furnished house

We've got a few rooms painted/furnished/ready for pics. So I thought I'd share a few pictures of what we've been spending all our weekends doing. Here's a shot of the kitchen with new paint. I think the plain paint makes the backsplash a lot more noticeable than it was with that horrid wall paper. If you look above the window, you can see the valances I made. I just used the existing ones, and added my own fabric.

The other valances above the windows/door. When I ripped off the old fabric, I was surprised it was just folded and pinned on. So this was almost a no sew project for me. I did sew the longer, hanging down shade part on the ones for the windows. The old ones had been glued together, but I couldn't bring myself to do that when i have a perfectly good sewing machine sitting right there.

We didn't do much to the dining room, except put down a rug under the table, and hang some pictures.

We eventually want to change out this chandelier to match the ones in the entry and kitchen a little better. But it works for now.

We bought some couches for this sitting room. We have decided to live with the red walls for now. With the moldings around the doors, and the cutout nook, it will be a pain in the butt to paint this room. We took down the ugly curtains, but haven't replaced them yet.

I loved this chair when I spotted it, but fully expected Ben to hate it. But luckily for me, he liked it too, and we got it. I love the shape of it and the pattern. Another project in the works, is replacing all the picture frames so they match better. Ben's really been on me lately about making a list.

I also love our livingroom furniture. We found the exact couch we were dreaming up in our heads, and then found tables in another store that went really well with it. We also got some better curtains, and Ben made some tie backs out of twine. He just used his drill (somehow) to twist it into a braided rope. We might get something more permanent later, but it's working great for now. We also are in love with our new rug. We were worried at the store that it was gonna be too big, but it turned out to be the perfect size for this room. Ben has reminded me several times which vacuum setting I'm supposed to use on it. Ignore the picture collage on the wall. It still has the store pics in it. I plan on getting our own photos in there soon. I didn't get the sofa table in the picture, but it matches the coffee table, and is behind the loveseat.

This chair is my favorite piece of furniture! I just love it, and it's super comfy. This chair faces the couch/window wall.

That's all for now! I'll have pictures of the girls' rooms very soon, when we've completed all the finishing touches.

Kara's day of fun, Kiersten's reward, and skunkcakes!

We love eating lunch outside. The girls want to eat out on the deck pretty much every day.

One day last week, Kara made a list of all the fun things she wanted to do. We got about halfway through the list. The first thing was board games. Kiersten picked Disney princess game.

Kara chose twister. Since I had a sprained, or possibly broken big toe, I got to be the spinner. Evie was so funny trying to play along. She mostly just got in their way, but I loved it.

all twisted up!

Then we had story time. Kiersten loves this horse book.

Kara likes to read aloud, which irritated Kiersten a little.

We also had to have a fashion show.

the next day, Ben took the girls to pick up Kiersten's reward for learning to stay dry at night. We stopped letting her wear pullups when we moved to St. Louis, and she has finally gone more than a month without any accidents. She wanted a smaller dollhouse because it had a pink baby crib instead of blue. Ben thought that was a silly reason to get the smaller one, so he talked her into the mansion. I didn't realize how much space it would take up! but she finally has a room big enough for a dollhouse, and all the girls have had hours of fun with it already.

Kara asked me to make her a KC Chiefs hat. This is what I came up with. And from making this hat, I learned that I HATE embroidery by hand. I whipped out the hat in less than an hour, but that little patch took me all night! Of course Ben insisted I get it just right.

The girls went through my cupcake book yesterday, and wanted to make skunk cupcakes. I used a Martha Stewart recipe for yellow cupcakes, but was disappointed they turned out kinda dry. Next time I will go back to my favorite Alton Brown recipe :)

This book always seems to call for at least one weird ingredient that I just can't find. Since I couldn't get any "S" shaped breakfast cookies, I just made the tails out of chocolate chips instead.

And since I can never just follow a recipe as is, without making changes, I didn't use black frosting. I think it always tastes terrible, so I just used dark chocolate frosting from the store, and black sugar. They still looked pretty black.

