It Was a Good Day!!

Our home is just buzzing as we prepare for Thanksgiving and spend time with friends. I was up at the crack of dawn with ideas from drifting off to sleep still fresh on my brain! There are a few new changes this year with our family that I am needing to address and it all came together in my mind last night after I had crawled into bed. Our oldest will be starting high school football this next year and has been going through weight training right now. He has been working and saving and has purchased a mini gym for lifting. We were thinking of keeping it out in the garage and had a good set up but it is just getting too cold. I also needed to come up with a little more seating up in our living room for quests and I had a light bulb idea! We have a beautiful antique bed down in the basement that rarely gets used that would be perfect for a daybed! Years and years ago we had used a bed for a couch before we had had real couches, and so many friends have told me that they have missed it-which I agree, they just have a cozy charm to them. So, bright and early this morning before school, a couple of us brought the bed up to the living room. It is already a hit with the little ones! I am not going to mind curling up with a good book at night either in this cozy spot! So we hit two birds with one stone and all for no money-yeah!!

We also had some good friends over today for a visit. The girls were just loving on little Pip(Penelope). There is some big time baby dreams going on around here. I just love having the chance to sit for a few hours with a good friend while the kids play. True blessings!!

And this week I worked on a special project for a precious young girl who lost her mama. It was a project that I was very nervous about tackling because of the depth of sorrow that surrounds a loss such as this. But The Lord in His time finally brought a calm to my heart and hands. I was given a bundle of her mama's favorite clothing and linens to fashion into a doll. I am praying that this doll will be a comfort to her on hard days and I am praying that she will grow knowing that she is loved and not alone, that she can always take her burdens and sorrows to the Lord who knows her and loves her deeply.

A Few Finished Projects...

I know I have written about this in recent posts. But I thought I would share some of our progress around the house. Once we came in from the summer activities, Matt and I, with the help of the kiddos as well, have gotten to work on some much needed painting around the house. We have been slowly working through each of the rooms upstairs. This time, we have been so incredibly content with the results and are very much looking forward to the upcoming holidays! Here are some pictures from our adventure in paint cans...

We finally tackled our stairway to the basement. A place of sore neglect and chaos. I believe that there were still areas that was original drywall still finally getting a taste of paint. And since I walk this stairway at least 50 times a day, I can now stop and take in all my blessings.

This is our front closet. I had taken the doors off of it a year ago and put up coat hangers instill of the basic pole. That helped to keep the clutter to a minimum. Everyone was allowed 2 pairs of shoes only, and the rest were to be stored in their rooms. So since it was open at all times, I wanted to paint it and draw it into the room. Noah was my right hand man on this project and it was a project that I could work with him on without to much collateral damage;)

There had been some pretty funky shelf liner paper still at the bottom from the previous owners which meant it needed to be primed once it was torn off. Noah had a good old time doing that for me!

Bell helped me roll on the red, actually almost all of the kids took a turn at that.

Here is the almost finished closet. I am not so anxious to bring in the pile of coats and shoes quite yet, who needs a winter coat or shoes anyways-right?! The dresser was also a project this past weekend. It keeps all of our hats and mittens organized for us.

The dresser was extremely beat up, but I used paint from some other projects we were working on and gave it a nice face lift. I used tape to create the inside boxes for red on each of the drawers. Here is the final look.

The bathroom just got a fresh coat of paint-a bit lighter than before. The walls sure take a beating from all the moisture!

We did have a fun day for Halloween. We did a little bit of trick or treating and then spent the evening at church for our fall festival. Bell was a lady bug, Noah a lion and Joslyn was Lucy from Narnia. Madison and her friend went at homecoming queens.

One of my most precious friends just had a little girl and we have spent some time visiting(kind of helps with the baby cravings!) I think I will be there a lot! Madi is pretty happy to hold this little wonder as well!

I had one of our lovely students from church come over and teach the girls and I how to make jewelry-what a fun and overwhelming hobby! Breann did a great job teaching us the basics as well as giving us some fabulous inspiration!

We have painted our living room with two happy colors, but of course before we began I accidentally put a hole in the wall while attacking a stubborn nail-oiy!

So I learned how to patch holes in walls-useful-especially when you are me;) The kids were quite amused with my predicament.

Here is a glance at the two colors we choose to put together. I am just in love with them. I painted the room orange a few years ago and from the first roll of the brush, was crushed at the color-but decided to finish it and live with it. It feels wonderful to actually like the color on the wall!

I still have yet to get things back on the walls, but I will be slow to accomplish that. Life has been neglected too long and we need to refocus. No more projects for awhile. Feels good to have that behind us though, especially with the windows still open and heat still off. Now that we are all painted up, the kids would much like it to snow. As Noah says, "now we can Thanks Give and put up the tree". There is a reason for that being so important to him, we do not bring out the train until the tree is up, we do not put up the tree until after Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is here as soon as it snows(at least to Noah). Love their minds!

And last but not least, I made a new slip cover for the ottoman a few weeks ago. It was time to use up some of my scraps.