Saturday, August 29, 2009

My Bedroom project

This is the before (last week), well the before is actually nothing in the room but an air mattress if we are talking back in February-April.



I did our bedroom this week. I chose the colors of brown and blue back at Christmas time. I have been doing little projects for it and now its all put together (minus some more art work I need to put up). First I did this little table. Then I put this art work up over it. I did the random tea tray for some inspiration which is now Daniel's stuff I need for work thing. Next I found these lamps which were ugly once but I made them to our taste. Then I found these tables which I didn't blog.

One was $5 and the other $7 at a garage sale (The first one I bought for the projector but it is now safely on the sealing). They are similar styles so I figured a can of spray paint would work. Then I made the throw pillows. Then came the 'not a head board but acts like one' project. All over the land of blogs, I saw people make curtains, pieces of wood, doors, metal you name it they made it head boards so I figured I would try one. I had the back piece to my book case which I hated (I hate those fake cardboard things they have you put at the back of fake furniture) so I used it for my new head board experiment. I mixed two different blues of paint and used a roller. I wanted a silhouette of a tree on there in brown so I googled around and found the perfect little banzai tree (apparently its not perfect and after I hand painted it on Daniel used his expertise and advised me to prune it umm yeah too bad) Then I used my projector and some taped together wax paper and traced the tree.


Well I had a very difficult time getting it to trace back onto the board so it got quite a bit of free hand. I used expensive water color brushes from Daniel's college days that looked brand new (and not used) in acrylic (I know cringe) but I love using water color brushes with acrylic the paint just looks better. Then I let it dry and Daniel suggested a brown frame which I thought was a great idea so I got some 1 1/2 inch satin ribbon and stuck it on. Then we put it up and our room is complete (well sort of until I get motivated to do more) and there you have it.

Click the picture to see it larger
(its small because its a panoramic view
and blogger wont let me make it bigger)


Yes thats Eva on the bed. The kids love our bedroom, especially when its clean.

I am participating in




and

Friday, August 28, 2009

Peeing Green

My friend Laura just posted this on her site and I figured you guys would get a kick out of it so go look at it. Its a very easy way of going green.

Peeing in the shower!!!

Its from Brazil so all you Brazilian's or missionaries that went there should check this out for sure.

Why do I forget to put the markers away at night?

This goes through my mind every time I wake up and find the markers everywhere. This was today's 7:30 am finding.

At least Eva was safe in her bed.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Pillows...I made some

I did it!


The two tones, I love pillows with texture



The Living Room Pillow
(The Giant one is bright red, not orange its from Ikea)



The Bedroom Pillows. I did some hand stitching
on the ribbon of this one



I love my sewing machine, who would have thought I would ever sew.
(either than Halloween costumes)

P.S this was all from material In my petite stash of material aren't those projects the most fun?


DIY Day @ ASPTL

Happy Birthday Mamma

Happy Birthday Mum. I hope you have a great one!

We love you!

We made Brownies

Last night we made brownies and the kids licked the bowls. I made them without the oil and they actually turned out well. I guess its a good way to make it a little less fattening.

They loved it.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Daniel and comics

I just got back from the library and I borrowed A tree grows in Brooklyn, Captain Wentworth's Diary, Jane Eyre and put on hold : The Hunger games and Howl's moving Castle. Anyway I had previously put Jane Eyre on hold. I know I am lazy by putting all these books on hold but I like to be in the library for a short time so I put them on hold so I don't have to search for them, they are right there all next to each other waiting for me. Anyway I accidentally put Jane Eyre a graphic novel on hold. So I have the comic version (don't worry I got off my lazy butt and found the orignial version while I was there) It actually makes me really excited because Daniel will read anything in comic form. He even read Rapunzels revenge by Shannon Hale. SOOOO Daniel is going to read Jane Eyre. How cool is that! (sorry Daniel doesn't read much (well literature) so maybe he and I can have a book review together, hopefully we will make sense to each other)

Thursday, August 20, 2009

My kids don't think they need naps

Yesterday neither of my children took naps. They were playing in their bedrooms (I could hear them) so I got them out and let me play together. By 4:30 everything made them cry all the way until bed time. Today I forced the issue. I asked Alexander if he was ready for nite nite after lunch. "No mamma no nite nite" Ok fine. I get on here to check emails I turn around after 5 minutes to check Alexander and there he is on the floor.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A great Place to get books online

I was just reading a blog by a lady in the netherlands and she talked about a website just like amazon but its free shipping to everywhere! Everywhere. Well they only sell books but holy crap free shipping to anywhere. I am not sure about Iceland. I am sure they do though cause they are based out of the UK. Anyways cool right. This is where I will be ordering books from now on for sure!

Here is the link The Book Depository

Monday, August 17, 2009

Help I need a new book

I need a new book to read. I had a huge stack from the library but I read them all. I don't know what to read next but I don't want to get stuck and lose my momentum so has anyone read a book recently or forever ago that they just loved? I am dying for a new one. I just finished Northanger Abbey on Saturday and I loved it! The horror story part was kind of weird but the rest very Jane Austenesque. Anyway I really need a new book so suggestions please.

