What a great day! Brant's 1st bday!

This day was possible, because of our superhero, who gave life to our little superhero.
thank you jayme, we love you!
(small post about her on our adoption blog - jandmadoption.blogspot.com)


Brant had an amazing day full of lots of firsts! ...I will post details about them later, for now it is late and I am just lucky I am blogging...(because I loath it!)

Brant, Happy 1st Birthday!  We love you sooo much!  Such a great day!
What a difference a year makes!

Baby Brant is 4 months old....and Brayden broke his first window with a rocket...

Life has changed so much at our house!
For those of you that don't know we have a new baby!!
He came to our house on February 7, 2013.
His name is Brant Beckham Beynon, he was born November 19, 2012.
We had to fight hard for him, with a lawyer and we went thru DCFS's training to become foster parents as part of the process. The time line is very interesting and we received miracle, after miracle.
But more about that later - seriously, I promise I will post the story at some point. Right now it is just to near to surface and we are trying to understand all the blessings and trials that came along with it.

For now here are some things we can share:
Our Birthmom is Jayme, we love her dearly. (understatement, more on her later)
We hope to finalize the adoption in August 2013. (Utah law is 6 months & a day from when he was placed in our home).
Brant is happy and healthy!
Brayden has become a big brother, something he has asked & wished for to happen for years.

So, now for the fun! Pictures!!

Here are Brant's 4 month pictures:

4 months old today! 3.19.2013

     Hello world!! I am working hard to hold up my head!

    After a few days of being sick, starting to feel better!

     Giggling with my older brother - he is so funny!

     

    Friday morning, Dad chillin' with his babies.  

    (notice how keesha can pose?...she is a bit jealous)

     My first Easter morning!  Fun new toys & rice cereal.

   Mom forgot how exhausting this is...

             enough said

   First stroller ride around the neighborhood!

Now for the Hyper Bat Rocket story....

Brayden is in 6th grade....he is starting to get a little bit of the pre-teen attitude. 

He tends to be a little bit of a procrastinator, and is learning how to become a better student so hopefully junior high won't be such a shock!!

He came to us last night and said, oh- by the way the rocket is due tomorrow.

He claims it is the teachers fault, and originally the rocket launch was due on Friday.

So, last night after playing with friends, going to scouts and eating dinner, he tells mom that his rocket is due tomorrow.....at 8:00 pm.  Mom was irate!  (poor boy...that is an understatement)

After blowing off some steam, deciding the instructions for the rocket were written by engineers (no offense to you genius's) and putting the hot glue gun to use....(don't ever mess around with elmers...that is for 1st graders).  Assembling the rocket when none of the parts are labeled.  Spray painting in the freezing cold outside with a flash light at 10:45 pm...

We finished the rocket just under 11 pm!  Not too bad!  :)

Brayden came home from school with a really awesome story!  

Brayden walked in and the first thing we asked was how was the rocket launch!??

We couldn't wait to hear how it went and waited and thought about it all. day. long.

He said "It was great, my rocket performed perfectly!"  

So we asked him for some details....I guess he got to launch it twice, and the second time it went so high and came down so fast it hit a house right next to the school and broke a window....

Ooopsie!

     Look at this proud boy!!  

     This picture was taken before school this morning.

Even though it was rough to build and mom had to apologize for a few things, it is all worth it to see his cute face, and for him to be so proud of his accomplishment!

Memories made for sure!

We love our boys and feel that life is just perfect over at the Beynon house!

udpate

I can't believe a whole month has gone by!!!  I swore I was going to get better at this blogging, and when I think about it I pull it up and another month has whizzed by!

So, here is an update on us!

Brayden is growing so fast! This past month he attended maturation at school...so that was fun and it tells you a little about what we are talking about and teaching in our home. He was very admit that I would NOT go with him to maturation. He wanted Josh, but Josh had to work. So he asked Jason to take the time off work and come and go with him. That seems pretty normal to me...so why was I so butt hurt that I couldn't go to maturation?!
(Seriously Mel, you are a girl and a mom, that would be so embarrassing for the boy!)
I think it just at the time felt like this was the only maturation I would ever be attending with a child...?
I don't know what else it was, but I am glad I have a very determined child. It will take him far in life!
When he got home, I of course asked him all the embarrassing details, and he said yes to all of them and even added, "Mom, they didn't talk about anything you and Dad haven't told me about."
That made me feel better, better like we prepared him for it. Still freaking out a bit that he is this old!

