My baby started school !

Well, the day I'd been dreading forEVER finally came on Wednesday. Sending my 5 yr old off to school. I remember last yr, when I walked my 1st grader in, and left sobbing. Not because he was going back to school. But, because I couldn't get the picture out of my head that it was going to be Asher in a year.
Man, was I a MESS!!! When I opened doors in the morning to yell "good morning" and get everyone up, a huge lump hit my throat and I couldn't say a word. Just started to cry..right there, first thing in the morning!
We made it through getting dressed, breakfast, and outside for pictures before my next breakdown. Cried driving there, cried walking to the building, cried every time someone would make eye contact with me. Although most my friends knew enough to look away and not say a WORD!
We were rushed to get him to class after walking Micah down to his class. Which was for the best. That way, I didn't hang around..sobbing. I walked him in, kissed him goodbye, snapped a pic and ducked out. Shoulder shaking, snorting, UGLY cry all the way to the car.
Got home, grabbed his pillow and teddy bear and watched cartoons on the couch most of the morning. Crying, of course.
Day two wasn't as bad, but I was still a slight mess.
Friday I pulled it together not to cry at ALL when I dropped him off. In fact, I think the only tears I shed that day were at Wal-mart when I saw a mother yelling at her 4 yr old. I kept thinking, man..I wish that was me. Just ONE more year at home with my little buddy. I'm going to miss shopping with him. Naps, lunch at the coffee table, picnics, playdates, special days at Chuck E Cheese and Fun City.
Sigh!

I made a little video tribute...the sap that I am.

Tomorrow is a whole week, where last week was only 3 days. Hope it goes well for us BOTH.

kitchen update!

Ok, this is totally the forgotten blog. That's what happens when you take off for a WONDERFUL Ca vacation, and all your computer time is spent on Face Book.

I'll get some vacation pics posted soon. For now, here's some quick pics of the new paint job the kitchen got this weekend. I'll miss the red. But, I think it lightens the space. Makes the cabinets MUCH more tolerable (still not a fan of builder honey oak..blech) I may be able to get another...oh, 2 months out of the kitchen before I'm demanding more changes. Sooner or later, those cabinets WILL be painted :) I was also starting to feel the red was kind of dated. Not a single kitchen picture I've clipped in the last year has red walls. So, I think like always..my taste is changing.
Still trying to figure out tops of cabs. If we paint, we'll beef up the molding so I won't have to feel compelled to put dust collectors up there.

half way there!

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted an update on my husband's WONDERFUL handy work.
Ah, perhaps it's because it took him forEVER a day to get it done. Seriously, those with OCD and are completely anal..should not attempt such a job.
I joked with others that he not only back buttered every piece. He toasted it, slapped on some jelly and scrambled an egg to go with it!!
I ended up doing the grouting on day FIVE. Yes, I said day five. He started late on Friday. Worked about 12 hours on Sat, I kid you not. I thought we'd be done on Saturday, and moved on to something else. Nope. Didn't happen. Sunday, after church he went right back at it. By 10:30 that night, he'd finally made it to the stove. Sigh. The end in site?? Not so much.
My mother and I went shopping Monday and left him in the middle of the stove. Came home 5 hours later. Found him...in the middle of the stove, LOL. It was painful to watch, it really was. It was like the pink elephant in the room. I'd walk in the kitchen, try not to say anything. If I dared to say something was off, or didn't look right. A whole section would come down and he'd obsess even MORE. We went four whole days barely speaking. Which is odd for us, because we usually have such a good time together. Late Monday night, I finally got a big sigh of relief and a huge smile.."I'm done!". Bless his heart. He says tile is now his least favorite home improvement. For years, plumbing has been at the top of his list. I don't think I could get him to do this again for ANYTHING. He really, really didn't like it.
As I mentioned, I grouted. And I will say..that kind of sucked a bit. My shoulders were hurtin for a few days. MUCH more physical then putting a few little tiles on a wall :)
Together we caulked it on Thursday night.

