It's really really done

Today is an exciting day because I'm telling you now-- MY KITCHEN IS DONE!!!!

All the little electrical details, the touch up painting, the little tweaking... done.

I snapped this picture a few days ago to commemorate the occasion.  This is really my absolute favourite spot of the kitchen.  Fav.  Makes me smile and grin like a fool every time I walk into the room.

One of these days I'll take a few more pics to show you the kitchen in all it's fully finished glory.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy it.  And try to keep it clean...

Stay tuned for more!!

Over the Weekend

Friday night.  Doug and I dropped the kids off (ALL the kids) and took off for the evening.  It was the first time since January that we had been away from the kids.  I pumped all week in preparation.  Maybe you can tell-- we weren't excited at all...

Kidding.  We were actually very excited.  Because we went to see Mumford and Sons!  So fun to see them perform live and outdoors in the park!  They definitely put on a good show.

We were feeling pretty youthful that night so we even bought t shirts.  I wore mine all weekend.

Friday was about us-- Saturday was all about the kids.  Doug and I have been talking about buying a trampoline for the backyard for a while now, since Doug had a rare Saturday at home we decided it would be the perfect day to buy the one we've been eyeing and set it up!

You cannot imagine how excited our older two kids were.  They have grown to love jumping on their cousin's trampoline, so the thought of having one of their own was pretty much the best thing ever!

Just look at the smile on Caleb's face.  Can it get any bigger?  I think not.

Since we have the trampoline now we've decided to retire our above ground pool (aka Gladys) for this year.  I was feeling a little apprehensive about setting it up this summer since I have to watch the kids like a hawk anytime they play in the backyard with the pool around and because it's a lot of work to maintain during the summer.  

This trampoline doesn't have any exposed springs or metal bars and has a huge cage to keep them on the trampoline as they're jumping-- so I feel like it is a much safer backyard activity for them.

It's pretty great to zip them in and let them jump their little hearts out.  I foresee many early bedtimes in the near future!  

I don't want to leave anyone out... so I'll just throw a quick picture of little S-dog up on the old blog today.  Just when I think he can't possibly get any cuter I wake up and bam-- he's 10 times cuter than the day before.

Melts my heart.  Especially when he sleeps through the night THREE nights in a row!

Switch Up

Over the past few weeks (or make that months) we've been working on adding some much needed storage to our living room.  This weekend we pushed to finish.  Here's a peek at what we've been up to.

Custom cabinetry-- finished the kitchen.  Moved on to the next room...

Took down the mirror and framed one of my pictures from our Italy trip! 

Don't you love those azaleas from my front garden?  I snipped those branches 5 days ago and they still look amazing!

I'd post more details, but let's be honest.  After a weekend of work I'm exhausted :)

Will someone please make it 1000??

Just noticed that I have 999 pinterest followers.

Will some one please make it 1000?

pulled out the spray paint again

I bought this little table at a thrift store last September.  It was an ugly reddish brown colour.  

It may look okay in this picture but in real life it was real ugly.

But last weekend I whipped out a can of white spray paint.  

Turns out there was cute little table hiding in there!  

I love cheap thrift store finds.  I love white spray paint.  I love this little table.

The end.

ps- If I'm painting it white I always spray.  It is WAY easier.

pps- Always prime with Kilz no matter what kind of paint you plan on using.  The BEST.  Spray it on-- instant stain blocking and instant perfect surface to apply your paint.

ppps- I used Rustoleum Painter's Touch.  Used it a few times now and love it.

Five Fav's

Happy Monday everyone!  Since I can't think of anything else to blog about today... I figured we'd do another list of top 5's again this fantastic Monday morning...

1.  Sunny Beaches.  We packed up the kids and enjoyed a Saturday at Stanley Park.  It was so much fun-- we came home that evening with a couple of happy, smiling, sandy kids.

2.  New Earrings!  I pretty much never wear jewelry, especially earrings.  I probably haven't worn earrings in close to 4 years since dangly ones drive me bonkers and because my ears are so sensitive it's almost impossible to find earrings that I don't react to.  But I've been seeing some really cute studs out there lately and was getting worried that my earring holes were going to grow closed.  So I decided to give these ones from Stella and Dot a try.  And.... LOVE them!  They can be dressy or casual, they don't dangle and drive me nuts, and I can wear them all day without breaking out into hives.  I've started wearing them a few days a week...  

