A lighter brighter kitchen

Since early summer I've mentioned the painting of our kitchen cabinets multiple times. We finally finished! Once again I took on the "big idea, no follow through" role in the relationship. I somehow fooled myself that after work and on weekendsI'd go to the garage and paint. It would be complete in 3 weeks at the most. Didn't happen. By mid-October, Chris decided Thanksgiving was the deadline since his family would be visiting. In the end we probably each did half of the kitchen.
So here it is:

Ha ha! Gotcha! No, I can drool over kitches like that all day long, but it could never happen, and really shouldn't happen in a small bungalow.
This kitchen was my inspiration:


I love everything about the kitchen above from the white cabinets to the open storage areas and even the wallpaper on one wall and the funky chandelier. Plus, it looks to be about the size of our kitchen.

So here is where we started. I wish I had taken more before pics. Basic description: Small galley kitchen with very little cabinet space, pass through window to the dining room, and the extra groovy 1970's style dark cabinets complete with the golden harvest Montgomery Ward fridge and matching linoleum. Like the inspiration kitchen, we have an open area to store things. Can't really tell in this picture, but we stored spices, odds and ends cooking necessities and mis-match glass ware. Not pretty at all. So here's the same area after our project. The cabinets got a coat of primer, 3 coats of white paint and polyurethene. Then we organized all of our dishware in the open storage area and hung our matching mugs. I'm trying to decide if I should paint the inside of the storage area. I like the contrast to the white dishes, and that it matches the pass through window, but it may still be too dark.

I've realized my tastes are completly illogical. I love the original 1925 dark wood surrounding the dining room and living room windows, and I love the bright yellow in the dining room, yet I absolutely hated the dark kitchen cabintets and can't wait for that yellow fridge to die and to replace the floor.

Here's the other side. Now all the spices and glassware are nicely concealed in the cabinets.I heard very different advice when I mentioned our painting project. Multiple people told me they had done it and loved the difference. Others said I should just reface or replace the cabinets. A few reasons why I didn't do that:

1. The cabinets were perfectly fine. Seems silly to put them in a landfill when I can just change the look.

2. Updating a kitchen is like "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." If we put the money into replacing the cabinets, or even refacing them, I'd like to re-design the room. I'd move the sink under the window to allow more counter space, bring down the wall to make the pass through a bar, move cabinets to the other wall...to make all that happen we'd have to open a new doorway to the living room etc. By the time I was done refacing I'd have a 2nd story and have sunk way too much money into the house! (I didn't visualize this in my mind. A house down the street was the same model as ours in the 1920's and they did all that I mentioned above. I saw the open house last year. They must have run out of money because the newly built 2nd story master bedroom did not have an enclosed bathroom. Literally the bed was about 5 feet away from the 4 ft high wall blocking the toilet. Ewwww.)

3. This was an easy quick fix for little money--okay, it should have been quick! Now I'm happy to step into my kitchen as long as I don't look down at the harvest gold linoluem :)

One last picture...I love that we have the exact same style stool as the inspiration kitchen. Galley kitchens and 4'11'' owners require very sturdy, practical stools.

Happy Turkey Day

Today was the first time Chris and I hosted Thanksgiving. This has been one of Chris's dreams. We've been looking through lots of cookbooks/magazines and even trying out a few recipes since September. Chris's parents flew out from NY and we had Great Aunt Janet join us. We are so thankful to be able to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner in our own house and most of all spend the day with family.While we were cooking this morning, Penny was playing in her room. All of a sudden I realized she was very quiet. I peeked in and found her reading a pile of books. Penelope is very thankful for fleece pajamas and books
Grandma helping Penelope walk. Don't you love the outfit? It is from Penelope's Great GrandmaWalking with Grandpa

Penelope was very thankful for Grandpa scooping her up and consoling her after she bonked herself in the head with her rings. You can say she lives in the moment. Just a few minutes later and everything is all right with the world.Chris grilled the turkey. I highly recommend it. We used the oven for all our other goodies!Not a great pic, but here's our table before we ate.So what were all the yummy goodies? Here's the list of what we made:
Turkey--grilled with butter and herbs
Mashed red potatoes
Green bean casserole (I know some people absolutely detest this, but it is a family favorite)
Roasted Butternut Squash with shallots and mustard vinagarette
Cranberry-apple sauce
Rosemary rolls (bought those from a local bakery)
Pumpkin cake--made by Aunt Janet
And an assortment of olives and pickles. We got to use our very fancy relish dish. It was the first present we got when we announced our engagement. Chris has been using it to hold his change, keys and what other odds and ends he has in his pocket at the end of the day. I was really excited to clean it and use it for its real purpose.

After dinner Grandpa convinced Penny to wear her socks. Too bad it is on her hands! Funny Grandpa!

Later in the evening we played 10,000. Great dice game (also called Farkle). Right now I'm making homemade turkey stock with the carcass and some veggies. Very easy instructions in this month's Rachel Ray magazine. Can't wait to use it in comfort recipes this winter!

Tomorrow we meet up with Grandma and Grandpa to see Santa so I'll be posting about that and a separate post with pics of our newly painted kitchen cabinets.

