Mudroom complete

So after we put a new closet near our front door, that left an empty closet near our door to the garage so my thought was to change it into a mudroom area where you can hang purses and take your shoes off, etc.

So I felt motivated to paint and get it all organized. I painted it green so I may use the rest of the gallon somewhere else in the house since I really like the color. Then I installed a light system and hung a shelf unit. Ryan had installed the cat door a few weeks ago. More on that in a moment. Here are some pictures of the project:

 


















Above are pictures of the lighting system I put in. They are really for under-mount cabinet lights but they have a little switch and plug in so obviously super easy then. They are hidden behind the wall so you don't really focus on the fact that there is a cord and I linked two of the lights together so it's a good amount of light into the small room now.

I painted the room a pretty green as I mentioned but my cell phone pictures don't really do it justice.

And then the final look after I put the decor and shelf in:

 

Our new coat closet turned mudroom room. It's probably not much of an actual mudroom
but it's still a great place to hang your coat purse and take your shoes off :)

So the story with the cat door. You can see it in the above pic but our goal is to get the cats to go through this door so they can right into a cabinet in the garage where their liter is. It's all up and ready for use BUT the cats are afraid to actually go through the door. SO they haven't used the liter out there yet. We keep trying to get them to go through the door but nothing yet. Hopefully soon as it will be super nice to have the liter in the garage.

Here is a picture of the cabinet from the garage side of things. If they just walk through the cat door they would end up in this cabinet to use their liter (so they aren't really roaming the garage free at all). I'm hoping it will work as we begin to train them. Scooter will be the hardest to train.

Weekend with Halen!

We got to have Halen Friday to Saturday while Candace went to see one of Chris' concerts in Sequim. I drove out to Bremerton to pick him up (and all his stuff) and then took the ferry back home. He was such a trooper. He sleep all through the night though I felt I needed to keep getting up and checking on him :)

By Saturday morning he was a bit more fussy - he's teething and needed to pooh I think :) Anyway we had a fun time with him.

Great Grandma & Grandpa got Pooh Bear for Halen. I had it at my house until I saw him next. He was a little scared at first because Pooh is so big but he loved him.

Using Pooh as a pillow. Halen's cheeks were so red from teething. I knew he wasn't feeling that great.

Waiting for the ferry. I was trying to entertain him while waiting to get on so I kept sneaking into the backseat to make him smile.

                                                         Hanging out with Uncle Ryan.

Wanda's Birthday

To celebrate Wanda's 65th Birthday I took her to the Queen Mary Tea Room with surprise guest, niece Kathy! It was so much fun to surprise Wanda as she didn't know where we were going. I remember going to the Tea Room with my sister and mom before so it was fun to share this experience with Wanda as well. Here are a few pictures from our morning breakfast.

Smile - says the crumpet :)

Another closet?

So I've been thinking for some time how nice it would be to actually have a closet near my front door - why they put the coat closet down the hall makes no sense (except it is near the garage so I guess there was a reason). So we decided to get some help and have a coat closet built in our entry way. I've been nervous about it since it will take up space but then again all this house has is space so using up 4ft of space for a closet shouldn't be a big deal. Here are some before, after and in between pics of the closet.

Two more projects I have in mind: making one of our other closets and small mudroom/coat drop spot and then extending the kitchen cabinets in our kitchen. The mudroom I think I can finish myself since that wouldn't take much. Looking forward to that mini project!

Before (around Christmas, hence some of the Christmas decor). It always looked nice just could use some good storage solution when you walk in).

Above is with everything cleared out. The board on the wall went with my wall shelf and I just hadn't removed it yet.

The closet will go in the left hand corner.

Below is where the closet was getting framed out and drywalled:

                                   

Any the final look? I love the extra storage I now have near the front door. I just need to put the closet rack back up and then it's ready for use.  I also will add a light inside the closet (update: to make this easy which is always my theme I added motion censored light so when you open the close a lamp switches on). It looks like it's always been there :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was a little different this year since we celebrated with our families earlier than normal. Ryan and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together watching movies, working on a puzzle and just hanging around the house. I ended up putting away all the Christmas decor on Christmas day - CRAZY! But I love that I have my house back and it feels so much less cluttered with all the decorations put away.