Last week we had a fabulous addition to the big Beynon Family!
Cortnie & Jaren had their baby! YAY!
Here is a picture!

I think she is going to be quite a toe head!  We love you Reese!

Josh is working hard, at work and then here at home, he keeps the lawn nicely manicured!  Brayden has somehow secured 3 lawn mowing jobs (plus ours) this summer, and I am grateful that he has such a great role model around because I am sure that is part of it.

I am hanging out at home. I so appreciate how hard Josh works, but often feel I was not cut out for this whole 'stay at mom' business. Especially after we met with our adoption caseworker last night, who kinda in so many words said "Families that go thru LDSFS for adoption, usually find their babies thru other agencies."  I had been feeling the reality of that for a while, I just didn't want it to be true.
Long story, short: I quit working full time to be the 'stay at home mom' which all birth parents want.
If we don't adopt thru LDSFS, we will need to come up with about $20,000-$60,000.
Which makes it sound like I need to go back to work....

That is the update on our happy life.

Kitchen Countertops!

I have had an itch for new countertops for about a year. I would want granite - but we are still adjusting to living on one income, so that was out of the question.

I kept putting it off and putting it off.

Our countertops were fine....just a little out dated I guess, but not horrible.

Here is the before:

You can't tell in these pictures, but the countertops were old laminate and the laminate had grooves in it. (like it was bumpy). I watched a lot of youtube videos, and read a lot of blogs on the topic! Everyone said it was easy, pretty painless. Granite for under $100. The you tube videos looked super easy! This was now consuming my bedtime thoughts. Some how that is how my mind works it thinks of all the things yet to do - anyone else do that? Anyway....

So surfing the web until 2 am some mornings was kicking my butt.

Finally I decided to just get BRAVE and JUST DO IT!!

So after much comments on FB, here is what I did. Lots of people have mentioned

DAY 1

(Monday, we worked 8 am- 10 pm only stopping to eat)

Step 1:

Clean the countertops, take off all the junk, wipe them down with a cleaner of your choice.

A vinegar/water solution works well, 409, fantistic, whatever you fancy!

Step 2:

Back splach & taping

Since we had a thin laminate as a backsplash, we decided it would look more 'realistic' if we took that off and put up wood - for the faux granite look. So, we peeled that off and painted to wall.

(Tip: make sure you let it dry for at least 4 hours...don't be impatient like me. We had a lot of touching up the walls when we were all said and done, cause I put the blue tape on so I could get started on the real project prior to having the paint dry....oops).

I don't have a picture of the plain wood, but it was 4" high, 3/4" thick. I just used liquid nails to attach it to the walls. (I love liquid nails). Then because the laminate countertops had like a silver edge up against the wall, the wood and the countertop had a space between it. So I used regular caulk, and silicone caulk to fill in the gap. If you do this part- DO NOT use silicone - it became a serious pain! Some of you genious's might already know this, but the primer and paint wouldn't stay on it. But since we did tons of layers it worked out....eventually.

Tape it up, really well! Even put stuff on your floor and all over. (I usually skip this cause I tell myself I can be careful), but seriously - I am so glad I did a good tape job.

Step 3:

Prime countertops. We used Kilz, 2 coats. 2 hours between coats. (some blogs said to sand prior to this - but I think sanding makes a mess and takes up too much time - just prime).

Step 4:

Base coat. You can look up granite samples online, or swing by Home Depot and grab a few samples. In our case we wanted brown. So our base coat was a dark brown, in some lights it looks brownish/green.

Let the base coat dry over night, or for 6-8 hours.

Day 2

Tuesday (worked from 8 am - 2 am, with eating breaks and the frustrated break)

Okay, so I woke up super excited, knowing today would be the actual fun day. Making the counters look like granite! Piece of cake!! HA!

(During this project, I learned I am much more of a perfectionist than I originally thought)

Warning: If you are a serious perfectionist, reconsider this project! Save your money for the real stuff.

Step 5:

Sponge painting with tole paints - in layers. Using a sea sponge!

We went to Hobby Lobby and got a package of different sizes and shapes of sea sponges for about $6. (Home Depot has a sea sponge in their Martha Stewart line - for 1 sponge it was $10)

Also, while at Hobby Lobby we picked up tole paints...yep, you do the rest of the painting with tole paints. On other blogs/youtube videos, they said they used 4 colors. My thinking is 4 is great, 8 is better....

