fine dining with feathered friends

Operation: Rainbow Bright is moving along. Our bathroom project is just a day away from being finished! This week I also got some things finished up in our eat-in kitchen dining area, which is our only dedicated dining space for now (the formal dining room is our office space.)

I admit, I am not very inspired by kitchen and dining spaces. It's hard for me to come up with creative ideas that will work together, but I came across this wonderful idea to make fabric birds and mount them on a branch, and I knew it would be perfect for our space. The bird pattern is by Spool and can be found here. I made a bird to represent each person in our family. The girls had a blast playing with them before they went up.

Oh, and I have made the executive decision that the ceiling beams are getting painted (white.) We have someone to do it, we just need the cash. I keep trying to work around them and make them less noticeable, so we are gonna paint those suckers! It will give the kitchen a very cottage-y look (we've seen it done in other houses.)




We have a very large window and I wasn't sure what type of window treatment to do, so we went with an inexpensive patio shade (which I'm not sure I love, but it will work until I decide.) We don't need a ton of privacy from it, but it would be nice to have something to cover the window at night when it's easy to see in.


I also hung up some decorative plates that I've been collecting. I LOVE them and am so glad I have a place to display them now. I intend to keep collecting and continue them down the wall.




The plates compliment my teapot collection, which is now over the sink. I'm still working on unpacking, so there may be more to add to the display. It's all just sort of thrown up there for now to get it out of the way. LOVE my new Alice in Wonderland teapot!


When we moved from our old house, I made the decision to replace our dining chairs. The table was in ok condition, but the upholstered parsons chairs had been trashed by the kids. Originally, I wanted to go with some sleek, modern chairs from Ikea to contrast with my cottage-y/shabby things, but they discontinued the ones I wanted! Plan B was put into place, which was to collect old chairs and paint them all a fun color. Unfortunately, finding chairs is not easy! Tables = easy. Chairs = not easy. I scoured craigslist.com for a while until I found someone selling a collection of 6 chairs + a table for $60. We wound up using 4 of the chairs and the table will probably go out on our covered porch. Scott's mom found this great table with 2 leaves for $5, so I had her get it and I freshened it up with some 3-in1 stain. (Our old table is now my sewing table since it doesn't have the leaves.) She also found the two end chairs for us for $3 each! I love a bargain!



In the plate picture, you can sort of see into our family room, which is a few steps down. Just wanted to prove it's a mess!!! lol It's next on the list - I've been working on it. It's a super dark room because of the covered porch, but we're making progress with brightening it up.

cue the 'Jaws' music....

This is our "scary bathroom." And boy, is it ever! At some point in the recent past, this house suffered some damage from a (rumored) busted pipe and it was fixed up by one of those restoration companies. Somehow, the fixer-uppers (who didn't really do that great of a job) forgot about the main hall bath! Many of the supplies were sitting in there, but nothing had been done to it. Anyway, today we started renovating it! We've hired some help since there's serious plumbing involved, and today they came and gutted everything. We are very excited b/c it's basically been unusable since we moved in and we've all been sharing our small master bathroom.

All of these pics are clickable if you dare to view them larger! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here are the realtor's pics of what it looked like when we moved in. Yup, that toilet was that gross. I thought it was stained from hard water (the house had been vacant for quite a while) but turned out to just be scum! GROSS. Hey realtors...you will sell a house faster if you make sure the toilets aren't scummy! Can you imagine how many people just turned around and left after seeing that? It definitely wasn't a selling point for us! Somehow, the toilet wound up being the only thing we didn't have a major problem with. LOL


The biggest problem for me was that the sink faucet leaked like crazy when you turned it on. The inspector didn't quite convey the severity of the drippy-ness in his reports. You turn it on and water goes everywhere! An easy problem to fix IF we could have replaced the faucet. However, there were no shut-off valves under the sink! We kinda need those, so that's where it became a project beyond our abilities.


I talked Scott into just replacing the whole vanity after I had the chance to inspect it a little closer. The cabinet was in poor condition and some not-very-savvy person put some sort of gross texture, the color of oatmeal, all over the entire thing INCLUDING the hardware/pulls. Ummm. Don't ever do that!! I might have been able to save it if I could have replaced the pulls, but after looking it over, I decided it was worth it to just get a whole new vanity cabinet and counter.

Next up is the tub. It has no shower, which we didn't realize when we bought the place...but an easy fix for someone in the know. The grout/caulk was cracked along the top of the tub, but the biggest issue was that the hot/cold was backwards on the faucet. You turned on the water, thinking you were getting cold, but you got hot instead! Big problem for a kids' bathroom! And apparently, it has been that way since the house was built 30 some odd years ago. Crazy. Needless to say, I haven't been using it for fear of the kids burning themselves somehow, so it's been the cat carrier storage area.


Also, the flooring around the tub was pulling up and discolored.


Again, the flooring was pulling up in the linen closet that's at the end of the tub. VERY gross and creepy, so our linens have been living in my bedroom closet. I will be very happy for them to move out.


