A Story by Brynn

Brynn spent a lot of time this weekend writing a story on the computer. She told me I could put it on the blog. Here it is:

                  The Families Adventure

A family lived in the woods.    They were very poor.    But they did not mind.    Their   names were Jewel, Rose and Ruby.  Rose was the oldest.   Jewel was the medium. Ruby was the youngest. Their parents’ names were Linda and Jeremy. They loved their girls.    They all had to do a lot of work.  One day Ruby wondered   off.  The rest of the family was worried. They searched for days. “Ruby where are you?”

Then finally Jewel and Rose set off to find Ruby. Now Linda and Jeremy were really worried.   Rose, Jewel, Ruby where are you they shouted.  Rose and Jewel kept getting into trouble. First they had to swim across a lake a sea monster tried to eat them all they had do is say please and he moved . 

The next thing they bumped into was a troll and a troll bridge the troll wood not let them pass.  But the troll’s mom came back and said that they could pass and they did and the little troll got punished and the girls laughed. 

Back at home Linda and Jeremy were so worried. Wait said Linda i forgot   when we were not poor when we were rich I bought the girls a cellphone maybe I can call them.

Then she tried it and it worked yea.

    Mom: girls I am so happy that you are alive did you find Ruby?  No, we did not but we will keep trying. That is great. But I do not know we might not find her. Will you just keep trying? K. Well we got to go bye, bye. After they hanged up Rose said look out an ax! Run! You can do it. Wait why are we running? The ax is not alive. It is alive it is a magic ax! Now run go, go, go! 

The ax fell in the sea and they were safe. On the way they met a cat and it was a magic cat it said that it could take them to Ruby. But in return they would have to give it a family. The girls said that it was a deal.

So the cat led them to Ruby. It was a long walk. But if they wanted to find Ruby they had to keep going.    They met a very, very, very mean giant. This giant was a special kind of giant he did whatever you did so he is very hard to pass especially magic cats with girls. The only way to get pass the giant was to make him fall in the sea.  They tried a couple things but they did not work. Finally they pretended to fall into the sea. When the giant pretended to fall in he lost his balance & drowned in the deep horrible sea. But when they thought they won the war the giant’s huge hand reaches out of the sea & grabs them & swallows them whole. So they are in the giant’s tummy & they find Ruby. 

Ruby! I am so happy to see you I see that you are punching the tummy so is he going to burp us out. Burp! I spoke too soon. The giants burp flew them all the way home.   

AND THEY LIVE HAPPY EVER AFTER!

 

                                               The End        

December Update

So let's play game of catch-up...again. I have been bad with the blogging lately. So here are lots of pictures.

I LOVE CrossFit!!!! If you didn't already know. This is what your hands look like if you do CrossFit,(no not sausage-like that is just me. Blisters and calluses) but it really is a badge of honor. I could go on and on but I won't. You probably are all sick of hearing about it. If you want to know about CrossFit ask me next time you see me and I will talk your ear off. :)

Claire helping me make dessert on Christmas Eve. Yay for chocolate lush! Yay for a little helper.

We had lots of company on Christmas Eve, which was super fun. Mom and Dad, Jake and Shanna (and baby JJ), and Grandma Julie all ate dinner with us. We even opened some presents. Dad got this very cool skull cap from Jake and Shanna for when he rides his bike. No more cold or sunburned head. He said it was half a bra. Sydney could not stop laughing. Very appropriate, as usual, Dad.

Grandma Leslie gave Brynn her very own box of Wheat Thins. She was sooooo excited. I mean really, what more could a girl want? The box is in the cupboard now, with Brynn's name written all over it, just so we don't forget who it belongs to.

Grandpa Dave gave Syd the crazy dot-to-dot- book. Look at the picture close and you can see the dots. One picture has over 1000 dots. This will keep her busy for a while! Click on the picture to see a bigger version of it. You can see the dots better that way.

