New Years Trip

Jason's parents are here celebrating Christmas and the New Year with us. We picked them up yesterday afternoon at the airport in San Diego. We are staying on Coronado Island for the week (more pictures to come of that!) Today we spent the entire day at Lego Land. What a fun place for the family to go. I don't think there is anything better than watching your children have sheer joy at everything they are seeing and doing. When you are only in the parking lot and they are jumping up and down with excitement, you know you have picked a winner!!

One of the great things about Legoland is that while parents wait in line, the kids get to sit and build things with legos. It makes the lines go a lot faster! Here is one of Charise's creations while we waited.

OK, completly out of order, but Jason happened to snap this picture and since I haven't posted it yet, here it is. This is my 10th Anniversary gift. What a huge surprise!! A what a long wait for it! You have to know the whole story... We actually just celebrated our 11th Anniversary this last July. But two years ago for our anniversary, Jason had a great date set up for us. We went out on a themed date and Jason had everything planned out. Down to all the details, including a gift for every course of our dinner. Dessert's gift was me opening up a card with a magazine picture of a ring in it. Jason promised me that when our house sold, I would get a new ring and he had picked it out. Well, the house selling was long it coming and once it finally did happen, I didn't even think about the ring because we had lost so much money on our sale. But without me knowing it, Jason snuck my old ring out of the house and traded it in on my new one. It is absolutely beautiful!! (By the way, he had the stone from my old ring made into a purity ring for Charise when she gets older -- is he thoughtful or what?)



Cameron concentrating on his lego creations! - - It's all he has been doing since Christmas - we are trying to pace him and only let him do one set a day!

Cameoron and I goofing around!

Cameron and Papaw

Santa was there too...made out of legos of course!

The lego man

Details

Don't you think love is in the details? I love all the little details around our house. I love for people to look around and find little things that they did not see at first. Since you can't actually walk around our house and look yourself, I thought I would point them out for you.

Details of the tree

Garland Details

Tree topper

tree #2 details

Glittery bird

Dining Table Centerpiece

Tree # 2 details

Little vignette in the living room

Metal apothecary jar with Christmas bulbs

Stairway details

I pray you all have a wonderful Christmas tomorrow. Enjoy every moment with your friends and family. Stop and take time to enjoy the "details."

Just a little side note, Jason is doing much better. For the first time today he was able to get out of bed with minimal help. Woo hoo!!! He still can only stand and lay down - - no sitting allowed, but thankfully, he is on the mend.

Snow + Desert = Ice (not good!)

Remember that post two days ago where we were marveling at the snow and enjoying the change of pace here and enjoying out little bit of a White Christmas? Well when you live in the desert, the snow is bound to melt quickly - - and it did. But the temperatures went down during the night and of course it then turned into ice. Usually not a big deal, but when you have lived almost 3 years without experiencing ice or snow, you forget that you need to be cautious when walking outside. Jason, being the kind sweet husband that he is went out yesterday morning to pull the van around to the front to take the little one to school. Not knowing that there was any ice on our front step, he went walking out and just like in the movies, he slipped, his feet went into the air and he came down with his back landing directly on the cement steps. We had a quick change of plans as he laid on the sidewalk unable to move. Somehow we got him into the house, I ran the girls to school quick and came back home. We were all still in our pjs except for Jason who had just come home from the gym, so Cameron and I changed out clothes quickly - - Cameron went over to the neighbors house and I got Jason loaded into the back of the van and took him to the ER. Six hours later we found out that Jason has two fractured vertebrae. So, my Christmas decorating has had a new addition.... Jason is now sleeping on the ottoman / fold out bed in the living room. All he is allowed to do is lay flat on his back and get up to use the bathroom. Although it is going to make for an interesting Christmas, I am so thankful that he is going to be ok. It could have been so much worse and with time and patience (and if you know my husband, you will know how hard that patience thing is going to be) and a lot of physical therapy he will be back to himself in a couple of months. As you think of our family, please pray for Jason and a speedy recovery.

Kimba, over at A Soft Place to Land is having a holiday party. I thought I would join in the fun since I just got finished with our real life tour of homes! To check it out, you have to look both here and here! Enjoy!!

Workroom Redo - - part 2

My one wall in the workroom is all things I just had around the house all put together to make up a fun little wall. Here is a picture of the entire wall. These are vintage trays that were really fun, but just not the feel of the room, so I cut some scrapbooking paper to size, attached it to the center with double sided tape, then hot glued a ring clip and a ribbon bow on and ta da, I now have a really cute note holder!

I attached a little lamp crystal and a picture of the kids holding hands while they are sleeping, so sweet!

Another thing I did for the wall was spray paint a frame I had black, then stapled black ribbon across it in three rows. Next I took ring clips, and paper clips and clipped letters and notes to it. I even had some old keys on a ribbon that I attached.

So easy when you just think outside of the box! Using items for different things than they were originally intended to be used!

What you don't expect to see in the desert!

Snow!!!

Can you believe it? My mom couldn't when I told her over the phone, that's one of the main reasons I'm posting pictures! They have closed down the road leading into post - - so no one is coming on post and no one is leaving. This is not just some random snowflake that is heading towards us and will melt in two seconds. This is a for real snow "storm". I say storm because that is what they are called, but it is just fun. The snow is coming down heavy and looks like it will be going on all day. It is even sticking to the ground. Cameron has already built a snowman, I just haven't braved going back out into the cold to take a picture of it yet!

