Daily Ramblings & Random Thoughts

Resolved: Checking in

2012-01-31T09:01:00.001-06:00

I figure the best way to keep yourself on track with resolutions is to actually do a monthly report on your progress, right? Accountability is typically the best way to go. I listed 6 goals for 2012, so let's see how I'm doing on each one of them:

Be healthier: I'm happy to say that I'm ending January 6 pounds lighter than I began it. I decided a couple of weeks ago to rejoin Weight Watchers, since I had such good luck with that in the past. An online friend of mine also began an accountability group online that has helped tremendously, so I've been exercising a lot more than normal because I feel guilty when I don't get to report any activity to them. I restarted the Ease into 5K program last week, and so far have logged 7.25 miles of running/walking.
Sell our house: No news here. I still have some plans for a few remodels, but so far I haven't had time to attack them. I hope to get busy in February because my original plan was to relist in March. Of course I have no idea where I'm going to put all the stuff that has accumulated since I last cleaned out the house. Where does this stuff come from??
Grow my Etsy business: This one seems to be doing this all on its own. I wasn't sure what would happen after the Christmas rush slowed, but I've been pleasantly surprised so far. I even have a couple of customers who are starting to buy in bulk because they are reselling my items in local boutiques. You know what, that doesn't bother me at all because I'm getting paid. I do have plans for some new items and this weekend I'm going out of town for a scrapbook retreat, however I am spending my weekend creating products for the shop. I'm taking about 70 t-shirts with me (thank you 1/2 price Goodwill days!) to see how much I can get done. I need some peace and quiet and no distractions to get as much accomplished as possible.
Stick with a Bible reading plan: I'd give myself a D in this one. I haven't failed completely, but I haven't been as consistent as I should be. I find myself playing catch up a lot.
Potty train Kate: When Kate is at my mother-in-law's, she seems to be more interested in pottying than when she is at home. She often wears pull ups over there, but at home she fights me and wants a diaper. She won't hardly sit on her potty at home for me. I'm taking this as a sign that she isn't quite ready, but of course I'm an amateur in this field so who knows.
Learn to sew: Yeah, pretty much nothing to report here. I did get a fabulous birthday gift from my in-laws for my birthday that consisted of a beginner's sewing kit. I got pins, needles, scissors, little tools I have no clue how to use, a big cutting board, and a few other odds and ends. Someday those are going to be handy.

Scarf Thief

2012-01-31T08:37:00.001-06:00

I know I used these photos in a previous post...but I wanted to explain the story behind the scarf.
I found this awesome Old Navy scarf at Thrift Town a couple of weeks ago while Kate and I were on one of our many thrifting trips. I have a soft spot for scarves, and this one had to come home with me. Apparently I share this love of scarves with my daughter, because she has pretty much stolen it from me.

Every time I try to wear this scarf, Kate has a fit for it and usually ends up with it. She proudly pulls it around her neck, even though it is way too long for her. Nevermind that she already has her own scarf that I relinquished a long time ago because she would not give it back. No, she wants them all.

Then she proceeds to repeat over and over, "Baby's scarf" and points repeatedly so that she knows that I know that this is her scarf. Not Momma's. Baby's scarf.

But really, how do you argue with this kid? It's both a blessing and a curse that she's so stinking cute. Someday, when she figures out how to really use this to her advantage (not that she doesn't already have a pretty good idea), we are going to have real trouble.

Until then, I guess I better find a new scarf.

Toothpick

2012-01-30T22:04:00.000-06:00

Kate found a toothpick on the table one night and was so proud of herself for knowing what to do with it. I couldn't just take it away from her without taking some pictures first, now could I?

Five

2012-01-23T08:54:00.002-06:00

The princess turned 5 last week! I can't believe she's going to be in kindergarten this next school year. Time flies so quickly these days. These two cuties below are going to be three this year and each day they look less and less like babies and more like kids. It's sad and exciting and scary all at the same time.

Kylie had her birthday party at Texas East gymnastics, which was a lot of fun for the kiddos (and some of the adults!). They got to jump around on the big trampolines, play in the sponge ball pit, run through an obstacle course about 50 times and wear themselves completely out.

Kate wasn't interested in following the other kids and doing what they were doing, but she was more than happy to do her own thing when everyone else was occupied elsewhere. She loves to bounce like Tigger.

Kylie is on a Hello Kitty kick these days, so that was the theme of her party. She's 150% girl, that one. Her grammie made the cupcakes and they were super cute. I wish I had a close-up of them, but they were little Hello Kitty faces.

The things kids say

2012-01-12T19:27:00.000-06:00

We've had quite an interesting few weeks as Kate has become more and more vocal. She has been a bit of a slow speaker. She preferred for a long time to communicate through made-up signs that she used when she needed certain things, but lately she's been letting loose with the vocabulary.

Potty behaviors were one of the first things she really started talking about, and let me just tell you it's hard to keep a straight face when she points to her bottom, scrunches up her nose and says "Baby poo. Yuk." Often times she mistakes gas for poop, so when we check and she's all clear she proudly says "No poo!". Such was the case the other day, and I asked her if she was just gassy after checking her diaper and she said "yeah, baby gas."

She calls our dog, Maddie, "Wu-wu". We call her Lu-lu, a nickname I gave her several years ago. Occasionally Kate will call the cat "Tonks" but she mostly just refers to her as "kitty". We are back to being Momma and Daddy after she went through a phase of calling us Ma and Da.

She loves her babies, and pretty much all of them she just calls baby, including the ones she knows the names of like Barney (Ba), Elmo (Emo),Tigger (Ti), Shrek (Shek) and others. She has a little stroller she pushes them around in, which she calls the "shrow" and at night they all go to "beh".

Her favorite breakfast food and snack food...well she'd pretty much eat them for every meal if I let her, is pop tarts. She just calls them pop. She still likes crackers a lot (cra) and last night when it was snack time neither Nick nor myself could figure out what she was asking for in her bowl but it definitely sounded like profanity. We laughed quite a bit at that and never quite figured it out.

She's starting to through together sentences, which is fun and unexpected sometimes. It's really fun to watch her language evolve and I'm sure we'll have lots of fun stories as she starts talking more and more.

Resolved

2012-01-04T21:21:00.000-06:00

2012 is here. I have a few goals in mind for the year and I find the best way to ensure that you will at least try to make an effort to achieve some goals is to put them out there in the universe. If I keep them all to myself, there isn't much accountability there, right?

Be healthier. So this is pretty much stated each and every year, sometime around the beginning of January...like for my whole life pretty much. I figure some day it has to stick though, right? Last year I ended about 23 pounds lighter than I started the year. That's great and all, but let's be honest - it should've been and could've been more. But obviously willpower is not my forte, or, well...I wouldn't have this same goal every year. So I'll throw it out there again.
Sell our house. Yes, we made an attempt in 2011 and were unsuccessful despite a steady stream of showings. But we've got some plans for a few minor improvements and come spring we're giving it another go. Let's hope we end 2012 in a different home than we started.
Grow my Etsy business. I'll be honest with you - when I started my Etsy shop I wasn't sure what would happen. Obviously I didn't sell as much stuff through the craft show circuit as I would have liked, and it was a whole lot of work for very little return. So I threw almost all of that stuff into my Etsy store and hoped for the best. 164 sales later I am more than thrilled with the results. I never expected to sell so much stuff! I've sold 94 t-shirt scarves alone. I'm extremely thankful and spending lots of my time trying to come up with new items to make as well as keep the things that are selling well in stock. I'm excited for what this year could bring.
Stick with my Bible reading plan. I gave it a go last year, to stick with an actual reading plan instead of just reading randomly...and I got 64% through before I crashed. This year I will do better!
Potty train Kate. She'll be 3. So at some point this year I'm hoping she starts showing more interest in the whole potty situation other than just pretending to throw up in it randomly. (Ever since her last stomach bug, she will randomly state that "baby sick" and we have to go into the bathroom so she can pretend to throw up in the potty before she will do anything else. I figure it's just easier to go along with it rather than argue with a 2-year-old.)
Learn to sew. I bought a sewing machine back in September. I had these grand plans that it would just take me a couple of weeks to get the hang of it and I could make a few simple things for the craft shows. Yeah...so sometime in December I actually opened the box and pulled the machine out for the first time, deciding that I would learn to use it even if I had to watch a dozen YouTube videos, only to discover that it didn't come with any thread or bobbins or whatchamacallits for me to actually be able to use it. So back in the box it went and has sat ever since. I have no grand plans for making Kate's clothes or anything like that...but I would like to be able to do some simple things. So this year, I will do it.

The Final Tally: YAWYK 2011

2011-12-31T23:50:00.000-06:00

So we've come to the end of You Are What You Keep 2011. I've actually found it quite easy to keep track of things just by hanging a list on the refrigerator, and although I'm sure we've missed some stuff coming in and going out I'm guessing we got a fairly accurate total. Just for kicks, here is a recap of the year:

January: Remove 228, Obtain 78
February: Remove 238, Obtain 42
March: Remove 93, Obtain 100
April: Remove 60, Obtain 58
May: Remove 174, Obtain 105
June: Remove 312, Obtain 95
July: Remove 135, Obtain 109
August: Remove 70, Obtain 68
September: Remove 90, Obtain 44
October: Remove 66, Obtain 44
November: Remove 175, Obtain 67

December was a bit difficult, as I knew it would be. Christmas time is always difficult for trying to get rid of more than you bring in, but I have to say I think we did a fairly good job. We were in the red this month, but not by much. In December, we removed 130 items for a grand total of 1771 items removed in 2011. We obtained 154 items (holy moly!) for a grand total of 964 items obtained. Our 2011 net total items removed is 807.

Obviously for a net total, I was no where near 2011. But not factoring in the items obtained, we were only 240 items away from our goal. I think that's pretty respectable! I'm not sure yet if we'll keep it going for 2012, but I guess it won't hurt anyone. It's sort of become a habit now anyway.

What did you do New Year's?

2011-12-31T23:40:00.001-06:00

We opted for a quiet evening at home tonight after we went for our last meal of 2011 at Chan's Mongolian Grill. I'm still not feeling terrific from this cough I have going on, and we didn't really want to mess with a babysitter. So instead of going out, Nick and Kate got into my t-shirt materials that I use for some of my Etsy products and had a little fashion show for me.

I'm thinking this was the perfect way to end the year.

Visits with Friends

2011-12-31T23:33:00.002-06:00

We were able to make a quick trip to Mount Pleasant so we could see Heather, Olivia and Will this past week. That of course meant a lunch stop at Randy's, the best hamburger anywhere, and then dinner with my grandma at Bodacious BBQ, which is equally as yummy. It was just a short day trip, and part of that we spent at the hospital getting x-rays on Kate's arm/

She fell at Heather's Mom's house and landed on her out-stretched hand, which then shot out from under her. She wouldn't calm down and wouldn't use her arm, so after Will took a quick look we decided to call the orthopedic doctor that Heather used to work for to get Kate in for a check-up. Of course this would be the same arm that she fractured in August of 2010. All of her x-rays were clear, so he told us to just watch her and allow her to use her arm if she wanted. It should be healed within 7-10 days.

Fast forward three days and Kate's still not really using her arm. I scheduled a follow-up with her doctor here on Friday. He took a look at her arm, which had now swollen a little bit around the elbow and said that he had a couple of thoughts, one being something called Nursemaid elbow. I had never heard of that, so I had to google it and basically it's when the tendon in your elbow gets popped out of place. After consulting an orthopedic doctor in the next building, Dr. Deitchman decided to try bending her arm in a certain way to pop the tendon back in place, which he said felt like it popped when he did the movement. If indeed it was nursemaid elbow, this would do the trick. He also sent her for another x-ray of the elbow just to be sure.