Really 8 is too much, could have achieved the same thing with 4. And saved a little sanity. (More about that later).

The colors I used: real brown (folkArt), Ebony black (Americana), Magnolia White (Delta), Golden brown (Delta), Sable Brown (Americana), Bronze (Anita's Metallic), Garden Path (Anita's yard & garden), spice brown (Delta).

But really, just go and choose colors that are in your sample or that you like.

So, then you start layering the tole paints: (Sorry I don't have a video, I just put some paint on a paper plate dabbed my sponge in the paint and dabbed it a bit on the plate prior to putting it on the countertops).

I started light and went dark.

Bronze

Sable Brown

At this point Josh left for work...leaving his way over confident wife at home.

When I got to this point, it was starting to look layered and more like granite...but I wasn't in love with it and I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong. So I continued.

Step 6: Veining

In all my research (youTube & Blogs) they talked about the vein in granite. I watched it at least 100 times, read all I could find...I tried to be brave.

It looked like this:

YUCK!

It just looks like blotchy paint.

At this point I was mad (those youtube videos made it look too easy!!), overwhelmed (cause I couldn't make it look right, and there was something I hated about them), tired - oh, so tired going off 8 hours sleep in the last 48 hours, my body and mind where loosing it!

So, I threw in the towel, left the scene!

I went to my bedroom and read 'The Hunger Games', took a cat nap - and just took a break for 3 hours.

Later I called over some friends to get their thoughts. I am SO grateful for good, willing, close friends. It so helps to have a fresh eye and some brutal honesty!

Then I decided to figure out what I didn't like, so I broke my countertop down into 4 sections:

Can you see them?

Black veining - Cream veining - Cream veining w/stain over top - black veining w/stain over the top

I decided the 3rd one from the left looked the best, but still the veining wasn't right. A friend had suggested the vein be much smaller, almost unnoticeable and to maybe try a thin watercolor brush. So with my friend's critiques I was able to figure it out.

- the vein was too big

-having black and white was too much of a contrast, I needed one or the other.

So, Josh got home from work about 10 pm, he gave his opinion. And I was off to try to get this veining right. I wanted to finish it tonight, because, Josh had tomorrow (Wednesday)all day off and that was the day I had planned to use him to help me with the varnish finish coat.

Yeaassssss! Looks to me like natural granite and veining! I am finally satisfied!

So how I ended up doing it, was taking the tiniest piece of the sea sponge and making random tiny lines, they disappeared in the middle of the countertop. Some went all the way thru. Then I kinda dabbed some of the base coat on and around the vein (tried to camouflage it) then dabbed a little black around it as well. Josh had the most important part, he would tell me when I was just right and about to ruin it. (If you know me I kinda like to keep going, going, going, until it is ruined. And on this project it was hard to really tell step back and look for yourself). Seriously couldn't have done this without my lookout man!

Veining was so incredibly hard! One of the hardest parts was jumping across the kitchen to the other countertop. It was hard to bring the same pattern and strokes over...weird.

Then to blend it all I used some stain I had out in the garage, just rolled a quick stain over all of it. That really helped! Totally recommend doing that. I thought it just blended all the colors and gave it a seamless look. Also made it darker and lighter in some areas.

Then at 2 am...Josh called it a night.

Best Husband ever!

Day 3

Wednesday (worked 8 am - 12 noon)

Now I am in love with the way the paint and veining looks, now we just have to put the finish on. We went to Hobby Lobby used their 40% off coupons and got 2 boxes of Envirotex Lite High Gloss Finish. During my research, I learned this stuff is the best if you want the 'glass like' look of granite. Originally we had planned to use clear polyurethane - doing the clear coats would take a TON of time, cause we would need to do 12-18 coats). On the box of Envirotex, it said it was equal to 100 coats of the clear poly-stuff. Also, about the Envirotex - read the directions! It is a scary read, but remember you can do it! Be Brave! Also, use the ultra smooth foam rollers. DO NOT USE the regular paint rollers that are kinda furry!

I have a lot to say about this resin stuff!

In the instructions it says to practice on something first to get the feel of the product.

Again, my mind - that is a waste of time! I have to wait for it to cure 24 before I see what it will look like. I am not practicing, I need my kitchen back asap.

Tip: Buy more than you think you will need cause you really can't have enough of this.

Also, be generous when you pour.

I only mixed 1/2 cup resin and 1/2 cup of the other stuff, I wouldn't do more than that, just because you have to spread it out so fast and even.