I'm happy with is. I think he did an AWESOME job for never doing anything like this before. It really lightens up the kitchen, which I love. And we were both so burned out we thought we'd end here. Not paint the walls and cabinets. But, who are we kidding? We're goin' all the way, baby :)

We also got some new hardware for the cabinets (thanks mom. my bday present :) )
We started with ORB, put after a wk of living with it. Just didn't do it for us.
So, we switched to chrome. I liked it more when it was just one knob I was looking at. The whole kitchen in them..eh. It's ok. I'll love it more when the cabs are painted.



david hard at work



here's a close up when we had the orb knobs up


and chrome

I'll slap on a before to remind everyone how HORRID my kitchen was before the new counters and back splash. All that crap above the cabinets. What was I thinking???? It looks like what it is...my mother's old stuff, lol.
This is why we wanted to raise the cabinets. To eliminate the "need" to have anything up there. We've moved on to another idea...beefing up the molding. So, we'll see in the future how that pans out. Or..how long it takes :)

We'll move on to painting the walls next. I've grown to hate the red :( It especially doesn't work with the oak cabinets. I don't think it ever did, but I love it in the eat in area with all the white moulding and the window. And once we paint the cabinets, it really won't work. So, out it goes!

Backsplash

We have now officially begun tiling the back splash. We've decided to go with subway tile from Lowes. One of the reasons....they're a whoppin' 22 cents a piece!! :)

That, and I just love the look. We thought briefly about beadboard. But, I really wanted to give this a shot.

David took the day off to have a four day weekend in order to get something accomplished. We planned on hitting the cabinets. But, the paint guy at Benjamin Moore all but talked me out of painting when I left there yesterday. I sent David a text, told him what was up. He responded that it was like the guy at McDonald's trying to talk me out of a cheeseburger, LOL.
He was pushing a one step stain, or gel stain. He told me to take a door off, and bring it to him and he could test some colors on the inside. So, we did that first thing this morning. Of course, he wasn't there. Another guy helped us, and couldn't get the stain to stay on our varnished cabs. Well, DUH! I knew that. Really...I did. But, the other dude told me to bring in a door. So...I did :) This guy then proceeded to talk us back into painting..ugh. My biggest fear with painting, is the durability. And...the brush strokes. He gave us 100 different opinions and options. Talked to us about oil based, water based. Discussed with us the idea of renting a sprayer, and using it for the doors only.
My head was spinning. So, we bought tile.

We got such a late start that we gave up for the night. We'll start fresh in the morning.

No clue what we're doing here..so it shall be fun. HA!

Picnic table make-over!

Man, I wish I had a good "before" shot. But..I don't.
This table was given to us by some friends who moved back to Holland last yr. It was painted a really pretty light blue. I liked the color, but since it's right outside our living room window..it had to change. Once inside our living room, my eyes were constantly being drawn outside to the blue table.
I forgot when we started this project, what a PAIN red paint is. Took three coats, and it's still not done. But..I'm out of paint and the will. Seriously..I now hate red, lol. It may not have been so hard had I not gone cheap, and just used the primer I had. It really could have used some gray primer. MUCH easier to cover. Still would have sucked. But, maybe not so bad.
And when I say "we"..that'd be me and the small tot. Yes, Asher did almost as much if not MORE then I did!!! He helped me prime the first day, and worked his booty off getting underneath that table for the first two coats. I do believe I served him lunch under there, LOL. After being in pain for a couple days, from my back twisting to reach the underneath parts that showed..a light bulb went off. Why didn't we just flip the stupid thing, and paint it that way!?! UGH!
So, for the last coat..David and I turned it over (sucker is heavy, too) And then I just tossed another coat on the top when it was upright.

It's not perfect..but it'll do. I wanted to do something fun. Polka dots, flowers? Bugs!?! :) I ended up just tossing a couple random flowers on it and calling it a day. Less is more..right??


Look at the concentration on that boy's face!!





Such a nice night last night, we had dinner out there. Probably one of the last times with all the buggies getting ready to come out soon. David was a wreck the whole time. Checking his feet and legs for spiders, lol.

Goodbye Christmas Kitchen!!!

We no longer have green kitchen counters!!!!!

