Backyard Glow

 It took us all day and it was SOOO worth it! 

The backyard lights are up!

Trip to Utah

 My mom isn't doing much traveling anymore. 

That means if I want to see her...ever...I need to go to her. 

So I did! 

And I must be due for a mental vacation, because I only took a couple pictures while I was there. 

Puzzles with Mom and Kaira

Baby Mac...he doesn't trust me.

Sleepy Deiter...such a wiggly worm!

Mark made sure to send me the goings-on back in Kansas...

Cooking show style cookie making!

Restored

 The kitchen table has seen a lot of action through the years. 

Countless paint projects, nail polish drips, permanent marker streaks, water rings and mindless butterknife notches. 

I always put a table cloth on it...because its a mess. 

Time to strip it down and stain it!

Old:

Thank you, DIY videos!

Taking that layer off is muy delicioso.

All stripped down and pitting on the first coat of stain.

Check it out!! It so shiny!

I just want to lay on it!!

My present

 All I really wanted this year for Christmas was to redo our bedroom. It tends to be a dumping ground all the homeless items in the house. I'm pretty sick of it. We have never painted over the flat brown paint and the lights in the tray ceiling are partially working and kind of orange.

So we painted the walls a soft grey and bought some clean white bedding and hung curtains. It made a huge difference! 

Eventually we'll buy some artwork and it'll be looking put together!

Sabbath Discovery

We were just minding our own business and singing Book of Mormon stories after a very lovely home sacrament meeting when we realized that there are LOADS of verses to that song...

And we couldn't resist singing them all.

Mark provided the questionably offensive raindance strumming.

You really never know what's gonna happen in Hufford First Ward.

Free time

Picture this.

Mark and I sitting on the steps just inside the garage. Looking around at the nasty white walls that show every bump and scuff from the last 14 years. We think about painting. We talk about the color. Would grey be too dark? What about a fresh white coat? But dude. It's summer and it's SOOO hot in that garage. We should do something like that in the fall. 

And then we walk away and we have the same conversation in a year. (We are having way to much fun in the fall to ruin it by painting the garage.)

But this year. 

This year is different. We've got nothing better to do and we have plenty if time to burn. And as we sat on that step this time, all those old conversations came flooding back into my mind and I remembered that once or twice, I promised we'd do that for his birthday.  

Or Father's Day. 

Anniversary......

There's only one thing to do.....CARPE PANDIEM!

We picked a color. Bought the supplies and decided to do the "one wall at a time" method. There is way to much stuff in there to take it all off at the same time. 

Spackling those walls. My word. You have no idea. 

Mark and I make the perfect painting team. I love the trim. I love to cut it in with a high quality brush. That feeling you get when you first see that new color against the white ceiling. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Then he comes in and rolls it out. We are totes MFEO.

The first wall done and we moved on to the tv wall. Look at that nastiness!

Doesn't that look so much better??

And the worst one. That's a lot of stuff to move. I'd bet a thousand dollars that there is at least one mouse family in there that are about to be super ticked.

Inevitably there comes a time in every project when we realize that we are both outside sweating and working and the kids are inside racking up shameful amounts of screen time.

We can take care of that.

It took us 4 days and 23 trips to Home Depot....but it's all done! And we LOVE it.

Happy Father's Birthiversary!

Pensacola: We'll miss you!

We made the drive in record time. Left at 6:20 am and pulled into our driveway at 9:30. The kids were troopers and mostly peed on command when one of them had to "go real bad". When we pull over, we all take advantage of it. Those are words to live by!

We're glad to be home and glad to have have some down time. We now get to quarantine for 14 days because Florida is on Kansas's list. No biggie. We have some shows to binge a chores to do. It'll give my shoulder more time to heal and I can start working on all the masks the kids will need for the start of school. All the kids decided to go back, rather than take the virtual option. So we will be figuring that out soon. It still feels like we are living in the twilight zone, but we're determined to weather it well.

On to our next adventure!

Home Church

We're still going strong.

The ukuleles are a viable option for accompaniment these days. Honestly, I keep praying that Mat will work up a number on his Ocarina...now that's variety.

I did a little watercolor doodle on the top of the programs this morning. It's the first thing I've done without a tutorial, so I'm kinda proud of it. Is it okay to be proud of a sacrament meeting program?

 We are hearing through the grapevine that we will be going back to church in late July. But even then, we'll attend the building only every 3rd week. I'm pretty happy about that. I love doing this with our family. Even when we all forget to make assignments and we sleep in on Sunday morning. We figure it out.

Goal decor...it's a thing

I did it! I found something to put on the blank wall in the kitchen!

Who loves it??

Ethan does!

Time's up

So, redoing the kitchen backfired...just a bit. Suddenly I had this light and sunny kitchen (which I LOVE 😍)  and my family photo wall is all black and white. It just didn't fit anymore. I put that wall together when Everly was a baby, so I suppose it's due for an update. 

I did forget one thing....

I forgot to learn how to do this kind of thing. I didn't dedicate one minute of the last 6 years to mastering this craft.

