What do you do when your husband has a week off?

You refinish your kitchen table.

Of course.

This project has been on my to do list for quite sometime, but it required a couple of major things, such as:

a week of no school for the hubby

and a place to complete the project. (aka my parents' garage).

Here is the before pic (scratches and all) :
The chairs:

And the after:

Now, I have a disclaimer. I am thoroughly disappointed with the way the pictures turned out. No matter what I did (flash on, flash off, etc) the color of the red is quite a bit brighter in the pictures than in real life. Seriously. It's not just me being picky. Dan even agreed with me. Imagine if you will, a deep barn red instead of the color it shows.

And if you really don't believe me. Come on over for a visit and see for yourself. :)

Despite the pictures not doing the finished product justice, I am in LOVE with my new table and chairs!

I will admit, red was a bold choice and there was more than once that I (along with some of my family members) questioned whether I made the right decision . But it worked out. And it looks awesome in my kitchen!

A BIG thank you goes to my wonderful, fabulous, understanding husband who gave up his week off to help me check off a huge project on my someday-I-really-want-to-do-this list. He earned MAJOR brownie points.

And by the way, I don't think I ever want to sand anything ever again. Just thought I would let you know.

20 (almost 21) Months Old

Let's do Alayna's 20 month update by listing some quirky facts, shall we?

Here we go.

This girl loves and I mean LOVES olives.

I know, gross, huh. She definitely gets that from her daddy.The more the better.

I can tell we are going to need dress-up clothes before long. (Now, she does get that from me. I could have played dress-up every day as a child and never get tired of it. )

But until we have a dress-up bin of our own, she will just have to put her favorite shirt over her Sunday dresses. I know, it is a little backwards....putting the shirt over the fancy dress, but with practice I am sure she will get it down.

Every now and again I will find my active girl lounging around watching a movie. Right now, her movie of choice is The Gnomemobile. What? You have never heard of it? It is an oldie, but a classic. (Of course it is a musical. Alayna and I have that in common as well.) You should watch it. It won't disappoint...unless you don't like gnomes singing and dancing, then don't watch it.

If she doesn't have a stack of pillows, then she likes to lay like this:

Just try to tell Alayna she's not a baby anymore. She won't believe you if it means that she can't play in this. I mean, come on, all the baby toys are way cooler than hers. :)

Instead of running around naked (like she normally does) after a bath, I came out to find her like this.

Daddy thought it would be funny to wrap her in a yard of fabric I bought.

(And take a look at how long her hair is getting. Crazy!)

Mommy's shoes are better, and taller. She has this part of dressing-up down (ha ha).

Although this picture is just a cute little pose that Alayna was doing while watching her beloved Gnomemobile movie...imagine this pose done with attitude and a flick of her head while saying "NO!". Because well, that is what happens at least a couple times a day.

It actually is really quite funny, but I am trying to not laugh because, then where would we be? In trouble, that's where. I am definitely not going to let her run MY house. :)

That's our 20 (almost 21) month old little munchkin.

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

I can't neglect our blog any longer. There are finally a few things that have happened that are blog-worthy. Once I get the pictures uploaded, there will be some posting of the activities that have been keeping us busy as of late.

But until then, I couldn't let this chance of showing off our red, white and blue outfits pass me by.

Layna and I after church:

Our little beauty sporting her 4th of July attire:

The 4th of July is not only one of my favorite holidays because we get to wear red, white and blue (because seriously, those colors are dang cute together). It is a favorite because of what our country stands for. I am so grateful to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We truly are so blessed to have the freedoms that we do.

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Dan!

You simply are the best!

Alayna adores you and so do I.

We couldn't ask for a better daddy/husband.

Seriously, is that not the cutest picture EVER!?!

"It's just the stage she's in"

says my mom.

Lately Alayna has been constantly getting hurt.