It talks about air bubbles after 5 minutes of being on the surface. Josh and I didn't really see any air bubbles, until after it dried. They ended up being like pock marks after about 1 hour of being on the surface. I don't know if it was just my counters but, in some places it was worse than others and it didn't matter how much of the epoxy I put down, it would just level that way.

The instructions also talk about using a blow torch after 5 minutes to get the air bubbles out. I was not brave enough, but we called my handy father in law over, and he used the blow torch. Didn't really make a difference to us?...but we may have waited too long?...

Remember to catch the drips I just did that for about 1 hour after putting it on, I ran a popsicle stick along the bottom to smooth them out.... and beleive me, I missed a lot! But that is what a sharp new razor was put to use for!

I would also, maybe do the back splash separately - like do it before you put it up as a backsplash....cause it was so hard to pour that on a vertical surface! But then if you do that how do you get the painting right? (I am still out on that one)

Here it is wet:

After 24 hours it is touch-able and you can feel how fabulous it is.

Now, my countertops, when I woke up had a few of those 'pock' marks on them...so, me being the 'ruiner' that I am decided that one thin layer of the epoxy would level all that out.

Ummm...no it didn't. So, don't make that mistake.

All in all I am in love with my new countertops and they are growing on me more each day.

I was super worried with my grooved countertops you would be able somehow still see them, but this stuff is amazing! And it looks like granite!

The pictures don't do it justice, so if you want you are more than welcome to come by in person and see them! I am more than willing to help you, or give you pointers if you do this huge project....but by the time you pay my, you might as well get new laminate countertops!

And here is the final look, after blue tape was removed and the counters are empty.

Then real life with appliances put back.

So again here is before and after:

TADA!

At first I thought the darkness of the new countertops took away from the 'pop' of my red cabinets, but I am getting used to it now. It is certainly different!

I hope I gave you enough information and mistakes to learn from! If you have questions, don't hesitate!

Mario Kart!

A few weeks ago, Brayden and I had a date night. Josh was working a double, and I was ready to kick back and relax! Brayden suggested he give me lessons on playing Mario Kart.

I had to laugh at his suggestion, cause I absolutely HATE this game....I HATE it because I am ridiculously horrible at it. I always finish last! And it is so frustrating for me, so I refuse to play it. I HATE Mario Kart!

I was interested in what kind of lesson Brayden would give me, so I agreed.

We got in our jammies and played for 2 hours! I couldn't believe how fast the time went!

Brayden was so cute to me, he was very patient and encouraging. And as the night continued I thought I heard Josh talking, cause Brayden would say things that Josh says to Brayden all the time. "Don't give up!" "I can't, is a swear word!" "You just have to practice!"

It was a fun night after all, even though after all his coaching I never finished higher than 12th place!

I love you Brayden!

better blogger?...catching up

One of my resolutions is to blog more, and better! So here I go, trying....

Let me catch you up thru the holidays quickly.

Christmas was nice. Brayden was with Jason for the first half of winter break, so he returned home on Christmas day at 1 pm. Josh and I spent Christmas Eve at his parents house, had dinner and a FHE it is always nice to be around family. Christmas feel on a Sunday this year, and it is the first year I ever remember that happening! So Josh worked the morning, Brayden was gone, so I went to our 9 am sacrament meeting all by myself. Brayden got home at 1 pm, and we opened Santa and gifts from each other. This year we got a family gift - it was an ipad. Brayden gave me some scrapbook paper and he gave Josh a lot of ring pops and some WWE collector cards. He gave Keesha some nail trimmers and a food bowl.

This is the first year Brayden has had to use his own money to buy gifts for the rest of the family. He really had fun picking out gifts and spending his own money, and Josh and felt like it was a good lesson! Although we should have probably started this a while ago! :)

Here is Brayden's favorite picture of himself this Christmas! He is so funny!

New Year's Eve was fun, and low key. We were all partied out over the month of December and Josh had to work the next morning at 4:30 am....so we ordered Chinese and got in our jammies. We played Brayden's favorite games: Candyland and Trouble and watched some movies, Rango and Harry Crowne. Of course we watched the ball drop and enjoyed some apple cider and hugs together.

Our 10 year old is growing up!!!