Wouldn't you know that within an hour of him popping her arm she was using it like nothing had ever happened? Her x-ray was clear, and all is well in the world of Kate's arm. So we've hopefully already had our x-ray/emergency visit for her for the 2-3 year, right? I can't believe how accident prone this little girl of mine seems to be.

Christmas with Pop

2011-12-30T17:37:00.001-06:00

The day after Christmas we headed to Forney to have Christmas with my Dad and brother. We had a yummy lunch of ham and all the fixings.

We got Kylie and Barbie pool and a convertible. She was quite excited to say the least.

Logan had some fun with the gift sacks too.

Logan got some Toy Story boots. Look at them! They are so cute...and to make matters worse, they say "andy" on the bottom of one side, just like all the toys in the movie! *tear*

Lights!

2011-12-30T17:17:00.001-06:00

After taking naps on Christmas Day, we loaded up the minivan and headed to downtown Fort Worth to see some Christmas lights. We didn't realize that the Chesapeake Energy building was surrounded by multi-colored lit trees though! It was awesome - there are probably 100 trees, each with a solid color of lights on them. Almost the whole tree is wrapped too. I can't even imagine how much work it is to get them set up, but man it's cool!!

After we left Chesapeake, we headed to Sundance Square. Things were pretty much the same as always down there...big Christmas tree, lots of people, and no where to use the restroom because everything was closed! But we got a cute family picture.

Christmas Day

2011-12-30T17:12:00.002-06:00

We spent Christmas Day at my Mom's house. After stuffing our faces with chicken and dressing, mashed potatoes, rolls and more, we opened the presents. Kate rushed us through clean up because she was very excited about "more pres!". She got a new set of dress up shoes (she loves these shoes) and a set of furniture for her baby dolls (high chair, play pen, potty chair, stroller and more). Then she helped everyone else open their gifts!

Santa Claus

2011-12-30T17:08:00.001-06:00

Kate sat out cookies for Santa before we went to bed on Saturday night. She wasn't happy that she didn't get to eat one, but I think she understood why we left them on the table.

The next morning, we had to wake her up (wonder how many years it will be before she's waking us up?) and show her the gifts that Santa left for her.

The high chair is something I found at Thrift Town one afternoon. It was unpainted wood and had some seriously seventies really ugly fabric for the cushion and the back. I gave it to my sister-in-law, who painted the chair black and sewed all new fabulous covers for the cushions for me. It turned out awesome!

The huge Barney actually belonged to my brother, Trey, when he was about Kate's age. Go Mom for keeping him in the storage shed for all these years! He still talks and everything.

Mickey Mouse was peeking out of Kate's Elmo stocking.

It took her a little while to figure out what was going on, partially because she just isn't a morning girl (like momma!). But eventually she woke up enough to notice all the new stuff.

When I asked her if Santa ate his cookies, she made this disappointed face and said "yeah". He left some crumbs, but I still think she was just sort of mad that she didn't get to eat those cookies!

No I will not!

2011-12-24T08:31:00.000-06:00

In my mind, Kate is not old enough to start having an opinion on what clothes I put her in. Occasionally she will turn down a pair of shoes in favor of her favorite tennis shoes, but as far as clothes go she never really complains about anything unless a pair of jeans has grown a little too snug and I didn't realize it when I put them on.

Last Sunday morning was very different.

Kate had a couple of hand-me-down Christmas dresses, and there are only so many Sundays in December so I've been trying to make sure she wore each of them before the holiday. Last week it was time to put on the black velvet with the bright red plaid skirt (so cute!). Kate had a different idea though.

For whatever reason, she does not like that dress. I don't understand it. Last week I held up that one and the solid green velvet one, and she immediately chose the green. But I didn't realize that it was because she harbors some sort of inner hatred for the red plaid.

After a 15 minute battle, in which I had her completely ready to go at some point and she refused to cooperate, I let her choose her outfit. She picked out a big fluffy tutu skirt. So that's what she wore.

Hanging with Grandpa

2011-12-24T08:25:00.002-06:00

Nick's Dad was in town until the wee hours this morning, when his flight left before anyone should have had to get out of bed. Nick decided to ride with his uncle to the airport, and they all decided to go to breakfast too, so Nick just ended up spending the night over there last night so that they wouldn't have to leave that much earlier to go get him. I briefly woke up when he got home this morning and as he was crawling into bed. (He's currently snoring in there.)

Anyway, last night Joe came over for a little while to play with his girl. Kate took the opportunity to show off for him, so I'm pretty sure every baby and stuffed animal she had ended up making an appearance at some point, as well as other toys. They colored together for a while, played with her blocks, and of course tickle fights ensued. It was a fun visit and I'm glad that he got to spend some quality time with her before he had to head back to Montana.

Lil Michaelangelo

2011-12-23T23:56:00.001-06:00

Kate got to paint the ornaments we made the other day. She was so excited to get to use paints for the first time! When I told her we were going to paint, she didn't understand but then I said we were going to color our ornaments with paint, and she seemed to grasp what I meant, although she still expected me to go get her crayons and markers.

It took her about 6 seconds to get the concept. After that, she was off! I showed her how we dip our paintbrush in water in between colors, and eventually she wanted to change colors every other stroke. We went back and forth to the same colors again and again. She had a blast!

She was a little distraught every time she would get some paint on her hands though, so I had to keep a rag handy to clean them off immediately.

I think they turned out beautiful, and once they were all dry I put her name, age and year on the backs before sealing them. I'm sure the grandparents who receive them will be very pleased with her handiwork.

Christmas at Grandma Peggy's

2011-12-19T10:58:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was the Christmas feast at Grandma Peggy's, always the Sunday before Christmas. We had lots of food and desserts...I think Nick ate three or four pieces of cherry pie. We played some soccer outside after lunch before heading home to put Kate down for a long nap. Nick's Dad surprised us by flying in from Montana, and he will be here for the week so we get to spend some quality time with him for a change!

North Pole Express

2011-12-19T10:47:00.002-06:00

We took Kate on the North Pole Express, aka the Grapevine Vintage Railroad. Every Christmas they transform the train into the North Pole Express for the kids, complete with singing elves, Mrs. Claus and a visit from Santa himself. Kate really enjoyed herself, and this is the first Santa encounter she's had that she didn't cry. I was fairly impressed...of course she didn't actually have to touch Santa.

Kate wanted to hold her ticket through the line. She was so proud of it! There was a maze of Christmas trees for us to walk through to get to the train, complete with "snow". I'm not sure Kate was a fan of the snow, but she was at least interested in it.

Mrs. Claus was beautiful. Simply stunning and gorgeous and very sweet! Her dress reminded me of White Christmas, and there were sequin details and she had on a stunning snowflake necklace and earrings set. She was a very attractive woman to begin with, but with her bright red dress she was perfection. I think Nick and I were both slightly disappointed that the conductor was not Tom Hanks, but we got over it. Kate handed him each of our tickets so he could punch them for us.

Santa sort of surprised Kate - he came from the opposite end of the train car from where we were sitting so she had no idea he was there. We opted not to show her so that the anxiety wouldn't build before he got to our seat. She has seen Santa two other times this season so far, and neither time has she been inclined to sit in his lap. I'm okay with that - we forced her to do that last year so I could get my funny screaming in terror pictures, so I saw no need to repeat that this year.

I still wasn't confident that she wouldn't scramble to get away from him, but she just watched him as he spoke to her and handed her a jingle bell. He was a good Santa too - I feel pretty strongly that only men with real white beards should ever play Santa. Those horrible synthetic white beards that other men wear should be outlawed. They're just awful.

Kate loved her jingle bell and has been ringing it ever since she got it.

Making Ornaments

2011-12-19T10:27:00.002-06:00

Saturday afternoon Kate helped me make some salt dough ornaments for the tree. We cut out several different shapes and of course did some ornaments of her hand print as well. I keep finding all these wonderful Christmas cookie cutters at Thrift Town. Apparently a lot of people don't want to mess with homemade Christmas cookies anymore, which I guess I understand seeing as it's just easier to buy them. I seem to have a problem with purchasing those unwanted cookie cutters, and I don't even usually make homemade Christmas cookies either. So I made ornaments instead.

After we cut out enough ornaments to fill two cookie sheets, I let Kate play with the leftover dough. She took turns rolling it with the rolling pin and then placing different shapes into the dough. She overlapped them and some of them were hanging off the edge of her dough, but she didn't care. After she'd put four or five shapes in the dough, she'd say "Roll!" and I turned over the dough and smoothed it back out for her.

Eventually the cookie cutters got old, so I rolled the dough into a ball and let her play with that for a while until she started crumbling it into tiny pieces and trying to feed them to the dog. That signaled time to clean up!

We are going to paint the ornaments and I'll let her give some to her grandparents and we will keep a few for our tree. I think this will become a fun tradition. After all, I have plenty of cookie cutters to use!

Lil Helper

2011-12-17T00:06:00.000-06:00

Kate helped me fill out the Christmas cards today. She's such a good little helper!

She signed her name in each card and scribbled a little bit until she was satisfied with the way they looked. Some got more scribbles than others, but I think everyone who gets one of Kate's special cards will get the message just fine.

When You Make Cake

2011-12-07T08:25:00.001-06:00

When you bake a cake, the batter bowl is not the only lick-able part of the baking process.

There is good stuff in the pan once it comes out of the oven too!

YAWYK November Update

2011-12-07T00:54:00.001-06:00

I did a really good job removing items this month. A huge chunk of that had to do with switching Kate's closet over to winter attire and opening her winter clothes to find a bunch of 18 month stuff that won't fit her, so we passed it along with a friend at church. I also made sure I cleaned out at minimum the same amount of items Kate received for her birthday. We sent a lot of the stuff she no longer plays with to Goodwill. In November, we removed 175 items. We obtained 67 items. Fairly decent numbers I think.

So far in 2011 we have removed a total of 1641 items and gained a total of 810 for a net total removed items of 831.

I have resigned that I am not going to hit the goal of 2011 items in 2011. I think removing 1641 items is a really good number though, and I'm anxious to see if I can hit 1800 by the end of the year. It will be hard because I've cleaned out so many items that there's just not a lot left to clean out, although I do have to hit Kate's toy box and stuffed animal collection again because it's getting a bit out of hand and she doesn't play with a lot of it. I'm trying to gauge just how many things she actually uses. I want to try to keep the toy amount the same after Christmas, so I should clean out before.

Decorating the Tree

2011-12-07T00:50:00.001-06:00

Here's the deal. Our lovely 6.5' tall Christmas tree is neatly tucked away in the very back corner of our rented 5 x 10 storage unit, along with all of my Christmas decorations. In my moment of brilliance, I put it in first before I filled the rest of the unit with all of the clutter from the house when we listed it because, you know, we'd be moved to a new house before Christmas came around. If my pea brain were in control perhaps, but since it's not....anyway. I was not about to dig all of that out so I could decorate the house for 4 weeks and then pack it all back up, however Kate needed a Christmas tree. Hello mother-in-law with a small spare tree. Thankfully I already had a lot of salt dough ornaments I had made for our first craft show, so we put those on the borrowed tree and that's pretty much the extent of our Christmas decorating this year. I must say, it's kind of nice and definitely easier.

Rock 'n Roller

2011-12-07T00:47:00.001-06:00

Kylie really enjoyed playing with the Paper Jams guitar at Pop's house. She might just need one for her own house....

"Thanksgiving" at Pop's

2011-11-27T21:31:00.001-06:00

On Friday we met my brother and his family at my Dad's house for Thanksgiving with them, only we didn't eat regular Thanksgiving food again. Pam fixed roast, potatoes and carrots instead, which was a nice change from the previous day's meal.

The kids were quite happy to see each other and played outside most of the day. That evening, they stayed at the house with Nanny and Pop and helped decorate their Christmas tree while the mommies and daddies got to go to the movies to see Breaking Dawn. That was a nice surprise!

