Archive for the Category »Family Updates «

Mar
10

Finished with the Bookcase! Photos!!!

Jennifer

So excited to be finished with Lindsey’s bookshelf!!! She loves it! After two coats of primer and three coats of semi-gloss interior paint (sanding between each coat), we finally lugged it up the stairs and into her room this afternoon.

She is very excited and had so much fun setting it up just the way she wanted it. She has a shelf just for special items (like trinkets from Austria and India) and several other special items mixed among the books. Of course, there’s a shelf dedicated to all of her German books too. She was upset that I took photos today though because two of her Harry Potter books are missing, so there is only one on the shelf. I think they’re at Nana and Papa’s house! :) She even stole the little bowl of “rocks collected on Lopez Island” from Daddy’s desk. So cute!

Wanted to make sure I mentioned again that these woodworking plans came from the amazing Ana of Knock Off Wood.  I modified her 3×3 bookcase plans (inspired by Pottery Barn’s Bedford collection).  Without her website, we would never have attempted to make this from scratch!  The 3×3 Pottery Barn bookcase is around $400!  We spent about $60 on lumber!  Can’t wait to make something for Anna’s room next!!!

Click on the thumbnails below for a larger photo.

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Mar
05

Building Lindsey’s new bookcase!

Jennifer

I am totally in love with this awesome new blog I stumbled upon, Knock Off Wood.  Ana is a homeschooling, stay-at-home-mom, obsessed with furniture.  The coolest part is she posts here plans on her blog for free!  And almost all of her plans are knock-offs of Pottery Barn, Land of Nod, Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, Williams & Sonoma, etc.  Maybe I should say that again…  FOR FREE!  :)  She builds her plans in Google Sketch-up (love that application) and uses very simple techniques so anyone can build them.  Did I mention that she’s also a super cool person too???  I just know DIY Network or HGTV is going to snatch her up and make her famous!

Todd putting in two permanent shelves

She has an awesome Facebook fan page, a Bragging Board on Flickr for fans to post photos of their fabulous projects and a Suggestion Board on Flicker group for suggesting design plans to Ana.  I took her Pottery Barn Bedford 3×3 bookcase plans and drew up a 2×5 version in Google Sketch-up.

Here are photos of our bookcase in the works.  I’ll post more photos as soon as it is finished!  :)

Since this is a tall, narrow bookcase, not all of the shelves could be removable.  We needed to have two permanent shelves to give the bookcase stability so it wouldn’t bow in the middle.  On the 3×3 Pottery Barn bookcase, all of the shelves are removable.

 

Mom cutting shelves

Mom cutting shelves

Since I’m painting this off-white to match the moldings in Lindsey’s bedroom, we are building it with MDF.  Pottery Barn’s website says they use MDF for their white version, but they use plywood and veneers for the black or espresso versions.  It’s been interesting working with MDF though…  It’s SOOOOOOO strong, really heavy, very easy to cut, but interesting to drill and screw into.  It doesn’t like tapered wood screws or it splits and it squeels like crazy if you don’t predrill deep enough. 

Todd left the project to me just after we got the plywood glued and screwed onto the back.  So it’s up to me to finish it.  Woo hoo!  Must mention – did you know most bookcases use CARDBOARD on the back???  Yuck! 

Mom cutting the inside supports

Mom cutting the inside supports

Lindsey had some fun with my iphone camera the other day while I was cutting all of the removable shelves.  Our miter saw isn’t big enough to cut the shelves (wish list item:  10″ or 12″ compound SLIDING miter saw) so I had to cut all of the shelves with the circular saw.  I don’t like that thing.  It makes me nervous!!!!!  But every single removable shelf is PERFECT.  :)  Yay!  The circular saw makes me nervous because it’s harder to control… 

Then I used our miter saw (much safer and easier to use) to cut the inside supports (they go on the top and the bottom of the bookcase to keep everything nice and square.

Not sharing any more photos than that!  :)  I got the inside supports glued and screwed in last night and also drilled the shelf-pin holes for all of the removable shelves (they all line up perfectly).  I’m so excited with how it is turning out!!!  Now all I need to do is putty all of the holes, sand the whole thing and then prime and paint it.  THEN I’ll post more photos!  :)

 

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Jan
01

Family Recipes

Jennifer

For the 18th year in a row, Todd is making his annual ATO Chili recipe.  It’s gone through quite a few variations over the years, but hasn’t changed much in the last five.  Most of the changes were to make it healthier, like grass-fed ground beef (no one should ever eat corn-fed beef, it’s bad for your heart!), natural turkey sausage, organic beef broth rather than water for the base, more fresh vegetables (fewer canned), etc.  And of course, my favorite addition, SOUR CREAM as a condiment.  …???  Ya, who doesn’t put sour cream in their chili?  *wink*

While in the check-out line at Whole Foods Market this morning, the checker asked Todd what he was cooking as she scanned his items.  He told her it was his annual chili recipe that he makes ever year on New Year’s Day (and randomly throughout the year too).  That’s when he suddenly did the math in his head and realized he had been making it for 18 years!  She smiled and said it was nice to hear people still make things from scratch and keep traditions like that alive.  She said so many people came in this year and bought prepared meals and boxed dishes for their holiday festivities (Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year’s).  How special is that?  Not that speedy short-cut meals don’t have their place in the family kitchen (we all do it!), but for special occasions…  Would you pass down a recipe for generations that was emptied out of a box?

What homemade (mostly!) family recipes do you make each year?  What will you hope to pass down to your kids?  It doesn’t have to be one that CAME from generations past, it could just be one YOU came up with that you hope to pass down to future generations.  My grandmother has a wonderful Thanksgiving gravy recipe that my mom mastered this year - every bit of it’s made from scratch.  My mother-in-law has the most fabulous potato salad recipe, IN HER HEAD, that I hope she someday writes down so I can add it to this website! 

There is just something so rewarding about eating a meal that you know someone put a lot of effort into.

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Jul
02

Swimming!

Jennifer

Getting back into swim lessons was the best thing we’ve done this summer.  Both girls are doing fantastic.  We are doing “group lessons” since they are less expensive, but luckily for the past month, there haven’t been many kids in lessons…  So the girls have had lots of “private” group lessons.  Yay!

Anna is in a group called “Froggy” which she has been in before.  She is so excited to finally understand that NOT TRYING TO BREATHE UNDER WATER makes swimming a lot more fun……………..  :)  It’s like a light suddenly turned on and now she’s swimming all over, streamlining, floating and working on her crawl stroke.  She is absolutely estatic!  Yay!!!

Lindsey is loving her lessons as well.  She has a beautiful backstroke – no surprise, it looks identical to Todd’s – and has figured out breaststroke.  She’s really close on the butterfly – she gets the arms, the legs and the body motion…  just putting it all together needs to click.  :)  Her instructor thinks with one lesson dedicated soley to fly, that she’ll get it.  She starts the Pre-Competition group in two weeks!  :)  She is SO EXCITED!!!

We’re taking the next two weeks OFF swimming so we can stay home and enjoy the summer.  Each swim session is four days a week for two weeks.  We’re going to do this all summer long – two weeks on, two weeks off.  It’s nice to have a break from everything and just stay home!  :)

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