Nearly finished new room pics

We painted the top half of the room blue, left the ceiling and the bottom half of the room white, then we put wood trim in the middle to clean up the lines and give it some class.

The chair in the corner of the room (the pictures are backwards, by the way).

You can see the lovely view of our garden out the window, not I just need to put up blinds and maybe even a curtain.

The light fixture, too bad I can't take a decent picture of it lit up.

Pictures of the new room

   Here are pictures of our newly renovated room. It was a storage room and my very talented brother-in-law Glen Winslow of Winslow Carpentry put up all the things needed to make it a room. He put in a bigger door, added a window, added electrical outlets and a fitting for a ceiling light and so much more. He worked hard and barely took a break. I hope we didn't work him too hard. And, we greatly appreciated everything he did for us.
    These are not the greatest pictures. We realized we could be using the laptop to take pictures too late. I wish we had thought of it so we could have documented more of the work. I know I'm putting these up in the wrong order, I should put up the before pictures first.

Me with primer that Matt had spilled on me. I feel like a real homeowner now, I'm painting!

The window. Amazing job! It really makes the room feel much more open and happy.

We now have electricity in all four walls and a light switch for a ceiling light! Awesome. Too bad we couldn't have that in all the bedrooms upstairs, only one has a ceiling light right now.

Looking out the door into the kitchen.

You can see the chimney, haven't decided if we want to paint it, cover it or just leave it as is.

The ceiling light unit. The light is now hung, after priming before painting. Maybe I'll leave the ceiling white.

Magic Wings trip

    Yesterday, we went to the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory in South Deerfield, MA. It was very beautiful and the kids loved it, especially Maggie. Maggie got to use a friend's camera and took these pictures:

Blue Morpho butterfly taking off

Blue Morpho butterfly landed with the gardens in the background.

One of the many interesting plants.

Dual butterflies on a tree.

Butterfly on an orchid.

Taking this one from both sides.

There are also birds running around all over...

...and in the trees as well.

See the butterflies "straw" curled in front of it?

    I did do a bit of cropping on 3 or 4 of these, but other than that these are all pictures taken by Maggie. She is turning into quite the little photographer. The one on the bottom is my favorite.
    What is not portrayed in these pictures is the sheer number of butterflies and plants there are in the conservatory. It is an absolutely amazing place. It is not very big, but there must be thousands of butterflies. There is even a koi pond with 4 huge fish in it. It is a place worth checking out.

My newest super easy meal

I was trying to figure out what to make for lunch about a week ago, and all we had for protein was ground beef. So, I poked around, found a few things that kids would eat and came up with ground beef (96% lean), a can of corn, a bit of fat free half & half, and some reduced fat cheese. I have made this a few more times since then, served it over pasta, served it with another veggie. I would be great on a burrito or with nacho chips. Mix in any other ingredients you would like (my personal favorite is salsa). It was a hit with everyone, even the kids ate every bite!

A tour of our home for a friend of Matt's who used to live here.

Baby M&M

Here is a picture of our little miracle baby, in amazing 3-D!

    A little gelatinous looking, but a baby all the same. The other two 3-D pictures aren't as good an angle, although they look a little more real. I still like this one the best though.

Spring snow

 Here are some pictures from the spring "snowstorm" we just had. Matt took some, Maggie took some.

Bobtailed Olive against the snow.

                                       

What an amazing picture.

Maxwell kept eating snow.

Snowing, yet warm enough for a sweater!

Angelic.

Matt can't keep a serious face when pictures are taken.

Maggie had to take this picture.