Bright sunshiney day

Not only is it above zero today, and above 10 or 20... today is above 40 degrees!

We played outside!  We absorbed the vitamin D as happiness flowed through our veins!  We did some manual labor building our "playground"... Today is divine!

Now on account of Tulah not really being down to pose in photos unless she's had her coffee and a waiver has been signed and approved, I will now share with you the cuteness of one half of my offspring.  I'm not quite sure how this happened, but we're entering territory of Infinite Cuteness. But clearly he knows this, so I'm hopeless.

So one or one of you have asked about this "acre" I refer to... Here it is.  Awe-inspiring, isn't it?  It's hard to tell how big it feels until you are in it.  As long as you're not standing in our yard right after you've been on a REAL homestead, with REAL acres and open space.  We're not rural, but we kinda country :)

Some might say this is just a large backyard.  I call it my large backacre.

Gotta go, someone's awake and I haven't even started laundry yet.  Zoiks!

Thankful hiney rolls

I would like to state, for the record, that we purchased prime sunset-capturing property here.  Look at the view we had from our little balcony the other night!!  Unedited photos.

 So lively.

 mellow finish

 And oh the Thanksgiving sunrise in our backyard was a beaut too.  I don't really know how to capture the magnificence, and it wasn't as dynamic as the sunset two nights ago, but it was a lovely wake-up :)

such a rustic Almost-Acre, isn't it!

How was your Thanksgiving??
Don't you wish we could have all been together?  I do.  If you're reading this I'm betting I wish we were closer together than we are.  Except I know my sweet Ma-in-Law reads up on our happenings, so to you I say, thank you for a wonderful cozy day!

So Thanksgiving started off with the majesty and artistry only God and his friend Mama Natura can provide.  I got to work on my contributions to dinner at Grammy's house.  I made sweet potatoes with bacon, homemade mac-n-cheese, "thankful" rolls, and apple cider floats that I forgot to bring with me.  I guess we'll have to find a way to enjoy them at home.



Roo helped me with the thankful rolls... I saw them on Pinterest: the only place in the world where little rolls stuffed with a note in the middle does not look embarrassingly like tiny hineys with a letter in the mailbox.  Like ours--------->

awkward.









BUT!  Inside, Tulah wrote down what she was thankful for, and listed everyone who was going to be at dinner.  Plus homes and friends and pets.  She sounded out all of the words on her own, no help from mama. 


trisha, eric
(I love that... Trish-uh :)
jaxson, nick
lois, ginny
grammy, knox
tulah, pets
friends, homes














Our anniversary was the next day, so the kids spent the night with Grammy a couple of nights.  Thank you Grammy!  We said good-night after the turkey shenanigans ended, not knowing what to do with our time.  So we went to the new James Bond where I learned that PG-13 is NOT what it used to be!  Yikes.

Friday we went to our FAAAAAAVORITE surplus building supply store, Extras, and picked out ALL OF OUR TRIMMINGS FOR THE BOARD AND BATTEN WALLS WE'RE DOING IN THE LIVING ROOM!!!!  For TWENTY FIVE PERCENT OFF of the already thrift-improvement-store prices.  Happy anniversary to us!  We went home with a truck full of baseboards, battens, top rails, and new 4" door/window casings too.  Oh, and a new storm door that Hubby is thrilled about installing :)  Whatever, it was a $100 Anderson door (normally $400) and fits right in with the look of our windows, and this one won't blow and bang all over the place when those prevailing westerlies blow through!

In this house we really don't want to use new materials if we don't have to, we don't want synthetic junk if we can avoid it, and definitely don't want mdf and particle board when we could use less chemical-laden and formaldehyde-free alternatives.  Like wood for example.  Which tends to be oh so pricey when you have to buy it new... Except at Extras! Want to know how stinking affordable it all was?  A hint.  7" baseboards of lovely alder wood (yes that's right... SEVEN INCH BASE!!) we ended up getting for around $1.60 a foot.  That might sound like a fourth of the price elsewhere, and that's because it IS. 

The board and battens are gonna be great in our living room because I DESPISE the knock-down texture in there.  Ready to get it covered up, and add character to the big, quick-built box.  Now that we could finally gather and afford what we needed to do the wainscoting, we thought it would be a cinch to get started.  Unfortunately, that lovely wood grain and innocent little knot holes are begging not to be covered in paint.  Like in pathetic little voices, mere whispers in the night.  I was wanting originally to do white board and batten to about 6 ft high, and paint black on the wall above it (even though I get a lot of weird looks when I mention that...)  Anyway, now found all the wood we need, we are thinking twice about painting it all.  We've got a plan in our heads to do some alternative staining, but it's a bold risk and will be a lot of work to redo if we don't loooove it.  I'd like to share the two or three ideas with you, but I also just want to post a bunch of "after" photos when it's all done and knock your socks off.

The weather has been beautiful up until today.  Today has its perks too, the gloom and drear and drizzle inviting me and my sweets to stay in and be the laziest of all lazies, watching way too many PBS shows while I clean and prepare the living room for the future wainscoting mess. But last week... weather worth posting about.  70's and sunny, boldly daring us to venture out.  Winter, you are super late.  Al Gore nailed it I guess.

