Outdoor fun

It was so nice last weekend when the temperature got up to the mid 60s!  And it was even better when the sun was out. We started out in the morning with the kite:

Bobby caught Mommy in her finest moment - when she loses her shoe!

And then, it was Graham's turn. Eventually we'll teach him to actually watch the kite when he flies it!

And then, during the boys' naptime, we tackled our pine tree.  Well, when we say "we" I meant Bobby :-)

I think our poor pine tree has gone through one too many ice storms.  Here's Bobby showing off when the final limb came down.

And while Bobby was trying to figure out how to take the trunk down, there was a sighting of a couple of hawks. How cool is that!

Well, it didn't take too long for the trunk to come down. By the way, that trunk was heavy!

I hope the boys don't trip over the stump. Now with the tree gone, Graham has lost his "pee-pee" tree. He's going to have to find another one in the yard!

And here's the rest of the afternoon - Charlie trying to pedal Graham's tricycle.  He can't really reach the pedals yet so he just scoots along with his legs.

Graham playing street hockey with his daddy:

Charlie moving on to the electric ATV.  He'll need to practice his steering!

And then, some golf:

Ok, not really.  Some T-ball instead.  He'll slowly but surely getting the idea.  We're working on swatting vs. swinging:

Graham is now able to hit a few balls when you throw the ball to him. Very exciting!

Powder room update

The powder room is all done!  Well, I still have a few minor things to do, but for the most part it's got a brand new look.  Ready...?

Yup, it started with an owl.  Charlie is excited about it! And then, add a branch:

And then, some leaves and another branch:

And more leaves:

Almost done...

Just some final touches:

Tada!

I'm glad Bobby didn't freak out when he opened the bathroom door today.  He actually liked it! And I think the new decor will encourage the boys to use the potty too :-)

Just a few more touch-ups here and there and perhaps a couple more birdhouses.  And then, urgh, I still have to finish painting the other cabinets (on the sink side) and then, I can't wait to fix up our laundry room! There are just shoes and more shoes everywhere! How many pairs of shoes does one person actually need??!?

Refreshing the powder room

Ok, I'm not finished yet with the kitchen but I can only do so much when the boys are asleep!  So I've moved on to the half-bathroom downstairs.  I wanted to give it a more updated look and have come up with a pretty cool idea.  Well, cool for me - so we'll see what you think when I'm done with it!

In the meantime, I've decided to remove the border.  I did a quick research online and someone mentioned using their Shark vacuum.  What an awesome idea!

I guess I was quite lucky with the easy removal. I've seen/heard a few horror stories on those home improvement shows.  Graham was excited with the change:

That beige under the border was the original color of the bathroom.  I had painted it green a few years ago and now, I've decided to repaint it.  Yes, another shade of green!

I didn't want too many shades of green in the house, well just two right now but I figured that was already one too many.  So I went with the same green as the bottom kitchen cabinets.  As you can see it's a little bit lighter.

Tada!  Well, what's funny is the bathroom looks the same despite the new paint. Ha! And the green on the wall doesn't look like the green on the cabinets. It's funny how lighting can affect the color.
Well, like I said... I have an awesome idea for this bathroom. It's going to take some time but hopefully it will look great.  Stay tuned! :-)

Kitchen update - Part 2

Thankfully there were no more drawer pull disasters after my first attempt.  Not perfect but good enough by my standard :-)

And now, onward with the upper cabinets.  I did not realize that the paint that I had bought way back in November was an eggshell sheen.  The one I had used for the bottom cabinets was quite specific for kitchen and bath called soft gloss enamel.  Oh well, there shouldn't be that much "traffic" with the upper cabinets and with the new knobs installed, hopefully there won't be too many fingerprints on the cabinets themselves!

So, here we go again! Here's the before:

And after:

The difference is not that dramatic but trust me, it looks a lot cleaner. And I do like having the knobs and after a few days with the freshly painted bottom cabinets, I have fallen in love with those drawer cups/pulls - they are awesome!  Every drawer should have one!

I still have the cabinets on the other (sink) side to finish up.  I'm slowly but surely getting the hang of it in the garage. And come to find out - flower pots and buckets are just as good to set the cabinets up for painting! Who knew!

Oh, so tired!

The weather was a little warmer this past Sunday so we headed out to the zoo.  And I forgot to bring my camera! The boys were very cute, sitting in the wagon together. But gosh, were they heavy to pull!  Let's see... Charlie is probably about 23 lbs and Graham is 32 lbs or so. That's over 50 lbs! So quite a work-out for Mommy!

Anyhow, they both enjoyed the zoo very much and was fast asleep pretty quickly when we were on our way home.  I was finally able to take a pic of the boys when we got home.

Awww.... so peaceful.

Kitchen update

Yes, yes... here we go again! I thought that maybe the kitchen looked too white now with the white backsplash and the white countertop.  So... here's the before:

And after. It's a soft green, I guess. I'm actually still not sure if I like it or not!

So I started out with just a few drawers:

And a few more drawers.  You can sort of tell the difference here, although when it was all said and done, I had painted all the bottom cabinets and drawers and I don't think Bobby even noticed the difference when he came home!

Well, Bobby did just return from a road trip so he was quite tired. And I figured since he didn't notice anything different, I carried on.  Knobs...

And my first attempt at the drawer pull was not so good. Oops!  So I had to patch it up.  Looks like we will only be needing one screw to hold this drawer pull!

I don't know why I didn't re-measure the 2nd drill hole before actually drilling. Definitely a rookie mistake! Well, at least the 2nd attempt worked out perfectly.

2 down and only 7 more drawer pulls to go. And hopefully these will line up nicely when I'm done!

I know it's going to drive me nuts if the drawer pulls don't line up. So guess I better not mess up! It will be measure 3 to 4 times and then drill! Wish me luck! I'll have to wait until the boys are in school tomorrow before I can finish up. By the way, drilling during naptime does not work so well (for the boys!).

Mischevious Charlie

Looks like we have more to watch out for these days:

Yup, there he goes!

Hmm... perhaps I need to get two stools so one kid can wash and the other kid can rinse.  Now that's something to look forward too!

By the way, here's another stage of Charlie's life I'm very excited about:

Ok, we haven't actually started him on the potty yet.  Almost every time I tell Graham to go use the potty, Charlie would say "pee-pee, pee-pee".  So I decided to put him on it.

It sure looks like he's trying to do something!

Charlie's first soccer lesson

I guess technically, it's not quite his first lesson.  Charlie has been "sampling" the soccer sessions for his age group a few times now since we can no longer sit still on the other side of the glass while watching big brother during his soccer.  So we officially signed Charlie up and this past Monday, Charlie got to wear his soccer uniform for the first time.  Here's our #7!

He gets so excited about being on the field:

Can't believe it - I'm now a soccer mom to not one but TWO boys!

Bobby washing his own car??!

After all these years of knowing Bobby, I had never seen him wash his own car.  So obviously this was a big deal and needed to be blogged about!

 The boys had a blast washing their own car too!

Almost looked as if Charlie was supervising:

I can only imagine how cold their hands were with all that water around:

In the end, Charlie did contribute. 

Too cute!

Oops... Fell over. That only means one thing - time to go inside!