Our House in the Middle of Our Street

Here is the second edition of Visual Monday, where I find cool pictures off WeHeartIt and you like it. This week is: Tree . Ever notice how trees are sometimes their most beautiful in winter; stark and ice-heavy? I love these tree images and when I can only limit myself to 6, I have a had time choosing a favorite. Which is your favorite and why? All photos found from WeHeartIt.com. Reader beware, weheartit is uncensored.

Probably one of my favorites. Both drinkin' hot cocoa at their bedtime bath. From Soulemama's blog : A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Preschool update: Playing in a boat, my two pirates. This week we've made Pirate hooks, read Pirateology , listened to "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" followed by eating "P" pancakes for breakfast. Painting is coming, Pipe cleaner Pets were a hit, and of course spelling and writing P words for practice. We have about 10 weeks left of preschool for the little dude, and it's been going well. Sure there are days of, "I don't wanna' do preschool!" but he'll be focused after 5 minutes. I have really enjoyed this first year and I didn't really know what to expect. It's been a great motivator to do hands-on activities, crafts, puzzles, and workbooks with him, and it really structures our day more than anything else we've ever done. Some days we spend all of 30 minutes doing a bit of writing and reading before rushing out the door to a planned activity, other days we can essentially spend the entire morning doing activities, baking,...

Alright, I'll just say it. This Monday is bleak. We've got a busy week, it's the middle of winter in Nebraska, and I'm waiting for payday. I needed a pick me up! I've also been running out of blogging ideas. I've got a few lingering, but who wants to read 5 movie reviews in the row? Yeah, me neither. I turned on my Melody Gardot (Thanks Mia!) pandora station, open up WeHeartIt and get to heartin' inspiring and beautiful photos. If you ask really nice I might share my finds every Monday... Okay, that was nice enough. This week's inspiration: Winter . (PS-w.h.i often has beautiful photos, but is not censored, beware!)

From Soulemama's blog: A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

photocredit Oh French film, you make me love the industry more and more with every witty and imaginative movie you come out with! This was SO good. Watch it sans kids, as you've got to be paying attention to detail, visually, and mentally, to figure this one out. Micmacs is a story about a man who has lost everything and comes to terms to get even with those who killed his father in the most creative way. A cast of characters that is as random as your mother's uncle's side of the family, this movie is sure to make you laugh. Somewhat of a satire on the arms industry and using the trend of environmental 'repurposing', the end of this movie will make you laugh at the most ironic and ingenius use of trash ever in a movie. A few of the characters you may remember from Amelie (the director's most famous work). This isn't much of a love story, though the contortionist has other ideas in mind. I do have to warn you, viewers, that there are some hard "R...

Winter is a great time to snuggle up and read lots of stories with little ones, and so today I'm just going to share some of our favorite 'winter' books that can all be found at our local library in Lincoln. We usually get between 20-40 books per trip, and these are the best of the seasonal loot, as it were. Enjoy! photocredit This is a really unique story, being as it's true. It's about a man, "Snowflake Bentley" who first captured snowflakes with a unique camera decades ago. He discovered that all snowflakes were different, though hexagonal. Though he didn't receive much recognition in his lifetime, we can thank him when we say, "No snowflake is the same". Very neat story for kids 4+. photocredit White Snow, Blue Feather was a book Lukka really liked to read over and over. It's simple language and pretty scenery is a peaceful glimpse of winter in a rural area. A child discovering small details in the landscape behind his home. photocre...

Here is a recent craft I did. This project was so. stinkin'. easy . Really: 20 minutes, a t-shirt, and a pair of scissors! I first found it at Penny Carnival and I although I had the exact shirt (literally, I wasn't wearing this one anymore, either!), my bands didn't stretch as much as I would have liked. Needless to say hers is a bit cuter since it drapes much more nicely, but mine is still totally functional as a trendy new fabric necklace.... retail: $35+. I've been doing a few background crafts that aren't quite ready to share yet. One includes getting fabric into more embroidery hoops for a big fun display in Ani's room! What are you working on?

From Soulemama's blog : A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Back again with links that I know you'll love!~ Enjoy. photocredit My biggest find of the year (ha!) thus far. Free and downloadable from Ana-white.com . Making Pottery Barn furniture on a Walmart budget. Rock on girl. I'm begging Stefan to start with the Learning Tower and Doll highchair . Word of the day: restraint . One of the prettiest textile pieces ever. Awesome NYT article on getting children back into the groove of PLAY and why it's so important for development. I jump right onto any train that tries to bring back recesses. Already on my pre-order list . Third book due out in August. Can't wait! I've still got Christmas money to burn and I've recently sampled this album . Any Decemberists lovers out there? Do you like this one? Such wonderful photos to start the year off right. I love the bird one. If you're a recycler, repurposer, or a 're-styler' (er?), join up with two of my favorite bloggers who will be sharing fabulous redos with Pr...

photocredit Wow. It's not every book that's over 300 pages gets read in just 2 days. I had about 5 people recommend it to me which is why I picked it up in the first place. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen , had it all: suspense and drama, murder, mystery, romance, action, and a cast full of characters. I always enjoy stories about animals and my favorite genre of fiction is 'historical fiction' so this novel was right up my alley. * The story starts off with a very aged man, the main character, remembering his old days on a travelling circus act. Within the book it weaves between then and now, his past more real than his present, in a nursing home. The young man, Jacob, leaves home with nothing-not even finishing his final exams at Cornell, during the Great Depression, and hitches a ride with the Benzini Brothers' Most Spectacular Show on Earth. He becomes the vet and throughout the book aquires an extremely smart elephant, a lady friend, a dwarf named Walter,...