Best Friends

One of Penelope's favorite pastimes is feeding Cece. We can no longer hand Penny a graham cracker or a piece of toast because she gives it to Cece and claps gleefully. So it is to the high chair for everything, including snacks. Of course, Cece still gets quite a bit of food by waiting patiently under the highchair.
Recently Penny found Cece's water and food bowl. Splashing in 3/4 water 1/4 dog drool is Penny's very own Disneyworld.

I caught her last weekend putting the dog food into the water bowl...Then I caught on camera her first time trying dog food...okay, that's naive of me...she probably tried it the day before when she dumped the water bowl on her head, but I didn't actually SEE her eat the dog food
We really do supervise her, but she's like flash lightning crawler. One minute she is next to me in the bedroom unfolding the whole pile of clothes I just finished folding, and the next minute she is eating dog food.

So to give me a few minutes to clean up the mess these two scoundrels made, they were sentenced to some time behind bars.
Here's Penelope telling Cece "It wasn't my fault! You were sposed to be watching for her. Don't worry. I'll handle this and get us out"

"Woo hoo! What did I tell you? I knew my cute smile would get us out!"

And who could actually say no to these two?

Smooch!

Yay! Penelope and I are a part of an art exhibit!

From their website: What is The Smooch! Project? The Smooch! Project is a personal photographic effort of Minnesota photographer Bonnie Fournier. It is intended to serve as a documentary record demonstrating that all humans, regardless of social, economic, or political barriers, share a joyful willingness to welcome love and affection into their lives. The artist’s goal is to collect 10,000 exhibition-quality images. You are invited to “pucker up” and be part of this historic, heartwarming effort.

The first time I came across the Smooch Project was at the Uptown art fair when I was pregnant. I wanted to get a pic of Chris giving a smooch to my belly, but my swollen ankles would not stand for the line. Then 2 other times I showed up with Penny at Smooch locations only to find it was either over or the photographer had gone to lunch. Then when I saw they'd be at the Midtown Market, just blocks from our house, on Halloween...well, it seemed perfect! Penelope was a little stunned by all the lights. I think it is an adorable picture!

Bonnie is only doing two more photo sessions in Minneapolis. It is free for one photo to be posted in her online exhibit, but you can ask her to take other photos and then pay for an online gallery. Pretty cool deal. I'm not sure if she is going to hit the road, but if the Smooch Project ever makes it to your city you should definitly do it!

Uh oh, what have we done?

Yes, that would be Cece and Penelope both begging for a piece of cheese...

And not just any piece of cheese, but fancy manchego cheese from sheep's milk! The co-op sells all these really expensive cheeses that can be either a big hit or spit it out in the sink and say "yuck, it really does taste like what the cow ate!" The nice thing is they sell teeny blocks of cheese so Chris and I get to taste all sorts of varieties for $1 each. It makes us much more adventurous. Well, so far Penelope hasn't met a cheese she doesn't like. Last week she ate all of the gouda and gruyere. What sort of monster have we created?!

Enjoying fall...sort of

This weekend Chris was pretty ill so I had the job of raking leaves. It was a nice fall day, and I got quite a workout. Who needs a gym membership when you have leaves to rake and months of snow shoveling, right? After 12 bags I had Penny come outside to enjoy the day with me.

We don't have stairs for her to climb inside, but she figured it out pretty quickly. Doesn't she look adorable in her new pink jacket from Grandma Chuck? Awww...big smile! In 2 weeks I bet you can see the top tooth that is starting to poke through.

Then Mommy decided to take a "fun" fall picture like Cousin Molly. I sat Penny in the leaf pile and she quickly sank and fell backwards. She didn't find it fun at all.

Ah well...I still have the back yard to rake. Maybe I'll try the leaf picture one more time this year :)

Rip Van Winkle...or Princess and the Pea

Chris says I relate everything to books. My question is what's so wrong with that?
I've decided we've got two children's characters living in our baby. We put Penelope to sleep at 7 pm right when she starts rubbing her eyes. She gives us a big smile, hugs Dolly and snuggles into her blanket. 5 minutes later she is fast asleep, as in the deepest sleep you can ever imagine. For example, this weekend she slept through the TV blaring, trick or treaters knocking on the door, Cece barking her head off, the fire alarm (toaster in use? fire alarm goes off. So annoying!) the blow dryer, a police car siren. Nothing wakes her up!

But something happens in the middle of the night...

If you ever stay with us, no motion is allowed after 4 am. You gotta pee? sorry, you're going to have to hold it. No way can you make it to the bathroom without stepping on creaky floorboards. We groan when Cece decides to go get a drink of water. Just her nails clicking along the wood floor will cause a slow but steady growing cry from the next room. Even if we never make a sound Penelope will wake up promptly at 5:45

Or 4:45 this morning due to daylight savings time. I gave her some milk, and she went back to sleep. She woke up at 6:30 full of smiles and giggles so hopefully her body adjusts soon. Those Arizona lawmakers must have been thinking of mommies with small children when they decided not to follow daylight savings time.