And now the bathroom looks like this:


Much better already!!! We've purchased all the new stuff and our contractors expect to be done by the middle of next week. I will, of course, share the after shots with you when it's done. Goodbye "scary bathroom," hello purple paradise!

from the field to the front porch

One of the best parts of living in the midwest is that you can go out into a *real* pumpkin patch to pick your pumpkins in the fall. Most areas have at least one large pumpkin farm, some are fancier than others. The last 2 years, we've gone out to Roca Berry Farm near Lincoln to get pumpkins with Scott's family. They are pretty elaborate with their offerings - not only do they have pumpkins and other goodies, they have various haunted houses, a petting zoo, food, pony rides, etc.

There's lots of fun stuff to see and do and the girls had a blast with their cousin and their beloved (16 yr old) Aunt Abby.



Each of the kiddos got to venture out into the patch to pick their pumpkin.




Ellen picked a pumpkin that weighed twice as much as she did and Sarah picked a white one. We were kinda late getting them carved and it became a halloween day activity this year. While Phoebe was napping, Sarah and Ellie worked on their gourds.






Sarah decided to name hers "PumCute Dot" after we made the decision to carve polka dots into it (with a drill.) She wrote this herself - kinda cute, huh? Love, Sarah. :)


Poor little Phoebe suffered from one of her bouts of vertigo today. She woke up vomiting and was basically too dizzy to move much, so she slept most the day. Once she was up, I took her outside so she could help me get her pumpkin carved. Poor thing couldn't even hold her head up off the table. I want to document these episodes she has, but it's hard to do with still pictures. Eventually we'll have to find a way to video her. You can see in these pics how out of character she is when she has this happen to her. She is completely awake in these pictures, just dizzy.

Not surprisingly, she wanted a happy pumpkin while Ellen wanted a scary one. They were pretty simple this year, but they turned out well.

By the time trick or treating commenced, Phoebe was feeling much better and they all had a blast! She only had trouble going up and down steps, but it didn't slow her down. The weather was perfect - about 50' and clear with a full moon. It was a great halloween evening!




Hope you all had a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

mmmm, cookies!

The girls and I made some halloween cookies today. It's taken me a while to give up control and let them do what they want with things like this, and the way that I deal with my OCD is to do my own plate of cookies. lol Looking over some pictures from last year, I realized I've gotten kinda sloppy with my crafts this year. I've just rushed through projects without much attention to detail, so I made an extra effort today to make my cookies pretty. And just for the record, I am NOT good with decorating baked goods! Sitting still and working with messy stuff on tiny canvases is not something I have much patience for, but it's fun every once in a while.

I'm especially pleased with my little owls and masked hippos...



While the twins were napping, Sarah and I spent a quiet afternoon together decorating our cookies, knowing that once they joined us, it would quickly become cookie chaos. As we suspected, they went into sprinkle overload!

{p} the pumpkin witch...errr...princess...witch...

It's the day before halloween and we still haven't quite decided if little {p} will be a pumpkin witch or a princess. lol Originally, I thought maybe I could put her super cool tiara onto a witch's hat so that she could sorta be both, but after trying it, I thought it was a little too much. I think we'll go with the witch version for trick or treat, but I know she's enjoyed have 2 costumes in one.

The witch's hat is from the $1 spot at Target, the tiara was about $1.50 on clearance last year from Claire's. The boa and babylegs were gifted to us, so they were free. The tutu was her big sis's from last year and her skirt and top were made from fabric we got on clearance a couple years ago for just a few dollars. I wanted the skirt to have a bustled look, but it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted. The tutu underneath sorta distorts the shape of it, but I'll keep tweaking it until I'm happy with it. The top was super easy to make - I used this TUTORIAL.

Aside from skirt tweaking, the costumes are finished! Yay! One of the trickiest parts of costume design for midwesterners is that you have to be able to layer clothes underneath to keep the kiddos warm. We're hoping for clear skies and the temp is expected to be around 45' during trick or treat time. Not too bad!

purrrr-fectly sweet for trick-or-treat!

This year, little {E} is going to be a kitty for halloween. Her costume was definitely the easiest - no sewing! Actually, a little sewing, but not enough to count - after sewing feathers onto her shirt, I decided to switch to hot glue. I bought her some black knit pants and a striped (BabyGap) top from a resale shop for less than $5 and simply added black feather boa ($2) around the wrists and pant legs. We also embellished an old kitty ear headband and tail from the dress up box with the feather boa to make them "fluffy" and ultimately cuter. Topped off with pink bows, you have the perfect little kitty costume! She's very excited!

fun links

Just thought I'd share a couple of fun things I saw today...

Over at HomeSpun Threads Aimee made mini caramel/candied apples. They are like little caramel apple lollipops! How fun is that? I am so impressed with the idea b/c the regular sized ones take me like a week to eat, so I never make them or eat them. These are much more fun and manageable! Go check them out HERE.

One of my crafty idols, Heather Bailey is doing a fun halloween blog-a-thon with other bloggers. At the end of her posts, you can click to go to other participating blogs and they have links from their blogs to more blogs - it goes on and on! So fun! And a great way to discover new blogs. I think these are mostly food related, but I came across a great giveaway in the process. Definitely worth checking it out! Lots of yummy seasonal food goodies! You can find Heather's blog HERE.

And if you need something fun to do with the kiddos, I have a tutorial for haunted gingerbread (graham cracker) houses HERE