Monday, April 18, 2011

Some Random


Howdy Ya'll!

How is everyone?  Good I'm sure. 

The weather sucks right now.  My allergies are crazy.  I hate them.  Which by the way, I hate the Spring time.  I really do.  I hate the allergies that come with it, and the festive colors.  I really don't like Easter colors.  Pastels...yuck.  It would be fine if they stuck with like light pink and light green for example, but they throw in all colors in pastel.  It makes me want to throw up.  It's like when someone asks me to design a cake with pink, purple, blue, peach, yellow, and green.  Really?  Pick one.  Or two.  Please don't make it look like a Crayola box spit up all over your cake.

Oh and one more thing about the spring.  Only in California would I get a nice sunburn one day and then have to wear a sweatshirt and jeans the next.  Just sayin'.

I'm thinking you are probably wondering what I was doing on Sunday to get a sunburn right?  I was in Hawaii.  On the beach, with a Corona.

I went by myself, left Friday night and came home Sunday night.  I needed a break from everything so I just hopped on a plane.  I don't know why you wouldn't believe me, I mean, here is a picture I took of the sunset Saturday evening.



And I saw a wedding while I was there.


See, I told you.  And if you are thinking to yourself that you might have seen these pictures on my Mom's blog last year from when she and my Dad went to Hawaii, you are wrong.  WRONG I tell you.

Okay maybe you are not wrong, but it would have been really cool if you were and I really went to Hawaii.

Instead, Tim and I took on a huge project in the backyard.  It's definitely because I had a dream on Friday night and Saturday morning I wanted to make my dream a reality.

I've been wanting to stain our fence in the backyard for forever, it is in terrible, terrible shape.  I don't know why people don't take care of a good thing before it goes bad.  If only someone had stained this fence a few times before us.  It would look much better.

Tim cleared our hill (for hopefully the last time) of the weeds that have grown from the rain, and fixed the sprinklers back there. 


Once he sprays the hill with weed killer and completely clears it, we should be able to start planting.

Can you sense my excitement?  We decided to put redoing the bonus room on hold until the backyard is done. 

We started with a pretty dark stain.  It was actually really, really red.  We tried it out and it basically looked like paint so we went with Thompson's Natural Cedar.  If you can see it, we had tested the corner...


What really turned us off of this color is the house behind us had used what looked like the same stain and their fence just looked bad, really worn.  The Thompon's that we chose will protect against water.  I don't think the other kind does.

In progress...


And done.  Didn't take a picture of the entire yard but you get it.  I'm really wanting to plant a vine-y plant in places along the fence and I think it'll look pretty with the darker stain coming through.


If you can see the neighbor's fence, you can see what we were working with.  Not much.  What I don't like is how black our fence really was and the stain just made it darker.  Not what I imagined it would be, but I think it's definitely better than what it was.

Now...I found this a few months ago and I'm addicted.


Do you like sweet tea?  I do.  I fell in love with it in Kentucky.  Well, this here is diet.  When I started my diet, I think I just reached for all things diet, fat free, sugar free, etc.  I remember picking this up thinking it was plain tea and having a confusing moment in my head thinking that all regular tea was 0 calories, but then one of my beastly children Madi tried to steal the other beastly child's Riley's cookie and I became distracted throwing the bottle in my wagon shouting, "stop fighting or I'll beat you right here and now,take both of your cookies away!.  Oh and yes, I call it a wagon, and you can find the tea next to the OJ.

This little lovely guy is a wrap.  With tuna.  My Mom made this up.  Instead of using mayo for your tuna salad, she smashes up an avocado and uses that instead.  SO good! 


I guess that is it for now.

But I'll leave you with a question.

What do you do when it comes time to bathe your children and your housekeeper/you have cleaned your entire house and it smells like lemon?  And you can't imagine them splashing around in the tub leaving water droplets all over?

If it's not summer and you can't hose them down outside, you plop them in the kitchen sink!


And  yes, I did say them.



And you wondered why I went with the one compartment sink when we installed granite didn't you?

Friday, April 8, 2011

Ballet

I apologize if you came to my blog earlier from the update...testing.

That's what I was doing.  Trying to figure out how to round my corners in photoshop instead of picnik because I wanted my blog background to show through and not a white corner.  It took me a few tries but I'm proud to say that...I got it!!!

See!!

Awe.  It feels good to get something. 
On to the ballet!

I signed Riley up for ballet through her preschool.  I remember getting this flyer from preschool last year thinking it would be so fun to sign Riley up for it but didn't know if it would be a good class, etc.  After researching dance studios in town, I quickly gave up on putting Riley into a different class and missed my opportunity with the preschool.

So when the flyer came around this year, I quickly signed her up and handed over my money hoping that she would love it.

And she does.  This ballet/dance class fits Riley to a T.  She's in love.  The first practice was a little shaky.  Riley is definitely timid when it comes to trying something new.  But when her instructor busted out the fairy wands in every pastel color imaginable to practice a drill, Riley was hooked!

