love my antique woden flexible flyer sleigh too- a trash to treasure find from last year. My neighbor didn't sell it at their yard sale so I rescued it as they were putting it out for the trash. I was pretty proud since I've seen these in antique stores for $50-$70!

I just painted the front door red about 3 weeks ago. The color is Benjamin Moore's Country Redwood.. Before it was very dingy black and reminded me of a prison door. I hated it and wanted to get a new door, but the budget prevented that for now so I decided to just paint it. It is so much more cheerful in red and perfect for the holidays!

Our Christmas tree this year is HUGE! We bought it at Home Depot one night and when we woke up it had relaxed poufed out like it was wearing a hoop skirt! I thought, oh no this is going to be too big but pushed slightly in the corner it looks fine.

I really, really wanted to put the tree in my huge galvanized tub this year. It was kind of a pain to get it in there, but I really like the way it looks. I just spread a little batting around the floor around it to look like snow. So far, we're still waiting for the real thing around here.

We need to have our fireplace fixed before we can actually light a fire in it, but I love decorating it so much that I don't even mind. This stick tree is one of the first decorations I bought, and it's one of my favorite things. I'm so happy it survived it's cross country trek! It goes well with my stick reindeer. I love anything made out of sticks. Another thing you can never have too much of in my book.

I made this simple arrangement with candles that I bought at Ikea and cranberries. The only problem is that the platter it's on is curved so the candles aren't totally flat on it. When I burned them they burned the sides of the candles next to them. So I guess next time I'll have to find a flat plate to do this on. It looked so pretty in the dining room all lit up when we had company over for dinner.

Are you ready?! I hope so because now it's only six days! Thank goodness for Amazon Prime is all I have to say.

When you walk into our house, this wall is on your right. It's all the kids' Christmas art projects I've saved through the years.

It's not quite the same without a porch to decorate like last year.

I really miss having the porch but I tried to do my best with the entry and front door on our split level type ranch house, and make up for it with decorations and lights on the house. I made 4 wreaths for the front outside windows and put candles that shine in the middle of the wreaths from inside.We have a great neighborhood and almost every house on our cul-de-sac has lights of some kind.

I love my cute outdoor nativity made from fenceposts a friend made for me several years ago.

Well, that concludes my tour of our Christmas home. I'm linking this to the Christmas Tour of Homes at the Nesting Place (just in the nick of time, today is the last day), and Funky Junk Interiors Christmas Full Home reveal party, and any other holiday linky parties that are still open. Merry Christmas!

Kid's POV

2010-12-19T05:22:00.001-08:00

My kids got a hold of the camera a couple of times last week. Even though it kind of annoys me because, ahem, this was not exactly a cheap camera, sometimes it's fun to see life through their eyes.

We hosted advent last Sunday. I made chicken enchiladas, beans and rice for dinner. I made so much we were eating them all week.

For dessert we had peppermint sundaes: peppermint ice cream, crushed up candy canes, homemade hot fudge sauce, and whipped cream. Yum! I'm normally too cold to eat ice cream in December but I make an exception for these :)

We had a fun night with friends eating, singing Christmas carols, reading scriptures, and adding the shepherds to the Fisher Price Nativity.

At this time of year, I love to have lots of candlelight in the evenings.

We decorated our Christmas tree that morning before church, kind of in a rush. We have so many ornaments I think we could decorate 2 or 3 full sized Christmas trees! It was fun to do this year especially because we unpacked lots of decorations that have been in storage and we haven't seen for 5 years.

The next day my little gal got a hold of the camera as I was trying to clean up after all the advent fun.

Here is the giant pile of dishes on Monday morning. It took me over two hours to do them all! (we need a new dishwasher)

I always look so lovely in the pictures they take of me (not). She's learned well and orders me to "smile," and "look this way," in a very bossy voice when she's photographing! (wonder where she got that)

I like seeing our house as she sees it. She takes pictures of things I wouldn't take pictures of, like our advent calendar in the hallway, and our fridge, Christmas lists and all.

She doesn't "stage" the house like I do when taking photos, so you get dirty dishes, wet towels, & unfinished house projects! In some of these, you see a sneak peak of our kitchen we've been working really hard on. We finally finished painting the cabinets, and putting the knobs on them. A few days before advent we got our new stove. After over two months of no stove it was really awesome to finally get one. We had baked a batch of cookies within hours. The kids were SO happy to finally get some home-baked treats!

Looking at her photos also shows me places that I need to clean and paint, like under these cabinets, yuck.

Here is another thing that needs to be done at some point. I think we're going to get a piece of beadboard to cover the side of this cabinet with.

Here you can see the kitchen/dining room wall color. It's silver sage by Benjamin Moore and it may be my all-time favorite paint color. I love it in this room since there is so much light with the sliding glass doors that go out to the backyard. It looks good at every time of day and in every light, sometimes more green and sometimes more gray. If you're looking for the perfect shade of green, I highly recommend it. Someday soon I'll post the kitchen all finished with before and after photos.

Ward Christmas Party

2010-12-19T04:44:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was our annual ward Christmas brunch.

This kid earned a dollar for sitting on Santa's lap (from my mom, not me!)

My little gal loves to get up and sing with the primary kids, regardless of whether or not she knows the words. She just likes to get up there!

In two weeks she will be out of nursery and officially be a Sunbeam. She hasn't really been a baby for a while, but for me that kind of makes it official. Boo hoo.

The kids learned the sign language for "Silent Night" and performed it really well.

She's not at all afraid to get up on stage and sing, but she's really nervous about Santa! This was a big improvement over last year where she had to be taken out of the room crying when Santa came in. She sat on his lap, but didn't crack a smile. Later she told me that was just her old nursery teacher pretending to be Santa. I asked her how she knew and she said "his voice." Then she told me the real Santa only comes on Christmas Eve with presents!

I think she just did it for the candy cane.

The other ward did some really cool decor for their party that they left up for us.

How cute is this kid?

My 14-yr-old has become the favorite ward babysitter.

Cousin Cookie Party

2010-12-19T04:17:00.000-08:00

Last week my sis invited us over to make cookies. The younger boys had a half day so they got to join in too.

We had a really fun, sugary afternoon!

This picture cracks me up. The girls' cookie decorating method was pretty much eat as much icing and candy as possible! Dip the spoon in the icing, drizzle a little on the cookie, then lick off the rest. Then lick the icing off the cookie. Repeat.

We even made a gingerbread house, marshmallow snowmen and all.

We wished all the rest of the cousins could have been there.

I think this was the start of an annual tradition!

My New Favorite Christmas Song

2010-12-08T02:19:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-24T05:22:00.000-08:00

A Great Giveaway

2010-11-22T05:18:00.001-08:00

I really, really love the blog Dreamy Whites.
Right now there is a great Christmas giveaway going on over there, go check it out!

Embarassing Moment

2010-11-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

First of all I have to explain that my 3-year-old daughter is what Seinfeld would call a "loud talker." Seriously, she doesn't talk, she yells. Even when she's standing right next to you. In fact, lately I've begun to wonder if she may have a hearing issue because she talks so loudly all the time!

So anyway, here is the conversation we had in the feminine hygiene aisle of Target today as I was innocently trying to purchase some maxi pads:

Little Gal (very loud voice)- ARE THOSE DIAPERS!?!

me (softly)- No, they're not diapers.

LG- ARE THEY FOR MOMS?!?

me- Shh, yes they're for moms.

