Normal Saturday

I got a phone call at 4:55 AM on Saturday telling me I got to stay home from work because our census was low.  It's the equivalent of a "snow day" for adults.  Love it!

We started off our day by taking a bike ride around the neighborhood, then home to BBQ for lunch.  Some of the neighborhood kids stopped by to play remote control cars in the driveway & Sean spent some time helping the boys learn to ride the balance bike.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous here yesterday!

As a special treat, we took the boys out for ice cream on Saturday night and ended up getting a good laugh. About 10 minutes into their ice cream, they both noticed a very large buffalo head mounted on the wall.  No big deal, right?  Wrong!  Carter flipped out when he saw the buffalo head moving back and forth.  He dashed under the table & insisted on finishing his ice cream under there.  Then the buffalo started talking (via a man standing in the kitchen with a microphone) and Davis started freaking out that the scary buffalo was going to get us all.  It was hilarious.  Carter went to bed that night requesting that we only go to ice cream shops with "nice animals, like cows and pigs...those kinds of things; not big buffaloes with scary horns."  Maybe we'll stick to ice cream at home for a while, until this whole buffalo trauma blows over...

Checking out the killer buffalo---yikes! 

 Carter seeking refuge under the table, ice cream in hand.

The Scary One

Park Play Date

We had a few friends over for a play date after Preschool today and a good time was had by all!  The boys are getting old enough now that I (usually) can have an actual conversation with another mom while our kids are playing together--what a treat! 

We walked over to the park so the kids could play before lunch.  My friend,  Christine, was a super-mom and brought bubbles and a parachute to play with; both were a hit!  Another benefit of play dates...the awesome nap time that follows!  I love that the weather is getting warmer and we can get outside most days.  Summer, here we come!

 I somehow failed to get any photos of little Renee, but here is her big sister modeling one of the bubble fans.

Table Transformation

A while back, I asked Sean if he would rehab this table so we could use it in Carter's room.  This little wicker table is from my parents' apartment in New Orleans, back in the mid-70s.  We used it in some way or another the whole time I was growing up, then I painted it seafoam green & took it to college in the early '90s.  It was later repainted to fit in at one of my various apartments after I moved to Denver and now, it sits in my 4-year-old's room.  Crazy.  Sean pulled a miracle on this one...I cannot believe how cool it looks now!

 Before:

 Helping Daddy with the table...

 AFTER: Metallic silver legs, a stainless steel top and bright orange trim.  (It probably would have been a good idea to clean it before taking the photos.  Oh well.)

*We are still finishing up Carter's "robot room", but will post photos of the finished project after it comes together.  It is taking considerably longer than the cowboy room did.

Millie Update

I'm sorry to report that Millie has been returned.  After 17 days of dog pee and poop in various rooms of our house and a neighborhood search after she escaped from our yard for the 10th time, we decided to call it quits.  Thankfully, the Boston Terrier Rescue has done this adoption thing a time or two, and build a "trial period" into any dog adoption because they know that some dogs/people are just not a good fit.

We are sorry that Mills didn't take to us, because she really is such a sweet-tempered dog & when she wasn't making messes or running away, we loved having her here.  Hopefully, someone else out there will be able to give her whatever it is we couldn't.  In the meantime, anyone know of a good carpet cleaner?

Kitchen Bling

Yep, this is a post about putting hardware on our kitchen cabinets.  Our lives are just not that exciting, people...we've got to fill up the blog space somehow.

Let me just preface this project by saying that we lived in our last house for five years and, despite the fact that we had black painted kitchen cabinets, we never wanted to "splurge" by adding hardware.  Lesson learned--when it came time to sell, we (Sean) had lots of paint touch up to do.  So, with that experience under our belts, we decided to drive to our neighborhood Home Depot and finally get going on jazzing up these ho-hum cabinets.  Did I mention there's about a million of them?  We selected a different type of hardware for the upper cabinets versus the lower ones, mostly because the upper cabinets are considerably taller and a tiny knob looked kind of silly.  The pulls on the drawers were easy...I've always liked that look.  (If it works for Martha Stewart, it works for me!)  Plus, it helped break up the monotony of our dark brown cabinet convention.  

Here are the Before & After shots for your viewing pleasure:

I am really happy with how they turned out.  Another project checked off the list, thanks to my handy husband!

Happy Easter!

Hope you had a joyful Easter weekend!  I always loved Easter growing up...a new dress for Sunday school, new white shoes, egg hunt (my great-grandpa always put money inside the plastic eggs), the smell of vinegar and hard-boiled eggs...   I still look forward to this holiday every year.  Some day, we will celebrate it the traditional way again.  For now, it went like this:

On Saturday, Sean took the boys to our neighborhood Egg Hunt.  Since the boys came out of that event with only ONE egg total, Sean staged a private egg hunt in our front yard!  

the neighborhood egg hunt

 At least they got to meet the Easter Bunny!

 The Beilman Egg Hunt experience was a success!

On Sunday morning, the boys discovered their goodies from the Easter Bunny!  And yes, they were up before 6AM, so I got to see them enjoy their Easter surprises before I left for work that morning...it made my day.

 

That Bunny is so smart...he KNEW the boys needed new Crocs!  How cool is that?!

Who doesn't love a good game of Chutes and Ladders?

The new Cootie game was a hit...and so were the chocolate eggs, by the looks of it!

Unfortunately, Easter always falls on the weekend, so that meant I was working instead of egg-hunting and rejoicing. (Apparently, babies are born even on holidays.)  Anyway, sorry for the mini pity-party...I digress.  I did get to leave work an hour early on Sunday!  (An hour earlier means I am home in time to see my boys before they go to bed.)  We celebrated by having a burrito picnic outside on the front porch.  What a nice treat!  It was a beautiful day and we made the most of it!  I hope you and your loved ones were able to do the same.  Happy Easter!

Man-tastic!

Sean is Mimi's biggest fan, I think.  Having Mimi here means he had a free babysitter to watch the boys while he did "man projects".  After he got back from Atlanta, he had two full days to work on projects that have been bothering him for a long time.  First, he fixed the door on his car that hasn't opened in months (kind of a big deal, I admit).  Secondly, he got to install about 100 (okay, maybe 10) new lights in the garage...to further enhance his man cave.  

He built the loft area above his workshop last month.  There's still an 8 ft ceiling above his work space and he can still stand up in certain parts of the loft.  It holds a ton of stuff and opened up a lot of floor space. I joke with Sean that if we only had a small fridge and an air mattress out there, he could just live in the garage.  Honestly, I don't think he would mind it one bit!

 The loft and work space.

Lights, lights and more lights! 

Many Thanks to Mimi

My mom came to help us out last week while Sean was out of town to attend one of his quarterly meetings.  Mom raised one daughter (obviously), so it amazes me how well she handles my two rowdy boys.  They are a handful, people!  I say that in the most loving way, but seriously, I'm 36 and it's exhausting for me most days.  Anyway, my point is that it's not easy task to come in and take over 24 hour parenting duties for Carter & Davis.  Mimi does it willingly and makes it look easy.  Thank you, Mom!!  We love you and appreciate your help so much!

Easter Eggs

Spring has sprung around here & that means...time to color Easter eggs!  Both boys enjoyed the eggs this year and we only had a couple of egg casualties.  Mimi has been in town helping with the boys while Sean was in Atlanta, so she and Davis colored eggs together.  

The Easter fun continues with our neighborhood egg hunt next weekend.  Fun!