Nick and Jason climbed onto the roof so they could put up Dad's Christmas lights. Guess we'll have to make a trip back in January to take them down, huh? The kids were quite amused at the Dads on the roof and sat in their little chairs to watch.

That's the Christmas lights box.

Logan and Kate kept sneaking over to the neighbor's house to sit on their landscaping stones, so I kept getting on to them and telling them to come back. At one point, Kate put her head in her arms to hide from me and pout about being told no, so Logan sat down to console her. It was too cute not to get a photo.

Thanksgiving Day

2011-11-26T12:36:00.001-06:00

We spent Thanksgiving at my Mom's this year. I made a red velvet cake from my grandmother's recipe and I must say, Grandma would have been proud of that one. It was good, for once! I also made an apple cobbler, at Mom's request, a chocolate pie, ham (which was a brown sugar ham that I glazed with pumpkin butter), and I made rice dressing, which was always a Thanksgiving staple growing up at Grandma's house because her best friend is Cajun. It's a creole jambalaya mix with sausage and hamburger meat. I love it and pretty much made it just for me, but other folks ate some too.

Look at the lovely meringue!

Kate enjoyed her rolls very much, but I'm not sure that she ate anything else we put on her plate. If there is bread around, she's pretty much content with just that. She ate some cake too though.

After lunch, while we were sitting around miserable from our full tummies, Trey and Kate worked on building a train track in the floor and played with the trains for a little while. Kate really seemed to enjoy that, so I wonder if perhaps a train is in her future, maybe next year?

Licking the Beater

2011-11-26T12:05:00.001-06:00

I'm proud to say that my chocolate pie meringue was beautiful this year. I am almost certain this is because it was my first year to use a stand mixer to make it - what a difference! Kate thoroughly enjoyed licking the beater once we were finished.

Baking with Mommy

2011-11-23T19:33:00.001-06:00

Today Kate and I spent most of the day in the kitchen preparing for Thanksgiving tomorrow. We are going to my Mom's for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I was in charge of making the chocolate pie, red velvet cake, apple cobbler, and rolls. I was excited that this year Kate would be able to help a tiny bit...partly because of her new Learning Tower.

Back Story: I had been wanting a Learning Tower for a few months. Nick and I had discussed it because they're so cool but we didn't really have the $199.99 to spend on that, nor did I really want to spend that kind of money on one. But it was one of those things that if we could...well I wanted to. Kate would love it, and she could use it for many years since it's adjustable. So last Wednesday on a whim I decided to stop at Goodwill, only I went to one that we don't normally frequent. I always walk through the furniture first, and what do I spy sitting there? A LEARNING TOWER! I almost passed out. There was no tag, which usually means someone is already planning to buy it and is walking around with the tag so I panicked a bit and had the cashier make an announcement to have whoever had the tag bring it up front or the item would be resold (to me!). Then I waited 5 minutes like a good girl and no one came up front...so they re-tagged the Learning Tower for me.....for $15. Yes...FIFTEEN DOLLARS. Guess what? It was HALF PRICE DAY! So I got Kate a $200 Learning Tower for $7.50. I ROCK. I still can't figure out why someone dropped it off at Goodwill. Hello, Craigslist? Or a baby resell shop? I certainly won't be dropping it at Goodwill when Kate is finished, I can assure you.

So now back to today. Kate helped me make the cobbler, since that only required me to dump a few things into a pan. She added the apples for me.

She just couldn't get them all out by beating on the can (I forgot to poke an air hole in the other end...oops) so I gave her a spatula to get the rest out. You know the best part about using a spatula to get apples out of a can?

You get to lick the spatula once you are finished with it.

After finishing the cobbler I had a bunch of stuff to make that she couldn't really help with that easily. So I moved her across the kitchen to the sink, filled it with a little bit of water and dishwashing soap to make bubbles, gave her some cups and a spoon and let her go to town. I also covered the tower with a towel and put a couple of towels on the floor, because I knew girlfriend would be pouring water everywhere.

May I just say that yes, I realize now that I set my child up to the counter at the sink which is also where the large block of very sharp knives is located which didn't even occur to me until I downloaded the photos to my laptop and spotted the knives instantly. In my defense, I don't actually think she could reach any of them but I will definitely move them next time. She was too distracted by bubbles.

So thank you, Learning Tower, for providing an hour or so of fun for Kate. Sadly, the sink playing fun had to stop when I turned around in time to watch Kate dump a glass of soapy water on her head, which promptly sprayed a large portion of the kitchen floor with soapy water. Seriously.

Last Craft Show

2011-11-18T09:44:00.001-06:00

Karyn and I did our last craft show for the season. It was last weekend and our first 2 day show. Things were definitely busier on Saturday than Sunday, but we still both did really well. I was excited to have so many sales. I took some photos of our booth on Sunday morning before things got hopping.

I think our booth set up got cuter with each show. While not the most expensive backdrops, our home made fence piece was definitely unique and we got several compliments from other sellers on how cute the booth was. That's good to know, since so many people use those pricey black wire mesh grids for hanging stuff. Now if this craft show thing was something we were going to pursue long term, and we actually started making really good money, then I might look into buying those. But for now, our little fence thing worked just great.

I still love my crib back drops. I added fabric to them before the last show and I really think it makes them so cute!

For now, we are not doing anymore craft shows until at least spring, if we decide to keep at it. However, I have everything that was left listed online in my Etsy store, and I've already had several sales from it so I might just pursue craft selling online only. It's certainly easier than doing the shows. Check out my shop:
Redesign.

A Little Lesson in Giving

2011-11-09T09:26:00.003-06:00

Yesterday while we were shopping at Hobby Lobby, I noticed our first Salvation Army bell ringer of the season. I didn't have much change, only 14 cents, but I dug it out of my purse and gave it to Kate so she could put the money in the bucket. Since she couldn't reach the bucket, the bell ringer took it off the hook and held it at Kate's level. It was really sweet, and I was happy she could give a little bit even if she did it only because it was a game for her.

Between you and me, I now fear that every single Salvation Army bucket we see Kate will want to stick coins in it...guess I better refill my wallet.

Kate is 2!

2011-11-05T22:24:00.000-05:00

It seems so hard to believe, but my little girl is two! Because she loves Dumbo and elephants so much, we decided to have a circus themed Dumbo party. We were originally planning to go to a small park close by our house, but when I got out there today to start decorating it was so windy that I knew there was no way that it would work so we made a last minute change and held the party at our house instead. Besides the wind, it was a gorgeous day so I was kind of sad that we had to make the change. For games, we had a ring toss and bean bag throw. I found the bean bag game on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I made the ring toss from 2 liter coke bottles that I taped together and then spray painted white and added circus stickers to it. We used the rings from a little ring toss game found at the store.

This year we invited some of Kate's friends from church instead of just doing a family party, and I'm so glad we did. Aunt Karyn made her an elephant cake this year. I hope that she always is around to make Kate's birthday cakes, because I think that's a really special thing and someday Kate will remember that fondly.

Kate got a bunch of cool toys (lots of Elmo stuff!) including a 3 wheeler, some new movies, books, an Elmo laptop and a couple of Elmo dolls, her Yia yia and Nana made her a really beautiful Christmas dress and cape, and her Aunt Karyn made her a fleece coat. In all, I had to mark down 31 items obtained on my YAWYK list, so that gives me a goal of stuff to clean out.

She was exhausted after everyone left, and so were Mommy and Daddy!

Happy birthday, my sweet baby girl. We love you very, very much.

YAWYK September & October Updates

2011-11-02T22:01:00.000-05:00

So either no one noticed that I didn't post a September update or I'm the only person who cares about my You Are What You Keep postings. So if you aren't interested, then just skip this post down to the end. I won't get my feelings hurt. But since I care and I'm keeping up with it - almost to the end, by the way! - I'm going to update.

I just completely forgot to update September. I usually start a new sheet for each month but last month October 1 crept up on me so I just drew a line underneath September and started the new month. That means I forgot to come post my update.

In September we removed 90 items (yay for garage sales at my mother-in-law's house) and we obtained 44. I think that's a pretty good number. We obtained just under half what we got rid of. Through September, we have removed 1400 items and obtained 699 for a net total removed items of 701 items.

In October, we removed 66 items and obtained 44. Not as great as September, but at least we didn't gain more than we did the previous month. I fully take blame for a lot of that because Goodwill had a half price midnight madness sale and I hit up four different stores. I got some good stuff though. So far in 2011 we have removed a total of 1466 items and gained a total of 743 for a net total removed items of 765.

Here's the big problem with the next two months. This month is Kate's birthday month. That means a whole lot of gifts coming in. However I haven't really purged her toy box in a long time, so perhaps it's time to remove some stuff that she never plays with anymore and donate it or pass it on to other friends. Maybe if I can keep it at a one to one ratio we will be okay. But people like to spoil her so that means I'm probably going to be purging a lot!! Then next month....Christmas. That's the big one.

My goal when I initially started YAWYK was to get rid of 2011 items in 2011. We are currently 545 items away, which means that I could really use a visit from the purging fairy OR I really need to sell my house so I can clear out a bunch of junk.

Speaking of...we have another showing tomorrow afternoon. Here's the thing. A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to our agent and he said that if we decided at any time we wanted to take the house off the market, give it a couple of months and then relist he'd be happy to do that no worries. This time of year isn't necessarily great for real estate. No one wants to be moving right now. We went ahead and lowered the price a little bit and Nick and I talked about taking it off the market until spring. We decided that sounded like a good idea since this time of year is always so hectic and stressful enough without adding extra stuff to the mix. Before I could call our agent to tell him that, we had three showings in a 4 day span. Nothing seems to have come from them, and I told our agent to go ahead and remove the house from the market and we'd relist March 1. There are a few things I could do to spruce some things up anyway, paint-wise and such. He agreed, and today what happens? I get a call for a showing tomorrow. So I'm wondering if someone is trying to tell me not to take it off the market or if it's just a weird coincidence. But I do know that when I got the call today I wasn't overly thrilled because I had created a huge mess in the kitchen baking treats for Kate's birthday party this weekend. Ah, more stress! Guess we'll see if this is the one.

Trick or Treat!

2011-11-01T09:43:00.000-05:00

Kate had just as much fun trick or treating as she did at Trunk or Treat the night before. She quickly adjusted to knocking on doors instead of walking up to cars, but she had a hard time with the concept that the houses with no lights didn't have candy. She wanted to go to every door.

Which brings me to a side rant - how much is candy, really? Buy some cheap-o Tootsie Rolls is nothing else and give out one per child. Come on. It's for the kids.

Anyway...she made quite a haul the second night too, so we have lots of candy now. Of course Mommy will have to pull aside all of the stuff that she can't really eat, and I'm sure some of it will disappear, you know, for other reasons. But she was still very excited. On occasion she would run ahead to get to the next house.

At one stop, Kate walked up the driveway to the couple who was sitting out on the porch to hand out candy (I even think the husband had his laptop out there - nice) and then she came back down the driveway. When we walked a few steps she spotted the sidewalk that led up to the same porch, but she headed up there anyway. We tried to stop her, but the couple on the porch told her to come on back! and they gave her more candy. Probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was so stinkin' cute. After every house, she'd look in her bag to see how much candy she had. A couple of times she exclaimed "Wow!" and usually followed that with "More!"

Naturally she couldn't be bothered to carry Toto again, so Yia yia had to carry him all night. In between houses, she also had to carry the candy bag. Kate kept trying to run off to the door without her bag. In her defense, it got heavy after a while! This was probably my best Halloween ever, because there's nothing more precious than experiencing it all through my daughter's eyes. I can't wait for Christmas!

Final pumpkin day! It's Halloween!

