A Quick Before and After

I'm still alive.  Truly.  I am.

Just busy with life, and kids, and all the other fun stuff that comes along with that!

I keep getting emails from lovely people asking questions about my kitchen and other such things.

It's amazing to see that people are still stopping in to visit this blog!

From time to time I remember that I have a blog that I used to write regularly.

And from time to time I start to feel like I want to start posting stuff from our house again!

Maybe once school starts up again around here (school is NOT starting in our neck of the woods as the teachers are on strike!!) I'll have more time.  But how about a quick before and after...

After our lengthy kitchen renovation we took a much needed break from any renovation projects.  But a few months ago we finally decided to tackle the downstairs play room.  The goal was to make it look bright and fresh using only the things we had around the house.  In the end we ended spending a tiny bit of $$ on a couple sheets of plywood to add rustic looking planking to one of the walls, but other than that, everything (even the paint) was just sitting around the house waiting to be used!

So here's the before.

I took this picture before we got started on "operation makeover the play room".  This really was the play room in it's best "before" state.  You can actually see some of the floor in the picture.

Usually you could not.

After purging about half the kids crap toys we painted the room.  Caleb was super helpful.

We ended up adding wood planking to the one wall since the drywall was not in nice condition... after a few throw pillows and a gallery wall of a some mismatched frames from around the house the room was done.

(not the best quality photo-- I know.  But who has time for a real camera these days!!)

This room turned out to be one of my favourite rooms in the house-- and we spent next to nothing to change it up!

Oh, and now I want to paint the rest of the house white!  I know you all already think it's white-- but now I want WHITE white :)

Tis the Season

Lengthy absence.  I know.

But, I'm finding myself with a little more free time sitting around on the couch lately with bed head and stretchy pants.

Darn ankle.

Looking for a new years resolution for 2014?  How about "Don't Exercise.  Ever.  Not worth it."

Who knows... maybe they'll be more blogging in my future?  We shall see.  I make no promises.

Anyways... thought I'd stop by to say Merry Christmas to everyone!  And while I'm at it... here's the tree of 2013.  I didn't think I'd ever be one for a colourful tree... but I think I'm going to have to say that this year's tree is probably my favourite ever.

(sorry it's a little blurry... but I'm on crutches... don't judge :)

Our Family

I'm really bad at following through with some things-- getting family pictures taken is one of those things.  Sure I take lots of pics of the kids on instagram, but getting photos of all of us-- all dressed up and (somewhat) smiling-- that almost never happens.  But since Sawyer's joined our family I figured it was time.  I wanted some good pictures of the whole family that capture our kids at this stage of life-- those crazy, chaotic, fun, energetic moments when you've got a bunch of littles running around.  And... success!!!

Thankfully, I have an amazingly talented, beautiful, friend who takes such incredible photos.  Andrianne totally captured the personalities of my kids in these photos.  You are gifted my friend!  If you could only see the chaos that went down that afternoon trying to keep the kids happy and looking/smiling at the camera.  It was epic-- Sawyer was crying most of the time, Caleb couldn't help but be cheesy, and Eme (believe it or not) was so grumpy.  And yet Andrianne managed to pull it off-- she captured the kind of pictures I love-- the candid, fun, family pictures that offer a glimpse into our life with kids!  I love them!

And since there are SO many pictures that I love-- I can't choose just a few to post-- I've got to post a LOT... and on facebook and on instagram... prepare to be overloaded with pictures!

And there they are!  Now I have the impossible task of choosing just a few print and put up in our house!  The gallery wall will be getting an update I think... :)

Oh Sawyer Sauce

Brace yourselves folks.  Prepare yourself for an onslaught of Sawyer Sauce.

So... one of the things I like about this blogging thing, is that I can look back to remember all the crazy stuff my kids did way back when.  Unfortunately, Sawyer's been neglected on this blog of mine.  So today I intend to rectify the situation by giving you all a little recap of the last few months of Sawyer Sauce.

This little cutie has grown up over the summer.  It seems like just yesterday he looked like this...

Before I knew it he was all grown up sitting at the table with the rest of us starting to eat solids.

With Emerson I made ALL of my own baby food.  She loved it.  Sawyer, however, hates my homemade baby food.  I give him a spoonful and he scrunches up his face in disgust, gags, and screams his head off.  But, a spoonful of store bought baby food outta the jar?  Loves it. Will keep eating till I  have to cut him off.

