Breckenridge Friends Trip

The Dunns (Erik & Stephanie) planned our every other year college friends trip to Breckenridge Colorado. We had such a great time, lots of laughter, food, shopping and more.

Sarah gave me a much needed makeover, and gave me a pair of tweezers because I had been without for about 3 months (YIKES)

The guys did some golfing, while the ladies did some shopping...

Hydrogen Peroxide DOES NOT GO IN THE EYE, or else it will do this...

I must defend myself, by telling the whole story. I have a contact solution that works with a specific contact case. The solution is mainly hydrogen peroxide but when put in the case it will neutralize over the period of 6 hours, everything is typically fine. Now I also have a hybrid contact lens that require you put SALINE in it prior to putting it in your eye. Well this particular morning I was moving quickly and put the hydrogen solution in my contact instead of the saline and stuck it in my eye. As you can imagine it instantly burned, but not wanting to rip the expensive lens by ripping it out of my eye I had to remain calm and gently get it out, which took awhile because of how bad my eye was burning. By the time I removed the lens I started flushing my eye with water, and the white part of my eye ball had actually started swelling over my iris. The white part had been burned so badly it actually blanched the eyeball and left coagulated parts of my eye which looked like scrambled egg whites in my eyeball. It was torture, it hurt to open it or close it, and for the rest of the day I kept it shut. It was hard not to ruin the trip but actually having friends around probably helped.

Here is my eye the next day. It didn't look normal for over a week.

The whole group, last day, what a great trip. It really was, even with my previous eye story!

Spunky Seven

Dear Baylie,
I can't believe I am writing to you as a 7 year old. It's amazing how the time has passed so quickly. You are such a vital member of our family. This year your dad and I have been amazed at what a great caretaker you have become. We have given you the new responsibility of putting pajamas on Kale each night before bed, and not only do you do that, but you will usually surprise us by changing his diaper too! You are like a mini mom. You quickly do most tasks we ask you with a cheerful attitude.
You have fun outlook on life and are typically cheerful and find humor in most situations. You have been doing so well in 1st grade, your reading is AMAZING, your old teacher Mrs Suchar was so impressed, she said you were reading much higher then 1st grade level, she was very sad to see you move schools. Speaking of new schools you have done so well. We had one rocky week (the first one) every morning you would complain of some ailment (sore throat, stomach ache, head ache) and when I picked you up from school you told me you had a bad day, when I asked why you said "because I had no one to play with at recess so I hid under the slide and cried the whole time." It broke my heart to hear you say that, but that next Sunday Jaya fasted that you would find a friend. The next day you came home and when I asked how school was you said "good, I made a new BFF", the following week you had another BFF. This story is such an example of how loved by Heavenly Father you are, he sent you not only 1 friend but 2!
Some things you love...dancing, music, singing, your little brother Kale, your sisters Jaya and Eden, swimming, playing with my phone by taking pictures and videos, you love to laugh, eat candy, eating lunch with mom at school and your favorite food is Frito Pie.
Some things you dislike...many foods (your probably my pickiest eater), hanging up your coat, going to school early, having your hair brushed, taking showers.
My focus with you as your mother this year is to help you feel more confident, you are bright, fun and funny yet you don't always put yourself out there. People love to be around you and I want to show you that, some how. We are also reading the Book of Mormon with you this year because you will be baptized at the beginning of next year, so far you are doing amazing and have no problem reading all by yourself.
Baylie, you are so much fun to be with, I love your upbeat personality and inquisitive questions.
Thank you so much for picking me to be your mom.

Love,
Mom

family photos 2011

The very talented Lisa McKnight was kind enough to take our family photos this year, and I love so many of them. I had a large 26 picture collage planned for our blank wall in our new house but Darrin seems to think it may turn out more of a shrine to us...still not buying it, what can I say I LOVE photographs. I have postponed the "shrine" for now, and decided to share them. There are A LOT, like I said I like photos!
As a side note, I really wanted to have more a family outing then a photo shoot, so we decided to roast marshmallows as the event. It turned out so much fun, and the kids were a lot more relaxed. I wish more of my clients would do this same thing, it's such a blast.

