Home Remodel

So we have been in our house for almost 5 years now.  When we first moved in we painted everywhere, but now I am getting sick of everything and want to make some changes.  We don't really have any money for a serious home remodel, so I want to try to make some changes on a small budget.  I really want to re-do our bathroom and kitchen the most.  Our kitchen cabinets are straight out of 1987 and I kind of hate them.  I was thinking of just sanding them down and re-staining them, or painting them, but I haven't really figured that out yet.   I decided that I would start with our bathroom and work my way to the kitchen.  I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with the bathroom, so I turned to shower curtains for some inspiration... after hours and hours of looking at shower curtains online I discovered that Amy Butler has a home line which includes shower curtains!  Amy Butler is one of my absolute favorite fabric designers, so I think I need to buy an Amy Butler shower curtain.  Her line only contains 4 shower curtains, but here are two that I love:

and some awesome towels:

They sell these items at Bed, Bath and Beyond, so I need to plan a trip there to check them out in person and then make a choice on which one I want to use.  After I choose that, I am going to re-paint the bathroom to match.  I would love to just tear out our whole bathroom and start from scratch - but I know that won't happen!  Some other ideas I have for our bathroom - get rid of our towel bar and add one of these to the wall that the towel bar is currently on:

or this:

and then I also want to get a new cabinet for the wall over the toilet - we currently have 3 glass shelves - our bathroom(actually our whole house) is always dusty, and it drives me nuts!  But it's always a pain to dust all of those glass shelves, so I want to get something that is enclosed, like this:

I would also like to be able to add some hooks or something to the inside of the doors to hang my necklaces on, if thats possible. 

If I ever get started on these home projects I will be sure to post updates!  Hopefully I will make a final decision on a shower curtain soon, and then I will definitely be motivated to get this done! 

Our Anniversary!

On Saturday, August 28th Joe and I celebrated 6 blissful years of marriage!  In celebration of our anniversary we went to The Happy Gnome for dinner, which has been a favorite of ours since the first time we went there - It is a little bit out of our poor folk price range, but it is a great place to go a couple of times a year! 

For Dinner Joe had a rib eye steak - here is the description off the menu:

Grilled Ribeye “Eye Steak”cajun fingerling potato hash, chorizo, brussels sprout slaw, house made steak sauce, fresh grated horseradish

And a picture

and I had a chicken sandwich, but not just any old chicken sandwich, it was this kind of chicken sandwich:

Roasted Chicken Sandwichsmoked gouda, artichokes, oven dried tomatoes, spinach, pesto aioli on house made focaccia

it was huge and delicious!!  

I also had this amazing beer:..the Flying Dog one listed below, it was awesome!

For dessert we had:

Blueberry Beignetsfrozen citrus custard, blueberry lime coulis

AMAZING!!

And we both had a scoop of Izzy's Salted Caramel - because you just can't say no to it!! 

It was an amazing dinner for an amazing anniversary!  

Collages!

I got bored and started going through all of our Kara pictures and made some collages.. hope you enjoy!  If you click on any of the collages it will open larger in a new window.

Kara with Mommy and Daddy

Kara with Grandma Julie and Grandpa Kevin

Kara with Grandma Becky and Grandpa Jerry

Kara with Grandpa Wayne

Kara with Great-Great Grandma Ceil

Kara with Great-Grandpa Jim and Great-Grandma Pauline

Kara with Great-Grandma Nancy

Kara with the Adams' Family

Great-Grandma Mickey, Great-Grandpa Wayne, Aunties Molly and Mary Jo and some cousins

Kara with Auntie Chelle, Uncle Dre and Jayden and Jayla

Kara with Auntie Em and Uncle Scott

Boredom

I finally decided to face one of my biggest fears and I had my wisdom teeth pulled. My dentist has been recommending that I have it done immediately for 3 years now, so I finally did it.  I had them pulled on Tuesday, and have pretty much been living in my bed since then - Thank God for this old school laptop with internet access!  My schedule has pretty much been sleep - take pain meds - sleep - eat some boring foods - more pain meds - sleep and repeat. I have spent some time browsing the interwebs from bed though - and guess what..Etsy is sending me a happy tooth pillow, how cool is that?  The happy tooth pillow is thanks to my new found love of twitter, I am telling ya, there is some cool stuff/people on twitter. 

