Long Time No See :)

I have not blogged in forever! Someone was just asking me about it and I confessed that the reason is that Facebook has pretty much taken up my online social time. It's been fun to reconnect with friends and see their photos and what they are all up to!

So what's new here...we're on snowday #3 due to our October snowfall. We were blessed with about 2 feet of powder here in Parker and are getting ready for our first trip to ride our skis! The kids had a boring fall break, as I came down with the flu :( But I'm on the mend and grateful for it.

In other news, the kids are back at swimming. This is MBJ's first time on a swim team. He is really liking it so far. Life is busy with my being back in school and juggling the house and kiddos schedule. But it's a good kind of hectic, my favorite!

I'll try to post more often, though most of the people who would even read this are probably on FB and know what's going on already :)

Office Before/After

Wowzas I haven't blogged in forever. Since January we have been really wrapped up in home improvements and then came spring break. And admittedly, Facebook has taken up much of my online time since I finally got a page set up. And that has been very cool finding so many friends on there.

Okay, the office. Here we have some before pics. It was all brown, brown stained moulding, brown/beige paint and carpet, and since we own reddish/brown office furniture, it made me ill. Ugly room. We have a fireplace in here and it had no mantle, it just looked unfinished. The tile that was there was old and chipping.

So Marty ripped out the tile, the carpeting, and took down the dated moulding. Buh bye.

I knew once I first saw the fireplace wall that I was going to tile the entire thing. I have watched too much HGTV :) But it turned out awesome. We chose a slate 3x6 tile, the hearth floor tile is a matching slate. Before we tiled I repainted the built ins and chose a warm honeyish color for the walls. I thought it complemented the tile and soon to be installed bamboo flooring nicely. Marty put the bamboo in after everything else was complete and viola. Believe it or not this room makeover took less than a week, and Marty worked during the days thru it all. LOVE this room now!!

Hmmm

I should have posted these in reverse order. Oh well :)

And the fireplace.

As we finished the bathroom we thought, life would just be too peaceful to relax now. So we decided to reface our fireplace, one side of it. Now this picture is of the OFFICE side of the FP, but we replaced the other side, the family room side. I forgot to take a before pic of that side. So today I snapped a shot of the other side, it was a traditional black/brass like this side. The tiles were chipping, and are on this side. So we hacked off the old beige tiles and got to it.

Sparing you all of the in progress pics, which there aren't any...this tile job was smooth sailing and done in an evening. We repainted the trim around the glass with a hammered silver finish, which was not totally dry yet.

And voila! The carpet will stay as is for now, b/c it is all getting ripped out and we are putting wood flooring down in the future. Stay tuned for what the OTHER side of the fireplace looks like down the road as well!! :D

And here is just my son being his usual sweet, charming self today.

And to pull it all together...

When Marty was at work one day, while the whole bathroom was still being finished up, I decided it was time to paint the bedroom. It was very cool to surprise him when he got home! At this point we have repainted almost every room in the house. The ENTIRE thing was beige, ceiling to floor, in almost every room. And it was OLD paint, very grimy, so no...we aren't crazy, we just new moving in here, that it would all need to get done ASAP. The curtains do not make their appearance in these photos b/c they were not up yet. They are a goldish sheer panel.

Our new bathroom!!!

Well alrighty then! The bathroom is finished! Except for the cabinet/counter/sinks/mirror/light situation, but we'll make that a simple weekend project in a monthe or two. ;) After the tiling was done we had to paint the walls, we did the ceiling before we laid tile.

New shower heads.

There was a little grout in the shower pan from a touch up, I hadn't cleaned it out yet, I was ready to take the pics for once and for all :)

We put up a new shower door as well. The old one was not salvagable.

New toitie room AND new toitie! Well deserved we think.

Here is a close up of our mosaics.

In progress...

During Lizzie's visit, primarily when the kids, Lizzie, and I spent a day at the science museum, Marty demo'ed the bathroom. He ripped out all the carpet, took out the trim, ripped down the walls with tile on them, sealed the subfloor where it needed it, etc. He replaced the missing drywall and put down backerboard where it needed to go. All of that took a week or two, as he did it in his off work hours. And THEN, we started tiling. We did the shower first.

I had chosen the accent tile before anything else. We had a few other options that were nice, but the floor tile sealed our choice when we found it. The tub/shower tile was chosen simply b/c it complemented the others well enough.

We found the floor tile at a tile store nearby and it was clearanced out, and we REALLY loved it, so it was the obvious choice. The slate mosaic tile accented so well, we were happy how it came together. Look! No more funky carpet in the toitie room!!!

