So Charming

Whoa, busy week.  Anyhow... one highlight of yesterday was opening up my mail box to find TWO new magazines... double whammy.  I enjoyed a fantastic afternoon of coffee and magazines while Eme napped and Caleb played with his train set.  Seriously-- best money I've ever spent.  New train set = endless hours of quiet play time.  

So in February's issue of House and Home I was seriously smitten with this cute modern country kitchen. This has got to be one of the prettiest most unique Ikea kitchens I've seen in a long time.  Loving all the gorgeous details.  You can view an online video tour of the kitchen HERE.

Anyhow.  It's Friday!!  Off to take Eme to the allergy specialist for more testing and then I'll be getting ready to party like it's 2012.  Doug and I are throwing a birthday party for ourselves tonight-- gonna be a good night!

Ladylike? Not so much...

Emerson's been rocking a few new looks around here since Christmas.  

Are they ladylike?  Not so much.  

First up, "farm girl chic".

As we were opening up Christmas presents with my family there was one for Emerson-- I was told that my little brother picked it out.  And let me tell you-- I was a little bit shocked over the fact that my brother had shopped for my kids.  What on earth would my 21 year old tractor driving, cowboy boot wearing, hunting, and truck driving farm boy brother (and if he was leaning over my shoulder right now he'd be saying:  "tell them I'm single... tell them I'm single!!") possibly think to buy for my 1 year old daughter? 

This.  Pink camouflage John Deere pajamas.

Can't stop giggling over how cute they are.

Nothing runs like a deere.  Not sure how I know that but I do...

Nice work Joel.

And Eme's second not so ladylike look?  I'm calling this one "little lady lumberjack".

I found the faux fur hat at Superstore on clearance during the boxing week sales and could not pass it up.  It is so ridiculously cute... especially with the red plaid shirt.

Emerson, however, hates it.  Hence the picture.  The look says it all-- "oh why oh why do I have to be a lumberjack!!?"  We're going to keep wearing it though... hopefully it will grow on her :)

And that's really all I have to say on the dark, blustery, rainy morning.  My one new year's resolution was to get me and my still recovering knee to the gym in the mornings... but man.  As I look out the window at the nasty weather I can't help but think that staying in bed and breaking my resolution on January 4th was a pretty fantastic decision.  

Something New

Hmmm... what did I get for Christmas...

Well, here's a hint-- a few hints.

Source: Brabourne Farm via Elissa Toews on Pinterest

Source: Urban Grace Interiors via Elissa Toews on Pinterest

Source: Dana Wolters Interiors via Elissa Toews on Pinterest

Source: Victoria Hagan Interiors via Elissa Toews on Pinterest

Source: Alice Lane Home via Elissa Toews on Pinterest

What do all these pictures have in common?  Once I get around to pulling my camera out (and cleaning up my living room after post-Christmas-tree-take-down-disaster 2012) you will find out...

For now, just look at these pretty pictures and pretend that my living room actually looks half as fantastic as some of these ones.

Starting the Year Off

We began the year with another birthday-- Doug turned 30!  It was pretty low key kind of day since we
(and the kids) were recovering from a 5 am airport run (had to drop off all of our Christmas house guests) but we still managed to get out and celebrate with his family yesterday evening.  Needless to say, birthdays are quite exciting to all the kids so he had a few helpers when it came time to blow out the candles.

Happy Birthday Babe!

One more thing

I almost forgot... there's something else significant happening this year... today, actually.

Today's my birthday.

And... it's my last "twenty-something" birthday.  Next year (as in tomorrow) I'll be turning 30-- wowzers. I must say that I don't mind growing older.  But I am just starting to feel old because...

I have an extremely difficult time remembering exactly how old I really am.  Is it just me or do the late 20's really blur together?  Am I 27 or 28?

A few months ago I discovered my first grey hair.  Wow, it's only a matter of time before I begin to look like my dad... oh well.  I guess being known as the silver fox (like my father) isn't the end of the world.  Being "foxy" has got to be a good thing... right?

Skinny jeans, colored jeans, leg warmers, chunky sweaters-- all those things that I thought I would NEVER EVER wear again-- I was shopping for over boxing week.  Honestly... who would have thought those orange jeans I wore in grade four would ever be cool again?  I AM old!

BUT

A few days ago I met someone for the first time.  We were talking about all those "get to know each other" kind of things.  Where are you from?  What do you do for fun?  What do you do for a living?  As I  was talking about my past profession, my kids, how long I've been married she started looking at me all funny and asked "How old ARE you?"  I told her my soon to be age... and she said "wow, you don't look that old!"  That's  got to be a good thing, right?

