Moving Fun

 Someone around here has been enjoying packing. It seems that everytime I turn around he is in something, on something or under something. Lets just say it makes me think a little bit about Where's Waldo in all of this mess.

hmmm.... do you see me?

 Do you see me now?

 Here I am!

Look mom  I am over here now...

Phew, all this moving makes me tired... Ill just take a snooze on this wire shelf!

And finally a picture for dear dad who has to be away from us for a whole week so he can work at his new job. We miss you!

Almost 4 years...

 We have lived in this apartment for more than 3.5 years. I always like taking pictures of the places I live to look back and see how my home evolves over time according to our needs. As I look back over the last 4 years of my life with my husband it is fun to see how much has changed. As I am preparing to pack everything up that we own and move to a new place, I wanted to show you where, and how we have lived for what felt like so long but really was very little. Since so many people we care about have never seen our current home, this will be my tribute to my newlywed years. Our first home, our diplomas, our first child, our first real jobs and many other things all started or finished in this place.

 This is the then of my living room... this was the first summer we lived here.

 And this is now. You can see that I have started to practice my long time enjoyment of decorating.

 This was our first table that I got at the thrift store and our bookshelves before we overflowed with books. It looks so clean and open in our apartment back then.

 And now, its a little more full.

Back when there was room to eat in the bay window...

 Now it is our office, our little guy got the second bedroom. At first this was hard for my husband, but as soon as he had every thing set up in this little nook he started to like it. I even heard him refer to it as his command center on occasion.

 Our current table. We quickly outgrew the round one. We used an outdoor picknick table for a long time before I got this one.

 Yeah, this pretty much sums up my least favorite part of our home. This is what our kitchen looks like, it didn't change much from before. I swear they do not build these apartments for people who cook.

And for the most private room of the home. These days I hardly ever show anyone what it looks like. I decided that it was my room, and that it was wierd to show it to people who came over to our home. So the door is mostly shut now, but it is my favorite room. Above is then... Below is the now.

Since we moved in I was able to get a few large wool rugs and all new bedroom furniture. When I say new I really mean old but new to me. I love old furniture painted or not. It gives such a history to my home.

 And the most special room of the apartment is where Bubbie sleeps. He is a really great independent player and I think he does a lot of learning and imagining in this room. Sometimes he goes in there and is really quiet and after a while I start to worry about him. When I check on him he is usually only playing quietly with his toys. I didn't ever take a picture of this room before because it was our home office, or should I say my husbands room. No matter how hard I tried I could never make it look organized or nice.

When I was pregnant we decided to decorate it in a pirate theme. It was really fun painting and sewing things to make this room special.

As I am starting to pack up I am realizing that it is a little sad to move. This has been the only home we have known as a family and as much as I gripe about its flaws I do think I will miss parts of it.

Yellow

 I have been frantically sewing a quilt that I started in October. I have to finish it in anticipation of a potential move that we might be doing soon. My husbands job interviews went well and he has successfully completed  a background check and drug test and we are waiting for the final word.

 I started this quilt in anticipation of a move months ago. I actually am taking a quilting class from a lady in our ward. She will help me finish it by quilting it if I get it done. Since I knew that my time was always limited on this project (quilts sometimes take people years to finish), I did a really simple pattern to allow me to sew it faster. I used mostly sheets that I bought at the thrift store. I used some leftover fabric scraps from when I did my first sewing project, a crib set as well.

 Here it is taking up my whole living room. I wanted t make a queen but I have been sewing faster than the class meets and when I laid it out the first time it was too small. I almost had a heart attack because I really didn't want to sew more blocks for it. I ended up sewing a boarder around the edges and I really like it now.

Here are all of my blocks before I sewed them together. I am really fond of the soft yellows, creams and whites. Red used to be my favorite color, but now as I look around my home and see so much yellow I think my favorite color is changing. Besides yellow is the first color my little guy can say, hes been walking around for a week calling everything yellow

A few last projects 2010

 A few years ago I made these stars for some Christmas decorations after seeing a image in a magazine of a living room with a wall of windows and a bunch of 7 point stars and Christmas lights all lit up.

 I decided this year that they were too crazy with the patterns (that I hand painted) so I took my trusty old can of spray paint too them. Since I will be putting everything away this weekend I decided it was the perfect time fix them. Ahh... its like starting new.

