Birthday & Christmas

 On November 2 Ashlyn turned 7!

How can time go so fast?

She was delighted to get a outfit for her our generation doll. I was delighted that she wanted something that wasn't boyish! :)

Her cake... That's her " I am feeling a bit embarrassed look".

28 days later on the 30th is Shane's birthday. He turned 9!

His birthday was over the Thanksgiving vacation. So there was no school on Friday but on Monday I took cupcakes to school for his class. For some reason our children think its great fun to have goodies brought on for just their class!

Enter cut out cookies for Christmas. I baked them while they were at school & had them all ready for icing when they got home. It worked out great!

Best of all is they actually like eating them! Some holiday goodies they turn their noses up at. And whats the use making it if its just gonna sit here!

 This Christmas was our first time to stay home in CO for Christmas. [That large bump you see on my lap is the reason for staying home. :)] We missed the fun of getting to see our eastern family but it was a very nice relaxing holiday!
 Micah asked to wait to open presents till Christmas morning. I think this was a first since he would have been just one year old. On Christmas eve the others were asking to open just one present.:) So they did & the rest was saved till Christmas morning.
 We had a wonderful morning, reading the gospel account of the birth of Christ. Visualising what it may have been like to be in Bethlehem at that time... Sipping coffee... Relaxing & just enjoying being with our growing family!

At lunch time Marv's, Sean's, Clint's & of course Sky came over for lunch & spent the rest of the day here. We got good use out of our newly expanded living area! 

The children had over 2 weeks off from school, it was fun having all of them home again for such a long time. Today was back to reality... They had their first day back at school for 2014. For the most part they were ready to get back on schedule.

Cole is counting the days till that big 5th birthday! February 4th can't come soon enough for him. I can't wait either that will be just 12 days from my due date. And February 16 can't come too fast for me!

We are all really getting excited to meet this dear little boy. :)

New Paint :)

When a pregnant woman gets an idea in her head look out!
On the 29th of October I decided the border in the upstairs family room was coming off & I was going to paint that room before we started the remodeling of the garage. Poor Dale was left with figuring out how to get the border off the stairwell walls.
 I started off with much enthusiasm & we did get all the border off except around the steep part of the stairwell.

As you can see ripping/soaking/scraping off border is very messy work. I did discover that there is no need to buy expensive spray from the store to soak it with. A combination of vinegar & dawn in a spray bottle works wonderful! I was able to get this border off much cleaner then the stuff I took off two of the bedrooms.

Enthusiasm... Not sure where it fled to but after the border was off the room just stayed in its border less state till after Christmas. We actually did the downstairs living room before we came back to this project. But that's another series.

Somewhere along the line I decided the colors I was going to paint it. The wall with the big window is dark brown, the wall by the stairwell is a tan same as a lot of the other rooms in the house & the remaining two walls are chocolate milk. :)

Before office area

After office area

Stairwell in progress

Sorry about the sideways pictures, can't figure out how to turn them.

Take note of his death trap...

All done!

We all totally love what the change in color has added to the room.

Now a few pics of Sierra. Dale was leaving & she wanted to watch him drive out the lane. She climbed up on the windowsill by her self & of course was playing with a phone!

On to other projects...

On December 10th I decided there must be a way to make this room into a living room without having to go to the expense of tearing out the garage door & enclosing that hole.

This is on the same level as the rest of the living area there is simply a steel door separating it from the kitchen living area. BTW this is a very old pic I can't remember when the last time was that room looked so neat. In the 2 + years we lived here the room was used for a school room, sewing area, exercise equipment room, mud room, storage, generally the catch all place.

This is a much more accurate look at what it looked like! A huge mess 90% of the time.

We couldn't tear our the sink & all the coat hooks & a closet would have been a bit too costly to build. So floor to ceiling curtains were sewen & put around there to hide the stuff. :)

From Thursday to Saturday evening we got this much done. :) 

All done! Those curtains are hiding the garage door.

Now what used to be the living room is the dining room.

This pic is very deceptive it was not big & roomy in there with the table in the kitchen & this for the living room.

Now

If you look at the first pic of the garage you will see what this table looked like before.

The chairs really needed paint & I decided black paint on the table legs would look good too. :)

That's all for the painting for now... I have one more decorative table that I want to paint, then I think I can put away the painting supplies for a while. :)

My deadline in all this was to get it done before the baby is born. :) Well we are well on the way to having everything checked off the list!