Master Bedroom mini update

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas? We all had a lovely time, lots of family time and this is the first Christmas in a few years that no one's been really sick!

During my Christmas Home tour I showed a few pics of the mini makeover I did on our master bedroom, but I figured I should show a better before and after :-)

So this is where we were last time we checked in the master, I had done a bit of picture hanging and bed making...

2014 Kozy Kabin Christmas House Tour

Hello!

Welcome to my corner of blogland. For any of you who regularly stop by, thank you for doing that and I apologize for leaving you hanging from my last post. I guess I'm just not cut out for daily posting (plus truth be told i only took 3 pictures that whole weekend...oops) Anywhooooo, on to the tour!

This is definitely my favorite time of the year, I love touring around all the houses on show, seeing what creative people have done to put some extra sparkle in their homes, so enough rambling grab a cup of eggnog or hot chocolate (or my personal favorite eggnog latte!) and lets move on with the tour! 

 I have to say I'm particularly proud of that picture above (although not so proud of the orangey look of the walls, what is that?!?!)  as I found that vintage chalkboard at the thrift store! I've been dying to get one of these but they're just not in the budget this year. So I made my own :)

A Week in the Life - Thursday

Well hello again!
I am so sorry if I left you hanging last week on my Week in the Life project, that was not my intention at all! In fact, I made (almost) every effort to keep posting. See, what happened was this, I had been posting the day after each day so that it would be an all around view of my day and on Friday I was fully planning on posting about Thursday's day, but, my sister and I went on a little road trip Friday morning. No matter, I thought, I'll just bring my computer and camera etc and post later from the hotel. Well, I packed the camera, I packed the laptop, but what I forgot to pack was the cable to connect the two to upload my photos onto the laptop.....wop wop.fail. Oh well, better late than never I always say :)
                 

A Week in the Life - Wednesday

Wednesday

Total pictures taken 38

Welcome back, I think this is a new record for me, posting three days in a row! So far it has been good, there have definitely been challenges, both in picture taking and in journaling and recording our week. Today I'm not going to do a lot of writing 

A Week in the Life - Tuesday

Welcome back!

So yesterday (Monday)I started this week in the life project and though it kind of had a bumpy start, today I started hitting my stride. Things of note, a lot more pictures were taken, not only that but I had some fun playing around with angles, the timer on my camera (which I have never used before!) and different lighting. For my words today I included some observations of our life right now, to distinguish this week from any "normal" week 

All pictures were taken with my Canon Rebel T3i with my 18-55mm lens (I hope to get a wider angle lens eventually) And here we go...

A Week in the Life Project

Hello there,
It's been a long time again,...Sigh

Moving on, Last week Ali Edwards did her Week in the Life project and it seems like every year I want to do it and every year I forget or I get too perfectionist about it and want to do it the exact same time and week. Well, this time I am one week off kilter, but I've decided to do it anyways. I'm hoping it will help me jump-start my scrapbooking season (aka our long Canadian winter)
So here we go...

Back to School.....finally!

I know this is really late for the rest of blogland, but today really is their first day of school :) The teachers in our province have been on strike till now so these kids have had an extra long summer (which make no mistake, they have enjoyed!) But, they were sure excited to go back :)

Garden Photo update

Hello Strangers!
    Actually, I guess I've been the stranger around here. August flew by and before I knew it it's September. I guess this year it doesn't really feel like September because my kids still haven't gone back to school as their teachers are all on strike. We've been doing a bit of homeschooling trying to keep up with their math with workbooks and lots and lots of reading so it's been busy busy around here. I don't know how full time homeschoolers find time to blog and do housework as well!


(this is a very common way of seeing Gabe while I read to him, maybe being upside down helps him think? ;)

No Electronics in July?!?!?!?!

This past month has been lovely, I decided at the end of June to make July an electronic device free month. Now we really don't have that many compared to a lot of people, Pat and I have iphones, Nyla has an ipod touch, Cady has a ipod shuffle and we have an old Nintendo DS. But, I was getting so tired of waking up every day to one of the kids asking to play games on my phone or arguing about who got more time on what or constantly telling them to put devices down and go play outside or use their toys and games and imaginations, that I finally lost my patience and took them all away for a month. And you know what? 

It has been wonderful! 

 They have been on bike rides, running through the sprinkler, jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath, digging in the dirt, playing with their toys,

New Addition to the Family (no we didn't have another baby ;)

Last week was pretty exciting as we got to welcome this sweet little bundle into the world...

Her name is Leah Mabel and she is our newest little niece :)

The living room change up

Just dropping in to share a couple pics of our little living room change up. I think I've said this before but I'll say it again, I love love love rearranging furniture! I used to beg my mom to let me change our living room around all the time when I was a kid. Also, Pat hardly ever bats an eye when things get moved around because it happens that often ;) I think this is about the 7th or 8th incarnation in the last ten months we've been living here.