Brayden and I were having a boys night this week and I started a conversation about girls. Now I wasn't starting THE talk. I was trying to gage if he had a crush on anyone. There is a girl in our neighborhood that I thought he had a thing for.... I started our conversation out like this. "Hey Brayden is there any boys in your class that have girlfriends?" He said, "No". Then I asked him if there is anyone in his grade that have girlfriends? He started counting. I was surprised by how many he was counting. He responded, "There is 5." (That might not be a lot to some people, I thought it was a lot.) I started asking questions about if he has a girlfriend and he said "no" and then I asked if he had a crush on anyone and he told me about two girls. One was in his class last year and one in his class this year. I asked what made him like them so much. "Cause they laugh at all my jokes!!" I started to laugh. I then asked what type of jokes he told them. "Not really jokes but, the noises I do!!" I asked what kind of noises he made. I heard the noise and I'll tell you the noise sounded a lot like in the movie "Dumb and Dumber" where Lloyd is trying share the most annoying sound in the world. IT WAS AWESOME!! I told him not to do too many weird noises so that he doesn't push theses girls away, or annoy them. I tried to tell him to just be nice and don't be mean to them. I then told him that if he ever has a girlfriend that he couldn't kiss or hold hands with them. "DAD I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!" I bet Mel wants him to stay this innocent all his life. I can't tell you how fun it is to see Brayden grow up in front of our eyes. It shocked me (in a good way) that he was so open with me. I couldn't tell my parents about the girls I liked in school...especially in elementary. I could later as I got older.

I'm really grateful that I have a good relationship with Brayden that he will talk to me about these things. One of the coolest nights I have had as a Dad.

Scout Camp!

Josh and Brayden had a fun filled day yesterday. They got to go to scout camp at Camp Keisel.

Brayden was excited because he had so much fun last year. The picture above is them leaving bright and early. They were gone all day, and Brayden had a lot of fun. He loves that his dad is his leader and gets to go with him.

When Brayden returned home I thought he would be on cloud nine, talking and telling me all about his day...he was tired! He also was disappointed. One of Brayden's favorite parts about scout camp is the store. They have all kinds of boy things...pocket knifes, arrowheads, etc.

Brayden decided to spend some of his allowance. He bought yet another pocket knife, an arrowhead necklace and a rabbit skin. He was most excited about the rabbit skin. Right after buying they sat down for lunch. Dad told Brayden several times to put his stuff in his backpack. Well, Brayden put the pocket knife in his pocket and the arrowhead necklace around his neck and he left his new found prized possession on the table to be right by him as he ate....

you got it. The treasured rabbit skin got left after lunch as they moved on to more excited things, and when Brayden realized and headed back...it was gone. Brayden was SO disappointed.

Other than that, they did have a good day and were so tired they went to bed super early.

Excited for this summer!

I am so excited for summer! I think this is the most excited I have been since 8th grade!

I can't wait to enjoy and soak up lazy summer days now that I am not working! YAY!

We made a cute summer 'to do' list:

The list isn't all the way done. I found the idea on this site:

http://thecraftingchicks.com/2011/05/summer-fun-chart-and-photo-journal.html

Brayden was looking at it today and has already picked out the top three things on his list.

Visit Vernal - Uncle Chick's Farm, and 4 wheeler :)

Sleep out on the tramp - always my favorite!

Family date night - yet to be decided if it is basement or theater.

Bring on the fun summer!

Keesha's treat

I came home from a family dinner to this....

GUILTY!

Luckily there were only maybe 4 eggs left in there, I don't even know how she got them down. They were up on a shelf downstairs.

Hopefully a little chocolate won't be too bad for her, and at least she picked the very best kind!

1st week off!

It was so nice! I think it was nice because Brayden was out of school for spring break. So it felt like a mini vacation. Sleeping in, going and doing what we wanted, playing with friends, etc.

So, maybe next week I will start a routine I can feel good about.

We had some of our neices and nephews over during spring break to have a late night!

It was fun! We recently bought 'just dance 2' so after dinner...we played for the rest of the night.

I think Josh and I had just as much fun as the kids!

Then one of my first things on the 'to-do' list was to organize the pantry, cause it was bad!

Before:

Sorry it is a little blury...but just know it was a mess and everything was lost in there!

After:

Tada!

I moved quite a bit around, to make it more accessible.

Also, added a lazy susan - ($5 at Walmart).

Labeled what I could.

Added some organization to the door to free up some more space!

Added some vinyl! Thanks Jill! (utahvinyl.com)

So much better to have less in there and more organized so now we can find what I just went to the grocery store and put in there!