Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Judge not...

Growing up as a Mormon Latter-Day Saint, I was taught that coffee was BAD and you'll pretty much go straight to you-know-where if you ever drink it.  When I was older (mid-teens), I heard a lot about Starbucks and saw it in the movies, but all I knew was it was a coffee shop.

When I moved to California right after graduating high school, I was really surprised that the LDS kids (teens and early 20's) would go to Starbucks (and, P.S., they have Starbucks on every corner there....just like we do with LDS meeting houses here).  There would be study groups and just hanging out and relaxing there.  

And guess what, Dad, no one ever forced me to buy and/or drink coffee. ;)

BUT, what I think everyone in Utah should know is that Starbucks has HANDS DOWN the BEST hot chocolate I've ever had in my life.

For real.

I really can't say enough good things about Starbucks.  Every time I go there (it isn't as often as I'd like since, yes, it's a little pricey), the workers are always SO, SO friendly and it's such a relaxed, calming atmosphere.  No one cares if you sit and do absolutely nothing while drinking your beverage of choice. You are not rushed out the door to make room for more people.  The music is soft and welcoming and you get all warm and fuzzy just walking in.  :)

I went there a couple of weeks ago and thought that there might be some people who read my blog who have never been to this magical place.  So, I thought I'd give you a tour!

Couches to sit and relax.

Study groups are perfect for these spots....plus they have free WiFi!

These are hard to see, but they are games!  Yes, you are encouraged to just hang out!

My beloved Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate.  Oh yummmm....
For those of you not wanting coffee, not only do they have amazing hot chocolate, but also a Steamed Caramel Apple Spice that I'm told is delicious.  
(I've never tried it because I don't believe fruit should ever be warm.  EVER.)  

So, anyway, I hope I've made someone out there curious enough to want to give Starbucks a chance. You won't be sorry.  :D

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Pet peeve

One of my all-time biggest pet peeves is when people are late and they don't call. This has bugged me for as long as I can remember.  My first boyfriend learned very quickly to call if he was even going to be five minutes late (no joke) and let me know.  I don't care if it's a lame reason (like you were doing your makeup), but I just need to know that you aren't dead in a ditch somewhere and that's why you're late. 

It's all cause I care.  ;)

Anyway, we had a guy come yesterday to give us a bid to install central air.  He was supposed to be here at 11:00 AM.  By 11:08-I was annoyed.  Professionals should not be late.  I looked out the window for the umpteenth time and commented to myself, "He is SO late!"  
He pulled up at 11:10. 

Wanna guess what the first thing was that Kaden said to him when he walked through the door?
"You are SOOOO late!!"

Ohmyheck I was so embarrassed!

I tried to play it off like, "Oh silly kids," but the guy knew that kids are just the mouthpiece for their parents.  He apologized and explained that he thought we were above Harrison rather than below it and had gotten lost.

For the record-he was very nice.  :)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Six years

*warning: this post will be mushy and gushy*

Six and a half years ago, Shane and I met at a single's ward activity.  From the first moment I saw his "soul patch," I was in love and wanted to kiss his big 'ole lips.  :)  He is so much more of a man than I ever, ever thought I would end up with.  When he proposed 3 1/2  months later on Christmas Eve, it literally took me ten minutes to get over the shock and say, "YES!" because I never believed someone as amazing as him would want to spend FOREVER with me.  I've told him all the time for the last six years that he is STUCK with me and I'm not letting him go.  :)  SUCKER!  hahaha

I really can't even express just how much I love this man and, as cheesy as it sounds, I truly fall more and more in love with him every day.  He is such an amazing husband and father.  I don't think there is anything in the world more attractive than watching a man with his kids.  I love how protective he is of his little girls and how he wants the best for all of our kids.

Shane is so good to me and spoils the heck outta me.  :)  We are in such a different place now than we were six years ago, but it's a great place to be.  We've gotten to know each other and have definitely grown with each other more than either of us ever thought we would.  Challenges bring out the best in us and bring us closer together.

