Kitchen Remodel

Ok, so most of you have already seen my kitchen. . .but for those of you who haven't. . . .here are some pictures....FINALLY!

I was really indecisive about what color to paint the cabinets. First, I was planning on getting new black counter tops and painting the cabinets an off white, to go with the tile. Then I decided that was too much off white. And counter tops are expensive. So I came up with a plan:

I don't like my kitchen. It's small, crampy, and doesn't have a lot of space. (You get the point.) I have tried to draw up a design that would make the kitchen more open. I thought about adding on to the back. I have thought of going into the dining room. I just couldn't get it right, and make it affordable. And then I had an epiphany! Seriously!! I think if you stare at a space long enough it can happen. So I drew up some easy and affordable plans for my kitchen. My husband even loves it. :) So I'm on a mission to save some $$ and to someday redo my kitchen. In the meantime, I decided I could live with black cabinets (to go w/the black appliances), some new trim & paint on the walls, & new hardware. I LOVE how it turned out and can live with this for a couple more years.  It was well worth the hard work.

Here are some before pictures of those beautiful white cabinets.

The lovely galley kitchen. Look at all that white! And then there's the appliances.

Funky corner cabinet with triangle drawers.

My faucet that is falling apart.

And here it is:

My new faucet. I left home for a week and I came home to a clean house and (nope not flowers!) a new faucet. Sweet.

You can see in the picture above this, we took out the corner triangle drawers and made it into an open shelf. So I'm all finished now and am working on the next project. Yeah!

Oh and here's the eating area. Was going to get a new table and chairs but I have learned that you can only have a limited amount of new furniture in a house full of children. So I painted over all the crayon/marker drawings and holes from utensil stabbings.

Before & After

Here are some before & after shots next to each other.
What is the first thing you see when you look at the before picts?

The BLACK appliances! I love how they all blend in in the after pictures.
Love how it all turned out!

I love this girl

day at the sand dunes

Little ol' crafty me

Here are just a few of the crafts I have done so far this summer. I posted the site where you can find them if you are interested in making one.

Birthday countdown: http://www.howdoesshe.com/2x4-to-birthday-boardtutorial

(I made mine a little bit easier.)

Love this! Blake would not stop asking how many more days till his birthday. So I made this as a countdown to his day. He got to pop a balloon each day and he knew exactly how many more days until his b-day. On his big day I used it to put up his birthday cards.

 

My sisters & I made ourselves some sassy aprons. They are even reversable! :) But it took a good portion of a day to do. My sister owns the pattern.

We also made these:

from here:http://sewdangcute.blogspot.com/2010/04/tutorial-hot-pads.html

And then I threw this together:

(the skirt, not the kid)

I had the perfect model. She even went and picked out some shoes from grandma's closet. So cute!

Cousin Camp

I LOVE cousin camp! This is something we started several years ago. My sister's husband goes off to scout camp every summer. Instead of being home with no hubby around for 5 days, she comes to my mom's. And I come with my kids. And whoever else can come does.

So we stay at my mom's for a week, with no husbands, no internet (we can check email), limited cell phone service, and she lives 30 mins from anything. And this is what we do: we read, we craft, we talk, we play games, we tan, we 4-wheel, we eat yummy food, we watch HGTV, and we RELAX! And what do the kids do, they play. and play and play. Cause cousins are SO MUCH MORE FUN than siblings!

And everyone has a good time.

Why do more laundry than we have too?

Did I mention that Grandma has cats?

And a police car?

j/k Just a friendly visitor.

And she has a dog. Cats and a dog. Em was in heaven.

On a ride with Makinze. 2 weeks apart. (Rach, just looking at her skirt makes me laugh!)

And there they all are. What a good looking bunch of kiddos!

And I'm Off.......

Yes, gone again.

My cousin is running a science camp through CSI (college of southern Idaho) in Burley for a week and asked if I would like to join the team. Emmalee gets to go for free and I get CREDIT!! for FREE! (It's SO expensive!) So I told her I would. My mom was MORE than willing to put up with all of us for another week. I just got done with 2 full days of teacher training. And then I get 15 or so kids for 4 days for 2 hrs per day. I have learned so many cool, fun ways to teach kids about anatomy. The last 2 days have been full of instruction (a little too much for me) and lots of experimenting: dissecting the eye, heart, kidney, brain; looking at a cadaver (haven't seen one since college), looking under the microscopes, cooking food with acid, playing the 'germ' game, and just learning a lot! It's going to be good. But it will be SO NICE to be home again!

Ode to Blake

To my big 5 year old! happy birthday!

Capital Classic

Emmalee's favorite race of the year! She did awesome. Here are her results:

Overall Time: 9:48.0 (9:48.0/mi.)
Distance: 1 Mi.
Overall Place: 431st out of 1452 (70.4th percentile)
Overall Place for Women: 189th out of 730 (74.2nd percentile)
Overall Place for Girls Age 7: 7th out of 98 (93.8th percentile)
Overall Place for Boise, ID: 299th out of 1004 (70.3rd percentile)
Overall Place for ID: 430th out of 1450 (70.4th percentile)

Blake's last day of Preschool

LOVED Ms. Janis! We have had her 2 times now and hope she will still be teaching when Addi gets in there. :) I took Blake to kindergarten registration and they asked him a series of questions. I was like, "Oh crap! Why didn't I think of this? I have taught him NOTHING!" But he knew almost ALL of the answers! I was so proud of him. And had to thank Ms. Janis for getting Blake ready for Kindergarten. He has learned so much this year! Included a little Spanish. I can't believe my little boy will be leaving me everyday for 9 months out of the year. Miss him already.

The last day of preschool at the park.

Ms. Janis reading a book to the class.

 Yummy.

Getting ready for the egg run.

And now the sack race. (so funny, some kids were RUNNING in their bags!)

Enjoying a bright ORANGE popsicle with a WHITE shirt on.

So PROUD of her art work. (BTW I did get it all out. Only to discover this morning that it has been sitting all weekend in the laundry basket with chocolate ice cream all over it. Yippee.)

Blake with his FAVORITE preschool teacher!! What a GREAT year!