Hummingbirds in December!

My sister Tricia wrote the following:  "There are so many things that remind me often of my Grandma Cross, but my sister and hummingbirds are two very important ones!

Grandma would be shocked and thrilled, as we are, to see hummingbirds at this time of year and in this cold. She would also be proud of us for defrosting the feeders and providing them with food (even if Jen didn’t use her formula for it😳) Jen, just like Grandma did so often, is getting her afternoon enjoyment from sitting and watching the hummingbirds 😊 The cat has joined her but has a different agenda!"

Oh, the Snow!!

 It just doesn't want to stop!!

I'm Informed This Is Me.....By My Daughter.....

Apparently Pretty Funny

Jokingly bugging Les for how he had piled the toilet paper rolls behind the toilet he decided to take it one step further........

The kids thought it was hilarious!

Front Entrance Reno

This set of Les's holidays has been spent fixing up the front entrance.  We painted a new paint color (Sherwin-Williams Ruskin Room Green from their Arts & Crafts heritage line) and again changed the baseboards and trim as we did in the kitchen/dinning and living room renos.

Looking into entrance from kitchen area

Looking into entrance from living room

Across front doors is the powder room

Les's parents came for a visit (more on that in another post) and helped out.  Loving the new color and fresh clean feel!  For now I'll leave you with knowing our brains are twirling with lots of different ideas for the stairway.........

Snow, Chores & Loud Music

We're not a family that has to run out the door to a million and one activities on a Saturday, sometimes I kind of wish we were but for the most part I'm glad we're not (dad works most Saturdays).  Part of the morning is spent doing the bigger chores of the week.  Over the years doing chores together mother and child has become great bonding time working side by side talking about recent going ons.  Just as long as I don't become a crazy person (admittedly happens once in awhile) its pretty fun!

Today my gratitude is for my children and their willingness to contribute to the family without any complaint.  I love how we can work as a team or solo and I especially love how we all have our own ipods blaring some form of music throughout the house and nobody cares!

However, this fine morning also had us wake up to a bunch of snow.  This meant shovelling and a whole lot of fun!  We definitely made sure that was done before anything else!!

More House Updates

Back in July we completed the living room renovations and this month we completed the dinning room/kitchen renovations.  We again replaced baseboards and trim and painted but left the same laminate flooring.  Even though we didn't have carpet to rip out and replace with new flooring it felt like a big job.  Probably had something to do with painting around all the cabinetry.  Les as always did an awesome job! 

Kitchen

Dining Room

Next is the front entrance but that's a couple months away!

Just Read!

I just noticed the following on Adrianna's

door this morning (click on to enlarge and

read)........ As I'm typing this I realized I hadn't looked on Eli's door...... Just did...... He has one too......

 

Every time I read it

I start laughing.......

All Put Together

The living room all put together!  

We have added a couple more pictures to that bare spot on the wall

but the picture frames weren't quite ready when I took these pictures. 

 The fireplace surround Les made for the electric fireplace. 

Looks so much better from the original!

The quilt that inspired the wall color. 

What do you think?  I personally LOVE it!

Change.....

While I was in Boston Les continued with the renos. He's such a talented guy!!!

Roycroft Copper Red walls, Espresso Maple laminate flooring, white 5 1/4" baseboards & 3 1/4" window/door trim

Butternut Squash walls, white 5 1/4" baseboards & 3 1/4" door/window trim

Still working on the fireplace for the living room and the picture frames. Will take more pictures soon.

I'm IN LOVE!!!

Fish Tank Improvement

School is out for December and the kids and I decided that we needed to make some improvements......not the usual home improvements one might think but fish tank improvements. Check it out!

First - we put a backdrop on the back of the family fish tank. What a dramatic improvement and why we never did this before is beyond me. Tubes are hidden and all the colors in the tank just pop!! We LOVE it. Second - we picked up a new friend. A little aquatic frog we call Froggie (we're so original). You know it's true love when I feed it defrosted blood worms. Ahhhhh.......

However, our fun does not end here. We got so excited about how the fish tank turned out the kids wanted to start up their fish tanks again. Only we got a little carried away and went BIGGER (the kids lovingly invested some of their own money)!!

Adrianna's - She went with a purple 5 gallon tank and picked out an aquatic frog (who sadly has since passed away) and some Danio's.
Eli's - He went with an orange 5 gallon tank and picked out a couple different groups of Danio's (he hasn't had much luck and is down to one).

Sweetness

Saturday chores have just been done and I walked into my nice freshly cleaned bathroom (note mirror included) to the sweetest, biggest note all over our bathroom mirror!