LG (even louder)- ARE THEY FOR YOU!?!

me (in a low, non attention seeking voice)- Yes, they're for me, shhh.

LG (full on yell)- ARE THEY FOR YOUR BUM!?!

me- Shhh, honey please don't say that so loudly.

LG (yelling loudly)- I SAID ARE THEY FOR YOUR BUM!!??!!!

Oh, my heavens. That was embarassing.

Long Lost Quilt

2010-11-11T05:47:00.001-08:00

This quilt isn't actually long lost at all, I just didn't know where the photos of it were. I just found them in a random folder.

I made this for my sister in law for Christmas last year. I finished stitching the binding on it about 10 minutes before my in-laws left for the airport to take it home with them when they were here in October last year. I was pretty proud of myself for finishing it so early! (since you know I've been known to spend my Christmas eve's finishing up binding- and even giving a quilt with unfinished binding) My sister in law has a really cool style and loves colors that I would never pick for myself, but I do think they look great together. I wasn't sure how I would do a quilt for her that would suit her funky and modern/retro style but when I saw this fabric I knew it would be perfect. I forget the name of it but it's by Sanae by Moda. I used this very simple pattern called the Scruffly Quilt from the Moda bakeshop and it really did go quickly. I started one for myself too which is about half done. I recommend this if you want to do a quick quilt without a lot of cutting. I may be doing a quilting project or two this year, but we'll see if I have time. Right now I don't even know where my sewing machine is and the craft room is far from set up!

Fall Decor Details

2010-11-07T22:13:00.000-08:00

-I stitched this little pumpkin embroidery onto muslin a couple of years ago. These stick pumpkins are from Target, although it was a couple of years ago. I usually buy seasonal decor after the holiday when stuff is 50-75% off, and I'm sure that's when I bought these. The little fabric pumpkins were made by me a few years ago.

I took so many pictures when I was photographing the living room that I thought I'd share a few more of them! I had a lot of fun breaking out the fall decor this year and using some of the antiques and things I've been collecting for a while. It also kind of hides the fact that I'm not really done decorating the room and there's nothing on the walls yet.

-I love this striped mini gourd. I tried to keep the colors on the mantle more to the whites and browns with just a little touch of orange.

I really like to decorate with items from nature like pinecones, acorns, leaves and things like that. I also like to use items that can stay out all year round, like buckets, pitchers, and things that are pretty neutral. That way I can just rotate what goes in them to change for the season. I bought this ruffled white cake plate at Homegoods a while ago, and just piled it up with some white squash, acorns, and some other really cool spiky seed thingies that I collected last year.

-The viney looking pumpkins on the mantle are from Target dollar section this year.

Remember the little mini pots that I saw when in a Brewster shop we were at the Cape in the summer? They weren't for sale but I really loved them. A couple of months later I saw some similar ones at Whiteflower Farmhouse and bought a few of them. Apparently they are made from zinc and they are old sap buckets, just a mini size. I filled the top one with dirt and then "planted" some moss from my yard on top of it, then sat one of my mini white pumpkins on top.

I bought the tall, galvanized metal pail on the hearth from Whiteflower Farmhouse also, as well as this white sap bucket in the photo below.

Note: WFF is located on Long Island and I'd really, really love to make a pilgrimmage there someday. To visit the shop, but also because it looks like such a beautiful area, and I've never been to Long Island at all before.

I bought the black metal coal holder- I think it was called a "coal hod" back in the old days- when I went antiquing in Portland, Maine last February. (note to self- don't go to Maine in the winter when it's freezing cold again!) I just filled it with some firewood I already had.

-old white sap bucket with grocery store mums plunked inside. Little fabric pumpkin made by me :)

I just love old windows and couldn't pass this one up when I saw it sitting out on the curb waiting to be sent to the landfill. I always think it's kind of sad to see original old windows like this going into the trash and feel like they should be rescued. Instead of "old windows destined for the trash" you can call it "architectural salvage." This window has more panes that are smaller than usual and a great old crackled finish. I always think it's funny when I see these for sale in antique or junk shops because with all the old houses that are being renovated all the time around here you can always find them if you're willing to stop and pick them up.

-Safety note about old windows: Because of worry about lead paint, I only use windows as decor in high places where little hands can't reach. I also clean them well first to make sure there isn't any dust from the window floating around.

I already had this grapevine wreath and I just hung my Indian corn I bought at Wilson's Farm in Lexington from it with a strip of burlap.

These BOO letters and other wooden Halloween shape thing are from one of my favorite places ever- Gardner Village in Midvale, Utah. I just love that place and really miss being able to visit the shops there. When I'm in Utah, that is a must-stop place for me. I always find something in their big Country Furniture and Gifts store, not to mention the Pineneedles quilt store.

I have a bit of an addiction to dressers. This one is kind of rickety and isn't really fit for everyday use as clothes storage, but I love having all that drawer storage in other parts of the house for miscellaneous stuff. O For fall, I tend to decorate with mainly things that can stay up through November, like lots of pumpkins, instead of stuff that is really Halloween specific. I don't really like spooky Halloween decor for my house, it kind of just creeps me out. I saw lots of blogs using those fake black crows for decoration in October but even though I think they look kind of cool and were used cleverly in other people's houses, I don't think I'd want a creepy black bird staring at me at night in my house- even if it's fake!

I bought these "Fall" wooden blocks at Deseret Book in St. George, UT the last time we went there for Thanksgiving, which was a couple of years ago.

Maybe my all time favorite fall decor are these three little pumpkins in front of the window on the mantle. I bought them at Wilson's Farm the first year that we moved here- 5 years ago! I really love them. They're not wood or ceramic, I actually have no idea what they're made of, but they're heavy.

This is a Red Wing crock that I bought from the Faded Prarie etsy shop. I know people collect these, they have different numbers and sizes and things but I don't know too much about them except that the company has been around for a long time and is located in Red Wing, Minnesota.

Well, there you have it. I can't believe that in a couple of weeks it will be time to put all this away and start bringing out the Christmas stuff!

Living Room Before and After- The Short Version

2010-11-07T21:43:00.000-08:00

Our new Living Room:
Living room before pic:

Another view of the new living room and used but new to me couch with Miss Mustard Seed pillows:

I love the big bank of windows above the couch. It adds nice architectural detail and lots of light.

Here's a closeup of the mantle:

The fireplace and mantle is my other favorite feature of the room. Here is the whole fireplace wall:

Here's a closeup of what the fireplace looked like before the many coats of paint it received!

What we did:

-stripped all the wallpaper, cleaned the gobs of yucky glue off the walls

-primed and painted everything: walls, woodwork, radiator covers, windows, ceiling (The woodwork took three coats total to cover the old, dark stain. It also had to be sanded first, so the whole process took forever!!).

-ripped up all the carpet and hired a professional to sand and refinish the existing hardwood underneath

-stripped and repainted wrought iron railing from white to black

wall paint color: Manchester Tan by Benjamin Moore

trim color- White Dove by Benjamin Moore

If you'd like more details, see my previous and much wordier post :)

Fall Living Room

2010-11-07T06:53:00.000-08:00

So, finally I am going to show you some pictures of the new house, the one part of it that is actually finished anyway! (click on the pictures to enlarge for a better view)

Of course it's not actually finished, there are still things to do like replace some of the radiator covers, a few minor touch ups, hanging stuff on the walls, get a love seat and maybe another chair, get a new light fixture for the stairway, etc. but all the big projects in the living room are done. As we've been moving in and continuing with projects, I've tried to keep this room clean and decorated as a haven from the chaos that is all over the rest of the house!

