Confounded

I may have been taught to play checkers once when I was a kid, but if so, I have no memory of it. I never knew how to play checkers and had consequently, never played before until last Saturday. I was at a garage sale (Horray for garage sales!), and saw a checkers game for 25 cents. I figured it would be a good addition to our game collection.

Saturday afternoon I played my first game of Checkers.


I have played 3 times since then.


I still have yet to beat my 5 year old.



(Maybe there is a reason I never played this as a kid)

End Tables

I mentioned that I also redid some end tables. I think these end tables are older than I am. My parents had them as long as I can remember and they gave them to us when they finally upgraded and we were using apple boxes for end tables.

Aren't they lovely? I know you could hardly tell that they are 30 years old. Well I HATED these tables and was embarrassed to have them but unable to go buy new ones. I figured I had nothing to loose when Kathy suggested that I paint them. So I went completely out of my comfort zone and painted them red.

Believe it or not these are both the same color. I am just that bad a photographer. In reality it is less pink then the one on the left and less bright then the one on the right. In any case the look better in person and better then the original.

My Latest Project

I always need a project. Paint the walls? OK. Plant a garden? Sure. Systematically try all oatmeal cookie recipes to find the best one? Why not? Really it's all an excuse to not clean my house. Anything but cleaning. If you've been to my house you will know that this is not an exaggeration. John has been patient with my projects but really he's holding his breath wishing I would settle down a little. Well John unwittingly introduced me to my next project.

Our friend Kathy has a great knack for decorating, but John knew that I would never ask her to come help me figure out what to do. So for a Christmas present John set up a day for Kathy to come help me with the house. Kathy gave me tons of great ideas and even showed me some great spots to go furniture shopping. She was also kind enough to hold my hand and help me though refinishing some furniture. So without further delay . . . . Here it is!

Ta Dah! Ain't she a bute! Well this is the before anyway. Sorry about the odd angle but it is the best I could do in my garage. Well are you ready for the after. No. To be truly ready for the after you have to appreciate out set up before.

Yes that is what you think it is. Our TV is on top of another TV. Wow. I confessed it. It's good to get that off my chest and out in the open. Now everyone knows how trashy we are. Or as a friend told me "You just need to move it out onto the porch with your couch." Alright now that you understand our desperate need. Here is the after.

Ta dah! I was worried for a while but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I did some end tables too but my camera is having issues and they will have to be posted another day. Now that Kathy got me started I have a long list of furniture to re-do. Thanks Kathy! And don't worry. We just moved the other TV into the cabinet so that John and I can still both watch out favorite TV shows at the same time.

Overdone

I like to get my kids something for Valentines Day. My parents always got us something growing up and it made the day extra special. So I wanted to give a small gift for my kids. My first thought was the heart shaped box of chocolates from the dollar store. They might not be great chocolates but the kids don't care, and I remember how special I felt when I got my own box of chocolates. Well that was the plan until I went to Alan's class party.

Have you been to one of those lately? When I was a kid the fancy valentines that were delivered had a couple conversation hearts stuck in the envelope. Now almost every single valentine was a candy (I say almost because ours was not). I saw them at the stores, they are very cute ideas, but really? It's not Halloween. The kids don't need that much candy. Of course the real kicker was when one of the kids valentine was the box of heart chocolates. You just had to show me up. Now mom looks cheap. (Yes I know that the dollar store is cheap but the kids don't know). Alan ingested the box of chocolate in 6.2 seconds without appreciating it for a second, and then he was on to the next candy. Can't we go back to no candy's in the valentines so that a box of chocolates actually is something to appreciate? Do we have to overdue everything?

So the kids ended up getting a calender from the dollar store instead. I know it doesn't fit well with Valentines but I didn't want to have to compete with a first grader.

The Kids Got New Chores

Well . . . . at least it's not MY job to put away the dishes anymore.

Because I just haven't felt like it

I know. It's been almost two months since I last blogged. I'll be honest. It's not because I have been too busy or even like I have nothing to say. I actually have a million things to say but I just haven't felt like blogging. So here's our brief update. But just a warning if I post some things in the near future that just don't make a lot of sense chronologically (like posting about Christmas after I post about Valentines day), it is because I am just now getting around to it.

Hyrum turned 5 last week. Wow! I can't believe my baby is 5! That is five as in he starts kindergarten next year. I'm not handling it so well. Just thinking about both my kids being in school next year is too much for me. Who knows what I will be like next August when school starts. Hyrum is doing great. His current plan is to marry me, have 10 girls, 6 boys, and 4 babies. I'm flattered.

A little side story. A few years ago I took some cake decorating classes. Cake decorating isn't a natural talent of mine but I worked hard at it and I've made some cakes that I'm really proud of. Especially because my original goal for taking the classes was just to not be embarrassed when frosting my kids birthday cakes. Well all that time and money spent on classes has come to this.

This is Hyrum's birthday cake. Even though this shot is out of focus I kind of like it because it looks like it's an action shot and the army guy's are actually moving. It's not all my fault. I asked Hyrum what kind of cake he wanted and and he told me "A strawberry army cake with yellow frosting" Huh? I tried to convince him to have a camouflage cake because I've been wanting to try out that technique but no he wanted yellow frosting with plastic army men. OK if you say so.

To celebrate Hyrum's birthday we played hooky on Monday and went up to Flagstaff to play in the snow. It was so much fun. It was both of our kids first time in snow (well technically Alan spent a lot of time in snow as a baby but as we moved to Arizona when he was only 15 months old he doesn't have any memory of it.

I made an attempt at snowboarding. I never made much progress but it really made me miss skiing. I haven't been skiing since I got married, because as we all know being married = no money. Now I'm going to have to save up money for lift tickets.

Plenty of spills but that makes it fun.