well, solaris won the granite contest. the votes were:
solaris:
4 blog votes
1 playdate vote
.75 of a blake vote
.25 of a dana vote
leopard river:
1 text vote
.25 of a blake vote
.75 of a dana vote
that said, let's be serious, my vote is really the most important. :) I'm half kidding, but half not. blake didn't feel strongly or care much and the two of us have to live with it. but... when we got there the solaris looked better in large slab form than the small bit we could see in the show room. (I like granite with big sweeping patterns, not a small consistent look, and solaris had more of that than we thought) and it had the rounded edge that we preferred. it didn't look as good w/ our cabinets, but it didn't look bad... plus, even though I prefer dark granites over light ones, I wasn't in love with the shade of brown of leopard river (I like more of a darker chocolate brown), and I was told by a person who picks out granite for a living that lighter is more "in" now than dark. So... solaris. blake and I are both happy with the choice.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
granite
ah, so much has happened since my last post. most notably a few things:
- we went to southern ca for our first just-the-four-of-us family trip. sea world, the sd zoo, and even a day at disneyland. overall it was a fantastic trip.
- then we came home. oh good ol' home. except, it was not good... the sound of rushing water greeted us as we opened the door btwn the garage and our house. a pipe under our kitchen sink had burst while we were gone. we looked down to see we were standing in half an inch or so of water. it was midnight, so I took the kids and put them to bed, and blake turned off the water to our whole house. after sweeping water out onto the deck, using up all of our towels soaking up water, and calling our insurance, we headed to bed ourselves. the next morning a plumber came and the pipe was fixed.
let us just say the damage was extensive. new kitchen floors. new family room carpet. new partial cabinets or whole cabinets, still tbd on that one. new paint because they had to replace some of the dry wall. we've been living w/ our parents / in laws, switching locations back and forth. I could say a zillion things (like how incredibly fortunate we are to have in laws and parents that can and will host us for weeks at a time) but the point of this post is granite. which do you like? we've narrowed it down to two that we both like and can afford (key features). :)
Solaris, sold by KT, comes in round or square edge (we prefer round). includes a very small amount of glitter.
- we went to southern ca for our first just-the-four-of-us family trip. sea world, the sd zoo, and even a day at disneyland. overall it was a fantastic trip.
- then we came home. oh good ol' home. except, it was not good... the sound of rushing water greeted us as we opened the door btwn the garage and our house. a pipe under our kitchen sink had burst while we were gone. we looked down to see we were standing in half an inch or so of water. it was midnight, so I took the kids and put them to bed, and blake turned off the water to our whole house. after sweeping water out onto the deck, using up all of our towels soaking up water, and calling our insurance, we headed to bed ourselves. the next morning a plumber came and the pipe was fixed.
let us just say the damage was extensive. new kitchen floors. new family room carpet. new partial cabinets or whole cabinets, still tbd on that one. new paint because they had to replace some of the dry wall. we've been living w/ our parents / in laws, switching locations back and forth. I could say a zillion things (like how incredibly fortunate we are to have in laws and parents that can and will host us for weeks at a time) but the point of this post is granite. which do you like? we've narrowed it down to two that we both like and can afford (key features). :)
Leopard River by KT, square edge only.
so what do you think? which is your fav?
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween!
this picture is of the kids enjoying apples after their very first ever kids 1K run. it was part of the pumpkin dash that we ran last weekend. it's not 100% halloween, but costumes were encouraged (although the kids didn't run in costume and aren't wearing them in the picture, they did wear their costumes in the stroller while blake and I ran), so it's sorta halloween, and I think it's darn cute. :)
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
potty training update
Kaylee: we've essentially given up. We'll try again in a few months. Essentially we're lazy and she's not motivated and we don't want to fight it. It was so easy with Ethan that if waiting a few months is what it takes for Kaylee, that's fine. She uses the potty to pee several times a day, but we keep her in a diaper because she doesn't always tell us she needs to go. And she always poops in her diaper now. So we'd just rather have the protection! Next time we try she'll already be comfortable with the whole potty system (undies down, sit, pee, wipe, undies up, flush, hand wash etc), so I guess that's something. Plus, since she does use the potty several times a day, we are going through fewer diapers, which is certainly nice.
