Why is there a hole?

I now no longer have to explain to people why there is a hole in the floor of the middle of our kitchen! For those of you who have not visited our house or do not know, we purchased re-po home and the prior owners took miscellaneous things when they moved out, one of which was the kitchen island.... 

It has taken us months to get bids from cabinet shops and shopping at the hardware stores to make a decision. Since 97% of all other home improvement projects we have decided to tackle have been DIY, we figured why should this one be any different! 

In-stock cabinets from Lowe's were super quick to install, the concrete counter-top however was a little more labor intensive.... 

Form for counter-top

It's gonna get just a little messy!

Mixing

Pouring & troweling

 Stain added for highlights. Then LOTS of elbow grease, 

wipe on & wipe off's before we got to the next step.

                            Up close of the finished product!

And last, finished!

I have to admit the whole project did not turn out EXACTLY how we had it pictured in our heads, but we are quite pleased with the end results! We will be tackling the remaining counter-tops throughout the house in the future since they are all a lovely shade of blue.... but it will be done a little at a time! :) 

With 2011 gone bring on 2012!

So I am a little behind on posts..... *Disclaimer, a tad bit of a lengthy post*

We had a wonderful Christmas, nice and quiet for the most part if you don't count being woke up at 4:30AM by a 4 year old. I do however have to give her a little credit because she did tip-toe in our room before she blurted out "SANTA CAME!" I love how excited they are at this age about Christmas! 

This picture pretty much sums up how our day was!

New Year's Eve and Day were VERY quiet, in fact we were all in bed and asleep by 8:30PM. Hey, we have 365 days to see 2012, who needs to stay up all night to see the first minute of it right??? The only eventful thing that did happen is our dog Sadie apparently did decide to stay up all night and morning....and thought a round of hide and seek was appropriate for the day! Don't worry though, we found her.

Well lets see, what else has been going on..... MANY home improvement projects. I am taking advantage of the fact Utah has no snow right now so that means Brian is home and not snowmobiling! So lots of honey-do's are in the works! 

We have almost completed the "guest-suite" downstairs, it's no longer painted black & grey (except the floor) just have to order carpet and it's done!

After months of headache's and such we finally have the starts to a kitchen island!!!! 

Gotta love Lowes and in-stock cabinets, half the price of any cabinet shop. We are going to get really creative and do our own concrete counter-top for it too, I will make sure to let you know how this project turns out.... oh and the highlight for the kitchen is the new garbage pull out (it's the little things in life that make you happy!). 

I still have LOTS of painting to do in the rest of the house so if anyone is board, come on over! :) 

After 2 years or maybe a little more, Gracie has her bunk-bed set up and could not be happier!!!! 

And last of the important news (see I told you I was behind). We decided to change doctors and clinic's so our needs were better met. Baby Dennis #2 is doing great and we love our new doctor. Baby has a really strong heartbeat, is measuring a little ahead of schedule and is moving like crazy! As for mom, I am feeling much better and gaining a little more energy each day.  

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! 

Baby update.....10 weeks down, 30 to go or so.....

We had another ultrasound and check up today and baby Dennis #2 is doing well. You can now clearly see arms and legs, resembles a tiny baby now instead of a bean. Heartbeat looks nice and healthy only he/she would not cooperate to get a reading......nor hold still to get an accurate measurement or a clear profile picture, go figure huh! He/she is VERY active already and believe it or not growing at a "normal" rate of growth, not at the typical "Dennis" rate (we will see how long that lasts). I have about 2 more weeks and I can come off of one of the medications I have to take and then we get to have once every 4 week check ups. When we hit around the 20 week mark we will find out if we are having a boy or a girl and the more accurate size monitoring of the baby will begin!

and a one and a two......

Tonight was Gracie's very 1st performance, dance recital that is. She did magnificent and looked cute as a bug of course! She is growing up so fast and getting all girly on me.......

Bear Necessities dance (from Jungle Book)

I See The Light (from Tangled)

A job well done, finished off with a candy cane!

Snow fun

It's December in UT and it has not snowed much at our house we got tired of waiting and went up the mountain where there is snow, just not as much as there should be..... but still enough to have a little fun!

Uncle Justin and Gracie hanging on and trying to push each other off! Oh and did I forget to mention when we play in the snow our idea of fun is tying ourselves to 4 wheelers and going fast!

This picture only tells half the story..... Dad went down so guess who else had to go down....she did not see dad hit a tree but dad and the rest of us did see her come off, cartwheel down and have face full of snow! Don't worry she was laughing as hard as the rest of us!



We did find a decent sledding hill free of tree's for Gracie to get her fill of "need for speed" and Sadie too!



Needless to say we stopped here......but does not mean we didn't have fun getting to here!



Turkey in the oven!

A Thanksgiving surprise is in the oven!

"Hey, listen up! This li'l turkey has something BIG to say.....I'm gonna be a BIG SISTER!"

That's right! We are expecting baby #2, I will give you all a minute to pick yourselves back up off the floor for those of you thought we would never have another........ Well with the big "30" next year we decided we had better make up our minds and get busy or get fixed! So we set a time frame and a mindset of if it's meant to be it will be, and well I guess it was meant to be!

We had a plan up our sleeve's to break the news to our parents and thought what a perfect time over Thanksgiving. So I got Gracie this adorable shirt (pictured, words on it above) she got to wear it to each house we visited and could not say anything, just had to see how long it would take everyone to figure it out. Here are the reactions.......

My mom....

My dad & step mom....

Brian's mom....

I would say the overall reactions were a mix of stunned, shocked, and excited!

We spilled the beans early but given our past pregnancy history we need all the prayers and support to make this baby grow into a healthy baby boy or girl! All of the same precautions are being taken as they were with Gracie and careful monitoring of my health and baby. And now......

Meet baby Dennis #2

Many more postings of course to follow our progress! :)

Live and learn....

Some people tell me that Gracie should have been a boy because of the things she does and I look at them and tell them "no, it's just a Dennis thing." The family "Dennis" gene I am talking about pushes the limits as far as they can reach (literally). Sure they come back bruised, scrapped and sometimes bloody.......and MOST of the time they learn from their falls, sometimes not and they try and try again!

It took me some time to adapt to the let them live and learn theory, and to accept that I have a half monkey for a child. I would watch my nephew do things that I thought were "just a boy thing" until I had Gracie and watched her do the same things later on...... Gracie and her cousins may not choose the exact same dangerous adventures, but they can sure can give us a few extra grey hairs!