Easy Peasy

I have this space in between the couch arm and my wall that I needed to insert something to make it look like I intentionally spaced my couch that way. I was at Urban Barn this week looking for some ideas for my living room to add some more character when I a willow tree branch accent that was behind several chairs. BINGO! Looked at the price tag and decided I didn't need it that much....soooooooooo, I decided to make my own!

I started out by making a square box to support the willow branches (first time I have used my air compressor and it was love at first try!).I then proceeded to glue the willow branches with hot glue onto my wooden frame. They kept popping off so I wove some twine as pictured below about a foot up from the frame through all the branches. I also glued a ribbon along the outside of the frame to hold them along the frame better.
$7 dollars later ( I only used half of my branches) this is my Urban Barn willow tree accent copy cat. Easy Peasy lemon squeezy and it only took about 45 minutes. That is what I call budget friendly and time efficient.

We have been having such amazing weather the last couple of months I just had to get my spring fever on. I know living in Calgary this is probably just a horrible trick being played on all us fools and come April it will be -20 Celsius and 2 feet of snow dumped overnight. Seriously it has happened before and it will happen again.

My sweet little child took advantage of the child lock on the sink cabinet being off while I was changing the garbage and threw my vase across the kitchen. Man he has a good arm but sadly the vase didn't make it.....RIP beautiful vase, you will be missed. So I headed out to trusty Homesense and found these little beauties for $8 for all three. They do the trick and match my walls perfectly!
These tulips really do invoke a sense of spring into my house.
Lastly on my agenda for this weekend......I painted my first coat of black onto my master bedroom side tables and silver leafed one set of three drawers. Before my big master side table reveal I have yet to do another coat of black and silver leaf the remaining three drawers before I wipe on poly the whole lot. I hope to have this done during this week so I can post some photos this weekend.

-Alauna

More Rocks Please

Sterling woke up bright and early today so we decided to take our first trip of the year to the mountains as the weather was supposed to be amazingly warm (and it was). It was 16 degrees Celcius (60 degrees Fahrenheit) today. Yea, it was beautiful out! We drove to Canmore and spent the morning by Grassi Lake, a little man made lake a couple km's above the 1988 Olympic Nordic Centre. Sterls had a really really good time. He was laughing non-stop and he loved being outdoors in the warm sun. You could really tell that January and February have been exceptionally warm this year as there is barely any snow in the mountains and it is the start of March! Wow, what amazing weather we have had this year.....I think I could get used to these kind of winters.

Here is a sequence of Sterling's favourite activity of the day. He spent about and hour doing this and still didn't want to stop when we told him it was time to go home. He is picking up a rock from his little pile.

Throwing the rocks simultaneously. He started out throwing one rock but found it wasn't good enough and soon turned to throwing two at a time.

He is looking after the rocks he threw to watch the splash. After throwing the rocks he would laugh uncontrollably for about 30 seconds and then start all over again!

My little man giving me a pose but not being very happy about me interrupting his rock throwing for a photo op.

I must say it was the perfect start to our day today and makes me wistful of the coming summer months.

-Alauna

THe Sterly Bean Chronicles

So the little man went in for his 18 month immunizations today (yes, I know 1 month late). Yeah, he one tough little man. He was playing with the nemo sticker the nurse gave him while she sneakily gave him his first shot. He looked up after she gave him his shot and gave her his best evil glare. She turns him around and gives him he second shot and he yells at her angrily with a mad expression for a few seconds and then starts playing with his nemo sticker again. Didn't even faze the little guy. Before anyone asks, no he didn't get these shots in his legs as they will only put their 1 year + shots in the arms. So yes, he did feel them. Kind of a bummer that he has to feel these immunizations when he has no feeling in his little legs.

On other tough little man side thoughts. Sterling got a pelvis x-ray a few weeks ago to make sure his legs were still in his hip sockets. Children with Spina Bifida don't have alot of muscle mass in their hips, so any pulling out pressure on the legs can easily pull the legs out. For example, we can't just pull up on Sterling's leg when we want to change his diaper. Which for your knowledge it is actually really really hard to change a diaper without pulling on a midgets legs. Anyways, back to the point of this little story....They were giving him a pelvic x-ray and in order to make sure he couldn't move around too much they put these really huge and heavy sandbags over each arm. Sterling hates being confined in anything so he instantly starts lifting his arms straight up (shaking all the while because the sandbags are straining him so much). Meanwhile, he is grunting and going red from all the exertion and pulls the sandbags right off his arm. The x-ray tech stared at him in disbelief and said "I have never ever the whole time that I have worked here seen a little guy get those sandbags off their arms". Yeah, I am raising a little body builder. Watch out for your little ones, my kid is going to beat them all up. I need to take a picture of his upper body. I didn't know that babies could get definition and tone like that. He has baby bicep muscles and a huge upper-body as he drags himself around everywhere. He can even pull himself up the stairs with just his arms.

My baby is addicted to Chinese cuisine. We got some salt and pepper chicken and noodles last night and he seriously ate half the noodles single handedly and a bunch of spicy chicken. For those of you that aren't around Sterling very much, this is a HUGE deal. He barely eats anything. He will eat a yogurt for dinner and then thats it, nothing else. He is soooooo freakin' picky.....no vegetable, no meat, only a couple types of fruit. Can't believe it, got him to eat meat and tons of food at once. Wow, still in amazement!

-Alauna

Uh Huh

Sterly makes me laugh pretty dang hard every day...Yeah, I have a pretty rad little guy!

-Alauna

The Olympics Dance

Sterly's and myself are doing the "we won the most Gold's in the Olympics' dance.....(to taunt the American that happens to reside with us)

-Alauna