Dining room

The dining room is almost all painted! 

The part that isn't painted is where the plastic wall was.

Before.

After

Before

After

Taking down the plastic wall.

There is still a lot to do in the office and dining room, but we are getting so close to being done.

Next step is to finish mudding and sanding where the plastic wall was, then paint and then we can start putting in the wood floors! Once the floors are in we sand, stain then polyurethane the floors. Then we can do all of the trim and move back into that part of our house! That will be a happy day.

On a side note Charlie is almost crawling, he will be 5 months on the 9th of July.

If he sees something he wants he can get to it by scooting or rolling. If you talk to him you can just about always get a smile out of him.

Natalie is singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars and  saying here ABC's till about T thats when she stops. She is also walking up and down the stairs and loving all the animals she meets. Don't take it personally is she cries when she sees you because she has been doing that to just about everyone lately. It doesn't take her to long to warm up though. 

Milk Crate

When I was putting Charlie down for a nap on Saturday I had this idea to make a milk crate for my friend that is milking her goats. 

So me being impatient got started right away!

I got wood from my shed(100 year old wood from our house remodel that I saved), a mason jar(so I would make it big enough for it to fit), a tape measure (Jeff's), a ruler, a square, a basic template (the wood tool box in the picture) and a pencil. 

I got started right away!  I measured all of the wood and then Jeff and I went out to cut it. I cut about 1/2 and Jeff cut the rest.

After the wood was cut I set it up so I could see how it looked before I nailed anything together.

Looks good to me! So I got started nailing it together.

Its all put together by Saturday night, but I'm way to tired to paint so I save that for Sunday.

I use paint that I had in my house to keep it a free project.

I also wanted to be bright and fun! So I was thinking green, but the one green paint I didn't have enough of and the other green paint was rock hard so green was a no go. Orange it is! 

I got 2 coats of paint on there. Then I wanted to paint some words on there, so I used the green paint.

What do you think of the finished project?

So my original idea was to have 4 spots 3 for mason jars full of milk and one for extra stuff. Now that its made I think that it might be really heavy for all that so It could be used for storage, decoration, plants or to keep stuff for her girls to play with in the milk house.

This is my 1st time making one of these but I'm thinking i want to make more and sell them.

This Moment

- A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
I go this idea from a blog I like called soulemama.com

Sleep or lack there of...

This was my night last night. 

I went to bed at 9:15ish because I was so tired and I slept till 1, thats when Jeff come upstairs to go to bed. 

Then I fell back asleep till 2:20ish when Charlie woke up to nurse. 

Then he went back to sleep and so did I until I hear barking at 3, we had Jeff's parents dog Rayne staying with us so I thought it might be her...nope not her... I knew it wasn't my dogs because they were sleeping in my room so it must be Mic (Jeff's cousins dog, he loves coming to visit). 

So I get up go down stairs and see Mic outside the fence waiting to come in, so I let him in the fence and get him some water because he lives a few miles away and it was still REALLY hot outside. So now every dog and person are sleeping again so its my turn to go back to sleep, YAY! 

My turn to sleep... Until 4ish when Natalie wakes up crying. I'm pretty tired so I let her cry but she keep crying/ making noise till 5:30 so I give in and go get her some milk. She goes back to sleep and the house is quiet.... or so I think. Natalie fell asleep around 5:45 and soon after she is asleep Jeff's alarm goes off and he hits snooze but Charlie wakes up and is ready to get up for the day at 6. So I get up with him and go down stairs. He played while I rested on the couch with a very soft blanket. Around when he is ready for his 1st nap Jeff comes down stairs ready for work, he asks how long I have been down stairs and I tell him about my night (he didn't hear anything and slept through it all), while I'm telling him about my night Natalie wakes up for the day. Jeff decided to go into work late so I could take a nap (Thank you!!!).

That was my night last night.

How was your night?

The Office is Painted!

This past week Jeff and his parents finished sanding the walls and that ment that I got to paint! I have a few different before and after pictures to share.

 Before

after

Before

After

In this picture you can see the light in the office and into the dining room

Next step in the office is to put in the wood floors and then sand, stain and clear coat them. After the floors are in then we will put trim around the windows, baseboard around the floor, install the door and closet doors. 

If you saw the office before the remodel job you will know that we moved the closet, raised the ceiling from 7.5 feet to 9.5 feet and added 2 new windows. there also wasn't any heat or A/C in the room so we added that and there was only 1 outlet and now there are 6. Because we raised the ceiling so much we decided to not raise the top of the closet up that high so we could have storage up there.

I am loving how it looks and I can't wait till we finish it! This week I will also be painting the dining room so we can finish that as well. We will do the dining room and office floors and trim at the same time.

It will be so nice to have these rooms back when they are done!

More blogs to come on the office and dining room project.

This Moment

- A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
I go this idea from a blog I like called soulemama.com

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

By Betty Crocker

Bake: 13-15 Min  Makes around 3 1/2 dozen cookies 

(very large cookies! It makes more if you don't make them as big)

1 1/2 cups butter softened (3 sticks)

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla 

2 eggs

4 cups all-purpose flower

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups coarsely chopped nuts, if desired 

1 package (24 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (4 cups) or if you want to make it fun you can do a cup each of semisweet chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate and butterscotch chips.

Heat oven to 375. 

Mix butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs in large bowl. stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

Drop dough by level 1/4 cupfuls about 2" apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with a fork. Bake 13- 15 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft) cool 1-2 minutes before removing from cookie sheet to wire rack.

This recipe is from the Betty Crocker Cookie Book
 

(I do not like nuts in my cookies so I didn't make them with nuts I also made them smaller then the recipe says to make them)