One Snowy October Day....

We had big plans for our Saturday.

 plans to do away with this.

 plans to bushwhack that.

plans to clean up this.

We had "bought" several youth "slaves" at their fundraiser auction and our small group had volunteered to pitch in too. We were dreaming of how nice things would look around here after all that 

muscle attacked it.

But things don't always go as planned!

 4-6 inches of  S.N.O.W.

was sent our way instead.

 (yes, in October and No, I don't live Alaska.)

 The small people in our house were FAR more excited about this then the adults!

(the minute the rain drops began to turn to white flakes the mittens came out and they were just waiting for it to be deep enough to play in)

passing the time with a game of good ol' candyland.

it was a very, very, wet snow....great for packing! =)

  

isn't he a cute little doughboy? =)

Plan B.

I decided to break out the paintbrushes and move my work project indoors. Daddy volunteered to be in charge of boots, hats, gloves, coats, hats and snow pants so I could make some serious tracks!

The gray is actually just a primer, the final coat is "cherry cobbler" red. 

Can't wait to post before and after pictures but it needs some more "finishing touches" first.

 

 In

the

mean

time,

I'm

back 

to

enjoying

a 

little

more

FALL.

baby steps

Baby Kyra.......

 

 

 ...is officially walking!

 This makes carrying accessories soooo much easier!

And this girl is A.L.L. about accessories! 

headbands. scarves. purses. hats.

(or jackets, underwear, anything else we can find, used as one of the above. =) 

But sometimes all that extra 'stuff' just gets in the way. 

 Does this ever happen to you too?

'It' (you fill in the blank here) is so pretty, so fun, so whatever and we think we simply MUST have it. Before long though, we figure out that it's really just getting in the way. It ties us up, slows us down and distracts us from what is really important and where we really want to go in life. "Lord, help me not to get tangled up in stuff that keeps me from walking with you!"


P.S. Sorry for the shadowy, not-very-good-lighting pictures. Once she decided she could do it she was off and running. I couldn't get ahead of her much less mess with camera settings.

The Kitchen Facelift

You know how it always looks better in the pictures??

THIS....

...Is my lovely Victorian home on the hilltop.

In real life, the overgrown-by-weeds-drop-off, just feet from the porch on the right, and the traffic zooming by on the road, again just feet from the left, have been carefully "cropped" off. Our never ending project is to make it as lovely as the pictures (at least the ones in our dreams.) It's a very old house with lots of "character!" (A nice way of saying, "Well, that's really odd, what in the world were they thinking when they built it THAT way?)

Our first project, THE  KITCHEN.....

Apparently they decided that slapping on a cover-up coat of mint green paint would be a help in the selling process. (For the record, it was NOT a selling point for us!) We've quickly discovered that the previous owners home improvement philosophy was definitely "do it the quick way" not "do it the right way!" We ended up peeling the green off in big strips with a razor blade and sanding down the almost as beautiful blue underneath before we transformed them with a coat of black.

BEFORE

AFTER

(I even managed to find the countertops along the way =)

 Special thanks to my Mother and my DH who spent many hours on this project while I was unpacking and trying to make some sense out of the rest of the house! I'm quite pleased with the results! Someday I dream of having new cupboards with doors that shut without slamming and drawers that don't create a sawdust pile every time they are tugged open, and maybe some linoleum without blue flowers and holes, but in the meantime this will do just fine!

 

I also inherited this monstrous piece with the purchase of our house. Now I know that "vintage" is very cool these days, and many times I agree, but this  just wasn't  working for me. I like my modern conveniences to be, well, MODERN. 

Just one week after we moved in I found this one

at a yard sale for just $40. I was thrilled!! That's my kind of home improvement project right there. 

Out with the old in with the new in 30 minutes flat!

 This is what we lived with for 2 and a half weeks until we could "move in" to the kitchen cupboards.

Let's just say it makes cooking a wee bit challenging!!

 

 Oh yes, THAT is MUCH better!!

For now the dining room makeover will be considered completed by the replacing of the crazy flowered curtains (see above) with simple mini blinds. Eventually I'd like to repaint the walls of the kitchen and dining room with a fresh coat, eventually.....

  A glimpse at part of the "character" inside my house. This one I'm okay with.

And with the doors closed (the way they will remain as long as there are 4 crazy, energetic, always-on-the-move boys living here!)

And, just because it will probably never be organized enough to photograph again, the fabulously wonderful walk-in pantry! This will be put to good use with my new experiment with once-a-month grocery shopping!

Thanks for stopping in! Next time let me know ahead of time and I'll turn on the coffee pot!

Stay tuned I hope to do lots more before and after posts as we complete more projects around here!

Home is where.....

...the fresh warm COOKIES are! 

I caved! It was such a dreary, rainy, fall day.  Perfect for sweet tempting aromas to be filling the house! After 3 weeks of serving my family freezer meals and Little Debbie snack cakes, I decided it was time for some fresh homemade goodies. I had been gifted a bag a of fall colored M&M's that were just begging to be made into Monster Cookies. 

I used the recipe from KitchenCookie's Blog, you can find it here.

While I was looking for that recipe, I came across this one. I remember thinking they looked fabulous when I first saw them, but I had forgotten about them. They seemed like the perfect fall treat. Better make some of those too!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Caramel Drizzle

I highly recommend them!

