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!)

Christmas Home Tour

I am linked up at The Nesting Place 2013 Christmas Tour of Homes so for anyone joining me from there, Welcome!

It's that time of year again, Christmas home tour time!

I'll be honest and say this is not a Perfect home tour in fact its anything but, (moving six people into a smaller house takes awhile to get things Perfect ) Good thing I'm not striving for perfection! And like one of my favorite bloggers, the Nester, always says, It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.

So without further adieu, here is the tour!

Our tree was incredibly easy to find this year, we actually found it in our back yard! It is set up right in the middle of our great room so it can be seen from the kitchen, living room and dining room.

Guess who's back, back again....

Sam is back, tell your friends....

Yes, I'm a dork, what can I say?
   Just dropping in today to share some more summer fun pics. We were away last week on holidays so I took a blogging break and enjoyed some family time. I'm finding I take most of my pictures with my phone as it is light and easy to carry, do you find that so in the summer? 

      We've been picking tons of raspberries! My moms place has a huge raspberry patch and the kids especially love to pick them. I think they've picked a couple ice cream buckets full.

Mom's Day

I hope all you mothers had a wonderful day yesterday. I know I did! We had a very busy weekend and so I'm not going to bore you with all of the details, but I did take a bunch of fun pictures that I wanted to share with you.
      These first few pics were taken with my phone and didn't upload as clear on here as they appear on my phone :)

Such a cool big rock!

An egg-cellent weekend!

Happy April everyone! I can't believe it is April already! 

We had some Easter fun over the weekend, we enjoyed colouring some Easter eggs,

Christmas 2012

Hello blogworld :) It's been a little while since I was around here, but rest assured I haven't forgotten about my little speck of blogland here, I've been working on a bunch of "behind the scenes" stuff and trying to get my computer to work well again. Thank you to all of you interested and wonderful enough to stick around and see what I have to (eventually) say and share :)

I know most blogs are done with Christmas, but I have to post this as it was supposed to go up around the 27th, but you know what they say about the best laid plans :)

I should warn you before we go further that there are a LOT of pictures, so pull up a chair and maybe grab a cuppa tea or coffee (whatever your "thang" is) and enjoy the highlights with me :)   

Here's the sweet kiddy's near the start of the opening frenzy, all decked out in their new Christmas PJ's (the hat on Cady is new as well :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.......

Soon the bells will start..... sigh I love Christmas carols don't you? 

If you are new to Kozy Kabin in the Koots, Welcome! I am linking up with The Nester's 2012 Christmas Tour of Homes and The Inspired Home's Christmas Home Tours

Ahem,  and we're back to our irregularly scheduled program.  I'm finally going to share with you our Christmassy house, although I'm still tweaking and refining a few things. If you are curious what our house looked like last year, you can check that out here.

When you first walk into our house this is the little vignette that welcomes you, 

Christmas fun

This weekend we did something fun together as a family, we made a gingerbread house! We don't usually do these things (gasp!) but we got one of those kit thingies last week ( thanks Gramma Bev!) and Gabe has been pestering asking me all week to make it. So on Sunday we had nothing going on (for once!) and we decided Gabe had pestered waited long enough. It was actually pretty fun once we got through the arguments of who's being fair and who's hogging all the candy :) We even had my sister here to help.

Christmas gift ideas for kids

      OK! Are you all ready for Christmas yet?! No? Well get with the program!  Just kidding :)  I am certainly not ready for Christmas, but I have been starting to get organized and accumulating some things in preparation of that big day.  As I was thinking of that I thought maybe I would share with you some of our best gift ideas from years past. Just to warn you, there are a lot of pictures :) Oh and I will try and provide links to amazon or Toys r us but also know that I fully support our local toy stores and buy a lot of things from them but the links will give you an idea of price :)

     This is a picture from two years ago, and though it doesn't look like from the expression on his face, this was one of Gabe's favorite trucks ever! (still is to this day and he still plays with it all the time )

                                                                     (Link)

Boo to You!!

