icing the cupcakes....

This past Friday, Parker's Grandad and Mimi (Geoff's dad and Marilyn) came to visit us to celebrate Parker's second birthday. Geoff cooked a delicious meal of white chicken chili and did a great job getting the house picked up and cleaned. It was the best surprise after a day at school.

He had not planned dessert....which made me happy because I was craving cupcakes. He suggested picking some up that were already made...but I had other plans.

So I picked up a box of chocolate cake mix and a tub of icing on my way home...and the rest is history.

I baked the cupcakes with the intentions of Parker 'helping' me ice them.

This is how the story goes....

I could not even get the icing open before she picked up her cupcake and began eating it.


She saw me icing the cupcakes. I gave her her own knife (brave, I know)....and let her dig in.




{I really was watching her closely with that butter knife and everything}



And, of course....the mess she is bound to make...

And I couldn't resist these squished up toes. Is there something wrong with me? (on second thought...don't answer that)

Now....time for the sprinkles. I thought I'd be smarter with these little suckers than I was the last time....so I put this in this fairly deep cupcake container before the sprinkling commenced.



"Doh!!" Right into the cupcakes! But don't fret. I had put so much icing on the cupcakes (yummy!) that you couldn't even tell when we picked up the sprinkles bottle!

So while I was cleaning the mess off of this sprinkles container...

Parker was busy cleaning her hands........ on her shirt.

I mean....who taught her how to do this???


So on with the sprinkling....





And "tah-dah!" They're complete. By this point she had dropped the container again...so I just let her start on the dishes while I finished the sprinkling.

The end.

23 weeks!

23 weeks pregnant today. feeling great. lots of movement. loving it. :)

weighs about as much as a large mango.

I think I'm in the wrong business.

I'm not even going to attempt to add up the amount of money that I have spent on textbooks over the past 2 years as a nursing student.

Nope.

I'm not going to fathom the idea that the amount of money I spent on these books could possibly pay for a whole semester of classes. A down payment on a car. A vacation. A....well....a lot of things!!

I especially love the books that I am required to purchase....yet a year and a half later...it is still in the shrink wrap. That's my favorite.

But I'm not going to saying anything else.

No. I'm simply going to say that maybe I'm heading into the wrong business, after all.

kitchen table transformation

We got this table back in July at an unfinished furniture store for a great price. It's a sturdy, real wood table....with a slight imperfection.


The wood had already been finished while at the store...and then damaged.


So...we decided to take advantage of this imperfection (and great price)...to see what we could come up with.

So Geoff bought some wood (and since I am so technical...I have no idea what kind or anything like that). And he cut out the part of the table that was 'bad.'

Cut a rectangular piece of the new wood...

And glued it to the table.

"Tah-dah!"

He then sanded the square piece down to where it looked more uniform with the table.

{picture not shown}

I had decided long before we moved in that I wanted a black table. No rhyme or reason...just what I had decided that I wanted.

So he ended up using this black finish type thing that he had never used before. It's pretty shiny. Hoping we can maybe dull it down later...but I'll be happy either way.

This shows a close-up of the corner that he fixed. You can still kind of see it...and Geoff warned me over and over before we bought it that we would still see it no matter what...and I told him over and over again that I was fine with it. And I still am.

For some reason...I had it in my mind that I wanted this imperfect table. I did not want it to be uniform. I wanted to be able to use it. I wanted it to have character. (Yes- I am still talking about the table, here.)

When we saw the table at the store, there were only 2 chairs sitting at it. But...there was another damaged table sitting next to ours that had 4 chairs...so we simply took 2 from that table to make our 4.

They were finished with different stains...and if you look closely...they are even slightly different chairs. Which only makes me like the table even more.



Let me show you my favorite parts of this table...

Geoff burned some of the edges to get this look...


Here...I think he was just didn't get enough stain in this spot....and I love how it looks. (And just to clarify...he would 'fix' this...but I do not want him to.)

THE corner...

So this is it. Our kitchen table.