New Resolutions

Yep, once again I have proven I suck at keeping a consistent blog. So here I go again!  I have decided, seeing that I am a full-time SAHM now with only one child to look after and so many changes happening around me on a daily basis, that I needed to put my thoughts into words, and a regular basis.  So I am attempting to keep a blog once again.

I think the biggest changes in our home as of late are the renovations going on within our house.  We have been changing things within our home since we purchased it a few years back and I'm really pleased with what we have accomplished so far. We have painted nearly every wall, replaced all interior doors, have and still are replacing all casing and baseboards, gutted the kitchen, replaced the flooring in the main floor ....and the list goes on.  I'm just so proud of it all I need somewhere to show off what we have done.  So this blog post is dedicated to our master bedroom.

As you can see from the before pictures our master bedroom was lacking....well...a bit of everything. (Can I just say now how much I despise wall paper!!)

Our closet was really small and had a bunch of wasted space in and to the left.

So then begins my favorite part, DEMOLITION!!  There is something about holding a huge sledge hammer and busting out a wall that makes me giggle inside. Seriously, you should try it sometime.

No more wall paper YAY!!

There is my man hard at work.  Just to give you an idea of how much more space we got out of the previous tiny closet, those lines on the wall to the left were hidden behind a wall. Yep, wasted hidden space now visible and ready for use.  We also knocked out walls going up too.  My husband is almost 6' 3" tall, so that will give you an idea of how big our closet is going to be. :)

We decided to go with the IKEA Pax wardrobe system (LOVE Ikea!!), since they are affordable in a tight budget and are pretty much awesome when it comes to small space and organization.

Look how happy David is to be almost done.

Ta-DA!! Isn't it beautiful!

We of course painted, put up new casing around the windows, closet and door, removed that hideous ceiling fan and replaced it with a beautiful light fixture that we got from Costco, purchased some new small dressers from Ikea (Rast) and painted them up and added some new handles for our side tables, added some art and now we have a romantic oasis.

My puppy snuck into this last picture.

The only things we have left to do are the baseboards (which we are about to install) and then we have to scrape and paint our ceilings.  What a difference though. I love seeing the changes and the fact that we did it ourselves.  Who knew.

Blog slacker!

So my sister gave me a serious tongue lashing about my slacking of blog posts. So I thought I would make her happy and give everyone a little update on the Johnston household. So our eldest just turned 5! I know, we are getting old. He is such a little stud and really loves kindergarten. We had our first parent teacher interviews and she was very happy with Aidan and how well he is doing. So that's good. He's all about trains so that's what I made for his cake and he loved it...especially the candy cargo it was carrying.

We managed to carve out a few pumpkins this year too. David was very impressed with himself and his carving abilities. So much that I wouldn't be surprised if we do double the pumpkins next year. Good job sweetie!
I know...Xander looks pretty freaky here! Getting ready for halloween I guess??

So here are pics of our little ones in their trick-o-treating gear.

Aidan wanted to be a bat...it's nice that he actually knows what he wants now...unless you have no sewings skills. So I got this idea online. I just took an old umbrella and cut it in half and pinned it to a black hoodie. And the ears I made out of felt and pinned them on too. Covered my nasty pin job with black duct tape and TADA you have a bat! I was pretty impressed with myself and Aidan loved it!

My cute little bear! Don't you just want to pinch those little cheeks!

My little fairy princess. She's definately a girl. And of course our little monkey. :) They had a great time and luckily it wasn't too cold so they enjoyed themselves.

Family Vacation

WARNING!!!: Picture overload!! :)
So we are back from our family vaca to the good ole Okanagan! We set off on our adventure early Saturday morning for 5 nights of camping and then a few nights in my old stomping grounds and then home again. It was a lot of fun and we had a lot of things to do to keep us busy.


Here are all the kids excited for our big camping trip! Yes I know, that's a lot of carseats :) This was taken just before entering Jasper.

Stopped for lunch at Mount Robson. It was so beautiful you could actually see the top of the mountain...which I guess is rare??

Our second day, a Sunday, we went to church in Vernon and a nice family had us over for lunch after churh to get out of the heat (35+ degree weather...which is HOT!!). After lunch we found this nice little splash park for all of us to run around in. The kids were more than willing to get a little wet.

The camping crew doing what they do best...getting dirty! Good thing we stayed where there were free showers.

On the monday we decided to be a bit lazy and hit the beach. We went to Kalamalka Lake by Vernon. It was beautiful!
A little hazy from the forest fires just west of here. By noon that open sand area was filled with people. It was pretty busy but still fun!

Tuesday we did a lot of stuff. These next bunch of pictures are from our adventures in the Enchanted Forest. I hadn't been there since I was a little girl and boy have things changed! A lot more to see and do and the kids loved every minute of it.

My cuties!

The tallest tree house in the world.

Kids and Captain hook.

Giddy up!

HELP!!

Love this pic :)

After the Enchanted Forest we headed to Revelstoke to see what they had to offer and found a train museum. Aidan and Xander were in their element!

Aidan driving a train...ok, not a real one but it was still cool.

Then we headed back towards Sicamous area, where we camped the 5 days, and saw this suspension bridge and just had to go. The Crazy Creek suspension bridge, and it rocked pretty good the more people were on it.

Our attempt at a family picture using the remote. Not bad.

After the suspension bridge we also went to the Crazy Creek Hot Springs. They were NICE!! That evening we headed to a drive in movie. We tried to keep all the kids awake to experience it but Hailee was OUT when we got there. So the boys and us enjoyed our first drive in movie experience. We saw Ice Age 3, SUPER funny!!!

On our way home we took the scenic route which meant we got to go on 2 fairies. Of course the kids had never been on one before and were all for that. How do you like the couple standing next to the kids? Pretty sweet eh!

After camping in BC we stayed a few nights at my parents house, to go to my 10yr highschool reunion and to experience the Heritage Day (or Cardston Days) festivities. And a visit to cardston wouldn't be complete without checking out the good ole Carriage House Museum.

And to finish it all of, a parade with LOTS of candy! We had a lot of fun, saw and did a lot of things and are now exhausted and glad to be home.