Day 2: More Wreckage

Look at all that space!

Day 1: Wreckage

Before

After the cupboards and appliances were removed

During the demolition of the drop-down ceiling

They had some awesome wallpaper. And 3 layers of linoleum under our laminate floor.

I Feel Like I am Moving and Dead Camera

I talked to our contractor this morning and he said we'd be starting the demolition of the kitchen tomorrow. Being unprepared for this to take place, I spent the whole entire day cleaning out my kitchen. I had to take everything off the walls, remove the curtains and of course pack up all the dishes. My kitchen and living areas look so bare. It really feels like we are moving. It is kind of weird actually. I moved everything down to our storage room and into my office. We are setting up a temporary kitchen there. Hopefully we can get the fridge down our bendy and narrow stairs. I have a waffle iron, a griddle, crock pot and I am going to borrow a hot plate from a friend. The only thing I am really lacking is a sink. I have a feeling that doing dishes in the bathtub is going to get old reaaaaally fast.

I got my camera out to take some pictures of the bare kitchen and living room. Unfortunately I think it is officially dead. I am not even getting pink and melty. Just black and liney. I was really looking forward to taking pictures of the destruction tomorrow. I guess I will just have to use my cell phone. (NO!!!!!)

A Memory of Me

Ok, so I saw this on a friends blog and thought it would be fun. So here goes.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

3. If you leave a memory about me, I'll come to your blog and and leave one for you if you decide to play. And I really think you should.

Like my friend Megan said:
"This is kindof like the blogging version of those annoying chain e-mails we all get, but without the seven years of bad luck, or windfall of money in three days, or wishes coming true within the week...oh and another difference is that this is actually fun!!"

Come on guys. YOU know you want to. I am tagging everyone who is reading this.

Amphibian Friends for Mario and Luigi

Remember Mario and Luigi? Well they have some new friends. 14 new friends to be exact. 13 tadpoles and 1 frog.

There is a place near our house where water collects and it has become a frog habitat. This is our 4th summer here and we just found out about it. All the neighborhood kids collect tadpoles and take them home and watch them grow into frogs. Then at the end of the summer, you just take the froggies back to their little swampy home and hope they'll produce a lot of offspring for next summer. These are truly the perfect pets. No commitment. No poo to clean up. No barking, licking, shots, running off etc. My kids and I are excited about our new froggies.

Hmmmm. Do you think this one is a prince?

1986

I was cleaning out some old junk and I found some of my school journals from 4th grade: (spelling and punctuation errors included)

What I Want to Do With My Life

"I want to go to BYU for collage then I want to be a kindergarten-teacher and a mother. I would teach my class their A,B,C's and read them stories. On the weekend I would take my family to the parks and have a picnic on a nice day. I would go on field-trips with my kindergarten class, we would go to the zoo or the children's museum or something like that. I want to have 4 children. I want two girls and two boys."

Ten Years From Now!

"In 10 years I will be 20 and maired. I am a gymnastics coach. I teach the beam, uneven bars and My friend teaches vault and floor. My husband works at a catfood factory called purina and gets $100 dollars a day. We live in a one story house in Littleton Colorado. We are planning to go to California with our one child. She is 2 years old. we are what you call sort of rich. Our child's name is Stephanie. She can say dad mom baby frog. She also knows her colors. "

Hmmmm. Let's see, at 20 I was not married and I and certainly didn't have a 2 year old.... My hubby doesn't work in a cat food factory, but he does make more than $100 per day ($12.50 per hour). I don't live in Colorado, I don't have a daughter named Stephanie, I am neither a gymnastics coach nor a kindergarten teacher. Having 2 girls and 2 boys would definitely been great but that didn't happen either.

Roll Recipe

This is my favorite roll recipe. I have had several people ask me for it so here it is:

French Rolls
2 c. water (very warm)
1 T. yeast
3 T. sugar
2 T. oil
2 t. salt
~5 c. flour
corn meal
1 egg white
2 T. water


Place sugar and yeast in water. Add salt and oil. Add 3 cups of flour and mix well. Add about 2 more cups of flour gradually. Cover and let rise until double. Cut into 20-24 pieces. Grease cookie sheet and sprinkle well with corn meal (0ptional). Shape each dough piece into a ball.

