Alina's Rock Fest (AKA 1 yr birthday)

The theme was for everyone to dress like a rockstar...no one really did though. We were stressing trying to figure out how to be creative down tho the last minute out the door. I was Shania Twain and Ben was...well he just used it as an excuse to dress ridiculous. Ellie played by herself and with the other kids the whole time and wanted nothing to do with us really. Surprisingly she wasn't too in to cake. She ate it but didn't react like wow, this is what you've been keeping from me this whole time! FOr the longest time she played with the boys in the sandbox and when i went over there one time to check on everything they were tattling on her to me "She keeps knocking down our castle and throwing the sand out." I tried to explain to them that she was a little baby and didn't understand. They wanted me to get rid of her. I couldn't bare to because the whole situation was so funny. When I was on my way over to check on her they were saying to her "your mommy is coming over and you're going to be in trouble" like she knew what that meant. It was hilarious. In the end Alina turned one, ate some cake, opened some presents and was so kind to share all of her presents with everyone...Alina is such a good friend:)

The after pictures!

The kitchen redo! Before pics

So after we got back from Key West we had our kitchen redone. Well it's actually been a work in progress since we've been here. We have installed a new dishwasher and an over the range microwave and now we have installed new counter tops, a new sink and a new range! WOOHOO! For those of you who have been here or cooked on my stove you are probably leaping with joy for me right now! You would not even believe what that thing was like. Everything in our kitchen was original when we bought it (our house was built in 1993). The only thing left to do is paint to kitchen and dining area because the new backsplash is shorter then the old one and figure out what to do with the the cabinets (they are quite the eye sore now). Some of the pictures are from when I first looked at the house, in case you were wondering about the yellow in the kitchen and some decorating issues... Let us know what you think:)

Easter 2009

Well we of course celebrated that our King has Risen!!! But this year we didn't feel the need to go to church to do that. Easter sunday is full of people who don't usually ever go to church so we decided to give our seats to someone else. It was also the day that Ben and I left for Key West and we wanted to hang out with Jess and Ellie before we left. So we had a wonderful breakfast, exalted our risen Savior and enjoyed family. I did put some baskets together. I couldn't bare putting chocolate and candy in Ell's eggs so I put chocolate and cheddar bunny crackers in instead. She didn't care what was in them she just liked opening them and closing them, oh and shaking them like they were some kind of instrument. Ben and Jess got all the candy...Ben ended up taking most of it to work the next week:)