Miriam

New Lamp Project

I started this project before we went camping and I didn't take a before picture. These lamps are for our bedroom with the blue and choco brown theme. The lamps are glazed ceramic and I really like them. They had white stripes all over them and I just sanded them off and the shades were cream colored and dirty so I covered them. I got the tutorial from Rhoda at Southern hospitality over here It was really easy. I put it off for awhile because I thought I would get frustrated but no it was easy. I got my spray adhesive from Michael's with a 50% off coupon and used a glue gun. So I paid $2.50 for these down the street at a yard sale. Daniel hated them but now he likes them. I think they look really masculine now which worries me. Maybe that is why he likes them so much. They are not done yet. I don't know what I am going to do to them but they just don't look finished to me. I know I need to cover the plastic things right above the ceramic part. I want to get some ribbon just to wrap around the plastic parts but I have to find some blue and brown ribbon. Hopefully damask. I am even willing to go with stripes. I am not sure if I should put a print on the shades either. I just don't know yet. Any suggestions would be great. Oh and I kind of cheated with the material. I was going to go find some great material at Joannes but I ended going to Savers first (the thrift store) and I found a brown twin sheet for .99cents and figured I could try that and if I hated it I was only out .99cents. I loved it though so yeah these lamps have cost me $9.50 total including the spray adhesive. And I love them which is what matters most. Anyway let me know what I should do to them.

For some more great fun yard sale finds go to Rhoda's Site Here Southern Hospitality blog for thrifty Mondays.


P.S I decided I am going to do Eva's rag rug with old sheets too. Its way more cost effective than buying brand new material and we are just going to be walking on it. I am excited for that one!

We are back, a camping story

We are home (have been since Friday) and getting back into the routine. This last week was more exhausting than I realized but it was very fun. We spend lots of time with Allison, Maggie, Ashlee and Paige so we were happy. You can see some of the stuff we did with them over here . The camping part was not as great as I would have imagined. I don't recommend camping in bear country EVER. Well maybe not ever but not when you have little children who drop food all over the ground.

Eva making sure there are snacks for Bears later
Alexander enjoying his ramen

We spend a lot of time trying to pick up all of the stuff they kept dropping which included tiny bites of carrot that Eva kept spitting everywhere.

Eating Carrots with Dad


I am sure in 10 years I will look back on this camping trip and think it was a great experience but I need some time to re cooperate. Here is a run down of what happened. (its a long story)

We got to the site at 5pm on Wednesday. We sprayed bug repellent all over our selves set up camp had dinner and let the kids play in the dirt.


There was no one else at the camp site or even close it seemed. So we cleaned everything up and shut all the food and whatever else in the truck because there were signs everywhere that said to do so because of the bears. We did this and we got in the tent and went to sleep. Well everyone else went to sleep I sat there for a couple of hours waiting to be eaten by bears. I finally dozed off but woke up to the sound of something walking around outside. I could here the walking around so clearly it was strange. I heard it jump into the back of the truck so I woke Daniel up (I wasn't about to get attacked by some animal and be the only one awake) so Daniel wakes up listens and decides to light off one of those loud fire crackers (this was our plan to scare off animals, I don't care if it was loud and obnoxious). We just lit off one to sound like a gun shot and it did. Daniel's head was outside off the tent and he saw the whatever's run away. He said he couldn't tell what they were. I was somewhat satisfied that they wouldn't come back so I feel asleep pretty quickly. I don't think Daniel did.

Then I woke up again to the sound of the walking around and told Daniel, as soon as he turned on the lantern we heard them run away.

In the morning we decided to pack up camp and go a little further down the road. We did and liked the area better. It was more open and pretty close to the creek river thing so we could go throw rocks. I was dead tired after setting up camp again (I hadn't slept much) so we decided to make lunch and Eva and I would take a nap while Daniel and Alexander would go exploring). We made lunch and I was going to do some baked potatoes in the fire. Well I had no idea they would be ready so soon so I burned them to a black crisp. I took them out of the fire and left them out of the fire pit to cool down so I could throw them away. I went in the tent and fell right asleep with Eva.

We woke up later with Daniel napping on a mat outside and Alexander hitting things with his stick. We were well rested so we decided to to go wash in the river. We walked over to it and there was a lovely snake. After a few convulsions I continued on and washed the kids.


Eva 30 minutes after her river bath
(those are old white pants with green stars on them)

Then we decided to take a drive up the canyon to see what was there. We found a beautiful little waterfall and let Alexander throw rocks for awhile. Then we saw a beautiful bride hiking up to the fall to get some bridal shots done there. I hope she didn't dirty her dress. Anyway then we drove a little more and saw some beaver dams Daniel wanted to hike to.

Alexander stopping every few minutes to throw rocks

Daniel and Eva hikingSo we were trekking through freezing cold water but it was pretty fun.
We got pretty far but realized the kids wouldn't make it all the way up to the dam so we turned back and went to make dinner.

