June 2013

Tanner's teacher asked me to help chaperon the first grade field trip this year. Usually they have more parent volunteers than they need, but that was not the case this year. I arranged for Brian's mom to come and watch Bradon and Anders and to help get Bradon on and off the bus for preschool. She came on time, but as I was getting ready to leave I got a call from one of the other mothers on the fieldtrip and she said that I was late and that the bus had already left. That was an awesome feeling for sure. I had mixed up the time and I was supposed to be there at 9 but I had thought I was supposed to be there at 9:30. Whoops! I ended up driving my own van up to the school (which maybe wasn't such a bad deal) and I got there before the school bus. I had a group of five kids, including Tanner, and it was definitely a challenge to keep them all together while we walked all over the zoo. Almost as soon as we got there, the kids were asking when they could have lunch. For two hours we walked all over the zoo with them almost constantly asking when they could have lunch. Finally lunchtime arrived, and wouldn't you know it, I forgot my lunch bag at the lunch table. Tanner's teacher picked it up for me. She must have thought I was the biggest space cadet mother she had ever seen. Tanner was so excited to have me there with him, so that the craziness of a first grade field trip to the zoo all worth it.

In May, Brian took a week off of work so that we could work on doing a mini kitchen remodel. I was so grateful for his help! We worked long hours, day and night, painting our cabinets. They were oak, but we painted them a nice, rich espresso and they turned out looking really great. We also added hardware on the doors. Painting the cabinets was definitely a lot of work. At one point, I told Brian that I thought the cabinets were looking a lot more expensive with the color change. He laughed and said that if he'd known that I just wanted to make them look more expensive he would have just taped some dollar bills to them. Ha, ha. That's my Brian. :) It was actually a lot of fun to be able to spend so much time together. We got to talk, and we caught up on some shows we'd been wanting to see. The kids were really pretty patient during the entire process. We could still use most of the kitchen, but we moved the table down into our family room so that we could paint in the kitchen. We used Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations that we found for a great price at Home Depot. We bought two kits that cost about $40 each.

We also painted our kitchen countertops using Giani's Sicilian Sand kit that we bought on amazon.com for $65. Our countertops were green before, but with the kit we just rolled black paint on top and then sponged three mineral colors on top until we got the look we wanted. This process wasn't nearly as hard. It only took a couple of days instead of the six days that the cabinets took.

I am so happy with how the kitchen turned out. It doesn't look outdated anymore, and the cabinets even make me like the kitchen tiles better. We finished out the kitchen remodel by buying a new sliding glass door that has blinds built in between the glass. We were able to get rid of our old and broken vertical blinds and our new door looks so much better. It slides easier and actually locks, so we couldn't be more pleased.

Shortly after we finished the kitchen, it was time to celebrate Bradon's 5th birthday. His Aunt Juliann was sweet and made him a cake that looked like his favorite iPad word game, Ruzzle.

For a couple of months Bradon was obsessed with the game and he got several of his aunts and uncles, and even Grandma H to sign up and play with him. We love this kid!

Also in June, Brian's sister, Patra, and her family came to visit. It was so much fun to see them and it was great to see the kids get reacquainted and become friends. My boys just loved Patra's little boy.

One day we got to use our zoo pass benefits to take Patra's family up to the zoo with us. We went in the afternoon so the crowds had mostly come and gone and we had a lovely evening out with them.

Brian found time to take a work call (not an unusual occurrence), and I thought it was funny that he was working on construction related calls in front of this construction site.

I really love this picture of two very happy little boys.

My parents came back from a trip to Chicago, and they were kind enough to make a side trip up to Wisconsin to a Danish bakery. They brought me back some rugbrød and some Danish pastries. Yummy.

When we celebrated Bradon's birthday at our house he was lucky enough to receive some swim goggles.

But he was most delighted with his new Cars themed bike.

I tried making him my own version of a Ruzzle cake, but it was a pitiful effort. So much for my attempts to make my own fondant.

Bradon didn't seem to mind though :)

Oh how we love this cute little face!

We took one more trip to the zoo in June. It was so hot that evening! We had record high days near the end of June, so for several days it was 100 degrees or hotter. Yuck. We made the best of it and still had a nice evening out.

Lucky for us we got to finish the evening with a trip to Sonic for milkshakes! We love summer!