Almost Finished Laundry Room

Although it would have been MUCH easier to have painted the laundry room before the cabinets went up, I sucked it up and painted around them. 

I'm not sure how I came to the colors I picked out, but I really like them!

To finish it up a bit more, Perry added a cap to the ledge to tie the room together. The only thing that is left now is adding the trim around the door and the bottom of the walls. If we end up staying in Missoula, I might be able to convince him to make me a collapsible table so I can have more folding room!

Here's the old colors : Purpley-gray and green...ick.

Any suggestions for wall art for my new laundry room?

A Day on the Town with Aunt Kim

Our schedules finally matched up this week where we both had the day off. Little JP has been calling Aunt Kim on his play phone for the last week. Hunter has been as well, but he actually has conversations with the imaginary Aunt Kim. It sounded like they were missing her a bit!

We met up at my house and headed downtown to the Carousel. Last summer Perry and I took the boys there and they were not too fond of it. Hunter sat with me in a chariot and JP had death grip on the horse. I was delighted when this go round they both we all enjoyed it! 

JP seemed a little hesitant about the whole thing so he rode with me.

The cool thing about the Carousel downtown is that the entire thing is hand carved and is one of the fastest carousels in the nation! There is a dragon that "spits" out rings every ride, and if you get the last ring, which is golden, I believe you get a free ride. It was mine for the taking and I missed it! Hunter enjoyed holding the ones I got before though!

From there we went next door to Dragon's Hollow, a play park. I've never been here before, just because I've been afraid of losing Hunter. I was happy to know the place is pretty much enclosed!

 The place is full of stairs and tunnels and slides. It's pretty cool! I explored it too and even went down one of the slides with JP!

JP found a slide that he REALLY liked - it was rather steep, enclosed, and ended about 2 feet off the ground, so he would literally shoot out of the slide. He loved it! He's usually not very daring so this caught me off guard a bit. He normally sticks to the open ones where he can see the end.

Hunter had a hay day! He is such a social kid calling everyone he sees his friend. To him, everyone's name is  "My Friend." It didn't surprise me at all when he found some kids to run around with, girls none-the-less!

These boys have so much fun together!

After playing around for a while, we took a walk down to the Big Dipper for some ice cream! I have a little fear of heights, so crossing the Higgins bridge made me a little sick when I looked over! Busy street on one side and river below...not fun for me!

JP doesn't quite understand the concept of licking his ice cream - he likes to suck on the top and make a mess. Silly boy!

 These are my sugar-rushed kids...yay!

With no naps today, these boys were exhausted by the time we got home!

 I put in a movie just before dinner, and Hunter was holding his eyes open!

Do I need to mention they passed out at 7pm. Feels like a record compared to Hunter's normal 2 hour "fight bedtime" routine!

P.S. Thanks for the matching Hawaii shirts Nanny!

Skull and Crossbones Cake

I'm happy to report this is my first "girl" cake! I love how it turned out too! A co-worker of mine, who is on maternity leave, sent me a text in panic mode asking if I could make a cake for her daughter's 5th birthday, which was in 2 days. Initially I thought it would be pretty easy to create...and it was! The cake on the other hand....not so easy!

I don't know what it is about me forgetting the parchment paper on the bottom! I made a large 10x14 cake and then it stuck to the bottom so only half came out! I thought I would just "glue" it together but the second half was just stuck in the pan. So my idea of getting a head start on Tuesday was a complete bust. Hunter didn't seem to mind eating the mistake cake!

Her mom sent me a picture of a cute black and purple skull and crossbones, but I knew black was going to be a BIG challenge for me and with the limited time I had, I didn't even want to attempt it! I ended up drawing my own skull and crossbones and then cut them out to trace around on the fondant I used.

I'm not very skilled with frosting cakes so I decided to try my hand at it this go around. I didn't do too bad! I didn't quite make enough frosting, but just enough to get by. More would have been less stressful! And as soon as I finished frosting it, I tipped over my mixer bowl on to the cake...and had to start over. This is when I decided that I was going to need to open a bottle of wine...