Now that 2011 is under way, I can show you all what I had made for Christmas. This year, I figured it out. Mass production . Make 10 or more of the same thing, and it goes really fast, though there's a guarantee you will probably never make another one. Ever . The top pictures is just a selection of the Obi-inspired Hot/Cold packs from the book One Yard Wonders I made for a number of family members. The small purple square is one of two hand warmers, and the white floral rectangles are just larger hand/shoulder warmers. There's a tea-towel with ruffles in there somewhere, too. The hot/cold pack was something I thought that was useful, and very easy to make. Good idea : Every single fabric was from my stash! Bad idea: I couldn't figure out a way to level the weight (of the rice inside) with my sewing machine. It kept knocking the tension out of whack because they each weigh a few pounds. I also made knitted slippers for a lot of people this year. The one on the far lef...

This morning we woke up to the first big storm of the year. About 5+ inches of snow and a quiet, beautiful sight. The only stressful thing was I had to get Lukka to an 8:00AM dentist appointment! We made it there in one piece, amazingly right on time, and before I knew it, he was done and he did great. We came home, quickly pulled on the snowsuits and went back out to shovel and play. Always encouraging Lukka to help out, Grammy got him this shovel for Christmas and he loved using it. Today is a great time to share this recent 'winter craft' I made. It's an 18 inch felt snowflake taken from Living Crafts Magazine . I put a ribbon on the back, and had Lukka sit in my lap to sew everything together. Both kids loved helping me stuff it and it was super easy and fun to make. I made the size very large, though, about 5 times bigger than the one in the magazine, because I wanted to be able to hang it on my front door. The 'snowflake design' I quickly snipped while wat...

I'm back on the wagon, folks. From Amanda Soule's blog {This Moment} A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

We spent our holidays quietly this time around, and although I loved getting together with family and friends, the slow-paced home life is also a good change. On New Year's Eve, a day that Stefan had off from work, we took a winter walk with the kids down to our favorite path that connects to the bike trail. The kids enjoyed playing with the ice-snow, and breaking it a part with sticks. They could have done that all morning had their mother not been freezing her tookus off! This year we're focusing on more intentional family time on weekends, more frequent kids bath times (ahem), more balance for a mama who says "yes" much too often for her own good, and continuing on with our good habits we've been forming over the last year or two with psychical health, finances, and spiritual growth for ourselves and our children. Welcome, 2011! * Does your family strive towards resolutions, goals, or work on specific items individually in the New Year? What are some things...

Here is the last {House Tour} post, as I'm sure you don't want to see our unfinished (yet tidy, ahem!) basement, and our backyard will have to wait until there are lanterns about with our first backyard bbq in the late Spring. Our room is much smaller than our last, which is okay, it's quite cozy. There are two large windows, making it great mid-day, for lighting up the whole room. In this first picture you can tell we don't have much up on the walls yet, we're still working on that. To the left is the $10 antique dresser I got at an estate sale last year, holding our wall art for us. We put Stefan's dresser behind the bed and although it's a bit tight with two dressers, it's not that bad. The older one will be painted a sky blue come summer, brighting up the room a bit more. Here is a bit of a different view of the room, standing beside the lamp table. The door on the left is actually jam.packed . with Stefan's work clothes, all our shoes, and a...

Two in one day you lucky one! I love Anikka's room, and like many of the other places in the house, knew where everything would go almost immediately upon inspection. Change table by the window, crib near the low-ceiling (there's a pocket near the opposite side of the crib, it houses all the kids' storage tubs including next years' clothing), and rocking chair and book pile near the other wall. My mother-in-law also gave me this fuzzy rug. I think it came from IKEA, though not sure. She told me it was in Stefan's room when he was a baby! It matches really well in the room. Here is Anikka's open shelving for toy & book storage, though what you can't see (opposite the toys) is a slight pocket that holds an entire plastic shelving unit that houses all sweaters, sheets, matress pads, and blankets for both kids. I love that this not-so-aesthetically-pleasing item is totally hidden from view! Embroidery on the wall was made by me for her first little area ...

Okay, I know. I wrote Monday . The last week just got out from under me. I've got a few more rooms to show you this week, and a ton of thoughts swimming in my head for future posts. Also coming up is a lot of Christmas presents revealed since all gifts have been given. * Enjoy Lukka's room. It's one of my favorites in the whole house and perfectly suited for a mischievous boy of three! The two kids' rooms are upstairs, and with each having a slanted ceiling, these make charming child-size rooms. I immediately knew where he'd like his bed, and this was very easy for me to throw things together I already had to decorate. Banner above double window was made by me for a friend's baby shower awhile back. Here's the little goof showing off the main attraction to his room-two cubbies to play in with friends and sister alike. I often find him with all his blankets and teddies in there reading to them during his quiet time. These open shelving units are great stor...