Anyways, enough chit chat, on to the pictures! 

This is what it kind of looked like before...

May Travels Part 2

So last time I talked about and showed pictures of our visit with family and our time at the beach and this time I'm going to share our two farm visits. 

The first farm we went to was called Morning Star Farm 

So, we pull up and park in the parking lot and the first thing we see in a field adjacent are these beautiful bovines :) Our kids have never been up close to a cow before and they were amazed at how BIG they are!

May Travels

Way back in May our family did some travels and we spent about a week on beautiful Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada (I can't believe it has taken almost a month to post about this but hey that's life) I'll warn you though, this post is going to be pretty photo heavy :)

So, in order to get to Vancouver Island you need to either fly or take a ferry and in this case we took one of the ferry's. On our trip over we had gorgeous weather, but unfortunately didn't see much marine life (we saw one sea lion, very far in the distance)

We were visiting the area of Parksville and Qualicum and we had such a great time! We took the kids for their first time mini-golfing and we all had a blast (so much so that the kids kept asking if we could go back every day!)

Garden Bliss

Well hello strangers ;)

It has been a long time since the last time I posted, so long in fact, that there was still snow on the ground and I was heading up to the ski hill! My how fast things have changed...

Part of the reason I haven't been around is that every waking moment that I am at home, I am in my garden and/or working on it somehow and another part is that soccer has been taking over our lives at the moment (thank goodness it is a fairly short season!) and the last reason is we did a lot of travelling in May (nowhere super exciting but I'll share more on that soon), so that month especially flew by.

Back to the garden, so here's what it looked like the last time I shared,

And here's what it looks like now!

Blog Love

Happy Friday everyone!
Before I jet off to the ski hill with my kiddos I wanted to share with you some blog posts I'm loving right now so that you have some fun reading for the weekend ;)

First off , since I am definitely feeling like we are going through some blog puberty I have to share this hilarious post by the always funny Mandi at Vintage Revivals

Six Months

My kids are home for spring break although it is still quite snowy as you can see,

A 9 year old girls room that isn't pink!

   Since Cadence and I finally went through her room and organized and discarded a bunch of stuff she's grown out of and we can now walk into her room without fear of stepping on some small painful item IE barbie shoes or playmobil animals, I figured it was high time I shared all the work we have accomplished in her room so far. The last time I shared her space, it was just after I painted both girls rooms and there was a considerable amount of stuff everywhere (my little girl is a bit of a hoarder :s) Hence the picture only shows the top half of her room ;)

  But let's not dwell shall we? Moving on, here's Cady's room now:

A Long Overdue Picture Hanging

Some of you may or may not remember this little post from 2 years ago in which I made a couple old windows into picture frames.

I have a confession to make, I have never hung these on a wall nor have I done anything with them since I made them! And it's not like I don't like them, in fact I still love them and they are still one of my most favorite projects ever! No, the reason I've never hung them etc is two fold; #1. Just a short time after I made these, we found out our house was sold and then we were moving. #2. Since we lived in a travel trailer for that summer  the frames were in storage and then when we rented our next place I didn't want to hang them and wreck the walls or something (these windows are quite heavy!) So, yesterday, I did this...

I finally hung them up in our master bedroom! I quite like them flanking our bed in there. I also hung a few more pictures to the far right (although now that I'm seeing them in the picture I think they're a bit too high. On the other side, I hung that wooden shelf (my hubby made that many years ago) and decided it was the perfect spot to hang my scarves.

One of these days I'd like to get/make some new window coverings and maybe a different paint color on the walls, but probably not for awhile since my focus will be changing soon from inside to outside areas.

See that little campfire thingy in the picture below? Gabe made that and decided to give it to his dad for his birthday, isn't it sweet?

Lots of things I want to do/fix/buy/make etc but I'm trying to not to get overwhelmed again. Although I think with everything we've got going on this spring there might be a good chance of that. Hopefully reading about "highly effective people" might help ME be more effective ;)

As always, any questions,comments, advice, let me know in the comments below :)

Hamburger Soup

This is one of our favorite soups for winter time. I remember my mom making this a lot in winter when I was growing up and it was always a hit, so much so that I remember several times requesting to have it in a thermos in my lunch the next day! I kind of forgot about it for awhile pre-kids and then I remember asking my mom for the recipe for it and she gave me the cookbook it was in. It was an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (she had a series of these that each slim volume was something different, Poultry, Italian, Chocolate, Cakes and Cookies{those last two were my favorite!})  and this recipe was in one appropriately called Soups and Stews. I remember reading through the recipe the first time cause I couldn't believe how short the recipe looked and I quickly realized why my mom made it so often in winter, It's so easy! It's also easily adaptable and freezable and it serves 6 full bowls (I grew up in a family of six) So without further adieu I give you Hamburger Soup.

