{Recap} December 2015

Ah! December! Tis the season, to not feel like Christmas?

This year, the weather has been so un-winter-like that it never felt like Christmas to me.

Yes, the decorations were hung and Christmas activities where happening, but no snow? Boo.

Friends down south? How do you do it? 

Just like it doesn't feel like Christmas without snow here, I bet you would feel the same if there was snow on Christmas! Right?

 And yes, this is how I felt of most of December and January! 

Pregnant with baby number 4... Is hard!

To help being "busy pregnant" I made baby boy this awesome center out knit blanket. 

It's so squishy I want to make a giant one for me! 

Just a little something I put together for Carter's teacher for Christmas.

Fun glittery pencils, an insulated cup and then filled with gel pens!

Simple yet adorable, and I know she would use it all!

My boys LOVE Lego Star Wars, and my husband remembers seeing the movies when he was a kid and started watching them with them. So when we needed cookies for a school Holiday party, and I saw how easy these were.  Chewbacca cookies it was! 

These are chocolate sugar cookies, not gingerbread men. They were a hit at the party too! 

A simple gingerbread man cookie cutter, and fork make the hair. Chocolate frosting and sprinkles! 

And yes, I was that mother using tweezers to pick out five sprinkles of one color! 

Lastly, the table is almost complete! 

My husband really took his time with the table because the wood was no kiln dried. 

So he wanted to let the wood acclimate a day or two in between steps to try to prevent warping and pulling. Hence, the table upside down in my dining room!

{Recap} November 2015

November for us means Ellie's birthday and hosting Thanksgiving.

This is only my second year hosting, it took a long time to finally be able to host!

This year it worked out perfect, Miss Ellie wanted a Sophia the first birthday and a cousin had one for her daughter over the summer, so I was able to reuse all the decorations she had purchased!

This pregnant mama, loved the hand me down decorations it helped so much!

Ive always made the kids' birthday invites, I used to mail them. 

Nowadays, I create them on the computer and send the file to my guests.My sister makes the kids' cakes for their party, and I make them a cake on their actual birthday.

This was the cake I made Ellie for on her birthday. Didn't it come out pretty? She loved it!

I don't think I have ever mentioned it but in the past year or two my husband has taken up woodworking!  He made Carter a twin bed, then he made us a gorgeous queen size bed and in November he decided to make us a dining room table!  

The wood has an awesome story to it too!

A coworker of my husband had cherry logs that he cut down, but didn't want to use them for firewood. My husband had something he wanted so they bartered.  So that's how we got the logs.

Once we had these giant logs, we needed to have them milled.  In comes another co worker! 

Who uses firewood to heat his home, and we had just taken down a tree in our yard... 

So we know where our dining room table logs grew, and know who milled them and that my husband built it! Talk about a piece of furniture with a story!

Lastly, Thanksgiving!

Like I said, this is only the second time I have hosted and it went really well. 

Carter brought home this little first thanksgiving diorama from school, and Wyatt immediately added some friends to it!   So if you were ever wondering if Super Heroes were at the first thanksgiving, Wyatt would tell you yes!!

{Builds} Strawberry Tower

Ah! This is one of those projects that we finished in the fall, 

put it in the shed for the winter and just pulled out to fill!

The hardest part about this was deciding where to put it! 

I wanted it somewhere we would see and be able to check on daily, 

so that critters were not eating all of our yummy berries,

 and somewhere it would be easy to get to all four sides. 

This past weekend, I moved it to a spot and left it there for a couple days 

and then finally decided to fill it. Hope we never have to move this sucker! 

It took 4 wheelbarrows full of dirt to fill, plus half a bag of potting soil!

If you want to build your own Strawberry Pyramid, 

these are similar plans I printed for my hubby to make it!

(of course, I can't find same plans as when he made them! 

Guess thats what happens when you have him build something 6 months ago and then blog about it!)

Anyone else building things outside? 

Now I'm off to try to get a potato tower built! 

Tis the season for outdoor projects!

We have a Mudroom!

Last week my husband was out of town for work, so I took matters into my own hands on a whim.

He left Sunday afternoon, and Monday I decided to clean/purge out back porch.  

It's not a heated space, so I normally try to do a good cleanup, reorganize, purge before it gets too cold.

The last time I shared this space was 2011!

And even then I hinted to how I wanted it... And I think I finally nailed it! 

Well. One thing led to another.

I went from a quick clean out to a complete overhaul.

With a phonecall and help from my mom...

my backporch went from this...

This is what was hidden behind the curtain! 

Yikes!

to this...

in THREE days! 

Can you believe it? Neither can I!

Want to hear something else?

It only cost $33! 

THIRTY THREE DOLLARS?!?!?

Yup. Between my mom and I, we had everything except the flooring! 

I still can't believe it! And it's been a week of enjoying a project off the to do list! 

