The Current State of Affairs

A week ago, we had a fun fourth of July with lots of family in town and a big bbq at our house. The cousins had a blast playing together, and we enjoyed lots of good food. We even took Jonathan to see his first fireworks in the evening. (He did okay, somewhat mesmerized by the display. He alternated between saying, "Here they come. Wheeeee!" and whimpering from the loud noise.) I only took a handful of pictures of our holiday, but here are a few to share.

The four cousins:
(This was the best shot I could get of the little ones. At least they're all looking in the right direction!)

Yummmmmmm!

Lauren has 2 teeth missing now!

Photogenic family:It was a great day, and we're so thankful to have family that will travel long distances to be with us!

The next day, chaos hit our home in the form of a kitchen remodel. The morning of July 5th, our kitchen looked like this, in all of its 1986 glory:



Gary, my dad, and I quickly got to work...


And as of this morning, our kitchen looks like this:



Jealous? Yeah, I didn't think so. :) The contents of our kitchen are now spread over our living room...


and dining room...
(Yes, that's my morning coffee brewing on the chair!)

Our garage is our work area, full of supplies for the new kitchen and the junk that is headed to the dump from the old kitchen.


The kids are handling the chaos well, especially since they get to eat their Cheerios in the family room while watching Super Why. :)

We need to stay within our set budget, which means we're doing almost all of the work ourselves, with some help from my dad who has done his own kitchen remodel. The only thing we hired out is the installation of the countertops (since we couldn't pick up a granite slab, let alone know how to install one correctly!). So it is up to us to do the demolition, reface the cabinets, install a tile backsplash, lay new flooring, put in new appliances, install the plumbing for the new faucet, and complete about a thousand other details. Good thing I have this awesomely handsome guy to work with. :)
(Seriously, a guy that will do an entire kitchen remodel, primarily at the request of his wife, is amazing!)

I'm sure we will be working and cleaning for months to get the kitchen done and then the rest of the house put back in order. But it will be worth it in the end, right? I'll try to include some "in progress" shots on the blog over the next few weeks, although almost every spare moment is spent working on the kitchen or cleaning up after the mess we've created. Looking forward to the day when I get to post those beautiful "after" photos!