Hamburger Soup

1 pound lean ground beef (preferably grass-fed pastured, or you can use ground bison or venison etc)

1 16-ounce can diced tomatoes

2 medium carrots, sliced

2 medium onions, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1/3 cup pearl barley (omit for paleo version and substitute with extra veggies in recipe)

1/4 cup ketchup

1 tbsp instant beef bouillon granules (I substitute gluten free Worcestershire sauce for paleo friendly)

2 tsp seasoned salt

1 tsp dried basil, crushed

1 bay leaf

In large saucepan cook ground beef till browned. Drain off fat. Stir in remaining ingredients and 5 cups water. Bring to boiling. Reduce heat cover and simmer for 1 hour. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove bay leaf. Serves 6.

A Boy Bedroom Update

Hi everyone! First off I have to say Happy Valentines Day!  

OK so it's more like a mini update, but I'm so happy to share with you some updated photos of Gabe's room. First of all, lets remind ourselves of what I started out with;

Yikes! Poor Gabe had to live with this for nearly five months (since the girls rooms took precedence in their unfinished state and then there was Christmas etc etc ;)

I'll be honest and tell you that I've been waiting awhile to try and get a good photo to show off his new color and since that just isn't happening I figured what the heck, Ill show you anyways :) So, here it is...

A vast improvement for sure! The color I used in here is called Silver Mist by Benjamin Moore

It's a nice light grayish blue as Gabe wanted his room to be grey (actually her originally wanted it to be all black but I nixed that since his only window is north facing and doesn't get much natural light, especially in winter) although, it is quite light and sometimes reads as a soft white. Not to worry as I have a plan to deepen the color a bit. I'm also super excited about this room as I got a fantastic idea for a sort of theme for his room. I'm thinking (and Gabe agrees with this idea and is sooo excited) that his room will be a ski theme or winter wonderland. Gabe loves to ski and I have some ideas to make his room cool for a little boy of 6 as he is now and also that he can grow with for many years to come as it won't be too cartoonish.

Have a great V-day and a wonderful weekend!

A Fun Family Weekend (Canadian Style :)

We had such a great weekend this weekend past (it was a long weekend where we are) and I just had to share some of it with all of you who are still checking in on me here ;) 

On Saturday it was gorgeous and sunny and my hubby had the great idea to check out a local park on the lake where we heard it freezes when there is a long cold spell (which there has been!) I decided to bring the good camera to play around with ;)

Ordinary Days

Yesterday was one of those regular semi-ordinary days I just love. I went and watched the kids school assembly, Cady was in a special performance :)

Overwhelmed

     That is the best word I can use to describe how Ive been feeling the last few months. Overwhelmed. In the last almost five months, the six of us (my sister lives with us)plus the dog, two cats and guinea pig have moved into our new house, had three birthdays, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, my hubby started a new job the week before we moved in, and of course all the everyday things of school and kids activities

                        

All last year when we were renting I was looking forward to owning our own place again so that I would have lots of projects to do and share with you all, and now that we have that and I'm doing a bunch of projects, I feel I don't have the time to share them on the blog! Ironic isn't it?

     I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I really appreciate and feel so thankful for all of you who still check in to my sporadic blogging and I want to promise you I haven't forgotten or got bored of i,t I am just trying to sort out and organise my time better to have time to take care of my family and myself, do projects and share those projects on the blog :)

I'm so looking forward to this year of 2014 as it already feels like a bunch of my dreams are finally falling into place and I can't wait to share with you all the fun along the way.

Later this week I'm hoping to show and share with you the outside of our new place and all the fun and crazy plans we have for our new little piece of land.

Thanks again and have a great week!

Tween Room Mini-update

     Way back in November I showed you what colors I painted my girls rooms and mentioned that we wanted to do something on those newly painted, bare walls, either a frame collage or banner or something fun like that. I knew Nyla would be getting a few posters for her room for Christmas, so I put off doing any hanging of stuff on those walls until after that big day. So, that's what we did! A few days after all the Christmas hoopla settled down we got down to business and hung some art. 

Some things you may notice, this girl is obsessed with cats! Also, that thing dangling from her ceiling is a dream catcher with a small stuffed animal attached to it :)

Voila!

Christmas Aftermath

Hello strangers! I hope you all had a lovely holiday, we enjoyed lots of family time and relaxing together time (partly because we were all sick and partly because we just wanted needed to relax.) Yesterday I spent most of the day cleaning,sorting,organizing as the New Years organizing bug hit me full force. Do you get that feeling? New year, new you? Well maybe not *new* but scrubbed up anyways. :)

It doesn't feel like a new year here on the blog until I close out the old one by sharing some post Christmas pictures, so bear with me as I relive it a little bit.

Here are the kiddies in their new Xmas PJ's setting out cookies and eggnog for Santa. I can't believe how big they're all getting!