Halloween!

 Our sweet little Charlie Brown.

 Our fiesty Paper Bag Princess.

Front door vignette. Can I use vignette here? Well no matter, I'm doing it. :)

Chair Redo on CE Graphic Design

Click over to my graphic design blog to see a detailed post about the new chair cushion slipcovers in our front room! Click here to be taken to the post. :)

Love this idea! Found on crunchybetty.com, these easy, clever little buggers are made with things I already have on had. We use cloth diapers on our sweet pea, and often go a few days between washings. This means the stinky, poopy diapers pile up, making the bathroom where they sit FUNKY. Totally trying it in our stinky dirty diaper bathroom! And we cook all the time, so in the kitchen to absorb those saute smells! In the closet where the shoes live!

A few yard shots.

It can't always be about Willa, can it? Yes. Yes it can. This time it just isn't. :)

I'm attempting to root out a couple pieces of this Virgina Creeper to get it going up the other side. So far, nada.

These little elegant numbers are just beautiful. I have a few colors of this, but Mom will need to remind me of the name in a comment. Mom?

Is this yellow one a weed Mom? If so, it's a pretty one. Dainty. Delicate.

Another one of the pretty but nameless.

Miss Tilly balloon flowers. They're more red-purple in person.

No idea what these are called either. Some friends were over the other night and asked me if I could name what's in the yard. I did a fair job, but I obviously need a refresher.

Bumble bee.

Barberry, Phlox, Day Lilies, Russian Sage.

Tiger Lily.

Dragonfly on a hosta bloom. We've had an unusually high number of dragonflies this year. As a matter of fact, they must be breeding in our backyard, because in year's past we've seen maybe 3. There were 5 flitting on and off just this plant as I was taking pictures.

This Margherite plant didn't do well in the house over the winter. I set it outside and forgot about it after Willa was born and lo and behold it came back with a vengeance. Looks great now, especially with all the rain we've been getting.

A thriving Cinnamon Basil plant. Any suggestions for cooking with Cinnamon Basil?

Last week we had some strange weather.

I thought we were in for a crazy storm, like scary tornado stuff, when this super yellow hue took over our sky. It cast the house and yard in a most interesting way.

This snap is sideways, but this is a super light pink peony near our patio.


My 'secret garden' is really filling in!

Baby Stuff!

We've been working on the baby room. Last weekend we painted. Friday night I made curtains.

Here's a closeup of the striped 'gender-neutral' fabric.

The walls are green and beige. The highchair there is vintage, used to be Grandpa Luther's. The baby won't actually be sitting in it, it's more for decoration. The picture frames have the stock image in them. Some gal and a baby. :)

And we're at 33 weeks today!

We've been finishing up the basement.

Karlito spent the week staining and sealing the bathroom door and trim in the garage in preparation for the final install this weekend.

I got out of this part because of baby e and the fumes. Karl was a good sport about it.

See? Now there's trim along the new carpet.

And there's the door and trim outside the bathroom.

And inside.

We also have a sink! And cabinets!

The stair railing.

Check out the beautiful window! The sailboat looks great there. We picked up a tv stand too and moved our tv from the bedroom downstairs.

And I finally have my studio!! Now I can get cracking on some new projects. Maybe a baby announcement? And I have a book to finish for mr. jake. I owe you buddy!

The laundry room door. The wall behind the chaise will have bookshelves for our boxes of books. Someday. Thanks again to Dad for lending us your expertise, tools and above all, your labor to finish all of this. Thanks too to Mom for helping me put together the tv stand and desk while the boys were working! We had a great weekend.

Now on to the baby room!

Finishing the Basement

We've passed all our inspections and last week we had the rock hung and taped. Sunday night it looked like this.

Our view from the family room looking downstairs. We took out the door that used to close off the finished space from the unfinished and built a landing, with a double doorway that will eventually lead into a master suite.

From the master suite looking down to the lowest level. The bathroom is off the landing there, to the right.

The bathroom. In the back there will be a walk-in tile shower.

The lowest level. The outside walls were framed and insulated before we moved in.

Karl got a little help from Tim adding insulation to the interior walls, primarily for sound blockage. Baby got me out of helping on this one. The boys fashioned bandanas around their faces to block out the bits of fiberglass floating in the air.

This space will be my studio.

Looking into the laundry room.

Early Monday morning a guy showed up with drop cloths to protect our carpet from the workers and delivery men.


They stacked the sheetrock up against the walls. The sheetrock guys were in by 845 and gone by 2. They had it all cut and hung in around 5 hours. It would've taken us 3 weekends!!

So with sheetrock hung, view from the family room.

Looking into the bathroom.

In the master suite, looking down to the lowest level.

The lowest level.

We bought a baby gate, for Rocco! We needed to keep him out of the space during the work. You can see they've taped the rock they hung Monday.

Master suite looking down to lowest level. Bathroom on the right there.

The bathroom.

Lowest level. They worked all week, short ours with lots of drying time and when I got home for lunch on Friday they were all done! So Saturday we started to prime and paint all of it.

The bathroom. The shower walls will go up when the tiling starts.

View from the master suite looking down to the lower level.

The lowest level. Karl's Gopher room! We painted it maroon and gold. Trust me, it looks better than it sounds. ;P


View into the laundry room. What a DIFFERENCE a week makes!! We feel very proud that we got everything done this weekend. Now onto the floors!