easter basket fun

after i realized i ordered the girls'

valentine gifts last minute and barely got everything on time, 

i thought i would get 

ahead of the game for easter.

i don't want the bunny disappointing anyone.

i snooped around on a few blogs and got a 

couple good ideas and then i ordered a couple things

i know they would like and crazy enough,

i'm done.

wahoo.

everything should be delivered this week and

i just have to hide it for a month.

i really love the power of amazon prime. 

here's the down low on their baskets:

books:

the night before easter

the story of the easter bunny

toys:

wooden tetris

dress up bath stickers

and those bathtub stickers made me think to get them some more 

crayons and markers for the tub too.

i'll be one in each baskets and they can fight about

who gets to use them later.

colors:

bathtub markers

bathtub crayons

and then finally i went over to old navy

and ordered both of them new jellies for

summer with a shirt to match.

nothing fancy, but

brette lives in jellies in the summer.

and that's it.

i'll pick up something chocolate later,

but i think they'll be excited.

now go get started.

your kids will thank you.

2017: week ten

another week down.

well almost.

i work tomorrow and saturday morning, 

but my parent's are having a fun little

sleepover with all four girls saturday night, so

ronnie and i are going out to lunch and then

out for the st. patrick's day festivities in lees summit.

it's one of my favorite weekends of the year. 

unfortunately, the weather is calling for 1-2 inches of SNOW,

which really puts a damper on any sort of outdoor drinking dreams i had.

we've even debated taking advantage of some free time to

finish up our current house project instead of going out. 

(the mud bench and walls)

the bench is actually built, but still needs to be 

caulked, primed and painted.

the walls haven't been touched.  wah wah.

i also just ordered a little table for in between

our two chairs in the front room.

i went back and forth between ordering something wood or not

and i finally decided to get something copper.

we have copper accents all around our downstairs but

we don't have anything substantial.

i saw this on sale, i jumped at the chance and

it should be here by next week.

i'm excited.

it's small, but i needed small and

i think it will look perfect with a little plant on top.

i was going to wait to show you the mud bench when it was all done,

but things are looking better and any change is good.

remember this?

now this:

if nothing else, at least this project made me

clean out all that junk that was waiting for me every

time i walked through the door.

i just can't wait to get it painted and add hooks to i can actually

USE it for coats.  i'm thinking by the time it's done, spring

will be here and i won't need it very much.

oh well, it'll still make me happy to look at. 

speaking of spring, easter is around the corner and lent is here.

brette's school has an awesome fish fry every friday night that

we will hitting up at least a few times over the next several weeks.

friday night dinners are rough for us anyhow with me working until 6:00,

so we might as well support the school and get out of cooking.

(and by cooking, i mean ronnie making grilled cheeses.)

i gave up facebook for lent.

it's actually not been very hard.

i took it off my phone to relieve any urge i had and i've been

trying to use the "extra" time to get something done around here

or hang out with my kids.

unfortunately, my snapchat addiction is still strong.

(you can find me at brooketc)

brette was sick all last week, but

i THINK we FINALLY have everyone in 

this house back to normal and healthy.

this has been a rough winter for us and i'm

glad that the flowers are blooming and my girls

can finally start playing outside again.

i mean, i know its supposed to snow in 2 days, but

i bet it will be back to 70 degrees in no time.

here's a couple pictures of the girls recently, just because.

(reid's outfit: she peed through her jeans and these were the

only extra pants i had and then while she was throwing a fit

during a diaper change my aunt mickie put socks on her hands, which

she loved and refused to take off. 

yes, she looked like i picked her up from a garage sale.)

the craigslist killer

 

when we bought our new washer and dryer,

i told ronnie to hold on to our dryer and i would sell it online.

he wanted to let the guys that dropped off our new stuff

take our old stuff, but i only let them take our broken washer.

i figured i could get a little bit of money out of a perfectly

fine dryer, albeit old, dryer.

so a month later, ronnie started bitching about the dryer

that was STILL in the garage and in his way...

the one i never actually posted online.

whoops.

so i put it up last week on craigslist and asked for $75.

ronnie said take whatever for it as long

as they come and get it.

deal.

i had a person ask what year it was...

and then never texted me back.

i had another person ask if i would take $50

for it, which i said yes and they were set to pick

it up that night.

they never showed.

blah.

i reposted it this week and had someone respond the next evening.

they wanted to come get it right now.

ronnie wasn't home, but i knew he wanted it

gone as soon as possible, so i agreed they could

go ahead and come since i was there.

they lived about 45 minutes away.

an hour later, long after the sun had set,

they pulled in my driveway.

reid was in bed upstairs and i told brette to stay

put inside the house.

when i went outside there was an old, small suv.

a lady and her husband got out.

she spoke broken english and her husband didn't speak

english at all... only russian.

they are talking back and forth, but i couldn't understand anything

and she just keeps asking me if the dryer works.

umm, yes.

then they pop the back hatch of their car and i swear to god,

this is what is laying out:

2 hammers

a pair of black leather gloves and

a tool belt.

