boringtown

1. sweet kaylee writing notes to me, ham and mike. love how she crosses her feet. [ignore the pile of stuff on the table, garage sale stuff]

2. i'm tired.

3. didn't do anything but clean the basement yesterday. i purged, organized and got rid of many boxes. should be working on my craft room right now.

4. i think i hate facebook but have to check the status of everyone i am friends with because i have nothing better to do.

5. surprised mike with a football planter sent to his work. we wrote congratulations on your new job! kaylee added have fun at work!

6. i think we might be in trouble once ham goes to college and gets a taste of FREEDOM! not that he doesn't get to do what he wants now but...

7. at dinner one night this week he exclaimed how boring our city is. might as well be dead is pretty much what he said. sadly, i feel the same.

8. we are not cut out to live in boringtown, indiana. we need excitement, stimulation, the beach, places to hike, city life to enjoy all close by please.

9. lucky ham. he still has a chance to get out!

10. though i am grateful its here rather than a really small town with no target.

the kitchen and some other stuff

click on the pic to make larger to see more details

1. the first 3 are before we moved in and after moving in. the second row is me painting and what it looks like after. and the rest are what it looks like right now.

2. still need to repaint the cabinets by a professional, new countertops, sink + faucet and new floors. just some small remodeling projects.

3. we decided not to add table and chairs by the doors because we love the space and our dining room would never get used.

4. ever feel like your out of it? that was me this morning. before i knew it, it was 10AM and i still had to shower, get kaylee ready and dinner in crockpot before a 11Am birthday party.

5. i didn't have anything to wear and my hair! oh what to do with my hair?!

6. the birthday party was for kaylee's bff's brother. he turns 4 tomorrow. his family ROCKS!

7. after the birthday party our neighbor friend invited kaylee over to play so i took the opportunity and cleaned the basement out some more. making progress.

8. though it makes me depressed seeing all the junk i have bought. in my defense, a lot of the stuff is still left over from the old house. while our current house is bigger i have less shelving here to place stuff.

9. ham and i went and ordered our iphone 4's today. fingers crossed it only takes a week and half to get here and not up to the 3 weeks that they said it could take.

10. tomorrow i am sleeping in.

happy monday!

1. hamilton's self portrait when he was 5 years old.

2. cleaning out the basement trying to get things around for our garage sale on saturday. instead, i went through all of hamilton's school papers and reminisced.

3. he use to love me! he really really did. [i will have to scan a paper he wrote in the 3rd grade, too sweet!] *i know he still loves me*

4. plus, i've been wanting to get some of his artwork around to hang up next to kaylee's. precious reminders that kids do indeed grow up way too fast!

5. i also got my one + only outfit, shoes + books that i brought along with me from korea. thinking of getting a large shadow box to put them in.

6. today mike started his new job. hope its going really well for him. its exciting yet nerve racking.

7. mike has gone without a cell phone since wednesday. i think he felt a little lost and lonely without it.

8. had a headache this morning from lack of sleep. amazing the power of a little aspirin.

9. it helped me get the house cleaned by 9AM. [mike's bringing the rover back at lunch and he might show the house to whoever drives him here]

10. at 11:00 last night, while waiting for ham to return from the fair, decided that i would volunteer to be kaylee's soccer coach since no one else will. wish me luck! [just told kaylee and she's super excited that i will be coach!]

the house we were going to build

1. this was the house we were going to have built. if you look on the floor plans you will see that big pantry i was talking about. *swoon*

2. thursday me + some of the girls met up at a martini bar called stirred for a birthday dinner. it was yummy. wish my pics would of turned out.

3. this weekend has been very relaxing. last night we ordered pizza's and breadsticks and i got to watch pride and prejudice. i never tire of that movie. [my back was aching like hardcore] and today i filled myself up with some aspirin so we went out to lunch at granite city and did a little bit of shopping.

4. bought myself a dress and a cute little jacket. mike got some stuff from the sports shop and kaylee got these cute shoes for school.

5. around 8:30 tonight ham mentions how red the sky looked so we all took a look. it was so pretty yet kinda weird.

6. the other day ham's friends went river rafting ending in our subdivision. two girls wore bikini's. oh to be that skinny again! [that was my status on facebook]

7. got a pool quote and its right where we thought it might be. we wouldn't be getting a pool till next spring if were going to get one. we decided not too at this time.

8. too much going on with hamilton going to college soon and mike has heard there might be big changes coming with health insurance causing no more tax refunds in the near future. i kinda feel duped by the president.

9. i knew he was going to make changes but come on, mike works hard for his money!

10. for the past two days its been nice that ham's been coming home early [like 11-11:30] not tonight though.

she's a smart girl

1. kaylee drew this scavenger hunt for me today. love.love.love!

2. she's been sounding out words and writing tons lately. and doing crossword puzzles found on the kids menu's.