Ethan: Ethan gets a diaper for night-time and other than that he's good! we ask him to go potty before we leave the house or right when we get wherever we're going, and other than that he pretty much tells us when he has to go. Sometimes we ask if he has to go and he says no and we trust him and it works out fine. Sometimes he tells us he has to go and we tell him he has to hold it (like if we're in the car) and he has never once had an accident when we've asked him to hold it. It's kind of awesome. I've cut our monthly diaper order in half, as well as all the diaper accessories. I like our diaper genie, but their room definitely smells better now that there's only one kid's worth of diapers in there! We had a little regression for a bit, and I told Ethan that if he kept his undies dry all day long he could have a cookie at night. We went to the grocery store and he got to pick out his cookie dough (he chose chocolate brownie w/ orange halloween chips, which was of course the right choice). When he earns his cookie at night, he either declines the cookie or shares with Kaylee! (crazy kid!) we thought Ethan getting a cookie and kaylee not getting one might be a motivator for kaylee but Ethan just shares with her! At this point sharing seems like the more important life lesson, so we just laugh and ask if we can have a "little tiny piece" too (sometimes ethan only share a few crumbs with kaylee, but he always offers and she's always satisfied with a "little tiny")
This is certainly not how we predicted potty training would go but... we'll take it!
Below is a very special video featuring our favorite potty phrase. It's really Ethan's phrase, although at the end there's one clip of Kaylee repeating it too, but it's an ethan original. If you aren't currently a parent of young children you may want to skip this video. There's no poop (or privates) shown in it, but it is a video of the kids sitting on their various potties... working hard. It's not a video for everyone, but I find it hilarious, so if you choose to watch it, I hope you do too. :)
Ethan: Ethan gets a diaper for night-time and other than that he's good! we ask him to go potty before we leave the house or right when we get wherever we're going, and other than that he pretty much tells us when he has to go. Sometimes we ask if he has to go and he says no and we trust him and it works out fine. Sometimes he tells us he has to go and we tell him he has to hold it (like if we're in the car) and he has never once had an accident when we've asked him to hold it. It's kind of awesome. I've cut our monthly diaper order in half, as well as all the diaper accessories. I like our diaper genie, but their room definitely smells better now that there's only one kid's worth of diapers in there! We had a little regression for a bit, and I told Ethan that if he kept his undies dry all day long he could have a cookie at night. We went to the grocery store and he got to pick out his cookie dough (he chose chocolate brownie w/ orange halloween chips, which was of course the right choice). When he earns his cookie at night, he either declines the cookie or shares with Kaylee! (crazy kid!) we thought Ethan getting a cookie and kaylee not getting one might be a motivator for kaylee but Ethan just shares with her! At this point sharing seems like the more important life lesson, so we just laugh and ask if we can have a "little tiny piece" too (sometimes ethan only share a few crumbs with kaylee, but he always offers and she's always satisfied with a "little tiny")
This is certainly not how we predicted potty training would go but... we'll take it!
Below is a very special video featuring our favorite potty phrase. It's really Ethan's phrase, although at the end there's one clip of Kaylee repeating it too, but it's an ethan original. If you aren't currently a parent of young children you may want to skip this video. There's no poop (or privates) shown in it, but it is a video of the kids sitting on their various potties... working hard. It's not a video for everyone, but I find it hilarious, so if you choose to watch it, I hope you do too. :)
Sunday, October 28, 2012
kirkland triathlon
I finally decided to get the pictures off the camera, onto the computer, and up on the blog! here's another september event; cheering "the daddies" on in the kirkland triathlon! my friend audria's husband paul also did the triathlon, so the week beforehand audria and I got the kiddos together to paint signs and then the morning of, audria and I and the 5 kiddos just screamed "go daddy!" a lot!
