First Build

Books, books, books...they are all over the place around here. Not that I don't like having books, I'm probably the one at fault for buying/borrowing them all. I just can't resist when I see a really good one from school, or if one of the kids show a real interest in one of the titles from Strong Start. I've tried to organize them in a small way by having majority of them kept on a high shelf and just setting out a small selection in a basket around the house. The only problem is that basket is A HUGE MESS. Especially now that there are books for both Maddy and Ethan, the basket is crammed beyond capacity and the books are getting wrecked from being stuff in there. Here is what our book basket looked like:

So for my first build I decided to try one of Ana White's easiest plans. They are copied after Pottery Barn's shelves. These cost about $50 for the size that I made.

This was a great project because I learned how to use the drill properly and I learned how to cut that curve using a coping saw. One thing I need to get better at is filling in the holes with wood putty. I had to redo quite a few of them, but in the end the are mostly hidden. I also decided to distress the wood at the corners/edges and put a stain over the entire thing for a more rustic look. The lumber for 2 shelves cost about $15 each and since I already had a lot of the paint and stain, this project didn't cost any more.

Rain, rain, go away...

Funny how all the news talks about is the hottest heatwave they are experiencing back east. All we want over here is for the dark rain clouds to go away. I was pretty excited to take the kids to all kinds of water parks this summer, but the weather has put a damper on our plans. This week hasn't been particularly rainy during the day, but the skies are filled with dark rain clouds so we always play it safe and stick close to home. It feels like we are doing the SAME fall/winter activities over and over.

We go to Chapters to read books and play with their toys. I do try my best to buy a little something every once in a while or pick up gifts for people from there, but I must admit I feel like a regular there now as I can recognize the employees.



The last two days we've stayed home for the most part. I took advantage of the time at home to catch up on some batch cooking for the freezer. Turns out that Ethan also loves to stand on a chair and help like Maddy. Other than finding I wish I had a bigger kitchen, I really love this time. The kids LOVE to peel garlic and since 1.) it's a job that I hate to do and 2.) it keeps them busy and quiet for a really long time, "Peel away!" I say. Today they peeled 1 and a half bulbs of garlic for me. Ahhhh, the peace and quiet.



Just a story that I want to remember for later:
Yesterday we went to the play area in Brentwood Mall (this a staple fall/winter activity we do) and the kids had an amazing time playing with each other. They just kept tearing around the place laughing, giggling, screaming and tumbling. Both of them were rally enjoying each other's company. I was one happy mama. Then a little girl (wearing a ballet tutu) the same age as Maddy came and asked if Maddy wanted to play with her. WELL, Maddy was just happy to make a new friend(i think it was the tutu) that she totally dropped Ethan like a stone. Poor guy, he completely noticed it too. At one point he came to me and said "Jeh-Jeh" while pointing at her. Then he said "Jeh-Jeh" again while pointing at his back and then said "Wack" (walk). Poor little guy was trying to tell me that he wanted Maddy to chase him again!! Too sad.

On Friday, Sharon and I took the kids to YVR to check out the "Take Off Friday" activities. They are celebrating the 8oth anniversary of the Vancouver airport this year. I was amazed with how different the airport looks. I suppose a lot of it was from the face lift it got because of the Olympics. The actual activities were a little sad. The had face painting, which the girls loved, but the live entertainment was not very entertaining. They did have a demonstration of the airport fire trucks and that was right perfect for Ethan. The wasn't a complete waste. We got to take the skytrain down there and that in itself was exciting enough.

New Hobby for Mama

A long time ago I came across this blog. She's a mom in Alaska who has a passion for building furniture. She'll take designs from places like Pottery Barn and create plans that complete with shopping and cut list for the lumber. I excitedly showed Josh but the difficult part is that we don't have the kinds of tools needed to try out this new hobby. Not knowing if I'd even like it, I didn't want to invest in the tools. Another thing was that we just don't have the work space for tools like that. After a while I gave up the idea. Recently, while surfing Ana White's blog, I found a link to another blog. This one was geared more towards refinishing furniture. The initial investment in a few tools was way less than building so I was off to Craigslists to find my first project.

I found this solid maple head and foot board for Maddy's big girl bed. I bought the ebook from the Perfectly Imperfect blog for inspiration and for tips. While reading it, there was this great looking piece that I wanted to copy for a night table for Maddy. We bought the head and foot board, along with rails fro $30 and the bed side table for $10. Along the way, I decided that I wanted to add some decorative balls to the bed posts and those ended up costing the same as the bed, but I'm really happy with the finished look.

