I’m getting up early for a little race through Boulder, but I had to put some pictures up from our day today! We finally got to take our Mother’s Day trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens. It was an amazing day (until the tornado sirens went off…but that’s another story).

We really needed a new family picture for our picture wall and the boys cooperated for the most part.

I also wanted some pics of the boys with me. Wade was sweet enough to endure my endless instructions and got some really wonderful shots. Here’s my Avery…

It’s rare to get a smile out of Tyler, and for that reason and many more, I love this shot…

Benji just puts up with me. hahaha He’s such a stinker.

There was a more posed shot of the boys earlier in the day, but this one just speaks to me. These are my boys…

Tyler took this picture. My little apprentice.

And my favorite shot of the day… (there is a dino exhibit at the gardens and this guy was extremely inspiring…lol)

Good night all! Be back tomorrow with fun and excitement from Boulder.

was in the school district art show! We are so proud of him!! His class made buffalo hide Native American drawings in art, and Tyler’s got chosen for the art show. Here is our proud boy…

and a close up of his art…

I meant to post some more home improvement pics on Sunday, but I got side tracked. We had quite an eventful weekend! Here is a picture of my pantry… It is significant because when we moved in, there were only 4 shelves. About a year ago, Wade put in the topmost shelf, and on Sunday he installed the bottom shelf. I love my pantry. And I can’t stop telling my husband how much I love it.

Our *big* project was finishing up the backsplash. Wade starting the grout… (rolling his eyes at me again. LOL!)

So messy! Like playing with mud but with a much prettier outcome. haha

A wide shot after we got the outlet covers on and the stuff back on the counters. And check it out!! We actually got two doors back up on the cabinets!!

A little close-up of the backsplash. I love it so much! (and just a little reminder…the green walls are going. We’ve got a pretty blue picked out and will get started on painting soon!)

In other news…So You Think You Can Dance starts tonight. My life is complete again. *wink*

Edited to add….info and pics from Nana!

6 pounds 13 ounces….19 1/2 inches long, born at 8:32 a.m.

Brief interruption of the home improvement saga. I hope Holly won’t mind me sharing, but…

Chloe Bella Rose is here!!! I don’t have *all* of the info yet, but here are some first (cell phone) pics courtesy of family there….

More to come soon, I’m sure.

Yeah. I know it’s almost over. And I know it’s been too long since I’ve updated. I just wanted to wish all of my mom friends and family a happy day! I do have some pictures to show you! We have moved forward a little in our home improvement journey. (I thought I would do a garden post in honor of Mother’s Day, but I then I realized that some of you would come after me if I didn’t update on the renovations. haha!)

Here’s the next step for our cabinets. Beadboard.

Wade got to use his circular saw. I had to convince him that it would be ok. *wink* He did a great job!

The cabinets…pre-beadboard.

Isn’t this cool! At this moment, all of the cabinets have the beadboard attached. Wade has spackled the cracks around the edges and they are waiting in our living room for a quick primer coat for the spackle. We are also going to drill the holes for the hardware before we paint. I guess I better get going on that template…

Our next big project…the backsplash! Last Monday, I began prepping the area by sanding the walls.

I picked up the tile on Wednesday and just had to cut up the squares and see how they would look together. The blue mosaic was one set of tiles. The red was a different block of tiles. The red tiles are a little bigger than the blue ones, but since we were just doing one stripe of red, it worked.

Wade did a dry run and tacked up the tiles to see how they would fit.

Pretty tile all in a row…ready to be put on the wall!

Proof that men can and do read the instructions…

The first swipe of adhesive. (Wade was rolling his eyes at me at this point. I can’t help it!!!)

First rows of tile.

Heading down the wall toward the fridge.

An overview of the kichen before Wade did all of the small tile cuts. I cannot wait to see the tile together with the cabinets and the new paint color….*sigh*

Look what we found at Lowe’s!!!! I’m a little worried that it’s too matchy-matchy with the cabinets, but I think it will be ok.

Check out those notched out cuts!!

A look at the edge and the corner.

Tomorrow night, we will be grouting. We are looking forward to crossing off one more project in this crazy journey!

(I hope you’re not on dail-up…)

Of course, after we decide to do home improvement that requires taking things outside, mother nature decides to do this…

check out this icicle! Curvy!

that was a few weeks ago, but it’s been cold, windy, rainy, and (currently) snowy for more days than not in the weeks since we decided to make our home improvements. So frustrating! We’ve been doing as much inside as we can. The cabinet bases are done! A little peek…

Finally the drawers and shelves can go back in the kitchen and out of my living room!

Our hardware choice for the kitchen. Love it!

Wade had to go out and get an extension pole to paint the stairwell…

wheeeeee!

The stair rail has been in my living room for over a week at this point. You can see the cabinets are there too. (the cabinets are *currently* all sanded and primed. Just waiting for the next step! GO AWAY SNOW!!!)

The new hall color and our banister all painted white.

and the stair rail back on the wall! yay!!

Wade and I thought we deserved a night out. So grateful that Brandi Carlile could come to Denver to entertain us. *wink* Here’s Josh Neumann, getting the party started on his cello.

Brandi and Tim Hanseroth

Love this one!

