Brian & Roxie's wedding

As I mentioned earlier, we had the privilege of attending my cousin's wedding at the Little America Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was a happy and gorgeous occasion, and despite the long miles, we were so happy we made the trip to be there. Brian and Roxie will be our new neighbors on the farm here, you know, so we wanted to start them off by showing our support.

These are a few of my favorite photos from the occasion, but I mostly just sat back and enjoyed myelf and didn't take very many pictures. The location (indoors, low light) really made me painfully aware of the limitations of my out-of-date camera equipment (= blurry, grainy photos). That's okay. It's giving me further motivation to save funds for the new camera I crave. And I'm sure they got some gorgeous photos of their gorgeous wedding (from real photographers).

Congratulations, Brian and Roxie!

Memory Lane Monday—Memorial Day

Oh, hello! It's been awhile, hasn't it? We've been so busy focusing on "doing" that its hard to stop and talk about what we've been doing. We just returned from a lovely weekend in Wyoming attending the wedding of my cousin and soon-to-be neighbors. (More on that later.) The guys finally finished their spring seeding just before these uncharacteristically long spring rains hit. In the short breaks between rain storms we've been tackling some yard projects. (More on that later, too.)

In the meantime, it seemed appropriate to do a Memory Lane Monday post on Memorial Day.

From This Front Porch

This is one of my favorite pictures of my Grandma B., and we have it framed in our kitchen. They were so young (just married or just about to be?) before my Grandpa was deployed again in the Air Force during World War II. After he returned they raised 9 (NINE!) kids together, and I'm constantly amazed at that feat, considering how frazzled I sometimes feel with just 3 kids.

My grandma passed away the year I was married (1997) and even though I had the privilege of growing up down the road from her, I feel like I never got to know her as well as I'd have liked. You appreciate things differently when you are an adult than when you are a child, and when I got to that point in my life she was gone. Lately, living in the house they built together in 1971, I often find myself wondering about her experiences here. I think we would have had a lot in common. She did photography and had a studio set up in the basement. (There is also a dark room in house!) She also painted and did many other crafts, and I have can remember her painting in the dining room when we would drop by for a visit. Even though the decor in this house is dated and run down now, its clear that she was tuned into modern 70's decor and had fun decorating this house, just as I am now.

We visited her grave last night and dropped off flowers that we brought home from my cousin's wedding. I know she would have loved being at that wedding. The venue (Little America in Cheyenne) was right up her alley with its beautiful chandeliers and elegant decor. Miss you, Grandma!

Eva is 11 months old!

Today marks Eva's 11 month birthday. I just looked back at her 10 month update (which seems like was just yesterday—how time flies!) and I realize that a lot happens in just one quick month.

At her last update, she wasn't yet pulling herself up to stand, and now she pulls herself up on everything. (The little scratch you see below her eye was from a kitty—not ours, thankfully—and we were lucky it wasn't any closer to her little eye.)

 

Also, last month she didn't have any teeth. This month she is sporting two new bottom teeth, and probably soon to get more! Teething makes her a little cranky, but in general it doesn't affect her too much.

 

She has been having the most fun playing with her magnets at the fridge and can usually be seen toting one or two around the house.

She is now sleeping through the night (most of the time—I don't want to jinx our progress), except when we are away from home. Last weekend when we were out of town for my brother's wedding we spent the first torturous night with her having nothing to do with her Pack n' Play. Instead she spent most of the night in the crowded double bed with us, causing us all to get way too little sleep. The next night we fastened her into her stroller, paced the hotel room until she nodded off, and got a full night's sleep with her tucked snug in her stroller the whole time! She also napped in the stroller during the wedding festivities. Whatever works.

It is hard to believe that in one more quick month we will be celebrating her first birthday. I fret about her growing up to fast, but surprisingly not as much as I remember fretting with Abby. Now I know how much fun they are as they progress (and how much easier things are when they are more independent) so I just embrace every milestone!

Kindergarten Roundup

When Sarah has dress-up day at preschool (silly hair day, mismatched socks day) she is often resistant. "Silly isn't cute, Mom." So when told her she could dress up as a cowgirl for Kindergarten Roundup, I didn't expect her enthusiastic response.

"Cowgirls always go like this with their feet, Mom."

 

 

She has a giant class of . . . 13 kids! They are certain to be a tight-knit group by the time they get through their 13 years of school. Her teacher is one I knew when I was growing up and she is energetic and awesome. I love a small town! And now we can't wait for fall when Sarah can ride the bus with her sister and go to all-day Kindergarten. (After a nice long summer break, of course).

basement progress—main room

I'm not sure what to call this room. Main room? Big room? Craft room? Family room? Play room? Check. Everything room? In any case, this is the final room of the basement remodel tour.