Let rise for 30 minutes or until double. Mix egg white with 2 T. water. Brush each dough ball with egg mixture.

Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove from oven and brush again with egg/water mixture. Bake 10 more minutes or until golden. Makes about 2 dozen smaller rolls or 20 larger ones.


And hey, I am not feelin' the love so much around here so be nice to me and leave me a comment ok??? Maybe I'll make some of these for you..... Thanks!

Kitchen Update

We went to pick our cabinets yesterday and the cabinet guy printed out this 3D floor plan for us. Here's how the kitchen will look after (minus the blue floors and countertops of course).

It looks like we are going start around August 11ish. No final start date though. Hopefully it will be soon! We are getting really exicted!

Our Best Bites

A couple of my friends have a really fun cooking blog called Our Best Bites. If you haven't checked it out you really should. They have some really awesome recipes for yummy things like: Mini-Cheesecake Tarts, Homemade Tortillas which I LOVE, and I can't wait to try the Mango Pineapple Sorbet. I have had several friends go to their site from mine and everyone loves the recipes they have over there. Check it out and let me know what you think! (You can add cool blinkies to your blogs if you wanna be a groupie too.)

Update

It's been awhile since I updated. So here goes:

• The kids go back to school in 2.5 weeks. They are excited, I am excited.
  
  
• We survived 2 weeks of 9 a.m. swimming lessons.
  
  
• Peanut Butter Sandwich Week ended up getting cut short because I am so nice and I had mercy on the kids. They didn't like it at all for the couple of days that we did it. There is always the threat that next time I really WILL do it for a whole week.
  
  
• The kitchen remodel hasn't started yet. The cabinet guy is pretty busy right now so we are waiting for awhile so that we will be sure the cabinets are ready when we are ready for them. We could start anytime but we'd have stop working when we got to the cabinets and wait for him. We are HOPING to start in about a week.
  
  
• Adele is 9 months old. She weighed 15 Lbs. 1 oz. at her check-up. She had actually lost a bit of weight because the week before she went to the Dr. for an ear/sinus infection and thrush. I have to take her back in a month to have her weighed again. She is crawling all over the place now and eating everything.
  
  
  
  
• I had a cooking disaster last night which involved getting 2 bowls of wheat flour mixed up. One was for my muffins and one was just some extra flour that wouldn't fit into the freezer bag. I was saving it for some rolls I was going to make for Sunday dinner. The cinnamon, sugar, baking powder and salt ended up NOT making it into the pumpkin muffins last night and lets just say they were nas-tay. The only reason they were even sort of edible was that they had chocolate chips in them. The kiddos actually LIKED the pumpkin-flavored blobs. Go figure. This morning when I was making the rolls I found it odd that they smelled like cinnamon. Then I figured it out. So, I guess we'll see how the rolls taste later huh?
  
  
• Here's my latest sewing project: Another apron. This one features one long strap that slides through some casings on the back making it very adjustable.

Teletubby Bowling

Unfortunately for Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po, they are now officially on the black list. They reside there with Dora the Explorer, Elmo, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. And the Care Bears. Tinky Winky and Po managed to escape the violence of this particular occasion but they may not be as lucky next time.

Dipsy narrowly escapes destruction

Until Babyzilla enters the scene

Deoxyribonucleic Acid

Elise: "I think I can see my DNA."
Emilia: "You CAN'T see DNA."
Elise. *pause* "....Maybe...."
Emilia: "You're weird."

I am not sure where they heard about DNA. I guess it's from watching science/nature movies this summer.

When I Grow Up...

My kids were talking about this in the car today. Here's what they said they wanted to be
(And surprisingly nobody said: (cue music) When I grow up, I want to be a mother... and have a fam-i-ly, 1 lit-tle 2 li-ttle 3 lit-tle babies of my own.....)

Emilia: ("I want to make LOTS of money")
Swimming Lessons Teacher
Librarian
Horse Rider

Elise:
Trapeze Girl
Restaurant Owner. Restaurant name: Kitty Cafe. Menu: kitty shaped pancakes and kitty shaped pizza, and cat food for the cats.

