EXPLODING with fun!

Volcano Experiment

Jay has a new obsession with volcanoes.  I'm not sure what exactly started the obsession but he is pretty into them.   He has watched several National Geographic specials on Netflix about volcanoes and is pretty much glued to the TV each time. Then he asks me questions about them that I don't know the answer to....so I end up watching as well. 

 We had to find books on volcanoes at the library on our last trip.  I think its pretty cute that he's into them .  I also find it cute (and odd) that he insists on calling them tortitos.  We have told him over and over that they are called volcanoes.  He KNOWS they are called volcanoes and can say the word with no problem.  But in Jay's world they are tortitos. 

Well, one of the books on tortitos that we got the other day had the infamous volcano experiment recipe in the back.  So this afternoon we decided to have some fun and make a volcano in our kitchen.  

All set up and ready to begin!

The wonderful "tortito" book!

Our supplies!

This was the joy on his face when it started "exploding"!

Doesn't take too much to make a pretty happy little boy!

We're Back!

Hello All! It's been a while.  Since I last posted, we've had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and are a month into the new year.  I think things have settled out enough now that I should be able to blog again.  I'm not promising the posts will be frequent because my family still comes first. However, in those rare moments when there is not a child needing attention, the house is clean, I've worked out, and dinner is not needing to be cooked, I'll try to sneak in a post!

Gunnar will be 4 months old next week! Time is just flying by. He has become a real joy.  He is very smiley and overall a pretty happy baby!  We had a few hiccups with nursing but once we discovered he had acid reflux and took steps to help with that its become a wonderful experience for both of us.  Jay and Gunnar are starting to interact more and it is such a joy to watch.  I love that they get to grow up together!

Jay is getting tall. He had his 4 year well check up last week and is "healthy as horse".  He has started attempting to tell jokes....its humorous but not in the way he thinks :).   He has also once again begun going to the playroom and playing by himself (after Gunnar was born he didn't do that for a few months).  I think he's adjusted to not being the only child in the house anymore.

James is keeping busy.  He is still working on fixing things up around the house and finishing the changes we've wanted to make.  I'm proud of how hard he works and how nice everything is looking.  He made Jay's bed and our dining room table.  I will post pictures of those on another blog post soon.  He is also busy at work, although not flying too much due to the drastic weather we've been having.

I'm getting back into shape. I just completed a bootcamp at the Crossfit gym James goes too.  I made GREAT progress the last 4 weeks and feel wonderful! I'm going to join the gym and keep up the work.  Besides that I've just been busy with church, MOPS, and taking care of the kids and the house.  I am really enjoying life.

Well, I'll post again soon with those pictures of James' amazing building skills. For now, here are a few pictures from the last few months!

Yes, projectile spit up has happened MANY times!

Auntie Tiff Photo Bomb!

Sweet baby!

Auntie Beth!!

There's been some of this.... in our house too :)

But most importantly, in our house, there has been a whole lotta LOVE!

Our Littlest Blessing is Here and a blog hiatus is beginning!

We are so blessed and happy to announce that our new son Gunnar Nathaniel was born on Friday October 11th at 11:05 am.  He was 7lbs and 20 1/2 inches long.  He came in a hurry and therefore mommy delivered him naturally within 10 minutes of arriving at the hospital.  He is healthy and doing great!

We are, of course, very busy now taking care of a newborn and attempting to still take care of my 3 year old while dealing with very little sleep. Therefore, anything less important is on hold until things slow down (we'll see how long that'll be...at least 3 months I'm assuming and up to 1 year if need be).   Pardon the interruption but family is our priority right now.  See you soon!

PS. We cover your prayers as we tackle this new challenge in parenting.  God bless!

Our Kitchen Makeover!!!

It's Done!! 

Wow! I am so excited to be able to share this with you. It's taken a LOT of hard work and a LOT of time spread out over a few months because of James being in IPC.  But it is finally done and it is lovely!! 

Before I start on the details of all it took to completely redo the kitchen in our first home, I want to brag on my hubby for a bit.  The longer I'm married to that man, the more he impresses me.  He can pretty much do anything he puts his mind to.  He is a great daddy, he is a wonderful pilot of both helicopters and fixed wing, he stays in great shape, he eats well, he gives his all in every area of his life, he fixes our own cars, builds things, and apparently is pretty great at remodeling as well.  I mean , really,  what can't he do??  He impresses me every day with how hard he works and how much money he saves us by being willing to take the time to work on stuff other would just hire out.  Baby,  I am impressed by you every day and I want to thank you for staying up late at night and working on our kitchen every spare minute so that I would be happy cooking our meals there.  I love you and I appreciate you more than I can express in words. 

