Better Birthday Pictures

 I finally remembered to ask Kayli for the pictures from her phone!  These pictures are from my birthday, and Trisa's.  Thank you Kayli!

It's Cinderella!  Have courage, and be kind!

Stories to read!  Yay!

Holy Bat Birthday Trisa!  What a nice shirt!

Trisa got a few books.  This one is a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle book.  Trisa loves kids, and she's going to be a teacher.
She likes to collect lots of books!

It looks like Trisa's brownie is on fire!

My beautiful Trisa!

Our Kitchen Makeover

We've been wanting to redo our kitchen cabinets for a while -- a year or more.  I was afraid to do it.  I know that I am not a patient painter, and I was afraid they would turn out terrible and I would wish I had left them alone.  Finally, I decided it was time to put it on the calendar and get it done.  I freed my schedule for the week starting Sept 14th.  I was sure I could be done in a week -- or at least by my birthday (Sept. 28).  That was so optimistic of me!

In reality, everything takes a long time, and I realized the Saturday before my scheduled week, that I had seriously underestimated the time this was going to take.  The boys took off the doors and drawer covers that day.  When the sanding was done, and I started painting, I realized that I just couldn't physically manage to paint more than a couple of hours a day without giving myself a huge head / neck ache. Thankfully, with Derek's help, and his Mom's -- I didn't have to do all of the painting -- but it was still a lot!

By my birthday I had decided that I would shoot for finishing by Trisa's birthday (Oct. 18).  We actually accomplished that goal (for the cabinets), which was a bit more realistic.  Getting the counter tops replaced and the new sink in got done by November 4th.  Hooray!

This is the before picture -- I forgot to take it before we took the doors off!

The doors and drawer covers took over our garage for a few weeks.  We sanded them all, put on two coats of primer and then added two coats of paint -- with a bit of sanding in between most coats.

These are just primed I think, but they looked kind of the same in the garage when they were painted and so I didn't take another picture.  Derek's Mom came over to help finish up the priming one day.  That was super nice and probably cut a whole day off of our project!

I finished the cabinet boxes quite a while before the cabinet doors and drawer covers were done.
We were not tempted to keep the open cupboard look!

I was done with the red and black stools.  I discovered that a belt sander is really powerful.  It made short work of the old paint on top that was peeling.

Now our stools are black, and match the kitchen appliances and the new sink.

Here are the counter tops before the sink was in.

This is the kitchen all done.  Derek framed the kitchen window too.

Thanks to Derek, and my boys and Derek's Mom for all of their help.  I'd probably still be working on it if I had to do it all!  I'd for sure have had to hire a plumber if it weren't for Derek's skills!  The cabinet doors aren't perfect.  There are a few drips inside of the cabinets that need to be fixed.  But the outside looks great, and I love my mostly new kitchen!

The Red Barn

For the last few years Derek's Mom and Dad have taken as many of their 49 grandchildren as are available and their parents to the Red Barn in Santaquin. We go on a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and back, and we eat ice cream.  The Red Barn has a few things to do out by the pumpkin patch, which included three corn mazes.  Tia, Connor, and Jake tackled the mazes in a group.  And Dan and I were our own group.  We had a map.  Dan wanted to follow it on the easy one, but not on the hard one, which I thought was backwards.  We made it through the easy one, quit on the one we didn't follow the map on, and made it through one of the harder ones even though following the map didn't work too well.  Dan was good company.

This is Dan pretending to be thinking about which way to go.
He likes dramatic pictures.

Dan and me.  Our selfie in the corn maze.

It was a beautiful day.  We had a very good time.  The ice cream was delicious.  And Dan, who is allergic to milk, enjoyed his rootbeer.  We are thankful for the gift of an adventure!

Trisa's Happy Birthday

Trisa came home for her birthday this year.  Travis was busy and couldn't come.  We missed him, but we loved having Trisa here!  Her birthday is October 18th, which was a Sunday.  With church, and her traveling home that day, we decided we'd better celebrate on Saturday.  We had presents, and a dinner with Grandma and Grandpa C..  I got a few pictures, which will have to do.  I think Kayli took the rest.

Trisa's pile of presents.

Trisa and I have matching sweat shirts now so we can look like twins -- sort of.

