life {lately} ~ vol. 25

the past week or so has had it's share of ups and downs.

i'm down with a cold right now, rob and averie are coming down with it too.

liam seems to be alright, but i'm sure i've jinxed it now.

hopefully the colds won't last long.

before the plague sniffles hit us we were having a lot of ups.

kitchen painting is almost done, in fact the last coat is going on today.

may have taken us the entire month of january to finish, but it'll be worth it.

tons of snowy mountain pics from our drive to whitefish.

rob and i got some kid-free time to shred the rad on our boards.  together.

we rob built liam's big boy bed.

bye bye toddler bed, hello bed that'll last you until your eighteen.

beer drinking, hot tubbing and valentine creations.

just a week (or so) in the life.

can't believe it's already february.

happy love month.

for the love of mud

happy middle of the week.  we're settling back into our routine after being away skiing all weekend with friends.  packed up the kids, all our gear and headed south to whitefish for some ski and boarding action.  we put liam into ski lessons for the first time and after a day and a half he's become a little rock star on his skis. he even went up the chairlift with rob for a couple runs.  averie hung out at daycare, totally didn't mind since there were so many toys and other kids to play with.  and rob and i?  we actually spent our kid free time together shredding the gnar down the mountain on our boards.  it was wicked.  and the best part was that we gave ourselves a four day weekend.  the downside, now liam has come down with a cold.  small price to pay for our family weekend'o'fun.

so our mudroom.  it hasn't always been the most functional room in our home.  and although we always knew it would be what we needed it to be, it started out as collect all/dumping ground/we don't know where to put this room when we moved in.  in the original house plans the mudroom was a combination mudroom/laundry room.  which would've been okay, but not ideal.  we also thought about moving it upstairs to where our current office is, but it would've been really tight.  also, i kinda prefer to watch tv when i fold or sort laundry, iron clothes.  it just makes it a little better.  so that left us with the basement.  i know, i know.  "why would you move it to the basement instead of keeping it on the main level?  then you have to cart everything up and down two flights of stairs?"  well, i honestly don't mind carrying the laundry up and down stairs, neither does rob.  and in terms of resale, we don't care.  we didn't build this house for resale.  we built it to live and raise our family in it.  to make it our home.  washer and dryer you are relegated to the basement.  the end.

with that problem solved and a wide open space created because of it, it was time to look for inspiration.  we knew that we wanted a locker, shelf, cubbie type of thing.  with a bench and storage.  thank god for pinterest.  as much as we wanted to tackle this project ourselves, we had to be realistic.  i had just had a baby, the week after we had moved in.  and we were also having our basement finished.  the mudroom was going to have to wait.  for about three months.  then we would get someone to do the work for us.  lucky for us a very good friend (and the best man at our wedding) is a contractor and was also finishing our basement.

above is a lovely view of our mud dump it and forget it room after we moved in.  love the baby stuff right in the corner.  it was amazing how much larger it felt without all the crap on the floor.  we donated, sold or eventually found storage for all of it.  wine making kit anyone or beer bottles anyone?

and this is where our mudroom is now.  the space is completely invaluable.  it's the entrance we always use.  all of our stuff/gear/outerwear is housed here.  it's a catch all for mail, backpacks, shoes, coats, mitts, snowboarding gear, lunch bags and more.  we absolutely love it and it turned out better than we had hoped.  worth the wait and worth the clutter.

just like with all of the rooms in the house, there is an ever growing list of things we like to do/purchase for this room.  not a lot, but a few.

~  finish the cushion for the bench.  i have the cushion, i have the fabric, just need the time.  

~  we need a clock.  thinking it might be this one.  

~  a giant letter 'E' to go on the wall by the door into the mudroom

~  a couple more baskets

~  and a bunch of globes.  just because.  like this or this.

the moo

it's been awhile since averie's last update.  she's sixteen months now, almost seventeen.  i'd forgotten how much fun this stage is.  she's just go go go, non-stop.  all. the. time.  everything is new.  it's exciting and we're just loving that we get to see the world through her eyes.  she's so exploratory, a big change from the way liam was when he was the same age.  he was a lot more laid back, curious, but nonchalant about it.  speaking of liam, he's also loving averie right now too.  kind of something new around here, just last night he was eating something and started sharing and feeding it to averie.  a couple months ago i'm sure that if we asked him he would've been okay if we just left averie behind in a the grocery store.  now not so much.  not to jinx it or anything, but he's even been known to share his toys with her... sometimes.  what the what?  this is fantastic news.

what's up with our averie girl?

~ current word list: sit, uh-oh, ow, dada, cat, hat, mum mum mum, bo bear, hi, bye bye, up and a ton of babble

~ she makes cow, cat and duck noises

~ she knows where her head, tummy, eyes, nose, mouth and hands are

~ sleeps with bo bear, bunny and lambie and her blankie.  bo bear is quickly becoming the favourite.

~ wearing size 12-18 month clothing, some 18 month stuff and a few 18-24 month things

~ loves to walk around in her squeaker shoes and put on any type of hat

~ refuses to wear barrettes or any of her cute headbands
~ has massive stranger danger, clings to us whenever there's someone around that she doesn't know
~ will flirt with anyone, even though she's clinging to me or rob
~ super giggly, fun, and happy
~ loves to play with her princess castle, play kitchen and any type of car
~ has a lot of teeth, haven't counted, but there's a lot
~ she's grown, but we haven't weighed her or anything
~ got her second round of flu vaccination this month, wasn't happy about it
~ she rarely walks would much rather run
~ she's a total snow baby.  screams while we're putting her into her snow suit and screams when it's time to come in.  but when we're playing in the snow ... absolutely happy
~ i'm starting to double words with her, so funny.  i find myself saying things to her like "averie go shop shop?" or "crack crack"

can't wait to see how she changes over the next few months.  it's going to be exponential.  she's not a baby anymore.  she's our toddler girl.  i'm both happy and sad about that.