Drawer Organizing

Since I haven't been blogging much lately, you might be wondering what I've been doing to keep myself busy!   Since we've done quite a bit of house hopping these last few years I feel I haven't had a chance to get our home organized or really decorated for that matter.  I'm committed to get our house looking like a home, so I've spent a lot of time scouring the internet/pinterest for decorating and organizing ideas. The house we've moved into is somewhat smaller and just shaped differently than some of our previous homes.  I've had to be creative in storage.   Thankfully we have a garage that has an entry into our house and it has become our pantry/coat & shoe closet/laundry/storage/garden shed room.  It is filled to the brim with bikes, scooters, coats, shoes, our dryer, shovels & brooms, craft items, pantry items, Christmas decor and the list goes on. My favorite piece of furniture, an armoire we had made in Prague, is so huge it doesn't even fit in the house.  Luckily, it just fit in the garage and it makes a great storage cabinet. I am terrible at organization, but I am doing my best to get better.  I am known for dumping things in a drawer to never be found again, which was driving me insane and I knew I had to do something to remedy my terrible habit.   I have this awesome military trunk that I bought at an antique store several years ago.  I LOVE it!  

Unfortunately, it is one of those places where things get dumped and I could never quickly find what I was looking for.   I did not want to spent a lot of money to organize my drawers or trunk space.  In my internet research I came across a diy project for drawer organizers from cereal boxes.  Hers are really cute, but I did not want to be bothered with all the cute paper.   Placing the boxes and cutting down to the height of the drawer.

Ok, I will say that I began by covering one with some butcher type paper......the process was going to be too long and tedious for me.  I decided hardly anyone was ever going to be looking in my trunk and I didn't need cute paper to be organized.  I'm so lazy and cheap and practical!  Ha!

Even though I didn't cover the cereal boxes in paper, the top, drop in drawer of the trunk looks exceptionally better than before!!

That's just one of the little projects I've been working on.  I'll share more soon!!
Have a great weekend!!

Lambing Season

During our Easter break (boy, am I behind!) and in between feeling poorly we made a trip to the Seven Sisters Sheep Centre.  As we were paying, the attendant told us that one of the sheep was lambing at that very moment.  We entered the area where they had the large pens and saw the sweet little lamb that had just been born.

We learned that the reason for keeping the sheep in these enclosures instead of the pastures is to keep them safe from foxes.  Once they've aged a bit, then they go to the pasture.  
 The loved feeding the sheep.  

So many different colors and variations of sheep.  This particular farm has over 50 different breeds.

We went with our friend Julie who took many of these pictures.

Julie started calling Reegan "The Sheep Whisperer!"  Ha!  Even if she didn't have food, the sheep were always drawn to her.  She was so in her element!  I could see this girl working with animals in some way!

This may be a bit graphic, so be forewarned and skip if you get squeamish easily!!! 

We thought it was really neat to be able to watch the birth of this little lamb!  I thought the kids might be a bit grossed out, but they handled it really well and were quite interested!  Surprisingly, it didn't spark too many questions.  Ha!
My guys were having a blast the entire time, but I think a highlight was being able to bottle feed a lamb.  These lambs were either orphaned or were a second or third born to one ewe and there was not enough milk.

Come for a visit in Spring and we'll take you to enjoy lambing season!! I'll leave you with a few more photos!!

Settling In

Hello Friends!  The poor blog has been a bit neglected as of late. I've been using the time to settle in and set up house.  Oh and stick a month of being sick in there. Wait, make that poorly as the English say!   Sick has a whole other meaning.
Our entire household took a turn with a cold/cough and I had it for an entire month!!  Ugh!
Brennan and I at the walk-in clinic.  Somehow we are smiling.  Ha!

We've done a few fun things around the area over the past few weeks, so hopefully you'll stick with me and be back to read more soon!!  Here is a little glimpse for ya.
Bed shopping.

 Getting to know our town of Horsham.

A trip to a farm during lambing season.

A morning out with friends for some shopping and tea!

A day at a West Sussex antique fair. 

Working on projects at home to get organized and make curtains.

Organizing with cereal boxes and other various food boxes.  More to come soon!

Kitchen curtains out of coffee sacks!

Horse riding!!

I'll be back with more soon, I promise!