2011-11-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

Man, what a week. Halloween might be our favorite holiday, but it's also super exhausting and a bit like living out of a suitcase. We've spent pretty much all of our time at my mother-in-law's for the past few days, and our poor dog and cat have almost forgotten who we are. But we made it through and finished up Halloween with a bang. I saved my most difficult pumpkin for last, since it really didn't need to sit and dry out for too long. It was a big hit with everyone too...behold, Spiderman!

He took me almost an hour to punch out and then two hours to carve. I love him!! Sadly, now he's sitting in a dumpster behind Aldi. But that's how it goes with pumpkins...they just don't last in Texas so at the end of Halloween night we toss them in a dumpster.

I also did a creepy looking guy called Uncle Sicko as my last pumpkin of the season:

Nick these on Halloween day:

I think Donald might be his best ever! He looked great.
Karyn finished up Halloween with the following two:

This last one is Van Gogh's Starry Night. I think it's pretty awesome, and it took her most of the day to knock this one out.

We had a huge crowd this year, as always. I think at one point we might have had 100 people standing in our driveway and on the sidewalk, all pointing out the characters they love and taking photos. It's why we do what we do, besides the fact that we love it.

Trunk or Treat

2011-10-31T01:37:00.003-05:00

This was Kate's first year to participate in Trunk or Treat at church. Her costume this year is Dorothy, from The Wizard of Oz. She actually picked it out herself at Thrift Town. We were walking by the rack of Halloween costumes about a month ago and she grabbed this Dorothy dress and would not let it go, not even to let me see what size it was or how much. I had to convince her that I would give it back to her. Since it was small enough to fit and only $3.99, I couldn't complain.

Every Dorothy must have her ruby slippers and I even found her a Toto to carry around in her basket, which she carried for about 5 minutes until she realized she needed both hands to grab candy from folks. Daddy ended up with Toto after that.

It didn't take her very long to figure out the game plan - walk up to a car, looking all adorable, and hold out your bag for free candy. The difficult part was keeping her from taking several pieces from the people who just offered her the whole bowl. I am quite sure she'll have no problem getting used to actual trick or treating tomorrow night.

There were also some games set up, so we let Kate play one for a prize. She threw balls into these buckets to win, but instead of stopping after she got the first ball in the bucket she decided to throw all 12 or so of them in so we hogged that game for a little bit. She had an absolute blast at it though.

It was a good night, and we let Kate have a piece of candy when we got home. She managed to eat the only Reese's pumpkin in her whole bag, and wouldn't you know that happens to be Mommy's favorite? Oh well. There's always tomorrow.

Pumpkin Carving Day 3

2011-10-31T00:35:00.005-05:00

Since we had church Nick and I only got to do two pumpkins each today...I did a Star Wars themed one and a pretty difficult swirly design, and he did two Cars characters:

I used my Dremel again on this one and just did it completely free hand.

Karyn and Gerald were busy today, since they were carving all day long. They did the following pumpkins:

Vickie and Bill both carved some fun characters for Kate:

Yia yia's Birthday

2011-10-31T00:30:00.001-05:00

Every year during pumpkin carving time we get to celebrate Yia yia's birthday on the 29th. Naturally this means her cake is always Halloween themed, but since Halloween is such an important part of our family it's all good. Karyn made an adorable mummy cake and some yummy spice Halloween cookies this year. She's getting really good with her cookie skills!

Kate helped give Yia yia her presents and even helped her open them. It was a fun birthday! We celebrated for a little bit and then got right back to carving.

Pumpkins Part 2

2011-10-30T05:26:00.004-05:00

Day 2 of carving brought forth these creations by me:

My tribute to Steve Jobs pumpkin, which I etched with my Dremel:

These are by Karyn:

Nick got in on the action today:

Bill did one and two of Karyn's friends came over and each carved a pumpkin too:

It's Pumpkin time!

2011-10-30T04:34:00.000-05:00

Carving 2011 has commenced! Here's my first four carvings of the season:

Here are Karyn's first few pumpkins:

Bowl Licker

2011-10-24T10:27:00.000-05:00

We made pumpkin muffins one day last week. Kate was more than willing to sit down with the bowl and clean it for me!

Although I gave her a spoon to use, she found it a lot easier to just stick her hand in there and use her fingers. I can't say that I blame her.

I'm not even sure why I bothered to bake them, to be honest. We both enjoyed the batter a lot!

Craft Show!

2011-10-16T13:44:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting much the past couple of weeks because I've been super busy shopping at Goodwill an making stuff out of what I find there. I decided I wanted to do a craft show, so Karyn agreed to split a booth with me and we started making all sorts of things.

I bought a ton of pretty frames at thrift stores, threw away the insides, spray painted them and added wire mesh to create jewelry frames. I used lace on some of them instead of the wire. I also bought some various candle holders, glued glass jars to them after painting them, and made some apothecary-like jars. I made some bird's nest necklaces. I did t-shirt scarves and hair clips. I made some Christmas ornaments ou of spoons. I made a few rolled paper wreaths. I spray painted several display pieces to hang stuff on. I helped my father-in-law build a huge display to hang out frames and wreaths on. Karyn made several cake/cookie stands and holiday wreaths. She did some ornaments too.

The show was Saturday, and it was a bit disappointing. There was not a lot of traffic there, despite lots of activities for families and kids. There were plenty of vendors, but most of them that I spoke with were disappointed in the show too. That made us feel better because obviously it wasn't us, it was the show. Despite the small crowd we did sell a few items, so it wasn't a total bust. I have been thinking since Saturday about things I would change and do differently for the next show, so that helps too. We plan on doing at least one more because we have all this stuff we need to try to sell!

Logan is 2!

2011-10-09T10:28:00.001-05:00

Last weekend we went to Tyler to celebrate Logan's second birthday! I can't believe he is already two...and I can't believe that it means Kate is only four weeks away from being two herself. (Denial!)

Logan is ALL about Toy Story, so naturally that was his party theme at the park. It was a beautiful day to be outside, and the kids loved playing on the big playground. The merry-go-round was especially enticing.

Kate and Kylie got in some girl time where they could. Those two are inseparable when they are around each other. It's so sweet!

The cupcakes with the brightly colored icing were a very big hit, of course. The kiddos all ended up with very colorful tongues.

When Cuties Attack

2011-09-30T23:07:00.000-05:00

Kate's new favorite night time activity is a little Daddy wrestling time before bed. We're all for it because she can get that last little bit of energy released and hopefully go down easier for the night. The attack is simple: run at Daddy with your arms out and "knock" him over when you get there. It helps that Daddy willingly falls backwards onto the ground.

After she knocks him down, and giggles for a few minutes about it, she then helps him get back up again. This requires grabbing him by the shoulders and grunting a lot.

We repeat this process over and over again, until one of the pair gets tired.

I'll let you figure out which one gets tired first for yourself.

Old friends

2011-09-27T05:58:00.002-05:00

This weekend we traveled to East Texas to see some old friends. Heather and Will were in from Maryland, and a group of us from high school decided to have an informal mini-reunion get together. It was a chance to grill some burgers, catch up, and let our kids play together.

Elisabeth and Kate. Elisabeth is one of my oldest friend's (Kaycee) little girl.

The trampoline was a big hit among the little ones.

Well most of the little ones...Elisabeth wasn't too sure about it and didn't last very long, even with Mommy standing right there with her.

The daddies had fun on the trampoline as well.

Olivia, Heather and Will's little girl, sporting trampoline static hair.

Eli (Jerod's son) and Kate were pretty excited when a train went by on the tracks behind Jacob and Jennifer's property.

Another sunset walk

2011-09-22T10:11:00.001-05:00

With it getting darker earlier in the evening, our sunset walks are becoming more difficult to do. I don't like the idea of walking with Kate after the sun has set because it's too difficult for someone to see her should she dart into the street. So we're starting to take our walks before dinner. I am all too aware though, that soon it will be getting dark before Daddy gets home in the evening, so he won't be able to take our walks with us.

In other news, we found and rescued this poor abandoned Buzz Lightyear from the curb.

Map Wreath

2011-09-19T20:52:00.002-05:00

Today I had the house all to myself, and after I did a few house cleaning chores I decided to get crafty. I had seen this cool paper wreath online made with rolled up sheet music, and I had been wanting to try to make my own. I don't have any sheet music, but I did have this cool atlas that I found at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago (for $1!!) so I decided to use maps instead. I love the way it turned out:

The original had a few more layers of sheet music and no flowers, but I decided to forego the extra layers and add the flowers instead. None of the rolls are the same, but I liked it that way. It's hanging at the end of my hallway.

Bathroom Remodel Complete! -ish

2011-09-18T12:14:00.000-05:00

It took three days and about $90, but the bathroom remodel is finished. I am pleased with the outcome, although there are still some things I would like to do in there were I going to be living here for an extended period of time, but I'm hoping of course that we sell soon and get to move so I'm saving my other ideas and money for the next house. So, here it is in all it's pretty-much-finished glory (Click on the photos to see them larger):

I painted all of the towel racks and switch plate covers black. They look much better than the silver did.

After 5 coats of Polycrylic sealer, some of the 3 dimensional texture was lost but not all. It's smoother than before any sealer, which is good for cleaning and bad if you wanted a really textured counter. I like it though.

I added a thin border inside of the existing mirror frame to widen it a little bit. The row with the dots is the trim I added. Yes, I know I need to get a razor blade in there and scrape off that tiny bit of paint.

This is my painting from my first Painting with a Twist adventure. Hobby Lobby had open-back frames on half price this week, so I framed it myself (I even put a paper backing on it) and thought it would be perfect in the new bathroom. Looks great framed, I think!

Border solution came out cool, although I'm not 100% in love with it. I think the quarter round I put along the bottom would look a lot better had I painted it black instead of the same color as the border. However by the time I was finished I was too tired to care...and I also didn't want to scare off a potential buyer with a black trim that would be very hard to cover with a new paint color should they desire to. So it's staying the khaki color.

Existing accessories - you can see these little mirrors in the before photo. They were maroon and blue...so I spray painted them black. I bought them years and years ago at a dollar store for a buck each. Gotta save money where I can! All of the rest of the patriotic accessories ended up at Goodwill.

So what would I still do to finish out the bathroom if we were staying, you ask? Here's a list:

New shower curtain. The current one is about the same color as the wall, and it blends in too much. I think a rich chocolate brown would look really nice. I might still buy this, but we will see. They're $14.99 at Target, I looked last night.
Paint the faucets, knobs, and hinges black or oil-rubbed bronze. I recently discovered that you can spray paint fixtures like this! But it's a lot of work, and I should've done that before I painted the countertops. So for now, everything is staying chrome. Plus I really don't want to take the cabinet doors off to paint the hinges. That's a lot of work.
Redo the flooring. It's currently a faux wood peel-n-stick tile that I must've put down when I'd had too much sugar because it's not the best tile job. There are tiny little gaps here and there, but for now they can be covered with a well-placed rug.
Buy a bigger rug for the floor. See #3.
Install or refinish sink. It's 33 years old, so it has those tiny little hairline spots in there. Plus it's a shell. It's hideous, but were I going to replace it I should have done that prior to painting the counter top.
Oh, and while I'm making a wish list for that bathroom, I'd completely redo the tile in the bathtub area. Again with the shells. Ugh. But that's WAY more work and money than I want to pour into this bathroom.

Bathroom Remodel Day 2

2011-09-15T22:41:00.003-05:00

I made some big progress today on the bathroom remodel. I coated the painted counter top with a total of five coats of Polycrylic. That's probably overkill, but I figure you can never be too protected, right? I finished the last coat at 3-something today, so by 3-something tomorrow it should be fully dried all the way through and ready for normal use.