Other things:

Free music download from Urban Outfitters

This is Mr. Sad Tooth that Etsy posted on twitter

There is a woot-off going on, which always helps pass the time

If I had any extra tix for the Mumford and Sons show I would sell them to this guy

 Also - go to etsy.com, click buy and then click on pounce.  I like to look at recently sold things.  You will find so many amazing things that you would have never even thought to search for on etsy!

My Menu:
KFC mashed potatoes and gravy
ice cream
jell-o
soup
pancakes
scrambled eggs
toast with lots and lots of butter
and all that I really want is a big old bacon cheeseburger or slice of pizza!  It seems like everything I see on tv is about food, and I so badly just want some real food!


Kara has been super cute- she comes in the bedroom and asks if I am ok, and if my mouth is sore.  She has been pretty mellow around me, but she has also tried jumping on me quite a few times, and I am a little nervous about having my face to close to her...you never know when she might try to headbutt me, or jump on me, or any other erratic behavior that you might expect from a 2 year old.

Alright, I think that is all for now.  Time for another nap.

Kara turns 2!!

On August 1st my sweet baby girl turned 2!  I guess I can't really call her my baby anymore, she is such a big girl now!  It seems impossible that Kara is 2 already, she definitely acts like a 2 year old, but it still just seems impossible that she is really 2!  She is such a little joy - even when she is miserable :)

As a surprise to her for her 2nd birthday we turned her crib into a big girl bed and got her all new bedding - she absolutely loves her big girl bed!  She mostly just loves to jump on it, but she has been going to sleep in it fairly well so far.  It hasn't been quite a week since we switched her to a big girl bed, so it is still pretty new to her.  I am amazed that we haven't had to fight with her too much to get her to stay in bed.

The morning of Kara's birthday Mommy and Daddy gave her some presents.  She was so excited about opening her birthday presents, and having a birthday  - you could tell that she felt special!  She was singing happy birthday all day long and anytime you ask her how old she is she says "six" then gets a silly smile on her face and says "two"

She was so excited about her Abby Cadabby helmet - and I was so excited that I was actually able to find one for her!!  She is going to be my little safety freak!  Sometimes when she is playing we catch her saying "be safe" or "be careful".. she is just too cute!

After Kara had her new helmet on, the first thing she said was "I go ride my bike".. so of course we all went out in our PJ's so Kara could ride her bike.

After our morning birthday celebration we headed to Auntie Emily's house for a little photo shoot.  Of course my sweet little 2 year old acted like a complete monster and didn't want her picture taken, but what can you do?  I have faith that Emily got some great pictures anyway.. those should be posted here shortly! 

After our photo shoot we went to Grandma Becky and Grandpa Jerry's house and had a little birthday dinner for Kara!  She once again loved being the center of attention, tried eating the frosting off all the cupcakes, wouldn't let Jayla touch ANY toys, and loved opening all of her presents.

Kara loved this little puppy that Auntie Emily gave her - it came in a little carrying bag and has 'medical supplies' it also has 4 sensors that make different puppy noises when you touch them.  Kara is doing a very good job of taking care of her new puppy that she named Boom.  She sleeps with it every night and the puppy noises have woken me up a few times and scared the crap out of me.. I am not used to hearing a dog panting over the baby monitor! 

Kara also got this awesome new trike from Grandma and Grandpa - she is IN LOVE with this thing!!  She calls it her bicycle, and I am pretty sure she was crying for it in her sleep a couple of nights ago.  As soon as we get home from daycare she NEEDS to ride it, and of course she wears her new Abby helmet!  Today she learned how to push the pedals on it all by herself!! 

This coming Saturday we are having a birthday party with all of our family and friends - we are all pretty excited about it!  It is going to be an Abby Cadabby themed party!

Other notable 2 year old awesomeness!  I made Kara a potty chair chart a couple of months ago - I was a mean mommy and put 60 squares on it... every time she goes potty in the potty chair we give her a sticker on the calendar and we told her that when it was full she would get to go to the toy store and pick out a special present... and guess what!?  Today we put the last sticker on!!  Woohoo!!  I still don't think she is ready to be done with diapers, but we are getting closer!

Thanks for reading - and I hope to keep up with my blog a little more often :)