Books I read in 2012

Last year in January I wrote about What I read in 2011 and then I made my Books I read in 2012 notebook  I had a great time recording all the books I was reading in January,

Scraproom Inspiration

One of the projects I've been working on lately has been my scrapbooking room. January and February are usually the months that I get the most scrapbooking done, so I wanted to be prepared for that so I could get right down to business and create! Last time I showed you this room was way back when I did the House Tour, remember this?



Well, I've been working hard to change that empty loft into a nice looking, somewhat organized scraproom/playroom. And although I would love to share some fantasmic "after" photos, my computer is on the fritz (again!)so hopefully I can get that fixed up by the end of the week. So, although I don't have any of my own pictures to share, I thought I would share some pictures that helped to "pinspire" me.

First up is this loveliness,

                                                      {source}    
Isn't that lovely?!?! I love that space above, all the bookshelves for storage (although in our house most of those shelves would be filled with books!) I also love all the bright cheery colour, and the built in desk for three :)

Something to ponder...

                                                                   {source}

Something to Ponder

                                       {image source}
"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, the leave to world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition: to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
        ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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 :)

Happy New Year Everyone!

    Well, I certainly hope you all had a better New Years Eve/Day than I, as I was sick with the stomach flu and flat out on my bed or couch all day yesterday. But thankfully it seems to be only a 24 hour bug so I'm (almost) back to normal.
   I've been wanting to share with you all a bunch of Christmas pictures taken with my new camera (which I am super excited about) but apparently my laptop doesn't have enough memory for all the millions of new pictures I've been taking ;)

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, 

Our Favorite Christmas Books

We love Christmas books (OK we love books in general!) but we love the Christmas ones especially because they only get seen for a short time each year. I usually keep them in storage the rest of the year so that they are extra special when they come out around the end of November.  We keep them in this basket by a good reading chair in the living room so that we make sure to share and enjoy them together.

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.