The Kitchen Cabinets - finally done!

Ok. I lied. They aren't 100 percent done. I forgot we still need to add the crown moulding... but since who knows when that might *ever* happen, I thought I would at least share our cabinets and what we did. I am pretty proud of them!

You may remember the cabinets from before... pretty much standard, stock tract home cabinetry.

They were just there. BLAH. Nothing special at all. Of course someday we want to design the kitchen of our dreams... complete with new fancy countertops and appliances and an entirely new cabinet system. And that someday is quite a ways away since we no longer have any equity in our home. Until then, though, I decided our cabinets could use a little sprucing up.
I told Rick I wanted to paint the bottom ones chocolate brown...
And the top ones white. 
At first he was skeptical, but after persistent daily nagging over the course of several months, I finally got my way! And I loved them... especially with the cool pulls we picked up at IKEA last year. But when I looked at those top cabinets, I wasn't jazzed about them. They were nice, but plain. And I wanted something more interesting on them. 

That's when I got the idea of adding plexiglass panels in the recessed centers of each top cabinet!  At first I was looking for colored plexi, which would look cool with the white cabinet panels behind them... but colored plexi was going to be way to expensive. I was talking to my friend Jenene who gave me a GREAT idea... PAINT the plexi! OF COURSE! Paint the backs of the panels and then I can get exactly the color I want!
I painted the backs of all the panels (Honest! Rick just posed for this picture to pretend like he was helping!), and we let them dry for several days. 
Afterward, we sprayed them with spray adhesive on the backs and attached them right to the cabinet doors.
At first we were attaching them before peeling off the blue backing...
But that just made it harder, so after that we did it by removing the blue backing first. It went much easier. Then we used clear caulking to seal around the edges (and in hindsight we wouldn't do this... it wasn't necessary (although we would probably have chosen a stronger adhesive than the spray stuff), and it just made for a much more difficult, tedious cleanup of each individual panel).
SO, Ladies and Gentlemen... I present to you OUR NEW KITCHEN!
WOOHOO! I love how the top cabinets have a pretty shine to them.
They have the look and feel of glass panels, without having to worry about what's inside!
And the color is just what I wanted... a pretty seaglass blue. Perfect!
Now, someday you will see the crown moulding on the top of the cabinets. Don't hold your breath!

Trainers for a Day - BEST DAY EVER.

I love that my parents are always thinking of super cool things for Violet to do... like working with the baby horse. A few months ago at a benefit fundraiser, Papa saw an auction item for a DOLPHIN ENCOUNTER and he knew it would be the COOLEST THING EVER for Violet to experience - so he bid on it and won! The plan was to give it to Violet for her birthday, only my parents realized it was going to expire before then. So in early April, they presented it to Violet as an early birthday present, and needless to say SHE WAS ECSTATIC. And frankly, so was I. Of all the things I have experienced in my lifetime, swimming with the dolphins at the Mirage was definitely in my top five. 

We called and got her scheduled for April 26th (exactly two months shy of her birthday), and we all headed down to the Dolphin Habitat. We were met at the entrance by Jimmy, one of the lead dolphin trainers, who took us back to the locker rooms to let us know how the experience would go. On the way back, he really took a liking to Riley, whose hair reminded him of his own son's. 

As I was filling out the paperwork, Jimmy took me aside and asked if I would mind if Riley took part in the experience too! He didn't want him to feel left out, and they had wetsuits that would fit him just fine. I couldn't say yes fast enough! And I couldn't believe that this day, which was already completely AWESOME, was going to be even BETTER!

Seriously. My boy in a wetsuit is pretty much more than I can possibly handle.
Here he is posing with Lightning :)
And here's Violet, RIDING on Lightning's dorsal fin!

Riley got to go for a ride, too! He rode on Maverick.
Another kind of ride here, holding onto Lightning's pectoral fins...
And Riley, getting ready to do the same thing...
Violet, slappin some skin with a dolphin...
Seriously. BEST DAY EVER. Hundreds more photos and even video... these kids will never ever forget this day. I am so happy they got to do this!! ♥

First School Bus Ride! The Springs Preserve!