As you can see, I began the border solution with a new border. Ha. I actually purchased a roll of textured wallpaper that resembles those old tin ceiling tiles and cut it in half length-wise. I hung this where the border goes, and then I've painted it this lovely khaki color, which just so happens to be the same color as my master bathroom (there fore I already had the paint). This part of the day took me a few hours, and it was tedious and annoying because you can't roll that stuff due to the texture. Well, that's not true. You can purchase fluffier paint rollers to use on textured walls I think, but I wasn't going to do that just for this one project so I painted it with a brush. The great news is it will need a second coat. Yay.

See the moulding leaning against the wall? That I cut today with my fun new miter box and painted it white. It's just a simple quarter round. Tomorrow after the second coat of paint on the border, I will hang the quarter round along the bottom of the painted border to create a bit of a ledge (not really big enough to set anything on) to break up the space. I just thought this would be a nice touch. Originally I had planned to just paint a brown stripe above the moulding where the border used to be, however doing so would have meant that I would have to completely remove all of the old border (including the fuzzy backing still on the wall) and I just really didn't want to do that. That's when I decided to go with the textured wallpaper stuff. It's interesting enough that it doesn't look like wallpaper.

I also decided to paint the frame around the mirror black instead of dark brown because it might have been difficult to match the brown paint to the counter top exactly, and I already had black paint. I'm going for a thrifty remodel, okay? I decided I wanted the frame to be a little bit more substantial than it was though, so I bought a couple of strips of a fancy little decorative moulding and will be gluing it to the inside of the existing frame tomorrow after I buy glue. Nothing that I already had would keep it in place. It's also painted black.

I think I'm going to have to repaint the towel racks and toilet paper dispenser again. They are that hideous ugly wooden set you can buy really cheap at Walmart or Home Depot, you know the ones? Well I wanted to replace them but I didn't have paint to match the wall color so that I could touch up where they used to be hanging once I replaced them. So last week I decided to spray paint them silver because all of the fixtures and knobs in the bathroom are chrome. That was all fine and dandy until I did the rest of this stuff, and now they don't look right. So I think they'll get a nice new coat of black tomorrow.

If I was really going all out and replacing fixtures and the whole nine yards, I think oil-rubbed bronze would look so good in there now. But since I'm not, I'll just have to deal with the chrome.

Unplanned Bathroom Remodel!

2011-09-15T09:06:00.001-05:00

Usually when someone does an unplanned bathroom remodel, it's because something in there exploded or flooded. Thankfully for us, this is not the case. I am doing an unplanned bathroom remodel basically because I'm easily distracted by things on the internet, and I saw a blog about painting your laminate countertops, and my countertop in that bathroom was U-G-L-Y. Yesterday I ventured into the bathroom and the first step to repainting the countertops, in my mind, is to begin pulling down the what-were-you-thinking-when-you-hung-that wallpaper border. I know, it makes a lot of sense.

So begins the unplanned remodel. Because it's grown from even there. Here is a before shot of our hallway bathroom, as used in our real estate listing:

See that blue countertop? Ugh. Original to the house....1979, baby. Oh, and here's a close up of the unfortunate border:

(Sorry for the terrible color balance...) I make it a habit to pretty much loathe wallpaper. It's just so 1985. The only reason there is a border to begin with is because there was a border when we bought the house (it was even uglier FROGS!) and a very detailed faux texture finish on the wall, which stopped at the bottom of the border. So if I had just taken down the border and painted the wall to the ceiling, there would have been an invisible border because there's no texturing up there. For some reason, I decided to do a patriotic bathroom (I'm still not sure why) and that brings us to today.

Now I'm still faced with the no-texture-to-the-ceiling dilemma, but I think I've found a great way to solve that without having to choose another traditional wallpaper border that I'm just going to be sick of in four months. But that's not for this post.

I found a couple of options for painting the countertop, spray or brush...and given my current love of spray painting everything I can find, I chose that option. I am using Rustoleum Stone Textured Finish paint in Stone Mineral Brown. So after taping down plastic and newspaper everywhere, I applied a primer in a sort of reddish brown (because it was either that, gray or white...) before I began painting the stone. It took about 5 coats of the stone paint to cover the red primer completely, which was roughly one and a half cans.

See the texture of the stone? It's not smooth, it's a rough finish. But I think that makes it look more realistic.

Last night I applied my first two coats of polycrylic waterproof sealer, and today throughout the day I will apply more and probably finish with 4-6 coats of sealer. I will say that I sort of preferred the look of the stone finish while it was matte, and the sealer is a semi-gloss so it is now shinier. I didn't even pay attention to whether or not they had the sealer in matte. But it's too late now so I can definitely live with that.

So this is where we are right now. I taped around the frame on the mirror because I will also be painting it, either dark brown or black. The wallpaper is almost gone, and now I need to go get busy to get started on the new border solution. More to come!

YAWYK August Update

2011-09-12T00:01:00.004-05:00

Yeah, so I'm a little behind on getting my August YAWYK update posted. The good news is that I didn't lose the piece of paper with our tally on it though! That is a pretty big accomplishment.

In August, we removed 70 items. We obtained 68 items. Yeah, not so great. I take ownership of that number and blame Goodwill...and Thrift Town. So far in 2011 we have removed 1310 items and obtained 655 for a net total removed of 655 items. I find that a little bit creepy, I'm not going to lie.

I say it every month, and I'll just throw it out there again - I could remove a whole lot more of this stuff if someone would buy my house and force me to go through it all! You know, throwing some good vibes out into the universe or something. We've hit a bit of a people-coming-to-see-the-house dry spell. I'm trying not to let this get me down. I'm also failing at that, on occasion. I'm meeting with our realtor tomorrow though to discuss some ideas. Maybe he has magic beans or something.

I spent my 9/11 today creating a painting of the New York skyline at Painting with a Twist. They had a "Painting with a Purpose" fundraiser for the Red Cross. I really enjoyed channeling my creative side to help me remember the attacks rather than focusing on footage and pictures of what happened. Those aren't images I'm likely to ever forget, and I've already spent enough time this week browsing through them again that I didn't feel the need to continue to do so today. The two beams of light on the right are my "twin towers".

I felt it was important not just to sign this painting but to also date it. Never forget.

Walking With Kate

2011-09-10T23:18:00.001-05:00

Walking with Kate is not a quick process. It's more of a leisurely stroll. She stops often. She picks up rocks. She examines holes in the sidewalk. She points out dogs and trees and airplanes. She walks into people's yards. She occasionally tries to sneak up to the door and knock. When she finds a rock or acorn or leaf or stick or marble or pecan or insert-object-here, she examines it and then decides if it is worthy of being brought back home. If she has pockets, then the object must be placed in her pocket. Otherwise, Mommy or Daddy has to carry it for her. Except this marble that we found the other day. She was very adamant on carrying that little treasure herself.

When we finally got back home, this was the collection of items that I had to carry back with us. We placed them all in the flower bed for safe keeping.

Labor Day @ Pop's

2011-09-09T08:54:00.005-05:00

For Labor Day we headed to my Dad's in Forney to spend the night and hang out with my brother's family. We hadn't been able to get together with them in a while, so it was a nice opportunity to see everyone. Let me just say though, that spending one night somewhere with a toddler requires an awful lot of gear which I thought would get easier as she got older but apparently not. It's almost just as easy to spend a week.

We went for a walk after dinner Sunday night. We wanted to make sure the kids were really worn out so that everyone would sleep well, being in a different place than usual. Kate is used to her after-dinner walks, but Kylie and Logan were new to the concept.

Kate and Kylie held hands and stuck together pretty much the whole walk. It's so sweet to see those girls loving on each other as if they get to see one another all the time. Kate loves other children, and Kylie adores Kate. I wish we could get them together more often.

We ended up at a small playground in Dad's subdivision. The kids, including my brother, had a good time.

Then we headed back to the house as the sun was disappearing. It was time for baths and bed.

The next day, on Labor Day, we were awakened to beautiful weather, although it was windy. Considering the ridiculously hot summer we've been dealing with this year, a windy day in the upper 80's was perfect. We headed to the big park in town, which was a very popular destination. Seems like everyone had the same idea - beautiful weather meant getting outside to soak it up. We had originally intended to take the kids to the spray park or pool, but with the wind it was actually a bit too chilly for that. A bit too chilly!! Imagine that.

Although it was just slightly over 24 hours together, I'm really glad that we were able to spend time with everyone. We're approaching the time of year that we'll get to see everyone monthly, with birthdays and major holidays coming up. This was the perfect way to kick start the fall!

First Pedi

2011-09-03T09:35:00.002-05:00

Lately, when I've been painting my toenails Kate has shown interest in having hers done. I had been waiting until I felt like she could sit still long enough for me to get a coat of polish on them, and finally the other day I decided that it was time. We decided on pink and went to town.

She hasn't stopped pointing at her toes since.

I'm not sure that I'm entirely ready for her little feet to look so grown up, but there you have it.

Etch Etch

2011-09-01T00:47:00.000-05:00

I started using Pinterest several weeks ago. Basically it's a virtual bookmark board. I have come across many, many awesome crafts and recipes and photos and style and...well you get the picture...since joining the site. However until the other day I hadn't really made use of many of the DIY projects or crafts that I've pinned so this week I decided to remedy that and got crafty.

One of my latest pins was about etching your own glass. Michael's sells a product called Armour Etch and basically you paint it onto glass, let is sit so it can eat away at the surface and then clean it off to reveal an etched design. Since I had the Cricut here and had just cut out some fun designs for my mixer, I decided to use the other part of the vinyl as stencils and try my hand at glass etching. Oh, and let me just warn you that Armour Etch is not cheap, so if you read this and decide "I so need to do this!" be prepared to spend money. There were three sizes at Michael's, the largest bottle was $36.99. I opted for the medium size $29.99. You need to really want to etch glass and have plans to etch a lot of it to make the purchase worthwhile. The bottle also had some pretty serious warnings about safety with this stuff, so I wouldn't consider this a kid friendly project. I guess anything strong enough to eat away glass probably isn't for children.

Recognize the designs? Leftover pieces of vinyl from my mixer decorating experiment. I'm thrifty like that.

I selected some Pyrex that I had in my cupboard to experiment with. This way if I screwed it up, it didn't really matter, but if it looked fabulous then I was going to etch my Pampered Chef trifle bowl. I was hesitant so I started with the Pyrex.

The bottle said to paint horizontal and then vertical to cover the area that you wanted to etch, but I found that this caused some of my vinyl to move, especially the really thin areas, so I ended up dabbing it on with a sponge brush sort of the same way you stencil.

See where that tiny little arm is sticking up? Yeah...etching cream got under there.

I realized after I got the cream in place that I hadn't really smoothed the vinyl down enough, so I had a few places where the cream went underneath the vinyl. Once applying the Armour Etch, there is nothing you can do about this but let it be and deal with the odd places in your design. Lesson #1 - smooth down the edges of your vinyl really, really well. I used my fingernail, and I turned the glass so I could see the backside of the vinyl and could tell that there were no more air bubbles under there. Otherwise your piece will have leaks, like this:

The bottle said to leave the Armour Etch in place for 5 minutes. This sure didn't seem long enough to me, but I went with it. After 5 minutes, I took the bowl to the faucet and rinsed one little area away and was not happy with the amount of etching, so I reapplied cream to that bowl and left them for another 8 minutes or so.

You can see from my first two pieces that these were my first two pieces. By that I mean they aren't great. The flowers on the bowl have spots where the etching is not as uniform. Lesson #2 - When the bottle says a thick, even coat it means a thick, even coat. Despite the price of the cream, don't be stingy. You can also see where the cream seeped under my vinyl in a few spots, but since these were just practice pieces I am not too worried about it. Overall, I was just excited that it actually worked. I wasn't thrilled with the brightness of the etching cream on my bowl, but on the square dish below it was a lot brighter. This piece had the cream on it longer than the bowl though.