We only made 3 skunkcakes. The big girls ate theirs right after dinner. Evie was pretty scared of hers, and refused to go near it. After cleaning up dinner, I noticed the tail was missing from Evie's and Kiersten had new chocolate on her face. Then around bed time, I discovered that it was missing it's head. Of course Kiersten had little black fingers again ;) This morning Evie saw it again without the tail and head, and realized it was a cupcake and dug right in.

I just let them decorate the rest of the cupcakes with sprinkles and jelly beans.

six flags

This weekend was going to be a lazy weekend, but at the last minute we decided to go to 6 flags on sunday. Since it's only 20 minutes away, we got a season pass. So we'll have lots of fun days there this summer. The girls loved seeing the characters walking around. Thanks to Ben, they watch old cartoons, and knew all of the characters. I could tell lots of the kids there didn't really know who they were getting their picture with.

we didn't have to wait in line for more than 2 other kids for any character, so that was nice.

This was one of the few rides Evie got to go on. It's a good thing she was free. She loved going on rides, so we spent a lot of time in the kiddie area.

They wouldn't let Evie ride this, even with me. I couldn't see any reason why. It was just like the other one, except it didn't go up in the air. Kiersten rode this one a few times.

We played on the jungle gym for a while. All the kids loved it. I played here with the 2 littles, while Ben took Kara on a roller coaster she was barely tall enough for.

I was surprised Kara like this, and wanted to go on it a second time. She was scared of much tamer rides.

Daffy Duck swings.

Kiersten LOVED the screaming eagle roller coaster. She rode it with Ben and Kara, then again with me. Kara was too scared to ride it again. Kiersten had her arms in the air, saying "woo hoo" the whole ride. Then she wanted to ride it again.

I rode this tidal wave ride with the girls. We were in front the first time, and got pretty wet. So when they wanted to ride again, I made them move to a back row, thinking we'd stay dryer. But we got twice as drenched. You can spot me in a black shirt with 2 girls clinging to each side of me. Next time we go, I'll have to remember to wear waterproof mascara, or none at all.

They got these super hero capes playing carnival games. Kara has lived in hers ever since. That kid is obsessed with batman.

Ben rode the joker gondola with them.

Kara got to drive her own car

meeting scooby doo! Kiersten had to hug all of the characters we met. scooby didn't really smell too wonderful!

Ben took all 3 girls on the log ride. Evie loved it so much, that he made me take them all again.

They all loved it, but Evie was the cutest, squealing with delight, and exclaiming, "it FUN! if FUN mama!"

Ben took the girls on a raft ride Evie was too little for, so I asked if she wanted to ride the carousel. She got really excited and clapped, so we headed over. When we got there, she had fallen asleep, so i just found a bench to relax for a few minutes.

The girls can't wait to go again, and Kara has already decided she wants to go there for her next daddy daughter date.

cardboard city

Kara had complained to me that I was throwing away so many boxes that would be fun to play with. So when our patio furniture was delivered pre-assembled in huge boxes, I made sure to save her a few. The largest box, I dragged around to the backyard, but still couldn't get it through the sliding glass door. So I had to break it down, and then re tape it together once I got it inside. She was really excited when I had her come downstairs to see all the boxes. They all immediately went to work on creating their cardboard city. The largest box got turned into the church.

They used the scraps to make tv screens. Kara drew the powerpuff girls on hers.

Kiersten hanging out in the church. She's the one who decided that's what it would be.

watching some tv in her own little house. they even made mail boxes, and a phone booth. They've had hours of fun in their city, and will be sad to see it all go away when Daddy's pool table is delivered.

I took a few pictures of the deer that live in the woods behind our house. They've started coming into the front yard sometimes, and crossing the street to eat our neighbor's newly planted grass. I'm kinda worried about hitting one.

 

this little baby was in our neighbor's yard eating her plants. This is the neighbor who told me she hates the deer because they destroy her yard. We have had some droppings in our yard, but not much destruction.

of course the girls call him Bambi, and we have a lot of excitement whenever he is spotted in the yard.