Well since I don't have any current pics of my kids' costumes yet (they have to bring their costumes to school for later instead of wearing them all day) I thought I'd share some fun from the past.

                                                                           2009
                                             

Happy Thanksgiving my fellow Canadians!

                                                           {image source}

Hope your day is blessed with family, friends and good food.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Our life this summer so far....

Hi!
I want to apologise first for the serious lack of posts this month. I had planned to keep up the pace but found that a few places where we stayed in our "New Home" had no cell service and unfortunately the little gadget I picked up to have mobile Internet relies, of course, on cell service. So here
we are and I am going to attempt to update you all on our life lately.

We've been doing a LOT of reading (there's no TV in the trailer)

We've been discovering native "wildlife". Meet Toady the toad whom we discovered close to our campsite one night. We've also seen a few deer, a black bear and a moose! Welcome to the great (not so white) north!

Pat and the kids have done a bunch of fishing. The kids are getting to be quite the little fisher people, Cadence and Gabe like casting from shore, and Nyla really enjoys trolling in the little boat.

This is the view from one of our campsites in one of my favorite places.

And then more reading!
This next month brings us swimming lessons, a wedding, a visit with some family from far away, harvesting and planting in the garden and hopefully more time on the beach!
How is your summer going so far?

8 happy years (so far!)

As you may have guessed, today is Pat and I's anniversary. Eight whole years! 

A lot has happened in those eight years, 2 kids (our first was born before we married) 4 1/2 moves (we're smack dab in the middle of one now!) 2 different cities, 4 different vehicles, got a puppy, lost a cat, and a partridge in a pear tree. Just kidding about that last one :)

Happy Anniversary darlin'! Thanks for being a wonderful husband and father, my best friend and lover (hey that rhymes sorta). I can't wait to see how happy the next eight years are going to be.

I love you.

:)

I feel loved :)

Yesterday I had a lovely day with my family. I was greeted with a plethora of lovely handmade gifts from my sweet little kidlets :)

Nyla made this sweet card,

and a few paintings that she made at school. The one below is one called "friends come in all colours" or something like that....

and this one is a pastel and watercolour of some waterlilies. I love the colours in this one, definitely one of my favorites!

Cadence painted this beautiful flowerpot and then planted the flower/plant inside :)

She also made a whole whack of cards and some of my favorites are on the right side of the picture below. The one on the left is Gabe's sweet card which Nyla helped him with. She drew what he asked and then he coloured it all in. Isn't it sweet? I loved it! 

We were blessed with a gorgeous day! A beautiful cloudless blue sky and nice and warm :)

So gorgeous that the grass is growing like crazy :) So, me and my trusty lawnmower set out to make the grass pretty. I know it sounds crazy, but I really like mowing the lawn! It is so nice to know I can make a nice pattern in the grass and it won't get upset or ruined right away. When you do dishes or laundry you know that the cycle is going to start again almost immediately, but mowing lasts about a week :) 

Hard to see, but there are pretty lines in the grass :)

We all spent the day outside, had a big bonfire (doesn't look like it here, but that fire is super hot! We had flames about 10 feet high for a bit too :) and roasted hot dogs and smokies.

 The kids had a blast building a fort in the forest and swinging and playing on the trampoline with the neighbour boy.

Whee! Go Cady :)

So, did you have a good weekend? And a good mothers day? Have you roasted anything over a bonfire lately?  Do you like mowing the lawn like I do, or do you prefer the "man of the house" to do it instead?
Have a great week!

Happy Mother's Day!

                                          (source)


A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.  ~Washington Irving


Happy Mothers Day to all my mothers and to all mothers everywhere!

My one hundredth post and finally my Chistmas house tour

Hi everyone! Whew, I cannot believe this is my one hundredth post! And just in time for the New Year too :) But, since I don't reveal my resolutions (I think it's bad luck) I figured this would be a good time to wrap up the rest of Christmas stuff (I think) and finally post some pictures of our house at Christmas. I ran around on the 23rd snapping pictures as soon as our showing was done and while the house was still tidy :) So here we go! 

