My Evening Alone With the Monsters -- i mean kids

Just in case anyone out there was just thinking, "wow, this has been a rough night" let me put things into perspective for you:

First, I had some chocolate cake in the fridge (courtesy of my friend Tiffany) and I was really looking forward to delving into it after the kids went to bed. But Nicole wanted a bite. So I got it out for her and told her she could have a couple of bites. I got pulled away by a ringing telephone and forgot about the cake. It would have been okay if she had just eaten the whole thing. THAT I could deal with. Instead, she dumped all of the salt and pepper from the shakers all over this cake. "Oh, just pick around it" I hear you say. Too late, she stirred it up!! Well, that is really unfortunate, but then after trying a bite, she no longer liked it so what did she do? Yup, she gave it to the baby. Tori takes handful after handful of this and smears it all over herself (just out of the bath) and the kitchen floor. Meanwhile, Tyler is having some popcorn for his snack. He thought he would be a nice brother and share with Tori so he put the whole bowl on the floor. She's already sticky from the cake so now she has crawled over to the popcorn and is basically rolling around in it. She looks like she has been tarred and feathered. If I wasn't so tired and frustrated (and disappointed about not getting any cake!) I would have thought it was funny and taken a picture. Instead I got mad, cleaned it up and missed a great photo opportunity. Sometimes I wish I could fast forward through moments of my life and that was one of them.

So I hope you feel better about your evening. I promise not to complain quite so much in my next blog post. :-)

Nicole's got attitude

Okay, so seriously. Nicole is going to be trouble. She's smarter than she lets on and she has these amazing brown eyes that just melt my heart. I have a hard time getting really angry with her when she looks at me and does her I-know-I'm-in-trouble-but-I'm-going-to-smile-anyway face. She loves to wear earrings and lip gloss and toss her hair around. She plays dress up all day and I LOVE having girls!!! Here's some cute pictures I took of her this morning. Some people say she looks totally different with this headband on. Sometimes she likes to "see her eyebrows" so we have to pull her bangs back.

We did it!!!!

The kitchen is done!!!! I'm so excited! I love it. I was a complete wuss for 3 years and was too chicken to tell Ben what I wanted because I was scared to do something of my own vision. I always wait until someone else tells me what I should do and I do it. This was the first time I had a picture in my head of what I wanted and did it! All I had to do was tell my awesome husband what I wanted and he made it happen. What a lucky girl I am! It took longer than I had hoped (almost 2 weeks) but it's finally done and I'm thrilled. We couldn't work during the day because of the kids, but from 8:30 - midnight, we worked our butts off and now it's time to catch up on some sleep. :-)Here's some pictures.

Progress Update

There is a light at the end of the tunnel! I'm happy with the progress we've made. Here's some pictures of what my kitchen looks like today.


This is after priming the cabinet boxes.












This is after our first coat of paint. As you can see, the island is black and the rest of the cabinets are white. There's an armoire that you can't see that will also be painted black. That's what we use as our pantry. I'm also going to paint the base of my kitchen black. I REALLY wish we had a black refrigerator, but don't talk to me about that or I'll get mad. (long story short: when we bought the house one of our requests was that we got to keep the black fridge but when we moved in, they had taken it. The guy was already half way across the country so he said he'd just send us a check for a couple hundred bucks. We found out later that the fridge was top of the line and worth WAY more than he paid us. Jerk. See, I told you I'd get mad.)

So, as you can see, my kitchen is still under construction, but the valances, drapes, and new rug that I ordered should be here ANY MINUTE and I'm excited to start decorating. I'm going to be good and wait until the construction is done because I would be devastated if I got paint on my new stuff. Anyway, I just thought I'd post an update (mostly because David asked me to) and let you know how our project was progressing.

DON'T COME TO MY HOUSE!!

I'm serious. You do NOT want to come over here right now. Why? I'll tell you.

-First, I will make you fat. Yes, you heard me. I made some seriously delicious dessert tonight (not to toot my own horn) and if you eat it, it will make you fat. It is my new favorite dessert recipe and also one of the easiest desserts I've ever made.

See! Doesn't this look good!?

Apple Dumplings

2 Granny Smith apples
2 cans crescent rolls
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
cinnamon
1 can Mountain Dew

Peel and core apples. Cut apples into 8 slices each. Roll each apple slice in a crescent roll. Place in a 9 x 13 buttered pan. Melt butter, then add sugar and barely stir. Add vanilla, stir, and pour over apples. Pour Mountain Dew around the edges of the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve with ice cream, and spoon some of the sweet sauces from the pan over the top.

Thank you Pioneer Woman. I will love you forever.

-Second: Don't come to my house because I WILL put you to work. We started a HUGE home improvement project on Saturday night and now my house is destroyed. I can hear your thoughts all the way from here. "Gee, isn't Saturday night the worst time to start a home improvement project because your house will be destroyed for a whole week because there is no time to work on it until the weekend?" Yes. Thank you for sharing that information with us earlier. Here's a picture of what my kitchen looked like yesterday:

This is what it looks like right now (after hours and hours of sanding and painting:

Not much progress, I know. You know why? Because we decided to practice on the bathroom cabinets so my kitchen hasn't even been touched yet!!! I swear, this project is going to be the death of us.

Many of you have never been to my house and those of you who have probably don't remember what my cabinets looked like. They weren't very memorable, but I have always hated them. When we first looked at this house I thought, "Wow, I hate those cabinets. That's going to be one of the first things I have to get rid of." Instead it's a little over 3 years later and we are just getting to it. We have already replaced the floor, paint, blinds, drapes/valances, faucet (twice) stove/oven, microwave, fridge, lights, tile, and we built a mantle around the fireplace. Here is what my kitchen looked like before:

It's the rounded corners. I just really disliked them. This is what my darling/studly/amazing husband has transformed them into:

Yes, I know, they are only primed. Don't worry, the paint will look better than that. We are going to paint the cabinets on the island black and the rest of them white. I'm going to do redo my whole kitchen in black and white. I'm pretty excited. When we finally get this finished, I'll share pictures of the final product. Pray for us.

Guess who's back?

Uncle Zach is back at our house. Hooray! Sadly, Jimbo and Ellie just left and went back home. They were here for Christmas and New Years. It was great to see them, and the kids loved playing with their one and only cousin. For now Zach is back sleeping on the floor and playing his incredibly nerdy and stupid game World of Warcraft. We are still not sure why he insists on sleeping on the ground, as we have a perfectly good bed for him to use; it has sheets on it and everything. Oh well, what can you do?

This morning, as Zach was 'sleeping' at 10:00, the kids and I started to poke, prod and otherwise annoy him. Eventually it ended up that Zach and I were wrestling. Unbeknownst to us, Kristi started to record our little tussle. We were quite surprised when she showed us the video. I thought it was funny and decided to post it on the blog. Well, by 'decided' what I meant was 'ordered to do so by my beautiful bride'.

So with very little ado, here is the video of us acting like 7th grade girls slap-fighting over a piece of chocolate cake wrestling.



Don't you feel dumberer for having watched that? I thought you might.