Outdoor KC Fun

I love that spring has arrived!  The sun is finally shinning and I’m loving it!!  We headed out to KC this weekend to help celebrate my brother in law and niece’s birthday!  The festivities started Saturday night for a surprise birthday for Brian!  I’m not sure Brian was too thrilled with us, for “dictating” his birthday night, but it was all for the surprise, and surprised he was!  After it was all said and done, I think he realized that we wouldn’t have really said where we wanted to go without consideration of what he wanted on his birthday! 

 Chris and Brian..can you tell they're brothers! 

Sunday was absolutely beautiful and busy.  Hannah turned two.  We headed out in the morning to a children's farm  in KC which was amazing.  Emily said they like to go at least once a week in the summer and I can understand why!  I wish we had one close by to go to.  The girls LOVED it, and were a bit worn out afterwards.  The afternoon was filled with Hannah’s birthday party at the park.  We all had a great time, and are exhausted today.  It’s always hard to regroup after being gone for the weekend, but it was well worth it.  Had I been home, I wouldn’t have spent the entire weekend outside, which I LOVED!

 Parker and Brecken

 Parker feeding the baby goats!  Brecken wanted nothing to do with the goats.

 The birthday girl Hannah enjoying one of the many slides!

 The girls singing Happy Birthday to Hannah!

 

 The Howell Girls again

 The 8 grand kids on the Howell side all together!

A No-No

Last night Parker was at her first soccer practice and Brecken and I stayed home. Brecken was carrying around my purse saying bye bye, and I played along, and then told her to put my purse up and go get her own green purse..I walked out of the room, and started putting the dishes away...a few minutes later she appeared in the kitchen showing me what she had done! It was too cute...I immediately took pictures, and then told her no, we don't get into mommy’s purse and lipstick, took her into the bathroom and washed her off! When I showed Chris the pictures later, he asked if she got into trouble, and I replied yes...Parker asked if she went to time out..I said no..Chris asked if she was spanked, I said no...He replied that she didn't get into trouble then! It was too cute, and it was an almost gone tube of lipstick..I really didn't care!

Kitchen Before and After

Ok, so I didn't take very many pictures of the kitchen before..by the time I thought of it, Chris had already started ripping out the floors, and the cabinet that lined the windows in the kitchen..he's too quick for me!

Ok, so I didn't save these very well, but you can get the idea of what the kitchen looked like...brown linoleum floors, and before we bought new appliances, it had a brown stove/microwave combination thing that was all one piece...

The wallpaper had tiny blue pineapples on it...I didn't even take a before picture of the dining room, but it had white carpet, which was destroyed with the girls dropping food all the time. The previous owners had painted over the wallpaper to help it sell, so we removed all of that, and painted the kitchen and dining room yellow.

I took these pictures to show off the floors.  This was the next step in our multi step kitchen remodel.  In a few years we'll come back and get new cabinets, countertops, and backsplash....If I really get my way, the upper wall between the dining room and kitchen will be gone..we'll see!

Here's a view looking from the kitchen to the family room.

Here's a view of the empty china cabinet..Chris still has to put one more coat of sealer on it in a few weeks after the grout has time to cure...so I'm still a little bare as far as accessories go for these two rooms!!  We decided to use reclaimed antique brick from South Carolina, and we love it! 

another view in the dining room..that's the wall I would consider getting rid of!  Some day we'll paint the wood to match the new cabinet's we'll get!

Not great before and afters, but you get the idea!

Happy Easter

Easter weekend was busy, and made wonderful by the gorgeous weather God blessed us with. We spent the entire weekend outside it seemed. Friday night we spent the evening with Chris’ Aunt Patty, Uncle Don, Cousins Curt and Karen, and more cousins, Jena, Jamie and even more. There were 14 of us at dinner at Red Rock, our favorite! It was fun catching up on everyone, and the girls loved hanging with Karen, they loved her i-phone, and Curt’s girlfriends daughter Jena! Jena wore the girls out, and they slept well after getting home around 9 that night!

Saturday we woke up, and dyed easter eggs, attended the annual Easter Egg Hunt at Aunt Heather’s Aunt Roma’s house. It was a huge group as usual, and the girls absolutely LOVED playing in the sand, on the swing set, having a picnic, hunting eggs..we got home late again.. but that’s just the way this weekend worked.

 

Sunday we attended church and had lunch at grandmas house, and then dinner at nana and papa’s house. After naptime we had a quick egg hunt in the backyard, which the girls loved. Enjoy the pictures!