Do you think we overdid the accents? I think it really pulled it all together across the entire bathroom. We purchased a new faucet for our tub. A bit more updated :)

Bathroom Before...

Okay, this is how we have been spending our free time over the last month! Here is what our bathroom looked like BEFORE our makeover. Here you can see our funky carpet that went throughout the bath, it was as old as the house and I was not going to continue living with someone else's mildewy bathroom carpeting. Ew.

And below is our garden tub, which was fine, aside from the 80's plastic crystal knobs, and the cracking tile surrouding the tub. That is not really visible in the pics, but trust me, the crumbling grout and cracked tiles are there.

Toitie room with carpet. Yes, carpet. We won't discuss the stains we had to seal on the subfloor surrounding the toitie.

And finally the shower. Also complete with crack, crumbling grout, and mildewy yuck that was many moons old. The carpet surrounding the shower pan was heeeeeeeeeeeinous.

Shhhh Sleepy

So we are still not done with the bathroom, but we are getting there. We have to grout the tub surround, then seal all of the grout, get the new toitie fully installed, and finish painting. I am sore and ready to be all done. But I know when we finish, I will move to the next room. I am a glutton for punishment, but it really needs to be finished.

I saw Mrs. Cohen, my HS History teacher, on facebook. She asked me if I ever turned out to be a medical illustrator. Art and Science were my fave subjects and where I excelled (not history Mrs. Cohen :) I couldn't believe she remembered that. I told BM that since I put down the sketchbook and paintbrush all these years, I was expressing my artistic side in our homes. Much to his dismay. He is a patient, kind husband. Props to you baby.

So soon I will post pictures of our newly tiled/painted bathroom. Happy almost end of January.

BUSSSYYYYYY

Wow, I haven't written in almost a month! Time do fly. We had a really great holiday season. I was sure we were going to be homesick and lonely, but Sue came to visit with us for awhile right before Christmas, and then Lizzie was here not but a few days later! We had a great time having family here and I will get some pics up soon. Lizzie just went home yesterday, so we haven't done any of that yet.

We did, however, repaint our entire front room/entry, upstairs hall. We also gutted our entire master bath. Did I tell you there was carpet in there? That is just wrong. It was very old and very gross. We have chosen new tile for our floor, shower, and tub surround. We are getting all new fixtures, toilet, etc. We also chose our new bedroom wall color.

The house is really coming together. We like our new colors and tiles a lot...nothing like making your house your home. After this I only have to paint the other bathrooms and the office. The new flooring will go in last...we will put bamboo flooring in the entire house (aside from the basement which already has laminate). I have wood in the kitchen now but I think we will put tile in later, I like tile in those high abuse areas.

Cold

The weather is interesting here. It's really no different than Ohio in that it can be 65 one day and 30 the next. Snow here gone tomorrow. But it really doesn't feel so cold when it is cold, nor does it really feel hot when it's hot. The low humidity is nice, I didn't realize how much it would affect how it feels when you are outside. Yesterday the low was -15. Today when I took the kids to school my car read -1...it feels nicer at that temp than it does at 30 in Ohio. Weird.

Winter pics!

Here are a few pics from Lish and Aaron's visit...MBJ lost his FIRST tooth!! We put up the Christmas tree...did a little hiking and a little skiing :)

Halloween/Fall pics!

Here are a few pictures from Halloween, notice that the kids made a pretty decent haul on the candy!

PS

The selection of Hall and Oates songs on Myspace is severly disappointing.

AND I didn't get to go have lunch with EB :( My garage door opener quit working, leaving the door open and locked in place, can't disengage it. AND I couldn't get my car back up into the garage b/c of the snow/ice on our driveway.

I'm cranky.

Let it snow!

It's snowing! We've only had 2 snows here in Parker thus far. I like snow, now...not so much in March. Our slopes have LOTS of snow. They have been blessed with a coupla feet of dumps in the last 2 weeks or so. That is good news for the Branns. Today it is like 19 degrees out. Too cold for me. Especially since it was 65 the other day. We have up our interior Christmas decorations, but haven't had a chance to put up our outside lights just yet. With the cold and snow, they aren't going up today either, perhaps soon.

Lish and Aaron have gone home to Michigan. We had a good time and were really glad they could come out for a visit. The kids are back to school and had a nice holiday weekend.

I'm currently choosing paint for the front room/entry and upstairs hall and our bed/bath. I intend to have the entire house repainted before summer.

Taking sushi to school and having lunch with EB now, happy Thursday!!!!!!!!

