Look who's walking!

A few steps in mid -January ...

...now watch him go...

He's so proud of himself and happy he can walk- it's quite apparent and funny...so I'm happy for him.  At the same time however, I'm so sad my baby is growing up so fast...I'm savoring all the wobbly steps for now!

Wintery Wreath

Here's a little wintery project I finished up last week.  I've been loving the yarn wreaths I've seen on pinterest and decided to make one for the dining room.  The colors are also inspired by Cooper's upcoming birthday!  It takes a surprisingly long time to wrap the wreath base, just to warn you.  The little pom poms were easy peasy and so soft and fun!  I still want to make another one...with different colors and use felt for flowers- maybe for spring!

 

My Almost No Cost Kitchen BandAid Fix

The kitchen has been a major sore thumb in our house from the beginning.  Early on we made it functional- bought a refrigerator, bought a new stove that heats up, fixed the plumbing so it doesn't leak- you know the minor details...  We stumbled upon stainless steel replacement deals on a microwave and dishwasher.  Putting the microwave over the stove really helped us with some counter top space.  After that, it really wasn't a high priority, as we hoped to completely renovate the kitchen in the future.  The future however keeps being pushed further and further out for this sad little kitchen.  Not being able to take the horrible brown, falling apart kitchen any longer...I decided to put an inexpensive band-aid on it!  

Here are the before pictures!  The first one, you can actually see I was already in the process of patching the gaping hole in the ceiling.  One thing you can't see are the lovely details missing- trim pieces, doors that don't shut, missing cabinet parts, the finish so bad and old it's worn off in areas, the stickiness on the walls and cabinets...   The power of TSP solved the sticky issue while prepping the cabinets and walls amazingly well.  The rest was just a whole lot of elbow grease and paint!

Ah, here's a close up of where my favorite hole was.  Yeah, still not perfect, but like I said, we plan to totally gut and renovate hopefully in the next few years.

And now, ta da!  The finished product!  Total cost 1 gallon of paint for the walls and ceiling and 6 drawer pulls and about a week of nap and after bed time work and effort!  (The rest of the materials we had hanging around!) 

Brett and I had the same thought- the orchid really makes the whole makeover :-)  Thanks for re-blooming at the perfect time my lovely little orchid!

Oh and yes, now we see how awful the counter tops look...hoping to replace these with butcher block as a trial run for our future kitchen. 

Progress you can see!

Well the basement work has continued, but now you can really see some of the progress.  Over the past week, I've been repairing walls and mudding drywall- yes, week as I often only get 15-45 minute chunks of simultaneous baby/tot sleeping.  Last weekend Brett built the shower bed and finished the rough in plumbing.  (I had another big project going on last weekend, I'll post that next.)  Friday he hung the hardibacker in the bathroom.  And yesterday, with the help of our awesome friends, Sean and Christina and their little ones, we were able to lay the remaining floor tile!  Currently, Brett's down there working on the grout- so in a few hours the floor will be complete!

Here's Evan checking out our 'level' floor.  160+ yr old basement floor...far from level or even, we did our best.  We also tried really hard to match the existing tile, but unfortunately the color is slightly off.  A bit of a bummer after ordering and waiting for what you think is the right tile.  Trust me, we tried all the options...  Regardless, I doubt most people will notice (I hope.)

Here's the bathroom and shower bed.  We're saving this tiling project for another weekend- maybe one when it's not a high of 20-25 degrees....

A future closet!  Woo hoo storage!!!  If you are curious, that random little recess is the underside of the chimney in the playroom.  Why you wouldn't have more support under your chimney, I'm not quite sure....

Moving on, here are the new walls.  You can see the doors to the bathroom and closet.  The long wall you can see is the wall to the utility/furnace room.  We plan to have cabinets along this wall and to the right as well, to make a mini kitchen/wet bar area.  That's another project a little further down the road. Oh, and if you have never been here, the other door with the light streaming in is the area under our porch, also another project, this one is slated for this spring.

And here's the other view- Brett re-pointed this wall, minus a small area that someone previously covered in concrete, that will be covered by cabinets.  Now, the color difference you can see here, is actually just because the existing tile is super dirty.  The tile we used here is actually the same tile; we found some spares when we moved in that they left.

Well there you have it!  It's starting to come together, we are pretty excited!  I'm hoping to get the walls prepped and painted this week...we'll see!

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas!

Cooper, up pre- crack of dawn...

Stockings!

mmm...breakfast!

first look at the tree...

White Christmas sledding!

Delivering Christmas mail to our neighbors (mail man delivered it to us...)

Christmas Eve 2012

Making Christmas cookies...  This is one of my favorite things to do around Christmas.  Now I get to share this fun with me little ones.  We had good fun!  Here's my little baker in action:

Next up on the activity list...some Christmas crafts!

...time for some stories...

Someone spotted some gifts...

After naps, we tried to go to church for Christmas Eve service...

...but it snowed and they canceled the services... so Brett and Evan went sledding...

...while Cooper and I read some stories by the tree...

....here's our first snowman of the year... Yeah for a White Christmas! 

...someone's trying to get to Santa's cookie plate... goodnight cookies and carrot...

...goodnight lights...

....winding down...time for stories lighted by our tree...goodnight books...

...goodnight tree...  goodnight star...

Goodnight everyone.