(Feel free to just look at the photos if you're not interested in all my explanations)

So, I'll tell you a little about what we've done in here.

As you'll see in the following "before" pictures, this house was extremely out of date and even though most of the work that needed to be done was cosmetic, it was pretty extensive. What you can't see in the before photos is that this entire house was saturated in tobacco smell, plus a very heavy layer of grime, dirt and staining from the smoke, plus years of not being cleaned well, if at all. Everything in here was stained a yellowish brown- ceilings, inside of closets, cabinets, wallpaper, and we would reek of smoke just after being inside the house. Also, the woodwork throughout the house- doorframes, baseboards, windows, were all stained dark brown and we wanted it white. So, as a result, every single surface in this house- walls, ceilings, trim, inside of closet, etc. had to be primed and painted and in the case of the woodwork- 4 total coats. Let me tell you- painting windows is seriously not fun- and 4 times around is even less fun. Then they all had to be scraped, plus cleaned inside and out. I probably spent 3 weeks just priming, painting, and scraping windows in this house!

What all that adds up to is- months of painting. Before we could even begin painting we had to strip wallpaper which was in the majority of the rooms. Even the bathroom, kitchen and entry way and most of the bedrooms, and clean the walls of all the glue- which meant scrubbing every single square inch of almost every wall. Just that took almost a month alone. Ugh.

We bought Kilz primer in the big 5 gallon buckets at Home Depot, and have gone through 5 of them- 25 gallons just of primer. Sometimes I seriously wondered if we'd ever be done painting.

Here is the listing picture of the living room before. I wish this had smellavision because the picture doesn't really illustrate how bad this was. My favorite part of the living room is the fireplace. The mantle is both wide and long which makes for tons of space for decorating which I love! I also love the big wall of windows above the couch. Even though this entire house was basically a dark, dreary, smelly dungeon-like place I could see the potential that it had. I knew that we should make an offer on it as soon as we walked in the door- not because I love the layout necessarily, but because it was almost 1,000 square feet more than most of the houses we had seen in that price range, and we've got lots of people. There was no way we were going to fit our family in a 1200 square foot house. Basically, I was just looking for a place where we could all have a place to sleep, which believe me was hard to find around here. Houses are extremely expensive in our area and we had been looking off and on for over a year. I'm sure all the work scared off a lot of buyers but because we looked past that we were able to get a good sized house for less than average.

So anyway, back to the renovation. I added this next picture so you could see the walls after the wallpaper was removed. They were covered in this really gross yellowish-brown thick glue. Luckily the walls themselves were in great shape. We used hot vinegar water and scrubbed, and scrubbed,

and scrubbed some more! I should also mention that we had lots of help- hometeachers, missionaries, family, our kids, visiting teachers and other friends. We really appreciated all the help we received.

My husband came here in the mornings before work, and most nights after work, and I came some nights and we all came on the weekends. All summer I got up at 5 or 6 most mornings and worked at the house for 5 or 6 hours while the older boys babysat the younger kids.

Even though we knew the house needed work, I don't think we really knew what we were getting ourselves into as far as how long it would take and how much there was to do. We really, really worked hard. I estimate that if we had paid someone else for the work that we did it would have cost about $24,000, and really that's a low estimate of only about $15/ hour; around here probably $30/hr is more realistic. So, I guess you could say that we put almost $50,000 of sweat equity into this house!

So, besides the work we did, we also hired out some things that we weren't able to do and didn't have time to do anyway. We were very lucky that under the hideous blue carpet there were hardwood floors that were in really good shape. We ripped up all the carpet and had the floors refinished in the living room, hall, dining room and our bedroom. We also had wood put down in the kitchen where there was really ugly, broken old tile so in the kitchen and dining room, which are really just one big room, the wood flows through. The guy did an amazing job of matching the wood and you can hardly tell where the old and the new meet. It's hard to say what change had the biggest impact in this house but the wood floors might be it. That and the white woodwork. It is amazing how the white woodwork lightens up the entire house and makes it feel open, light and airy instead of closed in, dark and depressing.

So, a few decor details. Almost everything in this living room was a very thrifty, or free find, or bought at a yard sale or from a friend who was moving. This was necessary because we basically blew our budget out of the water with everything that we ended up doing to the house. The bathroom was the main cause of that. What started as a minor redo turned into a total gut job and complete bathroom reno which we hadn't planned on originally.

By the way, the wall color in here is Manchester Tan from Benjamin Moore. I could do a whole post just on paint colors and maybe sometime I will.You'd be surprised that for such a basic color there are so many variation that are so different. I know beige/tan is a boring color for a lot of people but I wanted something neutral and light in here that would go with whatever I wanted to do for all the seasons or whatever furniture we ended up with. It's really light and almost a cream. The trim is painted White Dove by Benjamin Moore.

So, do you recognize these two pillows on the couch from anywhere? If you are a fan of Miss Mustard Seed you would, they're on her blog header!

Marian is one of my favorite decorator/bloggers, I really love her style. I had wanted some feedsack pillows and had planned to look around for some feedsacks on ebay or etsy or whatever and make my own. Then I saw these on the Miss Mustard Seed blog and decided that buying some already made would be so much nicer than adding another project to my out of control project list! Marian has great taste and style and is also extremely nice. I absolutely love these pillows! The look great but I was surprised at how nice and soft they were too. She used down inserts inside and I will always use those for pillows from now on, they feel great. The only thing I'd do differently is make them with an envelope back so you could wash them.

Here is the top railing in the room that was stripped and painted. I started stripping this one day and spent 2-3 hours and had only made a small dent. Then my husband worked on it for a while and there was still so much to do. I practically cried with relief when my father in law came and took over this and some other really yucky jobs that still had to be done. By then we were exhausted and feeling pretty burnt out on the home renovation stuff. It had been a long, hard 5 months. He worked on this railing all day long for several days, probably every day for a week or more. It was such a huge help.

Here you can see the old white railing. There was a really gloppy, badly-done layer of white latex paint over the original white paint. It was streaky and didn't even really cover the whole thing. After it was stripped I used black satin spray paint to paint it. You can really see the detail of the metalwork now. Now I have to say, if I could choose any kind of railing this probably wouldn't be it, but since this is what we had to work with I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Well, that's about all the living room info. Hopefully we will have some more rooms done and photo ready so I can show you some more soon. It's nice to finally be living in the house!

Halloween

2010-11-07T04:38:00.000-08:00

We had a fun Halloween this year and have been gorging ourselves on candy ever since! It seems like there was more than usual this year. I guess that is because Friday night we went to a tri ward trunk or treat, plus trick or treated in two neighborhoods and bought way too much candy!

Here's our little angel

Apparently HS is not too old to trick or treat because this kid went out with his friends in his cookie costume.

(just in case you couldn't tell)

It was really fun to have a house to decorate this year. The last 5 years our door was around the back and nobody could see it from the street or knew it was there to knock on. Before that, in Phoenix we didn't usually decorate the house much because we usually weren't home. Our ward usually did trunk or treating on Halloween night or we went over to my in-laws neighborhood. I liked our house in Phx but we never really loved our neighborhood.

So, even though there are boxes and unfinished house projects galore we got out the Halloween stuff to welcome the trick or treaters! There are tons of kids in our new neighborhood which is great. There is always someone outside playing and the street is a cul-de-sac, and flat, so it's really nice for bike riding. All the neighbors know eachother and most houses have kids so they kind of just roam around. There are a bunch of little boys close in age to my second grader so he is just in heaven! I love that he will stay outside for a while now instead of coming in after 10 minutes because he's bored.