Awwww

I still don't have Halloween pics up, but will get there eventually. MBJ lost his first tooth! Lish and Aaron are here and they were spending the weekend with the kids while BM and I went to a party up in Keystone...MBJ lost his tooth while we were gone!! I was so sad, I don't generally miss those kinds of things. BUT Aunt Lishy and Aaron took pictures for me and I got to hear all of the details so that was good.

We have been having a nice time with Lish and Aaron here. The weather has been incredible. Sunny and mid 60's. Last night we all went downtown to check out the 16th street mall and had dinner at the chophouse. Today we're going to pack up and take Lish and Aaron out to Golden Gate Canyon state park...it was one of our toughest but more beautiful hikes.

Pics soon!!!!!!!!

Loose Tooth and First Grades!

MBJ has his first loose tooth! And the new one is starting to grow in behind it already!! I cannot believe my baby boy is already old enough to lose a tooth....he didn't even know it. His dad was feeding him M&M's on the chair lift yesterday when he noticed there was a wiggler!

Marty jr. is very excited and eager for his first visit from the tooth fairy! I think he will have teeth more like me, mine all fell out in my earlier years. Whereas Emma, is more like her dad. She is half way through 4th grade and has only lost 8 so far!

1st semester is over and done with at Mammoth Hts, LM got his progress report and is doing very well in Kindie. They don't get letter grades just yet but he is developmentally on track and is reading/writing more and more as the days go by. EB's first report card resulted in all A's. I am so proud of her. Moving to CO was not easy. While we are able to do so many more activities as a family, we miss our family and friends, and this was especially true for Emma. But she has done really well in school through all of this change and so YAY for EB!!

Still waiting for BM to fix my computer so I can DL the Halloween pics.

A welcome voice of love and peace :)

Marty and I have followed the elections closely this year. There has been much discussion and frustration over recent months. While we are so grateful that it is coming to a close, we aren't there yet. MBJ asked me today why we aren't voting for McCain. He said that one of his friends at school (a fellow 5 year old) said that we need to stay and fight in Iraq and that Obama wants to steal all of our money. Try explaining terrorism, just reasons for war, economics, social justice, divisiveness, doing what is right vs. what is easy, and ignorance to a 5yo. I guess I could just tell him what to think like his buddy's dad. We all know how well that worked for my pops :)

Anyhow, in the midst of stress and much annoyance (did you read that in Ohio someone is calling and telling the Dems to vote on the 5th?, talk about ethics)....Emma provided a ray of light. She sat down and jotted down a couple of poems with the holiday season in mind. Yes, I am already listening to Christmas music. Halloween is over, afterall.

A Joyous Acrostic

By: Emma C. Brann

Jolly ol' santa is coming to town

Oh merry Christmas tree

Young children playing in the snow

Tinsel sparkling

Old nativity sets

Toys being unwrapped

Hot cocoa

Everyone is laughing

White snow

Orange fire glowing

Red dresses sparkle

Lots of presents

Dancing around the tree

A Peaceful Acrostic

By: Emma C. Brann

Heat from the fire

All are warm

Peace in the room

Pleased faces glow

Young children wrapped in blankets

Hot cocoa they all drink

Old folks laugh

Light from the fire cheers all

Indigo dresses on girls

Deep black suits on boys

And lights from the tree glow

Young tree,

Songs of Christmas being sung

Tight squeeze

On the couch

All

Love the

Light!

Blogspot crams her poem together, there are supposed to be spaces between certain lines. Jerks. Tomorrow is a new day.

Love, Jen

Fall Break

Well fall break has come and gone. The kids had 2 weeks off of school. It is hard to believe that they started back in the beginning of August, and here it is almost November. We enjoyed the time off. We took one week to vacation up in the mountains near Wyoming. We rented a cabin and the first day we hiked and enjoyed the relatively warm air. The next morning we woke up to snow!!!!!!! We spent much of the rest of the week in the hot tub, playing cards/board games, and watching Harry Potter movies. We enjoyed playing in the woods and climbing all of the massive rocks. At one point we were out on a deserted trail and went off to climb this huge collection of rocks. When we got to the top MBJ said, "I just saw an animal run into that cave". I asked him what it looked like and he said "It has 4 legs", he also said it was as big as a dog, so we hurried out of there :) There are mountain lions and bears and all kinds of things here whose den I wouldn't want to wander into.

We took Sunny with us and she really enjoyed chasing chipmunks from rock to rock. I swear they were taunting her all week. We didn't see any bears or moose, but we did hear coyotes in the evening. We were advised not to let Sunny out by herself in the evening or morning, she might wander into something unfriendly...yikes!!