Friday, April 30, 2010

Happy Anniversary


Happy Anniversary Honey


I know the last picture is extremely small, but it was taken of us and I didn't have a negative, so I took a picture of it. James and I met in 2003 at a ward bbq. By that summer he and I were dating and the following year we tied the not on April 30th. The day was beautiful!! We came out for pictures just after a light rain. Perfect for photo's and turns out James loves the rain. We smiled so much that day my cheeks hurt. It was the happiest day of my life. I am so lucky to be married to James and enjoy our life together. Love you Babe.

Taged


A friend tagged me to post about me 10th picture on my blog. This is the piano I had in our apartment for about a year before we moved out. I loved having a piano in the home. I still play the piano for the Relief Society at church, but never get to practice. It is sad. I miss that piano.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Private Blog

I've decided to change to privacy setting on the blog. If you want an invite please post you email address.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Cereal? What's your Flavor

I love cereal.
Any time of day you could offer me a bowl of cereal and I would gladly accept.
It's the easiest thing to make and so delicious.
(I also love breakfast food anytime of day, waffles especially).
So what is your cereal of choice?
I love Quaker Oatmeal Squares with Brown Sugar.
See full size image
I can just eat bowl after bowl.

Bills or Blog . . .

So I should be going through the stack of bills I have pilling up, but I'd rather blog.
Yes I did it. The alarm went off across the bedroom. I was out of bed in a flash to turn it off before Emerson woke. Now that I was out of bed, I might as well put those running shoes on that I set out . . . that I set out in the living room with my running cloths. I might as well get out the door to be sure if someone shows up to go running they wont have to run alone because I showed up too. For me there is no kind of motivation like peer pressure when it comes to getting up early for something . . . especially exercise. These early morning runs reminds me of my mom who woke 3 days a week at 5:30 am for 20 yrs to exercise with the ladies at the stake center. Amazing . . . how did she do that. Emerson just woke, . . bye bye

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

I should totally be in bed, But I wanted to post these pics of the kitchen. The dots all over are from dust in the air reflecting from the camera flash. We decided to add a black granite island to liven the counter up and not do the same stone all across the kitchen. Some people just thicken the bull nose or change the island stone's edging, but we bought our stone from a place that provides granite in prefab sizes with prefab edges, so if you want to pay the discount price you don't have as much say, but I thought we got a great deal.
This is one serious faucet. We wanted a high power sprayer and looked and looked. We chanced upon an all plumbing fixtures sale at the end of 2009. Cali had a new law that was going into effect in 2010 that outlawed the sale of any water faucet that contained some thing like any lead or something, so the General Plumbing depot where the contractors purchase their stuff was saleing stuff for real cheep. We got this for like nothing compared to the retail price and boy does it spray. At first I thought it was offensively large, but now that I've seen it work, I'm not taking it back.
So We wanted to do a basket weave back splash, but the first place we discovered the idea would have charged us an arm and a leg, and I'm not kidding. I found this tile that I wanted for the laundry room, then I asked the price. $125 a square foot. . . The room was only 63 square feet. wow. It is nice to know where the high end can land if you want it too. I found a basket weave at a local tile shop that worked, but didn't have the multi color small dots like I wanted. So I bought the Black dots and did what you ask. . . hot glued them to the basket weave mesh and made my own pattern. I thought it was pretty crafty.
We bought our stove half off from a guy off Craigslist. Seriously we get everything from craigslist. The only thing is it didn't work when we brought it home. Had to have a repair guy come out order some new parts and replace them, but still we walked away like bandits. It is dual fuel, gas on top for the range and electric for the oven. I can cook an onion with a cookie and not have the aroma's affect the others taste.
You can't really see the black shade chandelier well from this picture, but I was so excited when I found it at Home Depot, because it tied the coloring of the kitchen all together.
We have yet to bring the fridge out from storage where it has been sitting for the last year. Some day soon though.

I should hit the hay because some ward ladies are training for a half marathon and I've decided to tag along for the training, 6 am runs. I am out and back before Emerson knows I've been gone. I just haven't decided to do the run yet. . . maybe.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Yeah, We finally got a new camera! I just am more motivated to blog when I have pictures to tell the story. We have just been busy with the house and having fun. Emerson is growing like a weed and will be a contractor by no time. He is so talented with a hammer.
Emerson's Grammie gave him an adorable back pack and he's on the go with it.
Emerson copies everything we do! He is so much fun to have around
He keeps us on our toes and loves to be outside. So if we're working in the house I have to shut and lock the doors because I will turn around and he'll be outside and half way up the street before I know it.
So much landscaping to be done. Every tree we cut out to build the house has to be replaced diameter for diameter. So if the tree had an 18inch trunk we need to plant 18inch trunk worth of tree. We already of so many trees on the property. Oh well, we want to pass that inspection.
The garage door went up last week. It makes a huge difference in how warm the house is. (we don't have the heat hooked up yet). The drive was was finished in Feb. and it is really nice to have a paved driveway to park on.
Kids Bath. . . ok I absolutely love this bathroom. It is so cheery to me. I still need to have the bead board rap around the vanity side, but the toilet flushes and the water runs (cold, no baths yet). I saw this look in a magazine and decided I would do it in our kids bath, I'm so glad I did. I love it.
So I would say the Master Bath is a little more sophisticated than the kids bath, but I like the look too. We had a really hard time picking the tiling materials. The end look I like, but we originally wanted to use a real stone, but there was a problem with not having enough for our bathroom, we tried to make a design that worked, but in the end we found this tile that was half the price and had many different sizes to choose from which allowed me to layout a French Pattern on the main floor, subway look for the walls with an arch with tiles at a forty five angle.
The shower had a gradual slopped floor to the end wall where the drain is instead of having the drain in the middle of the shower pan. There are two shower heads and a window.
When I measured the wall out I had planned for an 1/8th inch grout line. After I laid the tile out I had an extra 1/4th inch at the top because my grout lines were smaller than planned. I added a pencil liner above the tile crown molding which worked out great and gave me some extra dimension above. I'm glad the solution was so easy.
We just need to get the doorless shower glass in