3.  Summer haircuts in the backyard.  I don't know about you, but BBQ's and buzz cuts seem to go together in our house.  Caleb was not a fan.  He screamed in terror for the duration of his haircut.

But then I snapped a picture of his new hairdo and showed it to him.  And he loved it.  Can't stop rubbing his head.  Can't stop making other people rub his head.  All the rubbing might drive his teacher crazy today...

4.  Starbucks half price Fraps!!  I've had a Starbucks card burning a hole in my pocket over the past few weeks so I've been putting it to good use lately AND using up a whole lotta gas driving around town to hit up the Starbuck's with the drive thru's.  Seriously... can they just put one of those drive thru's in the middle of town?  I would be there daily...

5.  And for number 5.... I'm going to have to go with smiling babies in... what do you call these things anyways?  Rompers?  A one piece?  A bodysuit?  Well anyways, it's cute.  And you can get it here.  I think I'm going to have to wait for a crazy Gap 40% off sale and grab a few more one piece outfits for the little guy since they have SO many cute ones for summer.

And that concludes today's five favourites.

today I learned...

Today I learned that little boys who dress themselves will inevitably begin to choose outfits that their dad would select-- sweatpants and grey from head to toe.

I learned that grocery shopping takes twice as long as normal when you discover in the check out line that you forgot your wallet at home.  Eme thought the whole thing was hilarious and sang songs in the van about mommy forgetting her wallet all the way home and back to the store.  Made the decision to laugh and not cry.  And then I grabbed some chocolate and learned that...

The combination of chocolate, toasted coconut, and cashews really is quite amazing.

Today I was slightly horrified to learn that Eme isn't sad that Sawyer's going for his shots today-- she's actually quite excited about it.  Every 5 minutes she asks if it's time to go take Sawyer for his needle yet...  poor little guy.

I learned that I can eat a whole sandwich in 33 seconds-- which is the amount of time it took for me to warm up Eme's food in the microwave.  It is also the amount of free time I had available to eat my lunch.

Emerson learned how to sharpen pencil crayons today.  And I learned that her ability to trash my house is growing daily.  Apparently one must sharpen pencils in every room of the house...

And finally, I learned that my littlest man is becoming quite the chatterbox.  Cutie.

Five Favs

Here are 5 of my favourite things right now...

New Pillows.

Chubby Cheeks.

Neon summer shoes.  I can spot my kids escaping from a mile away.

Finding 50 photos like this on my phone.  And 10 new videos.

How well my kids all get along.

That's it.

Relieved

Feeling relieved... that I didn't screw up Caleb's first ever school project.

I do not have a green thumb... so when his teacher announced that all the kids had to begin growing plants at home to bring to school for a project I was a bit worried.  We planted... and waited... and waited... and finally.  They're growing!!!  Not sure who was more excited-- Caleb or me!

And... I'm also relieved that it's the weekend!!

Hello weekend... I'm so glad you're here :)

Kantha Throws

I spotted this gorgeous kantha throw on pinterest.

I followed the link and discovered a great little Canadian based company called dignify that sells one of a kind kantha throws and other goods.  Love their products.  Love their story and what they stand for.  Think I might have to do a little shopping on their site one of these days!

Their kantha throws are gorgeous.  I already have two that I purchased from West Elm a while back and love them.  

This one lives in the living room... Emerson is starting to enjoy snuggling up under the "pretty" blanket.  I don't blame her... I love pretty blankets too!

And the other more "boyish" looking one lives on the end of Caleb's bed.

If I would have heard about this company a few months ago-- I would have done my shopping there!  If you're looking for a unique item for your home (or are possibly scouting out a potential mother's day present for yourself) I'd check out dignify...

looking like a library around here...

I was a reader as a kid.  I loved to read.  Still am-- when I have time to sit down for an extended period of time.  As you can imagine, that almost never happens.  Over the past year I've tried to make a conscious effort to show my kids how awesome reading can be.  It all started when I saw our property tax statement from the previous year-- I noticed that we pay over $50 a year for library services.  $50!!  My menno instinct kicked in.  I pulled out my library card and started dragging my kids to the library weekly.

Over the past few months my kids have learned to love the library too.  Sure, a huge part of the library's appeal is the wheelchair button you can push to automatically open the doors, dropping the books in the slots at the front entrance, and the water fountain... but they are learning to love checking out books too.

