Catching Up

I am so behind in my postings.  It overwhelms me.  I just didn't know where to find the time to catch up.  I'm making the time because I just can't stand the thought of having a huge gap in time.  While a lot of the pictures may seem boring or of poor quality, I'm posting for the sake of the moment it captures.  I hope to be back on track after this.  I have so much to post about M & G, they are growing up so fast and this is, after all, our journal.

In January George III builds a window seat in the living room.  The kids loved this project and the fort it became until it was completed.  Of course, my job of making the cushion and pillows is still left undone...

Sometimes George reminds me of Luke on Modern Family.  I often find him wearing this while taking a bath.

We celebrated Chinese New Year with Magnolia's Chinese School.  It was a great time.  Here they are decorating their dragons.

Magnolia played bean bag toss.  She also played a game where she had to hold a marshmallow between chopsticks and walk back and forth.  And, of course, she did it!

For Valentine's Day Magnolia had to write all of her classmate's names on their cards.  It took her all week to complete this project but she did it!  

That same week she celebrated 100 days at school.  She was assigned to count 100 Jelly Bellys to bring in to her class.  She also had to make a project using 100 items.  We counted out 100 coffee filters and glued them to paper.  It's so much fun being in preschool!

I brought up our sand and water table and filled it with beans and rice.  I found all kinds of things to play with, Valentine's Day inspired.  There were hearts shaped out of pipe cleaners, vases, fake flowers, scoops, heart jewels, pink and white pompons, cupcake liners.  Magnolia and George loved filling the vases with beans and rice and making me bouquets.  I tried to be patient with all of the rice and beans on the floor but by the third week, I stored it all away.  I will do it again next year, this was a hit!

Valentine's Day morning.  We all made and gave Valentines to each other.  Magnolia got another charm to add to her charm bracelet (a horse) and George got a little fire engine.

As with everywhere else, we had a record setting mild winter.  It was wonderful!  I had forgotten how nice winter can be when we're not buried in snow for months on end.  Here was one of the few snowfalls we had.  It was pretty while it lasted but we barely had any snow stay on the ground this year.

These two LOVED the snow this year.  Well, I should say that it was the first time George enjoyed it.  I dragged him around the yard on the sled and when he toppled over face first in the snow, he begged for more.  We only went sledding once.  It was at my parent's house.  They loved it.  Will be fun next year!

After Christmas I started to sew again.  I took over the guest room and started more projects that I could possibly finish.  With recent company, I cleaned up the room and vowed to tackle only one project at a time.  It's nearly impossible for me but I'm trying to stick to it.  Here's a little romper I made for George using an old dress shirt.  I'm dying to make him another for Easter.  I really hope I can get to it in time!

I made this shift for Magnolia out of Florence Eisemann fabric.  I'll always love her in yellow (first pics we saw of her she was wearing yellow).  While it's pretty short on her, she seems to pull it off.

George took a week off to stay at home.  It was so much fun.  We acted like tourists in our own city and did something fun everyday.  We tried new restaurants, went to museums, parks, walks, and shopped.  One day I let the kids make a Cookies and Cream Cake.

These two love to read.  One day I found Magnolia reading Go, Dog, Go! to George.

The first of March we traveled to South Bend, Indiana to host a baby shower for my cousin, Elizabeth.

My sister, mom, and sister-in-law all chipped in and it turned out really cute.

My mom did the favors, pink candles in a glass jar.

I found the location.  In the carriage house of the Oliver Mansion and next to the Studebaker Museum.

It was a very pretty place and perfectly intimate for our small group.

My mom also did the centerpieces, love them!

Foregoing games, we all did this instead.  It was cute, fun, and even a little tear jerking.  I ordered the pencils with baby Sarah's name and created these little cards myself.   Elizabeth is my  dad's sister's daughter.  She died of breast cancer when Elizabeth was only five.  When Elizabeth found out she was having a girl they named her Sarah (after her mother) and Kathryn (after our young cousin who recently passed).  Such a beautiful name!

My sister, Mary, did the food and drinks and my sister-in-law, Christina, ordered the fabulous desserts.

I brought all of my mom's old vintage tablecloths, some of my china, serving platters, and my mom's silver which is fittingly monogrammed with "S."

Mary brought the tissue poms which Elizabeth was happy to take home and hang in the nursery.

It was so much fun to see my family in South Bend and especially spend time with Elizabeth and her husband.

