POTW Week 7 - Flowers

During our month of LOVE this week was flowers.  Since it's a bit cold for the garden I had to find flowers in other places.  While taking the g-kids photo with my grandmothers old music there were two covers that caught my eye.  I love the colors of them and the vintage look they have. 

This first one I did a bit of photoshop magic on it to remove the torn edges and give it a brighter color.

Here is the orginal 

This one has my grandma's name on it before she was married.   I don't remember if my grandmother was a piano player or not.  My mom was and she made DiAnn and I take piano lessons for 6 years.  We had recitals more often than I want to remember.  We would have chairs lined up down the hallways of the school and everyone sat in their chair until their time on stage was up.  Watching the kids leave their chairs and the rows in front of you getting emptier and emptier made the butterflies in your tummy go crazy.  Then it's your turn and you get on stage at the piano and everything disappears.  BUT when you have a sister you have to return to the chairs for your duet and the butterflies come back again.  

I couldn't play a note now if I wanted to.

I found a dried flower in my bedroom.

I try to back up and get the whole scene but I'm an UP CLOSE kinda girl.

We might just have to POTW flowers again this summer. 

Noah 1 year

First time meeting Noah and he was a pure joy.    His soft little cheeks won me over right at the beginning.  

He wasn't the smiling guy his mommy wanted him to be but from what I understand he looks just like his daddy and daddy's pretty serious.  

With eyes like this you don't need to smile.

But a quick game of peek-a-boo and we get a couple smiles.

Noah was walking at 9 months so we had to put him in places where his feet couldn't help him run away.  

Grandkids Valentine Pictures

I know I do this more than once a year but every Valentine's day I plan a ALL grandkids photo, it's fun to see how they've grown through out the year together and their different little personalities they have. So this weekend was the day….. Lynn was coming over for the day and Jr was going to be spending the night.  We added Shannon's family and we're set for all the munchkins to be here.  

This year I put my grandmothers old piano music behind them with a few red hearts to make a perfect Valentine backdrop.  My grandmothers piano music is from when she was a little girl and some are from my great grandmother when she was little so it's old and fragile.  

Garrett is usually my un cooperative child but this time he was 1st in line and did perfect. 

Maxwell is the spitting image of my brother Randy.  I like to call him Randy, of course he doesn't like that and says "my name is Maxwell David".  He's into being his own little person right now and that includes not having his hair spiked and kinda messy, un-combed look….. which makes him look like Randy that much more.  

Oh….. I better say that Randy DOES comb his hair now but when he was little like Maxwell his hair looked like this.  Wheew if I didn't correct myself I might not be the favorite sister anymore.  

Mallory is as sweet as she looks.  She's growing up too fast and will be a big help with the new baby brother or sister.  She loves to haul Jr around and when someone is hurt or crying she's searching frantically for their blankie to make them feel better.  

Mallory and Elly are attached at the hips.  They love to spend time together and Elly is really good at still playing little kid games with her.  They love to play dress up and wear dresses, high heels and jewelry.  Of course they need a GIRLS ONLY photo.

Elly - my grown up little girl.  She's adjusted so well to Middle School and has grown twice as fast since she's gotten there.  These years are really important for her to feel special and special she is.  She's very good for all the little ones and treats them all so well.  She hauls them all around, plays hide and seek with them helping them hid or count and she reads tons and tons of books to them.  

Elly likes to give me some fun grown up shots, I think she watches too much America's Next Top Model.  She's really good at the serious look.

And Mini-El is really good at the dreamy stare.  

Of course we have the super cute Little A.  I told Adam to bring along a red, white, or black shirt and he sends me a text with a picture attached.  Is this enough….. I counted 19 red shirts in his photo…. ummmm yeah I think one or two choices would be good.  :)  I think his mommy did a perfect job picking out the best Valentine's shirt ever.  

And finally getting them all in the same photo.  All smiles and having fun

Till Grandma's plan to kiss them with red lipstick and those boys were NOT happy.

They are way too fun and love each and everyone of them the same.   

Now wash this off my face grandma!!!

week 6 - Hearts

After 1 month of POTW the photo group decided to keep going, we all might not be crazily posting photos on our group page but the weekly challenge sure has us thinking and looking at things differently.  What's really cool is how this challenge has grown to others who read this blog.  I get people who tell me how they are following along with the challenges…. some see things that make them say "POTW".  

This is the month of LOVE so……...

This week is Hearts

I am not a heart girl, I don't have them in my house I don't look twice when I see one, I don't buy them I don't give them to others.  I really don't have anything against them, they've never done anything to me, they actually are pretty sweet….. but I'm not a heart girl.

