Sweet Butter

So, we need to paint our kitchen. My husband is a wonderful man. He makes enough money that I can stay home and be a mom, he plucks my eyebrows, and he takes me out to dinner when his car turns over 200,000 miles but sometimes it's really annoying that he has an opinion. About everything. I'm going to just keep it simple and paint my kitchen a warm beige color that flows with the rest of the house (actual color name: adobe beige) but when I show John the color sample, he hesitates. Now, most of you ladies are going to think I'm a little big crazy but I said, "Why don't you go to the paint store and pick out something you like." And he did. Sweet Butter. We started painting in the pantry because it's such a horrible room to paint and I must say that I liked the color. Unfortunately when we started to paint the kitchen which is a room where there is actual light, Sweet Butter turned out to look just like crappy-color-that-the-kitchen-already-is (that's not an actual Benjamin Moore color by the way) so now I need to head back to the paint store and tweak Sweet Butter a little. I'll keep you posted....

Saturday night we had a family get-together to visit with Uncle Jim, his girlfriend Emma (who, by the way, is a beautiful southern gal both inside and out), and his daughter Terri. What a hoot! Uncle Jim is 94 years-old and if I ever get to be 94, I hope I'm just like him. Edie had a wonderful idea of tape recording everyone's memories of Uncle Jim and then having him talk a little about himself. He had some wonderful stories; my favorite being the one about him and Tante Annie getting caught by her father in the carriage where they went to "talk and smooch".

On Sunday we went to Brooklyn's "family" (it's so nice to be included as family even when you aren't technically family) birthday party. Happy 6th Birthday Brooklyn!

Since I don't have any before/after pictures of my kitchen to show you, here are some pictures of my adorable children that we took after church yesterday.

Birthday dinner

Don't panic...you didn't miss a birthday. Well, sort of you didn't. John called me yesterday morning about 10 minutes after he left the house. His voice sounded very excited and I had futher proof he was very excited when he said, "I have exciting news Dee!" I'm thinking, "Cool, he's taking me on vacation or better yet some drug company is taking us both on vacation." Wrong. He's very excited because his car just turned over 200,000 miles. If you know my husband, you know that this would be very exciting news for him. I tried my hardest to play along and act excited too. I'm not sure it worked. I did get more excited though when he came home and told me he'd take me out to dinner to celebrate the Geo's birthday. I'm not sure we've gone out to celebrate our anniversary which was last month yet, but whatever.

Here's John and I celebrating at Jake's Grill...Sam took the picture, not bad for a 5-year-old. I just wish I was a little further to the left because then I'd have the cool bull horns on my head!



Today I am painting my pantry and tonight we are going over to the Tennant's house for pizza with the whole Hiemstra clan. Uncle Jim and cousin Terri are in town, they are on their way to an Alaskan cruise. I wonder how many miles the Geo will have to go before we get to do that!

And...a big shout out to all my family in South Dakota. My Uncle Glen is having a hog roast tonight. I think I was suppose to bring a salad. I am not normally a pork lover but him and my Uncle Rudy really know how to cook a pig. I miss you guys.

crocs and candy bars

Look at what my mom sent yesterday - a pair of crocs for Katie (not the real crocs though because my mom is almost as thrifty as I am). I put them next to Holly and Sam's crocs so you can see how little they are. SO CUTE! Of course a lot of things are cuter when they are little - crocs, cats, credit card statements, noses....
Something that isn't cute when it's little is those little candy bars. You know the ones I'm talking about, the kind you're buying right now in big bags that you are intending to use for trick or treaters but you know that you will eat them all way before the end of October. They actually call those candy bars "Fun Size". I think that's a stupid name. If they were about 3 feet long, that would be a "Fun Size"! I wish I had a 3 foot long Kit Kat right now - I'd eat it for breakfast.

Speaking of cute little things...check out these pictures of our little Katie. She flipped over again yesterday. This is her third time and I've missed every one of them. When I'm done with this blog, I am going to put that baby on her tummy and just watch her all day long...I wish I had some 3 foot long candy bars for nourishment.

Hey cool...a blog

Welcome to the Hiemstra Family Blog! I've been toying with the idea of starting up a blog for awhile now but the whole "name your blog" thing really frightened me. I've looked at many a blog and the names were all witty and creative and fitting to the author. I thought about stealing my friend Julie's blog name because I steal many of her witty and creative ideas but I knew she'd read my blog and maybe think it's wierd that I named my blog the same as hers. I guess that would be wierd. Anyway, here's my blog and here's my blog's name and if you know me at all (which I hope you do otherwise it's a little wierd that your reading this blog) than you'll know the name fits the author.

This may look like an ordinary chair cushion but actually it's a very rare and difficult-to-find chair cushion. Would you believe I actually drove nearly 45 miles to get this chair cushion? Those of you who know me know this is a fitting name for my blog and you know that I can be rather thrifty (not cheap mom, there's a difference) so with today's gas prices, there has to be a story here.

Here's the story...

A couple months ago I purchased a white whicker rocking chair at Pier One. I had been waiting for them to go on sale all summer (remember I'm thrifty) so I was pretty excited to finally bring it home. Of course, it's an extra $25.00 for the chair cushion so being the smart shopper I am I get very excited when the saleslady tells me I can "sign up for a Pier One credit card and get 20 percent off today's purchase and get a $20.00 gift card and 20 percent off coupon in the mail". So I bring home a white whicker rocking chair without a cushion. A week later I get my gift card and coupon in the mail so I go to get my cushion. They are out of cushions. I am not happy but I am told by the saleslady, "we should get more in soon, stop back in a couple weeks". I do and I am happy because they have a green cushion. I go to use my gift card and coupon and the saleslady tells me I can only use one of them. I use the gift card and I bring home the cushion for my cushion-less chair and it's not the right cushion - way too big. I bring back the cushion and the saleslady tells me they probably won't get any more cushions in because it is now fall and they don't really care about people who purchased white whicker rocking chairs anymore (those are my feelings, not what the saleslady said). I ask her to call the Burlington Pier One because my chair in not comfortable without a cushion. Hooray, they have a cushion at the Burlington store but it will cost me $12.00 to ship it to my house. Why they can't ship it for free to the Bellingham store is still a mystery to me. This entry about the green chair cushion is getting really long so I'll just say that I drive to Burlington and get my rare and difficiult to find chair cushion and I am very happy. Here's a picture of Holly sitting in my white whicker rocking chair complete with it's cushion.

Isn't she cute....Holly's pretty cute too.