As I have said with the previous spaces, I have a lot of decorating to do as time and funds permit—window treatments, rugs, artwork, etc. The basics are in place, however.

You might recognize some of my Craig's List finds throughout the basement (the chair, lamps, side tables, and coffee tables above, and my desk chairs.) The couch belonged to my Grandpa and I bought it in our family auction. The rest of the furniture is mostly IKEA and came with us from Utah.

This is my office/art area. As you can imagine, I have a lot of plans for this space. As you can also imagine, it doesn't usually look this clean. The great thing about giving virtual tours is I can stash stuff in the neighboring room for the photo shoot.

As for the original fireplace, I usually get one of two responses—either "I love the brick!", or "What are you going to do with the fireplace?" as if we just haven't gotten that far yet. Well, it stays. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a sleeker looking fireplace, but this wood fireplace serves as backup in case of a power outage, and that isn't unheard of around here. I think I will use artwork and accessories to work with it and make it feel like it belongs. Any ideas?

basement progress—media room and guest room

What was once a storage room (with no windows) . . .

. . . is now our media room (or Tom's man cave as we have also called it).

To make this room more useful, we opened it up by relocating the closet for the guest room next door, as highlighted in pink in the floor plan below:

The giant bedroom could afford to lose the space it took for the new closet, and it also helped us hide an exposed pipe in that room.

Since we still have a storage room in the other corner of the house, it was really cool to be able to carve out a usable space from this room.

We already had this cabinet from IKEA, so we recessed it in to the wall to showcase Tom's Nascar car collection. This is his room to display all of his sports memorabilia also. (Well, an approved, edited selection of memorabilia. Ha ha.)

In the other corner of the room (currently serving as storage for unpacked excessive memorabilia) we plan to install a kitchenette. It will have a sink, stove, microwave, and space for a small refrigerator. This space will be very helpful when we tear apart our kitchen upstairs!

The couches came with us from Utah, as well as the coffee table and media center (IKEA). The sconces are from Lowes.

This is the neighboring guest room:

You can just barely see the window in the the photo above and how we reframed all of the windows (and doors and base boards.)

This closet is waiting for doors to be painted also.

This furniture also came with us from Utah. The dresser and armour were purchased from Pier One about 10 years ago. The bed is Ethan Allen and was used in our Master until we recently upgraded to a King mattress. The quilt was purchased from Pottery Barn and the Eiffel Tower lamp from Target, both quite a few years ago. I am a fan of reusing what I have as much as possible! Oh, and yes, that is our cat Zoe who is quite good at making herself comfortable all over the house.

That leaves just one more room to show you—the large main/family room. I am still working on getting it cleaned up enough for photos, so stay tuned for pictures in the next day or two.

Tell us what you think so far! Of course I have lots of decorating to do . . .

basement progress—bathroom

I'm back this week with more photos of our basement progress.

It's hard to appreciate how far this bathroom has come without seeing the old one in person. But trust me—this is probably the room that saw the biggest improvement.

It is difficult to miss the hard-water corroded faucet and sink, formica counter top that wrapped oddly up the wall, the mirror that wasn't lined up above the sink, the vanity doors that wouldn't slide open without falling out of their track, the plastic tile shower surround, and the concrete shower floor and brick base.

Because now we have this:

The photo is labeled "in progress" because we have a couple of key things to finish: a floor to ceiling narrow cabinet that will go between the vanity and toilet (the current 2x4 wood support on the vanity will go away) and the tile backsplash that we will install after the cabinet is in place. And hanging the mirrors.

The sinks are Decolav and the faucets Glacier Bay, both from Home Depot (also both in stock items which is so much less expensive!). All the floor/shower tile and marble countertop tile is also from Home Depot. (Going with tile for the counter top was SO much less than getting a granite or marble slab). We bought the mirrors for $10 each from IKEA, and although they are a little bit narrower than ideal, they were much less than cutting custom mirrors. The light fixtures are from West Elm, and the baskets are from Target.

This is now by far the best shower in the house. It features dual shower heads (love)!

The tile is all my dad's handiwork. He also built the cabinets that I will show you once they are installed. (They are waiting for Yours Truly to apply 2 more coats of varnish.) We are so blessed to have someone with so much talent helping us doing most of the work on this remodel and otherwise probably wouldn't be able to have half as nice a result. Thanks one hundred times over, Dad!