Christmas Decorations

I used the empty toy chest for the creche this year.  

 

 



 

I missed out on the free trees given by the village, I was supposed to reserve one by Nov. 30th. I just can't remember things like that. So I bought a live one to plant later.  The prettiest tree we have  in our yard is a Christmas tree that we planted.  I used a knitted scarf for the garland.  The doilies are supposed to be snow (less messy than flour).  I also thought, "hey, why not decorate the house plant?"

Refashioned Entry

 

I have had this in the entry for a few years but it isn't that great becasue it doesn't have very practical storage space. So....

 

 

I went into the boys' room and took this. I painted a smaller book shelf, the one from the kitchen, and put that in their room.  I will post a picture once the room is clean.  This blue wooden book shelf from Ikea is perfect for the entry but was too big for their room.  It's smaller in size than the wardrobe but has much more storage space. I found some cute baskets (the only things I've bought in this whole redo of the house, besides paint) for scarves and the top one has the towels and stuff for the bathroom.  The bottom shelves are for shoes.  I even hung a key hook inside it.  The edges of this book shelf got a bit of light blue paint too.

 

I think it gives us a bit more room in the entry. The little sign says "Vivez bien, Riez souvent, Aimez beaucoup" !  Can you believe I caught Pierre sleeping in the background of this picture :-)



My "new" livingroom part 2

 

Come and have a seat at the game table!  I needed something to balance out this side of the room because the chest of drawers is quite small.  So I went outside and pulled in this cute garden table, put a quilt  on top and used some quilted pillows as cushions for the chairs.  The girls have already used it.  It really is inviting!

 

 

Bridgit and Chiara

My "new" livingroom

 

This chest of drawers belongs to our bedroom set but isn't very big for putting clothes.  I put it down stairs to store sheet music and craft stuff.

 

 

This used to be in the girls' room for toys and books. I moved to downstairs to store magazines and DVDs.   As you can see both of these furnitures needed my help!

 



 

I lightly brushed on a light blue acrylic paint, I didn't even sand it first.  Then I sprayed it with a clear varnish.  It looks really nice and aged. I moved it over on the other side of the room and decorated  the top so no one can put their junk on it.  The blue looks neat with the Gulf Coast print on the wall.

 

 

I painted this one dark blue then wanted to put orange, green, and light blue accents.  I must admit I wasn't very patient and didn't want to put all the coats of paint required for the "perfect" look, so I rubbed some dark blue across each panel and then did some sanding.  It looks pretty good, you can see the grain of the wood really well. I also got rid of all those magazines (threw some away and moved others) and am only using the wicker baskets to hold DVDs.  I have watching movies sometimes during the day then if they aren't great I toss them in the trash!  

So do you like the changes?  Stay tuned for the next episode....

Thanks to my sweet mommy!

 

 

This is just beautiful!    A patchwork Christmas card holder handmade by my talented mom! 

 

 

Thank you very much!!!!



Our Champ!!

 

 

Here he is!  We had a great day on Saturday! We left the house a 6am driving in tons of snow to get to Sion at 6:45 for the boys to sign in for the Valais Solist and Quartet Championship.  Then we went to Mass at 7:20 and made it back to Sion just as the competition started. The boys played at the same time so we had to split up.  Bridgit and I went to listen to Nic and Pierre went to listen to MA. That was just the qualifications for the afternoon.  They both qualified so they played again with a pianist. We couldn't believe it but they were again playing at the same time!!  Bridgit also played in the afternoon in her category (10-13). She played very well, it was her first time playing in this contest. After she played we ran to the place where MA was playing. He did a great job. I was hoping to post the recording but the CD he got isn't working. We ran to the place Nic was playing after MA finished but just missed it.  We do have a recording though.  The contest has 3 categories: Minime (10-13) , Cadet (14-16) and Junior (17-20).  In the Minimes they only class the first 8 and the others just get theirs points.  She got 85 pts.  The Cadets and Juniors kind of get mixed.  MA finished 8th out of 39 cornetists! And Nicolas won 1st Cadet Alto (the silver trophy) and he also won 2nd Junior Alto ( the gold trophy). He is posing here with his new alto that he received a few months ago. It was a very long day but what a reward! 

 



Weekend Adventures with Mr. President

 

This is at the IPA Geneva gala dinner on Saturday night.  These are friends from Geneva, he is a boarder guard. We had some good food and company and ended up dancing until 4am.  The next morning (well realy just a few hours later) we went over to France and took the Mont Blanc Tunnel and came out in Italy (Aosta) then from there we had about another hour drive to Turin.

The room where we had lunch in Turin.  It was a local IPA gathering.  They had a 4 day conference about something and this was just a lunch that was part of it.  When we got there everyone was already seated, then the local president announced Mr. President and his two vice-presidents and we had to walk through this room while everyone clapped. Because our table was at the head of the room kinda like a wedding.  I don't know if I will get used to this.... Its so.....presidential! ( I just wrote it three times...in that little paragraph!)

 

 



To prove that this Mr. President thing hasn't gone to his head he stood up and served us (the two VPs and I) some wine.

The two VPs with Mr. President. Kees Sal is from Holland and Werner Busch is from Germany.  It was a nice day too.  We drove home through the St. Bernard Tunnel. It took about 2 hours from Turin to Sembrancher. I spent all of Monday lying on the couch absolutely worthless, not First Lady-ish at all!  I also had a cold so that didn't help.

Bridgit's chair

 

This is a craft she did in school.  We got an old chair from the thrift store and she had to sand it and then decide what colors to paint it.  I gave her the fabric to make the cushion and she used those colors. Not sure where the orange came from but it looks great.  We use it for the downstairs computer spot.  She's a chip of the old block!