Oh and we got snow... finally

Just so happy that on Saturday night/ Sunday morning, we go snow. Ben and I got to sweep it up and all the wishes of my preschoolers came true. I had a snowflake program Saturday on a sunny no snow day and we made wishing wands to wish for snow and it worked!

The house looked so nice and the air felt good with just a bit of white insulation. While others brought out their snow blowers (8 am on a sunday- butt holes!) we used our brooms. I know that they may have purchased them when we actually got good snow here, but they really aren't necessary for the one or two times you actually have to clear your sidewalk.

Kitchen in the Works

So we are still working on things around the house, or I should say Ben is as i am too tired to help and plus am playing the pregnancy card to exempt myself from painting.

Ben did a ton of scraping, cleaning or grease from 40+ years ago and discovering the laziness of previous owners and the downside of making improvements to a home that was a rental property for so long. The paint that was peeling from the doors was literally doing so because the door was never cleaned between paint jobs and instead of paint clinging to the door, it clung to grease build up from a kitchen environment! Lovely! Thank you previous landlords.

The red paint got it's second coat this morning. We will be moving back into the kitchen this evening, peeling off tape, protecting shelves with a non adhesive contact paper of sort and replacing shelves and cabinet doors. Ben also took the extra time to take off the ugly wood framing the window and re-framed the whole thing plus took apart the screen windows and replaced the screen and half round oak trim that was keeping the screen in. Then of course repainted and went to pop the windows back in to find them 1/8 of an inch to big, so he has some more planing work to do to make them fit. The glass windows will be fixed up this summer, as we didn't want to much cold air in the house. You can see the window progress in the pictures, click for larger views. I will post more before and afters once i have completed project pictures.

k

The French Presses Cozy

So for a few years now Ben and I have been wondering how to keep our french pressings warm in our cold, cold house. I think about 6 months ago on some craft blog I saw tea cozies and there was some discussion about french presses, so I put it on my list of things to do before the baby comes and voila last night I cranked it out. I am very happy with it. Using some of the funky 70's quilted fabric from the stash my mom gave me and again making a cool bias tape to match, we can have tea or coffee sit out and keep it warm! Or so we hope, haven't really tested it yet. But hooray another thing checked off the list!

LK's Birthday

We had a fun, late night weekend this past. Tim and Mark tested out little bud's new blocks and we got to begin the celebratsion of LK's birthday enjoying the first couple hours of it. The late night really took it out of me and Sunday easily became a very sluggish day. It is actually the equivilant of a hangover, just staying up late while pregnant has a similar effect on your body, no headache luckily but the tiredness definitely.

Monday night we celebrated further at potluck. Ben made some really kickass cupcakes, with about 1 Tbsp per cake, they are rich, and lovely and what Ben describes as an "Adult Cupcake"

Lot's of kids over for the potluck the house was a bit crazy and incredibly warm, the woodstove had died down, but the house was up to 75 degrees. Talk about a good way to cut back on your heating for the winter.