Caleb has been signing out books with his own card now for the past few months.  We've been borrowing the "learning to read" books-- in September we started with the pre-level one books and he's now graduated to the level one and two books.  Initially the books were pretty challenging for him... you don't learn to read overnight... something I had to keep reminding him.  But once they started focusing on learning the sounds of letters in kindergarten everything started to click.  Suddenly Caleb was reading signs, and menus, and newspapers, and magazines-- sitting down and reading one of his books from start to finish was a breeze.

 A few days ago I took the kids to the library to sign out a stack of books.  Emerson picked her own book-- a book about trucks.  Not sure what she found so appealing about it, but she was pretty pumped about it.  This time around I decided to try something different for Caleb-- reading chapter books.  I figured it's about time he graduated from "picture" books.  We've started reading "The Jesus Storybook Bible" to him (fantastic kid's bible-- I'd highly recommend it) and was noticing that he was fully focused on what we were reading, not the pictures.

 So I picked up two of my favourites from my childhood... "Charlotte's Web" and "The Boxcar Children"-- the first book of the series.  He is LOVING it.  We started with the Boxcar Children and ended up reading almost 2/3 of the book on the first day.  Caleb snuggles up with me on the couch and listens to me read the story.   I try to get him to read a sentence or short paragraph here and there to give him confidence in the fact that he'll be able to read chapter books one day too.

Since we've been focusing on reading more around here, I've started picking up secondhand books at thrift stores for the kids.  I'd like to have more books accessible to them around the house.  Growing up, my Dad was an elementary school teacher (and still is) and had a huge collection of books that I could read.  I would like that for my kids.  There is something about having shelves full of books and stacks of them around the house that I find so appealing.

So... that got me thinking... maybe I could find a way to store some books in the older kids room.  Space is very limited, but this inspired me...

designed by Elizabeth Sullivan via Made By Girl

And this...

designed by Amber Lewis via House & Home

So I picked up a few shelves from Ikea and had Doug put them up in the kids room.  Initially I thought we could make them ourselves-- and we could.  But sometimes the money saved is not as important as the time saved... right?

The kids have obviously loved arranging and rearranging the shelves in their room.

We put up four of the shorter ones... they can actually store a whole lot of books.  And I've been putting some of the kids artwork up so that they have another spot to display their artistic endeavours.

Doug made sure they are fastened very very securely to the wall.  Like any mom, I have visions of the kids climbing up the shelves like a ladder.  Pretty sure it's going to happen one of these days.  But at least the shelves won't be going anywhere...

So... if you are in need of some book storage in a small space, pick up some of the Ribba picture ledges from Ikea-- we're loving them.

Crib Sheet Confession

I've made a few crib sheets in my day.  

Example #1

When the crib belonged to Emerson.

Example # 2 & 3...

(pictures not by me... obviously.)

** sidenote-- eating chocolate and typing at the same time is seriously difficult and messy.

Anyhow.  Back in the day I even did a little tutorial.  Sewing your own crib sheet can be a cheap (and more stylish) alternative to buying a pre-made crib sheet.  So when Sawyer arrived and he was a boy-- Eme's girly floral sheet just wasn't going to cut it.  I decided to do something boyish and started hunting for fabrics.  I wanted something more small scale so that it would be a contrast to what I did for Emerson.  I fell in love with this fabric from Spoonflower.

Indian Clover via Spoonflower

But alas, at $18 a yard it was going to be a little more $$ than I wanted to spend-- on JUST the fabric.  So, I decided to see if there were any pre-made options out there that I liked, because really-- with 3 kids, who has time to sew??  Serena and Lily had some great options and even sent me some free swatches.  Love that.  They were all great-- but not exactly what I had in mind originally.

But then Dwell Studio had a 30% off baby event.   And I found the perfect crib sheet for my little man.

With that said, Sawyer says:

"Welcome to my crib, yo."

It's pretty darn close to my original vision...

And considering that Sawyer slept for a full 10 hour stretch in his crib last night, I'd say he likes it alot.

Cutie.

This post was NOT brought to you by this pajama clad munchkin who's new favourite game is to climb into Sawyer's crib and "help" him wipe his nose.

So busted.

You can imagine how much the little guy appreciates her efforts.

projects are my love language

The other day Doug made my top secret hidden spice drawers look pretty.  Instead of looking at the melamine boxes when I open the cupboard beside the stove I see these pretty drawer fronts decked out with the left over drawer pulls from the rest of the kitchen.

They match the rustic wood open shelves Doug put up in the kitchen.  

They make me happy when I cook dinner.  

Little details like this make me happy.