I felt pretty confident that I had the process down, so I decided to move forward with etching my trifle bowl. This was a big deal...I love that bowl. I rubbed every edge of my vinyl with my fingernail until I was confident that I had a really good stick. Then I began to apply the cream.

I intended to leave it on for about 15 minutes, but then I sat down at my computer and about 35 minutes passed before I pulled myself away. I'm actually really glad I did because I think the etching is the perfect amount. Lesson #3 - Leave Armour Etch on product longer than bottle recommends. At least in the case of my Pyrex and trifle bowl, they definitely needed longer than the 5 minutes on the bottle. I think 35 was perfect for my trifle bowl.

Isn't she pretty??

Overall the glass etching process was very easy. I definitely recommend practicing on something that you don't mind screwing up before you take the chance on a piece that you want to be perfect. There is a bit of a learning curve and this is permanent..so if you screw up there is no way to fix it. I think glass etched piece will make really cool gifts for people. That means that if you are reading this and you are someone I might normally buy a gift for...well, you just might get something etched. After all, I have a whole bottle of etching cream that was too expensive to go to waste. I can totally see putting a last name on a pretty dish to give as a wedding shower gift. I need someone I know to get married now.

My Mixer Makeover

2011-08-30T23:12:00.008-05:00

I have been coveting a Kitchenaid stand mixer for quite some time now. I have managed to survive for 33 years of my life with just a rinky dinky little hand mixer, which is pretty amazing given how I like to bake. But I have not wanted to, or really been able to, fork over the $299 or however much they cost to purchase my own. I realize there are other, less expensive brands on the market...but come on - doesn't everyone want the luxury model?

Enter awesome sis-in-law. She carves a mean pumpkin, you know, and last year she entered and won a $500 gift card for one of her pumpkin carvings. Yeah, she's that good. Anyway, this allowed her to purchase the industrial sized Kitchenaid mixer so she would have a momma and a baby. After a while she realized that she only ever uses the momma, and the baby was gathering dust. I came home from Colorado to find her baby Kitchenaid sitting on my counter with a post-it note telling me to have fun. Woooohoooooo.

This week I had to borrow a Cricut for a project, and while I had it in my possession I made sure I also had vinyl so I could do some extra fun stuff with the Cricut while it was here. Enter baby mixer.

I know! Isn't she pretty? I cut some flourishes and flowers. I'm just thankful my friend had an awesome Cricut cartridge with lots of fun designs to use.

The best part is that it's just basically a really strong sticker....so if need be, someday I can remove them. But they are on there good enough that I don't have to worry about them peeling off randomly.

I thought this was clever. I couldn't resist. I love words in unexpected places.

This flourish and these flowers will also show up in another craft that I worked on today. I've been a busy little bee lately.

Backyard Oasis

2011-08-27T23:14:00.004-05:00

I finally bought Kate a little pool for our backyard. They had them on clearance at Babies 'r Us last week, so while we were there getting her a booster chair for the kitchen table (no more high chair!) I picked one up. By the way, I found it quite amusing that the box for this pool stated it was for children ages 4 and up. Given how tiny it is, I don't know a single 4 year old that would play in it. It's almost too small for Kate, but it will work for now since she doesn't actually swim yet. I know it's just for safety reasons, but it still cracked me up.
At some point, it became apparent that Mommy needed to swim too. It's small, so about all I could do was stand there and splash her. She enjoyed it though.
Then Kate realized she could take her watering can and water the yard...and the flowers....and the patio...and Mommy's legs.
Which of course led to her drinking out of her watering can. I'm glad Nick wasn't around because I'm pretty sure he would've flipped out and told her to stop...but honestly, what's summer if you can't drink water from the water hose? I did, however, ask her not to do that after I took her photo doing it.
I think she likes the pool, and Mommy liked playing in it with her. We'll be filling it up again soon, since I don't think the heat is going anywhere for a little while.

Painting with a Twist

2011-08-25T00:35:00.004-05:00

Saturday evening I finally fulfilled an item on my bucket list and went to Painting with a Twist. I have been wanting to do this for about a year now. The premise is that you pay a fee for a class and they supply your canvas, paints and brushes. Each class is one designated painting (so you choose the class you do based on the painting you want to create) and the instructor walks you through the process step by step to recreate your own version of the piece.

I snapped this pictures pretty early on in the process so I could capture my masterpiece as it unfolded. It was very simple to follow the instructor, and the great thing is that each person is going to have a slightly different interpretation of what we were doing.

As the night progressed I figured out pretty quickly that this is something I will most definitely be doing again. It was fun, and the further into the piece we got the more I wanted to paint. I think I spent most of our break times working on my canvas rather than taking a break.

Mandy and another friend, Teresa, went with me. Mandy snapped this one of me hard at work. This was actually the first time I had painted a canvas on an easel. I don't own an easel so the few times I've painted something on canvas I've just done it laying flat on a table. I liked using the easel a lot, but when it came to really fine details I felt more comfortable picking it up so I could paint the way I draw. I wasn't the only one.

So this is my finished piece, well as finished as it was the night I came home from the class. I actually took some time the other day to complete it further and added some more leaves and highlighted my trees some more. See the little heart? It has an N and a B in it, and I wasn't really able to make that very clear at the class because they didn't supply us with a tiny brush so I had to fix that at home too.

We had a ton of fun. Here is Teresa, me and Mandy with our artwork. See how each of ours is unique while still being the same? I think we all did a really good job. It was my and Mandy's first time, and Teresa's third or fourth. Watch out, Michealangelo.

Budding artist

2011-08-22T17:42:00.002-05:00

We've been coloring a lot lately. I finally purchased Kate's first box of crayons last week and a plastic bin that locks to keep them in. Those cardboard boxes just never hold up. I suppose in hindsight I should have purchased the big fat crayons for little hands, but it never occured to me until much later. She doesn't seem to mind though. I also bought her a sketchbook full of blank pages. I thought this would be more fun than a regular coloring book because it's so limitless. She's pretty much just going to scribble lines anyway.

When you are coloring, it's pretty important to get as low and close to the paper as you can. you might also notice some drawings and words that would be fairly impressive were they Kate's handiwork, but you see coloring is not a solo activity in our house. She passes out crayons to everyone present, one color at a time, and we all get to draw...even Boo Kitty.

I'll have you know that Kate did this all on her own. She selected a crayon, picked up Boo Kitty and held the crayon to her hand, and then laid her face down on the floor and proceeded to allow Boo Kitty to color, which Kate's help of course. It was pretty darn cute if you ask me and further proof that my child is pretty much a genius.

Her hat

2011-08-21T00:21:00.004-05:00

Words cannot begin to describe how much Kate loves this hat. She came home with it from her yiayia's house one day, and it has not left our house since. Some might assume that this is a cold weather hat to be worn outside, but you would be very wrong.

Kate seems to enjoy wearing her hat when she plays, and it really has nothing to do with whether or not her head is cold. In fact I pretty strongly doubt that she realizes it serves some purpose other than making her look cool. And gangsta.

The hat is very important.

In other funnies...this is how I found her the other day, completely entranced in The Wiggles.

Jerry World

2011-08-16T23:10:00.006-05:00

Mandy and I went to the Cowboys Stadium today for a self-guided tour. We bought a Group-on for only $10 each, which I thought was a decent price for a little bit of sight-seeing today. I think it's almost a necessity that everyone living in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area visit the Texas Death Star at least once.

It's a nice facility, that's for sure. There is no doubt which team plays there because everywhere you turn there's a star or something blue and white, except for a very large, very ugly tiled yellow wall that is supposed to be art.

We got to watch a practice this morning because it just so happens that the team is at home practicing instead of being off at training camp somewhere, so that was kind of cool.

Jason Whitten did a little post-practice interview before heading back for lunch.

After they finished their walk through we were able to go on field and in both the Cowboys and the cheerleader's locker rooms. We totally look like we belong, right?

Seven Falls

2011-08-09T23:48:00.006-05:00

We didn't want to waste a single minute of Colorado time, so before we drove out of town we made one last stop for some sight seeing at Seven Falls located in South Cheyenne Canyon. At night, the falls are lit up with a computerized light display so they change color every few seconds. We rode the elevator up to the observation deck to take it all in for a while. We had a large group: Nick's grandparents, his aunt and uncle and a couple of cousins plus our group.

Nick, Trey and two of Nick's cousins decided that they wanted the ultimate waterfall viewing experience, so they climbed the 224 steps to the very top of the falls.

We even had a nice view of the Big Dipper while we were there.

It was the perfect way to end our time in Colorado. We literally left the falls, gassed up the car, and drove out of town around midnight. Since we were all traveling to the same place, Nick's uncle followed us the whole way so we had a bit of a caravan coming back. Twelve long hours later, we were back home in hot, sweaty Texas.

Air Force Academy

2011-08-09T23:29:00.005-05:00

After the Cliff Dwellings, we headed into Colorado Springs to the Air Force Academy. Nick's grandfather and uncle were staying there, so we crashed in their room for little while after taking a look around at some of the aircraft on display.

Trey was very excited to see the planes so close. They have some awesome stuff on display, like this Thunderbirds T-38 and and A-10A Thunderbolt.

The plane we were there to see, however, was the B-52 Stratofortress. "Diamond Lil" is her name, and she is something very, very special. She is the actual B-52 that Nick's grandfather used during Vietnam. He sat in the gunner's seat for 200 missions in her long tail.

I had chills watching him walk Nick all around the plane, telling him stories about their missions and explaining the ins and outs of the plane itself.

Explaining to him that every time they took off in her, they had no idea if they were coming back and that he was alive because she kept them safe.

Thanks, Diamond Lil. We are grateful for your protection.

Cliff Dwellings

2011-08-09T23:19:00.005-05:00

On our last day in Colorado, we decided to take Trey and Kate to the Cliff Dwellings in Manitou Springs. Trey really wanted to do some more hiking, so we thought this would be a fun compromise. He could explore the dwellings and learn a little something at the same time.

It was pretty interesting. Trey loved it and I am pretty sure he might have spent the night in one of those little houses if he could have.

Kate was, much to her father's dismay, pretty much fearless when it came to the stairs and ledges and windows. In fact, she made an attempt to climb inside almost every window that was her height. I think Nick gained a few more gray hairs that day.

See, I was there too:

The Wienermobile!!

2011-08-07T01:30:00.005-05:00

I have always always always wanted to see the Wienermobile in person. I have no clue as to why I have always had this desire. I don't even like hot dogs. There's just something about a giant hot dog car that begs for me to see it in person. I even own a tiny little lapel pin of the Wienermobile that I purchased at some gift shop in Michigan.

After dinner we were standing around, saying our goodbyes in the parking lot of Hacienda Colorado when I suddenly realize that the Wienermobile had pulled into the parking lot of a hotel across the street. THE WIENERMOBILE! That's what I shouted.

I took off. It's a good thing I had already given out hugs to pretty much everyone because I was on a mission. I didn't know how long it was going to be parked and I had to go see this in person, it was literally within walking distance and calling my name. Trey followed me across a pretty large and busy intersection, past the Conoco, and around and through a chain link fence to get to the Wienermobile.

There she was, in all her orange and yellow glory. RELSHME.

I would so drive one of those things. Not on promotional tours. I would drive it just everyday. To the grocery store. To church. I would rock out that Wienermobile. I called Nick and told him to bring Kate over when he finished with his goodbyes because I needed a photo of my daughter with it too. She's for sure a cooler kid today than yesterday, and I can say for certain that my trip to Colorado has been excellent.

