Ohhhh the things kids say!!

What a day!!  Actually it has been crazy around here for the last few weeks.  My sister-in-laws dad passed away last week.  We are a pretty close family that are there for each especially during tough times.  So last week was spent makingmyself available for anything my sister-in law, brother or neices and nephew might need.  At some point I realized our house  phone wasn't working but I was so busy I didn't even get to  calling the phone company for a few days.  Then they told me it looked like a line was turned on from our house-well we have 4 cordless phones and 5 kids-where could a missing turned on phone be??  So we searched couches and beds and closets and anywhere a phone may hide.  No Luck.  Well a couple more busy days went by, the phone still wasn't working so I bought a new phone-disconnected all cordless phones and tried the new phone-still nothing.  I called the phone company back and this time they said-oh, it looks like there is a problem with your line-we can have a service person out in 2 days.  GREAT!!  On the weekend my brother mentions that maybe the problem woth the phone line is that a mouse chewed through it!  Nice-I hadn't thought of that!  ( we have a mouse problem every winter and this was a bad one-but that's a whole other story!)  So I'm thinking if they have to check our lines where will they look-oh no-the dreaded service call.  Will they need to go in the laundry room?  That would mean climbing over a mountain of laundry.  The garage-let me see between the furniture for my Comin' Home business, the hockey bags and the new couch and chair for the basement ( waiting for the puppies to leave so we can paint and change the floor.) he couldn't make his way through there without breaking something-like a bone.  Now the basement-what if heneed to go there-well there is the shelves of my Comin' Home business, the partially knocked down wall, the flooring for the family room stacked in the hall and the wonderful scent of puppy poop that is filling our house!   The phone guy arrives at the door as Brendan is walking out and B looks at him and says "A mouse chewed our phone wires" Wonderful!  so I invite the guy in as he looks at me puzzled-I'm sure thinking if you know it is  a mouse why did you call us!  But he comes in-looks at the hook up in the kitchen and by the computer and says it looks like there is a short in the wiring.  Hmmmm  I wonder what that is caused by-just then G comes up the stairs holding a mouse by its tail saying-" I hit it with a bat-I just wanted it out of my room!"  Wonderful-can you say mortified!!!  So I say-we had a problem with mice coming in from the garage in the winter but I haven't seen any in a couple months To which G says " Oh ya there are lots in the house-I think they are in the walls.  Wonderful!!!   I could not have been  more embarrased.  I'm trying to change the subject, crawl in a hole, anything to make the mouse conversation stop.  At this point the guy says to me.  You can just leave your phone plugged into the cable box and then you don't have to worry about the short in the line.  I'm sure he walked out and wrote down in  big letters on his invoice  MICE!!!

China Cabinet makeover

I had a friend asking me for a China cabinet that would match her table and chairs that she had bought from Comin' Home.  So I went on a mission to find the perfect cabinet that could be transformed.  I found this china cabinet with a great hutch on top and a rail.  It is solid maple from the 1970's.  I knew it was a good solid piece and I had a vision of how I could transform it.  I forgot to take a picture of it before I started with the two pieces still together  so the first picture is of just the hutch

I cleaned it really well with varsol first then washed it well with water.  Once it was all dry I started painting it with a primer.

I took the rail off and painted it separately as well as the drawers and cupboards.  I will replace the drawer pulls and knobs with new brushed nickel ones and the hinges I decided to spray paint with a hammered nickel spray paint.

This is it almost finished-I still have to replace the hardware and I am undecided if I should distress it(you can see the one drawer I started) or leave it solid black-Leave a comment and let me know what you think.  I love how it turned out and  I look forward to finding the next one to do!

Xylophone

T had to make a musical instrument for his school music class.  When he gets an assignment he always get to it right away.  He decided to make a xylophone with wrenches and made a rough looking one during spring break.  Once he got back to class he decided he needed to refine it more and came up with this one.

He used a metre stick  and cut it to varying lengths then wrapped each piece in electrical tape.  I helped him drill some holes in the corners to attach the pieces with screws and bolts.  He arranges each wrench to have the right pitch then we drilled holes and put screws in to hold the wrenches in place.  He got a 72% on it ( he was a little disappointed  but I thought that was pretty good!

Smashed Potatoes

As a child I have nice warm memories of Sundays.  We got up in the morning and went to church.  Then usually my dad would make a big brunch-like poached eggs and toast or pancakes.  My mom was always the helper and did the dishes.  By the time brunch was cleaned up my dad would be preparing dinner and getting it in the oven.  Sunday dinner was always a special meal-usually a roast, meatloaf, or a chicken or turkey. Someone would go to the town bakery and pick up a fresh loaf of bread and my dad would cut it with his electric knife.  The house smelled so good.  I remember it being a quiet, calm day.  I would often curl up with a book until it was time to set the table and eat.