I love you's and lip gloss kisses all over it!! I LOVE IT and it stayed there for awhile.

Impulses like these are precious and I hope that my kids feel exactly how I felt today when I write on their bathroom mirror!

Front Yard Garden Beautification

Les's parents were in town for a couple days, which meant I had a gardener at my disposal!!! Many thanks to my MIL for helping me make my garden look picturesque (click on picture to get a much better look). Of course it'll look even better once everything fills in but that will need some time.

BEFORE

AFTER

We added some heather, a smoke tree, coral bells, bugbane, split and replanted bugleweed, then moved a couple other plants to different spots but most importantly the rhododendron's we're yanked out (good riddance!).

All in all a job well done - thanks again Martie, I couldn't have done it without you AND your knowledge!!!

Family

This plaque hangs in my living room and I LOVE it. Every time I walk into the room I can't help but read it, sigh and move on with a smile on my face.

Decluttering

I've always considered myself a well organized person and for the most part I am but there are a few hidden away spots in my home that aren't and they drive me crazy. Finally the 'crazy' got to me and I did something about it and boy do I feel GREAT!

The following is just one example...a cupboard above the counter we'll call telephone counter (don't we all have one of those) so it's in the kitchen area but not amongst the action of the kitchen.

before

after

What A Man!

For quite sometime now we've wanted to get a coat rack for our front entrance to balance out the furniture that is already against that wall AND because it would be useful. It hasn't been a priority nor have we found anything in the stores that we like so its been left.

Recently Les picked up a planner for himself and a band saw for his dad (was delivered to his dad when we saw them at New Years) from a guy he knows and decided to take advantage of having both tools at his disposal!

After looking at all our Arts and Crafts/Mission furniture books and pictures on the internet we finally found a coat rack that we liked but we had no instructions/pattern (whatever it's called) so Les made his own and this is what came of it...... of course if you want a closer look just click on the pictures OR come on over and see it in person!

Isn't he such a talented guy?!! Sorry ladies you can't have him, he's already mine!!! This is what our front entrance now looks like!

Gardening. A New Hobby.

We decided to experiment and plant a garden this year so we pulled the grass, brought in dirt, bought seeds for beans, yellow peppers, spinach, tomatoes and were given some seeds to plant peas. Well as you can imagine it wasn't the most ideal spring to plant a garden with the colder weather, weeks and weeks of rain and no sun BUT we have growth!

Everything has come in except for our peppers so the kids and I picked up some starter sweet pepper plants yesterday along with a brussels sprout plant and a strawberry plant. From left to right we have beans, sweet peppers, brussels sprouts, strawberry, spinach (that's the bare looking spot, really there are some coming up but I'm not sure if they'll survive) and then our peas! Our tomato plants are looking good but are small so you can't see them in the picture but they run horizontally along the back of the garden so that as they get bigger we can tie them to the railing.

Our green thumbs don't stop here! I've always wanted to grow a herb garden and finally did it instead of always talking about it and I'm sooooo excited! I have basil, parsley, cilantro and oregano growing plus in another bucket I have chives but I didn't plant those ones from seed like the others.

Beautification

We have Les's parents with us for a couple of days and have them helping us out with a project.

So Tuesday morning I got the kids off to school and then the adults got right to work. We unloaded 173 (give or take) blocks, pulled plants, levelled the ground, placed blocks, filled blocks, covered the beam with shingles to protect the wood, brought in two truck loads of dirt/manure, replanted, bought more plants and planted all in time to have the kids arrive home from school....well actually it wasn't quite done but pretty close!

BEFORE

THE GUYS HARD AT WORK

BEAUTIFIED!!!!

All Work & No Play

A month or two ago Les was offered some free laminate flooring and we were given enough to do the master bedroom and the computer area (aka my office). So needless to say he started holidays a couple days ago and since then we've been busy, busy, busy riping out carpet, underlay, staples, nails and laying underlay, laminate and t-molding!!

Other than the en suite still layered in a thin layer of sawdust and a couple dump runs needed the cleaning is just about all done. I guess it's onto the next project......NO WAIT some playing first!!

Computer Area

before

after

MASTER BEDROOM

before after
We couldn't have done this without the generosity of Jim and Melanie. THANKS guys!!

A New Piece of Furniture

One of my favourite things about our house is our HUGE front entrance and because of that we are able to add this......

If by chance your wondering why it's off centered its because Les is going to build a standing coat rack, which will fit perfectly between the window and bench (yes, I'll post pictures when done)!

Thanks mom and dad H we LOVE it!!!!