Stuff, Etc.

Turns out I am a bad blogger.  My apologies.  I sort of fell off the face of the interwebs.  You probably didn’t notice.  Oh well.  I think at least one person did.  And that’s enough for me to feel missed.  Anyway, I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, and I hate to do it.  But here I am playing catch up, and filling you in on all the awesome and not awesome things of the last month or so. 

When I last wrote, I was leaving for Honduras the next day.  So I should begin with that.  The focus of our trip was pretty similar to last year’s trip.  So I won’t get into that good stuff, instead I’ll just share a few pics. 

  It was a last minute opportunity for me to go, so I was a little extra nervous this year about leaving my boys.  I only had about a week or so wrap my head around it. 

But of course it all worked out and it was a transforming and fulfilling trip.  I’m soo glad I had the opportunity to go! 

I wish I could have brought all these kids home with me. So stinkin’ cute!

Little boy.  Rain boots.  Horse.  Love!

This is the school yard and the school.

“God is Love,” written on a beam in a house.

Love all these girls too!

Grant held down the fort while I was gone.  And this little incident happened while I was away. 

He heard a crash in the middle of the night, and this is what he found. 

Oops, looks like I have a couple too many clothes.  Actually I don’t.  I need more yoga pants.  It’s just whoever installed this was clueless.  STUDS people.  Studs.   

Let’s see…… what else?  We celebrated anniversary #7, in a super romantic way…. picking out a new refriger-dator-rator and watching KU lose the national championship.  Wha-wha. 

And then there was Easter.  Lots of fam was here and we had a super time.

Kenzie, you’re in trouble for not telling me Jagger was goofing off in all the official Easter family pics!  Hello, it’s the like the only family picture we take each year!

 

You’re also in trouble for taking this picture.  Yeah, I just posted that.

 

Our out-o-town visitors:  Arnold, Victoria, Henry, & Kenzie.  *Not pictured: Earl: the three legged dog.

The boys and some of their bestest buds…. oh, the shenanigans!

Lets see.  What else.  Well, we finally made it down to OKC to see our newest cousin, Jace! 

Ooooh, he’s a good baby!  I don’t really remember him crying or spitting up.  Or those other annoying things that babies do.  Yeah, he’s a good one.  Makes me almost want another…. so we decided it would be best if we didn’t stay too long.  Can’t be thinking those kind of thoughts!  We also couldn’t stay too long because there were a few too many tornadoes happening for my taste.  Oh, Oklahoma.  You’re so so silly.  Erin, in a more timely fashion, also wrote about the little visit here, and how my boys love to dress Haylie up!

And here’s me and the old roomie, and all that we have procreated.  We don’t see each other enough, so this was a good visit.  Good times.

While we were down there Grant and I did a drive by of all our old stompin’ grounds.  And looky here, we found house #2. 

Yay for memories!

All right.  That’s it.  Blog.  Updated.

That’s What HE Said

I’m writing these down before I forget.  Gosh this kid is funny. 

He pretty much said all these things one after another while eating lunch.

Mom, will you please bring me back some nachos from Honduras?

Mom, why do you always call me “Cash”? 

Mom!  You are in trouble!

What? Why?

For being the cutest Mommy.

Spring Outdoorsyness

Lord, I love spring!

Life is so much better when the kids play outside.  And I get some porch time.  The grass is green, the windows are open.  Oh, my favorite!  And Lemonade.  Pink Lemonade Season!

 

When I first wake up, the lake is usually as smooth as glass.  LOVE.  From here I can see a good reflection of the houses across the way.  One of these days I am going to be sneaking around in their backyards so I can attempt to get a good shot of my house reflected in the lake.  I’ve got to time it right so they don’t think I’m crazy. 

Saturday and Sunday had a few moments of dreariness to them, but that didn’t stop my fisherman.

Jagger is rocking a gnarly pink eye today, so he’s home from school.  He’s feels just fine, so I know he’ll be begging to be out there all afternoon. He can do the whole fishing thing by himself, except for when it comes to releasing the fish.  And unfortunately this momma can’t help, due to this condition I have where I can’t touch fish or I get really grossed out.  So we might have to wait til Daddy gets home. 

We’ve got one pretty purple tree right out front. And a couple Bradford Pears around. They make me happy. Sometimes I stare at them. The weather has me thinking about gardening a lot. My dream is to have an awesome kitchen garden with all the herbs, peppers, tomatoes, and such. Not this year, but some time I’m gonna learn me how to be a gardener.

I’ll probably need a mentor. Any takers?

Happy Bench

One good part about keeping a booth at the flea market is that now I have a legitimate reason to go there a lot.  (although, Hubster would say that this is down side.) 

Anyway, a couple days ago I snatched this happy little bench up. 

I’m probably more excited about it than I should be.  Shut up.  It reminds me of the school desks and benches in Honduras.

It’s the perfect teal, the perfect chippiness, and the perfect spot to tuck away some Lightning McQueen shoes. 