Moms and kids did not wake up early enough to watch the swim, but the bike was two loops, so by standing near the transition area we were able to see both daddies do each bike loop, and then run out and run back in. It was very fun. then we drove home, daddy showered very fast, and we were only a couple minutes late for church!
 |
| there was another sign that said "Daddy" as well as a bunch of others but they weren't as popular the day of apparently. that beautiful artwork is 98% by Kaylee, 1% by Ethan, and mommy wrote "Go!" (you thought they wrote go, didn't you?) |
 |
| you have to slow down to go around this corner so we got a picture of daddy! |
 |
| Run out! there's daddy! |
 |
| Run in, there's other daddy paul! Both daddies were very nice and waved to us. |
 |
| Run fast Daddy! Run fast! You're almost done, just a few more steps! |
Moms and kids did not wake up early enough to watch the swim, but the bike was two loops, so by standing near the transition area we were able to see both daddies do each bike loop, and then run out and run back in. It was very fun. then we drove home, daddy showered very fast, and we were only a couple minutes late for church!
Friday, October 26, 2012
remlinger farms
we took the kiddos to remlinger farms the last weekend of september. gramma heidi came too. :)
as you can see, it was an awesome day. we will totally be back next year!
 |
| riding a train is so much fun! |
 |
| plus there are very interesting things to look at... |
 |
| see?! look! over there! |
 |
| potentially the most awesome part though, was a GIANT slide. ethan wanted to go up, so we let him, and up up up he went! |
 |
| since ethan went, kaylee wanted to go too. so up she went... |
 |
| and then up went daddy to help her. |
 |
| down came ethan! a little surprised, but apparently quite pleased since he asked to go again... |
 |
| down come daddy and kaylee... |
 |
| next gramma heidi bought a caramel apple to share. very yummy! |
 |
| then we got to drive a car! |
 |
| fortunately, there were two steering wheels. |
 |
| then we rode ponies... it was quite the day I tell you! |
 |
| looked at lots of different animals... |
 |
| and went in a HUGE bouncy house with plastic sides. kaylee thought the plastic sides were very fun. ethan thought the running around (they were the only two kids in it for awhile) was very fun, and was too far away for me to get any good pics! |
 |
| we sat on large tractors... |
 |
| back to the slide, it was so much fun, how could you not do it again? just ethan though, kaylee preferred to watch. |
 |
| at the top! |
 |
| at the bottom! |
 |
| how big was that giant slide? VERY big! a couple times taller than ethan, gramma, and even the school bus! |
 |
| time to find a pumpkin. |
 |
| kaylee's pumpkin |
 |
| ethan was a bit ambitious! |
 |
| we rode a mini-ferris wheel... |
 |
| next we rode in flying pumpkins (like the dumbo ride). |
 |
| and we got to go in a little boat too... |
 |
| we went on a barrel ride (think tea-cups). daddy and ethan had a good time. kaylee fell under the middle wheel the first time the barrel spun the other way (mommy did not know it was going to do that!). but she recovered. :) |
 |
| another ride on the horses |
 |
| a more suitable pumpkin for ethan, and then it was time for home... |
as you can see, it was an awesome day. we will totally be back next year!
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Book recommendation
I'd like to recommend a book. I know, it's not usually what I blog about. But I really identified with many portions of this book, so I thought I'd share.
It's called Carrier: Untangling the danger in my DNA, by Bonnie Rough. It's about a woman with a genetic disease who wrestles with passing the disease on to her children. Although the author's final choice is different from my own, there is a lot of overlap in our experiences. That's all I'll say about the book because you're probably either interested or not at this point. Also, I prefer not to blog about major moral issues because you never know who's reading it and what their background may be, but I'm always happy to chat one-on-one. So if you read it, you should definitely tell me what you thought. :)
It's called Carrier: Untangling the danger in my DNA, by Bonnie Rough. It's about a woman with a genetic disease who wrestles with passing the disease on to her children. Although the author's final choice is different from my own, there is a lot of overlap in our experiences. That's all I'll say about the book because you're probably either interested or not at this point. Also, I prefer not to blog about major moral issues because you never know who's reading it and what their background may be, but I'm always happy to chat one-on-one. So if you read it, you should definitely tell me what you thought. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)