Let it snow!!!

The kids waited until daddy got home the other day (let's face it, he's the fun parent) and then went outside to play in the snow. Uncle Dave joined in the snowman making party while I stayed in the nice warm, dry house with Jared.

Photo op

Some days I want to pull my hair out, other days are like these where I just can't get enough of my three little rugrats!

'Tis the season to be Jolly!

This year we hosted our first adults only Christmas party! Phil and I want to make this a yearly event because it was so much fun! We had 27 people at our house and we all fit really nicely. I made slush (a family favorite!) and wassail. All the couples came with a dessert or appetizer. We also did a white elephant gift exchange and had a really fun time and a great laugh at some of them. I've already got a great idea for next years exchange so it should be fun! Thanks to all that came. It was a lot of fun! I love hosting parties!

The nativity set

Grandma Walker bought the kids the fisher price nativity set 2 years ago. Here they are playing with it and I just had to take a picture.

I'm thankful for kids that love one another

The other day Uncle Dave was playing with the kids (he lives with us now) and he had Kaylin in his arms and was going to throw her on the couch when Zachary came around the corner and said, "Hey that's my sister!" I love that Zachary was trying to protect his big sissy! I just love my little kids! They are growing up too fast so I thought I would post some pictures of them from last year.

Jared- 14 months

Jared is just about 14 months and is as active as ever. He learned to crawl when he was about 10 1/2 months so he's taking his sweet precious time learning to walk. He can stand up from sitting, and walk holding on to the furniture, but that's the extent of his walking development. He doesn't really like to walk with us when we hold his hands. I'm starting to think that this little guy will do what he wants, when he wants to. Is that a foreshadowing of things to come? I don't know.
Jared can say "Uh-oh" and has maybe said "Dada" once or twice. When I try to get him to say anything, he just looks at me and smiles. He must be thinking that mom looks really goofy. Again, this boy has his own timeline.
Jared loves to explore and he also loves to get a hold of phones, remotes, etc. to use as a method of crawling. He uses the remotes, toys, books, etc. and drags them on the floor as he crawls. I think that it makes him crawl faster. When he uses books and slides them on the floor, he can really get some good speed.
Jared has 6 teeth and is getting two more on the bottom. He is ALMOST weaned. One more feeding to drop this weekend. I'm glad to be done. We can bond in other ways. Jared loves his sister and brother. He loves to look at their pictures on the wall. He gets a really big grin when I say their names. He's a cute smiley boy. Here are some pictures from yesterday when he and Kaylin took a bath. Love the bubble goatee...

Fun in the leaves

One of my fondest memories in Michigan was jumping in the leaves in the fall. Our neighbors, the Agli's used to rake up the leaves and then invite us over to jump in them. I remember being so excited to do so. So naturally I wanted my kids to have the same experience that I had. Last saturday we played in the leaves at our neighbors house and our house too. Lots of leaves to go around. It sure is nice to live in a "seasoned" neighborhood with lots and lots of tall trees. Daddy raked up our leaves and then set up a ladder so that the kids really could jump in the leaves. It was fun!

I LOVE spray paint!

Ok, last home improvement post for a while (until I refinish my bathroom cabinets next week!) I have recently discovered the beauty and multi-purpose of spray paint. Here are the most recent projects...

I got this shelf/coat rack for free from my neighbor. It was a forest green color. I spray painted it with an oil-rubbed bronze metallic spray paint and look at how good it looks. This sits in my front entryway.

This trashcan is just your standard blue plastic trashcan. My parents gave me a hardtime for having such an ugly trashcan, but in order to upgrade it was gonna be expensive. Side note: seriously who pays $100 for a TRASHCAN! It's where you put your trash! Ok back to the trashcan. So I like my trashcan. It fits my trashbags and I love the size. So, I spraypainted it with the same oil-rubbed bronze as the coat hook. Now it matches my accents in my kitchen. And yes, you can spray paint plastic!

Not photographed but worthy of mentioning is spray painting picture frames. I spray painted some standard cheap ones from Wal-Mart and they look great, although I think I might have to sand them a little next time.

Last but not least, Phil is very happy that he finally got rid of the nasty white fan above the kitchen table. He replaced it with this beautiful light. Let there be light!

Family room

We finally finished the family room! We got a nice sectional about a month ago thanks to a bonus from Penney's! I put a rug in the room to hide the hideous green carpet. We put some nice pictures on the wall and over the fireplace and some nice orange accent pillows. I love this room now! (Note: the people in the multi-picture frame are not us. I haven't filled the frame yet!)

I even put wood in the fireplace so it wasn't such an eyesore!

Refinished hardwood floors and deck

So the month of October was a CRAZY month. Phil's dad very generously offered help to refinish our hardwood floors in the front entryway and in the hall/bathroom. In addition to sand the deck and refinish that. We took him up on the offer and took advantage of the beautiful weather in October and got to work. Phil took 2 weekends to rebuild part of the deck. There was a big hole in it where there was a spa (we think). I'm really proud of him because he's never done anything like that before and so it was a great learning experience for him.
The third weekend in October, Donovan (or the "Man-ovan" Phil's former co-worker when he did hardwood floors), Phil and Phil's brother Dave came down and for two days they sanded, buffed, refinished and beautified our hardwood floors. They look GORGEOUS! Thanks to all that helped us with the floors and the deck. I never knew that wood could look so good.

The freshly sanded floors-

The freshly refinished floors-

Kids bathroom cabinets

So last Monday I was hanging this cute picture frame with all three of the kids in the bath (see below) and my neighbor Jeri commented at how shabby my cabinets looked. I agreed so off to home depot we went. In case anyone is interested, this is what I did...
I got TSP (trisodium phosphate) which is a heavy duty cleaner. I used a high concentration (like 1/2 cup of powder to a gallon of water) and used a green scrubber (like the ones on the back of the yellow sponges) and scrubbed the cabinets. TSP takes off some of the finish and the sheen from the cabinets. Then the next morning, Tuesday, I started the staining. I used "Polyshades," a polyurethene and stain in one, in an Antique Walnut Satin finish. I used a foam brush (genius idea from Jeri) so that there were no brush marks. I did 3 coats to get the desired darkness and voila! A finished bathroom. We are going to eventually do knobs and handles but after yesterday's fiasco (see post about downstairs bathroom), we might need to wait a while.

For more pictures of this bathroom, see this post.

The tile is also new in this bathroom. It used to have carpet (yuck!)

Downstairs bathroom cabinets

Before back in February:
After:

I just love the knobs and handles. It took me no time at all to do the knobs, but the handles were a different story. It took Phil like 2 hours because he had to get the holes to perfectly line up and then the screws were the wrong size so he had to sink them into the drawers. It was a mess and if Phil were a cursing man, he'd be cursing up a storm. It's done and beautiful and I love walking past the bathroom and staring at the beautiful cabinets!

We also refinished the hardwood floors and did the tile in the watercloset, but I'll post that in a different post.

For more pictures of the bathroom see this post.