The bench needed a little artwork above, so in came Cash’s masterpiece, a chunky C, and some of sister’s Kansas-Loving artwork.

She’s talented, no?

Weekend Sneak Away

Last weekend, Grant had a training in Miami, so I shipped the kids off to Kansas (thanks mom!) and tagged along for some quality poolside time.

The air travel to and fro was, of course, no bueno. Our travel misfortunes included: missing our first flight due to being fashionably late, the hair in my Cinnabon, and more delays because of Air Force One and it’s no fly zone, and then there was the plane with faulty brakes.  Ugh.

But once we got there, it was all good.

Random pic while people watching on South Beach. 

Oh, the people watching. 

Some of it made me want to burn my eyes.  I took pictures, but wont share them.  This is a family blog, I’m gonna keep things PG, maybe PG-13 on the days I’m feeling saucy.

Rat tails are back in a big way down there, it seems.  Hopefully my boys never get the memo.

Self Portrait by G.

Of course, we ate well.

And acted ridiculous on the public transportation.  Flaring my nostrils is my idea of getting crazy.

     And now we’re back to the daily grind at home.  Acting totally NOT ridiculous.  Because we are parents.  And we know people here.  And we’re upstanding members of the community gosh darn it. 

Not really.

Round Here

Uncle Arnold was here for a visit last week.  My boys love them some Uncle Arnold.  They put him to work right away… reading, legos, & nerf gun type of work.

We caught a Veggie Tales Live show a few days ago.  Cash talked us into getting him the Larry Boy hat.   He doesn’t look happy in these pictures, but that’s just a front for the camera.  He’s thrilled to have super suction cup ears, and pretty much hasn’t taken the hat off yet. 

Grant and Jagger took a machete to all the brush down by the lakefront.  It was cold enough that day to break out the coveralls.  The next day, everyone was in shorts, I imagine. 

We’ve met a handful of neighbors around here and so far everyone seems great.  And there are lots of kids!  I so did not expect that, but across the street, there are 3 six year old boys!  Jagger is going to be heaven.  And there’s plenty of little rug rats around about Cash’s age too. 

I’ve been poking around the flower beds in anticipation of the surprises that should be popping up soon.  I hope it’s pretty!

Unfortunately, I found a couple of these skins!  I was afraid to touch them, is that weird?

I made this little sign for our entry way.  A bigger, more fancy copy of it is for sale at Urban Outfitters, but that costs money.  And as it turns out, I like it when things pop out of my printer for free.  I am a maker, not a buyer!  

The Kitchen is Done! Except, not really.

But it’s as done as it’s going to be for awhile. 

Still left on the to-do list is get a new range, microwave, fridge, and cabinet above the fridge…  hopefully those will get done this year, but who knows. 

Anyway, here’s a reminder of the before, in all its oak glory:

 

And here’s what we’re working with now:

I love that big old sink!  I can’t stress how awesome I think it is.  Some people have questioned me on this, thinking it wouldn’t be good for doing dishes…. well my answer to that is simple.  I DON’T DO DISHES!  I hide dirty dishes, until I can load them in the dishwasher, and this big old sink is perfect for that!

Now, the wider view of the room isn’t so pretty, cuz we still rockin’ some bisque appliances.  Their time will be limited though! 

So here’s the run down of what we did do, didn’t do, and hope to do:

Obviously, everything got painted.  The walls, a light gray, the outer cabinets, a white, and the island, a darker gray.  And we removed the breadbox in the corner.  I’m not a breadbox kind of girl.  More specifics about the paint and counter can be found in this post.

We kept the oil rubbed bronze hardware, and just got new hinges for the island.  The hinges on the white cabinets, I actually just spray painted white.  It was a cheap fix, but truthfully, I am not very happy with how they turned out.  We’ll probably get new ones, eventually.  Maybe oil rubbed bronze, maybe white, not sure yet.

Of course, the counter and sink are new, and we decided it would be a good idea to have the dishwasher ready to be installed when the counter was installed.  Since it needs to be screwed into the bottom of the counter,  and we didn’t really want to risk drilling into the granite ourselves, we made sure we had it when there were professionals up in here.  We went with a Bosch, and I’m pretty smitten with how quiet it is.  Literally, our refrigerator is louder than our dishwasher!  (Although, looking at the fridge, that might not be a surprise!)

Grant did the subway tile backsplash.  And we’re pretty happy with it.  It’s a good bang for you buck, considering each tile is only like 30 cents or something like that.  I think our 25 or so square feet of backsplash, cost us around $100 with all the supplies and everything.

So I don’t really feel like we can call the kitchen project complete until the new appliances are all in.  But for now, it’s as done as it’ll be until Dave Ramsey gives us the okay on some pretty stainless appliances.

In the meantime, there’s a little more painting to do, to get the trim all white and pretty.  And I have a chalkboard thingy I want to do to the basement door, which is right off the kitchen.  But we’re a little sick of painting right now, so who knows when that’ll get done!