 

i'm already a little bit nervous about having people come

to my house at night when i'm home alone with the kids and

then this is what they have in their car??!

are you f-ing kidding me?

my thoughts are this - do not let them attack me with a hammer.

that's like, the worst way to die.

no thank you.

so i think i should get to it first and

take away their weapons.

i grabbed both hammer and the tool belt, and say

i'll move this stuff to make room.

i'm pretty sure the guy was thinking,

"this crazy bat is touching my tools!"

i know he wasn't happy about it because some

of the stuff dropped out of this belt, but whatever,

look who's in charge now.

they put the dryer in the suv and then i put his tools in

the back seat and he gives me EIGHTY dollars.

more than asking price.

it was confusing and a little scary and i'm

pretty sure i sidestepped being murdered,

but i did make $80 so....

 

 

ps- ronnie laughed when i called and told him.

he has no concern for my safety.  dick.

but really, that will be the last time i sell something when

i'm home alone.  i get a little jumpy.

 

pss- we had just got done watching the OJ documentary and

i'm pretty sure bloody gloves were still on my mind.

2017: week eight

sticking with the theme,

it is now brette's turn to get sick.

i guess that's what we're doing this winter:

taking turns being sick.

brette doesn't have what we had though,

she's running a fever and not eating a thing.

she's been drinking water, gatorade and sprite and

that about covers her meals over the last few days.

poor girl.

she's been sleeping a lot too, taking

a nap everyday.

that part is nice.

also sticking with the theme:

in between bouts of sickness, we've been

working on the house.

since ronnie finished the entry way, we 

decided the next and last thing to tackle would

be the back door and bathroom.

we were looking into a new counter-top and tile for the bathroom,

but once i really thought about it, 

i decided that i wanted to rip out the whole

vanity and just have a pedestal sink. 

normally, i'm against pedestal sinks because they

have no counter and no storage, 

but i don't think either are needed in this small half bath.

there are no bedrooms downstairs so i can't see anyone

needing those things on a regular basis.
i plan on putting in a corner shelf so
when we do have a guest use our pullout couch,
they have somewhere to sit their toiletries.
but really only my parents or cale ever spend the night and
my parents monday's with the girls is
coming to an end in a few short months and
lets be honest, cale doesn't pack toiletries.

 this will give us a lot more room to clear the door and
make the bathroom feel bigger.

i'm excited about it. 

i'm sure it will be a total mess before it gets any better,

which will drive me crazy,

but it should be nice in the end.

(pictures to come)

in other news, 

ronnie decided to start by building a mud bench. 

he had cale come up today and they got most

of it hammered out. 

we still have to finish the actual bench seat, 

but the beadboard, the shelf and the trim are up.

it looks SO MUCH BETTER than that stupid desk.

i mean really,

who is going to sit at a desk by the backdoor?

it makes no sense. 

i don't have pictures of all of this and

i'm too lazy to go downstairs right now,

but i promise next week's update will include pictures

of our house projects.

in the mean time, you

can look at the picture i keep showing ronnie and cale

for inspiration.

in other news...

we took the girls to a hockey game last weekend.

it was so much fun.

they did really good and ronnie and i took turns 

running out for bathroom breaks,

beer runs and concession stands buys.

we took two friends with us so we had extra hands, 

which made the whole thing a little more relaxing

than what it could have been.

its nice to get out a do fun stuff and i

finally feel like reid is getting to the age

where more things like this are possible. 

maybe our social life will start looking up???

have a great week!

i'm back to my old work schedule so 

i'm excited to have three days off again.
ps- here's a few pictures of reid from this week,
just because she's cute.
(brette doesn't believe in sitting still or smiling for a camera.)

weekly wrap up

i wrote all about valentine's day, but

i didn't actually have any pictures of the girls yet.

and i couldn't resist but share a few of them from

yesterday because the girls really did love the holiday.

what's not to love?

pink everything, cookies, new sunglasses and hearts everywhere.

both girls were a fan and they looked so cute in their new outfits.

in other news, my mother-n-law isn't coming 

to visit this weekend anymore.

