A Few From July

Simon and the building he constructed in Architecture Camp.


Emma and Kate on their date! We went to see Kit Kittridge, the American Girl movie.

Movies are just better with snacks! Emma and her American Girl, Elizabeth.

Grissom, enjoying (as much as one can while on a leash) the park.

Gus the climber.

Max, about to embark on a grand adventure!

Gus, always ready for a cute photo op.

Simon, one of the best big brothers of all time, and Gus.

Max, too busy to give Mom a real smile.

Emma and Simon, enjoying summer break. It's better than any amusement park... and free!

Cuteness

Max and Grissom are good buddies, but the past few days have found Max really interested in Grissom and he's been spending a lot of time harassing him. I'm pretty sure that has something to do with Max playing with my aunt's dog (which is a cockapoo, much smaller than ours) this past weekend. Anyway, here are a few cute photos I had to share.

Kitchen Re-do

Recently I decided I wanted to put a new floor in the kitchen. It seems like several of our house projects have started with this idea. Can you tell I don't like the floor in my kitchen? Last summer, I asked for a new floor for my birthday. We ended up buying new flooring for the kitchen, hallway, main floor bathroom, and family room. We decided to start in the family room (wood laminate), and pulled up all the carpet, leveled the floor, and installed the floor, by ourselves with help from my dad, while my mom wrangled the kids. So once the new floor was in, we decided we actually didn't care for it that much (it made the room feel really dark), and opted to not do the rest of the planned rooms, and returned the materials. That re-do deserves its own post, so I'll do that later.

So this summer I decided the kitchen needed a new floor, again. We went to the Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM to us Nebraskans) and looked at flooring. The stuff I liked was pretty cheap, but installation was going to be almost twice as much, if not more. For some reason, I have problems paying someone to do something that I could do, and laying vinyl flooring didn't seem too tough. Yes, I am a big thinker/talker. :) I kept going back and forth, but ultimately lost my desire for the renovation. Then I decided I could just remove the wallpaper border and repaint the walls. For some reason, the woman who lived here before us loved green (hey, I do too) and decided to put it in every possible scenario (not good). So the walls were a custom paint job to make them look like wallpaper (why?), with a weird border at the top of the wall, and she also refinished the cabinets to be lighter, and put in a green countertop. Now, this really bothers me because we have dark trim and woodwork throughout the house, so the kitchen cabinetry really stands out. I actually prefer the darker wood, but when we were looking at the house, the kitchen was cute enough and we loved the bones of the house, so we went with it.

Anyway, while my mom and I were checking out wallpaper (I had to have something to tie the green countertops in with my non-green choice of paint color) borders, she suggested vinyl stick-on tiles. Eureka! That sounded like an awesome idea and I quickly formulated a design with the border, paint, and flooring, and it all played out in my mind like a beautiful symphony. Oly was not quite on board, as he has trouble visualizing things before they're finished, and I almost always have the finished product in my mind way before the project has even begun. So, all he could see was dollar signs. Begrudgingly, he went along with my enthusiasm, mostly because he loves me, and partially because he's good at humoring me.

Had the wallpaper in hand, the paint purchased, and decided that redoing the floor was way more work, even with the super easy vinyl tiles, than I am willing to do at this point. So with the help of the aunt of one of my best friends (Karen is the aunt, Carrie is the friend), I got the kitchen painted on Wednesday (Karen actually did most of it, I did touch-ups and above the cabinets that night), the border put up on Thursday, and Oly picked up the table (and the flowers on top of it! :) ) I found that I loved on Thursday night. Here are some before and after photos. The 'before' are from when we looked at the house before we bought it (thanks to Matt for taking those, or I wouldn't have any!) 3 years ago.

Kitchen (with laundry room off to the left). Sure wish I had the previous owner's copper collection!



I really liked the previous owner's table, too... I tried to find something like it but kept striking out, which is good because I love the one we just got!

AFTER: This is with the flash, which makes the walls look really white. They're off-off white, actually. On the deck is the old table set we had before the renovation (and Grissom).

Laundry room door off to the left:

You can't tell in the photos, but there is some green in the border that matches the countertops, and the color of the walls is a nice neutral for that. The best I could do with those countertops! I would love to have cherry or even the darker wood cabinets back, or even paint them... but then we'd be looking at new countertops too, since that green wouldn't go with much (except white, I guess... no thanks) and I am not willing to pay to have it done, and even less willing to do it myself, so there it is. :)

A few things...

UPDATE on Oly's condition:

This is the bruise on Oly's thigh that started out light blue and swollen. A few days ago the outer areas turned a really nasty shade of neon green. You can kind of tell in the middle of the bruise where his leg hit what we assume was the handlebar. His chest is still pretty sore, and he's finally agreeing with me that he probably cracked a rib. The scrapes on his right arm are scabbed over, and the deep one on his left arm is finally starting to scab. It was painful unless he kept it bandaged with antibiotic ointment on it, due to the air. Today was the first day he went to work without it bandaged. It's pretty deep still - I think he'll have a nice scar there.


Emma made a sign this morning and asked if she could put it in the yard. I just noticed what it said when I went out to get the mail, so I had to take a picture. That Emma, always being neighborly!

Smiley Sam

All I was saying was, "you are a stinky head! Yes you are!" and he was laughing his head off. I never knew I was so amusing!

I love how his arms look like a pork tenderloin.

Grissom's New Toy

This is Grissom (named after Gil Grissom, from 'CSI'). Yesterday (July 17th) was his 2nd birthday, and he got some fun new toys, including his very own pool!


I thought this was funny - a photo of the family enjoying our backyard pool. Note the hot tub in the background. Grissom is not allowed to use that.

This photo is the precursor to what is about to happen in the next photo. I was just snapping away, laughing at Grissom drinking the pool water, not paying attention to Max. Check out the look on his face.

What a stinker!

Simon headed off, Emma was getting out, Max and Grissom are still enjoying the pool...

Until Grissom starts to shake the water off of himself... then Max decides he's had enough.

The Banta Five

I took about 75 photos and ended up with 2 that turned out. Such is life with 5 kids, eh? It will be fun when they're older to look back on those that didn't turn out. Please note that Gus would NOT keep his other shoe on. Nor did he want me to remove the one he did have on. Oh, and Emma had to do a costume change halfway through. Unfortunately Gymboree did not have a girly outfit for Emma to match these for the boys. I know, I'm lame. I think matching outfits are so cute (except on twins, for some reason)!



During this photo shoot, there were lots of kisses being handed out... pretty cute. :) Not sure what Max was doing, but he looks happy about it, so we let it go.

"Alright, enough!"

The boys were getting bored, and Gus for some reason had to be touching Sam, but Emma smiles on...

Max was also doing his part to harass... he was touching Simon's hair, putting his finger in Simon's ear, etc. Lots of fun, apparently.

Max *loves* Sam, and with Gus long gone, he turned his affections on the smallest member of the family. Emma and Simon were true professionals in this photo. Smile on, nomatter what! It even looks like Sam is trying to look around Max's face to make sure he gets in the photo too.