I like to do the same with my family on Sundays-I love to cook a nice Sunday meal and sit down as a family, around the table to eat and talk.  

Yesterday I made meatloaf.  I usually make mashed potatoes with meatloaf-they just seem to go together.  As I started to peel the potatoes I decided I wasn't in the mood to peel-and besides I had some nice red skin potatoes that would be good with the skins on.  So I decided to make "smashed potatoes".   I thought they turned out wonderful and my family loved them.  Heres how I did it.  

First I washed the potatoes and then put them on a plate and cooked them "fork tender" in the microwave.   Due to the fact that we are such a large family I had a full dinner plate so it took about 20minutes on high to cook the potatoes.  These were also fairly large potatoes so I cut them in half to smash them.  

I drizzled some olive oil on a cookie sheet then placed the potatoes on the sheet.  I used a mug to gently "smash" each potato. 

Next I drizzled some olive oil on the potatoes then sprinkled coarse salt and rosemary and chives.  

I then baked them in a 425 degree oven for about 25 min.  I was looking for them to be crispy and have crunchy edges.

This is how they turned out-the picture doesn't do it justice.  They were wonderful and even T who doesn't usually like potatoes of any kind commented how good they were!

Puppies and baby

Last week was spring break for my kids-so just imagine a week-in winter-with all five kids home and many friends and family gone on trips to warmer places and white sands.   We knew it was close to time for our beautiful viszla dog to have her puppies and about a month from my sister-in-laws due date for her forth "surprise" baby!  A had drivers lessons planned for the first part of the week with his cousin so he headed off there for a few days.   Sunday we had dinner and game night with my brother and very pregnant sister in law.  My sister in law  joked about taking a profile picture of her and the dog for memory sake!!   The weather kept getting better and better-wonderful walking and outdoor weather.  Tues my brother called with the announcement that my sister in law was in labour-so I headed up to the hospital to see the tiny little 5lb 1 oz peanut.  T had been staying with them so he and grandma came up with my nephews.  We all felt so privileged to be the first visitors for this special arrival.  She is the 22nd grand baby on our side-very unexpected and 4 yrs since the last baby-but so very wanted!!!

Friday while I was at a doctors with my foster baby I got the call from home that we had been waiting for-Susie was finally in labour.  I frantically made phone calls to family that had asked if they could be present and rushed myself back to a house full of people anxious to see the first little babies come out.  Susie is such a good lovable dog.  G is the closest to her so she normally stays in G's room.  It therefore only made sense to have her give birth there.  So we packed 15 people into G's room to watch this miracle.  It is amazing to watch nature take over and mommy dog have these babies, clean them up and watch them take their first breaths and creep with closed eyes to nurse. What  a beautiful  experience.  That is why we did it-we wanted to let her have one litter so that the kids could see the whole birth and nursing process.  She ended up with 8 puppies-wow-and she is such a good mom-takes such good care of them.  So the winter week we were kind of dreading and trying to think of activities to keep everyone busy turned out to be a more beautiful and eventful week than we could ever have imagined!!

Primitive bunny

Heres the instructions for a very basic primitive bunny

First I designed my pattern-I did some rough sketches on paper first then I drew it the size I wanted on wax paper.  For a simple bunny like the one above you just need one drawing and you are going to cut 2 pieces (the other patterns are for more projects I will post later)

Place the pattern on your fabric-I used a cotton muslin-and cut 2 pieces. Use a safety pin to pin your pieces together before you stain them if you are doing more than one project at a time-this way you don't have to worry about matching the pieces up again after.

This is my jar of staining liquid.  It contains tea bags, cloves, cinnamon, instant coffee in water.  I keep the jar so that I can use it again and again for each project.  Each time I use it I pour it in my pot and add a little more of each of the ingredients-this saves a little money and if I only have a small project then I can just use this.  

Place the  fabric pieces in a pot with the staining liquid. Bring it to a good boil and then let it simmer for about 15 min.

Use tongs to pull the fabric out and put it in a glass bowl.  I usually hang the pieces to dry-these were a little damp so I laid them on a cookie sheet and the finished drying in less than 5 min.  and the oven gives it a little more browning.  

Here are the pieces for my various projects with the safety pins on after staining and drying.

Sew both pieces together leaving an opening at the bottom.  Turn it right side out and stuff it.  Hand sew the opening closed-I did a very rough primitive stitch.  Sew 2 buttons on for eyes and a wide stitch for the nose.  Add a ribbon made of homespun fabric and a little tuft of the stuffing for a tail if you wish.  Remember to keep it basic and primitive for the most authentic look.