Kansas City

I will be heading home in the morning but I wanted to share a few photos from the trip. 

Yesterday at Arthur Bryant's Barbeque - a Kansas City landmark.
With my uncle Brian, my dad, (me)  cousins Mary, Jack and Annie,
 aunt Maggie, and cousin Elle. I love them all.

Then we saw Mission Impossible 4 at the IMAX. 

Dad and me right before Trans-Siberian Orchestra - maybe the weirdest
show I'ver ever seen. If I were to give it a title it would be "Christmas".
I won't get into it, but read here if you want to know what it was like.
Neither of us knew what to expect, but we made the best of it together. 

Updates

Inky (our stray stalker kitty) has been living with Chris, Jeremy's Twin, for more than a month now. Turns out she is a he, and that he loves living inside particularly with Chris.

Several weeks ago we finished our kitchen update, but like a bad blogger I am just now supplying you with pictures.

The light fixture is from Ikea, and the underside of the soffit is navy blue (Valspar - Night Shift). There was some speculation that I had chosen some shade of purple when the paint was still wet, but it is like blueberries the blueberries are blue (the dry color) but the juice (wet paint) looks a little purple. (Up next: painting the cabinets, I only have to convince my husband it will be worth all the work.)

We also hosted an awesome surprise birthday party for Amanda's husband, Patrick. It was way too fun, and I love all of our friends!

Last weekend,  we were able to witness the marriage of my college friend Elizabeth to her high school boyfriend (Michael) Silver. It was a beautiful and light hearted ceremony that suited them both. Elizabeth was is a beautiful bride, inside and out. I was able to play double duty as friend and florist, which was fun for me. When I put up flower pictures for work I will show you too. 

It was like a mini college reunion! It was wonderful to see my Olivet friends and roommates. 

And yesterday I traveled to Kansas City to visit my dad. I flew through O'Hare and got a beautiful view of the city and all its lights at night (I tried to capture it but it doesn't do the view justice). 

Birthday Blessings

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. This is strange to me because I hardly feel like an adult, yet I've been here for a quarter of a century (people really like mentioning this fact on your 25th birthday).  One great thing about being 25 is 25 is divisible by 5 and is a divisor of 100 so it is very easy to calculate percentages relative to my age {nerd alert}. Besides the aforementioned 25% of a century, I have known my friend Sara since we were 5, that is 20/25 or 80% of my life {crazy}, I have known my husband for 10 years or 40% of my life {yes, that means we met when we were 15}, but I've only had a sister for {(25-18.5)x4} 26% of my life.

We celebrated my birthday with my family and my husband's family Thursday while we were visiting for Thanksgiving. It was one of our lowest key thanksgivings in many years. My brothers, Brock, Shane, and Colin were each with other family and were missed. Since my birthday falls on or near Thanksgiving each year, gooseberry pie is my version of birthday cake. My sister, Grace, age 6 was the pie crust roller and top of pie decorator this year. You can also see a sliver of her in action as the photographer in this shot.

After both pumpkin and gooseberry pie, we played some Just Dance on the Wii. Jeremy even danced one song {first time ever, no photographs allowed}.  My youngest brother Marty loves dancing, knows the words, and can sing along to some of the songs. He also realized for the first time that he loses every time, but quickly didn't care and was happy because he earned points.

Marty was also very congratulatory to his winning family members, which was evenly balanced between me, Grace and Mom {all the Bailey ladies know how to shake it - exhibit 1(see left )}.

After my parents', we went to see Grandma (Jeremy's maternal grandmother) who is in the nursing home recovering from a broken hip. She is feisty and funny and should be heading home in the next couple weeks. Then we went back to Jeremy's parents house and hung out with them and Jeremy's brothers, Ryan & Chris {Chris is Jeremy's identical twin - just to help you in pictures later}.

