Mama Bear Goes Visiting

It is fun for me to watch as Hayley and Ben settle into married life and create a home together.

I have some video for you to watch this week.  The first part was shot back on June 1st, 2017 when they got possession of their apartment.  The 2nd half of the video is a visit back, a few weeks ago, to take a peek now that they are settled in.

As I prepared to write this blog I thought a bit about traditions.  What do we keep from our family of origin and what new ones have we created as the years pass.  I reflected on this as I visited the home that Hayley and Ben are creating together.

In our family the tradition has always been that we snuggle under a quilt when we want to be cozy.  We don’t use a blanket or an afghan.  For the Schmidt family it has to be a quilt.  It just has the right feel and the right weight to it.  This is one tradition that Hayley has taken with her to her new home.  She has a covered basket where the quilts are stored when not in use.   I was happy to be able to send her off into married life with 2 quilts that my Nana had made for my mom before she got married.  Amazing that they are still around and would have been made back in the late 1940’s.

At our house we have a shelf in the livingroom cupboard where we keep our quilts.  See them there?  Folded up and tucked in on the 3rd shelf from the bottom.  Everything needs a home!

Hayley has a couple of things up on the top of the fridge that are a sampling of items from her past.  If you look closely you can see a couple of pieces of  Nana Reesor’s china and a set of Grandma Schmidt’s salt and pepper shakers.  A little bit of tradition, brought into Hayley’s new kitchen.

Hayley likes her throw pillows, same as Mama Bear.

I even like to have options for different seasons.  I would like to have included a photo of my Christmas ones, but at time of writing they were still tucked away in the attic.

 

Interesting story about this glass that allows tradition to mingle with the present……

A few years back, I was helping my mother-in-law (Hayley’s Grandma Schmidt) rightsize from the home she had lived in for 50+ years to her new apartment.  We came across this glass in her china cabinet.  She told me the story of why it was there.  When she got married 50+ years before, glasses like this had been placed at intervals along the tables for the wedding dinner.  They had stalks of celery leaves in them and this was the only decoration allowed at her old order amish wedding.  I found that fascinating and liked the idea of saving this glass.  When we moved to our new home in Kitchener I filled the glass with spanish moss and this bouquet of daisies and put it on Hayley’s bedside table.  I then told her the story of its history.  Hayley chose to pack it and take it along to her new home.  A bit of tradition carried forward 🙂

Fast forward about 60 years from Grandma’s wedding day and here is what Hayley did with the flowers left over from her table centres.  She created something for her dining table.

 

This coffee table has history.  Murray made it for our home in New Hamburg.  The wood on the top of it is cut from old beams out of the ceiling of that house.   We discovered them when we did a major renovation years ago.

The old beams needed to be replaced with new ones, but we kept a sampling of the old and made something new.  The coffee table spent lots of years in our living room, then a few years on our front porch and then made the move with us to Kitchener.  Our new home is tiny, and I was looking for every opportunity to have a little extra storage.  Hayley and Ben were happy with the idea of taking the family coffee table and making it part of their home.  We purchased something that still had the rustic look, but allowed for some storage in 2 drawers and a spot for baskets underneath.

I like what Hayley has added as her pretty decor on the old family coffee table!

 

 

Here is something Hayley and Ben did that I thought was a great idea.  They wanted to start creating a gallery photo wall.  Obviously, wedding pictures were going to be an integral part of that.  They went and bought the frames they wanted, and hung them on the wall.  Then they ordered photos in the sizes to fit.

In closing, here is a reminder of one quick tip from the kitchen:

Hayley has a small island work surface in her kitchen.  There isn’t room there for her large oil and vinegar containers, yet she does want to have those ingredients close at hand.  She put some of each into smaller containers and then stored the large ones in her closet.

 

Food for thought