Kitchen Make-Over

I am really slow at getting this posted. Clear back in the beginning of February I decided that I couldn't stand my kitchen for another minute so despite Aaron's protests I went and bought paint and everything I needed to start painting the kitchen. Even though Aaron wasn't on board with my desire to repaint I thought for sure if I just started it he would help me out of obligation. (I know manipulative, what can I say) Before pictures of my dark, bleak, ugly kitchen:

I forgot to get pictures before we started so this was the best I could do, but you get the gist of the ugliness

I had to get a picture of these curtains that I have hated since we bought the house.
So I asked my mom if she could watch my kids and my dad being the good guy that he is came with her to lend a helping hand. Aaron also being the awesome husband that he is decided to help out and we got the whole kitchen painted in about 3 hours, it's amazing how fast it can go with 3 people.

The next weekend it was time to tackle my awful cabinets and I thought Aaron would take pity on me then as well. He was kind enough to help me take the door fronts down, but then he decided to teach me a lesson and I got to sand and paint all of the cabinets by myself. After over 20 hours of work my hand was in a perma-cramp and I understood why Aaron never wanted to paint them. It sucked and I NEVER want to do it again, but I'm so happy I did it! At the time I had big plans for refinishing the table, chairs, and stools once it got warm, but now that's it's warm I don't know if I have any desire to get involved in a project like that again. One big lesson I learned is that it's not fun to take on a project like this when it's cold outside because we couldn't do the painting in the garage or outside so we couldn't really use our kitchen for a couple of weeks, not fun!
Our only sanity- keeping little kids out!
Thank heavens for the invention of microwaves! (Yes, we know how cool we are! :) )
Our new "kitchen table"
This is how we had to put the door fronts out so we could paint, what a pain!
After finally getting them painted came the biggest pain in the butt of all, hanging them back on and trying to get them as straight as possible because whoever made them didn't make them level.

It also took me awhile to get the curtains made. It's probably the biggest sewing project I've done and I'm very proud of how they turned out. The biggest pain I had with them was one day after getting them all pinned and ready to sew (and then they would have been done); my darling helpers (Zack and Austin) decided to be just like mommy and cut up my curtains. To say I was mad is an understatement! It took me another 2 months to even want to work on them because every time I would look at them I would get mad again. I still need to find some rugs I like and figure out how to decorate the top of my cabinets, but otherwise it's finally done!

We painted the walls, painted the cabinets, new curtains, new hardware for the curtains and cabinets, dejunked, new outlet covers, and new light fixtures.

SG

Don't you love how cool we thought we were posing like that. :)
10 years ago there was a group of 12 girls that were really good friends. The week of our high school graduation we had a sleep over in my parent's party house and because we are so cool we decided to call ourselves SG (senior girls). I know we're awesome! :) We had a blast and thought it would be fun to write predictions of what our lives would be like in 10 years and then open them.

Every year since we have gotten together over Memorial Day weekend. The first few years we still did a sleep over and then as we all started having kids it changed to breakfast.

This year was finally the year to open our predictions. We had 4 girls come from out of state just for this, one girl came who had had a baby 4 days before, and one who had had a baby 1 week before. That's some serious dedication!

We went out to dinner and then back to SG headquarters (my parent's party house). It was so much fun! We had a great time chatting and catching up; and opening up the predictions didn't disappoint. My prediction was almost dead on, but some of the other girls couldn't have been more off. Apparently at the time we thought college guys were so dreamy and figured if we got married at 24 it was still plenty of time to have 4 kids by the time we were 28.

Only 4 of us slept over and the other girls were missed and really missed out! We had so much fun staying up until 3 in the morning talking and then staying over until 12 the next day talking some more. I love those girls and know how extremely blessed I've been to have such good friends!
We had to do the same cheesy pose again! :)
Christy is missing from the pictures because she had to get back to her brand new baby. Thanks for the pictures Erika!

My Birthday (a little late)

I have some serious catching up to do with blogging and not a single desire to do it. So I'm forcing myself to do at least one post tonight. About a month and a half ago I celebrated my 28th birthday. Other than our plans being ruined because of the weather it was a great day. I love just spending the day with my family and not worrying about cleaning or cooking for company so that's what we've done the last few years. The Sunday before we had my family over for dinner and to watch the Jazz play.
Conjoined twins courtesy of Uncle Steve
Doesn't Steve look like he's angrily eying my new bling?
Gavin trying to steal my bling

On my birthday my sweet husband made me his amazing breakfast burritos for my birthday. We couldn't go hiking or play outside like I wanted because of the rain so I decided to go bowling because I knew my kids would love it. It's one of Zack and Austin's favorite things to do and it didn't disappoint, we all had a blast.
I love how Zack would stand while he was watching the ball.
How cute is this? Austin stands like this all of the time, right before he tackles, when he's talking to me, etc.
Me and my boys
Gavin was still getting over fifths disease, that rash lasted forever.

We came home and put the boys down for naps and then that night we went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I've been wanting to eat there forever. It was good and the most expensive place we've ever been to, but lately whenever we go out to eat all I think is that my version tastes better and is much cheaper. It makes going out to dinner not as fun, but at least we eat that good most of the time. :)

It was a great birthday! I'm a lucky girl to have such a great hubby and kids!