Christmas jammies! They love to put on their new jammies. And check out the super cute pregnant chick on the couch. Doesn't she look great? Two months to go Shanna!

The girls all got pillow pets. They are very cute and soft. Bunny for Claire, turtle for Syd, and ladybug for Brynn. They will be perfect for traveling.

Syd loves to read. We gave her the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book and she had it finished before lunch on Christmas Day. That's my girl!

We got a new office chair for the computer desk downstairs. The girls had a blast spinning around and around in it all day long. I am surprised that nobody threw up.

Bobbi even got in on the gift-giving action. She got a new bed. It was so funny to watch her react to it. She sniffed it (it is embedded with catnip), walked around it twice, and plopped down in it like it had been her bed forever. Success! Although, she has only laid in it twice since then. Darn cat. If anyone out there ever figures them out let me know.

Casper's had a ski night at Beaver last week. Shawn and Syd went up. Here is Syd chilling in the snow. Shawn said they had a good time. Syd hadn't been skiing for a couple of years but she was able to pick it again quickly.

Yesterday was Beach Day at school for Syd and Brynn. This just means that they got to eat thier lunch on a beach towel in teh decorated gym. So they were running around the house in the morning gathering up towels and hats and sunglasses. Claire wanted in on that action so she got all of her stuff out too. So while the thermostat read 5.6 degrees outside, Claire was beaching it up inside with her swimsuit, floppy hat, beachball, and towel. She stayed in this get-up all day long. She walked around the house all day saying "We go to the beach? We go swimming?" Sometime I just have to give in to the cuteness, so that night I took the girls swimming at Sky View. It was really fun but it was really cold. I think the best part for everyone was standing in the steamy hot shower for half an hour. I taught the girls how to slide across the shower floor, like we did when I was on the swim team. Afterwards we came home and all ate jam sandwiches together. Fun night.

  

This picture is just for fun. Aren't babies so cute when they sleep? Even if they are wrapped in a stinky blanket? After the nap we washed stinky blankey so now it smells so nice. If you want proof come over and Claire will let you sniff it. She has been making me sniff it all day long.

Family Photos

My family was very patronizing today and let me take pictures of them. Here are a few that turned out well. Everyone behaved well and were rewarded with french fries when we were done.  Gotta love bribery.

  I loved these old doors. The building was only about a mile form our house. The girls all voluntarily stuck their hands in their pockets. I thought it was so cute.

 Brynny loves to pose, can you tell? I also lover her toothless smile. Poor kid can't bite down on anything.

 Syd is getting so big and grown-up. Isn't she beautiful? I adore her red hair. The side-ponytail was her idea and she was really digging it.

 My little munchkin. She was so cooperative. We had her shouting things like "Marshmallows, cheese!" Then we tried to get her to say "Pickle princess" and she told us "No, no pickle princess, just pickles".

 Family shot. We had to set the camera up on a tripod then I hit the timer and ran for it. It was pretty far away so the girls counted down for me. I made it! Whew.

 

I love these group shots of the girls. They really are pretty good friends most of the time. Claire's expression pretty much says how she felt about being squeezed like that.

  

 Syd took this shot. The camera was on a tripod and she got to push the button. If you disregard the receding hairline and double chin, we look just like we did 12 years ago, right? I can't believe we have been married for 12 years. I love my family!

Playing Catch-Up

So it has been forever since I have posted. I guess I have been too busy living life lately. So here is a list of what we have been up to:

