Thursday, May 28, 2009

Finally done

They finished up yesterday, around 4:00...today I have been going crazy getting it all put back together. I will be wiping up plaster dust for weeks...it hides in the strangest of places!

Trying to get a shot of the kitchen ceiling, and the old doorway (now officially gone forever!)

Livingroom...3 of the lights aren't popping back up as easily as they came down...Brian has to tinker with them and figure out why!
Now all we need is some paint. Maybe later in the summer/year...I don't have time for it right now! So much going on...even though the thought of painting it all while it's all messy anyway is appealing, it would just take me too long at this point, and with 4 toddlers running around, I really can't handle it. It's so livable and tidy-looking now...you can just imagine the paint, it's called Sandstone (walls), and Swiss Mocha (it's white - ceiling). It'll get done eventually!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Seeking Together

This is how they play hide and seek. They both seek, then they both hide. Kenna tries to tell him "go hide", but he just ends up copying her exactly.


Counting


Plaster Work

Some before/during pics

It's a racing stripe:-)


After a long day being cooped up in the kids bedroom and the office...they finished all they could do around 6:30. Right in time for dinner. I had initially promised a picnic for dinner. But after realizing how much plaster dust there was and how long it would take to clean it, I altered the plan with the furniture I could reach. Walking on the floor in her bare feet, Kenna says "paw prints!"

They did the kitchen first and then we crammed everything into there!

They were out on lunch break, so I snapped a few. Still needed to move these things to flat against the wall so they could be covered by the plastic sheets.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Our Cousin is here!!

My brother Brent and his wife Chantelle had a baby boy! His name is Marshall Payton. He was born May 25th, around 1:30 (Mountain Time). He was 7lbs 15oz, and 18in long. I can see quite a bit of both of them in the little guy, of course this is a brand new picture, so we'll give him a few days and then we'll see who he takes after! What a cute little cousin! I will leave other details for Chantelle, I'm sure she will blog about it and post some great pics once she is home and settled. The link to her blog is on the left-hand of this blog, towards the bottom.

My mom holding little Marshall. He looks chubby!!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Xboxers

Taking a break today, and playing xbox with Daddy


"Git em monsters Daddy!"

Brooks doesn't play but likes to hold a controller. One of the perks of being the youth pastor is we can borrow the Xbox 360. Yay.

Does it ever end?

We decided this year to spend our income tax return on fixing the plaster in our house, that was damaged by putting in recessed lighting and taking down the wall, last summer. So this week the plaster experts are coming in to get it all looking nice and new for us! Brian can't do plaster, it's a pretty specific skill to learn, and he can't do it smoothly (or quickly!), so we have to hire this one out. So before they come we have been taking down the old plasterboard and putting in insulation (to help with noise for our upstairs rental), and also running electrical to the kitchen for more recessed lighting in there (6 more lights...the livingroom has 10)


As we drilled some of the holes in the kitchen ceiling, the paint just started to peel off. It seems the former owners covered oil paint with latex. So we had to peel all the paint off the ceiling. We were glad to discover this before 50 pounds of plaster pulled it all down!
Can't wait to get it all done, but then I have so much to clean!!



Old doorway to our bedroom (former den) will be covered over, once and for all!

Notice his hair is short? He did that a few weeks ago. It hasn't been this short in ages.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Re-purposing

Well, we have a spice rack, and spice cupboard, like most people I suppose. Invetiably, there are more spices than the rack holds, or it doesn't hold enough in the rack, so there are two...and recently we have been putting the spice rack bottles in the cupboard, then we could never find anything between the two locations. The other day I had enough! I went through the spices and condensed them all...and did away with the spice rack! Two of the lids were cracked so I will have to keep an eye out for similar jars, to see if I can replace them. Until then, they are holding together.

I thought of something else I could use it for though...so all is not lost. Stamping, of course! I have buttons, eyelets, brads, extra cutting blades, etc. Keeps them in a handy place and easy to see instead of digging through multiple little packages.

I used a circle punch to dress up the lids a little, again, I think it turned out cute. I made something last night that you have to check out, it's so cute, and the kids are in love with it!

Head Lamp

He thinks Daddy's headlamp is a camera. He points it in your direction and says SMILE. Then he blinks, as though that were the taking of the picture.



She wanted in on the action.

Kenna asked me if she could take a picture of Brooks, so I let her. Yikes. I said make sure you can see him on the screen. Can you see him? She really did a pretty good job, actually. It took her forever to hold the button down for the full 3 seconds or whatever it is, so he was no longer smiling by the time it got taken.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Boston Cream Pie - Recipe

I found this recipe in my Betty Crocker Cookbook. It's really yummy, and despite the chocolate, not too sweet or rich.

