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,

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!

Six Months

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

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 :)

New House Pictures (aka the before pictures)

OK so if you are looking to enjoy a really wordy post today, this is not the post to be looking at :) This one is all about the pictures! They are probably not the best photographic quality as they were taken on my first trip on moving day and I raced around quickly before they started bringing furniture etc in and there are a few random belongings scattered here and there, but they are a pretty darn good depiction of our new place. Also, these will most likely serve as Before shots for any future updates (I know this place doesn't look very Bad and it really isn't, in fact it is pretty darn nice, but we definitely want to put our stamp on things around here) Now enough chit chat, on with the pictures!

 

This is the view to the left of the front door

                                                                       Kitchen

                                                                 Living room

                                                               Dining room

 

Laundry room 

                                                                      Gabe's room
(the window in his room had to be moved as we added on a couple rooms and his room would have looked right into Nylas :)

                  this bedroom will definitely see some painting done in the near future :)

this is my sisters room (she lives with us full time)

                                                               Kids bathroom

 

                                                                    Nylas room
                                     (it has been painted so stay tuned for that update!)

                                        I love the sloped ceilings in here, so charming :)

here you can see over to Cadys room, hers is a mirror image of Nylas but it was so jam packed with stuff (all her stuff plus most of Nylas as I was getting ready to paint in there) I couldn't get in to get pictures. These pictures were taken after we moved in.

 

The Master bedroom

this is looking in from the door

                                                            and last but not least, the master bath

 

So there we go, our new Kozy Kabin :)
Its been a busy busy month and a half and we are settling in quite nicely. I have been painting up a storm in the two girls rooms so stay tuned for that and working on major decluttering and organizing as we downsized a bit and now have a crawl space instead of a full basement to fill up with our crap unused stuff. Feel free to question or comment below

Ordinary days

Our kids have been really into helping out in the kitchen lately,which is wonderful most of the time (a pain in the butt when I just wanna get something done fast!) Last night they were super meatball makers :)

What I read....and what I'm about to read

During the summer I tend to (like a lot of people) read more light romantic/sci fi books etc and this summer was no different, although there were a few more serious tomes to ground me :) This isn't a complete list either as I read some from the library as well, but had to return them before this picture was taken.

I finally started the all popular George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones   series and enjoyed it, although I did find it a bit challenging to get through (not sure why though). I also started the ever popular Diana Gabaldon Outlander series again partly just cause I love these books and also partly because I hear she has a new one coming out this fall (the first book Outlander isn't in the picture above, I couldn't find it! But rest assured I did read it :)

I'd been wanting to read The Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing for a long time and finally got a chance to. It was interesting, inspiring and very informative.

I've attempted to read some classics over the last couple years, but I always get overwhelmed or bored, so when I saw The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, which is basically a guide to reading the classics I had to check it out. I am so inspired now that I've read this guide and am determined to start on my first real "classic" in the fall (after the first rush of back to school chaos subsides and another big life change happens (more on that soon!)

I am a pretty disorganized person on the outside, but deep down I love feeling organized, and reading Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley has really helped me to see myself in a different light. It has also to help me get (and hopefully stay!) organized in a lot of ways. If you are like me, check out her website HERE and my other favorite organizing inspiration is the I heart Organizing blog, which you can see in my blogroll.

So, what have I got lined up to read this fall and winter? Check it out...

A big mess lol. All the magazines you see are a couple years worth and I'm determined to just skim most of them and pull out pages of my favorites to keep and then get rid of the magazines. The blue composition book in the middle is my notebook for taking notes on the classics I intend to read. 

So, there you go, I've shared mine, now you share yours! I love getting book recommendations from friends, so please feel free to tell me some of your favorites either in the comments below or on the Kozy Kabin facebook page HERE 

Disclaimer: All opinions stated are completely my own but all links to Amazon are an affiliate link that means the price doesn't change for you, but the Kozy Kabin gets a little monetary compensation if you purchase from my link. I am not affiliated with any other links on this page.

Ordinary days

It's coming to an end (and I'm so looking forward to it, and so not looking forward to it if you know what I mean ;)

Back to school organizing

So, while we still have two more weeks of summer, (kids don't go back till Sept. 3) there has been lots of school talk around here and a bunch of back to school shopping!

Ordinary days

Just a couple pictures I wanted to share with you all, the girls have been having a blast exploring the great outdoors this summer. Earlier this week, they found a bunch of tiny baby frogs,

I'm so excited!

Have you seen this magazine? I picked this up a little while ago, brought it home, and couldn't put it down! If you are an aspiring crafter (like me :) this will totally get you pumped to create stuff. I love magazines, especially most of the Better Homes and Gardens Publications and I know I should just look at them online or whatever, but nothing (yes even Pinterest!)  beats thumbing through a magazine (or a book :)

           I picked this up a little while ago, brought it home, and couldn't put it down! If you are an aspiring crafter (like me :) this will totally get you pumped to create all sorts of crafty stuff. I love magazines, especially most of the Better Homes and Gardens Publications and I know I should just look at them online or whatever, but nothing beats thumbing through a magazine (or a book!) 

I was really saddened a few months ago when I realized I hadn't seen one of my favorite mags for awhile.

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 :)

A little house update

      I love frame walls and I've been dying to create one in our home, but our last house had log walls ( real round logs) so there wasn't really anywhere to do a frame wall. So, when we moved to our new place, and I saw this beautiful big empty wall I immediately thought "frame collage!!"

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.

Raspberry Cream Muffins

These muffins are by far our families favorites. They are the one kind that everyone eats, even my most picky eater. So here we go and hope you enjoy some with your family :)

Rasberry Cream Muffins

2 cups                  All purpose flour ( you can use whole wheat flour if you want, I do!)

1 tsp                     baking powder 

1/2 tsp                  baking soda

1/2 tsp                  salt

1/4 tsp                  ground cinnamon

1/2 cup                 butter or hard margarine, softened

2/3 cup                 granulated sugar

2                           large eggs

1/2 cup                 sour cream

1 tsp                     vanilla

1 cup                    coarsely chopped frozen raspberries ( they should definitely be frozen otherwise they just                 squish into mush)

Measure first 5 ingredients into a bowl and stir well.

Beat butter and sugar in medium bowl. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add sour cream and vanilla. Beat to mix. Add flour mixture. Stir just until moistened .

Fold in raspberries. Fill greased muffin cups almost full. Bake in 350F (175C) oven for 30-35 minutes until golden. Let stand 10 minutes. Remove from pan to cool on rack.

Makes 12 large muffins. 

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)

It feels like fall

I canNOT believe it is October already! It's amazing how fast September always flies by isn't it? Or is it just me?

Nyla and Cadence had planted pumpkin seeds in the spring and were so excited to reap the rewards of watering and weeding (well the weeding part kind of got forgotten, thankfully pumpkins are pretty tough even with weeds in their way :) Oh, and Gabe had planted cucumber seeds and got to pick his couple of cucumbers in the summer :)

They were pretty proud as you can see :)