All done

So here are the cabinets before

and after...
I really do love them.  It was a fairly inexpensive way to update our kitchen.  Michael says whenever we do a project, I decide what I'll do and what he'll do, because I feel like there's certain things I can't do, like I didn't take any of the cabinet doors off, but I put almost all of them back on because Michael pretty much didn't want to do it in the time frame I wanted and he said I could do it myself, so I did!  He taught me how and it was pretty simple in theory, but time consuming and kind of strenuous.  Some of the doors got nicked in the moving process and that stressed me out.  There's always hiccups and things that don't go right, which at times makes you question why you even started the project in the first place, but it was worth it.  Am I the only one with the illusion that projects will go smooth?
We need to do back splash still.  I'm excited for that and think it will make a huge difference.  Just to add, its almost maddening to me to see before and after pics on fb and Instagram because they don't include the process, the stress, the trips back to the hardware store, and the mess everywhere else in your house.

More than anything in the world, I love that girl standing there.  Oh and our microwave died during all this so we'll be getting a new one of those.

Prepping for new cabinets

So in like November I had Mike Hendershot come look at our cabinets and talk about spraying them for us.  I had really wanted to paint our cabinets in Billings but I'm SO glad we didn't.  It is a huge job, and we didn't even paint ours, just prepped them and took them to Mike's shop.  So on Dec 27 we agreed that I'd bring the cupboards over, which meant that before that we had to take everything out of our cabinets and have them cleaned and sanded.  We used TSP to take the sheen off and then sanded what we could.  Mike actually did some more sanding to touch up our spots we missed.  Janelle was great at helping me empty out the cupboards and put stuff in the master bedroom and the living room.  It was a mess.

A couple days later, Michael and I prepped our kitchen with plastic and other supplies he'd purchased in Billings that day.  Ugh.  This was a lot of work and I questioned whether it would have been easier painting it ourselves.  In the end I'm glad we did it this way.

Here's Mike sanding the panel I tried to strip.

Here's after they came and sprayed.  It took them all day which meant we couldn't use our kitchen so we ate out twice that day.

Stetson and Michael putting fronts back on.

The little girls had so much fun playing in the cupboards when they were empty and didn't have fronts.

Christmas day

Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, which is perfect, unless you have 8 am church. I was actually dreading getting the kids all ready on time and squeezing in Christmas morning.  The kids just looked at their santa presents and we opened presents when we got back.  Sacrament was great.  Jack Nichols spoke and I was grateful to feel the spirit on Christmas.  Our stake Christmas concert was a week earlier and I sang a solo "Do You Have Room" which was a song I hadn't heard of but I loved it and was glad I got to sing it.  My confidence has grown more since singing with the Chorale and getting to practice more.

The kid got a trampoline which was a beast to wrap, but I'm probably more excited than they are for the day we can set it up.  Almost all of my childhood memories are on my tramp.  We had sleepovers on it, put sprinklers under it and jumped on it in our suits, had a huge weeping willow tree above the tramp with a tree house in it and we would jump from the tree house to the tramp.  My brothers broke it when they tried a trick on it with their water skies?!  I spent a LOT of my childhood jumping on my tramp.

After church we spent some time at dads for breakfast and then over to Asays.  Stahle had just woke up from her nap. I love the expression on her face.  She's holding her doll she got from gma Asay.  This girl loves dolls.  When we got home that night, Stahle took a spill off our dining room bench and split her head open.  I never did get a picture of it but Michael called Ken who came over and glued it right up.  Michael and Ken agreed that its better not to treat your own child when dealing with something kind of major.  Ken did a great job and its healed pretty nicely.

During one of our days of Christmas break we painted nails.  The girls always love it until we have to put it all away.

Crazy day in Billings

Sometimes I get these wild ideas like taking all my kids to Billings by myself to spend the day. Michael actually had to work that day in Billings so the plan was drop him off, entertain kids all day and then go out to eat and do some shopping with all the kids that evening. So after we dropped off Michael we went to Bonnie's and waited for it to warm up a little for us to go sledding together.  Bonnie really saved the day AGAIN.  Billings has the best sledding hills.  Thats something I really miss.  They have one close to the temple where you can park right by the top of the hill so Stahle could nap or something while we went sledding.  After sledding, I volunteered to take Clay with me and the kids to the library and grab some pizza for lunch. It ended up taking us almost an hour just in travel time because the roads were horrible.  It was fun to be back to our old tromping grounds.  When we got back to Bonnie's, she had the table all set up for crafts and delicious treats to go with our pizza!

One of our objectives of the day was to reunite Janelle with her bff, Harley.  They went to preschool together at the Y and Janelle still talks about her, even now.  Janelle will be playing with friends or something and come tell me in tears that she misses Harley.  I won't tell you all about how we got stuck on the way to her house and had a miscommunication about pickup places, etc. but we made it happen.

After that we went and got Michael, had dinner at Texas Roadhouse and did a little shopping.