(his grandma fell and she wants to stay to keep an eye on her)

ronnie and i really need to find time to go back there to visit.

we haven't been back since i was pregnant with reid.

it's just so hard to find a free weekend, especially with my work

schedule AND obviously, a seven hour road trip with two kids

is never at the top of my list of things i want to do.

but still, we need to.

now ronnie and i have a free weekend with no plans.

i can't decide to start a new project on the house or

try to find something fun to do.

maybe both?

my valentine

i actually don't have to work this tuesday,

so i get to spend the day with my little valentine's.

they're still sleeping, but i'm kind of used to getting

up around 6 and now i can't sleep.

of course.

i put their little presents out last night.

i bought everything off amazon prime last week.

a new outfit, sunglasses, a book and

brette's new obsession, the troll movie.

i'm sure i'll be watching that a few million times.

 (i ordered reid the red and brette the pink)

i planned on ordering papa john's heart-shaped pizza

tonight, but we had pizza over the weekend and its

not exactly diet friendly.

(i've been dieting for two weeks and i'm down 6lbs.)

instead, i'm going to whip up some pancake batter and 

use my heart cookie cutter to at least make them a little festive.

breakfast for dinner is always a hit and i can have

eggs and sausage and skip the pancakes.

speaking of heart-shaped cookie cutter, i was also thinking

of making some valentine's day sugar cookies.

we're having a playdate here tomorrow so it's always

good to have cookies in the house.

ronnie's sister's birthday is on thursday and she LOVED

those cookies at christmas time so i thought about 

taking her a batch too.

ronnie and i don't get each other anything for valentine's, but 

i feel like i have the best gift coming my way.

i scheduled cale to come to the house next weekend and

they're going to build a mud bench by the backdoor.

i'm super excited.

we're literally so freaking close to being done with this house.

i'm so happy with the entry way.

it looks so much better with white trim and painted walls.

hope you have a happy valentine's with the one(s) you love!

a slow winter

its not that i haven't wanted to blog,

its just that our laptop is giving me hell

and i'm not patient enough to write out a whole

post on my phone.

lately, the screen turns black except for a pink

line across the bottom and you can't do anything with it.

finally today, since brette is asleep with ronnie

and reid is passed out in her crib, i decided

i would give this laptop another spin.

whoop whoop, its working.

we obviously need to look into getting some sort

of tablet, but ronnie could give two shits about

electronics and i feel bad spending the money.

but really, my blog suffers.

so let's see what's been going on...

in true winter fashion, everyone is sick.

reid did her best to make sure i was covered 

head to toe in her vomit  yesterday, so that was fun.

we quarantined her to the shower until we both

were hosed down.

disgusting.

ronnie and i felt awful too and after putting the 

girls to bed at 6:45 (!) so we hit the sack at 8:30.

i'm feeling much better today and i think reid is

too, but ronnie is still a little gray.

i'm hoping this nap will help.

(no one felt great and everyone needed hugs.)

(after we got the puke off ourselves, she passed out on me while watching tv)

as for the house,

i did end up buying two new end tables (target)

for the family room and purchased

two leather chairs for the front room. (world market)

 (i still need a small drum table to go between the chairs, so

if anyone sees one out that is priced well, let me know)

it makes me happy to have some new stuff and 

get rid of the hand-me-down/college furniture we still had.

ronnie has also used these last two weekends to finish up

the walls in the entry way.

it sucks because we've missed out on a few social invites

so we could hang around the house and get it done,

but it does make me happy once the paint is dry.

next up, the walls in the back hallway, the downstairs bathroom

and building a mudroom bench area.

ronnie and i have been looking on pinterst for ideas and

i think we've settled on a bench that is open underneath so

we can have the dog beds in there.

then we'll have wainscoting up the wall with hooks

for coats and backpack with an open shelf at the very top.

i think it should be pretty easy for him and cale to build and

i can't tell you how excited i am to see it finished.

right now, it's a desk and basically we use it as a spot to 

throw all our junk.

it's not cute.

(our current disaster)

 (what i hope for one day - - on a smaller scale.)

i decorated the house last week for valentine's day

and i'm trying to come up with a cute little card the

girls can send out to family.

i haven't found one i love yet, so that's on my list of to-do's.

i also thought about doing another round of sugar cookies

like we baked for santa, except this time all hearts.

i think brette will love cookies that are all pink.

(because let me tell you, she will make sure you know

that her favorite color is pink. pink, pink, pink.)

remember this blog?  read #2. did i call it or what?

that's really all that's going on right now.

i hope we can get this house done soon so

we can just relax and enjoy some time off. 

maybe actually do something fun when we're asked.

i know ronnie is already looking forward to spring.

aren't we all...