Ever since we had the bright idea to paint the kitchen red, in spite of the counters. I've HATED walking into that space. From the garage, my eyes would go to the counter. Coming from the boy's bedroom, bam..right there to that green backsplash behind the stove. Entering the living room, from our room..I'd look at that counter.
My friends and family were pretty sick and tired of hearing about it, I'm sure.
I could easily re-laminate my whole kitchen all over again, just with samples from over the last couple yrs. Trying to find the right color was the hardest. And wouldn't ya know it? The first one I liked, almost 2 yrs ago. Was the one we went with in the end!! We also played with the idea of doing granite tile. I'm sooo glad we opted out of that one. I'm happy with this. We went for the Wilsonart High Definition laminate. It's not granite..but, it worked well with our budget (or lack there of) And we're not worried about the market and never recouping the cost.


Before

after









Now, we're on to the backsplash.
I think we've opted to go with white subway tile. I know it appears too "stark" next to the richness of the counter. I've been told it'll work if we ditch the oak. Which is the long term goal...to paint the cabinets. I've longed to paint those suckers since the day we bought the house.
But, man..that's a LOT of work. And considering we took off the boy's bathroom vanity doors, umm..2 yrs ago? Primed, and tossed them in the garage until JUST last month. Not so sure we're up for it. :)
I worry about resale,too. In a couple yrs, are new buyers going to come in and be turned off by painted cabinets. Does everyone hate builder, honey oak as much as we do???
We thought about white..but, the appliances stand in our way there. Actually, they stand in the way with my other plan. BLACK! Yep, I long to have black kitchen cabinets. Yes, like many others out there. I'm in love with this kitchen, done by Layla and her husband over at The Lettered Cottage.


They were obviously able to pull off black and white. But, I know she has intentions of going with SS appliances soon. Where we do not. She has wood floor. We do not. Also, we went with a dark laminate. Not sure what her granite will be later on. Maybe something lighter to provide more contrast? We've taped black construction paper all over the cabinets, and well..it doesn't suck, lol. I think I kind of like it. But, for now..I think we'll just focus on the backsplash. See where that takes us. If it's horrible with the cabinets, we'll give painting them a go.
I'm losing steam..and we've hardly done a thing, lol.

"damn horse"

Thursday morning, shortly after I dropped Asher off at Mother's Day Out...I got "the call". You know the one. Your kid has done this. Or..your kid has said that.
They were having a pet show at school, and instructed to bring a stuffed animal. Asher chose his big horse. (Yea, cause that was easy to drag through the wet parking lot, along with backpack and lunchbox)
When I saw the call coming through, my first thought..oh nuts, he's sick. Then, of course my head went to swine flu. Even though I'd just seen him 30 mins before. It's just the way I'm wired. Always thinking the worse.
The director, who also happens to be a good friend of mine (thank God) says.."what's Asher's horse's name?". I told her I had no clue. Brownie?? Bob? Fluffy turtle bottom??
She says "it's Damn". Say what?? She repeats.."his horse's name is Damn". I tell her there's no WAY that's what he's saying. Reminded her of the slight speech impediment my 5 yr old has. And inform her that I'm fully prepared to use that excuse through high school, if I can :)
She tells me when he was asked to tell everyone his horse's name, he said "damn". They asked again..same response. His teacher and Rhonda (director) both trying not to laugh looked at each other making sure they were hearing the same thing. The other kids started to reassure them saying "he said DAMN". So, it was dropped.
Rhonda told Ms. Tammy that she just assumed I wasn't so thrilled to have to be taking the big, ol' horse to school. And yelled "come on Asher, get that damn horse in the car" LOL.
When I got there, I pulled him to the side and asked what his horse's.
"Damn". I asked again, and he looked kind of embarassed...said, "daaamn" really slow. I asked if he knew it was a bad word, then repeated it back to him. I get "not DAMN...DAMN". Um, ok. I said..spell it, lol. Course, he couldn't..but it was worth a shot, right?
Then he said like the "door". Ahh...door jam??? His name is JAM????? Nope.
He said "like the door. The one with the creme puffs". Then it hits me. "Sam's Club??". The store, NOT door..where we eat our way through the samples on the weekends. I get a big "YES!", out of the boy. "His name is Sam??". He grins and nods. "Um, like your last name??". He thinks about it, smiles then says.."hmm, yea", LOL. Who knew the kid couldn't even say his last name???
I assured him that we'd work on that before kindy in the fall.