3. she's been sleeping pretty well in her room too. but since her room is so bright she's been waking up around 9AM. last monday- she slept till 11. 10AM is her norm.

4. kitchen is finally clean so i cant take pictures of the new appliances and post before and afters.

5. kaylee's room still needs to be painted [just accessories] and kelly greenish curtains need to be found.

6. i am hosting book club for the month of august. hope i can get my bedroom painted by then. and the rest of the kids bathroom border taken down.

7. called for some pool quotes. wish us luck on summer deals or something.

8. a waiter that knew my friend said that he thought i was no older than 24 years old. [he wasn't just saying that either! it just came up during conversation]

9. mike starts his new job monday. everyone can hate bp because of the oil spill but look it up on google, they are not the only ones. [plus i do donate to some of the causes to help balance everything...in my mind]

10. and i have finally put on a bathing suit twice this year. remember i just bought a new one. this top + matching bottoms. love the top, it enhances my girls but the bottoms, well they enhance alright but not in a good way.

sweet story + loner. or loser. whatever.

same kids from post below, taking them fishing

1. these are from when we had company over 2 fridays ago. sweet story. we had mike's friend, coffy and his wife noel over and we also invited ian, which is coffy's brother and his wife nicole.

2. nicole and noel are best friends since grade school. ian + nicole started dating first, then hooked coffy and noel up after high school. coffy + noel got married before ian and nicole and i think some jealousy issues came up so they were no longer friends but then had to be because they were after all sister in laws which is what they had always dreamed of.

3. they both have the same vehicle but in different colors. and they both have 3 kids.

4. on a different note. is it bad that i told kaylee she has to start sleeping in her room or outside? [even though i wasn't serious, it worked. it worked on my 3 year old niece too. go potty or go home. she went potty]

5. i've been told i have no compassion.

6. maybe thats why i'm such a loner. loner. not loser. though i can be one of those too. i'm ok with it. [my nickname on my high school swim team was loser. its an irony thing]

7. shhh! that big secret having to do with mike is that he got a new job. he starts monday but i don't want to make a big announcement quite yet, till he starts the job.

8. you know that big oil leak thats been mentioned a few times on the news? thats who he's going to work for. he use to work for them before.

9. he got a BIG pay raise and bonuses will be bigger too because of larger pay. holla!

10. has anyone seen the movie hangover? well, we quote the movie often. our favorite line to say to anything is "suck on these chinese nuts!" hand motions and all. [why yes we are that mature thanks for asking]

**sometimes you just got to live a little and be silly.

weekends need to be longer

taken 2 fridays ago.6 very happy kiddos.1 very happy ice cream truck man. kiddo #7 was with mom. we had mini popsicles for her.

1. today has been one of those very s.l.o.w moving mondays even though we ran errands all day.

2. got and ate the whole piece by myself after dinner- a triple chocolate torte with walnuts. [on the drive home had a 20oz frozen hot chocolate. talk about sugar overload]

3. kaylee has been sleeping in her own room for the past 3 days. [saturday night i slept with her because we were away from her all day. she stayed with some wonderfully awesome friends!]

4. i got her a spin art for sleeping on her own.

5. sunday we went swimming at my parents house. we invited some friends to join us. they invited us back to their place for some yummy homemade pizza.

5. saturday mike + i went to see a cubbies game. my parents had free tickets for the skybox. skybox means free food + drinks + almost private bathrooms. we are not cubbie fans so it was cool to see them lose secretly.

6. friday was mike's day off so he mowed the lawn- he's the lawn nazi! then afterwards we were suppose to go to the venetian festival but i could tell mike wasn't into it. we decided to get dinner at a marina instead. it was good.

7. searching for some green curtains for kaylee's room now. boy is her room super bright first thing in the morning.

8. this weekend a light bulb went off- i need to keep myself busy during the week and quit counting on mike to entertain me on the weekends because i will be highly disappointed.

9. he works all week so he wants to hang out with friends or family or at home. he doesn't want to go to ikea or venetian festival or the fair etc...

10. kaylee cracks me up. i was giving her words to spell in the car and she would ask for the definition. her words exactly. then tonight i told mike some jehovah witness were walking around our neighborhood so don't answer the door. she said that freaks her out a little. had to explain that sometimes we don't want to stand and hear what people have to say about their jesus. [thought she would understand that more than saying religion]

impressive backyard

i found some old pics of the house we were going to build and it makes me kinda sad that we didn't. [it had a HUGE pantry! love.] what sold us on our current place besides mike's man cave is the huge backyard. these two photos side by side is what it really looks like.

and if that doesn't impress you, maybe this pic from google map will. [click on it to make it larger]

i outlined our property. its a little under 2 acres and was the first house built in the subdivision. where it says fire pit- thats where the tent + mike is sitting in the second photo. and our front yard view is just as awesome- pond, woods and river.

pretty random stuff

1. yesterday afternoon we meet up with some friends from play group at our local "splash park".