This is the museum where we had the party.

It was so pretty and so fun to have an all girls lunch!  I need to do that more often!

It was such a small group of us and it all went by so quickly that I didn't even photograph all of the guests.  I quickly got this shot of Elizabeth's good friend from high school reading aloud her wishes for baby Sarah.

And Elizabeth loved hearing them.

Yvonne's daughter was so cute helping Elizabeth open her presents.

While these last two are so blurry, they are my favorite.  I just love baby bumps!

We are so excited to hear of Sarah Kathryn's arrival!

While the shower was perfect and wonderful, so was the rest of our trip.  We got to see a lot of family and my brother and his family (who lives in MI).  Our hotel had a wonderful pool and the cousins couldn't get enough swimming.

George swam with all 9 cousins!

Oh, these two.  Peas in a pod.  Sophia and Magnolia.

This little guy kicked happily around the pool all by himself.

All of that swimming and this is what you get.

I think I'm finally up to date on late winter happenings.   Now I'm onto early spring...be back soon!

A tomte  (Sweden) (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈtɔ̀mːtɛ]),  is a humanoid mythical creature of Scandinavian folklore. The tomte or nisse was believed to take care of a farmer's home and children and protect them from misfortune, in particular at night, when the housefolk were asleep. The tomte/nisse was often imagined as a small, elderly man (size varies from a few inches to about half the height of an adult man), often with a full beard; dressed in the everyday clothing of a farmer. In modern Denmark, nisses are often seen as beardless, wearing grey and red woolens with a red cap. Since nisses are thought to be skilled in illusions and sometimes able to make themselves invisible, one was unlikely to get more than brief glimpses of him no matter what he looked like. Norwegian folklore states that he has four fingers, and sometimes with pointed ears. His eyes glow in the dark.

(source)

 I believe we have a tomten in our very own house!

One of our favorite books about the tomten!

(source)

Hope you're having a cozy weekend.  We just got snow, only the 3rd or 4th snowfall of the year for us.  Has me thinking of the tomten.  :)

I love our new kitchen.  It was so much fun to do.  Some decisions were tough but I can honestly say that I'm happy with everything we did. 

I spend A LOT of time in here.  I would say 90% of my day I'm cooking, cleaning, doing art projects, homework, talking on the phone, paying bills, making lists.  With that said, it's pretty much a mess all day long.  By 9pm each evening I scrub it clean ready to start all over again the next day.  This particular morning I decided to shoot some photos while the morning sun came shining in and I had it fairly clean...  

We kept the sink in its original place.  We choose a knock-off Kohler single basin stainless sink but splurged on the Kohler bridge faucet.  I love my sink.  I can hide a whole lot of dirty dishes in there and easily scrub big pots and pans.  

I initially wanted open shelves along this entire wall but feared it could be a negative point to such a nice kitchen if we had to sell.  We decided to do open shelves here and I'm so glad we did.  I love that it breaks up the monotony of cabinets and gives me the chance to give the kitchen more personality.

I have yet to change out these things since the summer.  All of the colors are just so happy!  I'm thinking about stacking all of my white dishes next.  It will be wonderfully functional with the dishwasher right there.

This is our new entry from the kitchen to the dining room.  It used to be off to the right, a much smaller swinging door.  This has made a HUGE difference to the flow between the two rooms.  We debated installing doors here but decided they could be added later.  So far, we haven't missed them.  I love that one can be in the dining room and still have a conversation with someone in the kitchen.  And, this end of the kitchen has another drawer of flatware and the shelves in the dining room hold cups and dishes making it super easy to serve meals on this end.

I really wanted marble countertops.  I know they are high maintenance but I really love them.  We decided to go with soapstone instead.  The black counters with white cabinets were a classic look that  matched our classic 1930s colonial.  On this small section we decided to try the marble.  We had it honed so it would be less maintenance.  I have no regrets.  I love that I fit marble in somewhere and so far it has been easy.  Also, it makes this area designated for baking and the marble is wonderful for that.

The hardwood floors might very well be my favorite new part.  They were matched to the rest of the floors in the house.  They still look clean when dirty and they bring a lot of warmth to a very white kitchen.

