Domestic Adventures

What a wonderful idea BooMama had to organize a tour of homes for the blogging world. I love seeing other people’s homes and looking through home magazines. So here’s mine featured on my very own little page.

Welcome to my home…

I blog right here at the kitchen table. I can perch here and still be with the kids while they snack or color, or keep an eye on them as they roam the back porch.

Here are our living room and family room. Lots of playing, movie watching, and reading go on in these rooms. Our furniture is a smidgen too big for our rooms, but I love it anyway and am always trying to find the very best way to make it look like it really belongs. I’m pretty happy with the current arrangement. By the fireplace is Emmie’s library. If you ask her about it, she’ll tell you she’s the librarian because it’s her job to keep the books neat.

This is my little vanity area. I included it just because I think it is one of the prettiest little corners in the house.

Don’t forget to take a look at all the other lovely homes and post some pictures of your own too!

“Well, you do have good taste.” That’s what my dad always told me when I managed to pick out the most expensive of whatever was available, and that’s what I told Emmie when she planted herself in front of this little pink jewel.
We happened upon the Playhouse Promenade at Millenia Mall last month and fell in love with the miniature houses. Aside from costing almost as much as a real house, they’re perfect play places all decked out with pint-sized furniture and their own landscaping. I probably looked like a dork snapping dozens of pictures with my phone, but I couldn’t help it. I loved them almost as much as Emmie did!

It took a lot of lung-power for Trent to blow up this itty bitty “spaghetti” balloon, but look what a cute and tiny dog he can make from it! Trent’s interest in balloon twisting has recently reemerged. Emmaline now has a whole family of balloon animals in her room. The mommy and daddy are regular-sized balloons, and the brother and sister are the little kind. Sadly, she’s learning that balloons don’t last forever.

Emmaline helped make these adorable garden critter cookies yesterday. The cookie cutters were part of my birthday loot, along with a decorating kit full of all sorts of sprinkles and sparkles. My little baker is getting quite good at cookie decorating. Together we painted butterflies and dusted dragonflies with shiny sugar.

Included in our yard remodel is six thousand pounds of sand. This enormous sandbox is 16×16 feet and is more than enough space for all of us to play. The generous size was planned with a play structure planned for next summer, but for now I’m thinking of a kiddy pool and our own little beach.

According to a survey, the number one way husbands can show love to their wives is by giving them flowers. I feel very loved indeed. I absolutely love our “English Garden”. Gone is the huge sago that blocked the front door and encroached into the walkway (it’s home is now near the edge of the property surrounded by plumbago). Goodbye to the uneven, very mundane hedges. Welcome beautiful flowers, gardenia topiaries, and japanese maple tree!
I am extremely happy with the way the landscaping turned out. The part that makes it bittersweet is that our overly optimistic landscaper seriously underestimated the cost of all this beauty, leaving us at the end of our budget without getting to the part where we replace our weeds with sod.
Even so, his team set up our sprinkler system and put in all the lovely flower beds for less than the other guys could have. Sod will just have to wait, and in the meantime we’ll keep our weeds green and enjoy the garden.

I love this picture Megan took of Emmaline. As Meg noted, Emmie has great light in her room. In the afternoons the sun filters through her lace curtains across Raggedy Ann and onto all her beautiful little girly dresses. I love it!

Rain
Rain
God made the rain.
God made the rain so the flowers could grow.
Rain, rain, rain, rain
God made the rain.
Thank you, God for making the rain!

My mom used to sing me this little song all the time when I was a kid. I think she made it up herself, but I’m not sure. Now Emmaline and I sing it together whenever it rains, and right now it’s raining buckets!

Lots of good books have come to us recently. The first one, Simply Fun, was a birthday gift from Trent. It’s full of great ideas for families, from a family camp out in the living room to the benefits of hosting guests, fun travel ideas, and creating family traditions. So far, I’ve just skimmed it, but soon will be putting it to use.
The second picture shows a series called The Book of Life passed on to us by Mrs. Burson. It’s a Bible series for children and looks like a great resource. I’m really looking forward to using this series for years to come. For now, it offers some new pictures (and pictures to go with stories most children’s Bibles don’t include) and as the kids get older, it has lots of cultural and geographic info as well. It seems to do a good job of going past the facts of the stories and getting into the meaning of them.
Hooray for books!

My head is swimming with visions of plants! The possibilities seemed endless as I toured Lukas Nursery with our landscape guy on Friday. Virburnum or Rain of Gold? African Iris or something with more color? After taking lots of pictures and looking through lots of landscaping books with Trent, we have narrowed down some of our favorite ideas.
In addition to picking out plants for the front, we’ve got a giant sandbox and a vegetable garden in mind for the backyard. I’ve been taking plenty of “before” shots. Hopefully the “after” shots will be coming in the relatively near future.
P.S. Lukas Nursery has a great butterfly experience. It costs a few dollars each to get in, but it’s amazing to watch the kids with so many butterflies all around.