So I've given in.   Who has time to fight a battle like that day after day?  I sure don't!  So I've resigned myself to buying jar after jar of PC Organics green bean/apple puree.  The kid can't get enough of it.

Over the past week he's also added books and stickers to his daily diet.  I keep finding him gagging up pages of the kid's books and Emerson's stickers.  Things like this happen when you've got other kids in the house...

Moving on.

He's done his time in the jolly jumper.  His older siblings have also done their time in timeouts due to the fact that they CANNOT keep their hands off of him.  "How high can we swing him?" has become the name of the game around here.

Gives me a heart attack to see this kid hurtling through the at high speeds...

Sawyer enjoyed plenty of beach time over the summer-- he enjoyed it much more than the picture may indicate.  The kid definitely got around-- we went to just about every lake/beach in the area multiple times.  A good summer was had by all...

Sleep?  What is is?  This kid rarely sleeps at nights.  My other two were sleeping through the night early on.  Sawyer however wakes up 3-4 times a night (and sometimes more) screaming at the top of his lungs until I feed him.  And let me tell you this kid can SCREAM... like ear drum shattering, headache inducing screams.  There is no volume control-- it's always LOUD.  When you've gotta be heard over two other kids, you do your best, right?

 Unfortunately, Sawyer will not nurse or drink from a bottle most of the day as he's so incredibly distracted by anything or anyone around him.  If I can find a completely dark, completely silent room-- there is a chance that he MIGHT nurse during day time hours.  But with the two older crazy kids running around that never happens... so we wake up at night... all night long.

One day I'll sleep for more than 2 hours at a time... one day.

And every so often this happens when we're out running errands during the day... when you're up all night sometimes you just gotta crash in the grocery store... right??  I wish.

Sawyer's been sitting on his own for a a few months now.. and is starting to flop onto his belly as he attempts to reach the older kid's toys (and stickers, and storybooks-- yummy.).  Caleb and Emerson were both late crawlers and didn't walk until after their first birthdays... so I'm thinking it could be a while before this kid is mobile.  Thank goodness!!!

By the end of the summer he was confidently sitting on the beach beside me... and was likely scheming to himself, "How can I get that sand into my mouth?  Surely it's gotta taste better than that food my mom makes for me..."

Seriously though, I cannot believe how fast the last 8.5 months have flown by... this kid is growing up fast!

Before I knew it he was 8 months old and in just over a week will be reaching the 9 month mark.

Sawyer's a handful-- much more so than my other kids-- with his night owl, homemade food hating, intense screaming tendencies.  But we sure do love him.  Couldn't imagine life without him.

I've made it this far on almost no sleep and extreme amounts of coffee... pretty sure I can make it a little while longer :)

Thankful

I interrupt the radio silence around here to say Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Life is busy as ever around here... and so full.  I love life with these three kiddos and am so incredibly grateful to be their mama.

Hope you all have a great weekend celebrating with family and reflecting on how blessed we are.

And eat some turkey why don't ya!!

why I love thrift stores...

That little seascape picture had me at hello when I was

browsing at a local thrift store a while back.

I love that it's unique and adds personality to my kitchen... and it was $4... how can you not

love that price tag!!

Happy long weekend everyone!

changing things up

The other day I got the urge to re-arrange my bookcases in the living room.

Suddenly everything was down off the shelves and scattered all over the floor-- and the kids are running around creating a major mess.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds themselves in this situation on a regular basis.

Thank goodness my sister was around... she organized my books by color and size and then helped me put it all back together.  I was loving the way it looked in the morning light today so I whipped out my camera and snapped a few...

Don't let these perfect pictures fool you... behind the scenes there was a whole lot of horsing around going on...

That little white elephant I scooped up at a thrift store a few months ago finally found it's perfect home. Makes me smile.

I got the urge to have a little fun in the entryway.  A couple weeks ago I found a whole stack of vintage-y landscape paintings and pictures at a thrift store-- $20 later the entryway feels a lot more fun and summer-like.

The lifejackets have really been hanging there all summer-- not staged.  I promise.

Anyhow-- I've been loving how "summer-y" the house has been feeling lately.  Hard to believe that fall is fast approaching!!