Since we knew our anniversary would fall on a weekday, we celebrated this past Saturday.  Our initial plans fell through, but that's what's so great about Shane-he's so laid back and just rolls with the punches.  We ended up going to Red Robin (with the kids) for dinner, then ditching the kids with my mom (THANKS MOMMY!) and went to the Melting Pot for dessert.
Just to explain the Red Robin choice, we went to Red Robin on our honeymoon (before we left on our cruise) and every year since then we've made sure to go back.  We were going to go to Tempanyaki's, but that fell through and we ended up back at RR.  We should know better than to ever plan something else for our anniversary.  ;)  





Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Tell it to someone who cares

Today has been one of those days.

I've just wanted to give my kids (specifically Lexi) away and not look back.  She truly is the child that will test my limits and patience throughout my life.

Anyway, Kaden stubbed his toes and was crying.  Lexi started "fake" crying and I told her that she was fine and didn't need to cry.  She stopped crying, got off the couch, grabbed a hard toy, and hit herself square in the face.

Then she started crying.

I didn't even feel bad for her.  She had knowingly done it to herself and I was past caring at this point.  I just looked at her and was like, "That sucks for you!"  

I know I'm mean, but OHMYGOSH if you'd been in my shoes socks today you wouldn't think I'm so mean.

Off to the gym I go to work off some STRESS.

Lexi is going to give me gray hair by 30.  Easily.

P.S. Oh, and she got her first bloody nose last night.  She jumped off the couch face first right after I told her not to do it.  I felt a little bad for her when I saw the blood, but not for too long.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Welcoming.....

Serenity Kara (car-ah) Parker!

 
My older sister, Suzanna, had her second child (another girl) last night!

Serenity was born at 7:22 pm weighing in at 7 lbs 6 oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.  Since she was 5 ounces bigger than Ari at birth, that makes Serenity the biggest baby.  :)  She still looks SO tiny, though.

Kaden and I went to the hospital to see them this morning.  I made Shane stay home with Lexi and RSV baby.  :)  We don't need any newborns in NICU.


She was yawning in this picture, but as the kids pointed out to me, it looks like she is crying.  She's not, I promise.  She is such a little cutie pie and we're excited to have yet another girl in the family.  :)  Poor, lonely Kaden.


Congrats Suz!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Part 1 of the remodel

I'm not sure how many parts there will be, but here's the first one!  :)

Sorry it's taken me a while to get it posted.  
Been super-dee-duper busy.

We are calling this remodel
"Why the heck didn't we do this two years ago??"

So, here we go:

On a home as old as ours (1962), there is a LOT I wanted to fix.  BUT since we are planning on moving out, we decided to get down to basics and just do what we think will help sell the house faster.  :)

Anyway, enjoy the crappy phone pics mixed in with the normal camera pics.  :)

A while ago we got a new (working!) ceiling fan for the front room.  There are ceiling fans in almost every room in the house because there is no A/C whatsoever.

The old fan.  Look at that beauty.  And she didn't even spin.
Up close and personal with the blade of beauty.
Ever since we had moved in, I begged Shane to replace it.  I was SO happy to get this:

Sorry for the dark night picture, but you can still see her beauty.
I LOVE the darker color with the brushed nickel!  So pretty....*sigh*
 Not only is she beautiful, she actually WORKS!  :D  WOO!

We also replaced the blinds. 

Before:
The kids loved running through them and knocking them down ALL. DAY. LONG.
Blinds are expensive!  Especially when you have a crazy big front window like ours.  In order to get one, big thing of blinds that would cover the whole front window, it would cost almost as much as our mortgage (because it would have to be custom made).  We decided to do this instead:

So white and pretty.  :)
And the side window of course got some matching ones, too:


The previous idiot owners didn't know what they were doing.  I mean, AT ALL.  They put these boxes up by every window to help attach a curtain rod:


On the larger windows throughout the house, there were three boxes.  On the smaller windows, there were just the two end pieces like this one.  I didn't like them from the day we moved in, but thought maybe they HAD to be there for something.  After a year, I realized they held NO purpose.  At this point I was just hoping they would come out easily and without damaging the wall too much.


