Puckey Loves Her Lips!

Well, I'm not quite sure what kind of look she was going for....maybe

Lisa Simpson?

Amos Lee?

Angelina Jolie??

Ande said she looked like a Muppet.

Janice

Whoever she was trying to look like, it just wasn't working for her.

Okay, no more papparazzi!!

At Bubber's baseball game last Wednesday, poor little Puckey got stung by a bee. On her LIP. She was playing with some of the other little brothers & sisters who were at the game, and all of the sudden she started SCREAMING her head off. I ran over to see what happened, and one of the kids said she thought maybe Puckey fell down. When I asked Puckey if she fell, she wailed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo!" I asked her what happened, and she said, "A bee stung me!" Now, other than me warning her about staying away from bees, Puckey has had no real education about bees, so I wasn't sure if that's what happened. Until I saw her lip. It had already started swelling.

She cried for a few minutes, and refused to let me put ice on her lip. I started packing up, and Puckey "recovered" enough for her to want to stay to watch her Bubber play. We stayed a few more minutes, but the longer we sat, the worse her lip looked. I called Ande and asked him to meet me at his parents' house with some benadryl & ibuprofen. Once she got the medicine in her system, her lip slowly started to shrink down. But it was still pretty fat.

Not really a big deal, since she was otherwise fine, right? Well, not exactly. You see, I had scheduled an appointment for Puckey, The Jib, and their out of town cousins to get some pictures taken together for Thursday. (The next day)

I wondered whether or not her lip would be better for the pictures...

On Thursday her lip was only a little bit swollen (much to my relief), so we decided to go ahead with the pictures. Later that afternoon, I met my mother in law, sister in law, and two nieces at the studio for the pictures.

I should have known when our appointment was schedule for 3:00pm and the photographer didn't get there until 5 minutes later that it wasn't going to go well. The photographer was not particularly professional, but our girls are all generally pretty happy, so I thought it would be okay.

NOT SO MUCH.

We struggled for over an hour to get some decent shots. We got some "okay" ones of each of the girls, and some with each set of sisters together, and were working on a shot with all four of them. Things were not going well at this point. All of the girls were very squirmy and not wanting to cooperate.

That's when I noticed the computer screen displaying an error message. I pointed it out to the photographer, and she said, "That's weird." She changed out the memory card in the camera, and the same message still showed. Then she took the original memory card and left the room. About a minute later, she came back and told us that all of the pictures were gone.

WHAT?!?!?!?

Needless to say, we weren't particularly thrilled about that news, but what can you do? The photographer asked if we could come back in the morning. Fortunately, my brother & sister in law weren't leaving until Saturday, so we said we could. She set up the appointment, and told me she'd call later to confirm.

When we got home late Thursday night, there was a message on our machine that the camera at that studio was broken, so the photographer scheduled an appointment for us at a different studio for Friday.

Let me tell you - in the future, if I use the same company for pictures, I will go to this other studio! The photographer was much more friendly, and she worked hard at getting all the girls' names right so she could call them by name! She also was a little more creative with the backgrounds and a lot more fun to work with. This time, the girls were all CHAMPS at getting their pictures taken!!

Here's some of the results....

Puckey

The Jib

Monkey

Nomers!

How often do you get 2 two year olds AND 2 one year olds to pose so sweetly?

I love this picture! Look at Monkey's face (top left) - PRICELESS!!

So thanks, Ben & Tracy, for the memories! We LITERALLY couldn't have done it without you! I hope we get to create many more like this in the (VERY NEAR) future!!! (And on OUR dime next time!!)

Did you know....

That Jesus was a cowboy? He WAS, just ask Puckey.

Oh, and for those of you who have expressed interest in our kitchen remodeling service...sure, we'll be glad to come out, if you can supply room and board for the whole family (in addition to the cost of materials), and you don't mind if we work until 4:00am...LOL

And specifically for Heather, I don't know if we could do granite - that might cost extra!! ha ha

Just for Destini, I'm not sure if we're ready to expand our services to hardwood floors just yet...LOL

Amanda, I PROMISE that if TLC or one of those other types of channels comes a callin', I will still find time to blog! And just think, then you'd know someone FAMOUS! (BIG HA HA HA on that one!)

And for anyone else who left a nice comment for me, I swear, we're REALLY not that nice. Talented, YES, nice....not so much. (Man, call me butter, 'cause I am on a ROLL, baby!)

Have a great day!

So, what happened next?

I wish I had a great "fairy tale" ending to the kitchen story, but I don't. This is, after all, REAL life, and I don't know about the rest of you, but things often don't happen quite the way I'd like them to.

Well, much to my disappointment, the kitchen was not done when the in-laws came home. The sink was still not in, and the cupboards were still empty. I wanted SO much for it to be all done, but it just wasn't meant to be.

It WAS pretty awesome when my in-laws walked in and I heard my mother in law say, "Oh, my HEART!!" (Which, by the way, was a GOOD thing). She is just absolutely thrilled with her "new" kitchen, and even went today and bought some new accessories for it.