On Sunday afternoon I realized that we had totally forgotten about carving pumpkins! I had bought a couple of little sugar pumpkins at the grocer store the first week of October so we made one quick Jack-o-lantern to put out.

I love this thing, it glows so bright. I think I bought it at Target and I wish I had bought more of them!

So, you might notice the uncharacteristic beer bottles on my little entry way table! Funny story about that- as we were standing in our doorway and a big group of neighbor kids were coming by, and my neighbor handed me the two beer bottles saying "Happy Halloween!" It took me a minute to realize what they were but by then they had already whizzed by to the next house. Anyway, it was a nice gesture! We kind of got a kick out of the whole thing.

So, I will also mention that I was a bit conflicted this year about the whole Trick or Treating on Sunday issue. I asked a bunch of church friends what their plans were and got mixed responses. In the end I decided to let them go, but I still didn't feel 100% great about it. That is one thing I really miss about Utah- everyone goes out on Saturday if Halloween is on a Sunday. If the 4th of July is on Sunday you know the fireworks will be scheduled for Saturday night, and it's really nice to not have to worry about that issue!

You can see a few peeks of some of the stuff we've done to the house. Like our stairs for instance. They used to be covered in hideous, tirquoise carpet with dark stained treads. They also had iron railing that was painted with a very bad white paint job. We took up the carpet, had the stairs refinished along with all the rest of the wood floors and painted the backs of the treads white. We also stripped and repainted the iron railings black, or I should say my dad-in-law spent a week and a half stripping those railings! I was so happy not to have to do that job, it was soo much work. I spray painted them black and they look so much better! You actually can't see them in this photo because one isn't reattached yet but sometime it will be done and I'll show you the transformation. My next post is going to be our new finished living room so you can finally see what we've been working on all these months!

Our neighbor across the street is a police officer and did a fun lawn decor with crime scene tape, a body and "evidence" boxes.

Hope you had a fun Halloween too!

Rockport, MA

2010-10-26T22:42:00.001-07:00

Lucky

2010-10-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

I love this song!

Gloucester and Essex

2010-10-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

We drove through Gloucester on our way up to Rockport but didn't really stop so I just took a few pictures of the Harbor from the car.

Then they raised the bridge for a few minutes so some boats could get through.

While we were waiting I hopped out and snapped a quick photo of the women of Gloucester memorial. It's a woman and her two little kids looking out to sea waiting for their sailor. Lots of them didn't come back.

This is the memorial for the fisherman of Gloucester. It says:

" They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships 1623-1923 "

I read that in 1879 alone they lost 249 men from Gloucester in a big storm.

We had lunch at Essex Seafood, a tiny little place but the seafood is so fresh and good. I love their clam chowder and this time I had my old standby- fried scallops- with sweet potato fries which was awesome. Highly recommend eating there!

Apple Picking at Russel Orchard

2010-10-19T04:50:00.000-07:00

The day after we went to Maine, we headed up to the North Shore. Our first stop was Russel Orchards, where we went after the clambake, for some apple picking and of course, more cider donuts!

I have to say that I was kind of disappointed in the apple picking. There were hardly any apples on the trees but they were still sending hoardes of people out into the orchard to pick apples. Most of the apples we got were off the ground, and they definitely rot a lot faster. I wouldn't mind that if they'd charged us half price or something, but to pay full price to pick apples up off the ground was kind of annoying.

My favorite red gas pump.

Have you ever tried to take a good picture of a chicken? It's hard! They don't exactly hold still and pose for you. Kind of like my kids.

The pig this sign is talking about weighed over 1000 pounds!

Portland Head

2010-10-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

The last stop on our Maine lighthouse day tour was Portland Head. I think the best time to visit a lighthouse is at sunset, it is so pretty. Taking good pictures is easy, the natural light is doing all the work for you.

After that we drove over the bridge and down to the waterfront area of downtown Portland for dinner before we headed home. There was a huge cruiseship docked there which was fun to see.

We're really lucky that we are so close to so many beautiful places. Two hours in the car and it's like you're in a whole new world. You can take a daytrip and be in another state with amazing scenery, or even just stay in Massachusetts. New England is a great place to visit, and to live!

Two Lights

2010-10-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

Here is the second lighhouse of the day (we managed to get in 3). The place was called "Two Lights" State Park so I'm assuming this was the Two Lights Lighthouse. It is on Cape Elizabeth in Maine and it's quite stunning sitting up there on a big rocky cliff. There is another big rocky cliff opposite the lighthouse and you can walk way out on the rocks and look out to sea. In between that there is a really rocky beach.

This boat sailed past in front of this little island right out in the bay across from where we were.

The kids had fun playing on the rocks. This little girl really latched onto her cute 15 year old cousin!

Here you can see our shadows on the rocks across from where we were.

We stopped at this beach before we got to the lighthouse. I took a heart shaped rock and some driftwood off the beach. I thought it would be fun to attempt to make a driftwood sailboat like the ones sold at Whiteflower Farmhouse. I've also seen directions for making them on other blogs. I've been collecting heart shaped rocks for a while. I'm pretty liberal on what I consider to be heart shaped!

Maine Diner

2010-10-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

Our next stop after York Beach and the lighthouse was the Maine Diner in Wells. Nana had seen it on the Diners and Dives show (on Food Network) and wanted to go. They are supposed to have some of the best lobster rolls in Maine. So, even though it was an hour wait we went for lunch (while you're waiting you can watch the show featuring the diner, or walk around the garden out back, or visit one of the many antique stores in Wells).

The boys doing what they do best- eating of course!

This kid actually ate almost 2 of these giant dinner plate sized pancakes.

Then he wanted a giant chocolate chip cookie for the road!

I'm not a huge fan of lobster rolls but other people said they were good. I like my lobster plain and just with butter, thanks. And really, I just eat the tail anyway! So, I have a mixed review for the Maine diner. I got seafood chowder which it said on the menu is one of the best according to some contest, forgoing my usual fried scallops which I pretty much have anywhere they are available. I didn't love my chowder because it was thin and milky instead of thick which is how I like chowder to be. The taste was good though. They had really yummy corn muffins, the butternut squash was good and my daughters mac and cheese was one of the best things I tasted there. We also ordered "New England Nachos," which was onions, potatoes, peppers and cheese all sauteed together like a hash. It was really good, probably the best dish I had there. The blueberry chip ice cream was really good although I've definitely had better ice cream. So, overall I'd say it was good, and I'd go back and try something else but I didn't think it was the best diner I've ever gone to. The service was really great though, and it was fun to experience such a popular, crowded place. Just FYI in case you ever get a chance to go!

Annual Trip to Maine

2010-10-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the last couple of weeks have been quite the whirlwind. We have moved, and had family come visit pretty much simultaneously! In between trying frantically to finish up house projects and unpack a huge truckload of stuff so people would actually have someplace to sleep/eat/wash clothes/sit/ in our new place, we managed to do a little sightseeing!

I really will have some house pics sometime soon, we're just trying to get things organized, and still haven't even moved everything from where we were living before. We still have a very long list of house projects to finish up, and things spread between two residences, plus all the normal craziness of life on top of all that. So, needless to say, complete chaos abounds! It's a little like camping in a house- we're cooking on a hotplate since we don't have a stove yet (doing that for 12 was pretty tricky!) It's getting there though and there are some rooms that are actually starting to look like an actual home.

