Poor Kitty

Nora decided that our (boy) cat should be a mommy. He is so tolerant...

Pool Project

We bought our house in February, almost seven years ago. We were first time home buyers that were a little naive. We bought our house knowing that there was a pool but we didn't really look at it and figured that we would just fill it in eventually. Well in the spring we uncovered it and it looked like this...

Ugh. It was gross. Filled with old, rotting leaves and the paint was peeling. But my ever ambitious husband decided that he would clean it, sand blast it and repaint it with pool epoxy. I, of course, went along for the ride.

We started out with a small air compressor to drive the sandblaster. Well it worked but VERY slowly. You can see it in the above picture. So we had to rent a much larger compressor.

This picture shows the new compressor and Jim's dad who came to help us out with our crazy endeavor.

So we solved the problem of the too small compressor. But then we had the dust problem. It created this could of blue dust that traveled everywhere including our neighbor's yard. They were very understanding but were having a graduation party in their backyard the next day and were worried about having a layer of blue dust all over everything. So we tried to contain the dust a little by covering the pool with a tarp.
It wasn't too bad but it also trapped a lot of heat. I failed to mention that this was in June and it was about 85 degrees which isn't all that bad except you had to wear jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a full face mask to prevent the sand from abrading your skin.
Here we are making progress. The white part is the old paint. The brown part is the exposed concrete. You can also see all the sand that collected at the bottom of the pool. When we were done sandblasting we had to haul all that sand out. Another back breaking part of this project...
Jim taking a well-deserved break...
The pool cleaned and ready to be painted.

Here's me painting the pool. We did it at night to avoid the heat but there was the added problem of bugs which were attracted to the light.
The painted pool waiting for water. Looking back on this project I forget how much work it was but I'm glad that we didn't just fill it in. We use it quite a bit during the summer and will probably use it more and more as the kids get older.

Happy Holidays

Here are the amaryllis that I potted just before Thanksgiving. They bloomed just in time. Have a wonderful holiday everyone!

Digging Out

We got about 10 inches of snow followed by some frozen rain here in New England. The kids had a great time playing in the snow. Even Benny got outside to check out all the white stuff and had a good time after he figured out how to walk with snow boots on.

Beading

Here are some beaded snowflakes and icicles I made which were inspired by all the real snow and ice outside

Little Tree

I made this little tree out of pipe cleaners. It's from the Martha Stewart website. I thought that it would take me forever and be frustrating but it actually turned out to be pretty easy and super cute. I'm still trying to figure out a good way to make it stand up. They suggest a wooden spool but it's still crooked.

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies...

I made cookie baskets for the kids teachers and some neighbors. I found the felt baskets at Target in the $ section. I thought they were cute and very PC.

More Sketches

Some more excerpts from my sketch book...

Bridal Shower Cake

This is a cake that I did for a friend's bridal shower last summer. My dad was impressed with my snowflakes that I made for Nora's cupcakes so I thought he'd like these (yes Dad, I made the daisies myself).

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Waiting

I planted these amaryllis before Thanksgiving and I'm hoping they will bloom in time for Christmas!

Ornament Thief

Benny can't seem to keep his hands off the christmas tree. I caught him red-handed this time!

First Snow

We had our first snow fall over the weekend and the kids were outside before 8 am to play in it!

Holiday Cupcakes

Some snowflake cupcakes I made for Nora's holiday bake sale at her school.

Benny says "Hi"

I can't believe that this...

has turned into this in 14 short months!

Benny says his first word, "Hi!" It's so sweet.

Holidays are Here

I've started some Christmas decorating. We'll probably get the tree this weekend so I'll pull out more of my decorations at that point. This is the mantel in the family room. I love those Command hooks. They are the ones that you stick on using a special adhesive that comes off when you're done without leaving any mark. They are the best!

Sit Still!