Christmas

Christmas flew by with a flurry this year.  We tried to slow it down, but for some reason, there was so much going on that the whole season seemed to slip away!  We still tried to do all the advent activities that we normally do, but school and life seemed to get in the way!  Don't get me wrong, it was a great time of year, but now that it's January and we're back into routine and it's cold and dark, Christmas seems like a distant memory.  Maybe a few pictures will remind me of the special season when we celebrate our Saviour's birth.

We did our traditional Chocolate Covered Pretzels

We made gingerbread houses, we tried to make 5 small ones, but ahh, it didn't really fly, next year, one big one again!  Live and learn

Our 3 excited little bunnies on Christmas morning :)  In their Christmas jammies

Colie's new dolly that eats and talks, she came complete with stroller and highchair

Super pumped big kids got a DS :)

It truly was a blessed day and time of year.  We spent a great day with my family on the 25th, then another amazing day with Mark's family on the 26th, there was so much food, laughter, and good memories.

FOUR

I should have been posting this 3 days ago, but I think I've needed a few days to adjust to the idea that my BABY is four.  I kind of feel like I need to breathe into a paper bag! Has it really been 4 years since our sweet Colie came and made our family whole?

She is really such a blessing in our home, she has brought us so much joy, love and laughter in her four years.  I think if you'd look up "sweetness" in the dictionary it should say Nicole.

Baby Coco: 3 weeks

First Birthday

Second birthday

Third Birthday

Here is the Birthday Girl!

The party snacks

The treat bags for her 5 party guests.

Family Pictures

On a beautiful fall day at the lake my lovely and talented sister Cate took some family pictures for us.  Here are a few.

Merry Christmas to All :)

Angels and Nerds

For our church's Christmas concert Jayme and Nicole were angels.  So cute! And the big news here is that Jayme has started wearing her hair down!  What a different look for her!

I didn't get the best pictures of Nicole, but trust me, she was adorable!

We went to our first 3D movie and the kids took their glasses home.  Jayme had nerd day at school, so she wore her glasses and of course Nicole needed to copy her big sister.  She wore this for an entire morning... cutest little nerds I've ever seen!

Dining Room Before & After

Here was our dining room the day we moved in.  Gasp... white carpet under the table!  And I have 3 not so tidy children.  And gasp... brass fixtures.   One of the funniest things about our new place is these lights in the alcove.  They are actually kind of cute...minus the brass,  and we wondered where the light switch was, and then we discovered that they are actually candle holders, so we decided to remove them, until we saw that they weren't even painted behind!  Would you believe that "Granny" had HOT PINK walls... like the nastiest dusty rose colour you will have ever seen.  So we took the holders down and I used my trusty can of spray paint and voila, no more brass.  We put our old cabinet in the alcove for now (although Mark wanted the piano to go there... gasp)  We took down the mauve valance, we removed the white carpet and put down a beautiful dark hardwood floor.  

I would still like a buffet, and some art, and eventually a different table, but for now, I'm loving it!  

The chandelier enjoyed a coat of spray paint too and the old hurricanes replaced with super cute little silver shades!  Voila... brand new and not 90's dated chandelier!

Flashback

One thing I have always enjoyed is crossing things off lists.  This week with the Remembrance Day holiday and then Mark's Saturday off today, we were able to cross quite a few things off our house list.  Yippee!!  I have great "after" dining room pictures to post.  But this post is something altogether different.  In cleaning out our laundry room (which had become a dump place for everything without a place) I came across some old picture CDs.  Oh the memories!  I just have to post a couple from my sister Tricia's wedding, almost 5 years ago.  I sat here and literally laughed out loud at the memories.  The first thing I remembered is that my then 4 year old Jayme CUT HER OWN BANGS about 3 days before the first wedding she was ever a flower girl in!!  AHHH...  Look at them!  Good thing she was so so so cute with her long beautiful curls!

The next memory was that Brady kept saying he was a ring "tiger" instead of a ring "bear"  He wanted to growl while going down the aisle.  Look at his cute shaggy hair!
Here is a picture of him growling, and the last thing I remembered is that he used to point with his middle finger... what a kid!

Crafting

I'm passing down my new love, knitting to Jayme and Brady.  They are catching on quite well!  And bonus for them they will get a badge from BG club for learning to knit!

So concentrated :)

Here are a couple things I have recently made... a cute hat for Colie 

And a crocheted baby blanket for a cute new baby,  Adam, son of  a couple from our small group.

Bedroom Before and After

Tada, the bedroom! The only thing left to do is paint the brown dresser black, and get some art up above the black dresser.  So what's new?  The bedding, and dresser, both from Jysk, the head and foot board were sort of my creation, I saw a homemade canopy bed on a blog and loved it, and decided to try and adapt it to our space.  I designed it and had my dad put it together.  I sanded, primed, painted and clear coated  it in our garage.  Learned a few things along the way.  What I thought would be a weekend project turned out to be a 2 week project, but I love the end result, and it was only 60$ worth of material, you can't beat that!  I bought a couple of pillows (the black ones) and sewed the teal ones (OK, my Mom helped, but I'm learning!)  I had envisioned a bench at the end of the bed, but I think that that may take up too much space, so I will leave it for now.  I'm going to paint over the canvases from our old room (in the before pic) and put them up over the dresser.  So once that's done, and the dresser refinished in black, with new hardware, we will have a winner :)

Front Entrance

The colouring is better on the second photo, but we didn't actually paint or anything, we just put up a cute bench that I designed and upholstered (My Dad made the plans come to be) and Mark put up the mirror and I ordered the verse from a website called Lifewords.com.  It's a great site, you can order any wall decor words in any size, in any colour and in any font.  The flowers are from Urban Barn, so cute to add dimension to the wall :)  You will see them again in the bedroom... hopefully coming soon, just a couple more things to do until that room is finished.  

Tada... the after :)  Maybe a new rug would go better now, I'll keep my eyes open for something.  And of course normally there are a bunch of shoes that didn't quite make it into the closet, and usually a sweatshirt or two as well!

Coco's room

OK, first post on the new house.  I've taken pictures of each room, but I think I'm going to post them as before and afters as I fix them up.  So Colie's room is done and it's oh-so-cute!  My lovely and talented friend Shannon came and helped rearrange, organize and decorate. And now Colie actually keeps it clean and everything has it's place!  Luckily her room was a nice neutral colour and all it took was putting her already cute things in place.  My mom is still planning on making her a quilt for her bed, but yeah, one down, too many to count to go! 

Photo Shoot

I found these pictures on my camera one afternoon.  Apparently it was taken by some princesses and used for a creative mini photo shoot.  Maybe Jayme will take after a couple of her Aunties and be a photographer.

Brady's Teeth

For much of the summer Brady's two front teeth were wiggly, and not just a little wiggly, but hanging down, able to flip and turn and all kinds of grossness wiggly. The first one fell out on it's own in the car and that pesky second one hung on for a disgustingly long time.  Finally after a week at camp with me, we got home and he decided to let Daddy pull it, it didn't take much and he looks so cute with them gone!

Before

After