So, as I was saying we had a whole bunch of family arrive from AZ the week we were moving into the new house. It's pretty much become a fall tradition to go off on some roadtrips with them for Columbus Day weekend. It's also a tradition to stop at Nubble light in ME, one of our favorite spots. It's fun to look at pictures of all the times we've stopped there in the last 4 years and see how everyone has grown up so much!It's a beautiful place and I never get tired of visiting.

This year it was extra fun to have my husband's sister and her two kids here as well as my in-laws. The next few posts will be all about our little trips we did last weekend.

Monogrammed Pillow

2010-10-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

A while ago I used this tutorial from Cottage Magpie to make this monogrammed pillow for a friend. This is a great, easy to follow tutorial and I love that the pillow has an envelope style back so that you can remove the pillow form and wash the pillow cover if needed (which in my house, is definitely needed). I used simple linen bought at Joann's for this but you could use any fabric. I made the monogram with wonder under and just a little scrap of white cotton fabric. I ironed it on, then sewed around the edges. I did this before I sewed the pillow together (you sew it from three cut pieces). If you are making this with a monogram, be sure to not put the letter right in the corner before it's sewn, leave some room for the seam allowance.

I plan to make another one of these for my daughter's new bedroom!

Clambake

2010-09-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our ward's annual clambake at Crane's beach. I think it was the best one yet!

Teenage fun

The weather was absolutely perfect! Everyone hung out at the beach for a long time and lots of people went swimming. I even got wet up to the knees.

My 11-year-old took all of these pictures. Here's a picture of he and our friend Ellen "camera sniping" eachother.

We ate so much good food- corn on the cob, hot dogs, yummy salads, clams, homemade peach raspberry and rocky road ice cream, and of course lobster!

My #2 son invited a couple of his school buddies to come along. They found some young ladies to hang out with!

#1 son joined in the volleyball action. He was on the HS team last year and I think #2 son plans to join him this year.

Right down the road from the beach is a place called Russel Orchard. You can go there to pick apples and buy fresh apple cider and everyone's fave- cider donuts. The store is a big old wooden barn. It's a tradition to stop for donuts on the way home from the clambake. It's usually about closing time and there is a huge line of people waiting for their donuts. While you're in line, it's fun to watch them drop the circle of dough into the hot grease, let it fry for a couple of minutes and then come down the conveyor belt right into your bag. They're so hot you have to leave the bag open or it would melt right through. You can't get any fresher than that. YUM! We bought donuts, cider and apples to fortify us for the ride home. It was the perfect New England fall day!

Beach Pics of #3

2010-09-19T07:16:00.001-07:00

It's Superbaby!

2010-09-19T05:27:00.000-07:00

Meet Superbaby, our newest muppet friend. You may remember my post last spring about my 14-year-old's Jim Henson project.

Well, that project has grown into a full blown puppet obsession!

He spent lots of his free time this summer researching puppet making and gathering supplies to enter a contest sponsored by Project Puppet. I've helped him a little but we're so preoccupied with the house that I honestly haven't helped much. On Thursday, the day before the contest deadline, I realized that he needed some help to get this done by Friday night at midnight. So, I dedicated Friday to helping him get this project done in time.

This kind of puppet building is pretty complicated, there is a foam body shape inside, some wires, and lots of sewing. He did the majority of it himself- dyeing the fleece a custom mixed color, constructing a two part foam body glued together with contact cement, making foam filled arms with wire inside so the fingers will bend. I just helped out with a little of the sewing at the end to speed things along. I also made him the "Superbaby" logo cape. I'd say that we spent about 14 hours Friday helping with glueing, sewing, photographing, etc. to get it all done and submitted online about 1 hour before the deadline! He had already spent many more hours than that in the last couple of weeks.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superbaby!

I think his puppet turned out really cute and the little kids absolutely love him! If you click on the Project Puppet link up there you can see photos of all the entries. He's hoping to win to get some more patterns for-what else? Making more puppets! Either way I think it was a good experience, although a little stressful. It takes a lot more time to figure out how to make something the first time. When he does it again, I'll bet it goes a lot faster.

You can read more about his adventures in puppets here.

First Day

2010-09-19T04:45:00.000-07:00

Senior!

Freshman! (With his new braces)

Middle Schooler!

Walking buddies

Second Grader!

My stay at home buddy. We plan to have lots of fun girl time this year!

Our Little Princess Turned 3

2010-09-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

It was over a month ago, but I just uploaded the pictures last night!

It was low-key and very princessy! I didn't really plan that, but that's kind of what she's into now. That and Star Wars figures!

These two are great pals. We're lucky they live so close. It makes up for her not having any sisters to have such a good cousin buddy.

Our little girl is so grown up! She is a sweetheart and calls everyone her friend. Really, every kid she sees, she's like- look there's my friend! She loves riding her little red tricycle. She likes playing with baby dolls and reading stories. She loves the color pink (no, I didn't brainwash her) and will often insist on wearing a completely pink outfit. She loves pretty things. She is a night owl (always has been unfortunately!)

She loves the beach, and helping me cook. She really, really loves babies. She likes to draw and listen to music like the Wizard of Oz and Disney Princess songs, of course. She wants to say the blessing at dinner every night. She is big for her age and everyone thinks she is at least four. People are always commenting on her hair. It's never been cut and is down to her waist. If you ask her what color her hair is she will say, "my hair is golden." She has an imaginary friend named "O." O lives on Cape Cod and she is tiny, like only about 4 inches tall. She talks about "her friend O" all the time. It's too funny!

She really loved this magical sounding wand she got. Of course the dressups had to be put on the minute the wrapping paper was off!

She wanted angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream, my favorite summer cake. This really wasn't that long ago, but it is so chilly already and yesterday I saw some definite leaf changing. This was a nice, hot summer. The week before school started on the 8th, it was in the 90's and then bam, a week later school started and it cooled down and got chilly in the mornings and evenings. I love fall but I will always miss summer!

Cousin Day

2010-09-04T04:34:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago my parents took a few of my kids, and two of their cousins to Walden Pond, one of our fave swimming spots. The guy in the ice cream truck asked if they wanted to come stand inside the truck.

Looks like my little gal REALLY enjoyed her Dora pop!

They went to the beach while I drove all over kingdom come in the muggy heat getting carpet samples. I've had carpet picked out for months, and last week when I called Home Depot to get it installed, they told me it was discontinued!! Yet another setback in the whole renovation process. Ugh! I should have just gone swimming with them!

So now I have to pore over carpet samples for hours again. Doesn't that sound like a fun holiday weekend?! I'll probably get to do some painting too- yipee! We actually are getting close to moving in and have all but the bathrooms and laundry rooms painted now. A couple more weeks and I hope to be able to share some before and after pictures with you. Finally!

Enjoy your last weekend of summer!