On my actual birthday I got to go to work. No, that's not sarcasm I really think it is a blessing to have a job I love to go to every day. Since Black Friday is a holiday for some but not others I heard a lot of "I had to go to work," "Did you have to go to work?," but each day we are blessed to get up and do a task to earn money. We are blessed to have this opportunity {I will step off of my soap box now}. At work I was able to design a couple bridal bouquets and meet with several brides with upcoming weddings. Anyway ... when I got home my front door looked like this{---->} and my house was filled with balloons! The workings of my amazing friend Amanda. I love it, but I love her more!
We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner with Amanda, {her husband} Patrick, {Amanda's sister} Cynthia, Tyler {a friend of Cynthia}, Andy & Amy {a couple from our small group}, and Ryan {remember he is one of Jeremy's brothers}. That was fun, delicious, and loud. After dinner Andy & Amy headed home but the rest of the crew [now augmented by Chris {twin}, Sara {friend since age 5, c'mon you should've remember that}, and {Sara's hilarious husband} Simon] came over to our house for the game of Things.

From the front left: Ryan, Patrick {Row 1}; Tyler, Cynthia, Me, Amanda {Row 2};
Chris, Simon, Sara {Row 3}, Jeremy {Top of the Pyramid} [year book style]

It was so fun! I was loved...

.. and tortured. Ha... can you take Chris's face? Pure evil. And Ryan is enjoying himself. Jeremy is just sitting idly by and not rescuing his lovely wife from his evil twin. Such is the hard life of the only girl in the family. Only kidding I love my brothers {in-law}.

So far 25 is great! I feel amazingly blessed with a great family, awesome friends, and the best husband.

Hope for the Holidays 2011

Remember when I told you I was a small group leader, for some wonderful girls in our high school youth group? Well yesterday I had the privilege of working along side these lovely ladies to serve our community!

It all started when someone donated 50 trees to be distributed by our church (FCC) to areas families. The  lovely young ladies our small groups had a vision to do something more! They held bake sales, decorated ornaments, got the rest of the youth group involved, found "Turkey Sponcers", made flyers and announcements at church and by the end had collected enough money and food to provide each of the 50 families with:

a tree, a tree stand, ornaments, lights, 4 hand made/decorated ornaments, WBGL water bottle, Christian music CD, a lovely heartfelt letter, turkey, gravy, stuffing, broth, cranberry sauce, baking mix, brownie mix, 10 lbs of potatoes, butter, a dozen eggs, a bag of frozen veggies, a jar of apple sauce, a reusable bag full of Chinet products, a gallon of milk, rolls, and at least 10 other house hold grocery items! Praise be to God!

We were all  amazed at the way God turned our small effort and meager plans into amazing Kingdom work. God has called us to serve, to feed his sheep, to be his hands and feet, and we were blessed to have this opportunity to impact our community together.   

Thank you Lord for choosing me to do your work. Thank you for blessing me with wonderful co-leaders and sweet students. 

I've been busy

Since you probably don't want to read about the paper I've been writing {although if you want to know about how grade 12 extended contructed-responce NEAP items correlate with NCTM process standards just let me know because I have an 8 page paper for you to read}, I will show you some of the other things I've been up to.

Inspiration: Bird Cage Light
via Pinterest

My Version: Butterflies with
amazing shadows 

We also painted our hallway, entry and living room. We used Valspar's Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe and I love it!

Hi John, I mean Jeremy

See how much warmer and better the walls
look wearing taupe than all that white

We also removed some cabinets in our kitchen. This opened up the space but also displaced an item or two. Our plan is to add shelving to the now freed up all to hold and display my Fiesta ware. We will also paint the "ceiling" part of the soffit some color {well I'm 98% sure it will be some shade of Navy} for a pop. 

In progress: it's hard to tell from the picture but this really
changed the feel of the kitchen. 

Before: Look at that amazing wife cooking dinner

In progress: Ignore the many items on the counter {they have since
 found homes}, but can you see how it is much more open? 

p.s. My husband is so awesome. He came home from work on Thursday and I said, "Hey, lets take out these cabinets" and he smiled and grabbed his tool box.

Treat Yo Self

So I'm watching Parks and Rec {Funny Show: I <3 Amy Poehler}, and it is Treat Yo'Self day on the show. I just realized I kind of had a Treat My'Self day. I got a flu shot  and had ice cream with my parents and 3 youngest siblings (ages 2, 5, and 6).  And by ice cream I mean frozen yogurt with strawberries.