Okay, now that the mushy stuff is out of the way lets get down to what we've done to our kitchen since moving into our home.  The kitchen when we first saw it was probably my least favorite part of the house.  It was fine, and functional...but just seriously outdated.   Here is what it looked like when we looked at the house. 

Our house was built in 1992, and this kitchen just showed it.  It wasn't bad just needed some updating.  So, what did we do?  We completely redid just about everything except for the floor and the light fixtures.  This is what the kitchen looked like before we began doing the hard work. 

First, we pulled out the cabinets and old back-splash and did some drywall work to correct some that was pulled off when the cabinets wouldn't come down easily.  While James was working on that, I was busy out in our 3 car garage staining unfinished cabinets. It took several full days to stain them all as you can imagine from these pictures. 

In total, we stained 19 cabinets and about 37 cabinet doors/drawers.  It was a lot of work but we saved enough money by doing this ourselves that we were able to splurge on our counter tops and actually get GRANITE!! I would totally do it again.  Here is a before and after of our cabinets themselves. 

Once all the cabinets were done, James (with the help of my dad one weekend) rehung our new cabinets and added an L shape to the right side of our kitchen (you'll see what I mean in a few moments).  So now we had cabinets hung but no counter top.  We got down to the business of picking counter tops and ordering them before we had to head to Alabama for James to start IPC.   They were installed , along with our new sink, a week or so after Jay and I came back from being in Alabama with James for a few weeks.  

Kitchen with new paint job and cabinets but no counter tops or new appliances yet.  See how the spot for the fridge is gone?? Read below to see where it went. 

Not seen in our before pictures of our kitchen is our breakfast nook/ pantry area (we were busy working and forgot the before photos).   The back wall in our kitchen used to have one huge pantry with folding doors.  That is where the washer and dryer used to be.  Well, we decided to just go ahead and move our washer and dryer down to the basement to give us some extra space in the kitchen.  (There is a partially finished room down in the basement that we plan to finish off and make into a laundry/mud room.)   With the washer and dryer out of the way, James reconfigured the pantry.  Making a cut out space for our refrigerator and a smaller size pantry next to it.  This freed up a lot of room where our refrigerator used to be, so we now have a LOT more cabinet and counter top space.   

When James came home one weekend to visit he added crown molding to our cabinets which I really like. It dresses them up quite a bit!  We also got some discounted stainless steel appliances to replace the white ones in the kitchen (with the exception of the fridge because its an AWESOME fridge).  James installed all of this himself. 

James also added some bead board wainscoting to our breakfast nook which I also adore.  It has turned out so beautifully.  We did the same in the dining room which you can kind of see in some of our completed after pictures below.  I'll do a separate post with photo's of the dining room at another point (once we have a dining room table).   

When James got home from IPC a couple of weeks ago, there was a little bit of trim work left to do in the kitchen and the last big project...the back-splash.  I hemmed and hawed about what to do for the back-splash. I'm not great at having an eye for things ahead of time and I knew our back-splash could make or break the kitchen I had fallen in love with already.   We finally chose some and got to work on it last week.  Overall, I think it was a great choice and it has completed our kitchen beautifully!  

Are you ready for some kitchen before and afters??

Before

AFTER!!!!!

BEFORE

AFTER!!!!

BEFORE!!!

AFTER!!!

I love my new kitchen and I am so proud that we did every single little part of this makeover by ourselves with the exception of installing the granite counter tops and the new sink/faucet.  Neither of us have ever done anything like this before and I think for our first go around it turned out well. We made some mistakes along the way but hopefully that means if and when we do it again we've learned and the process should be a lot smoother!  

Because I love it so much here are a few more photos along with some that include our breakfast area. 

Breakfast nook :)

Love these counter tops!

Made the menu board last week :)

So we are enjoying using our new kitchen and are overall very happy with how its turned out.  It was a lot of work and like I said....we made mistakes so it's not perfect but I am PERFECTLY happy with it.  I love our new home.  

Now this was a picture taken before our kitchen was completely complete but the cuteness can't be contained.  So I leave you with what happens when you let a 3 year old play in the sink and go to the bathroom for a minute.  

He WILL climb in the full kitchen sink clothes and all and then tell you he's "just taking a bath".  Needless to say, the kitchen is fun for all of us!