Hurried Child is a Stressed Child

2010-09-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

I found this today and it is a great reminder to me to ignore my to-do list a little more, stress a little less and enjoy the precious, fleeting moments with my kids a little more. Even staying at home full time I know I ignore them too much, let them watch too much tv, do my own thing too much. As a mom of both a high schooler and a 3-year-old I've learned first hand how fast it goes. So fast, I can't believe it. So, I'm going to try to remember that and try to revel in the every day stuff more, especially with my last baby. Two more years and she'll be in school too! I know from experience those 2 years will fly by so the time to soak up all of the preschooler chubby sweetness is now!
(I found this here)

Beach Photo Shoot

2010-08-15T09:59:00.001-07:00

Since I missed my annual Easter photo of the kids this year, I thought our trip would be the perfect time for a beach photo shoot of the kids. I'll tell you the truth, it was kind of a nightmare! You might say, oh, but those are such cute pictures! Well yes, out of the dozens I took there are about 2 or 3 that turned out ok, but you weren't there to witness all the drama. Anyway, let's not dwell on that!

So here is the whole gang, for better or for worse. They are pretty cute, just a little ornery sometimes! That must be why I only do this once a year or so. Anyway, these are the two photos that I think are decent enough to be frameable. I'm excited to put them up on the mantle in our new family room. I was even thinking of having a canvas made, I've seen a bunch of those on some blogs lately and I think they look really cool.

It's been almost two years since our last family photo with all of us so I was thinking of trying to do another one of those this fall, if I'm brave enough. In the following posts you'll see the individual shots I took of most of them!

#5

2010-08-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

#4

2010-08-15T09:51:00.001-07:00

(#3 was, how shall we say- not cooperating- that day, so no picture of him. There's always one- grrr)

#2

2010-08-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

Can you believe this one is 14 and about to start High School?! I can't.

GQ pose

#1

2010-08-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

Not to brag, but why did I just pay someone else a $45 sitting fee to take a senior picture of this kid?!

Pirates Cove

2010-08-15T09:39:00.001-07:00

Do you think I could get one of these to keep at home?

7th Birthday

2010-08-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

While on our trip, we celebrated this guy's 7th birthday with Boston Cream Pie, and some presents. We went to A&W for lunch and then went mini golfing. It was our last day, and the perfect ending to our vacation!

Pretty Beach Baby

2010-08-15T09:31:00.001-07:00

The Beach!

2010-08-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

Well of course the main reason that you go to the cape is for the beach! We were so lucky it was hot and sunny everyday the whole week we were there. This is definitely not always the case here in NE.

We went to the beach everyday and had a really great time. I have no idea why it took me so long to discover this- but there are warm beaches on the cape. In the past we've always gone to beaches that were freezing cold. Don't ask me why! I guess I just assumed that's how they all were. This time we bought a week pass for all of the Nantucket Sound beaches and they were so warm! I always love the beach but I can really only get in up to my waist at the most- I'm just a big wimp about cold water.

This week we all spent hours in the water. Seriously, a couple of the days the beach was as warm as the pond. One day we happened to pick a beach that was having unusually big waves. I have no idea why, and I've never seen anything like it on the east coast. It wasn't like Hawaii or anything, but for here, these were some gigantic waves! We had just bought a boogie board and we had a blast in the surf all afternoon. That was about as much fun as I've had in-- I don't even know how long. Nobody could figure out why the waves were like that on that particular day. We drove by that beach again another day and it was nothing like that.

Beach pictures are always my favorite.

Like her brothers, my little gal is a true beach baby.

Brewster

2010-08-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

One day we went to Brewster, a cute quaint little town on the cape with an old fashioned general store. The kids filled brown paper bags up with penny candy. I bought a few iron stars and an iron sheep. They had some really cool antiques displayed in that store, like an old letter cabinet and old thread holder. Here we all are out in front of the store.

See the hydrangeas behind us? One of my favorite flowers and they are all over the cape. I can't believe I didn't take more pictures of them, but I was trying to enjoy the moments rather than photograph them so we really only took the camera out a couple of times. Anyway, the bright blue hydrangeas were in their prime that week and it they were everywhere.

The store has a front porch with benches and this old scale.

I love this old clock and the beadboard ceiling and fancy trimwork- to die for!

We went to another gift shop in Brewster that is an old barn with a little garden out back with a maze. Once you get through the maze, you see this model train set. It's so cute! It even has a miniature of the general store. The one thing I wanted to buy in this store was not for sale. They were these little antique galvanized metal planting pots and they were the coolest things. I've never seen anything like them before. I was imagining all kinds of decorating ideas using them. I asked two different sales people about them but they were just for decoration. Bummer!

The boys pretending to be lost in the maze. Such goofballs!

After we shopped we went to Kate's for some awesome seafood. It was one of the three times I has fried scallops on our trip, and by far the best. The sweet potato fries were pretty yummy too. I really only ever have scallops on vacation, and I'm starting to crave them again!

Nature Walk

2010-08-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

We took a little nature walk one day on our trip. My husband took this picture of a monarch butterfly. It was impossible to get one with it's wings open, it moved too fast.

If there is something to jump on, over, etc, this kid will find it and jump it.

We saw lots of really cool mushrooms.

My kids took a lot of these pictures. I'll spare you the gazillion ones of everyones behinds!

We walked by a fish run thing, which didn't have any fish in it- just these lovely fish heads. We have lots and lots of pictures of these apparently fascinating, lovely things.

If there is poop to be seen, you can guarantee that my boys will take multiple photos of it. Aren't you so glad?!

Cape Cod 2010

2010-08-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

In July, we rented a house in Harwich and spent a heavenly week on Cape Cod. The weather was absolutely perfect and we went to the beach or pond every single day. We did some shopping, bbqing, baseball game attending, movie watching, and good food eating, book reading, sleeping in, and basically just lazed around and had fun- for a whole week. This was our first summer vacation in a long time and after all the hard work on the house it was sorely needed and very appreciated!

The cape is one of my favorite places, you just can't help but relax there. I've been there at all different times of the year and I love it everytime! We're definitely making this a yearly trip!

I'm going to do a few posts of our fun adventures on the cape, here are just a few pictures of some of the beauty there.

Sunset on the beach- breathtaking!

Pretty flowers everywhere! More photos to come.

Scout Adventure

2010-08-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

Hello! Hope you are having a great summer! Ours has been wonderful and I can't believe it's winding down. Last night I felt a little nip in the air, and I've actually started using covers at night, so I guess summer is coming to a close. Here it has been HOT and I've been loving it! I really need to soak up the summer sun and heat to get me through the looong NE winter that I'm not too fond of.
I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. I'm not the most regular blogger in the world, but I'm usually good for at least posting once a month. Have you wondered where the heck I've been? Well, I'll tell you- working my rear end off on our house!! When we bought our house I thought, we'll slap some paint on it, get the floors fixed up and be good to go in a month or so. Ha Ha. I had no idea what I was getting us into.

When we bought our last house we did quite a bit of painting and replaced all the floors but it just wasn't to the extent of what this house needed. I won't get into all the details now, I will save that for a future time that is hopefully getting close! Everytime I think, ok, it should just be a few more weeks, something else happens and when that time arrives, I think, ok maybe in a few more weeks! I jokingly said in July- well, maybe we'll be moved in by the time school starts. Now I'm just hoping we really can be! Anyway, things like an unexpected bathroom gut job, indecision, and just busyness have slowed us down but we're getting there! I also had all of these grand plans of posting all of the time as we went, but I've just been way to busy actually doing all of the work to document it. Anyway, pretty soon some rooms will be done, so I will be posting lots of before and after. Yesterday I was getting down about the fact that we've owned this house for three and a half months and don't even live in it yet, and what have we really accomplished?! Then I found the house listing pictures which made me feel a lot better, like, hey, I can't believe that's how it used to look. So anyhoo, enough about that for now let's share what we did this summer!