2. before splash park, kaylee + i went for what was suppose to be a few minutes of shopping turned into 2 hours. our local department store was having fabulous sales on almost everything. {70%off!] picked up some tops for kaylee for next year. nothing over 8 bucks is a win.

3. also picked up new sheets and comforter for her room. [tommy hilfiger @ 70% off]

4. debated on saving it for christmas but didn't. totally brightens her room up.

5. going to paint the pink parts of her room to a green color and make her new green curtains. before and afters some day.

6. she's sleeping in it as i type this. *knock on wood* she stays in there all night.

7. thanks for all the compliments on the bathroom redo. love how i didn't have to spend much $$ on it yet it made a huge difference. [i do keep it pretty well clean. i have tons of storage space]

8. remember when i said if we ever get a dog it will be a bulldog? scratch that. i want this dog. via forty- sixth and grace

9. and i totally want to make these. i love meatball sandwiches- yum!

10. i missed my book club meeting tonight. suffering from sinus headaches all day, again. i'm at the point where i can't wait to see a doctor but the timing is bad.

*ahhh, finally. hamilton is home. i can go to bed now.

dream pool

love how simple it is. the only change i would make is to add built in steps going from one of the corners for easy access and for little ones to sit on. notice that there's plenty of seating for all of you to join me. [via laura day living]

my bathroom in progress

this is my bathroom when we first moved in. [hate it but love the space]

this is my bathroom with a hardware change thinking it might help some since mike was super keen in keeping it the way it is and i don't want to spend a lot of money.

and this is my bathroom since last weekend. view as you walk in.

view when you look to the left or walk out of the shower/toilet area.

still needing to add the hardware to the drawers yet. but i think it looks so much better. i'm on the hunt for white squared sinks, new mirrors- these are too fancy for me and shiny faucets besides new lights. i also would love to add these for the floors and for my shower to be tiled too and about a foot or two wider. [right beside the shower is a linen closet that i'm willing to give up space]

i love [summer] weekends!

1. my copy cat chalkboard. i moved it to my half bath that gets the most use by guests hoping they would leave us fun messages.

2. the blurred images are x-rated having to do with mike's boy parts. [his friends]

3. friday we had said friends over for a small cookout. friends we don't get to see often because of work schedules. i feel like i dropped the ball and didn't make enough food but still had fun anyway.

4. kaylee had a blast playing with 6 other kids. and us females had a great time kicking the boys ass in a friendly game of catch phase- best 2 out of 3.

5. and of course i couldn't be me without painting something. like having new appliances delivered the night before, cleaning house and cooking food wasn't enough. so i painted my bathroom cabinets. think they turned out awesome. before and after's soon.

6. saturday mike and my old boss's son went to take our old entertainment center up to mike's parents house and to take our old futon stored there, to my old boss's house.

7. we ended up spending the whole day in their pool and they took us out to hacienda.

8. sunday we went back to their house for a cookout. i ate way TOO much! i didn't swim. not because of no self esteem but because i feel uncomfortable in any of the swimsuits i own.

9. my new swimsuit came in the mail yesterday. love the top, not sure about the bottoms [sausage legs] but will wear them anyway. got my suit from here on "sale". [of course the suits i liked and more in my price range didn't have my size]

10. cleaning house today, hopefully to get some before and after's of the kitchen.

hello? anyone. anyone?

i feel so behind on this blog. [taken july 3 at my uncle's lake house]

1. friday gave up girls night so mike could go to the cubs game with my dad and a few managers from bdubs.

2. so kaylee and i had girls day which included shipshewana for pretzels and merry go round ride- kaylee's pick, some shopping, swimming and ended with dinner at a local italian place. [not olive garden]

3. saturday up to my uncle's house for a boat ride and fireworks by the water. is it just me or does everything seem better by the water?

4. sunday was fun but a long ass day. [left house by 11am and didn't get back till 12am] loved that we got to see some family + friends we haven't seen in awhile.

5. monday was recovery day [for mike] so we went to my brothers house to swim since he's on vacation. happy to have gotten rid of some of my indiana white.

6. while at my brothers house started to take notes. i love his house, its so rich + warm with fall colors and wall paper that works. and its cozy yet spacious. [his wife did it all]

7. makes me want to shop for new things like this bedding. i posted about it before and still really really want it. also new bedroom furniture, like the real amish made stuff.

8. yesterday was sort of back to normal. looked at my house with disgust because there's so much cleaning to do.

9. still not feeling so well lately- sinus headaches everyday! to top it off i now have poison ivy, sumac or oak- don't know which one and mosquito bites all over.

10. but i'm not going to let it get me down! too many good things going on- appliances are being delivered tomorrow and some exciting news for mike but still cant share yet.