Trimming the walls

" Instructions for living a life:
      Pay attention.
      Be astonished.
      Tell about it."
                             ~ Mary Oliver

Peanut Butter and Jelly Conversation the other day:

Knox:  "When I det bigger I will drive."

me: "To where, Bud?"

him: "I will drive a monsser truck when det bigger, I will drive it to dee akarium.  You will come with me, dere is a spot for you, right dere.  You can sit in dee back seat and I drive at dee front.  I det bigger I drive really fasser!  I drive daddy's truck and drive fasster!  Right now I not big, I am a baby?  I went in your tummy?  And I not baby anymore, I just Knox.  I just baby Knox.  Den???  Den WHAT HAPPEN??  I wobble wike dis! (insert adorable wobbling here)."

me:  "What about you Tulah, what do you want to be when you get bigger?"

her:  "A ballerina.  Um, I can drive to my ballet class. Or maybe... My daddy can drive me there."

Gosh, they are SO much alike.



Today is cozy and I'm still in my pajamas.  Knox is in his monster-feet slippers and not asleep yet, so I have some time to type as I get them down for a nap.

Yesterday I summitted the vast range of boxes in our storage to pick through whatever holiday shrapnel I could discover in the mess.  I might have rolled my ankle trying to make it happen too.  Worth it.
Guess what kind of awesome I found?  Elf!  Our elf Chippy was in there, just willing me to uncover his needleness in the 10x10 haystack of junk.  OH BUDDY, YOU ARE COMING HOME WITH US.  We have been discussing our elf a lot lately and I might have alluded to the possibility that perhaps he doesn't quite know where our new house is?  Maybe?  He wouldn't be late because Mommy simply cannot find him.  Ohhhh no no no.

I put up some lights in our windows and our huuuuuge 39" lighted star I got from Ikea the other day.  It is heavenly hanging in our window!  I need more!!  I plan on stockpiling after the holidays are over and they get Christmas clearance-happy.  We don't have a single outlet anywhere near the front of the house, but I put up a few lights around the porch anyway in hopes Husband can get that figured out for me. 
There's a family we're doing "Christmas" for this year, so we went out to get their presents last night.  When we got home, Chippy was hiding in the dining room chandelier.  I asked Tulah to turn on the light, but I had dimmed it earlier so she would have a hard time with it.  I am so clever.  She couldn't figure it out so she looked over at the light and THERE HE WAS!  Oh the joy!  Oh the screaming!!  Oh the jumping and the hugging and the shrieking!  "Mommy!  He knew how to find us because we have our Christmas lights up now!!  He knew where to go!!!!"

For today's appearance, Chippy borrowed Knox's monster truck for some off-walling.  A certain Little Brother was not too happy he didn't ask first:

I wish you could get the full effect of the pouting going on in photo 2!

Knox will soon learn that Elves just wanna have

fuh-un.









Over the weekend we started in on our trim in the living room.
We replaced all of the window and door casings and added 5" window sills too.  That was Nick's idea, I'm so proud of his handsome little mind!  Our last home had all of that big wood trim and sweet little detail everywhere, and this house has none.  We have to build it all in as we go along- thus the wall and trim project.  I didn't think about adding window sills since there is a little ledge there, but they make a huuuuge difference! 

 

  before/after:

We have decided to go ahead and do the white trim.  Frankly, there's no need to get fancy with it.  White is perty and will always, always look nice.  As long as I can keep Tulah interested in a weekly wall-washing chore :)

Baseboards are lookin' good too!  But what wall wouldn't look snazz-matazz in 7" boards.

Howdy thinks they're just fine

Tonight Roo made little presents for people.
She wrapped Grammy's and wrote on it, on her own...

"I love Grammy
Tulah
Grammy
From"  ... I did help her with the 'rrrr' in 'from', she was
asking about that.


On mine she wrote
"Tulah
From
Ginny
Mom
I love Ginny"

I just looooove her writing to us, so sweet.  That girl could draw and write all day if Knox didn't pounce on her writing utensils every time he lost her attention just long enough.  And over the weekend I think she started understanding reading full sentences.  I guess we always just work on words, but I thought we needed to see how they come together.  And here with the little gifts I think she's trying to write sentences out.   Maybe you noticed.

And of course, Mister Entertainment:

ha!

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.