End of School Year Fun

Busy times begin as the school year comes to an end every year. This year, Shauna had her bridging ceremony from Brow.nie to Jun.ior Gi.rl Sc.out. We went over to my friend Kimbo's house the night before to make a cake for the occassion. Kimbo makes beautiful cakes, but she let Shauna and me do a lot of the work this time! Shauna was thrilled that she got to make all the little faces. Thanks Kimbo, we had a blast!!

The girls all look so serious here because their leader is telling them how much fun she had as their leader and the responsibilities of being a Jun.ior.

At the end of year award at her school, Shauna won the Positive Attitude award in her class. She thought thas the best award she could possibly get, so she was very proud! She also performed with after school choir and they sang 3 wonderful songs. It was obvious they've worked hard all year because there are only 10 of them and they sounded fab! The entire school sang a song called "One Song" and it made me get all teary eyed! I have no idea where it comes from but it's beautiful.

I have to include this picture too because my little stinker was trying to avoid having her picture taken. But, I snapped it anywayand I think it turned out cute.

It's officially summer for Shauna. Now, we just have to get Ethan through this week and we're done!

Bad Sportsmanship

Shauna had a softball game on Thursday night. As a reminder, she is 7 so she plays in an 8 and under division. The team we played against (well, not really the team - the parents/coaches) were nasty from the get-go. When our girls first got up to bat, they were yelling rude comments. The umpire had to tell them they couldn't do that. Really? You are an adult and you have to be told to not talk that way to little girls? That was just the start! At one point, our assistant coach went to the umpire to get a rule clarification (something that happens all the time). The other team's scorekeeper started talking trash the our assistant coach. He looked at her and said "I was not talking to you ma'am, but to the umpire". I thought it was done in a very nice tone. The coaches for the other team had been throwing around bad language all night. In what turned out to be the last inning, their 3rd base coach said something really nasty which had just made our coach hit his limit. He walked over and asked him to watch his mouth. The other coach yelled "shut the f*** up" and proceeded to assault our coach! Both coaches were evicted from the game. We tried to continue play, but the other coaches started trying to charge our assistant coach. At that point, the ump called the game and declared us the winners. The girls were all scared with about 1/2 of them crying. They'd never seen anything like that before. I told Shauna it was just an example of very bad adult behavior! Scary part, we were to play them the next Saturday.

So, Saturday roles around and good sportsmanship prevailed. We beat the team 12-11. We definitely feel like we rose about the dirt and were rewarded!

A couple pictures of my little angel playing catcher for the first time. The gear is SO big on her. She actually had to wear her batting helmet because the catcher's mask was huge on her.

Ethan is recovering nicely from his ACL reconstruction surgery. He's still on crutches and can't move it much but he's progressing. He starts physical therapy on Friday, which isn't soon enough for him. We head to Austin Friday night for the first round of the 3A football playoffs. Really? We couldn't have found something closer than 2+ hours away???

First Day of School

My lovely daugher is officially a 3rd grader now. Where has the time gone? Ethan is a junior - that's even harder to believe. I snapped a couple pictures of Shauna this morning. She's wearing the thumb gloves she just had to have. But, they lasted about 20 minutes and they were off. Just like I knew would happen. I'll be surprised if she ever wears them. These were taken with my camera phone, so the quality is not the best.

I think Shauna is wishing she wasn't growing up. The last two nights, she has requested that I read to her and sing her to sleep. I have to admit, it was great fun to be able to do that again. She usually reads herself every night, so I haven't been able to read to her in a long time. But, she made the request last night when we were already upstairs and I didn't have my reading glasses on me. Yes, she has an old mom! I told her I'd try. So, of course it starts off with her saying "Mommy, the book is too far back". Need it that way baby to try to see the letters! Then, I started reading and there were some pretty funny parts where I read it wrong from not seeing it right - such as saying "lay some eggs instead of buy some eggs". By the end, we were both laughing hysterically so I don't think I did much good in helpng her relax to get to sleep! She did say that my version was much better! Thanks baby!

Locks of Love

Shauna has been wanting to make a donation of her hair to Locks.Of.Love for some time. Her daddy was not to happy with the idea because he likes her long hair. The donation must be at least 10" long so once she reached that point, she started asking a lot about when she could do it. Daddy finally agreed when one day she told him "it will grow back daddy and I really want to help the kids with cancer". How can you argue with that? So, Charles relented and said it was okay. I made the appointment right away before daddy changed his mind!

Here Pam is putting the hair into two low ponytails.

Time to cut the first one off.

The finished product. I think it looks adorable!

Finished Product

Charles and I worked 9 hours on Saturday putting up the backsplash. Then on Sunday, we did the grout and caulking. Here are pictures of the final product. Everything is finished except for the shutters that will be in the breakfast room. We did the entire remodel without killing each other! ;-)

This picture shows off the cabinets that my dad built which enabled us to make the bar top bigger. I'm VERY pleased with the look of this and the extra storage we got out of the deal.

Now we get to rest on our weekends again!

Big news for Shauna is that Mommy and Daddy finally succumbed and let her get a fish. She's been asking for about 3 months now. Every time we'd go by Pets.Mart, she'd ask "is today a day I can get a fish". We bought her a betta because they are easy to care for. She named it King sine i is a crowntailed betta and she felt it needed a "royal" name.

Before pictures - finally

So KimboSue has been nagging me about before pictures of my kitchen. So, I finally took a few this weekend. As mentioned in a prior post, my house was built in 1996, which is very obvious when you see the color scheme! We are keeping the cabinets because they are solid oak, custom built on site for my house.


The one other thing that doesn't have to be replaced is my cooktop. We replaced it with a bigger, stainless steel one about 18 months ago.

This is the bar that we have extended with new cabinets built by my dad. The barstools are gone - as is the water dispenser since our new fridge will have water/ice in the door.

Don't you love the wallpaper and diamond tiles? I HATE it but they were stylish in 1996!

We started trying to peel off the wallpaper and it didn't go so well. It was put directly on the sheetrock before so it is stuck REALLY well. We decided to just primer over it and paint it. So, next week had to sand the areaswhere we'd pulled it off. This is how it looked after our attempt at removing.

My dear hubby working on removing backsplash.

Can you believe that big hole? We didn't create it. When we removed the backsplash we saw it near the electrical outlet. Guess the builder missed their mark and left a big hole they just covered with tile!

This is how my kitchen looks right now. The backsplash didn't come off very easily because the builder used sheetrock instead of cement board. We have to do some sheetrock repair this week/weekend before we get the call for the countertops to be installed!

Moving along

We went to Home.Depot last night to finalize payment on our countertops since we've had the official measurement done. While there, I told that they'd only given us $300 off instead of the full 10%, which should have been $420. So, she made an adjustment but she left the $300 discount too! So, we got another $720 off in addition to the free sink and edging. I'm loving this.

We then went through the stressful decision of picking a backsplash. We changed on our mind on what we originally wanted because I was worried with the pourusness (is that even a word) of the stone. I was afraid it would stain in the kitchen. So, we ended up going with a slate/travertine combination. I love it because it has all the colors of our countertops. Before we adhere it to the wall, we will wait until the countertops are installed and just prop them up to make sure we still like it. Here is what we picked:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100669860

We spent almost 2 hours at Home.Depot - way too long for me. The whole time Ethan kept saying "we should go to Low.es"! We bought our new stainless vent hood and new knobs for the cabinets.

We've decided now to put shutters in the breakfast room because I've been wanting that forever. So, now I need to schedule an appoinment for that! It is getting crazy! But, I'm sure the end result is going to be worth it.