Flashback Friday

Haven't done a Flashback Friday in a while, so here's a new edition of that. This picture was taken back in the spring of '95. We had been dating a little over a year and were very much in love. He was going to Purdue at the time, so he came up that weekend for this special event at Stonehenge Golf Course in Warsaw. It was something for Grace College, but I don't remember what. I DO remember thinking I looked fat in that dress. How crazy was I?!! Good grief. We're never happy with our weight, are we? Anyway, this is one of my favorite pictures. The snow had finally melted, though it was still chilly out, and it was so wonderful having him there for that event. We were so young there too. Pete was probably not quite yet 19 and I was 20. Always loved when we got to dress up and enjoy an evening out together. Heck, still do, though those occasions don't happen as much anymore. Having three kids will do that. ;-) Anyway, here's a quick little flashback of Pete and I when we were just a year into this 16 yr relationship of ours. Can you believe we've been together almost half our lives now? Wow.

The Basement is Finished!

I haven't posted for a few days, because we've been super-busy getting ready for school next week and Sunday School in about a month. We've got all our school supplies sitting on my dresser, waiting to be labeled, and bits of SS material all over the place! Just getting to be that time of year again. So, sorry I haven't posted much to tell you about our daily happenings. It's just that our daily happenings have been church or school-related and, quite frankly, not interesting enough to post about. Unless you enjoy hearing about how I contact papered a bunch of stuff. Oh, and I COULD tell you that Livie finally got the fifths too, so it has now officially spread to all our kids. Fun! Anyway, thought I'd let you know about our basement!! Got it finished over the weekend and am just now getting to post about it. Now, granted, by most people's standards, it's NOT finished, in that it doesn't have drywall or a ceiling, but to me, it's finished. It's organized, carpeted, and 2 new living spaces were created. :-) Yay!



This is our original playroom (sorry all the pictures are fuzzy - batteries were running low and our camera sucks). We made this space for the kids a couple years ago. Please excuse the mess. The kids were having a lot of fun and, let's face it, playrooms are meant to be a disaster, right? ;-) This space hasn't changed much.

This is the "After" shot. Tried to upload it to be below the "Before" shot, but I've given up, so here it is. We carpeted the area from the steps all the way down to the end of the room almost. Adding a recliner and making that area a family room section.

This was the "Before" shot. We had the couches down there, the tv/ent center, but there was no carpet and tons of toys that had no place to go! Not to mention the dress-up clothes rack on the right side there, blocking most of the walkway into that space. This picture was taken half-way through the clean-up. It was twice as bad as this, if you can imagine!

This is the living area now. Carpeted, free of toys and now we can watch tv or play games while we're downstairs and the kids don't have to sit on concrete. :-) It's great!

This is the "Before" shot of the area behind the couch area. There's a space back in the back there that has our ping-pong table, but it was basically just concrete and the kids would ride their bikes on it. And, no, it's not Christmas. Just our tree with no place to go.

Now, looking from the ping-pong table to the opposite wall, we've created a whole other play area - mostly for the girls. They have all their Am. Girl things there, dress-up clothes rack, barbies, Groovy Girls, etc... And, we left just enough room around this play area for them to still ride their bikes around. It's like a little road going from the ping-pong table, around that, to the opposite side by the bins. And, yes, this was taken at about 1pm and they are still in their pjs. I've been busy getting church stuff done all morning and they were content to stay in their pjs, so that's what we're doing. ;-)

This is the wall of bins of stuff we sorted and collected and put away. I believe there are over 40 bins of stuff. I got rid of probably 20 bins. So, this is our "finished" basement. The kids love it! We love it! And, after Em and Jeff come and take the rest of our baby stuff, we will be completely clutter free! Hooray!!! :-)

Wishing and Hoping

I went into Madie's room and discovered that she had taped a tv and a remote that she had drawn to her bedroom wall. It made me laugh so hard! She said she was just going to use the pretend one to watch. I have a rule that my kids will not have tvs in their bedroom. I could go on and on about why I think children shouldn't be allowed to have them in their rooms, but I won't. Let's just say I'm pretty strict about that. So when I saw Madie had a pretend one that she made up on her wall, it just made me laugh. Guess she figured if she can't ever have a real one, she might as well make one. :-) She's so cute and inventive. Who knew that pretend tvs needed remotes?

