Batter Up!!!

I'm still catching up to the fact that my baby's five year's old...and now suddenly I find myself in the role of a t-ball mom; helping with concessions, calling teeny tiny kids(whose helmets seem too big for their small heads) up to bat, cheering wildly for a game that isn't scored. I am repeatedly shocked by how quickly time has flown by and occasionally I long for the days of bottles and pacifiers and blankets. And then I come to my senses and hear myself yelling, "RUN, NOAH!! TAG THAT KID OUUUTTT!!!"
It's exciting, I tell ya. Just thrilling. I'm a pretty competitive person by nature and I really have to watch myself at his games so that I don't get TOO obnoxious while still being loud and supportive, which he is still young enough to think is wonderful. In the process, I am learning about baseball, something I had ZERO interest in previously.

*team pictures*

*Coach Josh and Noah having a 'man to man' moment*

Ryan's an assistant coach whenever he's able to get off of work in time for games and practices and is really enjoying the involvement and Noah's having a blast and really likes his coach. It's a great family activity and so fun to get out in the community and see folks we know!
I never thought I'd say this, but there's NOTHING like a warm evening, the smell of hot dogs from the concession stands and a ball game going on...seriously, NOTHING like it....

Megan's 8th birthday

Megan turned 8 a few weeks ago and it's taken me this long to post the pictures from the famed event. She'd been planning her birthday party since September (not kidding) and had invited every girl in her class.





They had so much fun and were actually quite manageable. Her friend A. was having a party later that afternoon celebrating Spring Break, so after the birthday party wound down, the girls packed up and headed over to A.'s for facials, mani's and pedi's...Megan then got to come home for her 'evening party' as she called it, which is when grandma and grandpa come over and bring more presents and we all eat cake AGAIN. So we partied, partied, partied and then I took her BACK to A.'s for the slumber part of her party during which the girls made their own Sundae's and watched High School Musical 3. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Three party's in one day may have been too much. She came home and slept almost all afternoon the next day. I wanted to join her. ;)
This is just preliminary partying as she's looking forward to a Paris trip for her 10th. I can't imagine how tiring THAT'S going to be! Good grief!

Home Improvement

The Kitchen.

I have a problem. Ok, I have many problems. But the one that applies to this post is my problem with GOING OVERBOARD on anything I'm involved in. I am a woman of extremes apparently. I had the idea one sunny Saturday afternoon to paint my kitchen. For those of you who know me, you know that the kitchen is my 'center', as in, the place that I relax, create, plan, entertain, etc. I spend 95% of my time in my kitchen and after looking at this one for 2 years, it was time to spruce it up a bit...so, off to Home Depot we went... several hours and many, many dollars later- our 'I-look-like-I'm-owned-by-a-70-year-old' kitchen began it's transformation. (see below)... ignore the mess...







Has anyone ever heard of Venetian plaster??? I'd seen something in a magazine once and decided to try it for myself....thus the saga began. The stuff is applied with a trowel in random patterns...then you wait several hours for the 1st coat to dry, sand it smooth and then applying the second coat. The process is repeated 4 times and then the burnishing begins. So, to burnish you take the trowel and press it flat against the wall surface and rub REALLY hard. I hadn't gotten very far (relatively speaking) when I stood back, looked at the wall, looked at the paint sample I gave to the paint guy, and went, "this is NOT the right color." I'd put so much work into it at that point that I actually considered just living with the weird terra cotta color- but eventually I decided that if I was putting this much effort into something, I should get what I wanted out of it....so back to Home Depot I went.
Back again a few hours later, I started the process all over again. About 3 days had passed since that sunny Saturday. This picture was taken near the end of the process actually...so it's out of sequence, but this way you can see what venetian plaster looks like BEFORE it's done.

scary huh? It's part of the process. Just wait.

So, I couldn't just paint the stupid kitchen. Of course not. No, I had to go 'fancy'. And after days and days of plastering, sanding, burnishing and repeating and then falling into bed, I said to myself, "Why, that backsplash looks horrendous. It's gotta go." And proceeded to rip it off. I forgot to mention that 'painting the kitchen' also involved Ryan and his buddy Andrew tearing out a weird interior window and the weird look-through into my dining room and arching both of those to match the rest of the doorways in the house. Thus construction began. Just look at what a GREAT job those guys did though.

No more weird interior window.

SO- we got the walls done, stood back and went..."eww." The walls were great. Really amazing. Never seen walls like that anywhere, honestly. But now the cabinets looked horrible. They looked horrible before we started any of this, admittedly, but now, against the backdrop of beautiful walls, those thing looked even worse, if that's possible. So, back to Home Depot for oil based paint in the color of my favorite coffee mug, which is off-white. Home again, paint a few cabinets and I go..."No, no, nope...still not right..." Back to Home Depot for bead board and moulding. For those of you who are feeling compassionate for my husband right now- I won't tell you not to feel that way, because hey, he's a great guy- but I will tell you that it was me alone who plastered, sanded and burnished until I literally had a breakdown at our small group one night and burst into tears while discussing the project. So you can feel sorry for him if you want- but I don't.
He did joyfully accept my request for new cabinets and built them himself. They're still in progress in this photo.

Here's a pic of the GORGEOUS reflective shine of the plaster once it's burnished.

So, while the guys were busy drinking beer and tearing things out of my house, Andrew and I came up with the idea of a breakfast bar in the dining room...heh heh heh...

So they built one... :)

I am proud to say that we are no longer the owner of a geriatric kitchen- but are currently enjoying a very 'old-world', tuscan look.

So, do I have an after photo for you to enjoy? Of course not. Because once I looked at the beautiful cabinets, walls and breakfast bar I said, "That faucet has gotta go!" and promptly got on the internet and ordered a new one. It's due to arrive this afternoon ;) And when it gets here and my perfect husband installs it, I will take a stunning 'after' pic for all of you. I'm also waiting on the barstools I ordered...that could take awhile- but I'll try to post some very glossy, magazine like pictures very very soon. Perhaps once the new lighting is in...and the area rug purchased....

You discover a great deal about yourself when you remodel a house...I am a woman of extremes as I have said. We also discovered that Ryan is a man of great talant when it comes to cabinetry, construction, tile work and, well, all sorts of things.
Did I mention that while we were working on all of this, we discovered that our stair case was suffering from dry rot and had to rip that whole thing out too? Ryan and Andrew rebuilt it one afternoon while I went to IKEA. Then they put in a new slate landing, sheet rock and redid the structural support for the north side of our house...

I am making a list of things for my very talanted man to do over the summer >:)