My husband and three oldest boys went with a scout group on a high adventure trip to Southern Utah at the beginning of July for. The picture above shows you the view from "Angel's Landing," a notoriously dangerous hike I begged them not to do!!

Well here they are at the top, so I guess they didn't listen very well, huh?

Another view from the top. I believe this is part of Zion's National Park.

My #3 son at Bryce Canyon, my personal favorite. I would have loved to go on this trip with them, I miss the west so much!

Papa drove up from Phoenix to go on the trip with my guys, and my dad was there too, so they got to have some serious male bonding time.

#3 son with Grandpa.

Smores!

Here they are at Coral Pink sanddunes climbing to the top of a huge dune at sunset. I wish I knew how to make these photos publish bigger, but you can click on them to see them bigger. The scale of the little tiny people against this giant dune is cool!

I think this is the slot canyon where they did their big, 2-day 20 mile hike.

How cool looking is that place? (and that kid!)

They also went to Lake Powell for a couple of days for some serious water fun.

My hot hubby waterskiing. Looking good!

They all came home looking quite pink!

They stayed a night in Orderville, Utah and slept out- and also played on the towns baseball field.

They even went to visit our cousins who live in Hurricaine, Ut.

They found a swimming hole in Hurricaine to do a little bit of low cliff diving on their last day.

They worked really hard all year fundraising for this trip- a Valentine's dinner, carwash, and pie selling at Thanksgiving time. I'm so glad they got to go. It was really a great experience for them all.

Oh, and I have to say that it was really weird being home for a whole week with only 2 kids. The house was eerily quiet, and the food lasted so much longer! I only went shopping once in 9 days, and only did 3 or4 loads of dishes and no laundry- very unusual! We had a nice relaxing week ourselves going to free day at the zoo and to our little town beach. We picked up the travelers on a Tuesday morning after they'd spent the night on the redeye from Vegas. It was my oldest son's 17th birthday (we celebrated later by going to see Toy Story 3), and my sister was in labor at the hospital giving birth to my new niece! I joked about her having the baby on his birthday when she first told me her due date, but I never thought it would actually happen (it was 3 days past the due date). So anyway, I think it is cute that my son now has a tiny little girl for a birthday buddy!

Having Fun in Southern Utah

2010-08-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Jim Henson Project

2010-05-07T05:38:00.000-07:00

My 8th grade son was assigned a big biography project for English class and he chose to do it about Jim Henson. He got really into the project- see the resemblance?!

The project requirements were to read at least one book about the person, create a costume of the person, and a poster with a timeline of all the major events in the person's life, then do an oral presentation for the class about the person- dressed up as the person!

Later this month they also have to complete a book report of the book they read for the biography project. My son decided to take the project to the next level and create his very own muppet! With some help from an internet tutorial, and mom :) he got to work.

This is our first puppet attempt. It was made with wool felt. It wasn't big enough and the fabric wasn't stretchy enough so this poor guy was cast aside and we tried again.

This time we used fleece. It is stretchier and we also cut it a lot bigger.

Here he is partway done

And the finished product! He named the puppet "Carret." He was really happy with it and took it to school as part of his presentation. He said the teacher didn't believe him that he made it himself. He really got into bringing the puppet to life and entertaining kids at school and at home!

He had lots of fun "researching" for this project by watching "Sesame Street" and several of the muppet movies, plus the entire first season of the original "Muppet Show" on dvd!

This was the perfect project for him to choose, he is really into theater and performing right now

(a couple of months ago he had a lead role in his school's production of the musical "Thirteen").

Here he is in his costume on the day of his presentation. He wasn't thrilled with the beard we got him- so that's why in this picture he looks more like an Oscar the Grouch lookalike :) He thinks it would be cool to work as a "muppeteer" when he gets older, and I love that he has big dreams.

Yesterday the entire 8th grade wore their costumes to school- I'm sure it was quite a sight!

I can't believe this kid will be at the HS next year. He certainly keeps life interesting!

Loving This Today

2010-05-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

I continue to be inspired by Stephanie and her great attitude and faith despite all the hardship she's been through.

HOUSE!

2010-05-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

No, not that house, this house:

Or, more specifically, this house:

What I'm trying to say, in a kind of dorky way is that we just bought this house. It's kind of a fixer-upper so stay tuned for more details and lots of before and after pictures. As my husband put it- now you get to live one of your shows! (he's referring to my HGTV watching habit:)

We closed on Friday and then took the kids over that evening to surprise them which was pretty fun. Anyway, we've already spent one day tearing off wallpaper and sanding wood paneling and that's just the tip of the iceburg. There's LOTS of work to do and it will probably be at least a few weeks until we are actually moved in. Every single wall and bit of woodwork in the house has to be painted, and almost all of the flooring has to be replaced or redone. It's going to be fun to document the transformation here and I'll probably be asking you for your opinion too.

Anyway, that's my big news of the day!

Fave Easter Weekend Pics

2010-04-04T17:45:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter Sunday

2010-04-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Easter, here is the link to a nice video called, He Lives: Testimonies of Jesus Christ found at lds.org. Or, go here to read The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles.
We will be doing Eastery stuff and watching General Conference
Hope you have a wonderful day!

.

2010-02-19T11:01:00.000-08:00

Pinwheel Quilt
So, do you remember my pinwheel quilt I started last spring? I got it back from the quilter a few weeks ago and I am sooo happy with how it turned out, so I thought I'd share some pictures with you (it still needs to be bound). This longarm quilting gal that I used is absolutely amazing. She did a wonderful job and totally exceeded my expectations!

When I look at this quilt I feel like I'm looking at something out of a magazine. I'm not bragging when I say that because really it's the quilting that makes it so gorgeous. I told her the design I wanted that I had seen on her website, but I still couldn't picture exactly what it would look like.

She has a long waiting list, so it took a while, but it was totally worth the wait. It was very exciting pulling this quilt out of the box! Here are some photos where you can see some of the quilting detail:

So, in case you're interested in making a quilt like this, here's some info:

I made the quilt top using this pinwheel block tutorial on Vanessa Christenson's blog. Using charm packs (pre-cut 5" squares) saves a lot of time when making this block. My quilt is made using 4 charm packs (two for all the pinwheels and two- with some leftover-for the border), and a few yards of plain cream fabric. I used Allspice Tapestry by Figtree for Moda. There is one pinwheel block for each of the 40 or so fabrics in the line. You could use any fabric though, and

just cut your own squares. Here is another tutorial for a smaller pinwheel quilt for a baby that is really cute. Love the prarie points border on that one.

This is what the quilting looks like on the back:

I was thinking about just having this quilt out and about in my living room, but now I think I'll probably get one of those quilt hanging shelf things and put it up on the wall instead.

Here's why:

See what I mean about photo shoots around here?!

Portland, Maine

2010-02-18T04:48:00.000-08:00

So I mentioned earlier that I had gone antiquing in Maine a few weeks ago. My friend Ellen and I went off to Portland on a cold Saturday and had a great day! We've been trying to work out a time to go for a few years now, so I'm glad it finally worked out! We met another friend at the Miss Portland Diner and had lunch, went to see the Portland Head lighthouse, and went to an architechtural salvage place, and the tiniest fabric store I've ever seen.

It was freezing, and really windy, but we still got out of the car to get a few pictures!

I thought Portland was so pretty, I'd love to go back someday.