 Really, my reason for posting was because of a controversial issue around here. Yesterday I cranked out this slip cover for our (my husbands) ugly black office chair. I have always hated it but it did get a lot better when we had to take the arms off to fit it under the new/old desk we got in October. You know what I am talking about, the standard modern plastic and mesh computer chair.  When we got the desk we had the discussion of saving up for a classier leather chair since he will not let me get an antique oak one. In the end I asked him If I could make a slip cover for it. He said yes.

 Right as it started coming together after a full day of work I started to laugh a little because I think it looks good but I knew he was going to throw a fit over it. I had to run to the store and he beat me home so I missed his initial reaction. He did make sure to tell me thoroughly how much he hated it. He kept referring to it as his mother's lap.

 I do have to admit it does look a little over the top. I wasn't planning on it looking quite so girly. It looks especially silly when he is sitting on it. I told him I would make a new one. I think I have an idea of how it should look to make us both happy. Sometimes life is trial and error I guess.

Christmas Magic

We had a wonderful Christmas. I had so much fun making gifts this year and doing all of the preparation for the big day. I wanted to post some of the highlights of our Christmas morning.

This was our tree bright and early on Christmas morning. My husband was so excited he couldn't sleep. I every time I woke up in the night he was awake. I thought it was funny because he pretends to be such a ba-humbug. When 7:00 am rolled around he basically went in and woke Bubbie up. We then preceded to go sit in front of the tree. I thought we were going to sing a couple of songs but before I knew it Daddy had loaded up his little boy with his stocking.

Here he goes. We were so excited for Christmas this year because we thought he would get it and be exited about opening the presents. All month he has been dragging wrapped presents out from under the tree and trying to tear the paper and stomp on them. When the big day came he was only interested in his stocking. We ended up opening all of his presents for him.

I managed to snap this shot right before Bubbie opened his last and most exciting gift, his toy vacuum. I found out too late that there actually is little "toy" vacuums that work! This mound of gifts, boxes and paper took up our whole living room. It really is amazing how much stuff can fit under a Christmas tree.



Just for fun I have included this little video of how it has been since Christmas around here. I knew he would like his little dirt devil but I did not know he would be obsessed with it. On Christmas day he wouldn't even eat, he only vacuumed. He calls it a BADA. It really is too bad it is only a toy.

Sweet and Silly

My dear husband brought me home these lovely roses the other day. He never brings me flowers and I love them so much. One day, if we ever get a home or at least a place with a yard I am going to grow profuse amounts of all of my favorite flowers. So many in fact that I will have enough to cut and bring into every room and not feel guilty. Upon his arrival and seeing my smile he announced that he was turning over a new leaf. It was the sweetest thing.


On Saturday night we did a rare thing and got a sitter and went to the new Tron movie. It was my first ever 3D. Although I will admit that I hate high definition and am not that into visual fads and trends, this was the perfect movie to see 3D. The real world scenes were normal and the "inside the computer" scenes were 3D. It was really fun. Bubbie is always trying to grab my glasses and we decided to let him have a pair of our 3D glasses. His dad took the lenses out of them and it was really funny watching him dork it up. He must have learned from me. He is so silly.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We are getting ready for Christmas around here. In response to some very important requests I am attempting to show you our tree and other festivities in our home this year. I have been sewing up a storm and Bubbie has been helping in every way possible. Mostly he tries to re-arrange the ornaments on the tree to his liking. He has also helped eat a couple of cookies and tried to open some packages a little early.



A couple of years ago I made stockings for us. Bubbie wasn't born yet but we were expecting. I found some very particular fabric and sewed up two lovely stockings. It wasn't until the following Christmas that I realized that I should have done three. This year I made our little guy his stocking. Since I like things coordinated I made a few extra that match just in case. I hand stitched his initial.


Our apartment is so crammed and I have a hard time decorating since I don't like clutter and we have no table space to set stuff out. I started to use the top of our book shelves as a seasonal display area. The displays have to share with my antique dish collection. I think of it as my fake mantle.