I finally took the time to go in and take a few pictures of their practice to share with you all.  It's adorable.  I'm hoping to sign Riley up for soccer soon too.  I definitely want her to play sports, but the dancing is just too dang cute to pass up.  Her recital is in June.  And I can't wait.

Riley follows instructions very well (from everyone in the world besides her Mother).  As you can see here!


Did you get a good look at her new hair cut?  Her curls are still there.  Thank the Lord! 


Okay, so a lot of the girls follow instructions well, as I soon found out.


And can I just tell you?  You walk in with a camera and all the hams come out.  Out of every little girl.  I was very popular with them, and most of the time they blocked my view from the star dancer that I was trying to photograph.

In case you don't believe me, this is not Riley's foot.  But she is that black blur in the background.


At one point, the girls all had the opportunity to show off a few of the moves that they've learned in front of the entire class.  Riley did a twirl...


And then very poorly attempted the splits.


She gets her flexibility skills from her Mother.  I can't even touch my toes.  Honestly.

It was fun to sit and watch the whole hour of class.  It's the cutest thing to see all these kids in their tutus dancing around.  I know Riley's Daddy is probably going to cry at her recital...which isn't till June.  Not to mention Pop Pop.


You know, when I was Riley's age, all I wanted to be was a ballerina.  And to get boobs.  Let's just say neither of them happened.  If the ballerina thing had happened, I would have been the tallest ballerina in the world.  If the boob thing had happened, well, Tim would be a very grateful man, ha!

And last but not least, a picture of Riley and her instructor.  Isn't she so cute?  The instructor that is.  We already know how cute Riley is!


I hope you enjoyed ballet day!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

I Wish

That I could get my act together with this blogging thing.  I'm going through a funk right now.  I think it's because I'm just plain tired.  Exhausted really.

I don't even know why I'm tired, and it's starting to really bother me.

But, enough of that, I thought I'd do a little update post to try and get back into this thing.  We've been spending a lot of family time together.  Last weekend my Uncle was in town with his family and I finally got to see my cousin play volleyball for the first time.



She's pretty dang good.  I was so proud of her, I am so proud of her.  I think that her coaches are pretty lousy but unfortunately, that seems to be the thing these days.  She has such a talented team that could be ten times better than they are now.  But what do I know?

It was nice to see them and I'm hoping that Tim and I can plan a trip down to Arizona to see them soon.

We also spent quite a bit of time at my Mom and Dad's house last weekend.  My Mom is planting a vegetable garden and who better to help her with that then a 2 and 4 year old?



She thinks she is a master gardener,



But I have news for her, she can't really be a master gardener in her gardening outfit of choice.



Seriously Mom, flippy floppies are for the pool, or a boat.  Not the dirt.  It's a good thing the girls were there to make sure Pop Pop handled everything the right way.  I'd post all the pictures but it's kind of my Mom's thing and I'd like to see her post about it...hint...hint...Mom!

I took the girls to the park on Tuesday with some friends.  The weather was gorgeous, and now it's raining!  Crazy California weather.  I like it though, but am definitely ready for some nice weather so that I can tan this white body of mine.

Back to the park, I met my peeps at a new park that I love.  That I will go to all the time now.  It's perfect for those of us who have more than just one child to chase after.  It's actually set up so that you don't have to chase them.  I like that.  I was able to keep one eye on the kids and have an adult conversation without worrying that some stranger was going to take off with my kids.





I've been playing around a little with photoshop.  I know absolutely nothing and search for tutorials online for tips.  I think I'd like to take a class but here is my first real try at editing.  I like it.  I have seen some professional photographers that do this crazy editing on eyes that I wanted to try.  That is what I really was working on in this picture, can you tell the difference?


I hope so.  It took me forever to do it.

That's about it for now.  I'm hoping to do a few posts of what I've been doing around the house.  Mostly shopping and decorating.  I found new bedding for my bedroom and I love the way it's turning out.  Maybe I'll do a house tour of my home.  I think it would be fun.

Here is a new find for my kitchen, this new rug.  I love it.  Like love it love it.

I'm really hoping to show you the front of our house too.  It looks so much better than it did just a few months ago.  I adore pulling up to my house now.  I even drive slow!

I hate when I get behind on blogging because then I feel so backed up and far behind that it's overwhelming and I feel like every post I do, I have to pack everything that's been going on into one. 

Hoping it gets better!


I know my Mother in Law would appreciate it!  Miss you Joy!  Can't wait for the reunion in June!
 

Me

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I'm Kristi, the wife of one very lucky and handsome husband, and mother to two beautiful little girls. I'm honest and sarcastic, funny and easy going. I love to eat and love to hate that I love butter. And wine. And did I mention butter? I'm always learning new things, happy to lend a hand, and love my life. This is a blog of my family and the day to day crazy that we call Rush Hour. I hope while you are here that you enjoy yourself and come back often!

The Rush Family

The Rush Family

My Buddies and Me :)