Kitchen

                                             Dining room, kitchen is to the left...

 
The Santa below is a vintage decoration from Pats grandma and the house on the left opens up and plays "Santa Claus is coming to town" and has a Christmas scene set up inside with moving parts. It's hard to explain, but it is pretty cool to watch. My mom gave it to us a few years ago and it's definitely one of the kids' favorite decorations :)

Just realized how dusty those logs are, yikes, have to get on that!

Christmas cards from family and friends hanging in the window :) So nice to see how much everyone is growing up in the pictures we received.

The picture garland hanging on the banister is one of my favorite parts and the newest addition to our decor this year. I made it after seeing similar ones on both the Clover lane blog and the Sunny Side Up blog. Both of those blogs can give you a tutorial on how to make one so I won't go into detail here (but if you want to see more details of mine or ask me a question feel free to email me or leave a comment and I'll be happy to respond!)  I'll just say that I'm 99% finished them, I just want to add each year to the back some how nice and pretty.

Our stockings :) We can't hang ours on our mantel because our mantel is a bit too wobbly (will explain why in a future post ) Mine is in the front, can you believe my mom made it? I love it :)

And of course Stella has to have a stocking too!

Living room ( there are a few projects in that room I want to tackle soon, including that ugly chair!)

Fireplace and mantel...

I love the picture on the mantel. I was going to take it down for Christmas because it's been up there for awhile ( it's just a cheapo poster from Ikea) But then I looked at it again and thought it looked like the little kids in the photo are watching for Santa, so I left it :)



"Snoodles" our elf (remember him from this post?) had a blast finding new hiding spots, but I think this was his favorite :)

The main floor bathroom which has our snowman collection...

That bathroom will hopefully be seeing some changes in the new year (hint: I certainly didn't pick salmon pink as a colour for the walls)

And last but not least is our entry, where everyone is greeted with a nice photo of all of us, a joyful angel that Nyla made last year and a few other other happy things.



That's it for the main floor. One of these days soon, I plan to do a full house tour, so you can look forward to that in the new year!
I hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend and a very Happy New Year!

See you next year!

Christmas Aftermath

Whew! What a weekend! We had a wonderful Christmas full of family and food and fun.

First, we went to Grandma and Tim's farm, they live about an hour from where we live, so we stayed there the 23rd. We had a super fun time especially because we got some new snow and were outside all day playing in it. We got to be pulled on a toboggan behind Tim's quad, and the kids got to try snowshoes :)

We enjoyed visiting with Grandma and all their dogs :)

We made our way home on the 24th with a stop at Pat's aunt and uncle's house for supper and a visit with more family (forgot to take pictures there oops!) It's an annual get together that we couldn't miss, even though Nyla's been battling the flu all week, poor girl. When we got home, the kids were allowed to open one present ( a tradition of opening new pj's from mom and dad) except Gabe was a little excited and opened the wrong one :) That was ok because it was from auntie and uncle and all the cousins and he got to wrap himself in it as well as his new pj's. :) He loves his new cozy cars blanket and it was perfect for cuddling with daddy when things got a little overwhelming :)

The kids put out treats and eggnog for Santa and then off to bed..

Next morning was Christmas! Gabe discovered the multitude of joys found in a stocking including chocolate :)

The kids received a bunch of new DVDs for special movie nights,

Even Stella got some treats in her stocking :)

My girls :)

My guys :)

We eventually had breakfast, with my mom and sister,

My dad visited during the day and then we had Pat's dad and stepmom over for Christmas dinner where we had some fun enjoying Christmas "crackers" Love the crowns and "earrings"

And this is the beautiful mess were left with that night :) What a lovely, relaxing, enjoyable Christmas. How was yours? 

Yesterday, instead of cleaning up, I got hooked on reading this book,

                          source

SO GOOD! I couldn't put it down! I read from about 8:30 in the morning till about 7:30 last night and finished it! I can't wait to read the next two.
How was your weekend? Busy, relaxing, happy, sad ? Love to hear from you!