Here It Is!!

Well...here it is!! There is still quite a bit of work to do in this kitchen, but it sure is nice to have the major things done. It has been a long couple of weeks not having a kitchen and trying to keep the kids out of the kitchen. It really has been a life saver to have my sister in law Stacey so close so we can invade their house. I just have to say she has been the absolute best, she has made us meals, (because our kitchen is useless) she has let me spend hours and even days at her house, but most of all, she has just been such a good friend to help me keep my mind off this disaster!! Thank you so much Stacey!!
The cabinets turned out to be incredible!! I absolutely love them!! The countertops went in today and I sure love those too. I believe now that granite is worth every penny. It is just so beautiful and it just finishes the kitchen. What an incredible kitchen this will be when we are done with it!! I love my new sink...it is almost as special to me as my fridge is!! I can't wait to have everything done!!! I was just so excited about the kitchen once the granite guys left I was dying to call someone, but no one wants to come see it, so posting pics is the next best thing!!


Now all I have to do is get this mess back into the right places in the kitchen...then our house is one step closer to being liveable!!

Happy Birthday Princess!!!

Well, here's my little angel. She turned 2 yesterday. We have been practicing holding up 2 fingers for about a month now, sometimes she gets it, but usually she just can't figure it out. It's so cute to watch her try. If you ask her how old she is she will tell you TWO!!! That's really cute. I can't believe how fast time flies!
We haven't done anything for her yet, because we are going to have a small party for her on Saturday with her grandparents and my brother and sister in law.

It's hard to believe that out little girl has gone from this tiny to this big!!

Snow White and the Lion

Here are some Halloween pics. Clara wasn't feeling so hot, so she was quite grumpy, and she didn't love her costume either. She isn't big on puffy dresses I have figured out, even though all day she kept saying, where's my pretty dress? She doesn't quite get Halloween, but she sure loves to eat the Candy!!! I took the kids to the mall, and she enjoyed it but she had a hard time understanding that when she got candy she couldn't eat it right then. If she had her way it would have been all gone by the time we got to the car!! She did manage to con me into giving her 3 suckers, 3 packages of rockets and a few chocolate bars in a 40 minute time period!! I wanted to make Donovan happy dwarf because he is always so happy and I figured Snow White and Happy was a good combination, but this lion costume was so adorable that I just HAD to put him in it. It was so cute!! I am not sure if lions are supposed to be cute, but he sure was!!
I took Clara trick or treating that night to probably 5 houses, she loved it!! She kept saying, that one? She figured out that every house she went to she got more candy, so she wanted to go to every house. Unfortunately I didn't have the energy to go very far because she was making me carry her. We went to Derek and Julie's house because it has become a tradition with Jeff's family. All the cousins get together and trick or treat. Clara is too young for it still, but we go to socialize, it's always a good time!! After that we stopped at my moms house and she was giving out full size chocolate bars and Smarties, so Clara got hooked up there. Who am I kidding? Jeff and I got hooked up ourselves!!



This is Clara by the end of the night, Smarties box almost empty and fast asleep!!

Pumpkin Hunt

We went to Butterfield Acres for their pumpkin hunt on October 28th. Clara had fun, but it was really cold and she was tired, so not a great combination. Donovan just sort of hung out and stayed bundled up. Clara wasn't so interested in decorating her pumpkin until her dad started decorating it, then all of a sudden she was right in there. Her pumpkin was something special when they were done with it!!
She loved petting the animals, if they weren't so smelly I may have gone in to pet them with her, but yuck!!



Here's the finished project!!