Stetsons 10th birthday

We're starting to switch between friend parties and family parties every year, and I think Stetson would always choose family party.  His birthday fell on a Saturday this year which also happened to be the coldest of winter up to that point.  Brrr!!  I can't remember the temp but I was glad I didn't have to go anywhere that morning.  We had a breakfast party just to do something different and there was a recital that night that actually ended up being cancelled.  We'd also planned on skiing that afternoon but it was too cold for us amateurs.  On the menu was breakfast burritos, monkey bread, fresh fruit, bran muffins and fruit.  Stetson got some great presents, I think his favorite was legos.  We are grateful for all our family that came.  It wouldn't be much of a party without them!

Christmas concerts

There are some things in life that make parenting ALL worth it, and one of them is elementary Christmas concerts.  Not only is it fun to get a little girl all dressed up and fancy, but watching them perform is a treat!  I made the mistake of being too pushy when it came to Kandace's hair (she wanted to leave it down) and it kind of put Kandace in a sour mood, but lesson learned.  Michael and I still have SO much to learn about raising girls.  We'll probably never figure it out.

Janelle had a VIP concert.  Kandace was almost this age when she decided I didn't need to fix her hair anymore.  I was just thinking that the other day as I was fixing Janelle's hair.  Janelle is great about letting me fix her hair so far.  Not as stubborn and "bold" as Kandace I don't think.  More sensitive though.  Janelle did a great job at her concert.  When I was putting Janelle's dress on for the concert, Stahle very quickly picked up on what was going on and insisted that she get to wear her dress, too.  It is fun to see Stahle grow and make these observations in her young life.  She Stahle got to wear her dress to the preschool concert.  And she picked her nose in the picture I took.

Holiday mingle

The town of Lovell puts on some fun activities for the community as kind of a holiday kick off.  In the morning hey played The Grinch who stole Christmas at the Hyart and had free popcorn.  I asked dad to stay with Stahle  while I took the older ones (Michael was working).  I'd told myself I wasn't going to take the kids to the thing at the firehall because its always chaos and too hard with just me and the 4, but I went anyway but told myself to just relax, which made it a little better.  The kids had fun.  They had a little petting zoo outside where they could ride miniature horses.  Kandace ran off without telling me and got in trouble so it didn't end well but I was glad we went.

After the movie at the hyart, Joseph Shumway was dressed as the grinch and Janelle was petrified when he came close so she wouldn't get in for the picture, and then she warmed up to him at the firehall!  I love this picture of her.

Christmas cookies

Here is proof of our obligatory cooking making day.  What kind of mother would I be?  Baking is a mess but keeps the kids busy and I've gotten better each year about "laying off" and letting them do it.  Stetson wasn't actually here this day so we saved the frosting for a day when he could participate, but never actually frosted them.  Because I am awesome like that.

Weekend in Billings for concert

November 5th and 6th was my concert with the Billings Symphony Chorale.  I decided to take Kandace with me for the weekend.  We drove down early on Friday so I could go to the temple.  I was hurrying to make a certain session but when I got there they told me that session was non existent as I was looking at the wrong schedule.  I did some initiatory instead which was wonderful.  I don't do those very often so it was a good refresher.  My friend Bonnie Haeberlee had agreed to keep Kandace during the temple, and she ended up offering to keep her for my rehearsals too!  She has a son Kandace's age and they're great friends.  Plus, her husband Miles is gone for PA rotations so I thinks he enjoyed the company.  I thought it would be a great weekend for Kandace and I to have some mother daughter bonding but she wanted to hang out with Clay for than me.  Sob sob.  We did get to stay at a hotel with a pool and enjoy a delicious continental breakfast every morning.

Saturday I took Kandace swimming and had lunch at Olive Garden with my friend, Melinda.  Bonnie and Clay came over to the hotel to swim at the pool and Kandace had a blast.

That night was my first concert, my family was in town for so Kandace got to sit with them.

Sunday Kandace and I went to church which fell on their stake conference so I got to see some familiar faces which was fun, and then Kandace went back to Haeberlees for my last concert.  Bonnie was so good to me that weekend and I was grateful for her help.  She is a great friend.  I was probably over my head thinking I could drag Kandace along to all my rehearsals so I was glad Bonnie pitched in and offered to take her.  Kandace and Clay are great buds and get along great.  They went to Rose Park elementary together.  

The concert was beautiful.  Hard to describe what it feels like.  It feeds my soul and takes me to a happy place! Music is powerful!  My favorite song we sang was actually one arranged by Mack Wilburg who directs MOTAB.  Its called My Shepherd will supply my Need.  We had a small orchestra to fill the instrumental parts and it was so touching and moving.  I'm proud of myself for sticking with chorale.  Its hard sometimes with all the driving and jugging schedules and making sure kids are taken care of but its worth it to me.  What a blessing music is.

Halloween day!

This was such a fun day.  Kandace's teacher asked me and some other moms to come help with the class party so I made some candy corn jello cups to bring and got to help carve pumpkins (actually a different day) and watch the Halloween parade.  I let Janelle dress up, too and tag along which was a blast for her.  I think Michael was home that day so he could stay back with Stahle.  It was definitely a different scenery after Billings, where they're only allowed 1 holiday party per year and parents don't come in the classroom for parties.  I was glad I got to spend a large portion of the day with the kids so I didn't feel so guilty when I drove to Billings that night to rehears with the chorale for our upcoming concert.  Originally I wasn't going to go but as the time to the concert got closer and closer, I realized how unprepared I was and how desperately I needed that rehearsal time.