In my excitement to get started, I forgot to take true "before" pictures. The bedside table was roughly the same colour of the maple bed and in really good shape. There was also another footer on the original that I pried off because it made the whole table too tall for the bed. The bed wasn't too bad, but did have some scratches and dings here and there that I needed to use wood filler.

Here are the pictures that I remembered to take along the way:

The head board here is how it came, the foot board has been sanded.

The foot board sanded and with the holes filled in

Here is my set-up ready to start painting. I later learned that the drop sheet was no where near big enough for spray painting. Oops!!
I don't recommend spray painting. It was way more work setting up and cleaning up afterwards. In the end I had to use a brush to even things out anyway. Oh well, lessons learned along the way.

Staining the top of the bedside table. That stuff is stinky, probably shouldn't have been doing that inside the house.

Ta da! The finished piece. Maddy got to choose the new knob for the table. It almost cost as much as the table.

It was a lot of work with sanding and prepping for paint and then during the painting process I sanded in between every coat in order to get a nice smooth finish. I quite happy with the finished product and it's especially satisfying to know that we were able to get good quality, hardwood furniture for a fraction of the cost.

Stay tuned for my next few projects...

Ethan 22 months

Our little man is growing up so fast. It's funny because to most strangers and when we are out with friends, Ethan puts on his serious face. Often people will say hi or make faces and there's Ethan with his poker face on. In Chinese there's an expression "uem choy lay" which roughly translate to not giving someone the time of day. Ethan definitely has that down pat. Then at home or once he's warmed up to the surroundings he's a real ham. I love the times when he's all goofy and then looks at you with his pleading eyes and say "mor". Too cute.

Here he is with his serious face on, even though he's having a blast on his bike.

Ethan has developed a huge fascination with trucks. I think it started because one of the houses in our neighbourhood happened to be under demolition one day as we were heading to the park. So instead we plopped ourselves right down on the sidewalk and watched. We must have been there for about 45 mins. It was really THAT interesting. Since then every time we see an excavator he'll shout "eh". He can't say the word excavator yet so I shortened it to "ex", but he still can't say "ex" yet so he's shortened it to "eh". Let me tell you, there are a lot of "ehs" out there. More than you'd notice I'm sure. From excavators he's moved on to other trucks. Garbage trucks, construction trucks, firetrucks, farm vehicles, buses. You name it. Today we were driving on Marine drive at 9am. Wow, he had a blast as we shouted out all the different truck going by.

He was in heaven when the police and firetruck came to out recent Block Party.

Ethan is beginning to stand up to Maddy more and more now. It's hard to tell who is the instigator when conflicts arise. Maddy is always sure to tell us that Ethan bit, pushed or hit her, but I'm also pretty sure that there is reason why he did it. Like she was hogging a toy or something. We try hard to not just take one persons side and for both of them to see their part. Hopefully this will get easier when Ethan can defend himself.

On the speech front, Ethan is learning more and more words. He's beginning to try and repeat what we say. I love to see how he tries to find a way to tell us what he wants. Once he kept pointing at something in the kitchen. He was eating a hard boiled egg but kept pointing at something else in the kitchen. Josh couldn't figure it out so Ethan started to try a different tactic. He started throwing his hands up in the air and saying "Yay! Yay!" Like he was really having a blast. Turns out he wanted salt and pepper sprinkled on his egg. I have no idea how he put those two ideas together.

Lastly, one of Ethan's favourite thing to do is to look for bugs. Oma and Opa bought them some bug boxes and just mention the word 'bug' and he'll go running for the box and his shoes. The other day he even refused snack because we had mentioned going to look for bugs after. For those of you who know how much he loves his "nac, nac" (snack), that's saying a lot.

Happy "Animersamie"

Today Josh and I celebrated our 5th anniversary. What a beautiful day we had for our wedding. Not like today with sporadic rain showers. I remember checking the weather forecasts like crazy in the days leading up to our wedding. Today, as Josh and I drove to our anniversary lunch I laughed at how much importance I had placed on that one day. I guess every bride does, but really it's the days, months, years that follow that are important. I can hardly believe how quickly these 5 years have gone by and how much our lives have changed.

Today Josh and I took advantage of the fact that the kids were in daycare and that I am officially on summer holidays. We went to the Teahouse in Stanley Park for a wonderfully quiet, get-to-eat-slowly and hear-each-other-speak lunch. The weather wasn't nice enough to sit out on the patio, but view was still nice. We had a great time talking about old times and dreaming about what's ahead for us in the future. Thank you Josh for a great lunch and an amazing 5 years. I love you so much. As Maddy put it this evening, "Happy Ani-mer-samie".

xoxo