Kitchen Clean Out

I spent my entire day cleaning out the kitchen. Tomorrow morning, the cabinets will be removed, and that will be the end of our kitchen as we know it for about three months.

This clean out process has been some pretty serious work, and I've come to realize something for this ordeal. I want to live a cleaner, simpler life. I look forward to organizing and maintaining a clean, orderly pantry and kitchen, where there are not a million doubles of everything and half the items have overdue expiration dates. I look forward to knowing exactly where things are, and having a home full of my own things that I use, not things that go untouched for literally years.

We have had a fun few days, to be honest. The girls have thoroughly enjoyed volunteering to help clean out the cupboards, taking great pride in carrying anything made of glass. I proved to them that I trusted them this week, and they held their heads very high.

The babies were really no help at all. They ended up enjoying removing things from already packed boxes, running out the door when it was left ajar, and basically running amok throughout the day. They skipped their naps today, probably due to the demolition noise from outside, so my parents took them for the evening so we could work hard on cleaning out the cabinets.

It's just amazing how much stuff was in that one room! We are also remodeling our garage at the same time. So all the stuff that was from the garage is out in the breezeway and back patio, and all the kitchen stuff is piled on top of that. The garage is where I would have put all this stuff from the kitchen for safe keeping during the remodel, but our timing on all this was off by a few weeks.

Here are a few pictures logging our experiences during these last 24 hours....

Here are the kiddos eating breakfast at one of our last meals here in the old kitchen. They clearly don't understand what we're about to go through in the next few months.

Here's all the wreckage from yesterday's demo work. It's pretty impressive how fast the trash piles up,

so Danny decided to haul out the big guns and order the dumpster. Cubby's reaction was pretty funny. She saw it and got so excited. She couldn't put her shoes on fast enough. She ran out there and wanted to climb the little ramp to go inside. I had to tell her about nails and splinters and everything, and that kind of killed the fun, but she still thought it was cool to have this huge metal box in our front yard. I do too, kind of.






Then E came home from school and showed us her Valentine's Day loot. Is she an organized kid or what?




Here's the house at yesterday's end. Pretty sweet!







Cool orange insulation! See ya water heater!






While I was checking this out, something else was going on in the front yard....






Just a couple of all-American kids running and kicking their shoes in the air. Yes, it's 3:00 PM, and yes, Cubby is still wearing her jammies. Actually, so am I.





Look at that form. This is some serious shoe throwing. This could be an Olympic event.





Cubby's shoe just hit my car. Whatever, the mini can take it.




The next morning, the guys showed up bright and early, and immediately started pounding. You know, it's hard to eat breakfast when someone is pounding on the wall next to your kitchen table. It was at this point that Cubby said, "I don't like our house, it's too loud," and covered her ears.


You go guys!





And the wall goes up.






Nice work.


Meanwhile, my kids are having a regular Friday afternoon.

The babies are eating tiny toys.

J.D. is carrying a big pink stick, and yes, he did whack G on the head with it. She can now say "Ouch," it is so darn cute!

Cubby worked on Valentine's cards. This one she's writing is to our wonderful babysitter, Martha, who saves my life three days per week. She chose to write, "I love you Martha, you are a great babysitter."

E and Cubby worked on cards.

We spent our last dinner in the old kitchen. As you can see, I am totally stoked because this is our last night in the kitchen, AND I lost 3.2 pounds this week! Cubby is adorable, E is moody, and the babies are at mom's. We loved our barbacoa dinner, thanks Boys & Girls Club!

Cement Truck in the Rain

The cement truck showed up today, to my surprise. To show how little I know about the construction business, when our head contractor arrived this morning, I asked him what they were going to do today, since it was raining and all. See, when it rains in the Valley, it just seems like nothing should happen. Everyone should just stop for a day and enjoy this desert rarity. Anyway, Ramon told me that they were going to pour the cement for the footing on the new addition. I was incredulous, "What?! Cement in the rain? Is that possible??!!!" He calmly said, "Sure, and we scheduled it for today." Ok, well, I'm glad to have him on top of things. He's awesome.

The cement truck is looking good!!! This makes me feel like this is all really happening. I mean, cement is permanent!!!

I love this shot! Cool cement truck. Men working. Fall colors. Wet, shiny sidewalk. Lovely.

J.D. sensed the presence of a big truck before he even saw it. A big truck + in the front yard = little boy heaven.

G could care less. And to prove her point, she's just going to walk right on top of the table.

The cement truck makes some people just act sassy.




Twins do the funniest things sometimes. They look like they're in trouble, but they just decided to hang out here for a minute. G sat down first, and she kind of motioned to J.D., so he sat too.

They had a nice little visit.

G's buns don't really fit on the ledge. Don't even THINK about taking that apple slice away from her! You don't want to lose a hand.

