Holy Hail

On Wednesday we got hit with an crazy hail storm. I have never seen or heard anything like it. You can see in the last picture a pretty decent sized piece of hail, but that was small compared to what some other parts of Austin got hit with. My friend Kim was driving home from work about 20 minutes from our house and got caught in the storm. The hail there was tennis ball sized and it totalled her car. She wasn't hurt but it blew put both of her windshields, her headlights and taillights, her speakers, and just beat the crap out of the rest of the car. Luckily since the hail wasn't as bad here we didn't have any damage to our house or car. I just kept saying "Oh my gosh" and you can hear John say "Holy cow" in the video. Of course EZ picked right up on that and now we kept hearing him say "Oh my gosh" in this really exaggerated way and then sometimes he combines the two and yells "Oh my cow!"

Life as of Late

So the last two months are so Netta has started to grow a pretty sweet mohawk. It seems her hair only wants to grow on the center of her head and that combined with her always twisting her hair when she is tired causes it to stand up all on its own. I love it and and am glad she has something cool going on with her hair to match EZ's curls.

I really love this side view. She looks like a rocker.

For some reason EZ has taken to putting stickers all over his face as of late. The other day we were in Gap and he discovered the size stickers on all the clothes. I wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing, but I didn't care because it kept him occupied and within eyesight. Well when I finally stopped to survey what damage he had done he literally had 10 size stickers all over his face and another bunch all over his shirt. And did I take the time to remove them? Nope, I was too busy just trying to wrestle him through the check out line to worry about that. I really wish I had thought to take a picture with my phone, but I did get a pic when EZ kind of recreated the moment a few days later when he found some stickers at the house. It's not the best pic of the stickers, but you get the idea and I love his pose. Rock on EZ Brown!

And now the latest development between these two is that EZ has decided he wants to sit like Mommy and feed Netta. I was doing something in the other room and walked in to find him trying to feed her from an empty baby food jar. It was so cute and I hope he is still this nice to her when she finally learns to crawl and gets into all his stuff. I don't know about that, but fingers crossed! (Netta still hasn't figure out how to crawl and even though my doctor was surprised she couldn't crawl at 9 months, based on EZ's late crawling and walking, I am not surprised, so we are just letting her take her time. Plus I am in no hurry to have two kids to chase around.)

Kitchen Mission Complete

Updated Cabinets: $700

Updated Countertops: $600

New Sink: $100

Actually Liking Being In Your Kitchen: Priceless

When we decided to buy a house and started looking online, I saw ours and told John immediately "I like everything about it except the kitchen cabinets". My hatred for the cabinets only intensified when we moved into the house and so once I did some research and realized we could afford to do update it now, it had to be done. John really couldn't care less what the kitchen looks like, but since he realized that I spend a lot more time looking at it and in it, he agreed to help to make me happy. Knowing he really wasn't excited about the project I tried to take on as much of it as I could by myself, doing all the shopping and some of the labor while John was at work. So here is what our kitchen looked like before. This is actually the picture that the old owners posted online. I wanted to take some of my own "before" shots but the morning the people came to redo the countertops my camera battery was dead. No surprise there. The picture doesn't really show just how crappy the cabinets were but the doors are the cheapest laminate you can buy. Something you would find in an apartment and not a house.

After a lot of research we decided to reface our countertops instead of replace them. Mainly since we were essentially working on the type of budget you would see on an HGTV show about how to redesign as cheaply as possible. The company who did the countertops is called Miracle Method and I would highly recommend them to anyone who wants to fix up laminate countertops for half the price of installing new ones. I love my new countertops. The stuff they put on them really makes them look like stone. They bevelled all the edges, which makes a huge difference and of course the treatment hides all the ugly seams you usually have with laminate. The house kitchen was kind a disaster for about 2 days but it was worth it.

The biggest job for us of course was the cabinets. I was fine with the layout, but the color of the cabinets and the doors had to change. I found a place online that sells the same doors as Lowes and Home Depot but for WAY less. I saved about $300 by buying them online. Thank you refacedepot.com. (Maybe these companies should be paying me for my advertising. HaHa) So I took off the old doors and then John and I painted the cabinet boxes white. The painting actually went pretty fast since we weren't painting the doors. Hanging the new doors wasn't too bad either although I am pretty sure I won't be able to get John to agree to anymore projects for quite some time. When we finished I was all excited and I asked John what he thought and he said "They're whiter." So anyway, here is the new kitchen. I so so happy with the way it turned out. I really feel the kitchen looks more like a home now than an apartment. I might almost actually like cooking now. Well at least more than before.

Oops, My Bad

So today at Church my friend Brittany was holding Netta while I went to take EZ to go pee on the potty. (He has made significant progress on the potty. Thanks goodness). When I came back Brittany said "Netta is so cute with her little tooth" and my response was "She has a tooth?" I honestly had no idea. Sure enough she has a tooth about half way in on the bottom. It's kind of hard to miss if you look for it. I just couldn't stop laughing and neither could John would I told him. It's kind of sad but also really funny at the same time. I guess I can just count my blessings that I have a baby who can teethe without me noticing.

Heavenly Father Loves Me

Ok so this may sound totally ridiculous, but I know Heavenly Father loves me because EZ went pee on the potty twice today. Pretty much since January we have been trying to get EZ interested in potty training and we will have one or two successes and then go a week or more with nothing and then just repeat the cycle over and over again. Well yesterday I was all funned out and really thought I was going to lose it. Whenever I stay at home all day I tend to get a bit depressed, but yesterday I decided it would be good to stay home to work on potty training and despite my feelings of anxiousness I stayed home only to have EZ pee all over the floor and not once in the potty. When John got home I told him I couldn't do it anymore and that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It seems so silly as I think about it, but no seriously I thought I was going crazy. So John calmed me down a bit by pointing out that I could be premenstrual, which is a possibility, and then today I decided to give it another go. Well so far EZ has actually gone pee on the potty 3 separate times (I know I said 2 earlier, but he went again while I was typing this!) and I am not feeling the anxiety I felt yesterday. Again this is kind of silly but I really take this as a sign that Heavenly Father loves me and that even though the things that bother me could be a heck of a lot worse, he still understands that they bother me and helps me out when I think I can't take it anymore.