Crown Center

Last week we got to see the dinosaur exhibit at Crown Center after going to Kaleidoscope. The kids love making projects and Bella is always asking me at home if she can make crafts and wanting to help me with mine. So fun! We ran around and climbed over the dinos, dug, traced fossils, learned how to trace dinos, and more. Of course Fritz's made the outing complete and the kids finally ate all their lunches so they got to pick out a piece of candy from the newly renovated Candy Store.

Pantry Makeover

This week I got a wave of "nesting energy" and Pinterest became my best friend. I can't take credit for any ideas I used to redo our pantry, but I loved gathering ideas here and there and making them work for me. Here are the embarassing befores.....

And the afters!!!

The kids LOVE the new look and especially the easy access to their snacks on the bottom shelf in the fun containers. I got everything up off the floors which had been a safety hazard, hung our aprons and lunch boxes up. I put the electronics up on the top shelf that I don't use every day, cleaned out 3 Wal-Mart bags full of expired spices, and placed things in a way that they made sense. I emptied all the boxed foods and put the food in glass or plastic containers which declutters everything. I took out the plastic cereal bags and rolled them down and used clips to seal them, throwing the big bulky boxes away. We have one basket of all the cereal, chips, and breads. I can see exactly how much I have of everything it's great! My favorite shelf is the one with the new large glass jars and the crate of baking supplies. I got the glass jars from Wal-Mart and used sticky chalkboard paper and chalkboard pens to label them. It's a great way to label so I can erase and change them anytime I want if I want to use them for something else. Also, I bought the one large wooden crate and three smaller ones at Michael's, spray painted them black, and also put a chalkboard label on them to categorize one for oatmeal, other snacks, and dink mixes. The crate of baking supplies hold the vegetable oil, sprinkles, chocolate chips, oatmeal, vanilla, etc. I'm such a nerd, but I actually had fun doing this! I can't wait to tackle the next project. The pantry to a fun a calm place to enter now, unlike before we were tripping all over ourselves and things were just stuffed on any shelf!

KC zoo with crew!

We had almost the whole crew at the zoo today! The kids and I met up with Aunt Val, Sophie, Porter, Aunt Kate, Gigi, Papa, Jacky, and Mary! It was so much fun to see everyone enjoy the cooler July day. We watched some of the Sea Lion show and left a few minutes early so we could get good seats and the new bird show! Benjamin was laughing so hard with excitement as the birds flew right over his head! Aunt Val even got to go on stage and the huge owl flew right at her for a great picture! After the bird show we enjoyed a free snack of popcorn thanks to Aunt Kate for the zoo bucks, and Aunt Val who ordered them all for us! Benjamin is going through a "no shirt phase" whenever he can get away with it. Apparently his shirt got a little wet or something so he needed to take it off for the train ride?? haha, but he sure loved running in those mister fans! Bella is all about asking questions and wanting to volunteer for EVERYTHING these days! I'm pretty sure she didn't get that from me! She had her hand raised almost the entire bird show to go up on stage, poor thing! Then we got lucky at the elephant keeper chat! The zoo keeper came right up to Bella and she got to ask as many questions as she wanted! I think they talked for a good 10 minutes! Some of her questions included 1) what do elephants do? 2)what are their names? 3) Do they have hair? 4) Do they do any tricks? 5) Can elephants run? 6) What do their tails do? 7) Do they have teeth? I wish I could remember them all, I think those were pretty accurate to what I could hear. She's just so cute, I love the curiosity and love of learning! Mind like a steel trap I tell ya!

7th Anniversary

We celebrated a few days early this year since Brandon was going to be in Memphis on our actual anniversary. My parents kept the kids over night and we got to have an amazing dinner at Fogo de Chao on the Plaza. This was our first time to eat here and we loved it! The fancy salad bar, the rolls, the endless garlic mashed potatoes! All amazing! Brandon got his fill on meat and so did I! Bowen is going to come out very strong with all this protein! We got a free dessert of our choice so we picked the Papaya Cream. It was delish! Blended papaya, which is supposed to help with the digestion of beef, our waiter told us, with ice cream. It was the smoothest ice cream I've ever had. As Brandon said, "this is like puddin!" haha We got to sleep without our two little alarm clocks and accidentally slept until 8:20 and had to change our church plans last minute! It felt amazing! Brandon woke me up by saying we've got to get up, we have to go! I said, "where are we going?" still half alseep "what time is it?" "wow the kids are sleeping so great!" haha We have a lot to celebrate this year but topping the list is our 3rd baby! Bowen will be arriving in about 7 weeks. Benjamin and Bella talk about him nonstop and even play "baby Bowen" where they take turns pretending to be him and the other takes care of him! Too cute! We're also celebrating making it through a business sale, a home sale, a home purchase, a move, a temp. move to Memphis, half of Brandon's training being over, and most of my pregnancy being over! I'll need to hibernate after this year! I love you Brandon and I'm so thankful to have you as my partner in this exciting, crazy, challenging, and fun journey that God continues to lead us on!

4th of July back in KC!!!

We celebrated the 4th of July this year with lots of family and fun at my parent's house. We just arrived back in KC from Memphis late the night before so we were a little out of sorts, but I can't think of a better way to spend our first day back! I couldn't wait to meet my new sisters Jackie and Mary from Peru, see my family, my grandparents and my Aunt Carol, and eat some amazing home cooking!!! We went over in the morning to swim because it was going to be too hot to swim later in the day. Bella and Benjamin couldn't wait to show off their new swimming skills that they've picked up! They showed no fear jumping off the waterfall into the deep end of my parents pool. They were getting dive sticks and swimming like fish! When we were done, Bella says, "swimming is so much fun!" They couldn't enjoy it any more. Then, we had a delicious lunch of deli sandwiches, fresh from Val's garden veggies and hummus, watermelon, chips, and chocolate cake! A big domino game of mexican train got started up along with visiting and napping. For dinner, we had my dad's famous BBQ chicken, baked beans, deviled eggs, veggies & dip, my mom's amazing potato casserole (her yummy potatoes), and how can I forget the fruit cups? There were groans all around about how amazing this all American meal was! I wish I could have fit more in my belly! We had a little surprise birthday song, candles, and presents for Kevin since his birthday is next week. The kids love birthdays and helping blow the candles out! We had some amazing dessert including my Aunt Carol's peach pies, and soon to be Auntie Kate's blackberry cobbler, along with my dad's amazing homemade ice cream! The kids "helped" make the ice cream again this year and it's always a huge hit! Kevin was the organizer of the fireworks show and kept them moving along for us! The kids loved the snaps, the snakes, and the sparkles the best! A new addition thanks to Kate were the awesome glow in the dark necklaces! Rock on! It was so fun to look around in the dark and all you could see were the glowing necklaces we were all wearing. I think one of the highlights was during dinner when my brother got a phone call from the fireworks stand. As he's on the phone he tells us, "I just won the huge $600 fireworks package in the drawing! You would have thought we all won a million dollars, it was hilarious how excited we all were and the amount of screaming there was. Brandon and Kevin dashed out the front door in the middle of dinner to drive the big truck up there to retrieve our prize! A few minutes later they come back in the door not looking too excited. I guess there was a little confusion and he didn't win the huge $600 package, but rather the daily drawing which is a much much smaller package. But still, it's fun to win stuff and we had a great show! LOL