kitchen project #2

This house has a great kitchen. 11' ceilings, great "flow" into the eat-in portion and rest of the house, good pantry and cabinet space,etc...but the island is LAME! It's too small and seems to just be floating in the middle of a pretty expansive kitchen. So, the first project in this kitchen was to update and improve the island...after all, the kitchen is always where people hang out, right!?!


Standing at Kitchen table "Before" Shot


Standing at living room threshold "Before" shot

Good friends/neighbors were updating their kitchen and hated their island, so they gave it to us....Step 1 of free materials! Combining it with our current island, we would have a 4'x4' area to cover.
Adam found a great deal on Craigslist for a 10' section of butchers block. He cut it in half and we 'squared up' the future island....with a nice little 'nook' for the trashcan/a stool...

And the mostly FINISHED PROJECT......
It looks so great! It really fits the size of the kitchen now, it looks professionally done, and only took Adam a few hours on Saturday to get it almost totally complete! Yeah again.

Next step.... tile the countertops...it'll probably be a month or so, though...

Weekend Projects

Although the project started about 5 weeks ago, we finally finished re-doing the steps in our house. I'll re-attach the "during" shot, but here are a couple more...the steps look FANTASTIC and it's so nice to not have the nasty, smelly carpet under our feet collecting dog hair all day long. Amen and thanks for a handyman husband!

the dirty kid....

On Wednesday, the girls and I went to one of the big Charleston Waterparks with a friend Jessica and her two kids (almost identical in age to Elise and Ainsley). We figured that between the two of us, we could keep a close watch on the 'bigger' kids, or one of us could sit with the little ones in strollers, or whatever....woah. It was an EXAUSTING two hours! Elise and Ben didn't feel like playing in the same area at the same time, so our "tag team" approach didn't work. Elise loved the slides ...Ben was scared of the slides; Elise was bored with the water gun area, but Ben could've stayed there all day. You get the point.
As we got there, Jessica was telling me how her mom told her they shouldn't really go to 'these places'. "There are probably diseases in the water, it'll be so dirty, etc..."...with the STENCH of chlorine (which luckily I love!) in the air, I'm pretty sure there was no living bacteria in that place! Within 10 minutes of that conversation (and only 15 of being there overall!), Jessica and I both looked down at some dirt on elise's feet and legs. Thinking that strange since she'd just run out of the water, I went in for a closer look. Yep, you guessed it....POOP! Apparently the poop had liquified and travelled all the way down the back of her legs, onto her feet, between the toes, etc...seriously, if you're not gagging right now, you're the only one! I grabbed her up quickly, ran over to where our towels were, changed her, almost vomited once, and hoped that nobody was watching too closely. Jessica didn't think anyone else saw anything, but we moved to another portion of the pool for the next 15 minutes anyway, just until everything was "cleaned out".
Jessica's mom was right. There are dirty kids at the pool and moms that don't notice the floaters until too late. It's the Moseleys...

"Happy Fodder's Day, Daddy!"

We heard that phrase MANY times on Sunday, along with "Happy Birfday, Daddy"...ok, so Elise doesn't really understand it all. We had a quiet, but nice, day. Elise and I had colored a poster earlier in the week and we hung that up with streamers and a couple little presents. Elise was going in for a kiss from daddy on the bottom picture...

It sounds pretty boring, but we had some yard work to take care of, Elise went to the "Daddy Store" (Home Depot) with Adam for a little bit, which she always enjoys...we had a nice dinner and got to just play together in the afternoon since there was some bad weather outside. Adam also brewed the third batch of beer- an American Spiced Wheat Ale (to be named later).
After naptime, Elise and Adam worked together to build a little castle out of wood that's part of a kit we were given. Although Adam did most of the work, Elise liked "helping". After that, she and I painted it to make it look pretty. On Monday, I put a couple coats of varnish on it to really finish it up. Here are some pictures of the work in progress and the finished product.



We're so thankful for Adam and we really enjoyed the day together just as our family. Happy Fodder's Day to Adam and to all the other dads out there, too!

Ainsley's Day

After "Elise's Day" blog & photos the other day, I thought I'd do the same thing for Ainsley today, it's only fair, right?
Ainsley continues to be a total joy. She never stops smiling through the day, naps well, eats great, etc...she has good little "playtime"- rolling over, holding toys, giggling at Elise, and just watching everything around her. She loves her Exersaucer and is actually starting to play with the different elements and to try to put pieces in her mouth (Thanks for the hand-me-down, Guerreros!). =)
At her 4 month "well baby checkup" last week, the doctor recommended we start some little rice cereal meals a couple times a day to maybe help her sleep overnight. She's still awake and needing to eat every 4 hours overnight and it's just killin' me! After just two days of rice cereal 2x/day, she slept 7hours overnight on Saturday and Sunday!! Yeah. i was hoping to keep her exclusively nursing for 6 months just for the ease of everything, but I'm willing to try almost anything to help us all sleep overnight! So, we'll hope the cereal continues to fill her little tummy and help us all out! Here are two pics from the first attempt at rice cereal- Friday afternoon of last week...she wasn't so sure at first, but is getting better each attempt!

What is this stuff!?!

EIEIO, con't....

Sunday evening, (Father's Day), Elise and I were singing Old McDonald again...this time "Daddy" was on the farm. Thinking Daddy would "say" Tickle, fun, etc...but then she told me "Daddy says I love you, too". Awwww....so sweet. We also learned that "Ainsley says WAAAAAA".

E-I-E-I-O

There are days where I wonder if all Elise hears me say is "No, not right now, hold on a second, Stop doing that, etc..." in spite of me trying hard to focus on her individual needs/wants as much as I can.
A heart-warming moment hit twice yesterday while singing "Old McDonald..." with her. That's the song we sing before/during/after naptimes almost daily. After covering the basic animals of cow, piggy, sheep, rooster, etc...

elise said "on his farm he had a MOMMY" and then she giggled.

it was cute. and a first time for mommy on the farm.

So I kept going, "..>EIEIO...with a ummm? "What does a mommy say, elise?"

"Mommy says, 'I love you' " (!!!!)

Awwww. As my eyes got a little foggy, I kept going.

"...with I love you here, I love you there, here I love you, there I love you, everywhere I love you. Old McDonald had a farm, EIEIO"

That happened twice yesterday...and both times I was in awe. I guess it's moments like that will keep me going on days when I have no patience, little sleep, and no desire to sing yet ONE MORE verse of "Old McDonald"!