Thursday, March 11, 2010

Finishing Touches

I put the finishing touches on our new spaces with two ottomans from Target. These were great finds! A blue pin-striped ottoman with storage for the playroom...

Our puppets and stuffed animals are in there.

A small pink and green striped ottoman for the school room. I just love how this coordinates with the carpet and the loveseat. It also opens for storage, but is empty right now.

Play Spaces Revisited

After our creation of a school room two weekends ago, our main living/play space underwent some dramatic changes of its own! Here is a very out-of-date post on our playroom. It changed quite a bit even before our big move this month. I'll have to do a another "tour" soon.

First, we added a train table that we found on Craigslist in the foyer (or "playroom extension"). This is were our four-sided bookcase used to be along with the cozy corner. Now it houses the water table when not in use, a small shelf of toys and the train/play table in the middle of the room. This came with two small stools so we're also using it for play dough and other messy projects.


Since our child-size table moved upstairs along with our four-sided shelf, I moved the boys' arm chairs from the music room/library and bought a small display bookcase for our current reads (non-curricular).


Not sure if it's the librarian in me or what, but I adore this!


We'd finally had enough of our Craigslist couch and ottoman (and the chair in the music room), so I sold them and found this couch on Craigslist instead! It is in much better shape: our old one was very faded and had spots and back cushions never stayed in place or well-fluffed. This one is much better and even came with a "chocolate" slip-cover to help combat kid-use.


Last but not least, after being inspired by Emma and Father John's addition of French doors to transform a dining room into Fr. John's office, we added doors to our music room/library to keep the cats out. This room has been gated and off-limits to the boys their whole lives, but the cats were getting into trouble in there. It was time for a change! This will allow my husband to practice in there as well without disturbing sleeping children or other house activities. (Though we all love to hear him play!)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Before and After: School Room

Totally embarrassing "before" picture. This was our guest/sewing/exercise room and this is what it looked like after I spent time sewing last week and the boys amused themselves with whatever they could find.


After! What a difference in 48 hours! I am in LOVE with this room now!

If you pop over to Flickr, you can read my notes. Enjoy the tour!






Such a peaceful and lovely space...just don't look at the master bedroom for a few more days until I finish weeding out what I don't need from the old room and cleaning off my sewing table!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Just can't do it anymore!

Although the first day of spring is still almost a month away and spring won't arrive in Central New York until mid to late April, I put away all our Winter books today. We're in seasonal limbo until I pull out the spring books.

I'm still intending to share a list of the Winter books we read over the past few months (both what we own and borrowed from the library).

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Simplicity Parenting: Interview with Kim John Payne

One of my current reads! I recommend it for all parents.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Candlemas- The Presentation of the Lord

Today is The Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas.

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem

to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord,
Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,
and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,
in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
Luke 2:22-24

We started the day with a traditional breakfast of pancakes and reading about the Purification of the Virgin/Presentation of the Lord.


I share this picture because Sidekick really wanted to dress like a candle (he is very into the "light" part of the feast!), so he wore a red shirt with his yellow sweatshirt.


Later in the day we rolled candles. I hadn't intended on candle making this year since the boys are still so young, but Emma alerted me to this kit. Thanks to Amazon Prime and a $3.99 upgrade to one-day shipping, we were able to "make" candles after all!



We said a simple blessing ourselves and will also take them along to be belatedly blessed next weekend at Mass.