A little project

The picture above is old and horrible of the people in it, but I am showing you my before table. Also, Andrew does not usually wear a bandana like he is ghetto- he had been working outside in the yard. The table usually has a table cloth on it, but I make everyone push back the cloth and placemats to eat,  because... hello-I don't have time to clean and iron that shit all the time.  The only reason the table has a cloth on it is because I ruined the finish about a year ago. The table is older than me. It is made out of New Hampshire maple. Its old, yet special.  And, we are too cheap to buy a new table. Well, we talk about it a lot, but Andrew wants a high table with high chairs and I cant wrap my head around that with kids.  Anika sits in one of the chairs now on a booster.  Anika and I eat dinner at the table every night, and we all eat together when Andrew is home. Dinner time is family time in our house, so we should have a decent table!

This weekend, my friend S came over to get this table fixed up!!

These are before pics.

We were thinking about doing the chairs, but I ended up just washing them. They are not worth redoing. They will work until we get something new.

Before my friend started the work, we made breakfast! We both LOVE eggs benedict.

Andrew, Anika and I had smoked salmon, asparagus and tomato benedict. My friend S had hash on hers.

 

She got to work with her hand sander. This part took a long time. This table had a LOT Of stuff on it to sand through. Probably because it is so old.

This was me while she sanded and I watched. ha.  Her son was also there playing outside with Anika.  He brought over all his trucks and boy toys. And his chainsaw! haha. Andrew had more fun with his toy chainsaw I think. They were cutting down branches and picking up sticks. Anika, always the girl, had to put on her play heals to play in the dirt though. Of course.  

We added in the extra leaves to sand and stain too.

After S sanded, we vacuumed all the dust off, and she used a tack cloth to remove the rest of the dust and stuff.  THEN, she used an old shirt of mine to apply the walnut color stain. We thought about leaving the natural maple and just putting the top coat on. BUT, we didn't want to sand the legs and the walnut seemed to match the legs. Kinda.

This is after the stain and one coat of polyurethane.

Andrew did 2 more coats that evening and we moved it into the garage for the night.

He did 2 more coats on Sunday.

We ate dinner outside while the table was drying.

Sunday evening we brought the table in. I took the leaves back out.

Look how clean and nice it is.  Anika picked me some daffodils and they look perfect on the table.

Andrew wants to sand it and put one more coat on this weekend after we have looked at it inside.

 

LOTS OF thanks to my friend S who did this for us! We are very happy!

 

Our Birthday Party

This is seriously OVER a month overdue!  I am so bad.
There are a lot of photos though. I turned 30 in March and Anika turned 2 a week after.

Andrew and my mom hosted a combined birthday party for us.

Anika had fallen asleep on the way there and she was like, what the heck...where am I, when I woke her up.

 

My friend Anna and Andrew.

The theme of the party (Picked by my mom) was princesses.  I was called that growing up...and I guess Anika is the new princess. People were asked to bring their favorite crowns and there was a prize for the best one. They also had an arts and craft table set up to make your own crown- for princes or princesses.  The one above was made for ME by my friend Nicki.

 

There was a timeline of my life that ran the whole length of the wall. It started with my birth.  My mom spent a LOT of time making it. The photos and captions were all in scrapbook pages, so I now have a scrapbook too. Andrew had asked to use my hard drive a few weeks prior (where all my photos from the past 10 years are stored).   He gathered some photos for my mom, but she had a lot. HE also gathered some she couldn't/wouldn't use :) naughty.

I loved looking at the photos, as did the guests. Many of my friends were in some of them. My friend Anna was surprised to see a picture of her pole dancing at a mutual friend's bachelorette party a few years ago. haha

The kids made crowns and other crafts.

Anika painting a bird house. They had old tshirts for the kids to put on while they painted.

 

Anika got new cowboy boots.

They  hung up the photos I had of Anika at her FIRST birthday party last year (Her every month in the same chair with the same lion) and then I took photos every month for her 2nd year, so those were hung up too.

The quilts under the gifts are very special and I will get to those.

 

Anika blew her candles out...and then she blew her friend's out at a birthday party a few weeks later! haha, oops.

She thinks all parties are hers now.  She talked about "Ma party" for days.

 

 

 

 

Anika likes ice cream, but not cake.

 

 

 

Andrew made his mom's recipe of muesli. Its a cereal with oats, nuts, dried fruit, honey, and other good stuff. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The quilts. So, each guest was asked to bring a piece of fabric to my BABY Shower to make mommy and me quilts.  My friend was going to make the quilts. But, then her life got busy, new job, new city, etc.  SO, a while ago my mom had her ship her the fabric and my mom made them. My mom has never made a quilt before. She got them done JUST in time for ANika's 2nd birthday!

Most of the squares have who they are from on them. VERY Special.  

Mine has fabric that my friend actually used in a quilt she made us for our WEDDING!! So, they all tie together.

 

 

I don't know if you can see this one but It says Guzzi 2011. Remember, Anika was Guzzi for the longest time :)

 

 

 

My baby shower invitation is also on the back of both quilts!

So very special.

 

I lit this candle on ANika's actual birthday and took a photo of her next to it. I want to take a picture next to it every year, but the one I got this year is horrible. I should do a retake :) ha.

 

 So, that was our party! Not the big ragger most of my friends have for their 30th! I tried not to post pics of other kids in this post besides my daughter and nieces.

 

I really hope to get a post up this weekend about what Anika is up to these days.  She is just a hoot. This week she argued with me on the way home from the sitter telling me "My Nona is NOT your mom" and I kept telling her that yes, her nona was my mom and she would respond with her little attitude, "No she isn't!"  Then I asked her who my mom is then, and she gave me lots of different options, for example:  My babysitter, my bunny rabbit, Piri, etc. BUT,  her Nona could NOT be my mom. This morning she finally admitted that its true- her Nona is my mom. haha
She also talked to Andrew on the phone this morning at like 6 AM and he said he was coming home tonight and asked if she was excited and her response, "Ya, excited, you bring me home a present"  hahaah- He has never brought her home a present at the end of his work week.  I wonder if he will bring her home a treat or not!