Christmas 2011 (a tad bit late, lol)

The boys in their new jammies on Christmas morning
Hayden (age 8) & Emerson (age 7)

I never got around to posting around Christmas thanks to being too busy.  We moved into our new house on 12/23 so things were really hectic.  I managed to put up a small tree (our big one was buried somewhere in the garage).  We were living out of boxes and the house was a wreck, to say the least.  Anyway, I will share this one photo with you guys because all the others involve boxes and random crap in all the backgrounds, lol.

Just in case you haven't followed my blog over the years, we are visited by Santa' elves twice a year.  They come on the 1st of December to leave us our new ornaments and then they drop by on Christmas eve to give us our new jammies.  We never see the elves in action.  They just ring the door bell, leave the goods on the steps, and then they disappear.  It's so much fun.  We look forward to their visits every year.

Birthday Pancakes

Birthday pancakes = 1 happy birthday boy!

Recipe: Cake Batter Pancakes

I can't believe my Hayden is now 9 years old.  Wow, only one year away from double digits.  That's crazy!  I made him some birthday cake pancakes this morning and he loved them.  Clayton did too.  He described them as being like a sugar cookie and I agree (which is exactly why I didn't care for them).  Hayden has chosen to go to Afton Tavern for his birthday lunch.  My mom and dad are coming up to go with us.  I hope he asks for the cookie skillet for dessert because it is sooo dang good.

I have no clue what we will do this evening but it will be something fun.  Hope you all had a great weekend!  

New Rug and Curtains

I found this beautiful rug on clearance at Pier 1.  The colors really pop against my light carpet.  I love it!  I ended up getting some beautiful curtains to match but you can only see a smidgen of them in the top photo.  I tried to take a good pic of them but they all were washed out due to the sunlight.  I will attempt to get a good pic of them at night soon.  Now I need to get some pretty throw pillows to tie it all together. :)

BTW-Those round pillow things are where the kiddos sit when they watch Clayton play Xbox.

Pantry Organization

I learned a quick lesson when we moved in.  Four shelves in the pantry is a joke!  I have yet to do a grocery game shopping trip (where I majorly stock up on items) so I was shocked how quickly the pantry turned into a junk hole.  I don't even store canned food or baking supplies in there (I have cabinet storage on the backside of the island for those items) and yet it still became an insane mess.  I went to Lowe's to see what I could do about it and came home with 2 wire shelving units that had 8 shelves each.  I knew one would fit perfectly on my left wall and I was hoping to put the second unit on the backside of the door since they can hang from doors.  Unfortunately, my door frame can't accommodate the way that the hanger thingies protrude.  Oh well.  At least I did manage to get one to work for me and it holds a lot of things.  I love how easy it is to find oil, baking soda, chocolate chips, etc.  I also added 2 plastic drawer cart to the bottom of my pantry.  The big one houses my kids' lunch items and snack drawer.  The small one stores my onions and potatoes, so far.  In the middle of the pantry, I added a bag keeper so that I can reuse them in my waste bins.

I am not totally done with organizing it yet but I am for right now.  I have a million and one projects to do so I will come back to this at a later date. 

Espresso Cabinet Frustration (For Brooke)

These scratches are hubby's fault and so he vowed to get me a new drawer front.

The dings look small in photos but they stand out big time in real life.  I know that all cabinets are going to get worn on the bottom due to placing items in/taking items out, but this is only the beginning.  I can see that as we start using the kitchen more, these are going to get way worse.  The few little dings I have now are only from moving things once or twice thus far.  I can't imagine what they will look like after I move things in/out 100 times.  I try to be extremely careful now but it is really annoying.

Miss Me?

The kitchen-we will be getting new rugs, some colored pendant lights, a custom tile backsplash and some decorations for the tops of my cabinets

It has been almost 1 month since we settled on our new house.  We moved in on 12/23, just 2 days before Christmas.  It has been a whirlwind since then.  Time won't slow down, it seems.  Anyway, sorry for the long hiatus.  It is taking us forever to make this house our home but it's all in fun, right?  We have been in Lowe's, Target and Ikea more than I would like to admit.  Over the next few weeks, I will start blogging our home's progress.  You will have to excuse the blue tape for now as our PM will be coming in to touch up everything soon.  I marked everything with the tape so he could easily find dings and marks.

For those of you getting the espresso cabinets and java floors, I can tell you that it is going to drive you nuts.  The cabinets show EVERYTHING and the finish comes off rather easily.  We are extremely careful with them and they still have scratches and dings now.  I may end up distressing them in the future if they get bad enough to warrant it.  They stress me and my hubby to death.  As for the floors, they scratch and dent easily.  I don't understand it.  They are hickory, for crying out loud!  One cardboard box, that was practically empty, scratched the heck out of one of my planks when it got slid across it.  I was very unhappy.  I admit that I cried a little, lol.  Seriously, hardwood floors should be able to withstand basic operations in the home.  I don't get it.  The box took off the top layer and left me with a huge light dent in the flooring.  My PM said that he thinks that is a fluke but I have seen more scratches and dings that shouldn't have happened.  The good news is that the floor is distressed anyway so it won't be hard to hide imperfections, but still, these floors were not cheap and it ticks me off.  We now have a "no shoe" policy because I just can't risk damage to my floors.

Our formal china cabinet doesn't fit in the dining room so it is in the morning room for now.  I will either get rid of it and get a more casual piece or I will replace the table to a more formal looking one.  We will soon get some kind of pretty light fixture to hang from the tall ceiling.  I know the picture makes the table look like we didn't center it but it is.  I am extremely OCD so it is in the dead center, trust me, lol.  

Our hardware-We love it!!  Notice how the espresso cabinets actually look brown in this pic.  They really aren't black like most pictures show.  They are truly a deep brown.

I will be back soon!!!

Sorry I haven't been able to jump on here since we moved into the house. We don't have Internet right now and I cannot stand blogging on my iPhone. Our service is supposed to start on 1/5 and then I will finally be able to jump on the laptop again.