Category Archives: Mosaic Monday

Valentine Mosaics

This Thursday is Valentine’s Day. For mosaic Monday I’m featuring a few pieces of décor I’ve purchased in the past for this day. Last year after Valentine’s day I added some pieces that I was able to pick up at Hobby Lobby for 90% off the original price.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

I prefer the Valentine’s Day Cards from the 50’s or antique cards.

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

Time will tell if we will have some company to sit around the Valentine Day table for a meal.

And here’s our favorite little Valentine enjoying her M & M treats for being a big girl.

Do you make plans for Valentine’s Day or do you just let it slide by?

Linking up with Angie for Mosaic Monday. Thanks for being a great hostess for this meme, Angie!

January Recap in Mosaics

January was packed with important celebrations and family time. I’m adding some photos and mosaics here for the sake of my memories that might be redundant to you. I’ll be linking up with Angie for Mosaic Monday. Thanks for hosting, Angie. Be forewarned that this post is overloaded with photos.

We celebrated three family birthdays in January. Dan and Jamie both had birthdays a day apart and we enjoyed dinner at our country bungalow in celebration of their birthdays.

Our oldest had a milestone birthday and his office celebrated him well along with other family and friends on the west side of the Cascades. We gave him his gifts early at Christmas and added a gift when we all gathered in Arizona 5 days after his birthday.

We handed down grandfather Rex’s Bible to Josh while we were in Arizona.

Thursday January 24th was travel day to Arizona for most of us. Josh and Laura were at the house already working nonstop to furnish it for our arrival. Friday started with some work on putting furniture together and then was Zoo/Old Town Scottsdale day. Saturday was shopping/work day, cousin/nephew-niece dinner. We broke in the new barbecue. Sunday was staging/photo and lunch/park and puzzle day. Josh and Laura flew home on Sunday. Monday morning Katie and Andrew flew home and then Addy’s Great Granny and Jim drove up to have lunch with us. (Photo Fail) They are snow birding in Arizona until March. Tuesday was our travel day flying back to our snow covered world.

8 adults to 1 child at the park. I don’t know how one person can manage a child in a busy park!

We were all happy to get a good dose of Vitamin D.

And the contrast of what we returned home to…

Our kids on the westside returned home to this…

Helping one another get Andrew and Katie’s home ready to move into.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 (ESV)

Click on  Airbnb to see the listing for this beautiful property in Surprise, Arizona. We highly recommend it.

Today we still have snow on the ground and are getting a weather warning for very cold temperatures overnight. The sun is breaking through the clouds. The Puget Sound area of Washington got a good snowfall overnight. Our kids on the west side of the mountains measured 7 inches this morning which means everything will come to a stand still in the Seattle area. Katie and Andrew moved into their new home over the weekend just in time to be snowed in. Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

 

Our Country Bungalow

These are a few mosaics/collages of some of the spaces in our country bungalow. The entry above and the living room off the entry area.

The view back to the entry area of our home from the living room. All the Christmas decorations are packed up now.

The view from the entry through the living room to the dining room.

The dining room.

The photo above is from November before our dining area was painted to our satisfaction.

Glimpses from the dining room into the kitchen and from the kitchen to the family room area.

We have lots of upper ledge spaces in our kitchen. We aren’t done with the painting in the kitchen area and in the future I’ll show the finished look that we’ve decided on for our kitchen space.

Here are some photos I have of more of the kitchen with our favorite visitor and Dear busy cooking Swedish Pancakes on Christmas morning.

Looking to the entry from our family room area and looking back to our family room area.

Our area between our entry and family room and our nice wide hallway to our bedrooms.

Our artwork in the photo above is also showing some reflections that aren’t a part of the original work.

Pictures51This photo above is true to the piece. The work was inspired by a small nook in the crypt of the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. It was painted by a friend of ours.

Glimpses into our two guest bedrooms. These rooms along with our Master Bedroom Suite have not been painted yet. I don’t have photos from the master bedroom to share as of yet. I also have not shared the large laundry room area and our office yet. Stay tuned for those areas and then there is our oversized shop/garage that is not oversized enough for our stash. We will be building a new shop for Dear’s stuff come late spring/summer.

This is all for now on the interior of our Country Bungalow. We are settling in nicely and are thankful for God opening the doors for us to purchase this property despite our exhaustion in the process of selling our home of 20 years and trying to find a replacement 6 hours away and moving 20 years of stuff. We are thankful for being on a county road that is flat and plowed when it snows, except for the weekends. We have found out that Stevens County snowplows only work on weekdays. City of Colville works all days. We have a Colville address but are outside city limits.

Thank you Angie for hosting Mosaic Monday. Click over to join in the fun.

Our Satellite internet connection has been painfully slow for about a week now. You will probably be seeing fewer posts from me until things speed up. I do hope we get some speed soon because right now it is very painful…

Mosaic Monday

Who knew a helium balloon could bring so much delight. On Boxing day, in the evening, we stopped at our local Safeway market and after we rang out at the check stand the checker asked us if we could use this balloon. We said sure and took it home with us for free. When Addy came over with her parents last Thursday for dinner she had a delightful time with this free gift.

It’s been fun watching the birds hop and flit about in the snow. The really good hoppers are the quail.

We took a walk about the back acres to check out all the animal trails in the snow. We think we might have had a feral cat (it was looking at us one night through our family room slider), deer, mice and other critters. It might be time to get that critter night camera!

Today was a glorious sun filled day. We joined our kids at church and then had lunch with them. On our way home from their place we took this shot from their driveway. The best of views!

Linking up with Angie from Letting Go of the Bay Leaf for Mosaic Monday.

