Poetry Recital

Ben's 5th grade class has been doing a poetry unit for the last six weeks or so now, which they capped off with a poetry recital this morning. The kids all did a super job reciting two poems each, one original composition and one by a famous author. Ben's famous author poem was "If" by Rudyard Kipling (I had a camera malfunction of course and missed his introduction and the first couple of lines... boo me). So proud of Ben and so thankful for the wonderful teacher he has this year, who even after 30 years of poetry recitals was still moved to tears by her students this morning.

original poem "Memories Revived":



"If" by Rudyard Kipling

Busy Weekend

In addition to finishing up the kitchen makeover, this weekend included a trip to the machine shop where the Nascar cars are worked on for Becca and Ben (December's monthly J-Tribes event, this one coordinated by Joel who has a coworker whose husband is a Nascar engineer), a birthday party for one of Caroline's friends, and Ben's first IFBL basketball game -- Ben's team beat Charlotte Prep despite having less than half the number of players as they did. Ben had to play the entire game and was so tired by the time the game was over. Poor kiddo. We were missing 2 players at the start of the game, and then another got hurt and another fouled out. Hopefully next week will be an easier victory ;)

After the game Abby babysat and Joel and I went out for Thai food and saw Gone Girl. Yesterday involved Hebrew school, grocery shopping, much laundry, football, and I babysat for Abby and Mike so they could do some Christmas shopping and go out to dinner.

Tomorrow is Ben's poetry tea at school. Whether or not he will allow photography or videography as he recites an original poem as well as a poem by a famous author, remains to be seen ;) I am going to guess no, but I'll try anyway!

Officially Done Photo

The officially-done kitchen photo. I needed to take a pic that showed off the bead board panels that held up construction for a day ;)  My original vision for the kitchen project included the bead board, but Joel vetoed it as being too high in the pain-in-the-ass factor. Fortunately (for me!) after he painted the sides of the boxes and took the tape off, some of the paint peeled right off with the painter's tape. Joel said, "Honey!! I have a problem here!!" And I said, "Looks like I am getting my bead board after all!" Still managed to finish on schedule (barely). 

Almost Done!!

The bead board is primed and just needs to be painted. I think the granite looks so much better with the white cabinets!! And the hardware -- well let's just say the previous homeowners made some questionable design choices and the old cabinet  hardware was one of them ;)

After this week though I think Joel might think twice before he volunteers his next week off to doing a DIY project! Great job Joel! Almost done!

Before / After:

More after:

Painting

Okay Joel.... Time to put my kitchen back together! Please?

DIY Day 2

Priming. You never realize how many kitchen cabinet doors you have until they are strewn all over the place and you are covered in primer. (There are 21 by the way). 

Becca was allowed to help for about 37 seconds. 

Kitchen Project

Joel is on vacation this week and is undertaking a project to reface the kitchen cabinets. I am just really hoping my kitchen is all put back together by the time he goes back to work next week!