Well, even though today means that I'm getting older, it's still going to be a good day.  My Mom's making me homemade donuts.  I'm going to eat a whole lot of those this morning.  And I'm going to pretend that everyone's heading out to party for my birthday tonight.  And I'm going to ignore the fact that they're all going to count down the end of my birthday... because they'll be celebrating to arrival of my hubby's birthday tomorrow!  And he's turning 30 :)

Some Really Great Reads

Do you follow the blog Rambling Renovators like I do?  Well you should... especially today!  A little while back Jen emailed me and asked if I would like to participate in her Great Reads Series-- a series where a few of her favorite bloggers share their favorite posts of 2011.  Of course-- I was honored to be included in the series!  So, if you want to see what my favorite post of 2011 was... go check it out here. Thanks for including me Jen!

Now, as you might imagine-- choosing just ONE post was an exceptionally difficult task.  Really, I have way more than one favorite post!  So since it's the end of the year I thought I'd do a little recap of ALL of my favorite posts from 2011-- month by month.  So without further ado... here are some MORE of my favorites from 2011...

In January we decided to renovate our office.  The best part of the renovation was the built in bookcases we (and when I say we-- I really mean Doug) created out of three Ikea Billy bookcases.

On a snowy day in February we packed up the kids and spent the day in Vancouver getting around via public transportation.  It was a real good time.  Especially when I jumped onto the wrong crowded bus without my wallet and phone-- just me, my infant daughter, and a soother!

In March I was feeling the need to entertain my kids... so I devised a fun new game to play at the grocery store.  It was a big hit...

In April I bought a new light fixture for my bedroom.  And... if you want to know why that was such a big deal for me you can read all about why the pre-existing light fixtures in my house were so offensive...

In May I did a tutorial on how to make your own fitted crib sheet.  Really, it is as easy as it looks...

June's favorite post was about the shelves we put in our bathroom.  I love my shelves because they look pretty-- and because they were free-- we created them out of a few scraps of MDF we found in our garage.  What's the best kind of project?  The free kind!!!

July was all about Road Trips.  I love road trips.  And even though the kids did not quite understand the concept of "it's a really REALLY long drive"-- we still had fun.  Most of the time.

My highlight of August was Emerson's first birthday!  My little lady turned one... and that's pretty fantastic.  But the other thing I love about this post is that it so appropriately showcases a typical day at our house-- crazy and sometimes dramatic.  Let's just say the day included food, a lot of people, an incapacitated hostess (me), crutches, a few cupcakes, a major allergic reaction, and a trip to the emergency room.  Today (four months later) I'm finally laughing about it...

September was a ridiculously crazy month.  I wonder why-- maybe because I was recovering from knee surgery on the couch and parenting my two children... at the same time.  So the fact that I was able to take Caleb to his first day of preschool was exciting-- especially when I had to bum scoot my way down my front steps on my way to the car.  Who needs crutches when you can scoot!  And... I just love how his "first day of school pictures" turned out... that's my boy :)

My favorite post from October is the one about my thankful tree!  It's my favorite because it was so super easy to do... and maybe because I only actually cleaned up the tree last week?  Did Thanksgiving really happen over two months ago?  And Christmas is over?  Someone's behind the ball around here...

November's favorite post would most definitely have to be the one with pictures of my little lady.  My girl just melts my heart.  Even though she thinks her daddy is way cooler than me...

In December I shared the advent calender I crafted for our house.  And I am happy to say that we actually managed to do a fun activity with the kids on every day-- except for one.  I figured the 25th was pretty self explanatory and required no additional hype.  Am I right or am I right?

And that my friends was 2011 at our house.  Thanks for reading along with me!!  Hope next year is equally fun and entertaining...

Shopping Carts and other fun

Today, the boys hit the slopes.

So the girls hit Ikea.

We discovered that all... ALL... pictures frames were 50% off.  You could say that we got excited.

And then we cleared them out.

I've got plans for these.

There's nothing more fun than a quick trip to Ikea with the sisters.  Without kids.  Well-- without my kids-- sleeping Cohen doesn't really count because we didn't hear a peep out of him.

And I may or may not have ridden the shopping cart out the front door.  Apparently my kids find that trick a whole lot funnier than my sisters do.  Or maybe my kids just don't get embarrassed as easily as my sisters.  Oh well.

Time to hit the hay because tomorrow we're heading south for a little outlet shopping action.  I may just have to try out my shopping cart riding trick again to see if it's funnier in the United States of America.

We'll see...

