Day of Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

This picture was taken last year, but I think it is too adorable to not be revisited, (it probably will be next year as well!)

It is easy to let days pass by without acknowledging all of the blessings of our lives and it is nice to have a day that is dedicated to celebrating the joys we are able to experience. I hope that we will all take advantage of that chance.

Freebies? I love Freebies

Okay - so there is a drawing being held at

http://www.unlikelyletters.blogspot.com

Need a cool, different, fun gift for Christmas?Check this out http://unlikelyletters.blogspot.com/

Our House : The Kitchen

Previously on "Our House", the family room was reviewed. All the comments were appreciated, and in a shameless effort to solicite additional pats on the back, here are some pictures of the kitchen.

The kitchen went through 2 phases of renovation. The first was during the no money / new baby on the way phase. that took us from this:

to this:

This was the basic paint on the cabinets, chip out and re-grout the white ceramic tile countertop and scrub the crap out of 1970's, original to the house, kitchen faucet until the chrome shined. All the same appliances except for the refridgerator. That had to go. We still had the terribly sick color of light from the flourescent lighting (gives me a headache).

Then we grew tired of this and opted for a "new" oven / microwave combo. Craigslist.com is the best.Then we had to have new floors. The 16" white ceramic tiles with grey grout was unacceptable. Totally hideous and totally showed every speck of dirt. So, the tile had to be chipped out. It was awesome.This was about the time that I realized this was a stupid idea.

So then the floors were laid. My dad came over and helped me get the floors installed. After that, it was countertop time. We should have done this in reverse order but whatever. We had the money for floors before countertops. I tore out the old crappy tile tops and had the stone company install the new ones.We added subway tiles to the walls from the oven around to the refridgerator. This one feels like the most significant change. It added a ton to our kitchen. We then glazed and varnished our cabinets over the green paint that we had originally done. Added hardware from IKEA and they were done. We also changed the light box to 5 directional lights to get rid of the terrible light color.

After all of that was completed, you get this:

SO....Hooray. This is a great kitchen for us and it is all worth it now.

Halloween has come and gone and the kids had a great time. This year they got to pick what they wanted to be. Can you imagine that! I didnt care if they matched, I know it is a big step for me.
We visited Target yesterday morning and Caitlyn helped pick out her costume for next year. I'm taking the lazy way out, no sewing, gluing or assembly of any kind. Luckily for me, she picked out something that I could match Nathan really easily too. I can now have a big sigh of relief :) but I cant tell what the costumes are.... you'll have to wait 'til next year.

Nathan wanted/wants to wear this all the time. He loves the muscles. Thanks to Lanae for letting us borrow it, and thanks to Jessie for lending us another suit too! We had plenty of help with this one, but in the end we didnt know how skinny this kid actually was and had to go with the smaller size!

Can you guess who? I'll give you a hint, we would never let our daughter dress up as Brittney Spears.