• Shawn and I went to Mexico. We had such a great time and got very tan. I have a post halfway finsihed. Hopefully I will get around to finishing that soon. 
• We had Halloween. Syd was a white ninja, Brynn was a black fairy, and Claire was a frog. Halloween made quite an impression on Claire. She has been telling everyone for weeks now that she was a frog for Halloween and got a bucket of candy. Good times.
• Syd and Brynn are both losing teeth like crazy. Neither of them can eat apples. 
• Claire had a bad cold last week. It resulted in some breathing treatments like we had to do here. Not as bad as last time but still not fun. She is on the mend now.
• Brynn got whatever yuck Clarie had. She has completely lost her voice and it is killing her to not be able to talk. She sound like a froggy.
• Shawn and I have started exercising in earnest lately. We joined a Crossfit gym and are loving it! Our workout on Friday went as follows: 100 pull-up, 100 push-ups, 100 sit-up, 100 squats. Today we are sore everywhere. I honestly have not had this much fun working in years. 
• I have sworn off surfing craft blogs. They just make me feel incompetent as a homemaker and a mother. Don't get me wrong, I still love to craft, I have even done some fun things lately, but I am so over comparing myself to those perfect people out there. Take me as I am, people.
• I spent the afternoon learning interesting facts about the red fox for a report SYd is doing in school. Did you know that the average life-span of a red fox is only 2-4 years? 
• Exciting family gossip: Jake and Shanna are having a baby boy in March! I cannot wait to be an aunt again. Shanna is 5 months pregnant and barely showing. Sigh. I console myself with the fact that I am all done. Ha! Bart and Katie are moving to Georgia and have just bought their first home. Guys, I am genuinely excited for you, but just so you know I will not be visiting you in the summertime. The humidity would kill me. Christmas at your house next year?
• We took Syd in for some official allergy testing. She was pretty much allergic to everything we had her tested for: peanuts, walnuts, pecans, cashews, green peas(weird, huh?), dogs, and cats. This really doesn't change anything but at least now we know these things for sure. We now are the proud owners of 4 more epi-pens and under orders to keep the cat out of Syd's room. She was kind of devastated about this because the two of them love to sleep together. At least the poor kid doesn't know what she is missing the the nut department.
• We had a muskrat fall into one of our window-wells last week. It scared the crap out of me with all it's scratching at the window. We put a 2x4 down there with it and in crawled out. The girls were both sad when our visitor left. Muskrats are lots bigger than I thought. We are talking cat-size. 
• Shawn spent the last two weekends at a Woodbadge training for scouts. He got a new neckerchief and some new patches so it was a success. Actually he said it was really good and educational, plus he got to camp outside in November.
• Shawn and I are re-watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". If all of you vampire fans out there want a good vampire story, watch Buffy. Seriously, Edward has nothing on Angel.
• I sometimes hate Blogger because it is hard to maneuver in. Pretend that the picture is where you would think it should be.
• I have been feeling super-content and happy lately. My family still does not pick up their socks and there is still laundry all over the couch all the time, but things are good! I love my family and I am also the proud owner of a new pair of happy pants. What more could a girl ask for? I promise more pictures next time. Love to all of you!

Kitchen Cabinets!

So here we go. Here is the story of how we refinished our kitchen cabinets. If you don't care just scroll down to the bottom and you can see the "after" pictures.

Here is the before: Lots of wood paneling and darkness going on.

We took everything out of the cupboards and I realized that I have creepy old-cabin cupboards.

So after sanding we got to work priming the interior. There are lots of surfaces in cupboards. There may have been some cursing at this point. I don't know, Shawn was talking under his breath.

Such a happy helper.

The cabinets are all done here. We let them cure for 3 days. We used oil based paint because it is more durable. I tell you I will never take latex paint for granted again. Oil paint is a bear to work with. Two weeks later and I still have paint on my arms. But I can clean my cabinets all they want and that paint is not coming off.

One coat of primer, 2 coats of paint, and 3 days to cure later. . . we put everything back in the cupboards. Hooray! No more making toast on a cutting board by the front door. It was the only plug I could find.