So I lay it out on the floor. Then I invite Regina over and she lays it out on the floor and we eat soup and have a nice chat. Then I start to feel overwhelmed and Regina senses I might need a little "time to myself" to figure it out. 

Then I made templates of all the frames that I could possibly use and I tape them up so I can see it before I start putting nail holes all willy nilly.

It still looks weird to me. But, I really have no idea how I should go about fixing its weirdness...

So I just pound those nails in and start hanging the frames up. I know in my heart of hearts its still weird and its lacking some type of unknowable something. But I also know that I might not ever be able to fix it.

So I'll stare at the sweet faces of the people I love and probably keep messing with the frames forevermore.

On the bright side...I got a couple updated photos out this whole thing! Everly and Megan were seriously lacking in an pictures that did not feature duck lips or chocolate milk mustaches.

No more!

Goodbye, hello

Goodbye Halloween decoration with your spookiness and your itty bitty spiders all over my house getting sucked up by the vacuum. You were fun while you lasted.

Hello fall mantle. Aren't you just the cutest?

You're welcome.

Kitchen Transformation!!

As you may guess, remodeling a kitchen is not a speedy process. And rather than post 30 times with the little steps that we made (and some BIG steps back), I figured I'd put them all here...so you can see it all in one place. 

Aug 2: We settled on our colors. We took a cabinet door from the living room and had it color matched. We'll use that for the upper cabinets. We chose a dusky blue for the lower cabinets and drawers. I love the two tones in the kitchen and I really don't want to have to battle all the splashes and scuffs on white lower surfaces. 

I did tons of research and resolved myself to following ALL the steps so that the paint would stick and it would hopefully not be obvious that I painted it myself. I did all the deep cleaning and sanding to prep, all the sanding and learned all about tack cloth and oil based primer. No cutting corners here!

I lived in painting clothes for over a month and we did our best to keep the kitchen usable while also using the table as a work station. Everything took 3 coats...sanding in between each one.


Aug 3: Primer for the blue paint!! I love this part....

I am so relieved that I love the color!

Aug 5: Countertops! I got all the upper cabinets done before this point so I didn't have to worry about dripping paint on the new countertops.

They brighten up the whole room!

Aug 7: He put in the backspash. I really love our choice, it makes the room so much cooler and I love the neutral tones. I can't wait to see it all done.

Aug 9: We took a big step backwards. The two slabs of quartz really don't match up well and the seam is SO VERY visible. My heart sinks every time I look at it. In addition, the way he cut the desk and the bar stool side of the countertop is not what we asked for. He did it with a curve and it really doesn't look right. I've tried for days to convince myself that I'll get used to it, but I really don't like it. He could see that we weren't happy about it, so he is replacing that section and making it the way we wanted in the first place. 

In the meantime, I am finishing the cabinet doors, 4 at a time. I can also get away with doing a cluster of drawers too, just as long as we still have room to walk by without knocking them over.  It's pretty much a disaster area.

Aug 12: Mark installed lighting underneath the cabinets. I am absolutely in love with it. It is so bright and cheery! He is my favorite.

And Mike is back...he is replacing the weird shaped countertop and desktop. I am praying the seam will look a little better.  I should have put "remodel kitchen" on the bucket list because I would love to check this off when I hang that last cabinet door!

Aug 13: Well, we are supposed to be "done" with the backsplash. I'm not gonna lie...it's not great. I am finding the courage to say something about it to Mike. I hate this part.

Aug 20: I had the tough conversation. He's a good guy. He's working to make everything right. One of the options was to replace the tiling on the sides of the window with a slab of quartz. I sent the options to Lauren and Alisa....

quartz:                                                                         tile:

We unanimously agreed the quartz looks stupid. So he'll have to repair the tile.

Aug 25: The tile work is as done it's as good as it's going to get. We finally decided to have him use the same tile as a border. I don't absolutely love it, but it isn't terrible either. We also got a new microwave! The stainless steel looks great and ties in the black oven a bit. We considered getting a new gas range, but they are MUY EXPENSIVO.

Mark installed all the outlets and even found some great silver ones to replace the ugly brown ones on on the bar. They look great!

Aug 27: Paint fiasco! I found a paint I liked and started to put it up. It was AWFUL.

It looked seafoam green!

So, back to the store I went. It turns out they mixed the color wrong and gave me a full refund. That worked out well, because I changed my mind about the color anyway.

The new color is what you'd call a "greige"...it's super neutral and just a hair lighter that the color we already had. So I'm putting that up and stopping at the staircase and the corner of the dining room. Otherwise, I'd have to repaint the entire house. Dang open concept house!

So here's the thing. I LOVE the new kitchen. It makes me happy and it feels so much better than our orangey oak ocean.

Is it perfect?

Nope.

If I look to closely at the the crooked tile or the wonky calking, I start to feel a little irritated....but, you know, I am just learning to focus on the big picture. I put a beautiful hardwood cutting board right over that ridiculous seam and I move on with my life.

And now....we cook!