Oh, and just for your Wienermobile reading pleasure, I copied this from Wikipedia:

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile has evolved from Carl Mayer's original 1936 vehicle to the current vehicles seen on the road today. Although gas rationing kept the Wienermobile off the road during World War II, in the 1950s Oscar Mayer and the Gerstenslager Company created several new vehicles using a Dodge chassis or a Willys Jeep chassis. One of these models is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. These Wienermobiles were piloted by "Little Oscar" who would visit stores, schools, orphanages, children's hospitals, and participate in parades and festivals.

In 1969, new Wienermobiles were built upon a Chevrolet motor home chassis and featured Ford Thunderbird taillights. The 1969 vehicle was the first Wienermobile to travel to foreign countries. In 1976 Plastic Products, inc., built a fiberglass and styrofoam model, again on a Chevrolet motor home chassis.

In 1988, Oscar Mayer launched its Hotdogger program, where recent college graduates were hired to drive the Wienermobile through various parts of the nation and abroad. Using a converted Chevrolet van chassis, Stevens Automotive Corporation and noted industrial designer Brooks Stevens built a fleet of six Wienermobiles for the new team of Hotdoggers.

In 1995, the Wienermobile grew in size to 27-feet long and 11-feet high. The most recent version of the Wienermobile, built in 2004, has been updated to include a voice activated GPS navigation device, an audio center with a wireless microphone, and a horn that plays the Wiener Jingle in 21 different genres from Cajun to Rap to Bossa Nova, according to American Eats.

There are seven Wienermobiles in existence. The current Wienermobile sports fourth generation Pontiac Firebird taillights.

Family Dinner

2011-08-07T01:22:00.002-05:00

We had dinner at Hacienda Colorado this evening. It was a great opportunity for some family time and pictures. There were 17 of us and being in Colorado, where the weather is so much nicer than Texas in August, we were able to dine out on the patio.

Here's Nick giving his stepsister Sydney a hard time, as he always likes to do. She takes it well though. That's his other stepsister Amanda in the blue shirt, and Dad and stepmom on the far right.

Uncle John was trying to hold Kelsey still so I could take her picture, because apparently she doesn't like for you to photograph her. Nick's cousin Amber is in the background.
Here I am with the Nick's lovely stepsister's and one of my mother-in-laws. They're a totaly crazy and fun bunch to hang out with.
The obligatory group shot. I'll list everyone, from left to right, because someday I may not remember all of their names. Ha!

Grandpa Jim and wife Carol, stepsister Amanda and boyfriend Russell, cousins Kelsey and Amber, Robbie and Joe, Nick, Aunt Wendy, stepsister Sydney, then coming around the front there's me with Kate trying to climb onto my shoulder, then Uncle John and sister Krystal.

My little brother is tucked away in the photo. His face was visible in other shots until Kate dive bombed for Mommy.

Denver Museum of Nature & Science

2011-08-07T01:01:00.003-05:00

Today we went to Denver with Nick's family and visited the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Nick and I went a few years ago when we visited Denver in 2007, but this time we spent our afternoon looking for leprechauns. See, several of the dioramas have leprechauns painted in the background.

Apparently, way back when some of the oldest dioramas were being put together, the artist who was painting the backgrounds painted in these leprechauns in lieu of a signature. There are various stories about how the museum felt about this at the time, but nowadays they seem to treat it as a cute joke that they don't try too hard to keep secret.

The information desk hands out a sheet of clues to tell you where to look for them, so off we went. Some of them were very hard to find, and several were inaccessible due to some halls being renovated. We were successful in spotting several of them though. Although we all spent time hunting for leprechauns, I think Trey got the biggest kick out of it. We were also able to find the hidden Yoda in the Imax Theater mural.

Can you see the leprechaun in the photo below?

U.S. Olympic Training Center

2011-08-06T00:57:00.004-05:00

Today we did a 50 minute tour of the U.S. Olympic Training Center located in Colorado Springs.The U.S. Olympic Complex in Colorado Springs is the headquarters for the U.S. Olympic Committee administration and the Olympic Training Center programs. It was free (woohoo) and close by and really, how often do you get to see something like that?

A sweet kid, ahem...Olympic ambassador, led our tour. His name was Casey. Or Charles. Carl? No, I think Casey. Anyway, we started in the visitor's center and watched a 12 minute movie montage of the Olympic winners and some footage about the upcoming London games. Allow me to admit something to you: I am completely incapable of watching Olympic montages without tearing up. Had I been in the comfort of my home watching it, I probably would've just let the tears roll. I don't know what it is about the Olympics that makes me cry, but it gets me every time.
So. After the movie we were escorted around the facility, which I will tell you is really, really nice. We were allowed to go into a gym to watch a basketball practice and some male gymnasts working on pommel horse techniques. We saw the Olympic pool, the shooting range, and the dorms where the athletes live. I highly recommend stopping by if you are ever in the area. The Olympic Visitor Center includes one of seven U.S. Olympic Stores in the country. They are the only stores in America where every purchase helps support U.S. athletes, so naturally I spent $26. I just couldn't bring myself to throw down $66 for the hoodie, but I sure wanted to.

This is the bobsled that was used in the Turino games.

Perhaps someday Kate will be back at this facility as a training athlete. Who knows. So I took this shot and then thought, hey, this is the shot they can show when Bob Costas does his special report on how she got her Olympic start.

Garden of the Gods

2011-08-05T19:45:00.004-05:00

Today we drove through the Garden of the Gods. We stopped at a couple of different turn off points so we could do some hiking and climbing on the rocks. Despite there being signs saying not to do that, pretty much every does so we figured "why not?" I think hiking has been Trey's favorite part of the trip so far.

Kate is happy as long as she gets to walk around, free as a bird. Of course this has kept Mommy and Daddy very busy, you know, saving her life repeatedly.

She has also been picking up rocks and trying to stick them in her tiny little pockets. You can imagine just how many rocks there are for her to pick up. It has been an adventure.

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun

2011-08-05T01:00:00.005-05:00

From Wikipedia: Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, also known as Will Rogers Shrine, is the tomb which holds the ashes of Spencer Penrose (1865-1939), a philanthropist who contributed many of the most prominent landmarks in Colorado Springs, including the neighboring Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Broadmoor Hotel. Completed by Penrose in 1937, it takes the form of an 80-foot observation tower on the side of Cheyenne Mountain. It overlooks the Broadmoor Hotel, and from the tower one can see the entire Colorado Springs metropolitan area and Garden of the Gods.

Persuaded not to name the structure after himself, Penrose instead named it in honor of his friend, Will Rogers, the American humorist who died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935, during construction of the tomb.

It's a 1.4 mile drive up the mountain to the shrine. It has killer views.

We were able to watch a rain shower blow into town across the mountains, which was amazing to see. I wish I could blow them down to Texas. We really need the rain back home.

Nick drooled over the golf courses he spotted from the top. I think he counted six. Poor guy, he wanted to play golf while we were here so badly.

Look! It's the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

2011-08-05T00:26:00.006-05:00

I have a new favorite zoo.

We visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo today, which pretty quickly became one of my favorite zoos. Right when you enter the zoo grounds you see the giraffes, which is the largest herd of giraffes in the world, and they let you feed them! We bought some lettuce (instead of the usual giraffe crackers - they are on a diet) and fed them by hand. It was by far the coolest thing I have ever done at a zoo and I could have left right then and there and been totally content with my day.

The zoo is situated on the side of a mountain, so to see everything you end up walking uphill a lot. But the exhibits are wonderful and so natural. They just blocked off some spaces with fencing and didn't have to plant any trees or install any fake rocks for the animals, so after a while you don't really feel like you are at a zoo. It's really pretty cool. With all the trees everywhere, it's very shady and we didn't get too hot either.

We spent a great deal of time in the hippo house watching the zookeepers feed the hippos salad and fruits. Kate really enjoyed watching them swim around, and even tried to mimic their snorting sound. I loved the hippos too, and next to the giraffes it was another highlight of the day.One of the last exhibits we saw today was the primate house, and we let Kate run pretty free in there. She loves monkeys, so she kept pointing at them and doing her monkey imitation with her hands under her arms.

Red Rock Canyon Open Space

2011-08-03T21:10:00.003-05:00

We did a little hiking this afternoon at the Red Rock Canyon Open Space. There are some gorgeous red rock formations and lots of trails to explore. Several of the trails are easy so Kate was able to tackle them without much help.

Vacation: Manitou Springs, Colorado

2011-08-03T21:01:00.004-05:00

Last night we hit the road for Colorado Springs, more specifically Manitou Springs. The trip started off a bit shaky when Trey had some second thoughts about leaving home for so long without his mom and dad. This was his first big trip away from them to a place he had never been, so it was a little bit scary. After some creative bribing on my mom's part involving a Playstation 3, he agreed to come as planned.

Along the way last night, Trey was enjoying the view out the window and exclaimed that he had never seen so many stars before! It was kind of cute, and that's pretty much the only thing West Texas is good for in my opinion.

When we arrived in Manitou Springs this morning, we were all very ready to be out of the car for a little while so we took the kids to a park to let them play. We had to kill a few hours before our hotel room was ready anyway. There is a really nice park across the street from it with a playground and a creek with some walking trails. The temperature was awesome (anything was better than 109 in Fort Worth, right?) and the scenery gorgeous.

YAWYK July Update

2011-08-02T07:28:00.004-05:00

We maintained a fairly decent pace at removing items for the month of July. Part of this occured because Kate is starting to outgrow some of her 18 month clothes (but yet still has a few 12 month items that fit - standardized sizing, please?) and Nick cleaned out a bunch of shirts from his closet that he was hoarding. For the month of July, we removed 135 items.

Obtaining was a little bit of a different story. We obtained 109 items, and part of that I totally blame on the Carter's store for having an awesome 20% off clearance sale and Kate outgrowing some clothes. We'll try to do better in August.

So far in 2011 we have removed 1240 items and obtained 587 for a net total removed of 653 items.

If we could sell our house, I'm willing to bet the removed category would go way up again. We've been on the market just over 6 weeks now, and we've had 6 showings. I can't complain about the amount of activity, for sure. We've maintained our one per week average, so that's great. But no offers yet, which is not great and a little bit discouraging. I know, the buyer is out there and the activity is great in this market and all that jazz. I've heard all the encouraging well-intended words there are, and I appreciate them, I do. But they help about as much as those folks who can't stop themselves from saying stuff like "Just wait until Kate blah blah blah blah" every time I turn around. It's not helpful, in fact it just annoys me, so stop doing it.

There, I feel better.

On a positive note, the last showing we had was at 5 pm yesterday. It's now 8:02 the following morning and I feel pretty sure that is enough time to have come up with a lovely number and written out an offer for my property, don't you think?

Now for a photo...or two. Look at this picture and please tell me where this little girl came from? Just yesterday she was a baby. She doesn't look like a baby so much here.

Today I am packing our clothes and toiletries and some snacks because we are hitting the road for Colorado Springs. A lot of Nick's family is convening on the area so we will be doing lots of family activities as well as some standard sight seeing things on our own. We are also taking my little brother, and I know he is super excited. The following picture represent a bonus reason for our traveling to Colorado:

How insanely ridiculous is that forecast??? 109? WHY? That doesn't even include the heat index! The highest it is projected to be in Colorado Springs while we are there is 88. When I get back home to this awful heat, someone please have a list of all the good reasons why I should continue to live in Texas because I'm going to need them.

Mommy's Shoes

2011-07-30T12:16:00.003-05:00

Kate is obsessed with shoes. Lately every time our closet door is open just the slightest bit, she removes one or two of my shoes from the rack and puts them on. Last night she walked all the way through the house in one of my heels. Just one.

No photos, please.

My puddin'

2011-07-29T23:48:00.003-05:00

Oh look, there's some chocolate pudding on my arm. I'll just lick it off.

Mommy, would you like a bite?

No?

Daddy? Would you like some??

Why does no one want to share my pudding with me?

I don't understand.