England's Schools

We are now moved in to our house and have officially lived there for one week!  This week has flown by!!  The kids started school on Tuesday after we chased down school uniforms!  

The local stores carry the gray pants, black shoes and polo shirts.  The school cardigan, sweatshirt, PE kit (gear) had to be purchased by a certain company, which happens to be run out of a lady's house.  We had a good chat as she had lived in Florida for a short time. Karis asked if she would need to take her pants off to try on some PE shorts.  If you're not familiar with British English, pants are underwear and the lady was in the midst of assuring Karis she would not need to remove them when she realized Karis was talking about her "trousers" as they call them.  Ha!!  We had a good laugh over that! To back track a little and tell you of our school process, England has a very different system for school enrollment than we are use to.  In talking to colleagues I was becoming very overwhelmed and anxious about the process. It's not as simple as find a home, go to the closest school and enroll your child(ren).  What was recommended to us was to research schools, find the one we wanted and then house hunt.  Again, this seemed overwhelming to me!  What if we didn't find a house near the school or there wasn't an opening in that school?  The rental market isn't an easy one!!   We knew though that overall Horsham had good schools, so we just went with settling there. I finally decided to just focus on the house hunting and trust the Lord on the school He wanted us in. And wow, did He provide for us!!  The school is about a mile away, so only a 5 minute drive in the mornings.   We were pleasantly surprised that all 3 kids got in the same school, Leechpool Primary.  It's common for siblings to have to attend different schools and then transfer over when a spot becomes available.  I tell ya, God is good in providing for us!! We had a wonderful time on our first tour of the school!  We knew it was a good place!  Then once we got our official acceptance from the county (another process that is unfamiliar to us), we went back to the school to fill out more paperwork and met the headteacher (principal).  We learned that she had bounced around quite a bit as we have and had last lived in Madrid, Spain moving to Horsham to take this very position.  We had a good chat with her and were excited to have that in common with her.  We had even more peace that she would understand our kids and their background.   Of course, the kids were nervous on their first day!  I knew they were in good hands though and they ended up having a great first day.  People were nice, they made friends, they liked their teachers.  I am so pleased!! And on Reegan's third day of school she got this note from a new friend.

How sweet is that?!

The schoolwork is a bit tougher than their used to.  I was expecting that as I know they teach at a different pace and their Math is taught differently.  I told them it might take a few weeks or even months to get into the swing of things, but they're happy, so this mama is happy!

And now the house is so quiet!!  So back to unpacking I go!

The internet is terrible on my phone in our new neighborhood, so it might be awhile until I can update again.  I'll be so ready to have wi-fi hooked back up and be more connected!!  I'm having withdrawals!! Ha!  At least it keeps me going on all the unpacking and cleaning I have to do!!

Enjoy the weekend!!  Our goal is to unpack and stay warm!  It's going to be a cold one!

A Trip To See Seven Sisters

I've been itching to take a road trip and start seeing some of the beautiful sites that England has to offer!  We decide to head to Seven Sisters. Beautiful white chalky cliffs that run along the English Channel in East Sussex.  About an hour and a half drive from us.
One of the many things we love to see in England, thatched roof cottages!

I hadn't done much research on Seven Sisters.  Just a little googling and found Seven Sisters Country Park.   We paid for 2 hours of parking and were on our way!
When we arrived we didn't realize we had quite a walk ahead of us.  In total (to the beach and back) we walked about 3 miles.  We were bookin' it to get back to the car in 2 hours! The kids complained a bit, but they did have quite a bit of fun.

He was "king of the world!"

We got to see LOTS of sheep in the neighboring fields.

 This was one of the 2 brown/black sheep we saw in the field.

You can choose to go up to the top of the cliffs or to the beach.  We weren't ready to brave open cliffs (no railings whatsoever) with the kids, plus we wanted to SEE the cliffs, not be on top of them!

We had quite a muddy walk, I haven't bought my wellies (rain boots) yet and wish I'd had some!  Luckily, the kids had proper shoes!
We finally made it to the rocky beach to see this beautiful site!

Somehow we got a self portrait with five people and a cliff!  Ha!

After about 20 minutes we had to make our way back!

I love this photo of the kids on these old barriers!

I learned later that we should have continue past the cliffs to the east side.  The parking is closer and the  view is even better.  Next time!!