Ian:
Dentist
Airplane Driver ("That's a Pi-lin mom".)

Adele:
Da-da
Nay-nay
We are anxiously awaiting the translation.

Official Declaration

I hereby declare that at my house it is officially:

Peanut Butter Sandwich Week

It has nothing to do with the upcoming kitchen remodel. It is actually rather unfortunate that while I still have full access to my kitchen I am being forced to take such drastic measures.

Today I made a homemade chicken pot pie with a biscuit top crust for dinner. Entirely from scratch. I didn't put any onions in it because the kids don't like onions. I cooked the peas and carrots separately in the hopes that the kids would eat it if it didn't have cooked vegetables in it. They hate all cooked vegetables. (At least they THINK they do.) So the chicken pot pie was made of: chicken, potatoes, gravy and biscuit crust. Pretty simple. Pretty basic. My kids like those things. Right?

What happens when we sit down to dinner:

"Ewww, that looks SO deeesgusting!"
"It doesn't just LOOK deeesgusting, it SMELLS deeesgusting."
"I am NOT eating this."
"Do we really have to eat this?"
"This is SOOOOO gross."
"Ewwww."

And so after about 5 minutes of gagging and complaining I said: "I work really hard to cook good food for you guys and you sit here and tell me it is disgusting and that you don't want to eat it. Well, I am not going to cook for you guys any more this week. I am officially declaring this Peanut Butter Sandwich Week." So there you have it. My kids are eating PB and J all week for dinner. Now here is the decision that must be made: Do I make all the foods they hate so we can enjoy them without worrying about what to feed them, or do I make all the foods they love just to rub it in??? Hmmmm. (Yeah, I know, REAL mature. Maybe by Friday I will show mercy on them. If they are sufficiently humble.) ;) Oh, and I am still deciding whether to cut off the crusts or not.

Photos courtesy of greenhead.com and boston.com

Kitchen Plan

Here's the old plan, turned so both are facing the same direction. And here's the new plan.

Looks like we'll be starting (hopefully) at the end of next week. The remodel should take about 2 months. (FUN!)

Kitchen Remodel

Ok, I promised that I'd blog about my kitchen remodel this week. So here it is.

First, I'd like to start with the way the kitchen looked when we were looking at the house:

No, your eyes are NOT playing tricks on you. Those ARE cows painted on the side of the cupboard by the stove.

So, here's how it looked after we took down the wall paper, painted over the cow mural and painted over the yellow sponge paint (which I must add was also in the family room and down the hallway and down the stairs.)

Another view, kind of a bad photo, but you get the idea. I wanted to post this so you could see through the doorway by the table. That's the living room. So, this is how the 3 rooms look:

As many of you know, the 70's will forever be remembered by bell bottoms, popcorn ceiling WITH asbestos (which we have all been exposed to, and now we'll have lung cancer in 40 years), and drop down ceilings in kitchens. Oh, and LSD, but I am SURE that LSD has NOTHING to do with the aforementioned things.

Why we are remodeling our kitchen:

• Our kitchen has a drop-down ceiling and it is in the middle of the room and the "work triangle" (fridge, stove, sink) is the highest traffic area in the kitchen.
  


• The countertops we have now are literally falling apart and we frequently snag our clothing on them. (I ruined a brand new shirt the other day.)
  
  


• The cupboards are 30 years old and they have been painted way too many times. The paint dents when they get banged.
  
  


(My camera is doing the psycho "melty baby thing again")



• The sink area is beyond nasty. The people who lived here before us got countertops and must have done a lot of the work themselves because they cut the hole too big for the sink and instead of getting a new piece of countertop and doing it right, they just put tile around the sink. Easy solution right? Well, the tile is cracked in several places and I swear there are 100 nasty diseases living under that tile. We have recaulked it several times and it just gets gross so fast. Wanna see???
  
  I shudder. I am sure you do too.

So, basically because everything is falling apart we decided to remodel. And since we were going to be getting new counters and cupboards we decided to also change the floor plan so we would not have the kitchen in the middle of the room. So, next week, the demolition guys are coming in and they are going to tear down that drop-down ceiling and rip out the wall that separates the living room and the kitchen. They are going to move the kitchen to where the family room is and make it one big great room. I have a picture of the new layout but I have to scan it before I can post it. That'll give you a reason to come back to my blog tomorrow huh?