J.D. is just shaving off pieces of apple with his teeth, then tossing the bits on the ground. See his little pile? A nice little snack for Button.

Then they started talking, which is always hilarious and cute. They just kind of laugh and talk about their day. It's the best.

The Perfect Candidate

You'd think that being called "the perfect candidate" would always be a positive thing, right? Today, Danny and I found out that that's not always the case.

We ran up to San Diego to meet with a children's ear, nose and throat doctor to find out why J.D. has been having these recurring ear infections. Once there, we informed the doctor that he has been diagnosed with at least one infection per month since October. We also told her that he was hospitalized with a double ear infection and pneumonia over Thanksgiving, and twice, the bacteria causing the infection was immune to the antibiotics, causing him to need stronger medicine. After listening to our description, cleaning the gunk out his ears, taking a close look, and asking a few more questions, she declared he was the perfect candidate for ear tubes.

The surgery will be next Friday. It is simple, quick, and usually completely painless. He does have to be sedated, but maybe that's just because two nurses, the doctor, and Danny had to hold J.D. down so she could get a good look in his ears. The recovery is immediate. The doctor actually said we could go to the zoo afterwards if we so desired.

I was really interested in her description of what sometimes happens to children after the surgery. On may occasions, after the surgery, parents report their child as being better behaved, listening better, and growing by leaps and bounds in their verbal ability. The poor little kid just couldn't hear or understand much! She also said that after the surgery, he might over-react to loud noises, since he will be hearing better. There is a chance J.D. has already suffered some hearing loss, but we'll find out after the surgery.

After the appointment, we ran over to the window place and put in the order for our new kitchen windows....yeah!!! Then we had a quick lunch, Danny dropped me off at the hair place, and he took the kids to Balboa Park to play. We got home late in the evening to greet little G, who had to stay home this trip. J.D. got right back into the swing of things upon our return.

Here he is snacking on something yummy.

There's the culprit! That ear is gonna be taught a lesson here, real quick!

Life is good, he's got his ball now.

Check out that dance move....with a snack!

And then little Princess G showed up and stole the show. Let the dress up begin...

Superbowl Sweetheart

Danny has never really been into televised sporting events. I mean, over the last six years that we've been married, we turn the Superbowl on, but we rarely sit down and watch the entire thing.

The twins really rocked our world, and their arrival actually altered our TV watching patterns. They were born in late June 2008, and when they arrived home from the hospital in late July, Danny and I spent a lot of time in front of the TV watching the Olympics while feeding one baby or another.

Also, I think the fact that we have a little boy re-ignited Danny's interest in football. We have watched a whole lot of games this season, especially when the Chargers were contenders. J.D. wanders around, throwing balls all over the room while the game is on, and Danny likes that now there's twice the maleness in the house to enjoy sports.

So today, during the Superbowl, I was hoping for some great shots of Danny with his little boy. However, our little boy decided to take an extensive nap, while his sister stayed up to catch some of the game. She mostly sat on Grandpa's lap, sucked her thumb, and relaxed.

Pretty sweet shot. Both parties are pretty well set right now.

Very comfy.

Did you see that play?

Then, I had to take G to her nap, and she fought it a bit. Grandpa provided some comic relief.

She's not falling for it.

Hey, look over there, it's Daddy! He's going to take you to bed! Yeah!

Maybe not. They decided a little more snuggle time was in order. And that's just fine with me.

And So It Continues - Our Kitchen Remodel Day 2

When I left the house this morning to take E to school, the house was shaking. I mean, my cheeks were jiggling shaking. The jack hammer was finishing off the remaining piece of concrete. I don't know if I've ever seen J.D. so happy in the morning. He was walking around like it was the coolest darn thing to have a shaky floor. G wouldn't let me put her down, and the other two girls would've preferred that spot too if I'd had two more appendages, but alas, G and my purse take up all the allotted space.

So here's the addition after day two. These amazing guys loaded up the remaining concrete, removed part of the exterior wall, shoveled a perfect rectangle, boarded it up, and called it a day.

Woo Hoo!!

Lookin' good, dirt!

Yucky exposed wall. Doesn't matter, you're still awesome!

I've got to be a little more careful now when I step outside to dump the trash. Whhhooooooaaaaaaaaa!

Nice digging, guys! Almost ready for concrete, yippeeee!

While the twins slept and the girls partied hard at a playdate (yes, a dear friend took BOTH of the big girls to her house for a playdate) I decided to start cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. I figure I'd do one a day, so I started with the least used cupboard, which is the one where I store my linens.

Ok, I love linens. When we first got married, I had a thing for April Cornell breakfast squares. I bought one of those beautiful little brightly-colored, floral squares every time I'd see a display. I bought the matching napkins, and yes, once I bought the matching napkin rings. It was a little much. I also love Williams-Sonoma linens. A lot. So I sorted through the mish-mash of linens, and found, to my shock and dismay, that very few items had a sufficient number of napkins to match, or the cloths will no longer fit my new table, or the cloth is really not my style. Whatever, I had a huge giveaway pile.

