OMg.. the ad on the side of this entry has a Tshirt that says "RAWR means I love u in dinosaur" and has a trex on it. Want! It's cute! But I don't really need any tshirts midwinter. I could wear a long sleeve under it... hmmmm.. must not buy.

I am feeling better because.. we bought our kitchen yesterday!!!! I finally felt like I got to be involved in something!! Ray's parents are in town, his dad has business. So we drove out to their hotel in Greenbelt and dropped the kids off (they offered to watch them while we went to Ikea). They have an indoor heated pool so they took the kids swimming. We went to the MD Ikea and sat down in their kitchen design computer, laid out our kitchen and bought it! It took about 3 hours to do it all. Most of it was us sitting on their computer and designing. We already knew pretty much what we wanted-- we got the abstrakt model doors. They are just basic MDF type, we found pretty quickly we couldn't afford solid wood cabinets. But the abstrakt are covered in this shiny white plastic stuff. They look sleek and clean and perfect for a diner look! We opted for red abstrakt handles (same plastic shiny except in red). We also got two big pull out pantries. They were our most expensive purchase and I think those pantries must be the most expensive kitchen item Ikea carries. heh. But they are two big (30 inch wide, I think) pantries go floor to ceiling and pull out. The shelves pull out and are sturdy and I can keep all my food there. I will finally not be keeping my food all disorganized and everywhere in my kitchen!!! We have all our stainless appliances sitting in the demolished kitchen (we did not buy Ikea appliances, although they do have Whirlpool but they are pretty pricey). So I think with our clean white cupboards, black and white tile floor and red blacksplash, the kitchen will look smart. The hardest part will be assembling all the cupboards when they get here (next Saturday). I think my dad is coming into town to help. Ikea is great because it is cheaper, but you have to do EVERYTHING yourself. We did get it delivered and, we realized later, benefitted by hitting the MD IKEa (vs. the one in VA) because sales tax is lower in MD so we paid less in taxes. Both Ikeas are about 30-45 minutes from us and so worth the trip! I love Ikea.

Then we went back to the hotel around 3pm. Ate a REALLY late lunch at TGIFriday with Ray's parents. Went swimming at the hotel again with the kids. Then we all head back home to our house, ordered pizza for dinner (my children are ALWAYS hungry!), put some sleepy kids to bed and Ray, Pam, Ray-dad and I played Carcassonne with the princess and dragon expansion. That was lots of fun. The expansion really makes it difficult to rack up points in the game. We don't play with farmers, so our points are less anyway, but the dragon can remove men from the board so it's a little hard to complete a castle. The princess also has the ability to remove men from the board so another thing to make point making harder. It also makes the game longer, but the dragon moving interupts the game temporarily. So it was fun and the expansion was definitely good to play with more people (vs. just Ray and I, who tend to play online against each other rather than our regular game).

Today we are finishing painting, Ray is taking stuff to the dump. I have been on a baking kick lately and made pumpkin donuts yesterday (yum!), buttermilk biscuits this morning and have an itch to make bread. The problem is I want to bake, but I don't want to always bake sweets, lest I gain 300 lbs this year. So bread it is!