Kitchen Progress - week 4

The kitchen remodel keeps crawling along at a slow steady pace. This week they finished installing additional lighting and they tape, floated and textured the walls.

BEFORE

DURING: (One guess what Parker wants)

AFTER

There's a greenish color cast on the back wall, I guess from the window. Everything is white right now.

We're getting pretty bored around here. In the evenings Parker rides her bike around in the driveway while I wash dishes in the garage (bob dries). This is a picture of a fun game of Throw The Icecube Up In The Air And Watch It Smash On The Sidewalk. Helmet required.

Garden question

How do you know when a cantelope is ready to pick?

Happy Cabinet Day

The cabinets came today! It was a long day of hammering and sawing and people in and out.

BEFORE

DEMO

INSTALLATION

(The doors and drawers aren't installed yet, and countertops are a ways out too)

Kindergarten - Before and after artwork

Bingo

Pool tournament

round 1
Bob v. High school kid

****BREAKING NEWS*****

Bob won 2nd place in the pool tournament! He received a cash prize of $16.

Facepainting

4th of July neighborhood parade

Festivities begin.

Love the homespun parade. Drum line, classic cars, people on riding mowers, decorated golf carts, someone on horseback and lots of kids on bikes. Parker noticed none of it, she more concerned with catching the candy they were throwing.

End of school party

I'm catching up on posting pictures. Here are some from Parker's last day of kindergarten. They set aside an hour for a class party - we had a 'luau', hence the plastic leis. Most classes did stuff in the classroom, crafts and making sundaes, but I was glad to get them outside to burn off some of the excited energy.

Relay race: plastic egg on a spoon

Sack race (with pillowcases)

Limbo

Parker and her teacher

Group pic

These are the tshirts that I made for the class. I was really pleased with how they turned out. The design is a little hard to see, but it's supposed to look a little bit like a passport stamp. I have the school name and year and a "k" for kindergarten going around the edge. The week before, we passed them around and they all signed the backs of each. It will be a nice keepsake they can wear for a while (some longer than others).

Another tie dye pic

I just noticed this one and thought I'd post it. We got a good laugh from this shirt. The yellow swirl in the middle looks a lot like a caterpillar, and it has 3 red spots that look like eyes, and a scowling mouth.

Ballminton

Attack of the Armenian cucumbers

Make them stop!

These looked like a great idea when I saw them on someone elses's blog last year, but they have TAKEN OVER my garden world. About every other day I look underneath the vines and find a zeppelin. They are like normal cucumbers and look like flowers when you slice them because of the ridges. They are much less watery than normal cucumbers, and milder...I've read they're a melon relative, which makes sense. Too bad most of them are potentially mulch.

Milestone alert

Painting her own nails. Will brushing her own hair be next? Let's hope so.

tie dye shirts

Last week was Parker's birthday and birthday party. For favors, I thought it would be fun to make each girl a tie dye t-shirt. I did most of the 'tying' and Parker helped with the dying and washing.

Ready to help.
"Is it my turn yet? When's it gonna be my turn? Can I help with something?"

Dye application. Parker was mainly in charge of yellow.

Bagging up the shirts to sit outdoors for a spell.

The best part: final rinse and unbinding. They all turned out great!

Final product after drying. If you squint, you can see the spiral better.

Kitchen remodel - Demo Day

The kitchen remodel offically started today. They came and took out all the existing everything, and tomorrow they'll remove the decorative beams and some other stuff. We spent all weekend packing up everything and setting up temporary space in the dining room. So for 3-6 weeks we'll be using this as the kitchen, dining and pantry:


Turns out that packing up and moving stuff from one room to another is just as exhausting as moving it across town. I was happy to not be 7 months pregnant this time at least.

The view from here

My view on the way back from the pool.   She was very proud today to ride her big bike...prior to this she had been riding a tiny bike. Her feet barely touch the ground on this one, so starts and stops are a little dicey.

The view from here

I'm hoping to catch up with at least some pictures over the next few days. We've had a busy busy busy couple weeks. The last week of school is INSANE with school stuff, followed by the build up to Parker's birthday and birthday party. Oh and any minute now the major remodel will begin and I have a CAD job to be done somewhere in my free time. Should be an interesting summer!
Parker is loving the pool, luckily, since its already awfully baking hot here and it's not even July. I can somewhat read a magazine by poolside this year...Parker mainly bobs around in the shallow end and chatters endlessly so she's easy to keep track of.

patio planter

It turned out really pretty this year. The Mandevilla is going crazy and will hopefully have blooms all along the top of the trellis. I also added a scented begonia this year (the light green) and it adds a pretty texture.

Fashion pics

This is another thing I should probably try to stay ahead of....Parker's fashion choice of the day. In all of these, she's not just grabbing stuff out of her dark closet and putting them on....she's putting a lot of though into each piece.

Out to dinner outfit: striped shirt, plaid skirt, tie-dye leggings, and suede boots (in 90 deg weather). Luckily we went to a family restaurant at 5:30 on a weekend, so we weren't the only on there with an oddly dressed kid.

School outfit: favorite jeans, floral skirt, and striped tank top. I was too late to get the argyle sweater in the picture too.

Another dinner out outfit: This wouldn't be so strange except that it was hot outside. The scarf is new and she's really loving it. If there's such thing as a lightweight summer boot, I need to find out what it is. Do they make flip flop boots? That would be ideal.

First harvest

Here is the first garden harvest. a zucchini, a squash and a radish. We picked them after swim lessons this evening, hence the wet hair and swimsuit coverup. They probably could have gone another day, but I'm trying to stay ahead of the production.

Busy busy weeks lately. It is for kids and parents and teachers this time of year. We had an event at the school last night until 8, another thing tomorrow at 8am and swimming lessons after school for the next week and a half. So if you don't hear much from us until June 5th, you'll know why.

Bike ride before dinner

Swiss chard

Too pretty to eat.