So Riley got to take his very first ride on a school bus a couple weeks ago when his class went to the Springs Preserve on a field trip. Rick and I came with him as chaperones. I love that Rick likes being invoived in the kids' educational experiences. He's such a cool dad. ;)

I love how tiny kindergarteners are on the bus! Their little heads barely peeked over the seats! Riley of course sat with his best bud Garrett and they played "I Spy the Letter" to make the ride more interesting. Not that riding in a giant yellow torpedo with no seatbelts wasn't already interesting enough! HAHA!
The day was gorgeous and the kids were extremely well behaved, considering there were like a MILLION other schools there at the same time.
At one point the kids broke off into groups of 4 and had to learn about different animals that are native to our area. Our group chose BATS and here they are sharing what they learned...
Afterward there was a little free time so we went outside. There was this jumping activity wherethe kids could see how their jumps compared to other desert animals. Rick can jump as far as a fox, in case anyone was wondering. LOL
All the kids thought it was sooo cool that Rick jumped. Everyone was trying to beat him. Goodtimes :)

The Boy... and Baseball.

Baseball is one of my least favorite sports, so it stands to reason that of course my boy will be an amazing baseball player and I will be forced to endure hours upon hours of my lifetime watching him play.

Cause, he is. He's a natural. This kid can throw. And catch. And HIT. He can seriously HIT. He's in Little League, in what's called "Bubba Ball" - they play with rubber balls and a plastic bat. This way the ball doesn't go too far or too fast for the little guys... unless it's Riley hitting. His hits SAIL into the outfield! It's fantastic. 
He has a great team with his best friend, Garrett. The two of them have the best time playing the game while Garrett's dad coaches. The kids all rotate through the different field positions so they can learn about them all... 
Riley's favorites are first and third bases cause he gets so many people out. haha. In this one, he was catcher and tagged his opponent right before he made it home :)
Seriously. I CANNOT STAND IT. The game is growing on me. Probably cause I get to watch this kid play. I cannot believe he is mine. Remember when he was a fat bald baby?
Sigh. My boy.

The other Spring play

I mentioned before how Violet has been really involved in theater this year. This was her second spring play, which featured all of Third Grade. She was a garden flower and was one of only a handful with speaking parts. 

She was so cute and articulate and even amongst the whole crowd, Violet stood out as a star :)
This is her music teacher, Mr. Bowser. Melinda, this is going to be *you* next year. Only probably without the tie. And hopefully you will have longer hair. Oh and hopefully you won't have a pawprint growing out of your head. haha
I just love my happy girl :)
One more play, at the end of the month. She will be a sailor. Wheee! :)

Easter Sunday

We went to the Sunrise service this Easter Sunday... and Liane joined us for a lovely morning.  She helped me with the photography this year (she is becoming a FANTASTIC assistant!)... and got this great family pic of all of us...

She also caught this one of Riley running, and even though it's blurry, IT.IS.AWESOME.
Later on in the afternoon, we all met at Tish's house for our family party... I was in charge of the Easter Egg Hunt, and I wanted it to be a little different this year... so I decided that instead of millions of eggs full of candy and whatever, we would hide clues in the eggs. The kids would have to put together the clues to figure out where their prize (a basket of goodies like bubbles, a water bottle, squishy pen, and notepad) was hidden.
First we had to be sure they were excited... YEP.
And they were off!!! The best part of them having to find the clues was that they got to WORK TOGETHER on the whole thing. One basket, no fighting...all teamwork. 
The hardest eggs to find were the ones in plain sight! We hid all the green eggs in the grass (which was pretty tall & due for a mowing), and even the ADULTS had a hard time finding them for the kids. AWESOME.
When they found them all, it was time to crack them open and look for clues. There were 29 clues, and at first they had only found 26 of them... so they had to go back out in the yard and find the rest of the eggs!
Finally they had them all. First they had to place the cards in number order, then they flipped over the numbers to reveal the letters of the clue...
I helped them out a bit by also segmenting the cards into colored words... and they figured it out in the end, and they all went looking in David's closet for their prize!!
Loved changing things up for them and making it fun and different. 

Camping in Zion, part two...

Our last day in Zion was literally GORGEOUS. A picture perfect spring day with birds chirping, the sun shining, and deer. Deer sitting under the shade of a tree.

Today we hiked the River Walk toward the Narrows. Had we been without kids we would have definitely done the Narrows, but since we had the kids we just hiked the path to the end... and since the path was paved, the kids took their scooters. SO FUN!

At the end, we stopped by the river and Violet made herself a little boat to sail on down the water...

And she launched it...
But, alas, it did not fare well.
Riley made his own boat too, but kept it simple with a piece of log.
And WOOHOOO!!! It sailed off into the sunset!
I love that my family loves trips like this. No computer, no TV. Just together time. :)
And Liane and Carl. So glad they got to share in the together time with us!