Happy 4th Birthday Luca

 Luca is pink and frilly and rough and tumble all in one.  For her birthday her one request was a pink princess fishing rod and I'm sure when she does go fishing she will wear her most beautiful dress.

She loves earings, necklaces, bracelets, and clips for her hair.  She loves "beautiful" dresses and skirts.  She loves lipstick & nailpollish and everything pink.

On the other hand Luca always has a messy face and never wears shoes outside.  She's not affraid to get dirty and loves catching frogs.

 She is always watching her big sister

 

and tackle hugging her little sister

 

Luca is always a helper and you often hear her  say "I can do it"

 

She is amazing at puzzles and is becoming interested in learning to read

Baby Luca

 

One

  

Two

  

Three

  

Four

 

Happy Birthday to Luca!

A Summer in Review

Well hello there.  I figured since I basically took the summer off of blog writing I would catch you all up a little before I get started again.  So here it is, a summer in review.

•  Curt celebrated his 31st Birthday

• Nollie had her 5th Birthday.

 

• I painted our Master Bedroom 

• We enjoyed both a Martin and a Buchan camp-out.  I love the family get-togethers

• We enjoyed a free outdoor yoga & nature class for kids

• Luca won a new bike at the County Fair

•  We took part in a weekly library camp 
  

• We went to the farmers market

• We played in the mud 

• We took our first two week holiday as a family

•  We went to a friend's wedding

• We went camping

 

Babies who scootch on their butt get really dirty when camping

 

• Visited Grandma & Papa Hutch

• Spent a week at Buchan's condo

• Played on Grandpa's boat

•  Both girls learned to ride a two wheeler

•  Wavy practiced her tricks

•  I played in my garden and made a few new flower beds

• We planted trees

• Curt covered the beams and posts on the front deck

• We painted the railing on the decks....again, I think we're done for a year or two.

• We (mostly Curt) put in two brick patios, one outside the garage door and one outside the walkout door.

•  We started homeschooling

•   Nollie lost her first (and second) tooth..

•  We had a great summer!

Trim - One Room Down!

After two and a half years of living in our house the trim has actually hit the walls.  We've decided to work from the back of the house forward, one room at a time, finishing each room completely as we go, that way by the time we get to the main areas we have all the kinks out. ***That is a huge piece of of advice for anyone doing any home renovation/house build projects, especially something you have never done before.  Always start in the area that is least seen. You will make mistakes and you will improve as you go.***

Now I'm sure you know that you can go to your local home building center buy trim, paint it and slap it up in your house, as long as you have a miter saw and some patience you are good to go (I made that sound a little easier than it really is.)  That's not how we chose to do it though, we like to make sure we do everything the most difficult way (Curtis likes to make sure he gets new tools from each project).  It started two years ago when we purchased a giant load of rough cut aspen boards from a local lumber yard.  The boards were fresh and had to be dried before we could use them for trim so we stacked them in the garage to dry as we worked on other projects, building a shop, landscaping, drywalling the basement and such.  When the shop was complete we moved all the boards by hand to the shop and re-stacked them to dry further. At some point we tried planing some boards flat and got a feel for how much work would be involved using the planer we had.  Before you knew it Curt was driving home with a Woodmaster (new tool) that a local guy happened to be selling on kijiji.  It is one of those machines that they advertise at the back of woodworking magazines, they call it the "Four Way Money Maker".  It was a lot of money and we had to hold our breath the first time we used it, hoping it wouldn't blow our breaker, but it didn't and it does some nice work.  Curt put a lot of time into planing boards and then running them through the machine a few more times to make trim.  We then spent about a month paining a dozen sample trying to choose the colour, everything from white to light to dark.  Curt would come home each day with a couple more cans of stain and paint a chunk of trim and then we would stare at them unable to decide.  Finally when we made up our mind the trim went up and it looks amazing.

I love the ledges on the windows

One of the questions we got from everyone that entered our house was "what are you going to do with the beams?"  They are bright orange (you can see them in one of the photos below) and they really pop out at you in their unfinished state.  Voila, a finished beam, I love it!

I even got shelves in my bathroom closet. 

We still have a few things to finish up in the bathroom, taking the photo above I was reminded of the vent cover I need to put on the wall, oops, that's my job.

Curt also made a transition strip between the tile in the bathroom and the hardwood in the bedroom.

Thank goodness because prior to that it was an ugly gap that collected dust, dirt, Polly Pocket shoes, beads, Lite-Brite pegs etc.

Next on the list, the Master Bedroom.  I'd like to paint the wall behind the bed, maybe a raspberry red colour, I'm not sure.  All the walls need another coat of paint, would you believe there are dirty fingerprints all over the walls and even a few pencil scribbles.

We need to paint all the doors, put up the trim, finish the beam.

Maybe I'll even remove the crib, and the little girl that sleeps in it.

A Simple Woman's Daybook: June 2011

FOR TODAY
Outside my window... everything is glowing green from the recent rains and the sky is a calming colour of gray.

I am thinking...to homeschool or not to homeschool.....

I am thankful for...all of my time at home with my girls.

From the learning rooms...we are enjoying watching the tadpoles we collected as frog eggs grow and change.

From the kitchen... I've been on top of meal planning again, its so much easier to cook supper when you know what you're making and have everything there to make it.  I'm also enjoying spring produce from the garden rhubarb muffins and asparagus.

I am wearing...my ratty patched up jeans and a shirt full of holes (it's home day and I'm ready for the garden)

I am creating...gardens, gardens everywhere, its June and so gardening is my passion, flowers, trees and produce.

I am going... no further than my garden today, Monday is homeday.

I am reading...my giant stack of magazines that I haven't touched in a while and reviews on android apps for my new phone.

I am hoping...I'll get the grass cut today during Wavy's nap.

I am hearing...wedding type music, the girls are playing wedding...again, it is a new favorite.

Around the house...breakfast dishes are on the table, Waverly's books are scattered on the floor from last night but the toilets are clean and shinny.

One of my favorite things...digging in the dirt, man I love gardening. (are you noticing a bit of an obsession here)

A few plans for the rest of the week: regular stuff, play with the kids, sweep the floor about a million times, go to town on Wednesday for a crazy full day, garden, cut the grass, oh and my second golf clinic, yay and Curt's company golf tournament at the end of the week.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing... my Grandma Martin on her 75th Birthday, I am loving this photo.


 



Find more daybook entries at The Simple Woman's Daybook 

Water, Water Everywhere

Snow melts into water.... and lots of snow melts into lots of water. 

Our yard has officially been taken over by water.  We like to joke that we have a moat but honestly at this point its not quite funny to me, more like a little nerve racking.  We've been watching the pond grow as the snow and ice melted this last week and then the rest of the snow started melting and just staying where it was forming more puddles.  Finally the puddles and pond have all joined to form one big lake.  Here's the view off our deck this morning

and this

Here shows just how how close the water is to our house

and how far it goes

And when we woke up this morning we found that the pool forming on one side of our driveway had now started running over the driveway

 

 

The water is flowing away but just not quickly enough and there are places that have yet to melt that are blocking the water from flowing properly.  I hope that the next couple sunny day are enough to thaw the culvert and get the water running through and that the water starts flowing away a little faster.  I also hope that the sun doesn't just melt more snow off the surrounding hills to add to our lakes.

Happy Spring to you!