Our Kitchen

This is what is taking over our life right now. I can't tell you how frustrating renos are, but it really is not fun having no kitchen. It is brutal. Our kitchen cabinets were supposed to be installed last Thursday, the 26th. When the guy got here he showed me one of our cabinet doors, and it was not nice at all. I was so sad when I saw it. It was the beautiful color I had asked for, but I had asked for a little glazing around the edges of the door. He did that alright, but it was this nasty, dull and gloomy grey color. It was so sad. I had asked for a brown. I guess he realized I wasn't impressed and after having a conversation about it...he said he would redo them for me. So they installed everything they could without installing the doors, which doesn't look like much, and doesn't give me a functional kitchen, but it took them all day so it must have been a lot of work. The next day I went to look at the new doors he had done for us...well he went brown, that's for sure!! He made it the darkest brown there is, and it wasn't just a little glaze, it was more like our cabinet doors had been taken over by this dark brown. After looking at it I realized it was actually pretty, not what I wanted, but it was what it was, so I said it was fine. I sure hope that when he comes tomorrow to finish the kitchen that it looks good. I am so nervous!! I think it's the middle ground of my vision and his vision. Anyways...I just can't wait for this disaster to be over!! Here are some pics of before and now. I will post some after photos tomorrow (assuming it looks ok and I am not hiding in my bedroom).
If nothing else comes out of this experience...at least I have a nice fridge!!! I LOVE my fridge!!
These are our beautiful countertops...a nice pretty blue color. What were they thinking???

MEXICO

I just wanted to put some pictures up of our recent trip to Mexico. We went September 23-30 and we had so much fun. We went stayed at a resort in Playacar which is about 30 min. outside of Cancun. Let me tell you...it was so beautiful, the beach was absolutely incredible. Perfect white sand, clear blue water, and the weather couldn't have been better for us. Our only problem...our camera broke the day we went to the ruins. We went to Mexico on our honeymoon and our camera got stolen, so we have no pictures from that trip. I said I would not let our camera out of my sight this trip. I lived by that statement, unfortunately it didn't prevent our camera from breaking. I was so mad. We had an underwater camera that we took a few pictures with, but the biggest blessing was this couple we met from Holland in Tulum. They were so nice to take a picture of us, but on top of that, they sent us all the pictures that they had taken that day. Turns out he works at KPMG in Holland, which gave Jeff and him something to talk about. I am so grateful for them...they couldn't possible understand how much it meant to me!!! Anyways...here are a few pictures that we did leave Mexico with.

This picture is the view we got from our hotel room. The guy who checked us in really hooked us up, because the room we were supposed to have faced a courtyard that had nothing special in it.

I know I am super fat in this picture at Tulum, but I figure it's because the camera was from Holland.

This is a picture of Tulum...it was really neat to see this...we had a tour guide relate the ruins to the Book of Mormon...either it was too hot to understand, or I just wasn't listening. Hopefully Jeff got something out of it!!

Gotta love McDonalds...it's the same no matter where you go!! The view is just nicer in Cozumel

We went snorkelling at this place called Xel-Ha, it was so much fun. We got to swim with these nasty looking fish that were so huge and lots of smaller fish that were definately a lot prettier. We also got to swim in this cave and that was pretty cool too. We got to take tubes down the river and we could have gone cliff jumping, but the cliffs were so small it didn't look like it was worth the effort to climb to the top.

I know this picture is not the greatest, in fact it sucks, but if you look at the top of the picture there is a stingray. We were snorkelling just on the beach by our hotel and all of a sudden we came across this. Now this was just after Steve Irwin had his accident with a stingray, so you better believe that we took off fast!!! It wasn't the only one we saw, but it was our first and it sure caught us by suprise.

Hello New World

I have finally decided to join the world of blogging. I figure it's a good way to keep a journal, because I am no good at that, but it's also a good way to keep in touch with Alysha.
There is so much going on in our lives right now, it's hard to keep on top...so maybe doing this will help me remember the good things!!
Right now I am super busy trying to sort things out for our trip to Boston in November. I know it is a long time until November, but because I am taking the kids by myself I want to make sure I have every possible little thing covered, so I have been buying toys, books, movies, etc. to help make the trip go smoothly. I took the kids to get passport photos today just to make life easier when it comes to customs. It was pretty funny getting their pictures taken and having Donovan not smile is no easy task. He is always smiling....it was pretty cute.
As I figure this thing out, I will start posting more pictures, this post will be words only....