There were cute houses all over the place, here's one I happened to take a picture of when we stopped for a minute. I didn't take too many photos since I was driving, but here is Ellen's post about our day with a few more, and some info on the Miss Portland Diner. It has an interesting story, and the food was really good! Oh, and here's her photo of a really cute little post office we saw on Cape Elizabeth.

After we left Portland, we headed down to a couple of antique places in Ogonquit, and Wells. It was fun to browse through all of the stuff in those stores! I didn't buy too much (my husband couldn't believe I didn't come home dragging any furniture behind me!), but I got a few things. I think my favorite thing I bought that day is this brown transferware platter. I think it's so pretty, and right now it's displayed in my living room (which is also our family room, toy room, tv room, and sometimes ball-playing room) Hopefully none of the crazies will knock it over and break it.

I really like transferware, my favorites are the browns and reds. I don't think I'll ever get a whole set or anything, but it would be fun to collect a few pieces around the house for decor and to mix in with my regular dishes.

Here is a post on a blog I really like- A Country Farmhouse- about a collection of transferware.
I also bought this old coal bucket. I don't know why, I just thought it was really cool looking! It would look really great holding logs on a hearth, or pinecones at Christmas time like in this photo.

I also bought a few blue Mason jars with old metal lids, and a really cute little stuffed cat made out of an old quilt for the little gal. The prices at the places we went were pretty reasonable, so I really didn't spend very much at all. A couple of other things I wanted to buy but didn't: the Fisher Price doctor kit I had as a kid (in an antique store- does that make me old?!), and a really cool old yo-yo blanket. Some day I'm going to make one of those for myself out of all of my scraps. I think they're so cool.
I'll definitely be going back for more antiquing in Maine!

Vacation Snow

2010-02-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

So right now my kids are on a break from school for the week. February vacation is not my favorite thing. I just don't really see the point of a break when it's this cold outside. Of course, lots of people are off to Florida or ski trips, so I guess they think Feb. vacation is a great idea!
So anyway, the nice thing about the snow yesterday is that it was also relatively warm outside, so the kids could go out and have some fun. They built a snowman,

made a snowbaby,

and snow angels. This little gal absolutely loves the snow. She doesn't mind the cold at all.

*A couple of things to notice in these pictures- new glasses for the 10-year-old, and missing two front teeth on the 6-year-old!

Snowy Morning

2010-02-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

This is what we woke up to this morning:

A beautiful, snow-encrusted world!

It snowed almost all afternoon yesterday. It's really only a few inches, but it is the kind that clings to all of the tree branches. Our backyard is really woodsy so that, combined with the sunny blue sky made a pretty spectacular sight.

I'm glad I went out and took these photos early, because by late morning, the snow started coming down off the trees, first all powdery and sparkly, then in big clumps. By early afternoon the sky was gray again and most of the snow was gone off the trees.

Click on my collage to see more snowy photos. And yes, that is my outdoor Christmas tree still up. I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of it! I'm glad I didn't because I think it looks so pretty all snow-covered. What a glorious day!

Trash to Treasure Finds

2010-02-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

I was pretty excited about this find. I was on my way to the pediatrician (yet again!) one morning a few weeks ago and saw this out in front of a neighbor's house with their trash. It looked like they had tried to sell it at a yard sale- it had a piece of masking tape on it which had $6 written on it and crossed out, and then $4. I would totally have paid $4 for it! Even though I had a poor little sick with a horrible ear infection gal in the car, I had to make a quick stop and rescue this from the garbage truck!

I remember us having one of these as a kid and sledding on it. Too bad I don't have my original one anymore, but this is a good substitute. I've seen so many cute blog photos using old wooden sleds for Christmas Decorations out on porches (like this one from Pleasant Home) and I thought it would be a fun addition to my festive porch decor for next year. A couple of days later I went antiquing in Maine (I am about to do a post about that as well) and saw two wooden sleds in comparable shape- one for $45, and a bigger one for $75!! Then I really felt good about my thrifting prowess (and better about spending some money at the antique stores!)

My husband found this table (in all it's hideous 70's orange glory) forlornly sitting out on the curb early last Saturday morning. Despite it's current ugly color, I can see potential in it with it's planked top and chunky turned legs. I wish it were bigger because someday I want to get myself a big old farmhouse table that will actually fit our whole family without having to cram in elbow to elbow at the dinner table! May have to actually buy that one!

I think this could make a cute little nightstand for one of the kids- or me- to stack all my books and magazines in. A new coat of paint and some hardware and she'll be good to go. Of course, it's too cold to work on stuff right now. Another reason to look forward to spring. You may be saying- well, it's already second half of February, it's coming soon! Uh, not really. Here in MA, I have learned not to get excited about Spring until at least April. Unfortunate, but true!

9-Patch Blocks

2010-02-17T11:29:00.001-08:00

A month or so ago I started sewing 9-patch quilt blocks. I've been wanting to make one for a while, especially after seeing this quilt (by Vanessa), and re-reading the Little House on the Prarie series this past fall (Laura starts sewing 9-patch blocks as a young child, and they are mentioned throughout the books. At some point she finishes her quilt and takes it with her when she gets married). Those books are some of my all time favorites, and I liked them just as much- if not more, as an adult!

Anyhoo, I am using all of my reproduction fabric I've been collecting for a while. This was a really common pattern in the 30's and 40's so I want it to be vintage-inspired looking. I think I made about 65 blocks, and then cut the same number of white blocks. When the blocks are sewn together with every other one being white and colored, it will make an Irish Chain pattern. Here are my stacks of blocks to make my 13 rows. Here is Vanessa's tutorial to make 9-patch blocks. They are really easy, just sewing strips together. I'll post some more pictures when the top is finished.

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

We Had a Happy Valentine's Day

It was nice that it was on Sunday and church is in the afternoon so we could take our time having our Chocolate Gravy and Biscuits. I made these for our RS "Valentine Treat" recipe swap night and I think I liked them even more as a dessert. It's not too late, you can still make them just because!

We went out the night before and saw the movie Valentine's Day which I thought was cute, and ate out. Not takeout, not Burker King or pizza- a real live restaurant!

On Friday morning these arrived- in the mail and everything! It was a nice surprise and these flowers are so gorgeous. I love tulips, and it is nice to have something springy looking. At this point, Winter is getting a little old.
Hope you had a good one too.

Tough Break!

2010-02-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

A few Saturdays ago, my kids went sledding. Two of them ended up with a broken bone- same day, same hill and two breaks! I really couldn't believe it.

This one had a broken wrist:
(he was extremely excited about his red cast, and letting his friends sign it!)

This one broke his thumb:

We thought they were just sprained at first, so we waited until Monday morning to take the little guy to the dr. We went to the pediatrician, then xray place, then to the orthopedist at the hospital to get the cast. That night I started suspecting the other one had a break too, so Tuesday we did the whole thing over again! It was quite the week. Luckily, they were not serious and they didn't have to have casts for very long, one for 2 weeks and one for 3. Kids heal quickly!

Now, I am not a doctor so I am not giving medical advice, but I will tell you what I have learned as a mom about kids and broken bones.

- Just because they can still move it doesn't mean it's not broken.

-Just because they aren't complaining about a lot of pain, doesn't mean it's not broken.

Luckily, my kids have only ever had a more minor type of fracture, and the recurring signs of that for us have been: swelling that won't go down, bruising, and they quit using it. Even if they say it doesn't hurt a lot, they'll let it hang at their side. Just FYI. I think we are off sledding for the rest of this winter!

In this house, photo shoots have to be quick, because they will quickly deteriorate into this:

And this: