Cousin Fun

I cannot believe I forgot to post about this. Kelly's Sister, Becky came to visit with her family a few weeks ago in March. The kids just LOVE their cousins and have such a fun time playing with them. So, when any of their cousins come to visit they are in heaven. It's sad that all of them live so far away, well, all but 1 cousin, Luke who they see almost every day and they love it.

The girls were pretty much inseparable the whole day. While we were getting dinner ready we looked at the girls sitting at the table and they were all holding hands. It was so adorable. I'm really sad this picture came out blurry because it was the only one I took where all 4 of them were smiling and looking at the camera.

Great-Grandpa with 6 of his Great-Grandchildren.

I love this picture. My Husband is such a ham. Tylie the cutie in her Uncle Kelly's lap. Kelly is ever the teaser and was constantly telling Tylie to stop wearing his clothes and jumping out and scaring all the children when they thought he was done playing with them. They all loved it.

Shaving

Hunter wanted to shave just like his Dad. So, Kelly put some shaving cream in his hands and let him put it on. Here is how he did it. Please know that Kelly has to shave his beard AND his head. So, when the kids see him when he's shaving it probably does look something like this....except the shaving cream on the nose.

New Laundry Room

I don't know if any of you have seen or remember our laundry room....but disgustingly ugly and messy are 2 words that would fit it quite well. Thankfully it's toward the back of the house and the only people that saw it were those who went through the garage. Unfortunately, people saw it when they went through the garage. The biggest problems with our laundry room is it had wire racks. I LOATH wire racks. I know they are cheap and that's why the builder installed them but it just can't carry much weight. Most of our closets have these and if you have kids, you know they are going to try to climb them to get to something and of course they are going to break. Hate these things! There was no way I was taking a picture of our laundry room with the junk and mess on the racks so here is a picture of just the racks.

Another problem with our Laundry room was way back in early December we had a leak in our laundry room floor. The plumbers had to jackhammer our floor out and put a hole in the wall to repair the pin size leak in a pipe. Please know that I am totally embarrassed by this picture. Who knew that in a year so much lint and junk could accumulate under and behind a wash machine and dryer? Yuck!

Yet another problem with our laundry room was the lack of light. Who would install such a tiny microscopic light in a laundry room? Well, it certainly wasn't a genius....or anyone who actually did laundry. I guess this picture doesn't do much justice. Imagine the size of a salad bowl...yes, that is how small this light fixture was.

So, you have seen the problems, here are the fixes. This project was one of my favorites (my most favorite project was working on our kitchen). It's one of my favorites because just like our kitchen remodel it has been such a huge improvement. First up, New Flooring. We had some leftover Vinyl tile from our bathrooms. The reason this has taken so long to repair was that we just couldn't agree with what to put in. I didn't want the Vinyl, I wanted to put Pergo flooring back in and Kelly wanted the Vinyl. We are contemplating maybe putting Slate in (some day in the far, far, far, far, far, far off future) after seeing some friend's beautiful Slate floor, but it's just not doable right now. So, as a temporary flooring option until Slate is doable or until we decide we want something else the Vinyl Tile was installed. It actually looks amazingly better than it did and goes with the rest of our house. You really can't tell in the picture but we grouted the vinyl tiles and they look a lot like real tiles until you step on them in bear feet in the winter and your feet aren't cold.

Second Fix, new bigger brighter light fixture. There are now 120 watts of bright light. Woo Hoo! It's amazing that I can actually see stains on clothes now and pre-treat them. Even our clothes are looking better because we have more light. Who knew?

Third and biggest fix, We installed a cabinet door to hide the kids games and added wood shelving for the cleaners and chemicals. We did add the bead board to the cabinet doors to match the kitchen. We bought door pulls but just haven't put them on yet. I love my new laundry room. No more messes. Things are more organized. What could be better? Oh, we also put crown moulding as well. Amazing how much more beautiful a little crown moulding can make a room. Love it!

The Toothless Smile Expands

Here's a picture of Hunter's latest smile. We think he looks a lot better now that 2 teeth are missing rather than just 1. I love the way he talks. If you listen really carefully you can hear a slight lisp. So cute! He pulled this one out all on his own. It wasn't even wiggly until the day it came out. It also looks like the new tooth is ready to come in. You can see the tip of it. Big tooth stage here he comes.

He lost his tooth on a Saturday. When he woke up he came to me and said the Tooth Fairy forgot to come. I told him that maybe the Tooth Fairy doesn't work on Sundays.....oops. When we got to church Hunter told Kelly that the Tooth Fairy forgot to come and Kelly told him that when he gave him a hug and kiss in the morning before his meetings he found a dollar on the floor from the Tooth Fairy and wanted to keep it safe for him from the girls. Wow, what a save Dad! Hunter actually thought Kelly was holding out on him because the last time he lost a tooth he got $2. I think the Tooth Fairy forgot she came and maybe the Daddy and the Mommy Tooth Fairy both left him money...unknowingly.

New Doors

Kelly came to me the other day and told me that we paid off our Lowes Credit card. He then told me that they included a brochure for interest free financing for 18 months. So....how did we celebrate paying off our card? By putting more on. We are FINALLY changing out our doors and our moulding. Here are 2 doors side by side so you can see the before and after. The one on the left is the after and the one on the right is the before. The ugly plain door and plain moulding is gone and so is the nasty gold ball door handle. Gone! Gone! Gone! yay!!!!

St. Patty's Day Green

Aweful picture, but it was the only one I got with all 4 kids. St. Patricks day isn't a big holiday but I decided to try to follow other mom's green examples and make a green breakfast....instead of just wearing green and doing nothing else like we normally do. So, our St. Patricks day breakfast menu was Green milk, Green eggs and Toast with Green butter. The kids loved it. Afterwards we watched the King of Green, The Grinch. Yes, it's a Christmas movie but he's also green. The kids don't mind watching Christmas movies in March. I do like the idea of catching leprechauns so I do want to try that next year. Have to save up my oatmeal canisters so we can make leprechaun traps next year.

Disneyland 2011

For Christmas, Kelly's parents gave us a gift certificate for a day pass to Disneyland. Kelly's brother and his family were planning a trip to California in March so we decided to go with them when they came down. We went on Tuesday, March 15th. If you read our previous post, yes, we spent 2 days at Disneyland. Couldn't ask for a better vacation. Here are a few pictures of our Disneyland adventures. This was actually the first year that 2 of our children were tall enough to go on most of the rides. There are only 2 rides now that the kids aren't tall enough for...Indiana Jones and California Screamer, but Kelly and I had done those the day before so we were here for the kids on this trip.

Since Kelly and I had gone to Disneyland that day, when we got home we gave the kids our Disneyland maps and they proceeded to plan out the day at Disneyland for "tomorrow". Showing each other what rides they were going to go on and where they were going to go...so fun.

Kora is truly our only brave child. She was the only child that was brave enough to go on Tower of Terror with Kelly, Bryan and I. The only thing she had to say after she was done was that her bum-bum hurt from falling down so much. I think she liked it. This next picture is of her and Kelly waiting in the Tower of Terror line.

Did you know that Bryan is also a chair and a backrest? Well, here is the proof....Uncle Bubba the chair and Daddy the backrest. Those long lines are really brutal on the kids legs. What a nice Daddy and Uncle to sacrifice his body so the kids could get a small break.

You can't ride on the Toy Story ride without getting the classic 3D glasses picture.

After Kelly's Dad got off of work he met us at Disneyland. So fun to spend time with him and Susie both. The kids had a great time with them.

The next picture is us sitting on Big Thunder Mountain. We actually got seated on the last 3 rows. Bryan called it "Baptism by Fire". This was the first time Hunter, Kora AND Bryson had ever been on this ride. Amazing that we got seated in the very back for their first time. I really wanted a picture of not just us, but all 3 kids. When I asked the ride operator to take a picture for us he said one minute, walked to the front and never came back. What a bum! It's not like it would have taken more than 3 seconds to snap a picture and hand the camera back. Oh well.

Kelly's family has a joke that Nani Susie is a part of the Big Thunder Mountain attraction. It was Grandpa's job to ride on the ride so he could point out Nani to the kids when he saw her on the ride. Here is a picture of "Nani Goat" or as Hunter kept referring to her as "Nani Goose".

This was the only picture I got of the boys on the ride. Looks like both boys needed cuddling. When Hunter got off of the ride he called it "weird". Funny because he said the same thing after riding Space Mountain too. Don't know what it means. I think he liked Big Thunder Mountain....Space Mountain...well, didn't like it as much.

Kids waiting for the Casey Jr. train to show up.

I don't know why this is the only picture of Kelci that I got. Luckily however, it is a really cute one of her. She is so adorable.

I didn't get a picture of the kids in the line for Space Mountain. We had to trick Hunter by telling him we were going on Star Tours to get him to go on it. Star Tours happened to be closed. Unfortunately, Hunter can read and kept seeing the words Space Mountain everywhere. Oh well, we got him on it. Just to let all of you know, we also found the BEST place in Disneyland to watch fireworks. On top of the roof while waiting in line for Space Mountain. There are NO crowds at all and you get a front row seat to the amazing fireworks and could still hear the music. Kora and I got to sit down in the middle of the roof while Kelly, Hunter, Gene and Bryan stood in line. I don't think I ever got to thank them for that...thank you guys! I really wish we had gotten the picture from the ride. Hunter's face was incredible. There was NO emotion on his face. There was no fear or excitement, it looked like he was sitting in math class bored out of his mind....amazing!

We had a perfect, fun, amazing day. Thanks for the day pass Grandpa and Nani, such a fun present. Thank You!