Well, I finally found a dinning set at the  consignment store that suited us.  Does  not look too bad. The chair backs are a little high for my liking but  this set came with  6 chairs,  two of which were captain chairs.  What more could I ask .  Plus a 2 foot wide leaf to put in the middle.  I'm a happpy girl!  Serving dinner and playing Train on Fridays will never be the same.  We have so much room now for everyone.

Have finished my  painting  of a vineyard in Italy to hang in our family room that goes along with the rest of the theme in the room.

Hubby made a lovely frame for it and now it hangs over the fireplace.
So now on to bigger projects.  The kitchen s to be worked on and try to finish some more of the  one side  of the room. Here is what we started with. NO cupboard doors so I put up material for 2 years to cover our stuff!  The former owners left us no cupboard doors when they left they took them with them.

Also, the lovely broked dishwasher, which they rebuilt cupboards around so we could not even move it until we took out the sink base. You can see where  when they had a fire in the kitchen the smoke stained the walls behind the  old  cupboards. So glad no one was hurt in the fire.
When  we removed some of the cupboards as you can see there are pipes exposed for the sink and etc. Well, in the prosess  of riping out hubby broke one of those lines and we had to get the plumber in to cap the line until we were ready for him.  Always something to make the job more interesting.

So out came the fan to dry up all the water.  Today Jim  is laying down flooring to bring up the floor to level before we put in the sink base and the dishwasher.   When he is done today I will  get in there and paint the wall just freshen up the area before the plumbers come  back.

Here we go off to the dump with the old dishwasher and the sink, the cabinetry etc.   On with the new !! More pictures as this progresses  later.

Here he is playing with  his sister.

Opening presents!  And more  pics of our dinner time.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Had a  nice family Christmas Eve with  brother and his family.  What is more fun than watching little children open  their gifts.   Has a lovely dinner and  then presents under the tree were opened.  Jon was so excited because the construction set he got he had told his mother weeks ago,  when he saw it in a store,  that was what Santa was bring him.  We had no idea he wanted it.  I saw it and thought he would love it. Glad I did because he just loved it.  He played with it  until they went home for the night.  He is so sweet.                    

these Christmoose cookies were really hard to move around, bake and frost.  Out of 8  I had 4 that did"t loose a leg or antler.  Frosting glue didn't help the repair  so I ended up with 4.

more cookies

With my neice and her children  visiting for Christmas Eve, I decided to do some extra cookies for kids only. Hope they enjoy them but will wait entil after  our dinner sto offer them.                                                                 

Here is the  finished look for  the family room drapery treatment.  We will drop the  long drapes when evening comes and the still  cold settles around the window.  This should warm up the room.

saving a bird!

This little bird got traped in our porch yesterday while brother Dick was visiting.   He went right over and captured the bird in his gentle hands and started petting it  to calm it down.  He  carried it out to the bird feeder still stroking its head and while it  sat at the feeder, Dick ask me to get the camera and take its picture.  I was  thrilled to see  he was still setting there when I came back and Dick was still talking to it.  It didn't seem to be afraid at all of us.  I  took this picture and one more from my cell phone and then birdy must have thought that was a big enough photo shoot because he flew off none the worse for the incounter with  humans up close.   What a lovely  experence that was for us.   You never know what  nature will offer you if you just give it a try.