The one and only heart I have in my house has been here for many, many years and I love it.  I don't know if it's the saying, the paint sanded off the edges, or the twine hanger but this heart is totally ME.  I don't remember if I bought it or it was given to me but I do know who made it.   This talented lady has become one of my weekly emailers of POTW's.  She is following along with me and taking some pretty amazing photos. 

One day last summer we were up north and my niece called and asked if we were home.  No, why?  She says there is a man sitting on your patio.  Scared the heck out of us so my niece goes back to check out what he wanted.  Well it was this gal and her husband who I had told that they could come over anytime and take pictures of my flowers.    If someone wants to look past my weeds and enjoy my patio, heck come on over.  

My one and only heart

Feeling bad with only one heart I searched the hard drive for last year…… here's one more.

I would love to share a few photos from someone else that has been following along.  The amazing part is she's 12 years old and very creative.  Now remember all the photos below here were taken by her, I had nothing to do with them and have never met this girl.  What you see beyond this point is all her.

A little photoshop magic with this one……

Nice composition

And for this one she had to set up her timer and she did some great composition by placing herself to the side of the photo vs in the center.

Now this girl has talent and creativity that will be fun to watch every week.  

Go seek out the hearts in your house and see if you are a heart girl or not.

Work Weekend Up North

Sometimes when we go up north we have to get work done.  This year old man winter is putting way too much snow on the roof so John had to shovel it off.  While I stayed warm and toasty inside he worked in the cold and never once asked me to come help.  I'm not sure if you're husband is like mine but it seems no matter what project he does he always needs my help for something, and of course it's always when I'm busy doing something else.  

The snow on the roof wasn't the problem it was the day all the snow fell off the roof onto our deck that would be the issue.  There is (was) a lot of snow up there and that deck is pretty high up off the ground to rebuild it.  

After these million and two photos (sorry I really liked taking them) I got back to my work of painting the dining room and kitchen.  As I'm sitting on the floor painting the bottom half of the walls I look out the patio door again and this is what I see.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!  Remember how I said the deck is HIGH off the ground, and he's pulling large amount of snow off the roof.  

He managed to stay up there but I held my breath the entire time.  Well maybe I instagram'ed it but I really was concerned.  :)

Saturday I got lots of the painting done and when John got done with the snow he even helped me and he doesn't paint.  

Sunday morning we wake up and I had to take a picture of this room.  This is why I wanted the rooms switched, I can sit in the early morning sunshine snuggled under a blankie and watch John make breakfast.  

We got the rest of the painting done on Sunday and got 11 cupboard doors done.  Only 9 more to go…. why again did I want to paint this room?

Getting some of the stuff back up on the walls and curtains hung.  It's pretty amazing how this looks compared to the dark paneled walls.   Click here for the before.  

Many people told us to leave it as is, you're outside in the summer more than inside anyway.  Many people told us to tear off all the paneling and replace with drywall.  And there was me that said….. I can paint that.  Of course John hears that all the time from me.

As we're waiting for the last doors to dry I grabbed my dark aqua paintbrush and was going to paint the bench.  John begged me to leave it as is, the bench is from my mom and dad's house that we all sat on to put our boots on in the basement.  When I got the bench I painted it with the tree and bird nest apparently he likes it just like it is.  I left it as is.

And here is the dining table switched to the other room.  It gets some great sunshine in the morning and all afternoon. 

Now to get the floors done :)

POTW - Week 5 - White

Decided to throw a color in every month and of course this month we are seeing lots of white so white it is.  

Here is the white snow we are seeing everywhere piled up higher than the stop signs

White is a pretty simple color but when it came right down to finding it I was having troubles.  Came home for lunch one day this week and the sun was beating on the toilet paper and I immediately thought  WHITE!!!!

Lynn has talked me into doing project life for our first year at the cottage and here's the box on one of the products. 

I painted the kids toy room a light, light almost white gray.  I love it.  Usually I navigate towards color but for some reason almost white was screaming at me.  Now we're replacing the trim and flooring so a simple paintng project with a simple color has turned into a big project….. little does John know that when this room is done I'll be starting on the next one.  It's time to make our upstairs look like mine vs looking like Adam still lives there.

Little Emmett

Here is the early bird that decided to come a bit sooner than expected and ruin mom's plans of maternity photos. 

With a face like that he can do anything he wants.  

He is seriously the lightest baby I have ever held and he's the sleepiest baby ever.  

Big Brother Owen helped me pass the time while Emmett filled a little hole in his tummy.  Owen hasn't been a fan of my camera but tonight he was a rock star.  

When we asked Owen to take pictures with his baby brother he was so gentle and kind to him.  He really knows that being careful around him is important and this photo will be treasured for years.

I have never been able to fit a newborn inside this frame before.  Emmett fit with room to spare.

Tina looks fantastic after having this little peanut and I am very fortunate to know and love this family of 4.