This is the view coming into the kitchen from the dining room.  It's almost the same layout as before. We just pushed the counters down and created the peninsula where the place for a kitchen table used to be. It's a great big peninsula with room to seat four.  We also chose to do all drawers here in the cabinets, foregoing the lazy susan cabinet.  Instead, putting a hidden cabinet in the corner behind the peninsula.  It gives it a much cleaner look.  I looked for a long time for wallpaper on this wall and knew immediately this was the one as soon as I saw it.  The green mimics the green drapes in the dining room perfectly.  If I could have afforded it, I would have wallpapered the entire kitchen in it but it would have been way, way too expensive.

I think the lighting decisions were the hardest.  Only because we had the electrician wire for fixtures before I even decided what those fixtures would be.  The entire house has much of its original brass fixtures and door handles.  I love them and have no intention changing them.  I didn't think silver fixtures and hardware would work so we decided to go with oil rubbed bronze.  These green pendants, however, were the exception.  I was stuck on what to do here but when I found these at Land of Nod for $35 each, we decided to go with them.  They are fun, cheerful, current and can easily be replaced.  That goes for the hardware too.  We ordered our cabinets at a time when they offered to throw in our hardware for free.  I immediately chose these not knowing they were they only ones that were solid brass and would have cost $1,500 if we had purchased them.  I guess others chose the same because they were backordered for a long time and it was like pulling teeth opening cabinets for a while.  We figured we'd use them for a while and eventually replace them.  They've actually grown on me, I really like them!

Now you'll have to see the before pictures because opening this wall really changed the feel of the kitchen and the entire flow of the house.  It used to be a small wall with openings of either side.  Now it's wide open.  It makes the kitchen feel bigger and the mudroom feel bigger.  The train station clock is wonderful here because we can check the time while eating breakfast and check the time on the other side when putting on shoes and coats.  This wall used to have a wall of closets with folding doors.   I really wanted a bench, a place to sit and take off shoes.  After the tall cabinets were installed George built the bench and shelf in between.  I made the cushion from an old couch cushion and covered it in fabric I got at a Florence Eisemann factory sale.  I found the hooks at a garage sale for six dollars.  They were solid brass so we just sprayed them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint (which does a great job!).  I used old Trader Joe peach boxes, sprayed them white and stenciled 1, 2, 3, 4 on them.  The hall ceiling fixtures (we needed two, the hall extends in the other direction) were a wonderful reproduction of the original schoolhouse light.  I found them at Lowes for under $30!

This space has been wonderful to get the kids shoes on, take naps, or curl up with books while I cook in the kitchen.

My mom passed along an oil on canvas that really wasn't good.  I painted over it and then traced our hands.  I dated the underside and hung cup hooks for a place to serve not only as some colorful art but hang our keys.

I hang out here a lot.  One of those drawers is my junk drawer and my cookbooks are here too.

Having new countertops we needed some cutting boards.  I picked up a couple at various stores but George was inspired to make his own.  The one you see here he made out of, I think, hickory.  I LOVE this board.  It's such hard wood, you can never see the cut marks.  The grain is beautiful to boot.  He also made his own "brand" which is pretty cool.  I swear he could sell these!

Here's another cutting board he made.  I love the rustic edge on this one.  Very cool, very one of a kind.  I got one heck of a gem for a husband!  :)

So, there you have it.  Sorry it took so long.  I guess I've been so busy enjoying it I haven't taken the time to share it with you!

I should mention that it was my brother in law who did all of this fantastic work, it was fun to work with him and I'm so grateful that our first remodel was by someone we know and trust.
Sure made it easy!!!  Thank you, Tim!!!

(here is our kitchen before)

Life

 Magnolia 11 mos.

George 10 mos.

Where does the time go?  It's flying by every second of the day and I feel like I'm racing to keep up, not wanting to miss a second of it.  Not wanting it to end so soon.  Wanting to enjoy it as much as I can.  I do my best, I really do.  Looking back at photos makes me always so grateful that I've taken so many.  It sparks a memory I might not always remember.  Like Magnolia spoon feeding George when he was a baby or climbing all over their daddy as soon as he comes home from work. So many memories and so many stories to tell...


I'm so happy with the life I've been given.

It's official!

Our house is now available to rent!

I've created a new blog devoted entirely to Washington Island, Wisconsin.

Check it out here (or the link on the sidebar).

Or, bypass our blog completely and head straight to Door County Vacation Rental to get more info on our house.  We're #116 Judy.

It's a wonderful place to be.  Spread the word to anyone you know who really wants to get away.