See the giveaway pile? It's to the right, with the dark green Christmas cloth on top. See what I mean about mish-mash?

I love Christmas cloths, but some of these had to go. Not the April Cornell breakfast square! I'm not insane!

Here's the beautiful, empty cabinet, ready to be hauled away.

And here's my lovely storage container full of my linen collection. Pretty nifty, don't ya think?

And So It Begins - Our Kitchen Remodel, Part I

In early March of this year, Danny and I will have been married for seven wonderful, bliss-filled years. I have spent almost each and every minute of those seven years yearning for a modern kitchen. Danny has spent an equal amount of time wondering how on earth we could ever pay for such a project.

You see, Danny and I are living in the home that his grandmother built over 40 years ago. It is a classic, well-built, custom home, and we are lucky to have it. It has great bones and tons of cool details like the beautiful windows, brick fireplace, and large bedrooms with built-in cabinetry.

But, Danny lived the bachelor lifestyle in this house for eleven years. He happily hosted many a Cattle Call party, shared his space with many friendly roommates, and played guitar and enjoyed outdoor hobbies to his little heart's content. He did not spend a moment on modernizing or keeping up the house. When a burner on the stove top stopped working, he just got used to cooking on one working burner. When the microwave stayed on when he opened it and the timer stopped working, he learned to time things in his head.

When we were dating, I remember talking to him on the phone, and he would all of a sudden say, "Hold on a second," and he would be back in literally a second. I'd say, "What was that?" And he would explain that he had to put the phone down (since the phone wasn't cordless) and rush over to turn the microwave off, so it wouldn't scorch his food. At the time, that was all totally adorable. But, now while trying to make food for the six of us with one stinking burner, a stove with a major attitude problem, and a microwave with a homeade handle and no timer, the kitchen has lost any and all charm it ever had.

Now little did Danny know that the minute we got married, he would look at me, I'd get pregnant, and the ball would start rolling. Now here we are, with four young kids, sitting at a tiny kitchen table, with twins about to bust out of their highchairs, with nary a seat in sight for them to plop.

This kitchen remodel project has been in the works for about four years now. I have had multiple contractors come over to give us ideas, estimates, and proposals. We would get moving, but various events would crop up to cause the project to be put on hold. Of course, money was an issue, then when we were almost there two years ago, I got pregnant with twins, and we were way too overwhelmed to continue at that point.

This year, by the grace of God, we were able to scrape together the funds to make the kitchen project happen. It's pretty unbelievable how things come together. We just happened to get this contractor going at a time when work was slow. We just happened to refinance when interest rates were super low. We just happened to order our cabinetry during a huge sale. We just happened to be awesome! Sorry, got a little carried away there, I am just so excited to get started!!

Yesterday was the first day of actual work. A tree service came by to remove a tree in the way of the new addition. Don't feel bad, I love trees myself, but I was happy to see this one go. It is a tremendously dirty tree, and always dumped tiny flowers and seeds all over our roof, trash area, and our neighbor's yard. This was a good thing, believe me.

Good bye tree! See that guy up there chopping down branches? I love you tree guy!

Yeah, no tree! Uh Oh.
It looks kinda empty! And that two-toned fence is wierd looking.



Fire wood.

Stump.

Then the contractor hauled in a jack-hammer to take out the concrete steps and pavement around the new addition.

See ya steps!

Check out the rubble. I love it!

E is just echoing my absolute glee. I know, it's a little crazy, taking pictures of busted up concrete. This is really happening! I'm thrilled!

Watching Cinderella

E and Cubby love Cinderella. They have watched that movie probably thirty times, own the ball gown in several sizes, know the song, "So This is Love" by heart, and love to role play each scene.

E especially is quite the romantic, and now can't help but add a little princess-y vobrato to every song she sings. Just today, as we were strolling into Wal-Mart, I asked her what she would like to do most in the world. She said, without any hesitation, "Be a princess and wear a dress everyday." Cubby follows along, but will no longer agree to play the prince as she used to when she didn't have a choice. Now we usually have two Cinderellas walking around the house, usually one is scrubbing the floor and the other is dancing around singing opera.

Anyway, I just recently happened upon this picture of the girls taken a couple of years ago. This was way before the twins, before we even imagined we'd have two more kids, when we had it pretty darn easy with two very manageable little girls.

Cubby, who still loves that thumb, is only 13 months old here. E is only two and a half. They used to sit so close to eachother on the couch. Now they own their own little piece of property.

And now they have another Cinderella fan who loves to sit and watch the magic unfold.

Good times.