It's possible that she told me not to post this one.  I plead a bad memory.

Trisa chose lasagna for her lunch, and brownies with homemade peach ice cream for dessert.  She had to fit in a little homework time over the weekend, but she got to have some fun too.  Trisa is always good to have around and we were happy to have her celebrate with us.  We couldn't ask for a better oldest daughter!  She is fun, and kind, and loving, and forgiving, and smart, and all around awesome!

The Bat Cave

I have mostly boys at home now, and they are all fans of super heroes, so I came up with an idea for a Family Home Evening that revolved around the Bat Cave (Where Batman keeps all of his cool equipment and toys).  The FHE didn't go quite like I hoped, but I still liked the idea.  We tried to compare our home to the Bat Cave.  The boys were very literal though, and we are missing Alfred in our Bat Cave, and real bats, and the batmobile, etc.  Still, the Bat Cave is a place of safety, where Batman goes to be rejuvenated, and where he does research, and invents things, so that he can go out and help other people, and our home isn't so different from that.  We may even bring people in to the Bat Cave on occasion -- probably more often than Batman.  So, for fun, I decided to decorate our porch / and door for Halloween. I only took pictures of the door.

This is coming in to the house.  There is a Batman symbol welcome mat too.

This is going out of the house.

My favorite thing about having the door decorated this way is that, occasionally, as the boys are leaving they shout "To the Rescue!" Dan told me the other day, "I forgot to say "To the Rescue" when I left today!  He sounded so disappointed.  The Bat Cave door will likely turn into a Thankful Turkey door today and so I thought I'd better get a picture to remember it by!

My Happy Birthday

I've been meaning to write about my birthday for a while, but I keep forgetting to ask Kayli for pictures -- so you get what I took.  I started celebrating my birthday on my sister Jenny's birthday since we were all together in Idaho.  I got the nicest notes from my sisters and parents while I was there.  I have read them a few times since I got home when I have needed to feel good about myself! Jenny gave me a present, and the one picture I have for my birthday is of that present on my feet!

These are super soft and warm.  Perfect for my ice cube feet.

My actual birthday was awesome too.  After my alarm went off I checked the notifications on my phone, and there I found I had already received super nice emails for my birthday from the relatives out east who had been up for a while (I guess).  After the kids went to school I went jogging (I'm so proud of myself) and saw my father-in-law and my mother-in-law out walking.  I got some cheery happy birthday wishes from them.  Later I got to go visit my sister-in-law Mandy, which I always enjoy.  I got phone calls from more thoughtful relatives and my parent's in law stopped by to visit and bring a card and chocolate.  There were lots of thoughtful notifications on facebook too -- and even via text.

Derek and the kids spoiled me as they usually do with nice notes, and presents.  Kayli took time out of her super busy schedule to help me make spinach pizza (Yum!) for dinner.  She offered to make dessert too -- but I can't remember what we ended up doing.  Maybe rootbeer floats?  I am getting older so I can't be expected to remember everything!

The whole day was awesome -- until I went to bed.  Then suddenly I got hit by a horrible cold, and went out to be miserable on the couch.  That lasted more days than I thought it should, but I was glad it didn't hit until the end of a very happy day.

Emma's Wedding

On September 26th, my sister Jenny's birthday, Emma got married in Rexburg Idaho to Kyle (from Washington).  Emma is my sister Tina, and her husband Chris' daughter.  We were really happy to get to go and be there for the wedding.  I got a few pictures -- none of which are very great -- but there's no going back in time and fixing that!

Kyle, the groom, made the cake.  He worked on it while we helped decorate for the reception.

Emma made the paper flowers on the backdrop, and her brother Stephen made the backdrop.
My sister Tina made the beautiful wedding dress.

Emma and Kyle

My Dad, who was still in some pain, and was a bit unstable because of his back surgery, made the trip
from St. George to Payson, and then with us from Payson to Idaho, all in one day because he really did NOT want to miss Emma's wedding!

Beautiful cousins.
Lauren, Kayli, Emma, and Madeline

It was a beautiful day for a wedding in Rexburg, and we were very happy to be there for our super sweet niece Emma.  Hopefully, amidst all of the celebration, and her travels, Jenny managed to have a good day too.  Family is the best!