Oh Christmas Trees

We gave buying those nice perfect Christmas trees from the farm or lot sooo our trees are what they are!!! and sometimes that is not to great but this year I must say we did not to bad. First you have to locate your trees and we did so

 

Decorating the trees was fun!!
 the kids did the downstairs tree and it only fell over once so now its tied to the wall hahaha! usually is every year cause we have an "incident"

 

We had the issue of where to put the upstairs tree usually its in the corner where I put my old washing machine but its to big and heavy to move here and there + add the factor of a puppy that is left unsupervised occasionally so the tree either had to be up out of the way or not be there at all.   I just figured it would be easier to use the washing machine as a Christmas Tree stand.  I did the upstairs tree and I must stop fiddling around with it.  A few more decorations here and there and I think my house will be Christmasy enough.

Let Christmas Begin

Normally I do not decorate early but I figured I would start doing little bits at a time here and there soooooo here is my front entry (that NO-ONE uses) and stair well area  Its a beginning and anyone who knows me knows this is Very highly unusual cause I am quite a Grinch.

My Rustic Christmas Ornaments

 So I this year for Christmas I get to have the upstairs to make a grown up matchy match Christmas and the kids get downstairs to put up and decorate with all the old stuff that I dont want .  So I have been making most of my own Christmas decorations
here is some of the ones I came up with today I have many more but just havent bothered to take pics of each and every one of them
these today are just made of bits of this and that  that I had around the house.

No step by step tutorial cause that's just not my thing - really its cause most times I dont remember to take pics and the how to notes until the very end and by then I am done doing. 
But at least it can help give some ideas.
OH and I redid the burlap wreath cause the bow was TO country for my taste soo here it is

Christmas Burlap Wreath

So excited going with a theme for Christmas upstairs this year  - Burlap/rustic/country

But here is my first attempt at a Burlap Wreath got my inspiration and a LOT of help from this tutorial Here
I used one of these metal wreath forms and a roll of Burlap. 

 Got some "help" from Daisy must of done at least 3 laps around the house collecting all the burlap back.

 

Ended up with this thanks to the above tutorial

  

 Added a bit of this and that and voila (still not sure about the ribbon)

Pallet wine rack

I had gotten a pallet awhile back - broke said pallet trying to make a wine rack.
So I remade the pallet and turned it into this which I love and cause I am not so great at taking pictures doesn't look near as good here as it does in my kitchen!!

I bought a new rake for the wine glass holder but decided I liked the one out in the yard better so I used that instead.

Anyways its another project that I wanted to make and have finally completed - now to finish off the rest of the kitchen

November Chick!

Out of the hens I bought over the summer 1 of the little silkies decided to go broody on me in the beginning of October.  I didnt think that she would honestly hatch anything out but let her sit anyways just cause.
So on November 7 I did a quick check of the eggs - didnt see much but as I was putting the eggs back under the mama I heard one of them peeping a few hours later I had this little guy

Here is the mama and baby soooo cute

"Its a wife thing"

Soo I have had this old washing machine hanging around here for a couple of months (Thank-you dear sister Sherry)  It made an excellent hiding spot for treasure hunts and such things as that.  I did try to get the thing in the house via ramps kids and some rope - DID NOT WORK!!!!!  I think the thing weighs like 200 lbs!!!

Soooo tonight hubby had a buddy over and I asked/told them to bring it on in for me.  Hubby had asked his buddy his opinion on the whole having a huge old rusty washing machine in the house and his reply "Its a wife thing."  smart smart man.  Thanks Rob!!

They got it in and finally!  finally!!!!  I have it sitting in the corner sooo happy I am loving it slowly albeit ever so slowly my house is turning into what I have always liked and wanted.  So here it is in the corner of our living room.  Perfect spot for some of my plants

Our Critters

So of course we have some critters around here!
Here is Oscar he is a Heinz 57 if there ever was one!!!  Gavin has claimed him as his dog
We got him up the road in 2008 - rescued from living in someones garbage pile - why we call him Oscar!!

 how he ended up sleeping with my son like this every-night during the cooler months is beyond me cause he supposed to be on the blanket at the end of the bed.  He is such a gentle kind hearted dog though and we love him to pieces for it

Then we have Nibs our drooly slobbering Rotti/St.Bernard and she is a purty lovable lady to if you can handle a bit of drool.  She actually is almost toooo loving somedays she figures to crawl up in your lap.
Nibs belongs to Kyra

Then we have Bubbles - Bubbles belongs to Grace even though Grace desperately wants a small house dog which I am very reluctant to get maybe one year!! Ok no more Bubbles sadly Bubbles disappeared one day

So now we have Daisy ( Grace just batted those teary baby blues up at her daddy and boy did he cave)  Soooo here is Daisy she is a Pugglier which is a Puggle (pugxbeagle) x Cavalier Spaniel  - she is in the process of being house trained we are getting there slowly!!!!  And yep she is the house dog!!

