Making a Home

As Olivia has posted about in her wonderful way here on her blog, much of our last week and more has been spent cleaning and painting at Mama and Daddy's new house down the street.  Rooms are taking on the personality of their new occupants; wallpaper shreds are being cleared away, walls have a coat of lovely color.  It has felt amazingly like home from the beginning.  I look forward to them being settled snugly in.

Even in an empty house Mimi still 'havs dough'!

Dough-smooshing on a cold, snowy day...painting about to ensue around her.

Stories with Mimi between scrubbings

Must have Nana's Birthday again!

First bread baked in the new kitchen!

Sun-patch

~:*:~

 The kitchen painting is finished. The color is a most wonderful buttercream color. We tried to remember what the color reminded us of until Will helpfully mentioned that it was the color of eggnog. Exactly. Between coats of paint I sewed curtains from fabric that Mama found--the most delightful fabric I've ever seen. We were in raptures when the guys helped us put them up. So retro. So Babushka's cottage. (Dad dubbed the look for us: retrovenia.)

 

 (Living Room)

The rooms have already been filled with friends laughing and playing games and eating pizza. 'Cause having people in their home is just what Dad and Mama do. Friends and family have helped much: vacuuming and scrubbing, painting and bringing pots of delicious food.

~::*::~

~red and yellow~

Because some packaging is just too cheery to put in the cupboard!

Happy Play

Best pals.

In frozen January, in my very own town, a few blocks away, a house sold.

A sweet brick house with lots of windows and vines growing up the side.

It was sold to two people I like very much.

My mama and daddy et al will soon live in my town!

Hooray!!

Now to tackle the dust of a thousand villages...

After Nap

Cozies together.

Oh, these treasures like each other so much.

For the new year~

Or How They Turned Out

I decided one day in November to make magazine picture collage calendars for Mama and myself for the coming new year of 2011.  I excitedly clipped the prettiest pictures out of many favorite magazines saved for such a purpose.  I found so many that were, to me, 'Olivia' that I did have to make one for her as well.  After many days of clipping and sorting and arranging ((for... four minutes or less*)) it was turning out so prettily that I decided to save them as a sort of Christmas treat.  And I did.  One for Mama, one for me, one for Olivia.  Mine is hanging in my kitchen next to my sink to be enjoyed and scribbled on at will.  I left scribbling space even in the picture part of the calendar for thoughts or verses or quotes, should the mood strike.

So without further ado...

Mama's Collage Calendar ~ 2011

 

 

 

  

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Olivia's Collage Calendar ~ 2011

 

 

 

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Ta da!

I do realize that this is two calendars worth of pictures; I don't have pictures taken of my own yet.  Someday.

*Picture me, 7 years old, in cowboy boots, dress-up dress & apron, making pizza by myself for the first time, dramatically explaining to the camera in my best cooking-show-host voice that the pizza crust was turning out after all that kneading and kneading and kneading, for...four minutes or less.  It seemed like a long time!