Which results in wounds such as this: Within the last few days, she:

-got a bloody nose from falling off a camping chair
-smashed her fingers in the door at grandma's house
-fell down all of the stairs at grandma's house (that one was a bit scary for mom)
-smashed her fingers in the drawer
-fell out of the wagon

those are just a few of many.

While she does seem to be getting hurt all of the time, I am impressed at how little she cries. She is a bit dramatic at first, but then once she feels you know she didn't like what happened, it's on to the next thing.

We have a fearless toddler on our hands. I think I am the one that is constantly getting scared for her.

Now that the nicer weather is finally here, we have been to the playground several times and Alayna just climbs up everything with the big kids. She acts like she owns the place. She goes down the slides by herself and doesn't care if I am not around. Although I am always nearby since she thinks the tallest slides are the best.

She definitely keeps me on my toes.

I have a feeling this stage that she is in might be a long one...

19 months old

My, oh my, this little girl is growing up fast.

She still has a shoe fetish and she still LOVES buckles.

This shoe, I believe has a buckle on it which is why she is concentrating so hard.

Every buckle in our house is buckled and unbuckled at least million times a day.

Since cousin Connor's car seat has a buckle on it, she has to get in and try it out. The funny thing is, Connor is only a pound or two lighter than her so the straps fit perfectly on Alayna. Um, did I mention he is only 5 months old. He is a solid little guy.

Alayna will give kisses when asked. Instead of puckering her lips, she just sticks out her bottom lip like so.

And she never forgets to kiss the baby. They don't even have to ask. Our cousins Kendree and Connor get their fair share of kisses as well.

Anything that is meant for the babies is cool to Alayna. The car seat that was mentioned earlier as well as this bath tub that was meant for cousin Connor, but Alayna insisted on having her bath in it as well.

Along with her growing vocabulary (she pretty much will copy most words that you say), she is also loving singing songs. I think that might be her favorite part of nursery. At least, we can definitely tell that she is catching on to the songs that they sing there.

Here she is doing the actions to a couple of her new favorites.

Head, Shoulders

Knees:

and Toes:

Eyes (I don't know why this pic is sideways, but we'll just go with it.) :

ears, mouth and

Nose:

And, Three little monkeys swinging in a tree.

There is a part where they tease the crocodile and say

You can't catch me!

Here she is teasing the crocodile....or showing off her muscles. Whichever.

And this is the part where the Alligator snaps his mouth and eats one of the monkeys.

This month has been filled with Alayna learning tons of new things. She is lots of fun, but she definitely keeps me on my toes! We love you, Layna!

And then I make good on my promise....

...to show some pictures of Sarah at prom, that is.


First there was the preparation. We spent a few hours in the bathroom beautifying. Most of that time was spent curling Sarah's hair.

Boy does that girl have TONS of hair. And it is thick. And beautiful.

Adam couldn't stand being left out so he came to add some comical relief. But it's not like we needed much help in that department.

Breaking the towel rack, and burning Sarah's hair were some of the things that transpired during the hours of beautifying. (Just so you know, I did the first thing, KaLee did the second.)

And so KaLee doesn't ring my neck, it was only two strands of hair that came in contact with the lighter. Yes. I said lighter*.


Seriously Adam, are you sure we are related? I swear I seem normal..... (just kidding, Ad.)

Notice the hair clip on my jacket and hair spray under my arm. I meant business. I was in charge of the hairspray. No Wyoming wind was going to ruin my creation...I mean our creation. Sorry, Ka.

The finished product, minus the dress. Get a look at those eyelashes. Seriously, Sarah has the longest eyelashes known to woman. They are so long that she doesn't need mascara, we just pulled it out for this special occasion.

Side view.

The back. (It is my favorite.)

The ensemble. Isn't she stunning? LOVE it!

*In case you were wondering. The lighter was supposed to be used on the ribbon ends to stop them from fraying. But somebody got a little carried away with the hairspray and made it impossible to have anything flammable within inches of Sarah.