Bug Love

Oooookay...so I'm all about my kids loving animals and I'm even adjusting to the thought of having lots of these dirty animals at my home like barn cats and chickens and goats (so on and so on) but bugs are DIFFERENT!! Why do kids gravitate to the gross slimy stuff like the caterpillar or grub or whatever it is below!!
Trey was fascinated by this "thing" while Bre, to my horror, was loving on it by giving it a little kiss (which I didn't realize she was doing till I examined this photo more closely)

But I must say this grubby "thing" kept my kids busy for over an hour this morning. Trey came up with the idea to play hide and go seek with the "thing". Trey would bury it somewhere and Bre would have to go look for it then they'd switch around.

It's been great being outside again even if it seems to be 24 hours a day with the kids. They love to help us all out and Breanne likes to help out her great grandma pick up weeds.

Here is the famous rock they sit on every time I go to the mulch pile to load up the wheelbarrow. This photo was taken around 7:30am yesterday morning. We can barely get through breakfast without one of them sneaking out the front door to play.

Easter Special

Easter is always a special celebration for me as I remember Christ and all He's done for me but this was also a special Easter being that Trey and Bre are getting old enough to simply understand what all these special celebrations are really about and we are beginning our own traditions as a family.
It's fun being able to talk to our little ones about the relationship we can have with our Heavenly Father. (even if they look at you with that "what did she just say" face sometimes)
May you all continue to celebrate our Risen Saviour on Easter and throughout the weeks to come!!

Anniversary

It's hard to believe that Arlan and I have been married 7 years this past St. Patty's day. The time has flown by and I love him more with each year. This past week we took a short vacation to Northern Virginia to relax and get away from our busy lives.

Arlan found this cute bed and breakfast back in the country bordering miles and miles of vineyards and beautiful old farmhouses. It was fabulous. We had a little cabin all to ourselves with a little fireplace and NO tv. (which we didn't realize till we got there) It's sad to say but at first we were like, 'what!!! no TV?' But they loaded the closet with games and books and we just settled in for a cozy time of fun.

This is our cabin below.

The Vauclause Inn had many different cottages and rooms but the main farmhouse was incredibly old and had the most fantastic old characteristics. Huge doorways, loads of fireplaces and hardwood floors.

All these features gave Arlan more and more ideas for our farmhouse. The projects just never end.



The Inn was a few miles from old town Winchester so we spent and afternoon just driving around and looking at all the old mansions and vineyards they were all so beautiful. This mansion below was by far a favorite of mine and is actually a farmhouse. I couldn't get a good photo of the beautiful barns in the back of the house but it was amazing. Maybe with a little tender loving care our farm will look like that. Or maybe not.

Artfuls

I must say that it's awesome watching my kids be "creative". They definitely got some of their grandpa Stoner genes because they love doing any sort of art project. Especially Trey. He can sit for hours doing activities especially playdoo, painting or cutting paper and making puzzles. Breanne also enjoys the arts but I think her favorite part is the big mess she can make in the process of making a masterpiece.

As you can see her choice medium is fingers and toes; if she can get them up there.

I find my kids are also extremely creative with their pretend play too. They would gladly give up their toys for ordinary, everyday items like my dryer. Trey talked Breanne into crawling into the dryer to play a secret space capsule mission. They begged for me to turn it "on"!

But there is always a "dark" side to the artful mind and my kids just discovered one the other day.

Coloring on the walls. When I saw the mess I asked who did it (because when I rounded the corner I heard crayons scatter around the floor and two kids run to the other side of the room) I actually didn't need to even ask who did it because each artists gifted style shown through. Treys marks are in black because they were all choo-choo tracks. Breannes were in orange because they were all circles (which is all she draws right now)

So I pulled out my old time favorite creative "correction" and sat them both on a time out chair facing the canvas for the entire 30 minutes it took me to scrub that sucker clean.

What a price you pay for a shady piece of art!

Renovations Complete

Many of you Wyomian and CWAM friends have asked about the work we did to our home since we moved two years ago. So I have a few of our current projects below. I will be sure to slip in more pictures of the other
rooms later on.

On the second floor of the farmhouse we have 4 bedrooms and they all looked like these two picture. 1970's paneling on the walls. Here and there a little 1960's wallpaper, bright colored carpet and tiny closets like the one on the right here. Look hard you'll see it.

So, we added a new closet to Trey's new room and put mud in all the panelled walls seams and the room became a completely new looking place.

AFTER:

This is now Trey's room and he really loves it. You can't see it in the picture but beside the rocking chair is a door that leads into Breanne's room and they have oodles of "secret" fun with that passageway.

The other bedrooms in the house started out like the above pictures and ended up looking like this..........

Breanne's room

In Bre's room we took the old 60's furniture that we were given by Arlan's parents and gave it a paint job and some new "old" looking, glass knobs. I thought they turned out pretty good.

This is Arlan and I's room. When we tore out the walls in our room we noticed an old barn beam in the ceiling and Arlan was determined to expose it for "preservation" of the old farmhouse. He loves those old beams as you'll notice in our new livingroom.

This winter we decided to redo the staircase leading down from the bedrooms into the livingroom. Getting the carpet off was quite a chore and getting years and years of carpet glue off the wood was even worse but the end result on the right was worth all the effort

The same time we did the staircase we did the livingroom. We took off oodles of wallpaper to discover a beautiful boogie colored plaster underneath, (which we painted over). And under the tannish colored panelling we found old barndoor beadboard. Which we restored a bit and gave a nice coat of paint.

AFTER:

Arlan also tore down the ceiling and found more of those barn beams and restored them as good as possible and the result came out looking fabulous I must say so myself.




I'm proud of all the work Arlan has done on our home and all the effort, long hours and love he put into making our house a home.

Naughty Corner

We have this small little "hiding" spot in our new powder room and it seems that Bre just figured out that it is the perfect spot to do "naughty" things.



The other day I was calling and calling for her and just couldn't find her till I meandered into the bathroom only to find her curled up eating a whole tube of toddler toothpaste.
Unfortunately the naughtiness hasn't stopped there. I found her in that corner unrolling a whole roll of toilet paper and I've also found her digging in my small jar of lip gloss and smearing a tube of mascara on her "attempted" eye area.


She is definitely our sneaky one. You got to keep an eye on her at all times but that's not too hard considering she's so cute you can't stop soaking her up!!

Birthday #4

Trey had his forth birthday party last weekend and guess what kind of "theme" party he wanted. Anyone.....have a guess? Hmmm, a train party but this year it had to be a black engine party.

I found the perfect cake mold and it looked rather easy until 2am in the morning when my fingers were cramped from adding all that icing to the 3-D train. He LOVED it nonetheless.


He got a big boy bike from us for a gift and he looks so grown up sitting there. Breanne actually stole it and sat on it for a long time afterwards. I think she wants to be "grown up" too.

My parents got Trey his first "REAL" HO scale, black steam engine train and tracks for his birthday. He was so excited he was speechless! He just sat there in total awe saying, 'this is all mine? Just Trey's?' It seems like his lifelong hobby has started at a young age.