Here are all the cabinet fronts sitting out in the garage. Now here is a story just so you feel bad for me. Each cabinet door is a little different. The grooves on the front of the door line up with each other, so each door has to go back where it came off of. There are 32 cabinet doors. We had to make a map of what door went where. They were laid out in specific order. I was the only one that was allowed to move a door for any reason. Remarkably, we were able to keep them all in order.
After: Ahhhhh! I love it! We spray painted all the hardware (handles, hinges, even the screws) with a metallic brushed bronze spray paint. I antiqued the doors by sanding the edges and grooves then wiping them down with a glaze. I am really happy with the outcome.
Next we will replace the counter tops and get a new floor and paint the walls. By "next" I mean in the year ahead when we get the $$.

If anyone is interested, here are some great tutorials I read over and over to help me out.

Starter Home to Dream Home blog
Recaptured Charm-glazing
Nora's blog

Some advice:
Don't go into this thinking it will be a weekend job. This took me 2 1/2 weeks of intense work. I spent on average 6-8 hours a day on this. We did take weekends off to let the paint cure. My dad also helped out almost every day for hours, and Shawn helped out too (I have awesome liners in all my cupboards thanks to him. Thanks baby!)

Use oil-based paint. It was a pain but I am not afraid to abuse the cabinets a little. They get lots of abuse anyway. That paint is on there!

Pick one pair of clothes to ruin. I wasn't thinking the first day and was wearing my favorite running pants when I started. Now they are my favorite painting pants.

Find some suckers to help you. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Shawn and Dad. I cannot thank you enough. I would still be sitting on my kitchen floor crying if is wasn't for all the help these two fantastic guys gave me.

Hope you like it! Now I am off to Mexico. Adios!

An update

I finally decided to download pictures from my computer. It has been a while. Here is what we have been up to:

We got a bike seat for Claire. She loves it! Now we can go on family bike rides.

I took a Indian cooking class where I learned how to make chicken curry and naan. Super yummy, and fun!



Shawn's family was all in town a couple of weeks ago and came to church with us. Then they all came back to our house for rolls. Again, super yummy and fun.


Bonnie and Kurt have moved to Seattle so Kurt can attend pharmacy school there. We miss them. We are already planning a visit for next summer.


Jon won the roll eating contest with 8 rolls. It was a truly proud moment.



Syd and Brynn headed back to school a couple of weeks ago. Syd is in 4th grade and Brynn is in 2nd grade. We get to go to a brand new school this year. It is very exciting. Hooray for the big yellow bus!


Thumbs up for school!


We have also been super busy painting our kitchen cabinets. You have to wait for pictures of that until I am ready to do the final reveal. It is going to be fantastic! We also were part of the support crew for my dad this past weekend as he rode the LOTOJA for the fourth year in a row. Pictures to come. I hope all is well with you!

Garden Thoughts

So I came to a realization this summer: Yard work is not my thing. I don't really enjoy the heat of summer, (OK, I hate being hot in a serious way) so going out into it to dig, prune,weed, etc. is not something I enjoy. So this realization begs the question: why the hell would I want to size up and own a bigger piece of land?! I fear I am going to have to face this question someday. I have always had dreams of owning a full acre and having chickens, goats, and a huge garden. I'm starting to think that this might be an unrealistic dream. My .3 acre is really about all I can handle.I am not great at the gardening thing. There are only two things that I can consistently grow with success. So here are a few pictures of them.


My mom used to plant marigolds all the time when we were growing up. I kind of hated them. I thought they stunk. I still think they stink, but the fact is, they are easy to grow. So they are the flower I go back to year after year. They always grow and thrive. And actually I have become quite fond of them.



I love fresh tomatoes still warm from the garden. Again this is something that I can grow with relatively consistent success. We have 4 tomato plants this year (my neighbor has 32!) and all are doing well, even after one had a fairly serious run-in with the tiller.
The cherry tomatoes are starting to turn red and I can't wait to eat them. I love how they pop in your mouth.BTW- I didn't even notice there was a grasshopper in this picture until after I took it. Sneaky little guy!
That's all. How are all of your garden's doing this summer?
PS- I canned 51 pints of beets today. That may have a little to do with my pessimism toward gardens tonight. :)