New Kitchen

Isn't the above picture the most beautiful kitchen you have ever seen? No? Yeah, we didn't care for it either. It's what came with our house so we were willing to deal with it for as long as we needed to. We went to Lowe's and got a quote for brand new cabinets and Corian counter tops....about $12,000. They called later that night and told us that they could do it for a little over $9,000. We knew it was going to be expensive so we were willing to wait 5....10 years until we could afford a new kitchen. We had accepted that, since we didn't have that kind of money to put into a kitchen at this time. We went to a friends house and I was in love with their kitchen. When I told them how much I loved their kitchen they told me that they had done it themselves. 2 weeks later Kelly and I were buying supplies and refaced our cabinets to look like new. Below is how each cabinet door now looks. We painted them white, added bead board in the center and put thin molding around the bead board to hold the board down and hide the seams. It took us about two FULL days to reface all of our cabinets. I LOVE it and am so proud to say that Kelly and I did it with our own two hands for the wonderful cost of about $300.
Since we were updating our kitchen we thought we should update our pantry door as well. Here is the before picture. Plain and ugly.
Here is our new decorative door. We pulled off the old molding and added a new decorative moulding. We plan to eventually change out all of the doors in our house to look exactly like this one. This is more of a very long far off project. We have such a long "to do" list when it comes to our home. Unfortunately, all it takes is money.

Here is our before sink. Notice the disgusting tile. I don't know who would put tile counter tops into their new kitchen. The grout is gross and uncleanable. Bleach doesn't even stand a chance against grout. This is actually a good picture of this sink. You can't see the stained porcelain or the black ring around the top of the sink. Even after I re-caulked the sink the black came up through the new caulk. Definitely gross.

Okay, here it is, our new sink and counter top. The sink actually came with the counter tops. I can't even tell you what kind of material it is. It's not porcelain. It's a Matte finish but I absolutely love it. I especially love my new faucet head. Kora asked me if she could take baths in our new sink. I told her it is certainly big enough.
Okay....drum roll please....Our new kitchen!

The countertops are granite. It isn't your standard granite. They actually put this over our existing tile countertop. There was no demo and it was done in about 4 hours. When we went to the L.A. County fair this year we saw a booth for this new counter top. What it is, is mashed granite and epoxy. The top looks just like a granite countertop where the bottom looks like it has all been glued together. It's stronger and cleaner than real granite because there are no natural cracks and crevices for bacteria to hide. I am in love with my new kitchen and more in love with my awesome, handy husband. I have to thank him for our kitchen as well as all the work he did so we could complete it. He really is amazing.

Halloween 2010

This year was all about the store bought costumes. Hunter really wanted to be Iron Man this year. At first we told him "No" because we didn't want him wearing a mask. On his Birthday he got the entire costume...suit, helmet, blaster arm and battery center. So, we decided to give in and let him be Iron Man.

Kora wanted to be Princess Aurora and on her birthday she got her entire costume. I thought I only had to make Mylie's costume but the closer Halloween got I just wasn't feeling it this year. I drove to the Disney Store to buy a Tinkerbell costume to find that I had missed the big sale by 2 days. The costume with wings was now $65....or I could have bought a wingless Tinkerbell costume for $40. I just wasn't feeling that either. For some reason the Alice in Wonderland costumes were a steal so Mylie was the cutest Alice in Wonderland that ever existed.

Funny thing about the above picture. Hunter really wanted to do the peace sign like Tony Stark in the Iron Man movie. After the girls saw Hunter holding up a "2" Kora held up a "3" and Mylie held up a "4".

This year we went trick or treating in our neighborhood with my Jeremy, Kristin and Luke. Here are the kids in all of their costumes. Mylie had just woken up from a nap so we hadn't fixed her hair yet. The other 3 were ready to go get some candy. It was fun going in our own neighborhood. There were quite a few kids out as well. Looking forward to new traditions in our new home.



After seeing my Sister-in-Law's Halloween post last year and seeing that they painted pumpkins instead of carved them I wondered why I NEVER thought of that. All these years I would buy one pumpkin for each child, they would help me clean out the pumpkins until they got bored and then I would have to carve them. They LOVED painting their own pumpkins. So fun.

Hunter decided to put faces all around the pumpkin. His was the only one that resembled a pumpkin face but they had a good time painting.

This is actually Kora's first coat of about 20. Her pumpkin ended up turning a nice brown color by the end. She LOVES to paint and color. She's our artist.

Our family right before leaving for trick or treating. You have got to love California weather when your kids are wearing shear sleeveless costumes and they aren't cold. We had a fun Halloween....now, on to Christmas...yay!