New Haircuts

The boys have all been in dire need of new haircuts so guess what we did for family home evening tonight...

BEFORE:



AFTER:

I know Walker's head looks horrible, but that's another story for another day.

Look at all that beautiful red hair!

Luke got a haircut too but was much too sleepy and ornery to pose for the after shots. I'll have to get those later!

Crayon Roll

While I may have been slacking a bit in the blogosphere, I promise I am not slacking in the crafting world! This is one thing I have been working on ...

It's a crayon roll!!!

I've seen these around before and was trying to think of something to do with all the scraps of material I had from the aprons I've been making, I figured these would be perfect.

I am making one more so the boys can each have their own and I figured they would be perfect for church, road trips and rainy days.

Here are a few more pictures -

Where The Wild Things Are

I just heard about this and I am so very excited!!

Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is one of our boys' very favorite books and they've gone and made a movie out of it! A full-length film!!!

Yay!!! My boys are gonna be stoked!

It's supposed to be released in October of this year. That's gonna be a long 7+ months!

My favorite part is at the end when they, "Roar their terrible roars, and gnash their terrible teeth, and roll their terrible eyes and show their terrible claws!"

So tell me... what do you think of the trailer? I think it looks absolutely fabulous!!!

Something A Little Different

I like this song. I think it's really quite beautiful. But I LOVE this video. It's so new - and fresh -and unique!

(You'll have to press pause on the player on the right side of my blog so you can listen to this song!)

Paper Flowers

This is what I did while Mike and I watched our favorite Monday night T.V. shows...
(and yes, I do realize it is Tuesday night but we don't have cable and choose to download instead!)

I made these all out of scrap paper I had lying around cause I didn't want to waste any good paper until I got a feel for making them. The yellow one is my favorite, and that's the only one I actually had a pattern for, go figure.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll make more of these in the future. I think they'd be great on the outside of a birthday package, or any other gift for that matter.

You can find a tutorial on how to make your own from this crafty girl HERE!

Happy Crafting!!!

Is Your Name On It? Why yes... it is!

I gave the boys some markers and paper the other day so they could draw some pictures and practice their letters while I got dinner going. They were having a grand old time and I discovered that Walker can write most of his letters. Very neatly, I might add! I didn't even know he could do this since every time me or Mike tries to help him or teach him something he adamantly refuses and runs off to play dress up. I'm proud of the little guy.

I'm proud of Porter too. Cause without him we would still be suffering mass confusion every night when we sit down to eat, not sure who's chair is who's. Because sitting in the same seats for three meals a day, every. single. day. can apparently still be confusing. Who knew?

I suppose this one could be confusing since Porter and Walker share chairs. I guess that's why it's "Porters end Wakers cher somtims" Hey, I'm just happy he used a lower case 'e' on his name. We've been working on that one for a while!

Lucky for me he picked the only permanent marker in the bunch to mark his territory.

Homemade Cards

For our Ladies Craft Day this past Wednesday we had so much fun making corner bookmarks and cards. Since I had made enough bookmarks to last a lifetime I went with the cards.

Here are how mine turned out...


(The inside of the above card is sportin' this little lady. Isn't she a cutie?)




(The inside of the above card...)



(The above card has this little lady and her cute hat on the inside.)

Looking back I realize I must have been in a blue and green mood. Not sure what that means...

Ok, just Googled it and apparently blue means tranquil and calm, and green means calming and refreshing. Makes sense since these were made while hanging with my girls!

Thanks for another great Wednesday ladies!

Snow, Snow, Go Away!!

Um..... did I miss something? It is spring right?

The men in my life got tired of dressing like eskimos so they decided that even though it was snowing like crazy, they were going to pretend it was spring. (Hence the shorts and no socks.)

Mike even convinced the boys that they should go outside and sun bathe. They were on board for about 3 seconds. Just long enough for me to grab my camera!

