May 28, 2012

Free dog to a good home... actually, just any home that's not ours!

On Wednesday last week Sam and I took the kids to California. Brian had to work so he stayed home with the dogs. This is what happened on Thursday when Brian was at work....


That would be the carpet in the middle of our living room. I could kill her! UGH!! Brian cut out a square for right now to cover the concrete. How do I cover this up with a rug? It is in the most random spot. We have thought about getting darker carpet in the future, but weren't planning on it being this soon! I don't know what we are going to do, we are just going to leave it till we decide. So mad!!


Of coarse we're not going to give Roxy away... but no more animals after her!

May 18, 2012

Kitchen Cabinets

Here is the long awaited kitchen cabinet makeover!
I am so excited to share because I love, love, love, how they turned out!

These are pictures of our kitchen before we even moved in and painted. I fell in love with the house because of the kitchen. I love my huge island, the room to move around, and the openness into to the living room. I just wasn't a fan of all the dark colors. The floors were the same color of the cabinets, there was no contrast. So before we even moved in my plan was to paint these cabinets.


  We first started by labeling all the doors and drawers with numbers then removed them. Then we taped all around the inside (the kit doesn't give enough paint for the inside, I wouldn't want to do that anyways, too much work!) and outside of the cabinets. We covered the floors and counters with plastic.


I had a big package of Red cups from Costco which came in handy for the whole project. We put the hardware in cups and labeled which door they belonged to. I didn't want any screws, hinges, and knobs to be lost. This was a great way to keep track of them all. 


We bought Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations. The kit is supposed to be a quick easy project. No sanding or stripping, just deglossing. The deglossing took forever! I read all over the Internet that if you don't degloss very well then the paint won't stick and can chip. So we deglossed till our arms fell off. After delossing all the drawers and doors We were still a little worried about just using the deglosser so we created an extra step for ourselves and decided to use a high grit sandpaper and sand everything. (The lower the grit the rougher the sandpaper is. The higher the grit, the smoother the sandpaper.) I am sure it would have been fine without sanding, it was just about a peace of mind for me!


The red cups came in handy when it was time for painting and drying. On the instructional video they suggested using a 2x4 with screws that are screwed in just enough so it can hold the doors. On one blog I read, she said that the screws just left marks, plus, that seams like a lot of screws and 2x4's. The cups were much easier and left no damage.


Once all the dust was cleaned off, the real fun began! Painting! It was fun for about 5 doors until we realized that this was going to take forever. The doors are supposed to take 2 coats of paint and one coat of the finish. The kit also comes with a glaze to give it a more wood look, but I like the Linen color by itself so we skipped the glazing step.


 I found this cabinet door at DI for Kambree to paint. I knew there was no way that she wasn't going to help. She loved helping and she did a pretty good job!



There are 2 sizes to the Rust-Oleum kit that we bought. We measured the kitchen and figured that we only needed to by the small kit. We even ended up with extra paint. The problem was from going from extreme dark to extreme light the 2 coats didn't cover all the way. It needed 3 coats of paint. UGH! We had enough extra to paint the cupboards, but not enough for the drawers and doors. So we had to go buy another kit. So, if you are going to paint your kitchen cabinets from dark to light and your not going to use the glaze, then you should probably make sure that you are going to have enough paint for 3 coats.

This whole thing was a lot of work but totally worth it. With Brian working and 2 sick kids, it took us about 9 days from start to finish. A lot of the blogs or tutorials I read say that this is a quick weekend project. We did give ourselves extra steps as far as sanding and the extra coat of paint. I still don't think that if we skipped those extra steps we could have finished in a weekend.

Anyways, it is done! I am so excited! I love how they look! Totally worth all the hard work!
What do you think?

{before}


{after}

May 08, 2012

Growing..

 Maybe it is time for some pajamas that fit!
Some summertime jammies maybe.
This girl is growing way to fast!



April 30, 2012

Daddy's hats

Kaden loves to play with Brian's hats. Cute boy!








Safety first!

On our way home from Pine Valley we stopped in St. George to eat. We were waiting in the car and thought it would be funny to buckle Roxie up. This lasted just long enough for me to take a picture.

Easter

Easter 2012

For Easter this year we went up to Pine Valley, Utah. Kurt, Melissa, Bradlee, Kambree, Kaden and I went up Friday morning. Cindy and Amanda came up with Brian after he got off of work. The weather was amazing all weekend. It was so much fun and a much needed little getaway from the city. 

Driving up in the Yukon was amazing! So much room, plus a TV for the kids to watch. They were in heaven! Let's just say that I have the bug for a bigger vehicle.
We were able to take Kelly and Connie's 4 wheelers up. The kids loved riding on them. Any chance they had they were riding on them. Even when I would stop the 4 wheeler with Kaden he would get so fussy and mad until we would start going again. On the last day we were there we went for one last ride and Kaden fell asleep during the ride. So cute! Don't mind his pink helmet, he was wearing Kambree's.
Notice how I have no pictures of the kids coloring eggs. They were interested for about 2 seconds before they ran out to the backyard to play. Bradlee, Melissa, and I were more excited about the eggs than the kids were! Didn't we do a great job! :)

Church was at 10:00 on Sunday morning so we decide to to the Easter egg hunt after church. My camera died right as Kaden went to pick up his first egg, ugh! Luckily the ipad was charged so I was able to get some pictures and take some video. Kambree was all over the place her bucket was full to the top with eggs. Kaden on the other hand would only care about finding one egg and eating what was inside. Once he would finish with his candy then he would go look for another. Grandma Graham helped teach him how to find eggs and fill his basket.  
It was such a fun weekend. Kambree has been asking me for weeks to go back to the cabin. Hopefully soon!

April 09, 2012

Disney

The weekend before Easter we went to California to visit my parents and go to Disney Land. We were also lucky to see Oma and Opa (Russ's paretns from Canada). It was such a fun weekend!


 At the end of the night this little grey stroller got stollen! Ugh! I was so frustrated and so was Kambree because she had to walk.
 Have you ever had the mango at Disney Land? Well it comes with this powder that is sweet and sour with a little bit of spice. It is good, my Mom is obssesed with it. Anyways, Brian gave a little to Kaden and he made the funniest faces. He kept coming back for more!


 I never really realized how scary the little rides in fantasy land are until I had a 3 year old who was scared on every single one. I think the Pinocchio was the scarriest for her when the whale came out. Poor girl! Kaden of coarse loved them all.


 Kaden's favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear one. He was in heaven! He couldn't take his eyes off of the giant Buzz that he saw while waiting in line.






 Kambree fell asleep about a half an hour before the fireworks were about to start. It started raining so we decided to end with a warm churro then go home. I didn't get a picture but Kambree's favorite ride was Autopia. We did that one twice! They both had so much fun! I just loved seeing them happy all day.