Then we have these guys how I ended up with Chickens more as pets then food I dont know but here they are  We had these first three since last fall to keep the Hen that survived the Butchering massacre company our policy is as a chicken if you survive some kind of massacre man made or nature then you get to live until you die a natural old age chicken death which the escapee of the original butcher massacre did.

This a silkie x rooster and he is sooo sweet and cute

These are just your run of the mill factory layers we got from someone else.

Today I picked up four more little hens to add to our very small flock - so right now there is all sorts of clucking and sorting out of the ranks and of course the little rooster man "being the man and boss" lol

so here they are

These two are young buff orpington hens.

and the two little silkie hens which com'on are way to flippin cute

Back to normal!!

Well its been awhile - not that I haven't been busy just I have been to busy
We have done some camping with the families both mine and hubbies locally and to Hinton Alberta - both were a great relaxing get-away time!!
Now we are back to school YAY!!!!!! time for mom to do some more projects!!!!

First day of school - Kyra- grd 6  Gavin-grd 5   Grace -grd2

 As for the rest of our free time most of it is spent in getting our house and yard ready for winter ugh which mostly means around here is that we spend a lot of time out in the bush gathering firewood!  LOTS and LOTS of firewood as that is how we heat our house in the winter  as you see here the pile is slowly growing. We really need to double or triple that much to have enough for the year and a bit left over for next year!!

  What we do have split and left over is put in the woodroom of our house which is in the basement about 6 feet away from the woodstove!!!  I love it!!!!  its alot of work getting all the wood in there and stacked but come winter it sure is nice to just open that door and get wood - Last year we had it stacked to the ceiling and it lasted us until just about the end of January - that being said last year wasnt a really cold winter so we shall see what happens this year

repurposed wood project

So I had those great little wooden crate things from my work - to see click HERE  

I have had them sitting around for awhile now - some I turned into storage crates but most I tore apart and turned into the following project

Before (and dang it I hate the front door)

 I made a base of  plywood for the top of the stair railing so that I could nail the thin strips of wood that I got from the crates to the top of the plywood they wouldn't stay flat and in place nicely with them just being nailed to the drywall top that was there

As you can see some of this hasn't been aged yet nor has it been sanded down or anything

To see how I age the wood click HERE

 All finished just needs one more coat of poly so I can wipe it and dust it

 Just need to finish the bottom trim now but that is for another day!!

Time to change up the groceries

I still have other projects on the go or in my head I should say but hey its Summer its busy and I am running out of time so hang in there I shall be creating and destroying and whatever else shortly - i hope!!  :)

Its time for me and mine to get back to eating decently (more) hahah not that we eat alot of junk really, but by the time 5pm rolls around I am usually to tuckered out to cook a big grand dinner - its what you get when you wake up at 2:30 am daily.  So I am revamping my menu for cooking and my snacks YAY ME!!!  ~ not really!   It involves alot more work for me but its more budget friendly ( I hope)  So out goes all those premade handy snacks and in comes baking and menu planning and pre-cooking - so if you have quick easy family faves feel free to share them with me.  (quick and easy being key) 
Step one of my new Snack plan is having Vege and Fruit precut and prepped for the kids in the fridge at all times (cause I dont prep enough fruit and vege at work lol)

Day one! hour one! is going good
Step two is baking which I loathe,   really I hate it!!!  but I shall do it!   tomorrow I make rice Krispi squares bwhahaha thats my big bake, start small right?  no really I do have some other goodies planned but thats the first
My plan is to make lots of each baked good and divide them into portions to last two days - cause I hate it when I bake something and for some reason the last 4 or 5 end up never get eaten. then Freeze the rest , Can you Freeze Rice krispie squares?  guess I will find out.

Dinner plans are using a menu with a few variations for each week.
And..............each grocery run (every two weeks in my house) I plan on doing one Big Cook of one recipe for about 4-6 meals total into the freezer
Todays was Pizza casserole - from the "Big Cook" cookbook   (if your thinking of doing a big cook and dont know where to start I recommend this book and website)

If you fold over the tops of your freezer bags they dont tip over and here is the bonus you dont get crud on the "zipper"

I always keep one out of the freezer for the evenings meal mmmmm

Sooo we shall see how long I stay motivated to keep this up!!!

Remember this....

Gonna grow me some wheat grass..

well here is the update bwahaha ok so it died it got a few inches tall i neglected it and it died!   But not all is lost it turned out to be an excellent.............

Kitty bed!!!!!!!  note the dead grass hanging down the edge and kinda shoved up the window in the back teehee

 

computer desk re-do

So I was going to make a desk i have plans and drawings all done up and everything but with summer and it being busier then normal for me with work and all that great stuff I knew I would not be getting around to it for at least a few more months.  Also I need to start practicing my furniture re-doing painting skills so that when I go to do a few more important to me pieces of furniture I will hopefully have a clue to what I am doing.  So why not start with my old laminate computer desk which by the way I LOATHE!!!!!!
anyways here are the before and after

Oh and inside I put this!!!   Hot glued down and everything I hate the coffee ring!!