Mike even took an ice cold Coke Zero out. Crazy guy!

And Luke was just a little more convinced that he was born into a very strange family.

Lesson Learned : Don't Mess With Exercisin' Mamma's!

Last Tuesday night (St. Patrick's Day, if you couldn't tell by all the green in the photos below), the Young Women from our church challenged the 'older' women (anyone over 18 yrs. old) to a basketball.

Uh... girls.... I don't think you realize what you are asking here. I mean, you want a bunch of middle-aged, cabin fevered, child rearing women to get out on the court and try to act like civilized human beings while getting some exercise?!?

We, of course, accepted said challenge.

After all, every mom, wife, aunt and grandma, (yes, some playing were grandmothers, although you would never be able to guess which ones) needs an excuse to get out of the house sometime.

Well, the challenge was met, the game played and all with only a few bumps and bruises to show for it. Good times!

And not that I was really paying attention but...

The 'Oldies' schooled the 'Young'ns'

Can I get a WOOT! WOOT!?




The 'Oldies'...

Um, yeah, I know it's hard to believe but many of these ladies are moms to multiple children and some are even grandmas! Bunch of hotties huh!?!

The 'Young'ns'

Ok, I should mention here that these young ladies played really well. Many of them were only 12 years old and playing against retired 'Viqueens' (hahaha, does that actually mean anything?). They did great!




And just a cute picture of two of my favorite people!
Mindy and Tiff

Oh, and a big shout out to Tiff who had GREAT team spirit and thought to bring some face paint and give us all a little somin' somin', you know, to intimidate the competition! :)

And one last shout out to our ref. Thanks Austin. You did a great job. Way to keep things fun and not too competitive. No one got hurt and we all had a great time, even if you did call a technical foul on me that was SO undeserved! Seriously people, VERY undeserved! :)

Advice Needed!

So Mike and I have been going back and forth since July on whether we should build a house or buy an existing home. We wanted to see what was out there in our price range and I'm pretty sure we have looked at nearly every house that has come on the market since we moved here in July. There have been, I think, two that we could maybe see ourselves in, but they would need some serious updating and work before we would feel 'at home'.

We have also been talking to a General Contractor for a little while now, trying to get ideas on building costs and home construction.

After much thought and prayer and back and forth we have finally decided that for the price of what we could buy a home for and the money we would have to put into it to fix it up, we could build something brand spankin' new! Something that was ours from the get go and built just the way we like it.

Anyway, onto the 'advice needed' part...

So we have been looking at house plans extensively for sometime now and have, so far, narrowed it down to three contenders. Now, these are not for sure the three finalists but they are our favorites thus far and we have searched high and low to find them so, will you please take a minute and tell me what you think? Which is your favorite and why, and what don't you like? I would love to hear from you because I think you all might find things that are great and things that are not so great, things we didn't even think of.

I'll tell you what we like and don't like about each plan just so you can get and idea of what we are looking for and where we are at.

And just in case the pictures are too small, I'll add the links so you can go directly to the websites that these homes are posted on and you can see bigger pictures and more information there.

You also might be able to click on the photos below and then go to a new window where the photos are bigger. Not sure on that though.

I'm so excited to hear your feedback!!!

House #1 - The Chalkrock

Things we like :

-Karli really like the exterior look on this house.

-We love where the garage is on this house. The lot that we are getting is on a hill and we think that this garage will work really well with where the house will be on the lot.

-The master suite is exactly what we like.
- We really like the way the stairs are laid out in the entry.
- There is a ton of bonus room upstairs where we could wall one of the bonus parts off and make it an office for Mike (this is a must in any home we build due to Mike working from home).
- We really like the open floor plan.
- This house has the least square footage, which mean $$$ saved!

