Dinner with neighbors

Last week we had our next door neighbors over for dinner.  I don't know why, but I get so nervous trying to come up with something that I think everyone will like to eat.  I came up with the menu and we all loved it.  It's hard to go wrong with shish-kabobs on the grill when there are so many different things you can put on them.  We had onions, pineapple, peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, chicken, and shrimp kabobs with coconut rice, green salad (above), and sour dough bread.  I think this is one of my favorite meals to make ever since we got our grill a couple months ago.  And I love how pretty everything looks on the skewers.

Our neighbors have a little boy that's just one month younger than Brett.  Our kids had so much fun playing together and stealing food from each other's plates.

My neighbor made the most delicious pound cake for dessert.  They left half of it with us, and let's just say it was gone really fast!

A couple things

This is the adorable book bag that my mom made for Grant for Christmas...from scratch!  She's a talented lady I tell ya.  Grant loves to put his treasures in it for the day and carry them around the house.  He calls it his purse.  I appreciate that he just wants to be like Mommy and all, but I quickly remind him that it's a bag, or a book bag, or a carry-all (thinking of Seinfeld now).  But NOT a purse. 

We brought dinner over for Keith's grandparents tonight.  I whipped up some lemon bars and a salad and we picked up a Barro's pizza on the way there.  That's my kind of dinner!  It was a beautiful evening and the blossoms are smelling amazing here lately.  Our boys wore their PJ's and Grant rode his bike in front of their place while we enjoyed our tasty dessert.

And I was there too.  See?

In other news, I found a swimsuit!  I'm pretty serious about my swimsuits and I wasn't finding the right one.  The other night, when Keith and I went on our quick swim suit hunting date, we saw an ad for a swim suit store there at the mall.  We didn't have time to go that night, but we went back earlier this week and they had exactly what I was looking for.  Victory!

Growing up

Grant is growing up right before me and there's nothing I can do about it.  Today he reminded me that he's not a baby anymore by offering to vacuum the kitchen floor.  Hey, that works for me.  He's the one who made the mess after all.  :)  Then I asked him to go get the mail.  He told me to stay inside so he could do it by himself.  Of course it was junk mail day and all the adds kept spilling on the ground.  I just kept watching him from the window as he picked up some adds and others would fall.  After a while I went out and helped him out.  It reminded me about how it must be for Heavenly Father watching us all here on earth.  Sometimes we struggle and instead of swooping in all of the time, he lets us learn important lessons for ourselves.  It must be hard to watch sometimes.

A sick baby and a yummy dinner

Baby Brett is sick today.  He had a fever suddenly come on before bed last night.  He kept crying through the night and just sits around today.  Hopefully he'll be feeling normal again soon.  Until then, I'll enjoy the snuggles.

My parents came over to babysit on Saturday night so Keith and I could go swimsuit shopping for me.  We had a really yummy dinner with them before we left.  I tried a new recipe.  It's the shrimp tacos from this April's issue of Better Homes & Gardens.  They were so yummy.  I thought I'd be able to eat them after having my tooth pulled the day before, but they proved pretty tricky for me.  I will definitely repeat this recipe often though, as everybody else loved them.  I served them with grilled zucchini and yellow squash and this delicious spanish rice recipe.  It's really is the best.  We also had homemade salsa and chips.

As for the swimsuit, the search continues.  Hopefully I'll find the right one this week.  And as for the tooth...it was not a good experience, but I survived.

Lately

I can't believe it's the middle of March already!  Wow, time is really moving lately.  Our weather has been blissful this week.  We've enjoyed swimming and being outdoors.  I think we have a little head start on our summer tans.  

I've been working on window treatments for our family room and kitchen.  Hopefully I'll have pictures to show soon.  Right now it's mostly all in my head.  I do have drapery rods and some plain white panels hanging.  But the surprise for you all will be what I do with the plain white panels.  Oh, I bet you can't wait!  :)  I hope it turns out like I'm hoping!!!

And now..........here's what's been going on around here.  Brett found his belly button.  Just ask him, he'll show you.  I think he's mostly thrilled that it's there, every time, without fail:

We brought out the costume box and Grant has had a ball dressing up.  This past week we've had Chicken Little, Super Why, a doggie, Yo Gabba Gabba (yikes!), and other various folks running around the house:

My snapdragons are thriving:

And my flower bed is blooming!  I'm amazed everyday at how well things grow when they have sunshine on them!  We had mostly shade around our last house so our flowers never really did very well.  It has been such a treat to watch these grow:

I was trying to get a nice portrait of Grant, but all he gives me lately are silly faces:

And here's Brett with a very serious face.  He loves playing the piano.  I love watching him because he doesn't sit there and pound like most kids his age.  He actually acts like he's trying to figure out the sounds and how they work, one key at a time.  It's adorable.  And I love seeing his little buns sitting there on that bench!:

On Sunday we joined Keith's family at his parent's house for dinner.  His Grandparents live here full time now and they enjoy seeing the excitement that's sure to happen when we all get together:

Grant and cousins getting in line to "fill up their tanks:"

Keith's uncle and cousin were in town for some spring training baseball games.  The boys had fun with their putting contest:

Cousin Brody had fun watching too.  He's so adorable:

What's a visit to Grandma's house without a sucker?:

Grant ready to deliver ice cream to the kids:

 Brett got new shoes this week.  They are a mini version of some that Grant has.  Brett was so excited when we tried these on at the store, and so mad when I took them off to go buy them.  Boys and their shoes!:

 Grant, ready to go swimming:

Brett after his bath... after swimming:

Yum!  Waffles for dinner:

Hope you have a good weekend!  I get to start mine off with a not so fun visit to the dentist.  I'll be having a tooth pulled.  And to be honest, I'm super scared!  I've heard that the worst part is the sound.  So I may just bring my Ipod and blast some tunes in my ears.  Wish me luck!  

Our project reveal!!!!

Our family room had a large empty wall on one side that I didn't know what I was going to do with.  When my sister was here over Christmas break we came up with the idea of putting cabinets and bookshelves across the whole wall.  It would be a great way to add much needed storage to our house.  I'll have to post the drawings that she did in another post.  They are quite impressive.  So we were going to order cabinets from my brother and have him install them.  Then we got to thinking and we have a lot of other projects to do around here so we went on a date to Ikea one night in hopes of finding another solution.  Well, we found an awesome entertainment system.  We used their computer to design what we wanted and then printed off our list of materials to get.  It was quite the haul!  We thought we were going to be able to put this together ourselves, but after the bottom cabinets sat there for a couple weeks, we knew it required skills that neither of us have.  So we hired my brother to install them.  And the results are amazing and way better than we could have ever done.  My brother really does have some SERIOUS skills!

First, I painted the wall.  I had Home Depot do a color match in Glidden paint for Benjamin Moore's Rockport Gray.  It took some convincing to get Keith to let me do this color.  He was comfortable with the color scheme of our old house and wasn't too excited to try something new.  But I on the other hand have been ready to do something totally different for a long time.  So I pulled up some pictures online and showed him that gray walls don't necessarily look dull, dark, and depressing.  I think if the right color of gray is chosen it can brighten up the other aspects of the room, especially white trim:  

YoungHouseLove

FavoritePaintColorsBlog

Now the cabinet part.

Here's my brother running wires for the TV and computer and stuff.  Here you can also see the base he built to raise the cabinets a few inches so the doors wouldn't drag on the carpet and it would look nicer:

Getting the cabinets up.  It became evident that Ikea doesn't make things perfectly square and that they don't have the best instructions.  It took reinventing the way to hang the cabinets so they wouldn't fall off the wall after a week like they would if we used the screws that came with them.

On the far left we put in a desk for our computer.  And then of course a spot for the TV.

Doors and hardware are up.  My brother added the crown molding and the base molding at the bottom to cover the base he built to raise the cabinets up:

View when entering family room:

Pretty much finished!  We just need to add lights and glass shelves to the upper cabinets and my bro is coming back to put trim on the parts that meet the wall:

We are beyond pleased with the results!  We love that all the electronic wires are hidden and that we have room for games, crafting supplies, and office stuff.  Now for the rest of the room...like decorating and replacing that awesome ceiling fan!

His favorite song

Brett has never really wanted me to sing to him.  Grant doesn't seem to mind my voice so I'm not taking it personally. :)  However, Brett has ALWAYS loved it when I sing "Row, row, row your boat."  Even when he was a little baby and up until now his face lights up into a big smile when I sing that song.  Just recently he's allowed me to sing a couple different songs while I rock him before bed, but I always make sure to include his favorite.
And speaking of rocking him before bed, I just love that time of day.  It's the only time Brett allows me to hold and cuddle him.  We have a routine now where he sits on my lap, facing me, and he points to my nose and then his nose and then my eyes and his eyes, etc....  Then he will either give me kisses or he'll touch foreheads with me and giggle.  Oh, he's so sweet!

Star of the week

Grant gets to be the star of the week in his preschool class this week.  Doesn't he look so cute heading off to get on the bus this morning?  In his backpack he's sporting his cool poster that we made last night for his special week.

In other news, we went swimming this afternoon.  It was great!  After swimming in the heated pool, we headed over to play in the sand at the beach pool.  Got to love Brett's great physique!