Christmas Past Mosaics

2013 Nativities. I’ve gone a little overboard adding 5 more nativity sets since 2013.

2014 Joy is always a strong theme at Christmas time.

2015

2016

2017: Our most delightful Christmas addition.

These are all mosaics made with Picasa on my good ole laptop that died in November. I’m still looking for a program to create mosaics/collages on my new computer.

Our little Addy has changed so much since last Christmas.

December 2018

And for context, below was our view on our way to church this morning. We had a couple of inches of snow overnight that turned to rain while we were in church so now everything is pretty slushy.

Linking up with Angie for Mosaic Monday. Thank you for hosting, Angie!

Only 9 days until Christmas! Are you ready? We don’t have our tree up yet.

Frozen Mosaics

We tossed a heavy rock into the middle of the pond to test the ice. It just gave a big thud when it landed there.

We found some new lighting features to help the dark corners of this room.

I made that simple needlepoint ages ago when we were first married. We are warm and cozy in our country bungalow despite the freezing temperatures last week. We’ve had a few days well above freezing now and enjoyed some blue skies and sunshine today.

I’ve started some Christmas decorating in the midst of Dear’s painting projects. Have you started any Christmas preparations?

Thank you to Angie for hosting Mosaic Monday.

Thanksgiving Past Mosaics

We had an early Thanksgiving this year when all of our kids were on this side of the mountains in October for our annual family hunting adventure. This Thanksgiving Day Dear and I will lay low. On the day after Thanksgiving we will try deep frying a turkey and have some fixins to go with it with our Eastern Washington kids. Our Canadian neighbors celebrated Thanksgiving early in October. What are the rest of you doing for Thanksgiving this year? Guess what? We mailed out our Christmas cards and letter already including a Thanksgiving greeting since we needed to send along our new address to family and friends. I hope no one minds getting a Christmas greeting just before Thanksgiving. I’m thankful to have that behind me now.

Linking up with Angie from Letting Go of the Bayleaf for Mosaic Monday. Thank you Angie.

A Week in Mosaics

Saturday November 3rd we spent some time at Dan, Jamie and Addy’s. The guys worked on getting firewood cut and stored for winter. Jamie was able to get some chores done while Addy and Baba walked and played.

We walked with her trike and also with her stroller.

On our way home going down the kids’ driveway we saw this majestic bird.

Fast forward to Friday November 9th. We got our first snow. As we understand it the Colville area got their first snow last year on November 9th, too. It’s probably time to put the patio furniture away.

The Quail were in our yard in the mornings finding whatever it is that they eat. They sure are plumping up!

My sister Lana and her husband Steve arrived at our place safe and sound from the airport in Spokane in their rental car avoiding two separate accidents on highway 395 caused by slick icy roads. We all enjoyed a BBQ meal out in Kettle Falls with our kids’ joining us. We came to our place after for dessert. Addy enjoyed having my and great aunt Lana’s attention. Saturday morning we took Steve and Lana to see the kids’ house and to have breakfast together. Addy decided Great Aunt Lana is her new best friend. Later on Saturday after some shopping and movie watching we drove to Chewelah to our favorite Mexican Restaurant for dinner.

On Sunday Steve and Lana were interested in a walk or a hike so we drove 3.2 miles from our home to Douglas Falls Grange Park and found a nature trail to try. It was a good walk in the forest.

When we got home I whipped up a chowder to warm us up. It was a good recipe from Taste of Home that I’ll try to share soon. Steve and Lana are headed back to Spokane to catch their flight to Seattle. It was very nice having our first overnight guests at our Country Bungalow. Lots of good food and laughter to wrap our memories in.

Linking up with Angie at Letting Go of the Bay Leaf for Mosaic Monday. Thank you Angie for hosting.

 

Mosaic Monday

All these photos were taken on Friday November 2nd showing my backyard visitors and the views from my kitchen window and through my front door.

We are getting more and more settled in to our new country bungalow and to country living in general.

Mosaic Monday continues with a new hostess. Thank you to Angie at Letting Go of the Bay Leaf for keeping this meme alive. It’s been a long time since I’ve participated but I’m happy to join up again. Click over to join in the fun.

Barns, Pumpkins, Corn Mazes and More!

On Sunday October 15th the girls headed to Knight Farm to enjoy the corn maze and pumpkin patch. The Barn built in 1907 is on the Washington State Heritage Barn Register.

With corn maze map in hand (Katie’s hand) we set off for the maze entrance.

Katie masterfully led us to each checkpoint in the maze never making a wrong turn.

Addy started out awake and soon fell fast asleep.

We started at the bottom at station #10 and ended our trek at station #1.

When we were done with the maze Addy woke up and we picked out 3 pumpkins. One for daddy, one for mommy, and one for Addy.

Yep, the cutest little pumpkin in the patch!

While in the maze I spotted these farms with barns in the distance.

The guys were done hunting on Sunday with early success bringing a buck home just after noon.  Andrew had to leave us all to drive the 350 miles back to Seattle so he could be in class on Monday morning. Dear, Josh and Dan started the hard work of prepping the venison while we were away at the pumpkin patch.

I spared everyone the full image of the buck in the back of our son’s truck but you can see the antlers if you look closely. One side of the antlers look like they are growing out of Joshua’s head. Andrew left before they had the celebratory toast.

Addy with auntie Katie before we got dressed for the pumpkin patch. She was interested in the guys excitement in retelling the story of how their successful hunting morning unfolded.

Linking up with Tom for The Barn Collective and Maggie at Normandy Life for Mosaic Monday.