CAKE
1 1/4 C all purpose flour
1 C sugar
1/3 C shortening
3/4 C milk
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t vanilla
1/2 t salt
1 large egg

Heat oven to 350. Grease bottom and side of round pan, 9 x 1 1/2 inches, with shortening, lightly flour.

Beat all ingredients in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on hight speed for 3 min, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan.

Bake about 35 min, or until done. Cool 10 mins; remove to wire rack. Cool completely, about 1 hr.

Make Cream Filling and Glaze. Split cake horizontally in half. Spread filling over bottom layer; top with top layer. Spread glaze over cake. Cover and refrigerate until serving. Store covered in fridge.

CREAM FILLING
1/3 C sugar
2 T cornstarch
1/8 t salt
1 1/2 C milk
2 large egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 t vanilla

Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in 2 qt saucepan. Mix milk and egg yolks; gradually stir into sugar mixture. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 min.; remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Press plastic wrap on filling to prevent a layer of skin from forming on top; cool.

CHOCOLATE GLAZE
3 T butter or stick margarine
3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
1 C powdered sugar
3/4 t vanilla
About 2 T hot water

Melt butter and chocolate in 1-qt saucepan over low heat stirring frequently, remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until smooth and spreadable.

Hats

Chilling before bed...Kenna dug out the winter hats and wanted to wear them while watching Kung Fu Panda (what else?!), Brooks kept saying "It's 'nowing"(snowing). Haha! Not likely!

Happy Birthday!!

Yesterday was Brian's 30th birthday! Since it was also Mothers Day we celebrated quitely alone. We might do something with some friends in a few weeks, but this weekend, and onward for about 2 weeks we have craziness going on with something on the calendar almost every night. Yikes. This weekend we attended a graduation party at the beach (kids loved the pool!), and then a graduation ceremony with the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, and then an after party. It was really interesting to see a military thing like that, we had never seen that before. Anyway, lots of busy times, with a birthday and mothers day thrown in there!

Singing happy birthday!

He had a little help with the candles. Between the three of them they got it done.

Coconut Chicken Curry - Brian's fave Thai dish. Yummy and spicy!

Thai Asparagus and Pad Thai, I was cooking all afternoon! It was fun though, I really enjoy it. I didn't make the eggrolls:-) I fell a little short on the presentation. I was going to put it all in fancy dishes...but I didn't:-) If we were having guests I would have, but looking at my mound of dishes, I just thought...will he care? (or notice?)...likely not...and it still tasted great!

His cake - I made a Boston Cream Pie from scratch from this recipe. It is really really good!! Some of the insides gushed out when I put the top layer on...not sure if that is supposed to happen, but it sure is good! And not too sweet, which is his thing, he doesn't like rich desserts in general.


Mothers Day Kids

Nice faces from Kenna, Brooks was being a little gooster at this moment.

"I'm so itchy!" She is allergic to mosquito bites, and gets quite itchy and swollen from them. She's also obsessive, so she can't get it out of her head, even for a minute:-)



I love this one, sorry about the red eye.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Birthday for Brooksie

Lauren stopped by on her way to work!

Brooks loves "wace cars"

Brooks is scared of loud noises...we sang happy birthday to him and he was smiling, but his little lip started to quiver. It was a little too much to handle. After we were done he shed just a quick and quiet tear and was back to the excitement of it all. It was so cute. Thank goodness for video cameras!

He blew out both candles by himself on the second try.

Very excited. We had our little friends Sarah & Morgan over to help celebrate. We had burgers, fries, corn on the cob and veggies, his favourites!

He had quite a few wow moments!



It's Kun-Tu White-tiiiiiing (Kung Fu Fighting...or Panda, actually)

After eating his cake!

Future Predictions: How Tall?

We measured Brooks on his birthday, he is 2ft 11.5 in, so based on the theory that a boy will grow to double his height at 24 months...he should be close to 6ft tall when he is grown. Just like Daddy, who is just a hair shy of 6ft. I guess you'll have to tune in in about 16 more years to see how this one turns out!!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Birthday breakfast

Here's the boy at breakfast!

Cutie.

Cake Makin'

Brooks is our little sports fanatic, so here's to turning TWO!

Little tennis balls, and the big soccer ball. The hexagons proved much harder to do than I thought...it's a straight and basic shape, how hard could it be? Apparently, pretty hard. I definitely need some lessons! Or I should have somehow mapped out a grid underneath...but this is my free hand. He's only 2, he doesn't care!



A hockey puck, made more interesting by adding the birthday wishes!

The dome cake pan I have doesn't use a whole cake batter, and it's too small too just feed us that one little dome cake, so with 2 cake mixes, this is what we came up with! The hockey puck is really thin.

Before the icing...

Piano

A few weeks ago we were given this piano. It keeps it's tune and so on, so it will be perfect in a few years when the kids are ready for lessons.