So, again let's look at how it looked Monday after I purged things. 

Looking at this is when I was trying to see how I could improve on the space.

A phonecall to my mom to talk me off the ledge, actually threw me over the ledge.

But I am soooo happy she did!

So after a couple calls back and forth, I got to work Tuesday, emptying the space and looking at my back porch reno pinterest board to nail down my plan of attack.

Once I had an idea in my head of what I wanted, my mom and I started to figure out measurements using things we had.

She had given me the doors a while back for this space, and they were just waiting for us.

The frames for the closets was a weird bedframe piece that my mom was given. 

(Think boxspring except flat.) A quick pass with the saw and we had two walls!

Are you seeing why and how this came together so fast? 

Everything was just waiting to be put together!

After my mom helped get the closets up, I cut some paneling that was left in our garage eves by the previous owner (yup. 7 years ago and it was still there!) and I put it on the sides of the closets. Then Tuesday night I painted my little heart out after the kids went to bed!

Wednesday morning came, and I patched and painted the other two walls of the room.

I went with some pretty pale blue paint I had picked up for free using a coupon at Ace hardware!

Wednesday night my mom came over again and we built the bench! 

A couple boards, and the remaining two doors and it was done! 

We even left a small gap behind the bench back so I have a place for tall items like umbrellas!

Thursday was my deadline, well sort of. My husband was due back dinner time Friday but I had to have it done before then, plus I was volunteering at school Friday. 

So Thursday was paint touchup day, and flooring. 

I was the most nervous about the flooring out of the entire project. 

See- this is an unheated space, that needs some love structurally. It's a sloped floor that we have to fix eventually, so I didn't want to do too much. But decided I needed to do something since I did everything else. So sticky tiles it was. I couldn't believe how much they were! But since I didn't spend anything anywhere else I was okay with spending $33 to make the space finished!

Now, I know it's not 100% done, there are some spots to put moulding up, but I'll wait to do that once we redo the levelness of the floor.  When we go to fix the height, the gaps under the floor may be non existent, so I decided to just leave them, rather than extend just to have to take it off down the road!

Now, we have the entraceway our little house deserves!

This is the door most everyone uses when they come in our home, and now it's not an eyesore!

The view when you walk in!

And when you leave!

Pretty amazing if you ask me! It's so bright and cheery out there! 

Not bad for $33!

Builds: An Awesome Cold Frame!

I really wish I could take the credit for this, but sigh. I can't.

But I can give credit to my amazing husband!

I asked, and boy did I receive! 

Isn't it amazing?

All I did was find the window (green frame and all!) tell him what I needed, and he went to town!

It is better than I imagined!

It all started when I found the window on the side of the road. 

I put it in the truck, and it sat in the garden for a couple weeks.

As the temps started to cool down, I explained what I needed. 

Which was a box big enough to support the window, and at an angle so snow would melt.

He bought super strong hinges, a handle and that was our only costs!

The rest was scrap lumber (for the frame) and plywood for the sides.

And I know down the road I will probably have to replace the plywood, but with all the projects we do around here, I know I will always have scraps to replace with!

Once moved into place, I pushed dirt around the base to make sure wasn't any gaps for air to get in and started transplanting! I moved anything and everything that was thriving still in the garden, so I have two random Eggplant Plants ( I doubt anything will happen, since I got nothing all summer) Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Collards, Spinach, Beets, And Celery in there. 

I've been joking, saying that I will be handing out heads of cold frame lettuce for Christmas! 

Want some?

Watching our love grow...

I'm going to apologize first for the photos! 

This is my husband's Valentines day gift, so I will take better ones this weekend and update! 

I've always loved the idea of marking your children's ages on the wall. Except the fact that it was on the wall. You can't paint the wall down the road, or worse, not being able to take it with you.

 After seeing some amazing rulers in blogland, I got to work.

I didn't follow any tutorial because it was pretty simple. Turn a piece of 1"x6"x6' into a ruler.

Simple enough.

Here's some things I thought about and did:

- I wanted to include birth heights, so my shortest was 18 1/2". I ended up started it at 6 " to give us some room on the bottom.

-I used my clear acrylic ruler and a pencil to measure all my inches first.

 Then went back and lengthened my 3", 6", 9" and foot marks.

-Then I went back with a permanent marker ( I checked to make sure it didn't bleed on back first!)

-For my numbers and Palmer Company, I printed out a font (American Typewriter) then scribbled on the back of the paper, traced over the front so it transferred the pencil to the wood. 

-Then I s l o w l y, used the marker to trace over the pencil and fill in.

- For "watching our love grow since 2008" I just free handed it.

-And now my favorite part! Instead of just added my children's current heights, I asked my pediatrician for all of their heights since birth! So I went back in with just pencil so it looks like we lined them up all along!

Do you measure your kids? Will you be making your own ruler?

It took me longer to plan it out in my head than to make it, I swear!