Grandma's Birthday

Last week was my mother-in-law's birthday, with Rob's crazy work schedule we didn't get to celebrate till last night, but what a celebration! We had so much fun! Linda a.k.a. "Grandma Linda", "Ma", and "Mom", came over for my infamous lasagna dinner and her favorite, chocolate marble cake with milk chocolate icing. After dinner we played UNO, one of our family's favorite games to play, and laughed and laughed! My wonderful mother-in-law has a great sense of humor, a playful spirit (which is what keeps her looking so young, I'm sure!), and such a giving and sweet spirit. She is always there when we need her and teaching me so much about being a Mom, patience and understanding. She stops in for a visit, and we love it, she is wise and supportive. She is an awesome cook (keeps me on my toes!), and stores those recipes up in her head too! We love her so much and she is such a blessing to our lives. Happy Birthday, Ma!

Decorating Sense

I have done something wonderful in the kitchen and it isn't cooking, but it is RED HOT! Okay, that was HORRIBLY cheesy, but kinda funny too! This is a picture of my kitchen before, white, white, white. Not no more-it's RED! The white was depressing me, and since I was hoping to be building and post-flood it's gonna be awhile, I made this space my own again. It was orange before the flood, pumpkin spice actually and Rob really liked it that color, and he hates change, but I got him to go for red instead, and we both are crazy about it (I'm so glad he's not seeing red about the red!(again horribly cheesy, but kinda funny too!)). I had seen on a decorating show that you could buy the scraps from a drapery fabrication shop really cheap, so I scoped it out and found the gorgeous fabrics in the picture for $7 for the lot of it, and this is the good stuff as far as fabrics go. I found the paint when I was at the hardware store for something else and it was sitting there calling to me, and I could not deny, it was the perfect red, I had no idea though how perfect. Upon returning home I found the red to be the EXACT color of my sheets that I made my chair slipcovers from! I kid you not! I did even get a "cool" from Keith when he got home! I think the red makes everything else pop in the room. Okay, so my "hot kitchen makeover" has cost me a total of $28.60. Here's how it broke down- $7 for fabrics, $12 for paint, $3 for a skinny roller (much easier for between cabinets), $4 for rods and $2.60 for buttons to cover for the valances. This decorating when you're broke can be done, and I know one thing for sure, God does care about my wants, because He knew how much I wanted to make this house look like home again, and what do you know, the perfect paint and the perfect fabric, right there waiting for me! The "little" things are not lost on me, I know that my faithfulness is rewarded, and He is always faithful. You can see in the second "after" picture that my "office" is in the kitchen, where I am blogging to you from! I have my autumn screen saver, which just happens to match my kitchen , I know! I think my sister has a gallon of green paint in her garage that might just be the perfect color for my dining room, seriously, I'll let you know! And, of course you gotta know there's something laying around somewhere that I can hang on those big 'ol french doors that are so white and plain right now! Maybe some branches out back, or I may weld something iron-KIDDING, wouldn't it be cool if I could though, the branches, I mean (HA!). Okay, each your heart out Miss Martha!

Have YOU ever kissed a goat?

Today was a wonderful family fun filled adventure to the zoo. We took a picnic and enjoyed the cool fall day. Rob had a day off and the kids did too, so it was perfect for family time. Because of the cool weather and the time of day we went, the zoo was practically empty and they had just fed the animals, we had quite a show from all the tenants there! It was Zach's first experience there since he has been old enough to really care and he loved it, every animal there was a "Dog" though.The orangutans baby and mama put on quite a show for us as the baby hung from the fence upside down and pulled the hair of the mama, she gave him that look. I laughed so hard, even orangutans give that look to their babes!
The tiger was making all sorts of noise today, which delighted all four children and especially my sweet hubby who LOVES tigers and even has a tattoo of one on his thigh! The hippo was out of water eating her lunch and the birds in the rain forest were quite friendly too. A look at one bat, and I was outta there!
At the petting zoo, which is not my favorite, okay, see, I carry anti-bacterial "stuff" in my bag at all times and for the zoo, I bring out the "big dogs" of clean, my whole canister of Wet Ones anti-bacterial wipes and I mean business! So the kids feeding and touching the farm animals is really something I don't particularly love, but today, Zach, who really loved this part was petting a goat a little too rough and loving it, was told by his daddy that he needed to be sweet and gentle with the goats and sweet little Zach leaned in and kissed the goat on the nose! Oh, for a picture of that!
One new thing for us was the Bald Eagles new habitat, it's so close to the walk now that you can really see them well, and we all were excited to get a really good look at them. One of them was even tearing apart a fish it was eating, very Discovery Channel!
I absolutely love, love, love days like this, just fun-filled and family oriented, PERFECT!

