Mother's Day

Luke took Kaden shopping for a Mother's Day gift this evening after dinner. I wondered how he was going to keep whatever it was from slipping out of Kaden's mouth. He's not the secret type. Or the quiet type. OR the forgetful type. I gave him 30 seconds to ruin the surprise...

Sure enough he walks in the door and announces, "Mommy, Daddy bought you a present!" (He was very excited.) Luke asks him to tell me what the present was for and, since we are just coming off Kate's birthday, he couldn't remember what they had rehearsed the whole way home and said "For your BIRTHDAY!" I asked him if it was a secret he wasn't supposed to tell. He said yes. Then promptly announced that he had gotten me a necklace. He was proud. And it had been about 30 seconds...

I laughed so hard. SO SO hard.

Also, after he got the secret off his chest, for the rest of the night he talked about Mother's Day. That secret just had his brain in knots.

Before and Afters

Here are some before pictures. They aren't the best...and I jumped into this project without knowing how much we were gonna end up doing so i didn't take before pics! (It all started as a tear off some wallpaper and paint project.) Notice the carpet in the dining room, and the ugly linoleum (which had lots of paint spilled on it) in the kichen! I wish I had up close of how BADLY done everything was. And I hope these pictures do justice to the absolute drab-ness of the whole room.




It turned into a tear off some wallpaper, fix some walls, paint, tear out some floor, tear out some more floor, tear out even more floor, put in a floor and replace the trim, and paint again project. Luke may never let me start something again! Here are the afters. (We still have some decor to find, some curtains and rods to hang, and a new chandelier to find...)



this last photo is to show off the bookshelf Luke made me, and the perfect baskets I found for it. Also, that wall is white to help offset so much orange :)

Kate is ONE!

For the next 2 1/2 months now I have a 1 year old and a 2 year old.

I was welcomed into this "Mom of a one and two year old" phase of my life by Kaden peeing all over the bathroom floor (accident?? I think so.) on the morning of Kate's birthday. Awesome.

Speaking of Kate's birthday. It was a fun party! We had it the day after her birthday so my parents could be here with us. We had a few other people over and had brats (the meat-we didn't eat the kids), polish dogs, hot dogs, potato, pasta and green salads, lemonade, and chips. Of course, it snowed.

I didn't get a lot of pictures, but managed to get a good one (or 2) of the cake. I was proud of it! Just cupcakes made to look like flowers. Then I made a little spot of mud where I wrote Happy Birthday Kate. For months I had looked at cake ideas and didn't like anything I saw...finally found just a picture of this one and knew it was perfect for Katelyn. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to frost and put together, but it was totally worth it!


She truly enjoyed every lick of frosting and can now be considered a frosting-aholic. SHe KNOWS what frosting is now!



She got lots of cool toys too! Ironically-everyone got her Melissa and Doug brand. Kitchen toys and sandbox toys. Kaden is pretty sure it was all for him.

I FAILED!

Love this video! Watch HERE My favorite part is about 3 minutes in probably, but it's all good!

I FAILED, I FAILED, I FAILED!

This is one of my favorite comedies ever!

And after I fail I often cheer myself up by thinking of this!

So...having said that. I failed to do "basic cleaning" and once again, found myself spring cleaning.

It went through my head, "I FAILED, I FAILED, I FAILED!"

If you don't get it, refer to previous post.

I Have Problems - Right Here at Home

Last year, today was my last day before having my beautiful baby girl, Katelyn Joy! You might think this post is gonna be about her...but it's really not. Really, what I mean by that is, I was doing the exact some things last April as I am this April-except everyone accused me of nesting. I really don't think I ever truly nested with either child BUT in April every year I get this crazy spring cleaning urge.

Urge, really, is not a strong enough word. I am absolutely overtaken by the forces of the spring cleaning bug and I cannot fight back.

So, here I am, once again spring cleaning (nesting if this was last year.)Problem is, I have company coming. So, here's what happens. I go downstairs to get the guest room clean (you know, the normal, vaccum, dust, make the bed, etc) and come back up having completely sorted every drawer, the closet, the scrapbooking stuff, etc..

Then I restart. I have lunch or something and re-focus. "Ok Bethany. The goal here is a clean house for company. They won't be going through your deepest drawers." You know the talk. So, geared up to just do the basics, I head down.

So far I have completely re-organized, de-cluttered, and re-drawered my files. I have gone through all the drawers and closets in the entire house; re-organized my Pampered Chef inventory/supplies; decluttered my travel bag(YES, PEOPLE, MY TRAVEL BAG); Kaden's AND Katelyn's clothes have been gone through and weeded out-including halloween costumes, and winter wear. I've repacked my Christmas decor into a nicer tub...people-I've done everything!

Or so I think. Until I go down to SIMPLY dust and vaccum...and then I find another thing!

So, all that to say. My house is not clean. it needs vaccumed in the worst way. It is extremely dusty (Except the ledge that leads to the file cabinet..which I was dusting and is what brought me to the wretched file cabinet which sucked me in)... yes, that ledge is dusted.

So..I'm headed down to attempt this "basic cleaning" again. I have mapped out areas to stay away from. The laundry room for one. It's basically clean, but I just know it could suck me in. The shelf has a FEW things that could be reorganized and...well..you know. The storage under the stairs is another. The DVD rack---yes...even that is not safe. The refridgerater is a definite stay away from item.

Maybe I should just let myself be sucked in and apologize to my sneezy guests and explain why I didn't get the place dusted? (You see, this is the argument that GETS me sucked in in the first place.)

It's an evil bug. I love to hate it, and hate to love it.

BUT-I am planning to have a garage sale SOON-and I won't be finding things I wish I'd remembered to put in! I've found them!!!!

Also. I am NOT (I repeat, NOT) for hire.

Kadenisms

"Awfuls" ---Waffles
"Kung-uhl"--Tunnel
"Nah-nuh"---Banana
"Katewin"---Katelyn
"Percy Juice"--anything in his Percy sippy cup
"Kick-up"---pickup
"Trabis and Lebi"--his cousins Travis and Levi
"tuit"--foot
"potato"---tomato or potato (good luck guessing!)
"gakkett"--jacket
"WHAAA WHICH"---(said in a horrible voice) Sandwhich
"yangya"--lasagna

For the most part his words are very clear. There are a few that he just kills us with!

Also, we are "chasing" whichever car we are following in our car.

His bed "kicks him out" at times.

And, if you ask, Katelyn is always "10 Months" while he is mostly "2 and a half" or "almost free, but i'm 2" while holding up 5 fingers.

Where's the Dog?

We've been working on teaching Kaden how to put on his shirts and coats all by himself. He's got underwear and pants mastered! Anyway, so he got his PJ shirt on but, unknown to him, it was backwards. He was sooo proud of his accomplishment so I praised him highly! After adequate praise, I urged him to go show Daddy then I asked, "Oh Kaden! Where's the dog?" (He has a dog on the front of his pajama shirt.) Without pause, he pointed to where the dog should be and said "RIGHT here!!!" But as he looked down he stopped short. He twisted it. Then he lifted it and looked at his belly. "Mom, WHERE is he?" He was truly amazed that the dog had just jumped off his shirt.
Then Luke told him it was on the back....He's a nice daddy. I was going to leave him hanging. ♥