Phil Hanseroth

Brandi came down on the floor to sing Dying Day (from her new, upcoming album). Literally 4 feet from where I was seated…

Love Phil playing the ukulele.

Love Tim sharing the mic with Brandi…

My absolute fave pic of the night. From the encore.

We are going to Ft. Collins tonight to see the band again tonight. I just can’t get enough! I’ll try to spare you all my gushing…unless I get any more amazing pics and/or something incredible happens. *wink*

but before that…I just have to share with you the hat I knitted….

Is that the cutest hat ever?!?!?! I gave it to Robin. She looked so happy in it! I have also made one for myself with some wool yarn that I picked up in South Dakota. I haven’t had a chance to take a picture of it yet. It’s supposed to be cold later this week, so I’ll try to snap a pic then!

So…Sunday was our anniversary. 12 years of wedded bliss. Every day that I wake up next to Wade, I am so grateful for that day 12 years ago. Easily the best thing I’ve ever done. In celebration of our anniversary, we decided to begin our home improvement adventure. We spent the afternoon on Saturday looking at paint chips, cabinet hardware and back splash tile (yeah, he loves me that much). Sunday, the work began.

Of course, I had to snap a few ‘before’ pictures. Here is the tour…

Here is Wade sanding down the cabinet bases. I just told him that nobody is going to believe that I helped with any of this home improvement stuff because there is no photographic evidence. lol!

all the doors off…

and the drop cloth taped to the ceiling…it did help keep a lot of dust out of the living room.

he’s so handy with the vacuum.

primer!!

we got all the bases sanded and primed. Wade did a little bit of sanding on the cabinet doors, and that is as far as we got. We are keeping our fingers crossed for some warmer weather so we can finish sanding and priming the doors. More to come soon!

Today…I moved on to the hallway upstairs. There is still a huge mess up there, but it is done. I forgot to take a before pic, but it was the same color as the walls in the stair well in this picture. Hopefully in the next couple of days the walls in the stair well will be the same color as the hallway. *wink* It looks so *fresh* up there!!

Alright…there’s the beginning of our home improvement story! Stay tuned…

For Rachel Maddow to come on Letterman, so I thought I’d blog. ha!

Many, many thank yous for all of you that offered opinions on our floor/paint options. We are now back in a holding pattern, but I promise I will let you all know when we are moving forward.

So…last Friday…you know, the 13th…two, count them, two of my children lost teeth. These boys crack me up!

Look at what I made today!!!!!

It’s a flower made by “chain knitting”!! I bought a booklet today that had a hat in it that I really, really like. I’ve been searching for a pattern since last summer. oy. Here is the hat with the knitted flower. I just had to try my hand at the flower today…

Maybe by next winter I’ll have it done. *wink* Ok…Rachel coming up in the next segment.  Good night!

(if you haven’t read it…please read previous post first…this one will make much more sense. *wink*)

First I want to say thank you to all of you for your thoughts! It helps so much to get some outside perspective. *smile*

So…just to answer a few questions and provide a little more information…

re: carpet…there will be no more carpet downstairs. We are putting the wood floor from the back door to the front door. There will still be carpet going up the stairs and everywhere on the 2nd floor.

re: kitchen cabinets and stair railing…Both of these will be painted white. We would really like to do all of the painting before we put the floors in (so we don’t end up with paint spills on it) but if we can’t figure out the wall color soon, we’ll probably do the floors and “wait and see” on the paint.

Thanks again for the opinions!! Keep ‘em coming!

Wade and I are still in negotiations about our new floor. We are down to two choices…

On the left…Jacobean Burnt Mocha (the first one that I found online and fell in love with). On the right…Imperial Palace(what we found at Lumber Liquidators and fell in love with). Both are bamboo. We are still researching the monetary details, so we are not sure which one will be more economical. We are going more on gut and emotion at this point. The picture above is the sample boards next to my couch. We are definitely keeping the red couch. We are not so sure that we are keeping our green walls. They may be changing to a slate/grey/blue color. (Still thinking about that one…would love to hear your thoughts on that too!) If you need reminding… This is the couch and the wall color…

Here are the samples in the kitchen in the sunshine…

Here they are in the kitchen without direct sunshine…

(Please disregard the nicks and gouges in the samples. We’ve been abusing them to see what they can stand up to and what they might look like after a few years of abuse. *wink* ) So…what do you think? lighter? darker? green? blue? ugh! This is so hard! LOL!

In other news…if you have been waiting for your washcloth from donating to my Race for the Cure run…they are finally done! I should be getting those out to everyone soon. Check ‘em out!

Ok. I’m off to watch some totally mindless TV. Top Chef reunion show and the season premiers of America’s Next Top Model and Make Me a Supermodel. Yes. I have a college degree. Gotta go!

Sometimes that’s what it feels like in my house. Everything revolves around teeth.  But I did want to update you all on Tyler.

On Thursday he had his second attempt at getting his braces off. My sweet boy on the way out the door. Hopeful…

and my young man after his appointment… SO happy!

He is not as happy about his retainer, but we just keep reminding him of the alternative and he stops complaining. It’s weird to see him open his mouth now. It’s almost like he’s not the same kid.

I’m going to hang out with a few of my favorite people tomorrow night. Hopefully I’ll have a bunch of crafty goodness to post for you on Sunday. Have a great weekend everyone!!