Then my sister, Liv {Grace Olivia}, and I went to the Humane Society. As cat addicts with cat allergies who have a mother with severe cat allergies this is pretty near heaven for us. We saw kittens and cats and puppies and dogs and guinea pigs. I also was able to get some information about what to do to best help Inky. Speaking of that sweet kitty she is meowing at me  through the window as I type {so I keep taking breaks to go pet her}. I wish I could keep her because I love her. The best part though was spending time with my sister.

Liv and I also ran a few errands and I treated myself to 2 new nail polish colors. So whilst watching TV{now The Office} I am painting my toes Navy Baby and my fingers Stormy.

So today started out like an average day, but ended up spectacular.

Our Stalker Cat

This sweet kitty has been meowing outside our house for more than 2 days now. She is friendly and seems to have been a house cat at some point {she tries to get in the house, wants attention, etc}.

We think she has been on her own for a least a few months. She has some healed battle scars and we had been seeing her sporadically for several weeks - she was less trusting and more skittish then.
 I wish we could keep her, but even with her just outside my allergies are terrible {sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, }. So I put up an ad on craigslist to see if I can find her family.

She trots over when we come home and serenades us to sleep {ha}, she is there when we get up, and really just wants what every girl wants - attention. So for now we are calling her Inky and loosing sleep to her incessant meowing. I need to find some good allergy medication because I'm pretty sure she plans on staying or maybe I can find someone to take excellent care of our sweet stalker kitty.

Bedroom Mini Makeover

Our "master" bedroom has been in transition for a while. I started with a brown bedspread and red accents (curtains and pillows) from my days in Chicago. First, I transformed a "nightstand" that I found for free at an estate sale with some teal Rustoleum.

I also added a monogram applique to our basic brown bedspread. Hooray for finally breaking out my sewing machine.

 Then about a month ago I had a crazy idea and busted out my sewing machine for another bedroom project. (I did use my sewing machine several other times in the past year as well.)

Maybe I decided to sew an entire wall of curtains.  The idea was to unify a wall with the bathroom door and the closet. So we removed the bi-fold, too-orange doors, and hung two drop clothes that I had modified into 3 curtain panels. See me hanging them up? ... oh wait thats not me thats my wonderfully helpful husband!

It was subtly dramatic and pretty cool, BUT one day I was drinking OJ in the bathroom and spilled it and it splashed on one of the panels. So you just wash it ... right? But that panel shrunk up by about 14 inches ... YES 14 INCHES!! So I could have sewed another one, but instead I scrapped the whole plan.

And on monday I used these, put up new idea curtains,  recovered some pillows with ikea cases and ...

...did some of this. And it turned out like ...

... THIS!  Skeleton reading lamps, book shelves, more colors.  I love it! I still plan on painting the walls (and the closet doors), but I am happy with how it turned out.

Half Bath: Before and After (and after that)

So, this day last year my half bathroom looked like this. Scary right? Can you believe this is better that when we bought the house? Back then the walls and ceiling were painted mint green. So that meant walls, ceiling, tile, towel bars, sink, coutertop accent and the TOILET were all mint green. When we toured the house for the first time our sweet realtor told me I sould just get some brown towels and go with a mint chocolate chip color pallet - she wasn't kidding.  Also there was a hunter green squishy toilet seat - ick (Getting rid of that was my first house project). Anyway, 4 coats of white paint made the bathroom less scary, but one day the mint green tiles just got to me. Maybe, while my husband was still at work I took a scraper think and started popping off tiles.
And maybe a few weeks later it looked like ...

..this! SO much better, right? Unfortunately, I have no progress pictures to show you how we did it but I will try to summarize. After removing all the tile, the toilet, the sink and counter top; we added bead board, modified the drawers to shelves, and painted all the woodwork white (Valspar Ultra premium Soft Gloss Ultra White). We made the counter top of dyed charcoal concrete and added a vessel sink. The walls are Valspar Desert Fortress. But... the mirror was too heavy and the different containers on the shelves weren't doing it for me so...

 
...now the bathroom looks like this. Lighter, fresher, perfect - well I love it. I switched to all white ceramic on the shelves although the shapes are slightly different the finish and color ties everything together. I really like the functionality of the dishes on the shelf. I returned the more ornate mirror and instead I painted one that I already had white. Other things  you might want to know: the faucet is actually a kitchen faucet, we put up bead board because the tile adhesive was not coming off the wall, and if we can do it you can do it too.