Some Nonsense

This morning I went outside to take some pictures for a project my mom, my sister, and my self are working on. I was walking along when I heard a *squeak* under my foot. I paused mid-step and turned to see what the heck made such a noise. Then I saw it. Half buried under the dead grass was a a poor, lifeless bunny. 

Except it wasn't. 

What I thought was a bunny actually turned out to be a long lost chew toy of some sort. Don't ask me why I thought I was a dead animal. Bunnies don't squeak and dead things don't either. But whatever. 

Redirect. My family has been over pretty much all day taking down a tree and chopping and stacking wood for me. They are the bomb.

Pretty sure my dad is telling my mom to stay back. 

Pulling the tree down. 

That's how we do Monday. How was yours?

Something About Snow

Have you ever gone outside after a fresh snow to look at the animal tracks in your yard?

My sisters spent the night a couple of weeks ago and we did just that! I've always loved looking at animal tracks.

We found some cute rabbit tracks.

Then guess what we found? 

Cat prints! Too small to be a cougar (thank goodness). I think we have more critter problems! Bobcat maybe? Apparently they eat chicken. Remember how I found chicken feathers on our doorstep? Nathanael tried to be optimistic and said, "Maybe the wind blew them over from the neighbors house..."

Onto our doorstep?? Not likely.

Our neighbors live a quarter mile away. Nice thought, husband, but I think not!

Polka Dot Polka Dot Polka Dot Party

I didn't get to have a baby shower because Caeden was born the day my baby shower was scheduled, so we had a first birthday party for him! Not that he will remember. But we will, and it was so much fun. 

Everyone decorated t-shirts for him:

And wrote things they see in him now on little "polka dots" and put them in a tin so when he is older, he can look back and see they kind of baby he was. 

Caeden cried when everyone sang, "Happy Birthday" to him and didn't eat any of his cake. Which left more for the rest of us! 

A Whole Year

I can't believe that it's been an entire year since sweet Caeden was born! I'm surprised we kept him alive :) Here are some highlights from his first year!

Being born

Going to Chipotle

Being blessed

Being gangster

Loving his puppy

We miss her

So have another picture

and another

Chilling by the pool

Hiking at Wallace

Being a model

Seeing the ocean

Visiting Utah and California and meeting his first Marine

And just plain being awesome. 

He learned to walk at ten months, loves to dance, make music, and pull books off his shelf and try to put them back again. His favorite movie is Despicable Me...yes, he already has a favorite movie. Yes, I let him watch movies. I'm okay with it. He says, "Ma ma", and "da da", but doesn't know who/what they are. 

He is just the sweetest. I will post about his party later. My family did an awesome job with it!

Painting Furniture with Porch Paint

Every once in awhile I get crazy...okay, a lot of the while, and I paint stuff. This time, I used some leftover porch and floor paint to give our dining room table a makeover. 

We used Glidden's porch and floor paint to paint our floors. I've heard that oil-based paints aren't tint-able, but guess what? This paint is! It also has polyurethane in it, so you don't need to add a protective coat after you finish painting. So I thought to myself, "Self, use the porch/floor paint to paint the dining room table!" 

So I did. I didn't prime or sand the table. Here is what it ended up looking like:  

I loooove it! I have two tips for working with porch and floor paint. 

One, apply the paint in thin coats on vertical surfaces. Otherwise you end up with something like this:

Not awesome. 

Two. If you apply the paint thickly on a level surface, that's okay. It's great actually! But if you decide to apply a second coat you must be sure that the first coat is fully cured. Otherwise you end up with this:

Not awesome. I ended up scraping paint off the whole table top and a couple of the legs with a straight razor and re-doing them, but I love how it turned out! 

Feeling Famous

The most exciting thing happened! Maybe it's not as cool as I think it is, but I think it's pretty fetching awesome, and I'm feeling famous. My chairs are in this article, 17 Creative Ways to Recycle Old Chairs, Wood and More. 

There are a lot of neat projects that people have done using things that most people would just throw away. Take a look! 

Secondly, I merged my furniture blog with this blog. Now, there is a grand total of ONE blog to keep on top of! I love it! I hope you do too. 

Some House Happenings

I haven't mentioned our house lately. Nathanael just finished putting a door in the doorway between the mudroom and the kitchen. Remember this door from waaaay back that I just had to have? It was a a local scrap yard. 

Well, here it is! In our house. Sorry for all the super low quality pictures. 

I plan on putting either a chalkboard or a decorative piece of metal grate on top of some wood. It won't happen today, but it WILL happen. I also plan to clean it. :) 

We also switched stoves with Nathanael's sister, Ruth. HUGE blessing and thanks! That tiny wood stove wasn't cutting it, but now we stay super warm. Nathanael discovered that it is really a coal burning stove, so we want to buy some coal just to test it out.

I started painting our dining room table (finally) and it will hopefully be finished on Saturday. Be on the look out!

Oh, and have a happy, safe, responsible New Year's Eve! ;)