I haven't been blogging as much as I thought I would because on top of taking care of Bubbie and making our gifts this year, I have been playing catch up on a few things that I have been meaning to make for us. One of those things was a tree skirt. I am so picky and one of the things I hate is how expensive Christmas decorations are especially nice tree skirts. For the amount of time it is displayed I don't think it is worth it to pay 30 or more dollars for one. I finally got one done for us and since we decorate the weekend after thanksgiving, I was working on it for most of November. I hand drew the nativity and cut them out. I am all about the applique.

Now all we need to do is get wrapping!

Pillows

We are making a mess around here. I am a little crazy with the perfect pillow obsession.




And of course I have my happy little helper. I love him he is so
patient with me.





Soon you will get to see what we are sewing and stuffing.

Sundays

I just love getting dressed up on Sundays for church.



Bubbie practicing his arms.




My two handsome men



Its fun to look sharp.

Halloween!

We had our 2nd annual Halloween party last night. My husbands favorite holiday is Halloween so we have decided as a family to try to have a dinner party with costumes and games every year. We have a lot of fun with this and last night we had a good time and the food was great. I forgot to get a picture of the table but everything we ate was either green or black, including the chicken. I guess that doesn't include the dessert and treats though. Here are some pictures of the decorations.



Our home was really decked out this year and we had fun decorating it. I love all of the great decorations they sell now that don't include cheezy. It's fun to collect a few new things every year so that when we are finally able to get a house we can have a lot to decorate with.



I painted a few black silhouettes to put over most of our family pictures and art. Everything was black, white and orange. Of course I left my super large drawings plain, they matched anyway.



Here we all are as an Away Team. Dr. McCoy picked out the costumes this year. If you haven't guessed Bubie is Captain Kirk, and I got to be expendable. I kept saying that I should have bought a black seventies wig, then I could have been Lt. Uhura.



I guess we all know who is boss around here.



There he is with his trick or treating bag. We took him downtown and then to a trunk-or-treat. I didn't think he would get that into it, but he loved it. We concluded that our costumes were not that hard core but they were really fun because everyone commented on them, and they were comfortable for all of us. It was really low fuss, plus we only had to buy mine because the two men already had theirs. Now I'm off to put away all of these decorations and get my home back to normal!

Our New Couch!

Ta Da! There she is. And now for a moment of silence for all of my life I lost sewing her.





For those of you who don't know, I have been working on making my apartment the most lovely and beautiful place I can since August. That included selling my old futon and getting a new couch. This is the new beauty I found on craigslist. One day I am planning on getting her recovered. I was thinking a neutral linen. But for now she is going to rock the fitted slipcover I have made.



A little close up... love the legs.



And now for a little story.

I learned a lot about myself while sewing this. While I was in the thick of it sewing my heart out and not sure how it was going to pull it off, I started to reminisce. I remembered when I was 7 years old ( I know that for a fact). I had been taking swimming lessons in the summertime and I had been a Red-Cross Level III. For those of you who dont know that meant I could swim a short distance on my stomach and back using arms and legs. Well I must have grown quite confident in my practices with my teacher, going across the short end of the pool because my aunt took me swimming with her first baby who was not quite a year old. While they were playing in the kiddie pool I went over to the big pool and walked over to where my class used to practice. It was in the shallow end but the deepest part of the shallow end. My teacher could walk easily in that area but I could not touch the bottom without going completely under the water. Well that day when my aunt wasn't looking I decided I was going to swim across the pool. I think I had told her I was going too, but she was a little occupied with her baby. She wasn't watching and I jumped in.

At first everything was OK. I was swimming, but when I got about a little less than half I started to get really tired and struggle. I remember thinking that I wasn't going to make it, and I also remember wondering where the life guard was. I went under a few times. I almost drowned that day but some how I made it back to the wall. I don't remember that part, perhaps someone helped me, or perhaps I remembered to float and kick. What I do remember is that afterwords I wondered how could I have been so silly, I almost died.

Well in the middle of sewing this slipcover I realized that my personality is that I think of something I want to do and decide that I CAN do that thing. And then I jump right in, sometimes into the deep end. I almost always struggle and then pull through wondering how it happened. That was how it was with this slipcover. For a while I thought I had wasted a ton of money that I couldn't spare and was going to end up with a nasty old couch covered with a blanket. Somehow it came together even though I didn't' know what I was doing.

Morale of the story, It can be done, but don't underestimate the difficulty level of such a large project. In some ways it was easier than expected and in some ways harder. I love the end result.