I asked Daniel if he had thrown the baked potatoes away from my burning lunch. He said no. I know I hadn't so we looked around and found them in the bushes half eaten. We were guessing it was squirrels. I picked up all the stuff and threw it away. We figured it wasn't raccoons because they would have taken the shiny (foiled) potatoes home with them. We made dinner ate it and it started to rain a bit. We put the kids in their pjs and zipped them in the tent to play.

Alexander reading Thomas the tank Engine

We cleaned up all the food and garbage and stuck it all in the truck so the bears wouldn't come and tried to go to sleep.

Eva trying to go to sleepThe rain actually made it easy for me to block out any animal sounds so I feel asleep pretty quickly. I woke up to Daniel shaking me and telling me to listen. I heard something in the truck and told him I heard so he got right up and threw a fire cracker out of the tent. I tried to go back to sleep but Daniel was shaking so bad I couldn't go back to sleep. Then we realized the rain was getting in the tent. Eva had woken up so we checked her and she was DRENCHED! She had 4 layers of clothing on and they were all wet except her socks. so we stripped her down and stuck her in with us and she warmed up quickly and went right back to sleep. So Daniel never went back to sleep. The tent was pretty wet so he said as soon as it was light out we were packing up and going home. I was happy to hear that but I fell back asleep even with the two sleeping children slapping and kicking me (they are not peaceful sleepers). Then all of the sudden I am woken up by Daniel. "ok we are leaving lets get the kids in clothes and pack up and go" I figured it was day light and time to go. Nope it was 4 am but Daniel had had enough (he was sick already by now with nose, throat and chest). So we packed everything soaking wet in a half hour and started to drive home.

As we drove Daniel starts to say in light conversation: "oh by the way I have a confession to make that first night it was two bears that were walking around our camp site, one of them was walking around the camp site and the other was in the back of the truck" the reaction in my mind was "WHAT THE ##!%*^#$###*" He saw the look on my face and then said "well I guess it could have been two really huge raccoons" Yeah the biggest raccoons in the entire universe! He saw them as they ran away. Then he says that is why he was shaking so bad that second night and not sleeping because he was worried there were bears again. When he looked in the back of the truck he saw that whatever animal had been in the back of the truck the 2nd night had knocked the box of water bottles and something else (I can't remember) over. So yeah what a joyous memory that became.

Daniel drove until he couldn't stay awake anymore (1 hour) then I drove the rest of the way home. We left the campsite at 5 am and I got us in our driveway at 8:30 am. I was a little anxious to get home and sleep. We all took showers and baths and went straight to sleep until 12 noon then we got up to clean the camp stuff.

Eva and Daniel both got sick with colds from camping. Alexander was fine and I was stomach sick since we left Utah and still don't feel so great. I have been catching up on sleep and feeling better though.

You may recall we were supposed to go to Mesa Verde on the friday we left. Well it was raining, everyone but Alexander was sick and we hadn't slept much so I didn't want to ruin the Mesa Verde experience and we literally took a rain check.

That was our camping trip. As a disclaimer I HATE wild animals and I can't sleep very well away from home ESPECIALLY when there are wild animals lurking around and the only piece of protection I have is an extremely thin piece of material. Sorry if this is a depressing camping trip story. I asked Daniel to blog the story (because I didn't want to revisit the memory and be pessimistic about Daniel's dreamed about camping trip) but he said I should. So I did and there you go.

Friday, August 7, 2009

We are going camping

So we are leaving later today to go to Utah for 3 days and then camping for the rest. Daniel did a lovely post on where we are going to make sure you read it if you have time. So we will be gone for a week.

See ya,

Miriam

Happy Birthday Maliana



Its Maliana's Birthday today and she needs a wii (thats what her facebook said anyway) Til Hamingu med Afmaeli! She is 23 today.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I finally started and finished my wedding album


4 years later I finished my wedding album. I don't know the etiquette for it but its finally finished and I can put it on my shelf of photo albums. Yay! Now I need to go finish Eva's. Oh but does anyone know the etiquette on getting one to your parents and your parents in law? I often wonder if I was supposed to make one. I am sure I was. I think I will just go do two of those photo books you can make now. They are pretty cool (I did one for Eva and Alexander). It efficient and looks good.

Miriam

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Home Depot Kids Workshop

I haven't posted in a few days because my house was in a state and I didn't feel justified in blogging until it was in less of a state. So here I am. I wanted to write about Saturday. It was the best day ever. A few months ago I read on my friend Chelsey's blog about their trip to the home depot kids workshop and I have been wanted to go to one ever since. I had Eva for the morning and Daniel took Alexander to the workshop and they had fun. Alexander was very proud of the message board he made for me. (with lots of help from Daniel) I tried to catch a picture of him with the board but he just got irritated with me and didn't understand why I needed him to stand still while I tried to take a picture. I got shopping done with just Eva so I was in a great mood for the rest of the day and I just love my little message board! He got the little apron and didn't want to take it off all day (I made him take it off for the nap though) If you haven't been to this I recommend going with little kids. Its the first Saturday of every month and it just teaches the little ones how to build stuff. Oh and its totally free. Just show up and make and enjoy.




I promise you he was not tortured during the making, just during the picture.