Painting the Cabinets of DEATH!!!

I have a man that loves me and let me tell you I had no idea the amount of work we would do the next 5 days when I finally talked him into painting our cabinets with me.  So all these DIY bloggers who say they just need a "quick change" and so they decided to paint the cabinets can just shut up now.  This was a HARD project!  We hit several bumps along the way.  The first one being sanding. Just take off the doors and sand them down with an electric sander, not hard right?  Well our cabinets had this sticky goo all over them, you know when grease gets on something and then dust settles on it.  Imagine that all over the cabinets.  The sander could even scratch the service so we had to take a scraper and scrape off all the cabinets before we could sand them.  The next bump was how do you pain cabinets inside and out, what do you do with the doors???? So after sanding them all down we attached them with the original hard ware and realized will just have to do touch ups the best we could.  Then we though we will use my Dad's paint gun.  It will go on nice and smooth and it will go really quick.  Well pain guns don't go on really smoothly unless you can stand back away and with all the nooks and crannies we had a big mess on our hands with our first coat or primes.  Okay scratch that, get nice purdy brushes and flortrol and do it by hand. FIVE COATS LATER...  5 days to complete the project, and our poor children's brain going to mush by all the games they played on the ipad and movies they watched we were finally done!  It does look nice and clean and opens the kitchen up and I think it will help with buyer appeal when we finally sell this place.  But I would not recommend painting your cabinets unless you have to, like we did.  It is worth the money to tear out and get new ones!  Thanks babe for helping me do this project, I would have lost my mind without you.

Earning Stars

We've been doing star charts at our house to help the kids learn how to take a little more responsibility around the house, be rewarded for good behavior, and learn delayed gratification.  Christian chose a cool batman toys set to earn and Evan chose a monster truck set.  We bough it and put it on top of the fridge so they could see it every day.  They earned stars for helping me with chores, making their beds, clearing their plates, cleaning up toys, sharing, choosing the right, etc.  They could also loose stars if they were behaving badly.  This works really well for Christian since time out is kind of old school for him now that he is getting older.  I remembered to take pictures of Christian's chart, but not Evan's  :(  trying to get better, I've fallen out of the habit.  Since this picture Christian has completed another star where he earned $10.  He then used another $10 he saved and we pitched in $10 and he bought himself a razor scooter which he loves.  Evan is close to completing his chart too.  Love these kiddos.

White Bums in the Summer Time

I think Brian Regan said it best, he said he loves having kids because he gets to have conversations with his kids he would never have with an adult. This my friends is one of those conversations:

We have spent a lot of time outside this summer and the boys have become super tan. We were getting ready for a bath and Christian stripped down and as he was climbing into the bath tub I said "Look at your cute white bum!" He turned his head to the side and hitched his hip up so he could get a better look at his little bootie and said "What the heck!!! Is that going to wash off Mom?!" He was very concerned. I couldn't stop laughing. "Buddy your bum is white because the rest of your body has been out in the sun all summer" I explained. "How do we fix it? I don't want a white bum." "Well sweetie you would have to run around outside without any clothes on to get you bum tan." "Well I can't do that, then everyone will see my private parts!" More laughing from me. "Baby, everybody has a white bum in the summer time, I do and so does Daddy.." at this point Evan came into the bathroom stripped down ready for the bath, "Evan even has a white bum" When I said this Evan hiked up his hip to take a better look at his bum and said "What the heck!!!"
I have never laughed so hard before. Love these two crazies :)

Something weird happened...

BOTH of these cute little boys started school today. Christian's first day of Kindergarten and Evan gets to go to Preschool twice a week. Which leaves me home twice a week by myself and it's a little strange but freeing all at the same time. Both of them were so excited to head off the school. Me and Dan watch as Christian crossed the field over to his teacher- I know people say it but you really don't get it until you are there... MAN!!!! My kids are growing up too fast! Love you two little crazies :)

Family Reunion Time

We had our annual Anderson family reunion this year again and it was fun! Of course I forgot to bring/use my camera for a lot of it but here are the few pics I have. We hiked to timp cave and toured the cave which I haven't done since I was little, it was awesome, the boys loved it so much. Christian couldn't believe he was in "Real Cave!"


Almost all of the cousins minus Bradley and Braden


On our way up Raymond found this tree and sat Whitney in it, and then all the kids had to have a turn. About half way up Evan wanted his shirt off so we let him strip until it was time to go into the cave.

Here's the Christian boy :)


Inside the cave with a cheesy grin


Christian and Dan by the heart of timpanogous.


We headed down to The Pinnacles on Wednesday and boy did we have ourselves some fun. From potato guns, to marshmallow guns, to water balloon launcher, water bottle rocket launcher, making bracelets, playing in the kayaks, playing in the little stream and in the water hole with the rope swing, hiking to the top of one of the cliffs, playing on the tire swing, Christmas in July, playing "Everybody is It", and eating lots of yummy food we really had a great time

Ragnar 2012

Dan ran the Ragnar again this year with a team from his work. He was awesome! His team came in 28th place out of 1100 teams! It's funny because before the race he said I think this may be the last time I do this, but after finding out where they came in...well he might just have to do it at least one more time :) Good job baby, I'm proud of you :)

Flamming Gorge

We took a trip with Jon & Melissa and their friends the Quilters. We went to the Vernal Dinosaur Museum and then camped up near Flamming Gorge and it was beautiful! I like to refer this trip as the "Bed Head is Forever" camping trip :)


Christian has wanted to go fishing for forever and to be honest me and Dan aren't really the fishing type. But when the opportunity came to go on this trip we borrowed some gear and gave it our best go for Christian's sake. We first tried fishing at the dam.


After about 5 minutes the boys got distracted by all the sticks and rocks and Dan was left to valiantly catch a fish for the boys.


Can't you see the excitement in his face?


Sadly we had no luck at the dam, but a local told use about Moose Pond where they keep the pond stocked and it's easy for kids to catch the fish. So we headed out to the pond. Evan was left to his own imagination and was having a great time. It was really windy the entire time we were there and so sadly we never caught a fish, but we did give it our best try. I think Dan may try another lake more local since we have a fishing license now, we'll see how it goes ;)


I remember coming to this dinosaur museum and thinking it was a lot bigger. It is short and sweet and just right for the kids, we had a great time.