Teaching moments

I had the best Saturday night. My oldest daughter at the ripe old age of eight was able to attend Womens Conference with me.
I look forward to these meetings each year and this one was perfect I loved how bold the sisters spoke about family and our part as wife, mother, daughter. Us the defenders of the family. The family God has given us.

After conference we went to dinner, as my daughter and I drove we had the chance to talk about what was spoken. She did not have a favorite talk or speaker, but she felt the Holy Ghost so strongly as the speakers talked about the family it brought her to tears. She said she did not know why she cried because she felt so happy about what was said about family. This gave me the chance to explain different ways we can feel the Holy Ghost and remind her that because she has been baptized she will feel the Holy Ghost strongly and more often when she is make good choices and when Heavenly Father wants her to know something is true.

This was her first time feeling the how strongly the Holy Ghost can make us feel. It was the best talk we have had and helped her be ready for fast Sunday today. She is excited to be able to listen to general conference this weekend and to be able to go to more Womens Conferences in the future with her sisters so they can feel what she has felt.

Time to remodel that kitchen

My kitchen has been slowly dying. Doors off hinges, the whole door falling apart in pieces, drawers sides and bottoms falling off, one set was slowing inching away from the ceiling. It had come to the point that I can't glue and nail things back together..so the time has come to fix it all and that included getting rid of our drop ceiling.

After/Before

Here is how we did that transformation:

Day 1 We remove the light and investigate the attic which we found lots of insulation. Bryce borrowed a leaf blower and got it all moved then we pulled out the box sheet rock and framing that held the light

                             

     

Day 2 After all that we knocked down the sheet rock and pulled out all the wood framing that held the ceiling. Now we have a freezing cold kitchen that you can see the rafters in. It has been great that this last week has been warmer than normal.

Day 3&4 We knocked out the pantry and got the electrical mostly done, We are installing three can lights one in the door way and two in the middle/ sides of the room they will be dimmer lights, a pendant light above the sink and adding a second fan in the kitchen area which mean my ugly old fan will be replaced.

Day 5&6 I have a ceiling again and my walls are fixed :) happy day. 

Day 7 The ground work has been laid, today I am starting to put together our cabinet boxes and tonight once the kids are in bed we will begin to tape and mud.

 Our goal is to tear out the base cabinets and flooring Friday-Saturday so Monday we can install the wall cabinets and Tuesday the base cabinets and install the doors and shelves Wednesday so that Thursday we can be ready for our flooring guys to come and just have to worry about moving the piano around ;) I am very excited that this project will be finished by Easter

Here is what our week looked like:

We had a little help from my family

If you notice on the pantry there is a gap we are not sure why we got one we followed the direction and did exactly what it said/showed but we ended up having to re-drill a few of the hole and put a filler piece in. 

We had some issued with the drawers next to the dishwasher as well and drilled new holes in the fronts to make it so the top drawer would close instead of hitting the top of the counter top.

Filler piece in still little gaps on the drawers but I can live with them and I'm sure no one noticed until I pointed it out ;)


All in all I loved how easy the new Sektion Ikea cabinets when in and together, we did have those miner issues with our pantry and the set a drawers not sure why, other than our in the instructions they did not have a picture of the same layout as we had ordered on the room planner layout of the drawers or pantry, but we fixed it and I love it.

We are down to the final touches of the backsplash microwave and the base boards we aren't in a huge hurry we are still a little burned out with how fast we got this all done.  

Don't judge on the mis-matched chairs we bought the last few and had to wait to get the rest.
We hit that point along with our kitchen that the chairs were so wobbly that the kids wen't even safe on them and a new dinning set is not in the budget right now we went with some cheap chairs, that I can make some slip covers on and call it a day ;)

Finishing touches:

Fun with felt

I get the privilege of teach a class at our Super Saturday in April, which gave me the reason to make the pillows I had been wanting to for ever...and now I have gone felt crazy here are a few of my fun quick projects I have been making.

I found the tutorial for this pillow at http://hisforhandmade.blogspot.ca/2009/11/felt-chrysanthemum-pillow.html

One side for Easter the other for St Patrick's Day ;)

I have a few more projects started but they will sadly have to wait until after Easter, we are in the middle of a kitchen remodel so that will take my days for a few more weeks..