******Before I write anything else, I was asked to inform you, my readers, that my mother in law did NOT have anything to do with the former "look" in her kitchen. It was that way when they bought the house and she just never really knew what to do with it.******

I've been going over for a little while each day the last couple of days to work on finishing some stuff up, although it's harder now that they're back and we can't stay there all hours of the night. Oh well, it will get done when it gets done. The important thing is that Ande's mom is very happy with the kitchen. Ande's dad is pretty non-commital about it, but that's okay. Guys aren't really supposed to care too much about that kind of stuff anyway, right?

I probably won't blog too much this week, as my brother in law and his family are going to be visiting from Oklahoma and we will likely be spending a lot of time with them.

Once they are gone and we get the kitchen back in order, I will post pictures of the "finished product".

I've been working on a Super Secret Project....

Maybe you've been wondering where I've been...or maybe not. Either way, here's the scoop:

Okay, so Ande's parents are pretty much the best parents in the world. They have been SO wonderful to us, and even before Ande and I were married, they accepted me, Bubber, and Bug into their family as though we'd always been there. Seriously, if there is anything we ever need at all, Ande's mom and dad are the first ones to offer help, whether it's a prayer, kind word of advice, baby-sitting service, or even financial help. I feel truly blessed to have them in my life.

My mother in law also reads my blog, which is why I couldn't write about this until now.

Ande's brother and his family live in Oklahoma (right near Amanda!!), and recently went to visit them. I found out about this trip back in January, and that's when the wheels started turning.

You see, my in-laws have the ugliest kitchen. EVER. Seriously. You don't believe me? Check this out:

This is after about half of the tile has been removed...I didn't think to take a true "before" picture.

This is after the first of several layers of wallpaper were taken off. Again, no "before" picture (yes, I realize I'm a little slow...). The one wall has not had wallpaper since I've known Ande, as he apparently stripped it off years ago...

Yeah, can you see what I'm saying? UG-LEE.

So, way back in January, I started thinking, "What if Ande and I could take down those ugly plastic tiles and wallpaper, and do some painting and stuff??" I knew it would be a big job, but this kitchen was just crying out for help! I didn't mention it to Ande's mom and dad, but did say something or another about it to Ande on more than one occasion.

Ande's parents left several weeks ago (I believe it was June 26th). Sometime shortly after that, we went over to their house and I decided that it was time to get serious. I started pulling those yucky plastic tiles off the wall. Ande and the girls started peeling wallpaper. There were about 3 or 4 layers of wallpaper, and under the tiles was this adhesive that did NOT want to come off.

You can just see a strip of green patterned wallpaper at the top of this picture...that's what covered the walls before we started. Oh, and the pattern was textured, too. LOVELY. Under that was some sort of floral pattern with a blue background, and of course the ivy print underneath that. At some point there was also a print that had kitchen appliances all over it, although it was mostly removed and we only found bits and pieces of it.

Ande ended up buying a floor scraper and scraping the stuff off the wall, which took him about two days. Taking the remaining wallpaper off took about the same amount of time.

Before

After

Did I mention that Ande's parents had NO IDEA what was going on at their house?


In the process, we discovered that this kitchen has been a mulititude of colors. You've seen the green, but there was also pink (as pictured on the right wall below), pale blue, yellow, and another lighter shade of green.



So we got the walls cleaned off, and holes patched. I cleaned out all of the cabinets so that I could paint. (That alone took two days) I was even the victim of an adhesive-related injury. My arm got stuck to one of the shelves that had TWO layers of contact paper to remove. Don't think that adhesive stuff is dangerous? I had a bruise the size of a baseball on my arm from it! (and no, there will NOT be a picture of that)

The insides of the upper cabinets were a lovely shade of salmon, while complimented by this garish contact paper. Then I dropped the bomb on Ande. I wanted him to build a new tile countertop. I mean, you can't redecorate a kitchen and leave this:

Yes, that countertop is PINK.

I had done some research online, and found several sites that showed step-by-step how to install a tile countertop. You know, since neither Ande or I had EVER done anything like it before. Ande was able to borrow a wet saw from a friend (Thanks, Jackster!), and his friend even came over to show him how to use it and give a few pointers.

New countertop base made of 3/4" plywood and 1/2" cement board

Tile and backsplash has been laid
After a bit of a rough start, and a few minor mistakes, we (okay, ANDE) got the counter installed. At this point, it was now a couple of weeks into the in-law's trip. I panicked when I got a call from Ande's mom telling me that they were going to be home probably the next day (which would have been July 18). You see, they STILL didn't know what was going on.

I tried not to freak out too much, and ended up calling her back and asking if they could stay away for a couple more days. I didn't tell her what we were up to, just that there was a project going on, and she needed to be gone a few more days. Let me tell you, my heart sank a little when she asked, "You're not painting the house are you? Because I haven't decided what color I'd like." "Uh, no, we're not doing that...." I said (it wasn't entirely a lie, since we weren't painting the whole HOUSE, just the kitchen...)


We got the grout done on Sunday night.

Ande, the Tile Master

Monday afternoon, Ande came on his lunch break to install the sink. It didn't fit. WHAT!?!? PANIC SETTING IN!! PARENTS COMING HOME IN A FEW HOURS!!!!!

And that, my friends, is where I have to leave the story off for today....(man, don't you just HATE IT when you're left hanging like that?)