It's a good thing Daddy is in charge of bathtime, kiddo....

Summertime

2011-07-29T23:41:00.003-05:00

Yesterday evening Kate played in the sprinkler for a little while. She has a whole system down for running through the water. She begins by just standing next to the water to get her hands wet. Then she uses her hands to hold the water down so that when she runs through she keeps her face from getting wet. This doesn't stop her from squeezing her eyes closed anyway.

Then she starts all over again.

In between laps through the water, she makes little pit stops to sit and contemplate life, or perhaps just admire her shoes.

She always makes sure to climb on top of and over her sandbox that has no sand in it named Tuggy. There is a good reason why it has no sand. We have a family of grass snakes that live in our backyard, and the last time I lifted up the empty sandbox just to see what was underneath there were 6 of them hanging out under there. Now they are tiny little grass snakes and won't hurt anything, but I'd rather then not hang out inside the sandbox...so it sits empty. But it makes a nice jungle gym.

Stupid Guy Rant

2011-07-28T17:07:00.003-05:00

I had to go into Batteries Plus today to get a new charger for my camera battery because I lost my power cord. Right before I walked into the store this chick went in for a new cell phone battery, and a lesson about guys that I already knew was reinforced.

Despite there being a sign on the register that says "We will not accept credit cards that do not swipe!", if you are a cute chick wearing your spandex work-out pants and flirt with young, ignorant dude behind the counter, he will happily accept what you claim to be your Daddy's credit card number written down on a piece of paper.

Guess what dude: she's as perfectly capable of using a stolen credit card number as someone who "looks" shady. Think with your brain next time and follow the rules.

/rant

Kate's Baby Book

2011-07-28T00:17:00.005-05:00

I went to a scrapbook retreat last week. I was away from my child for 3 nights and 4-ish days. Daddy was in charge, although he had some major help from his mom and Nana. I missed that little girl of mine, but I didn't feel all that far away from her because the major project I worked on while I was there was her baby book. I had started it, done a few minor things to the book but for the most part taking care of her has kept me from spending very much time with my scrapbook supplies in the past 20 months. She's such a little helper, and now if I so much as look at my stuff she wants to play too.

I purchased a baby book for her instead of just making a scrapbook from scratch, although I could have easily done just that. I didn't really like all of the pre-printed pages, so I only used a handful of them to fill out information about Kate. The rest of the pages I completely covered with scrapbook papers and did my own thing. The pages are 9" x 10". It was interesting working with an awkward size, but I enjoyed the process. I still have a few pages to finish up but for the most part, here is her book:

Kissy face

2011-07-27T16:35:00.003-05:00

Kate has been making kissy faces for a while now, when she wants to give you kisses. She started with a wide open mouth when she was a baby, and then she noticed that Mommy and Daddy didn't do that. So she began pursing her lips closed but not pushing them out like we do. Now, she's graduated to this:

Works just fine for me, kiddo.

Meeting Ben

2011-07-27T16:27:00.003-05:00

Jen is in Texas with the girls and new baby Ben to visit family, so we were very excited to have an afternoon play date with the kids and others from church. I don't pass up a chance for baby snuggles.

The moms sat around the table and chatted for a few hours while all the kids ran around the house and played. It's amazing how noisy a handful of kids can be. Kate wasn't very sure of herself when we first arrived because she was in a new place, but after I finally got some food and Koolaid (SUGAR!!) in her, she settled right in to playing with the rest of the group.
I wish we could see the Feldkamps more often. Kansas is too far away!

Chan's Mongolian stir-fry

2011-07-25T18:33:00.008-05:00

Chan's might just be my favorite restaurant. It's a local Mongolian stir-fry place. I could pretty much eat there every single day, if I had unlimited funds and superior metabolism. Kate likes it too, and Mandy and I often take her there before church on Wednesday nights. That's exactly what we did last Wednesday.

My plate is always made the same way: a mixture of chicken, shrimp, and crab meats with some broccoli and carrots. If I'm not sharing my food with Kate, I also add peppers but often I have to give her some of mine so I don't add them always. I top that with a couple of heaping spoons of garlic, and occasionally some sesame oil. Of course is just isn't complete without the fried rice. When Nick gets to accompany us to Chan's, his plate is always a concoction of all the meats they offer and noodles, along with rice.

While my favorite part of the meal is the stir fry portion, Kate's favorite part is the fortune cookie and little bowl of ice cream. Were the stir fry not so wonderful, I would agree with her completely.

Bubbles!

2011-07-21T00:51:00.002-05:00

Kate is currently obsessed with bubbles. She spends lots of time at her yiayia's house blowing bubbles, and once she discovered that we also had bubbles at home she asks for them frequently. Yesterday I decided to set the camera up on auto and try to catch some pictures of her chasing the bubbles, since it's pretty much impossible to both blow bubbles and take photos at the same time.

Just in case you were wondering, the following is a good example of the optimum bubble viewing position. So next time you blow bubbles, give it a try.

Sunset

2011-07-17T16:34:00.001-05:00

Last night we went to a local park for a bit so Kate could run off some energy. It's part of our evening routine to spend some time outside in hopes that she falls to sleep a little bit easier. I snapped this picture of them walking back to the car as we were calling it a night.

Many Faces of Kate

2011-07-15T14:25:00.003-05:00

We took a self-portrait yesterday, and Kate immediately asked for more. Since she was so interested in being photographed, I kept snapping away. She came up with all of the expressions on her own. That kid cracks me up sometimes.

Look out, Elton John

2011-07-14T00:27:00.000-05:00

Swim Day

2011-07-14T00:24:00.003-05:00

Last Friday was just another swim day for us. I captured a few cute pictures with my iphone of all the fun. Popsicles were passed around, so of course Kate had to have one. She loves them.Sharing a quiet moment with her Uncle Trey.

Her Dolls

2011-07-09T14:46:00.003-05:00

Thank you, McDonalds, for having a toy that my daughter loves right now. She has been carrying around these dolls for a few days now, pretty much nonstop.She loves them. They are pretty great, I admit. They have real hair! You can turn their legs and heads around 360 degrees, exorcist-style!It's the simple things in life that we enjoy the most.

4th of July Pool fun

2011-07-06T00:24:00.005-05:00

Kate spent a lot of time wet on the 4th of July, and I'm not talking about her diaper! She played in her little blue pool at yiayia's house with Uncle Trey, then we all went down to the community pool for a little while, and that evening after we got home I let her run around in the sprinkler while I watered the back yard. I think it's pretty fitting, considering it was so hot here.

We ate a ton of good food for the holiday, of course. We had BBQ, corn on the cob, rolls, baked beans, hot dogs, cherry pie, brownies, banana split cake, home made peach ice cream, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Do take note of my completely awesome USA cherry pie though. Ignore the oozing cherry juices and the cracked A. Pretty cool, huh?

My Lens, My view

2011-07-04T00:05:00.002-05:00

I started a new blog this evening for my artsy photography stuff. It won't have anything but photos, so don't expect any funny stories or anything, but I thought you might enjoy seeing the pictures. Feel free to bookmark, or better yet, click on "Follow" and keep track of it that way:

My Lens, My View

Some of the photos you will have already seen here, but I didn't want it to be naked just starting out. A naked blog is not a happy blog.

Friday Swim Days

2011-07-02T00:07:00.004-05:00

During the summer when all the teacher moms and kids are out of school, we pool hop on Fridays. We have enough members of our congregation with pools that we can keep the kids happy at a different place each week, and circle back through if we need to without them complaining that we "always go to that pool!" because, you know, the shape of the pool makes a big difference when you are swimming in it.

Today I snapped a few pictures with my iphone while everyone had fun in the water. Kate and I had already redressed because she was not in the swimming mood for very long today. In actuality, I don't think she really cares for swimming all that much yet. She would much rather run around the outside of the pool than stay in the water with Mommy, which of course she is not allowed to do.

YAWYK June Update

2011-07-01T00:10:00.002-05:00

I rocked June OUT!

In June, I removed 312 items from our home! It does wonders when you start to pack items to move to storage. You discover all sorts of junk stashed here and there; items you haven't even seen, let alone used, in six or more months. So off to Goodwill or the trash they go!

We obtained 95 items, which isn't bad at all. 24 of those items came home with us from Tennessee (Hobby Lobby was having a huge 80% off sale on home decor!) so I'd say we did a pretty fine job on obtaining stuff this month.

For 2011, we've removed 1105 items and obtained 478 for a net total of 627 items removed. We are over halfway to our goal!

In other home news, we've been on the market for two weeks now and had three home showings. I'm really excited about that, because it means good activity on our property. I was so worried that we would list the house and no one would want to come see it. I guess that's a normal anxiety when you are selling a home, but to have people actually looking makes me feel good. Naturally I'd feel even better if one of them makes an offer. Of course we've also received several phone calls about renting the house, which is not an option. But hey, if you know someone looking to pick up a new rental property in Watauga, I have one available! I bet he could have it rented in 2 weeks.

Vacation Bible School

2011-06-29T14:44:00.006-05:00

This year Kate is getting to participate in VBS for the first time! We missed the first night because of our trip, and Monday night she didn't get to go because she was at Nick's Mom's house giving Mommy and Daddy a break. (Thank you!) But last night she made her VBS debut and I think she had a lot of fun.

I had to steer clear of her classroom because had Mommy been spotted, it would have been all over. Thankfully Mandy was in her class to take photos so I don't have to totally miss her experience.

Each of the kids in class has a box of props that they use while Miss Stacey sings songs to them. Here, Kate is driving her car to Bible class.

They take turns ringing the bell for class to begin. Most of the kids bang on the bell, but Kate does it quite daintily.

Here Kate is being a frog so she can catch the flies before hopping her frog into the pond.

They feed (and kiss) their pigs and sheep with the corn.

This big cow nods her head.

They also take time to smell (and share) the flowers.

Last Day in Tennessee

2011-06-29T14:36:00.004-05:00

On our final day in Tennessee, we decided to make it a lazy hang out around the house day. This was partially because it rained off and on all day, so that sort of messed up our plans to take to downtown Nashville and walk around a bit.

Instead we were able to go to lunch with the newlyweds and their families, by happy coincidence. We didn't realize that Richie and Fiona were not leaving immediately on honeymoon since her parents were here from Germany, so they were at church on Sunday morning and invited us to join them for lunch at Monells at the Manor. Situated in an old plantation home next to the airport, Monells serves yummy southern dishes family style. We had fried chicken, tenderloin, roast beef, corn casserole, green beans, pecan pie, home made cornbread and rolls, mashed potatoes, and probably some more stuff that I'm forgetting. It was tasty!

After lunch, we spent the afternoon being lazy and lounging. I took advantage of being somewhere with a washer and dryer and did our laundry so that I wouldn't have to when we arrived at home. We hit the road at 11:15 pm and I drove the first leg. I was hoping to make it to Memphis but my energy tank ran out at 1:15, so Nick and I switched and he drove until we stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Texarkana, Texas. We arrived back in Fort Worth at 11:30. It was a long drive but we made good time.

Next road trip: Colorado in August.

The Wedding

2011-06-25T23:22:00.004-05:00

The whole reason we made this trip to Tennessee was to attend Richie's and Fiona's wedding, and we got to do just that this evening. They were married at a nice place called the Carriage Lane Inn. It's an older home that was converted into a wedding venue at some point and made for a beautiful location. Although we were a little bit hot, it really wasn't too bad and the ceremony didn't last all that long anyway.As soon as it was over, Kate wanted to walk around. Shocking, I know. She was very well-behaved during the ceremony so we were quite content to let her walk as much as she wanted. We didn't stay very long for the reception because we knew that she wouldn't want to sit quietly and wait for things to happen. I'm just glad that we were able to be here for the special occasion, and Nick could spend some time with some old friends from his younger days.