Wore his goggles everywhere last week.  He had two pairs, and I asked him one day if he could let Roo have one.  He said, "No, dese Iron Man doddles (goggles) and they have iron in dem, they fo my fwiends not Tuwah, she my sister."

love her.  And thankful she let me get some pictures-- always playing hard to get

Those cheeks look kissable because they ARE!!!

And this is why I call her my little Sparkle.

This mama is a lucky one.  A thankful one.

I think I'll make it a snappy new day, ok?

Have you felt neglected, little blog page?
I understand.
I have things to show you!  Pretty things, fun things, snappy things!
But first, a word from my little sleepy sponsor:

We are officially moving on our new floors, and starting to move IN to our home!  Oh thank you dear Lord.

Now you know I wanted tons of contrast and character, and Nick really wanted floors just like what we have now.  I am celebrating that I can say I am happy with how they turned out, and happy that they're the perfect combo of Nick's tastes and mine.  I can compromise :)

Want to show you some of my favorite parts of the floors:

love the knot holes, so happy they stuck around.

a lot of the texture remained through the sanding, yay!

Nature, you so pretty.

The other night we had some super fussy winds blow through CO.  We were staying at our yellow house of course, just imagining the worst at the new house since it's further west.  Well the next morning everything was fine... The aspens in front are still standing, which means that our living and bedroom are still intact.  Great.  We did discover, however that it is definitely Fall INSIDE our house.  

Leaves blew through our not-so-trusty windows!  How did this happen?  

As I stood there, I realized that there was a breeze coming in that could blow my hair back.  We are going to need to replace those suckas the second we close on our yellow house!  

Speaking of which, our closing date got moved up by 10 days!  Whoa, wait, is that right??  We were excited but freaking out slightly at the news of all we had to do in the next four days.

     Then we found out we were right, that we were still closing on the 30th.  Pumping the brakes on the "what kind of projects can we tackle once we sell??!" excitement.  Like, new windows that will not allow a blizzard inside our home.  Please Lord, please let us make it to closing this time!!!

Knox and Roo have been having fun in the yard, setting up gardens and obstacles and bagging up dirt to give as presents.  Such generous children.

Knox is hauling a timber to use as a balance beam. 

They have been coloring, writing, drawing, pretending, playing soccer in our big-ish open and empty rooms, all week... I am so proud of them!  I have gotten so much done.  But what's better is that I've gotten so much done AND I've kept my wits.  Always an accomplishment.  Today I got their entire ceiling finished (just a minute and I'll show you pictures) while they played.  WHAT?!  Well it helped it was taped already but you know.  

Today especially was amazing.  Naturally it started off incredibly cranky (Knox.  Every single morning.) and I was not in the mood for it.  But what choice did I have but to DECIDE to be in the mood for it!  I said to myself when times got crank, "I think I'll make it a snappy new day!"  I'm not sure if I said that necessarily, or the Mister Roger's throwback cartoon theme song was just stuck on repeat in my head.  Have you seen Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood?  It's cute, really Super Why-esque (since it's created by the same people) but it's cute.  The beginning song was stuck in my head. Maybe the (unshakeable) mantra worked and I made it through the earliest morning hours with deep breaths and patience.  And lots of coffee, since I made a gallon of it AND breakfast at the new house as soon as we arrived there.  So far I've made mac-n-cheese and scrambled eggs but happy about the baby steps-- I'M COOKING IN OUR NEW HOME! 

After bfast we went to the dollar store nearby to get some masking tape to finish up one little thing in the kids' room, and I decided to go buck wild let them each pick out A toy.  Usually I don't spoil them in such a manner but I felt like dipping into my pockets a little today.  Roo picked out a little set of two tiny mermaids with tiny mermaid accessories.  Knox?  He spent 18 minutes deciding on a toy.  And then did not decide on a toy, but picked out a spray bottle so he could help me clean!  AND THIS $1 SPRAY BOTTLE KEPT HIM BUSY FOR AN HOUR.  Wow.  He sprayed water.  He scrubbed.  He wiped and dried.  He was a busy and productive young sir!  Those two got along the entire morning today, I could not have been a happier mommy.  

 

Munchiekins were busy, so I wrapped up some stuff.  See? 

Did a little of this...

 

 A little of that...

 

 Some tinkering...

 

 And we have a bedroom, people!

 

sorry, not the brightest photo!  No time to edit!  Also, the walls were already this seafoamymintyfresh color, and YES I was morally obligated to let it stick around, ESPECIALLY with red splashed in there.

 And we have a play room, also people!  Not very put together.  Don't rush me!  sheesh.

My bff put stripes on her baby boy's room last year, so I knew if she could do it, I could completely rip off her idea and do it too :)  I'll put up a picture of Hank's room when I find it, it is so stinking amazing.  

Pretty excited to finish up the rooms and get the baby bears settled in.  They have been such amazing little troopers and I'm just dying to slow down their schedule and give them some much-needed normalcy and attention.  We're getting closer!