Things we don't like:

-We would have to wall off one of the bonus rooms to put Mike's office in, and that would then require putting another set of stairs in, probably in the laundry room. (We really want his office to be totally seperate from the rest of the house.)
- We would need to change the laundry room into a mudroom. If you're not from Northern B.C. you might question this, but anyone living up here will agree with us 100% . A mudroom is a MUST!
- The kitchen is a little on the small side. (But I could totally deal with this.)
- There is no pantry in the kitchen. Bummer!
- Mike doesn't love the outside look of the house.
- There is no place for a bathroom for Mike in his 'office'.
- Would prefer walk-in closets in the rooms upstairs.
- Basically, we would have to make a lot of changes to the floorplan to get what we really want.

House #2 - The Yellow House (as we lovingly call it).

Things we like:

-Mike really likes the look of this house.
- The garage placement would work well for us.
- Lot's of open room.
- Decent sized kitchen, with pantry.
- Rec room and Bonus room upstairs, so plenty of space to make an office for Mike.
- Shop in the garage for Mike to build me stuff :)
- Love where the fireplace is because we really want to make is share a chimney and put a fireplace outside on the porch too. We had this at our last home and LOVED it!
- Plumbing a bathroom in the bonus room would be relatively easy for an office for Mike.

Things we don't like:

- Karli doesn't love the outside of the house.
- Don't love the master bathroom and closet placement.
- Again, the laundry would have to be turned into a mudroom and the laundry put downstairs.
- Don't love the foyer/entry, with the stairs right there when you walk in.
- Don't like the upstairs bathroom but think we can easily make it more functional.
- Again, for Mike's office we would have to wall it off and make another staircase in the laundry/mudroom for access.
- Basically, again, a lot of changes to the plans to get it to where we want it.

House #3 - The Big House (again, don't know it's real name so we made it up) :)

Things we like:

-This is the biggest of the three homes by quite a bit, so it has most everything we need/want already in the floor plans. We wouldn't have to make many changes.
- Mike and Karli both really like the look of this house.
- The kitchen is BANG-A-RANG! (and it has a little pantry)!
- Love the open kitchen and family room.
- Like that the stairs aren't right off the foyer.
- Great master suite.
- LOVE that there is already a second set of stairs to a space for Mikes office, WITH a bathroom already in the plans!!!
- There is already one more bedroom than we would need so we could fit another baby in there, should the need arrise, (no, I am NOT making an announcement)! Or it would make a great guest room.
- You can't see it, but the back of this house is STELLAR!!!
- Every room has a nice walk-in closet.

Things we don't like:

-This is the biggest of the three houses which means more $$$.
- The laundry would have to become a mudroom, with the laundry going downstairs. (Do you sense a pattern here?)
- The three car garage is a bit much. We would probably take off the extra garage, thus making the bonus area over top of it obsolete too. (Which isn't a huge deal since there is still room for Mike's office).
- Who really needs a second bedroom suite in their home anyway? I mean, it's nice and everything but we would probably take out the extra bathroom in bedroom #2 to save on money. (That's what I'm telling Mike, but I just don't want to clean another bathroom!) :)

- So once again, a few changes to the house plans.

Now, we know that we will probably never find a home that has exactly what we want in it. Well, unless we visit an architect and have something custom done, but we aren't really into that, aka. don't want to pay the extra $$$. We understand that a few changes will need to be made to any plan and we are willing to do that.

So, now tell me what YOU think!

Chet and Angela

A while back I took some photos of my cousin Chet and his beautiful bride Angela. It's taken me a while but I finally finished editing them and wanted to share a few of the finished photos with you.

Oh, and it was about -30*C the morning we took these photos and Chet and Angela were real troopers! A few fingers may have frozen during the shoot but we managed! :)




This is the same photo as the one above, just using a different Photoshop action.
This was Angela's idea. I thought it was funny and a 'vintage' action in Photoshop added just the right touch!

Th obligatory 'under the veil' shot.



And of course, the beautiful bride!

Congratulations Chet and Angela, and thanks for letting me a part of this special time in your lives!