Kristen got a new job

And I LOVE it! You are looking at the new marketing director for Pipeline.
www.ktecpipeline.com

Recipe for Thanksgiving with Kristen and Mike

Monday
1 sore throat

Tuesday
Let sore throat simmer all night before turning into flu-like pains the rest of the week

Wednesday
1 new Lexus filled with Doug, Becky and Nathan

2 parts pissed off Becky (for leaving cranberry salad and hot fudge sauce in Hutch)

Round of jumbo margaritas and dinner at El Maguey's to forget about items left behind

Thursday- Thanksgiving
5 place setting for Thanksgiving dinner consisting of:
~ Turkey
~ Mashed potatoes & gravy
~ Homemade noodles
~ Cranberry salad
~ Sauteed green beans and carrots with fresh garlic
~ Rolls
~ Stuffing
~ Deviled eggs
~ Pumpkin and pecan pies

1 VW Jetta stuffed with five Balls, a thermos of hot chocolate, a can of ReddiWip and five Starbucks paper cups. En route to Country Club Plaza for lighting ceremony

1 Plaza lit up for Christmas

End the night with one SLOW game of dominoes

Friday
1 painful fight against the sickness

1 mother-in-law making homemade turkey noodle soup for sickey and rest of family

1 father-in-law and brother-in-law installing under cabinet lighting in kitchen

20 minute drive downtown to Lidia's Italian restaurant for a lovely dinner

Again, end the night with a game of dominoes

Saturday
1 Lexus departing with Doug, Becky and Nathan

1 missing voice


So I ended getting pretty sick Friday and losing my voice by the end of the night, not getting it back until Sunday. I've since recovered and passed the sickness on to Michael.

And while Becky may have left a few things behind, she did end up making a new batch of cranberry salad up here and it was delicious (of course). She did bring with her homemade muffins - the lemon poppy seed were my favorite - for breakfast.

It ended up being a great Thanksgiving despite the sickness making the rounds. None of us had ever been to the lighting ceremony at the Plaza so that was something different to do on Thanksgiving. It was very cold but the hot chocolate helped. We were glad Doug, Becky and Nathan were willing to have a small Thanksgiving with us up here. I don't think I've ever had Thanksgiving with only five people before. But we had a great time! And it's funny to know that whether you have 20 people or five people, it still gets crowded and crazy in the kitchen.

(Pictures courtesy of Nathan and Doug)

Dirty Jobs - the fairy tale

Once upon a time there was this happy couple who bought their first home in Independence, Mo. It didn't have a basement, but rather a crawl space. They loved everything about their new house except that crawl space. It seemed that the crawl space wanted to rebel by consuming every drop of rain that mother nature dropped in their yard. This rebellious act needed to be stopped.

And so the happy couple put on their fancy working clothes and gave that crawl space one stern talking to. The crawl space fought back a lot, making it hard to dig the sump basin hole for the sump pump. They dug holes, carried gravel down in kitty litter buckets (see photo 1) and ended up covered head to toe in dirt and clay (see photo 2). But the happy couple stood their ground and came out on top with a crawl space that is now easier to get along with.

And the happy couple lived happily ever after (even though they still aren't done with their house).


The End

Boo.

This post is pretty self explanatory - it's Halloween! We did some thinking and some shopping and here is what we came up with this year. We started on Michael's scary makeup around 1:45 and finished at 6 p.m. Then we went to a party with the Jolly Green Giant, PeeWee Herman, a "cereal" killer, a Jeopardy contestant and many others.

Oh, and we learned a couple of things tonight: Pinocchio noses collect a lot of moisture inside of them and when you tilt your head back it comes rushing back toward your face; it's quite gross. Also, prosthetic pieces are painful to take off whether they are on your face, neck or arm.

Mmm....Cupcakes

A friend at work said her brother-in-law was getting married in a few weeks and their baker cut out on them. So I suggested we make cupcakes for their wedding. And I did just that! 250 cupcakes (50 from five different people though, I only made 50 delicious white almond cupcakes). I did, however, frost all the cupcakes and then Erica - my friend at work - made fondant, gold dusted leaves to put on top. Anyways, here is a picture of the cupcakes set up at the reception. Not bad for my first attempt, eh? I am currently taking orders :)

We now have a place for you to stay

The guest room is finished! And just before the one year anniversary of us buying this house. Since Michael got the media room to play around with, this was the one room I got as my project all to myself (although Michael helped with the painting, and installing the blinds, and moving around the furniture, and installing new outlets and a few other things).

The room used to have three baby blue walls and one dark brown "accent" wall if you want to call it that. This is actually the room Michael and I lived in the first few months until we got our bedroom finished. Our bed was squished up in the corner with boxes stacked from floor to ceiling, towering around us. Glad that's over with! If I can find some before pictures I will post them.

The main concern with this room was the desk fitting with the decor. Since this is the only place for it, we didn't want it to stick out like a sore thumb. So we went with pretty neutral colors to help it blend in and I think we did a good job. And I didn't have a specific reason to include the bird stuff. I saw the ceramic bird and loved it so I decided to get it and try out the bird cages.

Now there is a place to stay when you come visit! Unless you want to sleep on the sleeper sofa.

Beware of Snickers

We first got Snickers when we lived downtown in our loft. She wasn't the nicest kitty around - probably due to the fact we forced toilet trained her (semi-success) and kept her locked up in our apartment. Once we moved into our house, Snickers became an outdoor cat. And boy does she love the outdoors! She is much friendlier these days - actually letting friends and family pet her when they come over. The taste of freedom has made her sweeter...sort of.

This morning I go out to feed her only to miss putting my boot heel in a dead bird Snickers left for us on the porch. To date, she has successfully hunted down three birds and two mice. And those are the ones she has brought to us; who knows what she has left on our neighbors' porches!

Before and After: Part one (of many)

We bought a three bedroom, one bath house in Oct. 2008. Michael went full-time into remodeling, gutting the bathroom, constructing a hallway and gutting the kitchen to name a few projects. He moved around all kinds of plumbing, did electrical work and escaped seven months of labor with only one injury (a drilling accident with a finger). He did ALL this with little to no experience. We spent an hour at Barnes and Noble one day on the Plaza and from those books we bought he completely transformed our house!







It is now a two bedroom, one and a half (the half is still in process) bath home. We still have a lot of work to do - most of it being minor work. The last big project we have is to paint the guest room and we will have officially painted every room in this house! Here are a few after pictures (though the house is still not decorated). This was definitely a learning experience. And while we both learned a lot from remodeling, we also learned that we will NEVER live in a house while we do this much renovation.

Look what we've done

So we (mainly me; me as in Kristen) have decided to create a blog. With Michael and me having family all over the place and everyone not being able to visit all the time, we thought this might be a fun way to update family and friends.

I'm confident this will not be updated daily so don't check in that often. Our goal is to post about once a week - as long as there is something worth while to post about! Count on plenty of house updates in the beginning since we're still in the process of finishing up remodeling and starting to FINALLY decorate. Other than that, expect posts about whatever exciting and interesting things are happening with us.

-Love, Kristen and Mike