The Great Outdoors

Today is window day!  Doug and I painted all the trim in the garage last night, All the blinds and curtains are down, and the first window is in!  I'm so very excited to have brand new clean windows-- especially because my windows have been exceptionally dirty lately.  When you know that new ones are coming-- why clean the old ones?  Am I right or am I right?

So like I mentioned, I've been trying to decide on trim.  What style?  What color?  Well after looking at my options, I decided to keep it simple.  Our house was built in the 70's and it's basically just a white square box.  There's nothing special about it.  It has a flat roof, a couple of windows, and white siding.  I've seen some people around here upgrade the exterior of houses like mine with expensive siding, stone work, and crazy elaborate trim... and while it looks nice... it kind of looks like you're trying to make your house into something that it's never going to be.  No matter what I do to my house, it's never going to look like a gorgeous Whistler chalet, a beautiful Victorian with load of character, or an eclectic and cool old farmhouse.  Nope-- it will always look pretty basic.  So, I decided to just go with it and keep the exterior simple-- and then add character in other fun ways!

So I've decided that...

I'm not painting over the white siding.  I'm not going to add crazy fancy trim around the windows.  I'm not going to paint the trim a crazy color-- it's going to be white-- like white white.  Instead I'm going to try and achieve a more sleek modern clean look.  We're going for wide trim all the way around the windows, but it has a clean modern profile.

Here's some of my inspiration...

While my house will NEVER look like this-- I dig the style.  A clean modern farmhouse look.

White on white.  Keeping it clean.

Look at how GORGEOUS this house is-- that porch-- oh my.

I saw this house makeover a long long time ago and it really inspired me.  Instead of tearing down the 70's rancher this amazing couple decided to work with what they had and transformed the house into this amazing beauty.  For before and after pictures click HERE.

So the backdrop will be white and clean-- to add a bit of drama I'm going to paint the front door  and the garage door black, or charcoal, or maybe even a really really dark brown.  How gorgeous is front door?

I love this door too... and the styling... perfect.

My next move is to upgrade the lighting.  I'd love to put up two gorgeous vintage-y, galvanized, barn lights-- one on either side of the front door.  And then I'd love to add another one above the garage door.  Kind of like this...

Here are some of my favorites from Barn Light Electric.  I'm just going to dream a little...

Barn Light Radial Wave Sconce in a galvanized finish.

And then maybe this one for above the garage-- in the galvanized finish.  This one's the Barn Light Aztec Sconce.

Other contenders...

Barn Light Colby Sconce.

Barn Light Gunsmoke Sconce.

And finally, the Barn Light Montana Sconce.

Tough call... they are all so fantastic.

And then the last layer... a collection of plants in gorgeous weathered clay pots... with the plants preferably alive.  Isn't this beautiful?

Anyhow... getting those windows in is the first step.  The Toews boys are hard at work.  I popped outside to take a little look-see and my brother in law offered to clean the outside of each new window as they install them.  Music to my ears... let me tell you.  What do I want for Christmas this year?  How about new CLEAN windows!!!

All images via my Outdoor Inspiration Pinterest board

Can't Remember

I can't remember the last time we went to the park... actually... I can't remember the last time it was this sunny and fabulous outside-- in December-- no less!!

I also can't remember the last time that I went to the park WITHOUT a stroller.  Let me tell you-- it was  awesome.  Eme was just as excited as I was about being stroller-less.

I tried to convince her that the toddler park was cool.  She didn't buy it.  I guess riding the slide with your cool big brother is pretty awesome.

Speaking of cool...

You better believe the ray bans came out to play.

As we were about to leave for the park Caleb stood at the end of our driveway-- hat, ray bans, and flight jacket in place-- with his arms crossed.  The cars slowed.  People giggling and waving.

He didn't even crack a smile.

And we had such an amazing time at the park that Eme wasn't too happy to be in the car on the ride home.  That face.  Can't stop laughing.

Cute Kids + Monkeys = a whole lot of fun

They all got monkeys for Christmas...

And we all had a good time monkey-ing around.

(that's the last of my cheesy monkey jokes-- promise.)

We celebrated Christmas early with the Toews family this year.  And the kids had a FANTASTIC time.  Here are a few pictures from the evening-- for all the grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles out there...

Keziah cuteness.

I asked Micah to show me his "I want presents" face.  This is what I got.

Before presents Uncle Erik read the Christmas story.  Emerson was a fan.

And so were the boys.

And then it was time for presents.

Caleb was SO VERY EXCITED about his new toys.

Trains...

And lego.  Of course.

And the days have been quiet since then-- new toys = happy kids and one very happy momma :)