There is one problem with that recipe though, it uses only part of the can of pumpkin. So to resolve that issue I decided to make an old favorite of mine. 

Jumbo

Pumpkin

Cream Cheese 

Muffins

Since I know you're gonna be making those rolls and you're gonna need  to use up your can of pumpkin too, I'll share the recipe with you.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins 

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 1/4 cup Pumpkin

1/4 cup oil

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt 

Beat sugar, eggs, pumpkin, oil and vanilla together. Combine flour, cinnamon, soda and salt. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Divide batter into 9 paper lined jumbo muffin cups. (I only made 8 today but  I wasn't able to use all the filling.) 

Filling

8 ounces cream cheese

1 egg 

1 tbsp. sugar

Beat together until smooth. Drop large tablespoonfuls into the center of each muffin. Sprinkle with chopped nuts (optional.)

Bake at 350* for about 25 minutes.

 

//////////////////////////////////////////////

So now we have some homemade goodies in the house again but I know they won't last long. There are still a few boxes patiently waiting for some attention but nothing makes a house a home like the smell of warm cookies, right?

And the best part of all, while I was busy with all of that, supper was simmering away in the crockpot.

 Just a simple pork roast with a bit of seasoning but it was enough that the boy declared supper to be "really good" the moment he walked in the door after school. With a generous portion of Sweet Baby Rays bbq sauce and soft kaiser rolls, the hubster dubbed it "worth eating."

I love to cook! I love that my family loves when I cook! 

And I love that everyone is in bed for the night, so I can sample one of those Cinnamon Buns with a steamy hot cup of coffee!

It would be nice to share with a friend though!

Anyone??

Fair Skies and Funnelcake

I told my husband last week that what I really want to do is decorate my porch with pumpkins and corn shocks and bake everything pumpkin and apple, but instead----I emptied more boxes. I'm partial to Summer's warm temperatures, long days, kids off school and the rainbow of fresh fruits and veggies, but for some reason  fall is testing my loyalty this year. It's probably mostly because I'm quite ready to do something, anything really, other than pack and unpack and organize and sort and figure out what to do with the last 3 boxes of really odd things sitting in the living room. But since I don't know of any grand pumpkin patches nearby (of course if you're local and you'd like to recommend one, I'd be happy to file that info away!) it will help me restrain myself and stay on task here. Maybe next year!!
 

I did venture out for one evening of fall fun with the kiddos though. Let's call it 

"The Woman who lives in a Shoe goes out on the town."

 The last of the local fairs runs the first week in October. It's the one I went to as a kid and now it's our "hometown" again. It's pretty important for our family to get there at least for the parade night. So important in fact that said "Woman from the Shoe" took 5 kids (one of them barely a month old) to parade night SOLO last year, on a night when it happened to RAIN. It's okay, you're not the first person to raise your eyebrows and question her sanity!!! She does it herself, REGULARLY!

So this year, Daddy had to work again but we recruited Grandma to join us. She willingly agreed since the forecast for the week was sunny and unseasonably warm.

 We got there early so we'd have time to do all the important stuff.....

Drive the Tractors 

--except there wasn't very many to choose from this year. we had to settle for a lawn mower and sharing it at that.--

Drool over the Legos

 The Petting Area

The Corn Box

--by far the biggest attraction on the grounds. my boys could spend days there--

And of course......

The Food!

(Well, actually we started with that. Not because it was the most important part--but it might have been-- but because if you wait to eat dinner until dinner time the food area becomes one big massive line. The french fry stand is swarming like a bee hive and the milkshake line makes Friday afternoon traffic look easy! In between there are 27 other junk foods begging for your whole months allowance and a ride on your hips.)

I told the kids they could each choose one thing. Our dinner consisted of Funnel Cake, French Fries and Soft Pretzel. (And the big bag of apple slices that I packed, in hopes that it would somehow balance out those grease loaded goodies.)

We don't get good stuff like this very often! =)

The other highlight---watching the rides. Yup, I said watching. I'm too tight to fork out real money for a chance to bring up the $4 treat I just bought, but they stood there for a long time fascinated by the spinning, blinking, tilting  and whirling.

It's not everyday you get to walk down the middle of the road. 

And then we perched on our reserved curb seats to watch tractors, trucks, horses, dogs, marching bands and "those guys with only one wheel" (unicyclists) pass us by and throw candy our way.
We were not disappointed, we filled several bags with tootsie rolls, smarties and mints.

Chances are good that we'll be back next year, even if the forecast says rain!

Dear Dreadfully Neglected Blog,

 It's been quite a while since we spent time together. I do believe this past month went much faster than normal. I've been rather busy with ......

.......sanding

and painting.....

and boxes......

and projects......

and organizing......

along with a bit of (birthday) celebrating.....

Flowers from my Honey.  A bright spot in my chaos!

the list goes on!


I may have given a few much needed fashion tips in between, too.

Of course the lack of phone/internet service for 12 days didn't help your cause any either.


I promise, I'll be back to fill you in on all the excitement around here soon! Do you want to here about the new house, the furniture facelifts or the treasure filled barn first??

Be back soon!
Rachel