The funny part about today? It was our field trip day. We were headed out to "the box" to see where all the daddy's go to train. So this morning we kissed Jason goodbye as he went to his office to work and Cameron and I bundled up to go out to the box in the snow. We ended up having to come back almost as soon as we got there because they were shutting the roads down, but it was still a fun adventure! Enjoy the pictures!

Workroom Redo

Remember these pictures of my workroom - - the before pictures - - -the pictures I am embarassed to even post, but since the afters are so great, I will risk embarassment... Just another view to embarass myself with!
Ta Da! The afters! We took the closet doors off so that I could have easy access to all of my fabric (ok, just all of it that will fit in the closet!). The clipboards on the wall are for my orders. My friend Kristi made them for me. Each one is labeled for a different category (bags, reupholstery, quilts, and curtains) The little work table next to the closet is Cameron's school desk. It works out well to have his desk next to mine, so that while he is working, I can be working and going back and forth between buisness woman and homeschool mom! Notice the glass jar of legos... that is our motivator. Cameron is all about legos right now, so some days, when he is having a little trouble concentrating or on days when he is just doing a great job on things and needs to be rewarded, he can earn legos! Especially on math - - 1 lego for every problem that is correct in the set amount of time. It works fantastic!

My fabulous window mistreatment with a ragamuffin garland and a banner by my friend Kristi. (She should really have a blog - - I keep trying to convince her!) The banner spells out INSPIRE but it is hard to see in the lighting of the picture. Nothing on these curtains is sewn - - not even hot glued for that matter! I find it funny that I make custom window treatments for other people, yet in my own home, I don't sew, I just glue and clip and pin!! People probably wouldn't hire me if they looked closely at my home!!!

My fabric wall of "F" s. I love my fabric wall. Since we live in army housing, it is hard to do any special painting techniques. The walls are already textured, so any special brush ones just don't work (trust me I have tried!) I really wanted to make my work room a fun place to be since I am in there most of the day working and teaching school. I took one of my favorite fabrics that I had on hand and just stapled it to the wall. You see on the edges, that I was just about 4" short of having enough on each side, so I took a second fabric and stapled it on each edge. The I bought every shape and size F that I could find in a 200 mile radius (which if you knew where I lived, in the middle of nowhere in the Mohave Dessert, means that I only had about 3 store choices!) and covered them with different scrapbooking papers and even wrapping paper! I hung a great clearance mirror (thank you Home Goods $7) in the middle of them all and hot glued a fancy F to the middle of it. I have one more wall in my work room, but that one requires a post of it's own, so hopefully I will get to that soon!

The bulletin board above my sewing table was a dumpster diving find! It was a horrible gold spraypainted oddity! I sprayed it black and then took an old shower curtain of mine that was black and white toile and stapled it to the inside. I use upholstery tacks to keep my notes and ideas up there! I love it and it was completely free since I had everything on hand - - except the frame but that was free, just had to be a little daring to jump out of the van and grab it from someone else's trash! :)

More Tour of Home picts!

Our bedroom - - Jason snuck those stuffed animals on the bed right before the pictures were taken! Actually there is a cute story behind them. Last time that Jason deployed, the kids and I made him a build a bear puppy. One where you can record your own message (that's his on the right) and then he made one for each of us (mine is the teddy bear on the left) So sweet - - just maybe not for decorating for tour of homes! The kids room. Remember those pictures a few posts back that showed that I was re-doing my work room.... well, here is the room that used to be the workroom. It is now the kids room. We got them matching beds with storage drawers underneath. It turned out really cute. I hung branches above each of their beds, and then decorated the branches with lights, beads, the letters of their names and birds. They really are to die for!
We took the closed door off and put some curtains up, it has become Cameron's lego building area!

Keep checking back, because the next post is going to be my new work area. A great improvement from the last mess you saw!!!!

Just Garland

I just got home from a day of running to sick kiddos to the Dr.s but I didnt' want to miss out on the Nesters Mr Linky party, so I am posting some quick pictures of my garland and if you want to see all of the house, keep poking around my blog and you will see it all!

A close up of the candles in the garland

More candles!
you gotta have feathers and fruit!

and giant pinecones from Sequoia

And a full picture of it all! It really is more beautiful in person, but this is the best I can do with pictures!

Why?

I would just like to know why my post is sitting on top of my last post????!!!! I will keep trying to fix that, you are missing out on pretty pictures!

Tour of Homes 2008

Each year on post the OCSC has a fundraiser called Holiday Tour of Homes. We were privelaged to be a part of it both last year and this year. It is a blast to decorate the home in expectation of around 100 women and husbands walking through your home. A little stressful at times too! I will try to put as many pictures on here as I can. If you were not able to attend the tour, go and grab a cup of coffee and sit back and enjoy your own personal tour brought to you via the internet!

This is on our front porch as we welcome you into our home.

As you walk in, to your right is our family room. The stained glass window was Jason's present to me on our 8th anniversary.

A little Holiday message on the entry way wall. I love those vinyl rub on stickers. I sure hope I am able to save them for next year! Any ideas on how to save them?

The next area of our home you walk in to is our dining room / kitchen. We decided to move our table in here so that we would be closer to the kitchen and because it is the biggest room in the house and our table is huge! It has worked out well. Remember the "magical hanging indoor forest" Well here are the best pictures I could get of it and also of the "amazing garland" that I made. The Nester is having a Mr. Linky party tomorrow for garlands and I am hoping to figure out how to post mine on there. (and hopefully have a link on here also)

I have a zillion more pictures to post - - I do have the entire upstairs to show you yet, but for fear of losing what I have already done, I will post it in a second post. I hope you have enjoyed the tour so far!