What's in store for the New Year? Well we have several things we either anticipate or hope for:

1) Promotions at work - Ryan actually just recently found out that March 1 he'll be promoted to a new position at Safeco. He'll be a manager and is excited about that. His other position was being eliminated so we are happy he was able to find another position within the company. I anticipate being promoted to Senior Manager at Crowe Horwath where I've been a Tax Manager for 3.5years. Senior Manager means I have to do more business development type work and try to grow the west coast tax exempt practice. I'm up for the challenge but it most likely will require more travel. We'll see how that goes.

2) Starting a family - we really hope this year will be our year to start a family. We have been trying for over a year.Though since I do travel often I feel that has been somewhat of a hinderance for us. We have been in prayer about it and hope that God will hear our prayers. If not, I pray that will be content with not having a family or seeking other options. It's ultimately His plan. Continue to pray...

3) Getting fit - I would like to do a few more 5ks this year. We did our first one a few months ago and I really enjoyed it. I'm not much of a running but I did the 5k in about 28minutes. I'm hoping to improve my time. Both Ryan and I would like to be more fit and inshape this next year. We have no excuse since we have a treadmill and an elliptical machine at home. We just need motivation!

I'm sure there is more I could write but it's early yet and I can't quite remember all the things I want to do or hope for this year :) I'll add to the list as I remember!

I'm so thankful for this year though. It's been great being back in Seattle - we have been home now 2 years after being in Chicago. We love being close to friends and family and really love our neighborhood. We couldn't have asked God to put us in a better place.

Happy New Year to all.

Cookie Party

I hosted a cookie exchange party last night and it was so much fun to have good friends and eat yummy food! I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of all the folks we had over here but I did get some good shots of the cookies I made and some of the kiddos that were running around hyped up on sugar!

Another Pinterest idea I found that turned out pretty good. Bake a hersey kiss on a pretzel for 3-4minutes and then push an M&M down on top after taking it out of the oven. Pretty yummy. I had a friend who did the Rolo and pecan version and I honestly liked that better so if you have a choice I would do that one :)

  

I also made sugar cookies and gluten free peanut butter cookies. I took a few photos of these as well. I wasn't that impressed with my sugar cookies and this will most likely be the last time I make those for awhile because they are so time consuming to decorate!

Does anyone else think this looks like a Christmas Tree? I tried but don't think I really accomplished what I wanted to with this.

Here is the table I set up along with the final outcome after all the cookies arrived. I think it turned out pretty fabulous!

Last put not least - here are some pictures of the kiddos running around the house. As you can tell each pic was blurry because they were too busy running around having fun!

Until next year....turned out to be a great party. Thanks for all those that brought appetizers, wine and cookies to share. I had a great time!

Christmas Decor

I love decorating my house this time of year. This is probably one of my favorite parts of Christmas outside of celebrating the birth of Jesus. I find Christmas shopping to be burden some and I always fine it a challenge to find the right gifts for my family. So decorating is one thing I can do to be creative and doesn't cause me heart burn :)

Here are some pics of what I've done so far. I've spent a lot of time on Pinterest these days to get ideas. I still have so many crafts and DIY projects I want to try but won't probably get to do many of them this year. The few I've done though I've enjoyed.

I posted this pic of our house last time but I just love how it turned out so I'm posting again. I love my new staple gun that allowed me to do the lights around the windows, garage and the wreaths and garland over the archway.

I found this "Merry" idea on Pinterest. I found these letters at Michaels - they didn't have enough in white or red to make a full word with all the same colors but I liked the idea of mixing up the white and red letters anyway.
                           

Our Christmas tree looks great this year. It seems to be the perfect shape for our room. I also linked the tree to the wreath and garland that I attached to the curtain rod. Looks great. Hard to tell since my flash didn't seem to make the pic come out that great.                                      
                                                                                                                                                                    
  

I strung some lights around our formal living area and hung some of our ball ornaments around. I really liked how it turned out.

This is in our family room. I've actually already changed up a few things and added more decor but love how it's turning out.