Cabinet Reveal

I am finally getting around to posting about my cabinets. In my old house I thought many times about repainting my cabinets but reading blogs about how difficult it was always stopped me. When I started painting these ones at the new house I was determined to have a different tune to sing to all my viewers, telling the blogging world that it really wasn't that bad to do my cabinets. After 4 weeks of painting and feeling like giving up hundreds of times, I am sad to say that painting cabinets IS NOT easy. I do feel like I had no other choice and these cabinets were nothing to write home about to begin with, so I could really do anything and they would have been improved.
I do have some tips that I will try to follow when I do my bathroom cabinets and those are...
1- get good paint, do your research and find some that will not require 6 coats (which mine did, no exaggeration)
2 - polyacrilic the outside, I did do this and I just love that it gives it a resistant finish
3 - take the doors and hardware off to paint them. It's just easier, I tried both ways and off is much faster.
So here we go, with the before and after pics.

This is what the house looked like the day we moved in. I will be honest, I did wonder if we made the right choice when I walked through this kitchen.

This is how the floor was left when they pulled out their fridge. I was so disgusted, I took a picture because I wanted to remember how much work this house really took.

First step: Pop out the existing inserts, I want beadboard instead. Now "pop out" makes this steap sound really easy, this was the most physical part of the whole project, countless nights I went home with bloody knuckles because it was so difficult. Then I got smarter and started wearing gloves.

Step 2: take off all the cabinet doors, and start priming

I wanted beadboard around the island. The day that I brought it over to put it in before the flooring went in, the flooring guy happened to be there, and installed it for me. SO NICE!

Step 3: paint the drawers. I got antsy and wanted to see something finished so I went and installed all the hardware on the drawers before the cabinets were done. Lots of math and measuring was used for the hardware, it felt so good to put hardware on, and it's amazing the difference it makes.Step 4: install beadboard. We did this at my husbands work, they have a giant saw and got them all cut and stapled in, in less then an hour.At this point, I was sick of having my kitchen in ruins, by now we had moved in, and cooking was difficult to have my kitchen chaotic. So we hung them up and I thought I would paint them hanging. Which I did but I wouldn't recommend it, it took forever. The last and final coat I took them down and it was so much faster, I should have done that from the beginning but oh well.The final reveal!!! You also get to see our new flooring in these pics, which I just love, and no we did not do that ourselves.
This pic shows the new lights we installed also. The beginning photos show the old lights that had to come down.

So so so very much....

The title to this post is how I feel when I think how much I must do to catch up on this blog up, so I will try and make it brief, but just too be clear so very much has changed.

The day after I took this photo (1st day of school)

Jaya chopped her hair, and changed to this... she donated it to locks of love

Darrin grew a beard and ran his hardest race to date. Imogene Pass Run, here is a brief description The Imogene Pass Run (IPR) is a 17.1 mile point-to-point mountain race within the western San Juan mountains of Colorado, run along a route which connects the towns of Ouray (7810 ft.) and Telluride (8750 ft.) by way of 13,114 foot Imogene Pass.

Did you catch that? it's an elevation climb of over 5,000 feet! Crazy guy, but he finished and felt really good about it, not so much that he would do it again, but at least he was walking.

One of the next biggest changes is we said goodbye to the only home my 3 girls have known, sure Jaya and Baylie have lived other places, but the morning of the day we moved, I was laying in bed with Baylie and I asked her if she remembered our last house, which she was two when we lived there, and she said no. She didn't remember any of it. It was a bittersweet parting, it was certainly time to stretch our wings and spread out a bit but it's been a wonderful home, we had a wonderful church group, and we just loved the town, but it was time.

So here is our new house! Doesn't look like much and when we first moved in it really wasn't much, but we have been neck deep in renovations and when we are done, and even now we have really made a huge transformation to the place. I can't wait to show more pics, but I really do have to finish the cabinets and then I will post photos.

Here is a picture of a tree in the backyard, the yard is the real reason I bought the house, and this fall has been gorgeous!