Just Like Christmas

The "ups truck" brought me a present yesterday. Here's what I bought for myself. A 7- cup Kitchenaid food processor!



It was seriously just like Christmas. After it arrived I was saying things like, "Ooooh this is so cool" and "I LOVE this thing!" and "Woooo HOOOO!" and my kids thought I was a total weirdo. Elise said it was boring. Until I started shredding things. I made a carrot and cabbage coleslaw and also shredded some cheese. Elise informed me after I was done that she was glad she stayed around to watch the food processor. I was telling my kids how sharp the blades were and to never ever stick their fingers inside or they would get chopped off.

Elise said this: " If you wanted no fingers you could just put your fingers inside the food processor and your wish would come true!"

Tips for Burglars

Usually I am posting funny things Ian or Elise says. Today Emilia said something pretty funny:

"If I was a burglar I'd dress up like a missionary and go over to people's houses. Then when they let me in I'd walk around their house stealing their stuff. IF I was a burglar..."

So, if you are a burglar, there is a new technique you can try out.

Update

I have been a blogging slacker this week. Unfortunately for my 2 readers, my inner blogging voice has been temporarily replaced by my inner nasty-letter-writing voice. The dogs in my neighborhood bark pretty much all the time. The other morning they woke me up at 4 and I could still hear them even with a fan on and my earplugs in my ears. That's when my new voice started talking in my head. It baffles me how clueless people are to let their dogs bark 24 hours a day without any thought that perhaps, somebody could be disturbed by it. I could go on, but I won't. Back to the point. I have been busy the last couple of weeks, but not too much worth writing an entire blog post about. Just the daily stuff that goes on when you take care of kiddos all day. So, here's just a general update of what we have been up to.

• Our summer vacation is half over. The kids have been fighting a lot. I am excited for school to start. I think they are together too much (and they are definitely around me too much. I like being around them when they are getting along but when they are fighting it makes me crazy.)
  
  
• We are finalizing the plans for our upcoming kitchen remodel. I will dedicate an entire post to this next week.
  
  
• My 3 older kids start swimming lessons tomorrow.
  
  
• We had a fun 4th of July with 2 different sets of friends. One family came over during the day for a lunch bbq and we also invited some friends to come over later to watch some fireworks with us. The kids had fun and of course the food was great.
  
  
  

  All the babies in my family that were born within the last year wearing their matching 4th of July outfits. This was taken at our Bear Lake reunion. It was naptime and all the babies were pretty grumpy.




• Adele has been sleeping through the night. She generally wakes up around 11:30 or 12 am and I feed her but then she sleeps until 8 or 8:30. I have been staying up that late but it isn't too bad since all the kids are sleeping in. It is absolutely wonderful to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Well, except for all the barking dogs. And the birds that chirp at 5 a.m. Sleeping with the window open in the summer is hard for me because I am such a light sleeper.
  
  
• Adele has officially begun crawling. She started "army crawling" a couple of weeks ago and was pretty slow. Now she is FAST and all over the place. And eating everything, everywhere. Time to get things baby proofed again. Oh, and she still has thrush. It didn't completely go away while she was on her medicine. She has her 9 month check up coming up soon so I guess we'll have the Dr. look at it then.

Fingerpainting

My kids have been begging me forever to let them fingerpaint. They were going to play with a friend but then plans changed so they were bored and they wanted something to do. I was trying to be a fun mom so despite the mess and my better judgement I let them fingerpaint.



I left for a minute to go check my email. (Bad idea. Lesson #1 never ever leave paint covered kids unattended.) I came back to find that they were not only fingerpainting but footpainting as well. And walking all over the kitchen floor. So, we cleaned up and now my kids are banned from fingerpainting for the rest of their lives.

The amount of time from start to finish of the fingerpainting activity? 10 minutes. Time it took me to clean up fingerpaint mess? 15 minutes. If the clean-up takes longer than the activity it is definitely not worth the trouble.