A Tour of Liz's Home

A lot of great things happened even though the trip to Texas was for a sad unfortunate event. The kids and I stayed at my BFF's house. Liz is an amazing woman. She is a true giver. She does so much for everyone and I am proud and lucky to call her my friend. She comes out to visit me twice a year since it is hard for me to visit with the kids. Though now that they are a bit older I hope to grace her doorstep at least once a year.

While there I told her I was taking pictures so I could give a tour of her house.

She is an amazing decorator and has an awesome talent for creating vignettes.

Lets visit shall we?

Here is the hall tree she has upon entering - see she is welcoming you.

This is her living room. You see this immediately upon entering. Actually right now it has crown molding as my hubby did it for her before he headed back to Afghanistan - it is the least we can do for her.

Notice all the wonderful items on her walls and her very cool lamps.

To the left of the living room is her dining room..my fave room. It is done so well. I adore that sideboard.

Here is her bathroom. Very nice. Though she is getting ready to gut it and redo the whole thing. She even displays the toilet paper in her cool way.

This is her very nice sink. I love the whole area. It was funny as I told her- wow I love that mirror and she laughed and said - well you should you gave it to me. WOW it has been a long time since I have been there.

Next we have her room. Her bedroom furniture is so nice and it is antique. The bed is so high she surely must take a flying leap to get up there. Don't you adore that mirror back there?

See that armoire- yeah you can do the ahhhhh with me. 

Now on to the least favorite room in the house to her - the kitchen. Not that she doesn't like to decorate it - she does. She does not like to cook. She loves big kitchens as they give you tons of room to display and she is a hoarder of dishes...so she loves to display them all.

This is the far wall in the kitchen..notice that nice hutch. She is going to get a new sink, faucet and counter tops. A mini makeover yeah...she deserves it. 

This is the back family room. She had way more in it but has put some away - basically due to dogs. :)

They rarely use this room now that her son has moved out and has his own place so I told her she should turn it into her craft studio..and she loves that ideal. By the way I didn't get a pic of her craft room as we stayed in there and I always had it too messy. Dang because it is one darling room.

Now we will head out to the back yard. It is a garden to die for. Liz has the most green thumb of anyone I know and her back yard is wonderful. As we enter the backyard we are greeted by this pergola that is covered in cross vine. She has it done so well.

Next we head behind the garage; where this secret garden is..I

love this area. 

This is the seating and cooking area..Don't you just want to lie down and take a nap?

Well that is a tour of Liz's house. We'll head in after one more look at those lady banks roses on the fence line- amazing aren't they? 

Thanks Liz for letting us crash your pad. We had a great time there- well except for the puppy pooping on the floor- gross. I'll have to come again when it is time to set up the craft studio so I can help you out.

It's Spring Break 2010

It's that time again, when college students head south.

Gone are the days of bikinis, baby oil, nasty hotel rooms, all night drive to get there, tequila, oysters in the half shell and running out of money. Ahh good times.

This spring break will be spent in a more family way. We get to spread more compost to get all the gardens looking like this- nice huh?

We'll be doing more of this too- yeah new roller blades .
Can you say need more band aids and icee pops to stop the pain?

We've got our little cousin coming in from Michigan for the weekend before he heads off to spend his spring break at the beach..so gotta get some cousin time going on. 

We've got the little man's 7th birthday to do on Saturday- hmm how do you top a great big wheel like that? 

And we have Easter to do on Sunday- yeah we do a big egg hunt in our yard and our neighbors yard with tons of eggs and then some nice brunch food. Like we wont' have tons of candy already in our bellies by then. 

So, with all that going on you'll have to pardon me as I will need the week off from posting. I have a lot to do and many little kids to keep me busy. I'll still pop in and read other's posts but mine will have to wait a week.

So, until then you all have a great week-

hunt for lots of eggs-

craft away-

hug your little ones-

and hopefully have wonderful gardening weather. 

Saturday Soccer

Well it is Saturday and time for more spring soccer. Spring you say? Well it was so cold this morning some might just argue that season. We had 3 games today as it was double header weekend for the son. Yes we spent 3 hours out in the cold to play soccer but we didn't let it damper our mood at all.

Here is game one - with Sophie all wrapped up in her coat to play.

You'll notice that her coat is now under her jersey- yes we had to do some creative redressing on the sidelines to put that jacket underneath. Her coach seemed to have an issue to her wearing her jacket on top of her jersey even though the other team was doing it- oh well.

 

Next we hit Jack's game - we already put his sweat jacket under his jersey. The sun was starting to shine more but that dang wind sure kept it chilly.

And after 3 hours in windy, sunny, chilly soccer games this is how Jack felt..I'll admit it. I felt that way too.

Great game kiddo's. Now we have a week off with no practices or games next weekend- yeah it is spring break. Time to get tired by just playing all day with our friends who didn't go to the beach :)

What we did on Friday...

We decided to hit the field of daffodils down the street. It was so pretty and warm out and the day just screamed to wander through some flowers. I had the best models in the world to shoot.

This area just gets more beautiful every year as the flowers keep spreading naturally. There is something about nature- she just does her best all by herself.

Enjoy our walk through nature.

This is how we roll on Saturdays

How do we roll on Saturdays? Well we are at the soccer fields most of the day that is how.

This was opening weekend of soccer and after such a long, miserable and wet winter we were so happy to see the sun and feel some warmth.

The kids did amazing. It definitely is their calling. They were so excited to get out and play again.

Here is Jack - looking good boy. He scored twice and was all smiles.

And after his game we went right over to the other field and then watched Sophie. Great job girl. She scored 4 times and of course pointed it out to Jack. 

So, if you are looking for us on Saturday for the next couple of months - this is where we'll be. Stop by and enjoy the sunshine with us if you want.

A little spring in our step

Today my daughter Sophie and I decided to take a walk with our cameras. We were in search of spring because gosh darn it we are sick of winter. Enough already with the snow forecasts. We found many Camilla shrubs in bloom so we captured as many of those as we could.

Enjoy and may spring get here quickly. Please :)

Sophie's room

Well one of the big projects we did during the bloggy break was find the floor in this little girls room. She really can give the Tasmanian devil a run for his money in tearing up a place. I have never shown you the other rooms in our house so here goes.

Sophie's room. This is a large room. The built in bookcase you see below used to be a doorway to the other bedroom. During WWII the owners took in a boarder and she had one room and her child had the other. This doorway connected them. Once that time was over it was closed up and became a bookcase on either side of the wall.

We painted her room a girly pink on top then I did stripes on the bottom that coordinate with her bedding. That was a big deal- lots of tape and lots of time. Doubt I''ll ever do that again.

The artwork above the play kitchen was done by my sister. I'll show more on that tomorrow. She is amazingly talented.

There are the cubbies that took most of my break to assemble..now we need some bins to put in there. Gotta hit up Target and Walmart for some fun colors. Notice the little tassel hanging from the ceiling fan? I also painted each back area of the shelves in the bookcase a different color. I think that is my fave as it is unexpected.

Here is the bed side of the room. She had to get the canopy from Ikea to hang over her bed. Notice the small dresser next to her bed? Another creation from my lovely talented sister. The tall white dresser was my mom's. I painted it white much to the horror of my father and then added glass knobs.The bedding was made by me. I found this lovely, colorful blue print and the name of the design just happened to be - Sophia. So, it was fate - had to use it and all of the colors of the room came from it.You can see my stripes there really well. Arrghhh I can still remember that mess.

Well that is it for that room..I'll show you the artwork from my sister Monday as I am busy all weekend.