Day 315

Here is a cake I made today for a San José Sharks fan. Not getting any crumbs in that white icing was a serious pain in the butt. Even though I put a crumb coat on first to seal in any stray crumbs, every time I smoothed out a section, another crumb seemed to pop out. I was in there with my special tweezers picking them out and re-smoothing. It took forever!

Day 314

Today I sat at the top of the stairway watching my son play trains in the upstairs hallway. As I sat there, I started picking at some old wallpaper that my cats had scratched. I picked, and I pulled thinking "Bleh, I hate this old wallpaper." It was all over the stairway and on one wall of the kitchen. My husband put it up around 1989 before I had even met him. So I picked some more, and pulled some more, and the next thing I knew, I had torn it all down.

So I stood back and looked at what I had done. I thought that even the paper that was left behind looked better than the ugly old country pattern that used to be there. It even felt soft and reminded me of faux suede, but it just looked unfinished some how.

So I took a break and had a tea to think of what I was going to do next. And as I poured the hot water over the tea bag, I thought "Hey, don't people use tea to give paper an aged look?" So I grabbed a bowl, threw in 2 tea bags, poured over a little bit of boiling water, grabbed a 2 inch foam brush and did a test spot. I liked it! It had a great streaky look to it, yet, it was missing something...So I thought, hey if I'm using tea...why not use coffee as well?" So I grabbed another bowl, threw in 2 teaspoons of coffee, poured the hot water, grabbed a sponge, and started dabbing the coffee soaked sponge over the tea streaked paper...Perfect!

5 tea bags and 6 teaspoons of coffee later, I went from this (note that I never really took pictures by this wall because the wall paper was so ugly, and when I did, I cropped most of it out):

To this:

The house was built around 1853 and has the original beams and walls exposed. I find it gives it a nice aged look, and that it fits with the house  What do you think?

I'm also replacing the stairs runner next week! Can't wait to get rid of that ugly thing too! 

Day 313

My hair is really thin so every time I try to put it in a bun, it looks like I have a pencil eraser on my head. Seriously, it looks ridiculous. So I heard something about using an old rolled up sock to make the bun look bigger. Ryan had a lonely mismatched sock, so I decided to try it out. I really like the way it looks, but I still find it a bit small looking. I think the next time I end up with a mismatched sock, I'll try it again.

Day 312

Today we dropped Alex off at daycare because we wanted to do a big cleaning upstairs before winter came. In the span of about 2 hours in the morning Alex had ripped one of his favourite books into a million pieces, peed on the kitchen floor, pulled the door stop off the wall and then clogged the toilet. We knew we would get nothing done if he was around so I put him in the car and dropped him off at our trusty baby sitters house.

Wally and I spent 4 HOURS cleaning the bedroom alone, getting rid of stuff, and packing other stuff up. The amount of dust was crazy. I don't think our room has ever been so clean so I took a picture of it. We didn't even get a chance to get to some other stuff we wanted to clean out such as the closets and coat rack down stairs. Oh well, next week!

Day 311

I'm going to be doing a cute little thing with the boys this Christmas that I heard about on the internet. It's called "Elf on a Shelf". Basically you buy a stuffed toy elf and tell the kids that Santa sent him here to keep an eye on them and report back to the North Pole every night on their behaviour. At night when the elf comes to life, after his trip back to the house, he can sometimes get bored and mischevious, so in the morning when the kids wake up and he freezes, he will sometimes be found doing silly things. I can't wait to do this. It will be great to tell the kids "Is this something the elf should be telling Santa about?" whenever they misbehave. I'm also already thinking up some funny things they can find him doing in the morning.

This is the elf I found at the store today, and the tag he had also had a little description on how he helps Santa. He's a little small though as it says he's basically an ornament. I'm going to keep looking for something that might be bigger or will be easier to position.

Day 310

Alex miraculously got better overnight, everyone was home, and it was a beautiful day, so we decided to get outside and try to get a family picture done for this years Christmas cards. I must have taken a million pictures and this is the only one that turned out semi decent. Alex kept being a grouch, wouldn't look at the camera, and insisted that Wally hold him. In the meantime, Ryan kept opening his mouth big so that everyone could see how many teeth he lost. I don't have the energy to get everyone all dressed up and try again, so I guess this is what we'll use this year.

Day 309

Well I found out why Alex fell asleep on the couch yesterday, he was getting sick! Today he ended up with a fever and just felt yucky. He spent a good amount of time just laying on the couch and/or sleeping. When he was awake, he didn't even face the TV which is unheard of!

Day 308

As I was washing up in the kitchen, I spotted these little gold finches in my black eyed susans. They're all picking out the seeds and fattening up for winter.

After I was done, I came into the back room to find that Alex had fallen asleep looking at the Sears Christmas Wish Book. I wonder if he's dreaming about what Santa will bring him?

For supper we had baked salmon steaks with a Garlic and dill lemon sauce that I made from scratch. It was to die for delicious. The steaks were huge and I ate the whole thing!

Day 307

The stray we took in has been named Emma by Ryan. She had a bit of a rough first day, as she was scared, and all our other cats were in her face trying to get a sniff of the new comer. She had no fear of the dogs however. She's all settled in now and by day 3 she was making herself at home all over the house. She still tries to get outside and managed to sneak out twice, but always came running back about an hour later when I called her. I'm sure she'll quite enjoy the life of a house cat soon enough.

Day 306

When I let the dogs in this morning, I noticed that one of them had left this body print in the frost.

The boys spent the evening wrestling. I didn't mind this time because they were both actually having fun. Usually Ryan is too rough with Alex and I end up having to yell and seperate them.

Day 305

I decided to colour my hair today. I always make it darker in the fall. I couldn't find my usual dark colour, so instead choose one shade lighter which is Natural Medium Caramel Brown. It turned out to be more of a reddish colour...more like a dark strawberry blonde. I'm not crazy about it, but, meh, I'll live.

Day 304

I took a peek in at Alex tonight and found him sleeping like this. It made me laugh. I wonder if I look like this when I sleep.

Day 303

Halloween! My favourite holiday! Today I put the finishing touches on our costumes, we carved our pumpkins and I roasted the seeds, and then we ordered out pizza for supper.

Here we all are in our costumes ready to go out

Day 302

Today I finished working on Alex's Halloween costume. He is going to be the cat in the hat and Wally and I will be joining him as Thing 1 & Thing 2. I'm not 100% happy with the costume, but for one night in the dark, it will do.