What a Looker!

Fairy Princess

Under Construction!

Hazel -Eyed Beauty

Adventures

I can't believe that I didn't blog about my license plate I got recently. I really love it, it was my first choice, and I think it's really cool. As I seem to decorate EVERYTHING in my life, including my vehicle of choice, it seemed very fitting. Come to think of it though, I never even mentioned what I ended up with after the flood and our search for a replacement for "Lucille" began! Well, lots of thought was put into this choice and here's what I got. A 2003 Yukon, bells and whistles included, it's a pretty "sweet ride" I've been told. It carries our whole family and still has room for two more (babies, I wish!), mainly with my nieces in mind that we love to tote around with us! So far, I do like it's "kid-capacity" and the leather, and the sunroof, and Rob really likes that it can haul a trailer. One of his dreams is to have an enclosed trailer that he can keep all his tools in and take with him on mission trips here and there and have everything he needs to do the job right, I'm on board, I would love to go on more mission trips, hopefully we will head off to Great Bend in the spring for a church renovation (prayers please!) The other day Rob surprised with a new family of stickers for the Yukon, yeah! I was so excited (cause I'm a geek like that!!!). I love that he knows that about me and even encourages my geeky tendencies!

Decorating for Fall

I have finally decorated for fall! I have been very depressed over the state of our house right now and I really have not felt like decorating anything. So, today I sewed my red slip covers for the kids chairs out of a $3 sheet, and I felt so good about how they turned out that I just went nuts decorating! I love how it looks and I actually feel better now about having no trim or some walls undone still!
Thankfully all my decorating things for the holidays were in the attic, so all dry! I took apart all my flower arrangements from last fall and made new, fresh ones, from the all the old stuff and I think they look great. I am thinking about stenciling something on the slip covers too. We'll see when the mood strikes me! I really like to have basic things to work with so I can dress them up for the holidays and have a clean simple look when I'm not going to be entertaining. Now, I need to have someone over for dinner!

BIG BOY!

Zach is learning to use a spoon, he HATES to get his hands dirty when he's eating, so, I am beginning to grow tired of having to feed him pretty much everything, that I gave him a spoon and let him at some Mac 'n Cheese, and you know, just holding the spoon makes the food on his hands tolerable and he actually did get the spoon with food on it in his mouth a couple times!

Worlds of Fun

Every year Frito Lay has a company picnic at Worlds of Fun, this year though was the first year we took all the kids too. Grace and Ethan were finally both tall enough to ride so rides and we brought Zach along to make it a family affair. We really had a great time, the kids were more daring than I thought they'd be and Zach even rode a ride for the first time! He loved it. Grace and Ethan both love the rides that spin you in circles really fast, like the barrel that the floor drops out, okay, that was the first ride I rode with them and I almost threw up, no more spinning for me! It was the first weekend for the Halloween stuff going on there, so the kids got to go through a very mild spooky house, well, Grace didn't go, she really does not like to be scared, and then they got a bag of candy though and saw a magic show. I really just love to watch my family laughing and having fun together, that day made me want to do more things as a family just to see their eyes light up that way!

Royals vs Indians

A wonderful friend gave us some tickets to the Royals game last Friday and we went and took the kids and Rob's Mom. It was buck night and Friday Night Fireworks too! Pop, peanuts and hot dogs were $1 each, and since it was the Royals last at home weekend, the fireworks were awesome! The boys had been to a Rockies game with my Mom and Dad in Colorado, but Grace had never been before, and I hadn't been in years. We had such a good time as a family and Grace even said that it was the best night of her life! I asked how it could be better than Disney World and she just grinned and said "it just is". All the kids just really love spending time all together as a family and so do we.
This is definatly one of those things we will try to do again. In the picture of the score board you can kind of see the moon between the poles, but in person it was so spectacular. Just a little reminder of how truly awesome God is. The weather for the evening so perfect, just right. The only thing that could have made the night better was if the Royals won, but you know, 3-5 was an edge of your seat kind of game, so it was fun!

Zachary and the Shark

For those who know me this is a very proud moment for me! For those who don't, this is not child labor at it's earliest, this is my 13 month old mimicking what he sees Mommy do, A LOT!
I now cannot push the little Shark around without being yelled at for a turn, and away he goes, he is very thorough and squeals with delight as it eats up the Cheerios! Sometimes I really think the food throwing is just so he can use the Shark.