Yup-that's it!  Three little bitty nails-not even any liquid nails or anything!  
Awesome!!
We ripped those out all around the house and patched up the holes and painted!  I didn't take any after pictures because....well, it would have been a picture of a wall.  

Soooo exciting.

But you can see in the after picture up above with the new blinds that there are no white boxes.  :)


More recently....
I wanted to replace all of the doors inside the house, but there are seven and it would have cost a BUTT LOAD of money. (and been a huge headache)  Shane suggested we paint them.  

And by "we" he meant me, of course.

The normal doors next to the one with one coat of paint.
I bargained with him and said that we needed new handles and hinges because the ugly brass would clash with the pretty white doors.  :)

Oh and, P.S., if you ever decide to paint your doors, DON'T just do two coats of paint and call it good because it WILL rip off in spots where the door touches the wall and you'll have to sand it down and prime and paint it again.  SO, ALWAYS prime!!  I didn't and definitely wish I would have.

I wanted to paint the door frames, then quickly realized I would have to paint ALL the baseboards, too.  Ugh-more work.

All in one shot, here's the before and after:

Before= on the right, After=on the left

Can you see the difference?

I used (and am using) the same paint all over the house.  I'll have to look up the name of it, but I call it marshmallow fluff.  It really reminded me of that when I popped open the paint lid.  :) 
Why don't people hire me to name paint colors??

So every inch of baseboards got painted and I had to HURRY before the new CARPET went in!!  :D

If you ever, ever, EVER need new carpet (or any other flooring), go to Ogden Carpet Outlet and ask for Chris.  He's the owner and our friend's cousin.  He is AWESOME and we'll never go anywhere else for our flooring.  ;)

I won't post every room, but here's our room before:


And after:


I am soooo over hardwood.

We took the closet doors down to make it easier for the installers and I thought it would be a good chance to show you my craziness:

Obviously I have the larger part of the closet, but some people think I'm kinda crazy with how organized my clothes are. 
Pants (jeans and then the slacks)
Skirts (short to long)
Nice shirts (color coded and they are hung from short to long sleeves)
T-shirts (also color coded)
Robes (that I never wear and are collecting dust)

A bit crazy?  Totally.

Shane used to laugh at me when we first got married, but now that I do his laundry, his shirts have strangely become more and more color coded.....hahaha.  :D

Back to the carpet...
We had carpet put in the hallway two years ago and, even ordering the exact same carpet, were told that you'll never get the exact same color each time.  They get as close as they can, but it varies.  Here was the difference:

Our room to the hallway.
Surprisingly, it was Shane who couldn't handle the difference (I was like, "Oh, just leave it-who cares?!"  He did.).  We called Chris (who felt really bad that the colors were so different....yeah, like it's his fault) and they took out the two year old carpet and put the new stuff down so it ALL matches.  Shane can now breathe easier.  ;)  Again, no after picture because it would just be a picture of carpet.  Yay.

I was amazed at how much of a difference two years could make on the padding.  Our hallway is so soft again.  :)

And just some afters:

Lexi's room
Kaden's room....with puppy all tucked in  :)
We've gotten some stuff done in the bathroom, too, but I decided to wait and do one BIG reveal with that.  :)  I'm SOOOO EXCITED for that room!!!  YAY! 
It's almost done.  I won't keep you waiting too long.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow!

I just worked for the last hour on a post all about our remodel and then my computer CRASHED.  (Well, the internet did.)  SO, I'm done for today, but I will redo the post tomorrow and put up a zillion pictures then.  :)  
Good night!

About Our Family