Perry came home at 1a for his "dinner" break and found me dancing and singing in the kitchen. Hunter slept right through it on the couch : ) I finished cleaning up my kitchen at 3am and fell immediately asleep! Here's how it turned out!

Easter

Happy *late* Easter everyone!

We didn't do much for Easter this year. I had to work until 3 and Perry worked until 8a and then slept in the afternoon and woke up just in time for the Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard.

The boys were so excited to open their Easter baskets from Grandma.

Tried to get a picture of the boys with their buckets before they went out to find eggs. Kim and Ray pulled up so the boys got a bit curious and it was all over from there once they got out of the car. 

 JP was a good little egg finder!

 Especially when compared to his brother, who insisted on showing Uncle Ray Ray how he can jump...

 ...And do a somersault...

 ...and find things other than the eggs...

                                       ...and tell all about the broken one that Roxy got into!

But he still ended up with more than JP!

Poop on the Walls

About a month ago, I came home to a little mess in the boys' room. I was so disgusted with them!

 Poor Winnie the Pooh (no pun intended!) suffered too.

 And I had to shampoo the carpet...

Yesterday I came home to something similar...except instead of clearly just smearing it around, they were literally throwing it. 

 I somehow missed the *mother load* in this picture, but it was in the top right, both on the ceiling and the wall.... 

 I will admit, I did giggle a little when I saw Hunter chuck one at the wall.

 You can't really see it on the car, but it's wheels were covered. 

I had to use an SOS pad to scrub the walls...and then I threw it out of course!

Remodel of our Laundry Room

I've been wanting to redo our laundry room since we moved in. It's come a long way since 2009!

This is what it looked like when we previewed the house.

 See laundry room on the left. Kinda a storage closet.

 Perry went to work laying tile down to cover the cement floors.

I "finished" it up by painting it. Left over purply-grey from the downstairs bathroom, and green left over from the upstairs bathroom. Not exactly what I wanted to do, but it needed to be painted and I didn't have the time nor the energy to pick out another color. 

This is how our laundry room has stayed for the past 3 years. I've always despised it. My least favorite room in the house. 

A month or so ago, I was flipping through the ads and came across the Lowe's one. They had cabinets on sale and pictured them in the laundry room. I fell in love with the white ones shown. *Perry hates white cabinets* Then the other day we went to Home Depot (Home Depot Dustin as the boys call it) to look at cabinet...err, buy cabinets. 

Perry set to work on sanding them. 

And I worked on staining them.

Perry hung them while I was at work..

...with some help from JP using the stud finder.

Excuse the mess of my office...that's next on my to-do list. Perry also took it upon himself to sand and stain the door to the laundry room.

 And added cabinets to cover the plumbing.

 And my favorite...a place to hang my clothes!

Now I just need to repaint....which would have been easier before hand right? Tell Perry that!

Trip to Nanny and Papa's

Over Saint Patrick's Day weekend, the boys and I took an extended trip to go see Nanny and Papa. Normally when we go we have one full day and are traveling on the first and last. A 4.5 hour drive + with boys isn't always fun anyways.... These boys were troopers both on the way down and especially on the way back during the blizzard! 

Here's some highlights from the weekend *finally*! I already posted what we did on Saint Patrick's Day morning, but here it is again!

We began with Green French Toast and Green Milk...Yummy!

After breakfast we headed out to see all the tractors. It was about a 30 mile drive and Hunter was convinced it was only going to take us 5 days to get there. Not quite bud.

Even Mommy had fun!

The plan was for the boys to ride home with Papa Craig on the big red tractor, but after being on it for 30 seconds, JP deemed it "too scary" so he came home with me and Hunter drove the tractor home.

On the way back, Papa Craig spotted some cows. One of which who had just calved. Pretty cool to see!

Do I need to tell you how much they loved looking at the cows?

After watching the cows for a bit, we headed into town to see the fire trucks.

And then across the street to the park. Hunter is normally all talk, so I was VERY surprised to see him actually go down the slide, let alone head first!

After nap time (because it was obvious that one was needed!) we had some fun in the backyard. 

Hunter really really wanted to play on the "jump-oline"

And of course they had to play on the tractor some more!

They slept like rocks!