My Kitchen - Part of Show us where you live!

Kelly over at Kelly's Korner hosted a Show Us Where You Live Friday Carnival and even though I am a tad late, I thought I would show you all my kitchen! (and I am ready for the Living Room edition this Friday!)
This is our kitchen a few weeks after we moved into our house (built in 1969) We had already replaced the fridge and replaced the carpet (yes, carpet!!) with wood flooring.

Before....

(I just realized there is stuff everywhere! We were still in the process of moving in!)



And AFTER......

We had the cabinet doors painted (and painted the rest ourselves). We extended the counter at by the stove so the boys have a great place to eat breakfast, we replaced the stove, and got rid of the ugly hood. Unfortunately, last summer a bathroom upstairs leaked into the kitchen, but fortunately that meant we got to replace the ceiling (no more popcorn!) and add some recessed lighting and the pendants over the stove. I have to say, now I LOVE my kitchen! Oh, and we covered the "island" with beadboard as well as the soffit over the cabinets. We live near the ocean, so we have tried to have a bit of a beachy theme throughout the house.
Looking in from the dining room
my cake plate that was a gift from John and next to that, our fish, Wakefield. (who is 4 1/2)
How I make sure we are where we need to be! This is a life saver!
I have found these copper tea pots at various places. One was even trash picked! I love the plate above, it is from the late 1800's and has a picture of Nantucket on it. And the poem underneath, it is a verse (underneath the "Love") from Corinthians that we had read at our wedding. It was painted by Jen at Laineybug Creations. It is a great reminder to me just about every day!
This is a calendar that I get from Santa every year for Christmas. It is Susan Wallace Brown. I love it. (thanks Santa!!)
My favorite part of our kitchen in this rug. We got it at Claire Murray on Nantucket this past fall. It is a scene of town and the harbor. The only downside is that it is under my kitchen table! I really love it though! Thanks for visiting! Looking forward to having you over again on Friday to see my Living Room. :)

Mexico cont...

This was J's 8th birthday! He sure is going to have high expectations for next year... ;) Here is J making the dolphin, Melissa, dance. This was such a COOL experience! I have wanted to swim with dolphins ever since I read "Ring of Endless Light" by Madeline L'Engle.
C was a bit hesitant to get right in the water with the dolphins, so he was made "assistant trainer" and LOVED it! He eventually joined us all in the water.
Back at the resort. Had to take a picture in front of the pink flowers.
And this is what we did most of our time in Mexico. Floated around in the pool on yellow tubes. Seriously, I think we may forgo any international travel until the boys are older and just go to Arizona or Florida. All they want to do is swim in the pool.....
And C doing his thing in the pool.

The boys school has their auction (held every other year) on Saturday, so I will be busy with that the next couple days. Unfortunately my next posts won't be nearly so tropical....

We're back!!

The boys just went back to school today after being on break for the past two weeks. We went here and had a fun time. It was great to be in the warm weather for a few days!
This was the highlight of the trip for C! He LOVES birds and to be able to hold a macaw was just the best! :)
Here C is posing with an unsuspecting iguana.
And J with the same iguana (it was J's 8th birthday this day!!)
A view from the park we went to. Pictures of our Dolphin adventure to follow! (that was super fun)
Our trip started out a bit rocky, we had to make an emergency landing in NC. Only after landing did we discover the Captain had to turn off one of the engines! But all was well, and we eventually reached our desired destination. Had tired, whiny kids for the first day, and then we all settled into Vacation mode.
Good to be home, and glad to be back to our normal routine. Planning our next trip to be sans small people! ;)

Weekend fun!

We hunted for treasure....

We played in the sand...

we found treasures...

we watched the water...

and today it is doing this!

We had a great weekend. My sil was in town and we had gorgeous weather so Saturday we went here for the day and had a great time playing on the beach. It was in the low 60's and sunny. Yesterday we stayed in town, but again, it was sunny and in the low 60's and we took advantage of low tide and went hunting for beach glass (and snails, and crabs...)
And today....well, today it's snowing! I wish I had a picture of my house from yesterday....
But, the weekend was a hint of what is to come. Hopefully soon.

Cooking Class

Last night I went to a "girls night out" cooking class/demonstration. It was FUN! and yummy.
The evening was at the chef/caterer's house and the attendees were mostly mom's from J's 2nd grade class. There were 10 of us. Here is the menu:

Crostini with sauteed feta topped with a raisin/pinenut sauce
Mussel and Leek chowder
Chicken with a marsala wine/dill sauce served with: organic green salad baby baked potato Apple Blackberry crisp/crumble topped with fresh whipped cream

Delish! I am still stuffed. :)

Spring Swap

Confessions of a Semi-Slacker is hosting a spring swap. Should be fun, head on over and sign up.

An almost finished studio

This is my studio before. Dingy wall paper, too cluttered... just a mess!

Another before picture (even more before based on the furniture arrangement)

And "after". I painted my desk top (can't believe I went so long with it in the natural wood!). I still need to make my valances, maybe later today...

I got rid of the "natural" wood bookcase (actually I swapped it out with this storage cabinet from the playroom) and I have all my plastic bins of craft stuff in there. Also, most of my big cans of paint fit in the bottom cabinet.
Still need to: install peg board on the pink wall so I can hang my tools and wrapping paper/supplies. Coming along though!