Happily Ever After (and our adventures along the way): January 2013

My Pantry Makeover

So, 2013 is upon us, and I am in the midst of what I like to call 'the year of the closets.' LOL. No seriously though, I am on a mission this year to de-clutter, minimize, and ORGANIZE! Thanks to Pinterest, I have no shortage of ideas. In fact, I wasn't even sure where to start. My sweet husband came out of the blue a few weeks ago and told me he would redesign my pantry for me. As our family grows, and our boys are eating more than peas and carrots, I have had to cram more than ever into our pantry. I do 99% of our grocery shopping at Costco, which is great and economical, but also calls for some creativity storing 4 ketchup bottles, 24 paper towel rolls, 20 cans of tomato paste, 6 packages of spaghetti noodles, you get the picture. After 5 years in our house, those cheap wire shelves that were built into the pantry just weren't cutting it, especially for cans and snacks, and we were just throwing stuff in and inevitably wasting food because we couldn't find some of it before it went bad! So, my first project of the year was tackling this pantry. Those of you who know Miles know how awesome he is, and he can pretty much build or make anything I ask him. He sat down with me last weekend, we went over what I usually stock the pantry with, measured the height of everything, and drew up a plan for what we wanted. Two sheets of MDF, some paint and a lot of saw dust later, the project is done. He and Miles completed the entire thing last Sunday morning. I mean, literally it went from a sheet of wood to what you see in the picture below in about 5 hours. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

Before....

During......(we took the shelves down, repainted in the closet, painted the shelves, and then installed the new ones).

After....

The bottom left corner is designed for a full box of paper towels. As you can see, I need to make a Costco run.

Now, if you need me, I will likely be standing in front of the pantry with a big smile on my face. I may or may not be singing the 'Hallelujah Chorus.' :)

The Elmers Visit!

The Friday after Christmas, Amber, Charlie and James came to visit for the weekend. We had such a fun time together, I just wish there had been more of it! The boys loved having another person around to play with, and we loved spending time together. James is such a sweetie!

Friday afternoon James, Max and Miles went for a Gator ride. I guess I don't have any pics of the actual ride but here are Miles and James in their matching coats.

I think James was a bit overwhelmed

Saturday:
Saturday Miles cooked us an amazing breakfast (like he usually does on the weekends), and we got ready for Amber's baby shower.

My boys are in a 'dry-erase mustache' mode. I think it is absolutely adorable! Daddy draws MUCH better mustaches than Mommy does!

Kate's Shower:

My sister-in-law is due March 1st with her daughter, (our neice!) Kate, and I was so excited they could make it into town so I could throw her a baby shower. It was so much fun...now all we need is Kate to get here!!!

"Ready to Pop" favors that I made. White and Dark Chocolate covered chocolate popcorn. Yum!

We had a yummy lunch with chicken salad crisonts, fruit, salad and dessert.

I really wanted some non-traditional baby shower games. One of them we played was called 'How Sweet It is." The guests had a list of pregnancy or baby related words and had to name candy that would go with it. (i.e. Twins=Twix, Triplets=Three Muskateers, Contractions=Whoppers, College Costs=100 Grand, Mom's Belly After Pregnancy=Jelly Belly). It was hard but I thought it was fun.

Present time!

Doesn't she look great!

Sooo much cute stuff!

Amber with two of her grandmas!

Look at those shoes!!!!!

Love this sister!!!

Grandmas!

Geez, Amber and I

Sunday:
Sunday the Elmers had to go home, but not before we had Christmas together. Miles and Janet came down for breakfast and presents. Miles made us Eggs Benedict, Bacon, hashbrowns, and fruit crepes. Oh man it was so delicious!

And present time!

Here is our cute nephew opening his presents from Gma and Papa!

Love the expression on his face! Lol!

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And with that, our holiday season officially came to a close! Thanks Amber, Charlie and James for coming out!! Hard to believe next time we are all together we will be outnumbered in kids vs adults!!!

Christmas Day, 2012

Behind in blogging as usual! Oh well, I've got a lot to catch up on so here it goes.

Santa was too good to us as usual. Before he left on Christmas Eve he left us the following picture.

We had some super excited boys seeing their 'Gator' waiting for them on Christmas morning. And let me tell you, that thing can FLY! Most afternoons (when the weather is warm enough), Mason and I can usually be found jogging behind the Gator trying to keep up!! It is such a fun toy, and boy do they love it. Now, onto some pictures:

Stocking fun

Pretty excited about his two gallon coffee cup :0)

Love how this cutie kept on his headlamp

Handsome Daddy!

We had a fantastic morning. This is one of my favorite pics. :0)

Here are the kids taking all of the Christmas trash to the can. LOVE this picture!

After our family Christmas, we got dressed and packed up and headed up to Papa Geez's house for some more fun (and some SNOW!!)

Santa left the boys a tractor at Gma and Papa's house!! They are some very lucky kiddos!

Here is my sweet mother-in-law

The boys loved their Mouska Talkies

Daddy and Mace

This humidor is a gift my husband spent MONTHS making for his dad. It is truly an amazing work of art and a treasure for Papa!

The boys were all smiles after Gma and Papa's house!

Then, it was on to Gma Jill's for some presents, family and food! I only have two pictures from her house. We were too busy enjoying to bust out the camera....

The boys with their great-grandma Jill.

And the boys with their Mimi :)

And finally, onto Christmas #4... we got to spend the afternoon at Great-Gma Jean's house. There were 31 people, lots of kids, fun, presents, and FOOD! Oh yea, and a little football before we froze our toes off!! Again, not many pictures, but here I got a few good ones.

Mason finally found a place for a nap. :)

Sweet boy enjoying an Oreo ball :)

And this sweet boy had one too!

And of course, some fun tackle time with the cousins!!!

On Dec 26th, we cleaned up and tried to organize all the craziness from the previous day, rode the Gator, and after naps headed over to Mimi's for Christmas and dinner with her!