The Pool

Since our summer has been a busy one AND because it's been the perfect summer ever! (aka in the 70s the whole time), we've not made it to the Marseilles pool yet. Well, we decided to go yesterday and join some friends - the Mullinixes. You know them from my previous entries on Madie's best friend Michael. That's his family. We took a picnic lunch and ate at the picnic tables there, but the kids were just a tad bit excited, so they didn't eat a whole lot.


Here are the kids anxiously awaiting entry into the pool.

Here are kids, along with Michael and Andrew, as they get ready to jump in the pool. They all grunted and groaned when I made them stop and take a picture, but they at least did it for me. :-)

Well, because it's been such a beautiful, wonderful summer, the pool hasn't gotten warm yet. Only after we find we've had a good couple weeks in the 90s is the pool nice and warm. So, since that hasn't happened, the water was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G!!!! Even Noah and Livie didn't want to swim! You know it has to be cold when they'd rather sit on the edge, wrapped in a towel! So, we ended up spending about 2 1/2 hrs in the kiddie pool. It was slightly warmer. I sat on the edge most of the time, talking with Patty (their mom) and getting a lovely tan. Yes folks, I am tan. I never thought it would ever happen again, but I've amazingly gotten a tan. It's quite exciting! The kids got a bit burnt, but nothing too bad. Most of all, they had fun and they can finally say they got to go to the pool this year!

Visit

Well, mom and dad came to visit this past weekend and just left today. They came to see Madie's Riverfest performance and had planned to leave Mon, but when Pete suggested they stay so dad could go play golf on Tues during Pete's golf league, they decided to stay a couple extra days, so dad could do that. :-) Dad was having issues with his siatic nerve in his hip, but he just took lots of ibuprofin to keep the pain at bay, so he and Pete could visit that golf course 3 times during their stay.


Of course, he also got the kids into baseball cards while he was here. Last visit he bought them a box of Star Wars cards, but this time he bought a couple boxes of baseball cards, since that's truly more where his heart lies and the kids just had a ball. Madie would help him look up how much money the cards were that they got and all that. Reminded me so much of what I did with him as a kid.

Here's a picture I took of Livie after she had climbed up on Papa's back while playing Legos. I didn't get to take many pictures, because I had taken a couple long talky blogs with dad and that used up all my camera memory. And, sadly, I've been unable to upload those blogs yet. But, that's why I didn't take more pictures of their visit. We all went to Hank's on Monday night and mom and dad came with us after dinner as we went to look at the animals they have there. The kids saw peacocks and a VERY pregnant goat, chickens, and a few other animals. That was really fun and the rest of the time, we just enjoyed each other and relaxed. Dad helped mom to the basement, so she could see what we had done to it, but she was so allergic to Olive, our cat, that she didn't stay down there long, because she was having trouble breathing. Olive actually didn't come upstairs much at all during their 5 day stay and Dad figured it was God's way of keeping mom from having such a bad reaction. She hasn't had that kind of reaction for a long time when it comes to cats, but that's Olive's lair down there and since we don't vaccuum or dust much down there, I'm sure the cat dander was plentiful and that's what caused her reaction. But, other than that, it was a fun time and the kids absolutely LOVED having their grandparents here for so many days. We had a great time!

Riverfest

Mom and Dad came out to see Madie's performance at Riverfest last night. Riverfest is Ottawa's fair. She did this two years ago and loved it! Patti (her dance instructor/owner of the school) only picked 14 performances to perform that night and Madie's group was one of them. So we gathered at the Lincoln-Douglas park and got ready to watch her.


Here's dad and mom with Livie, getting ready to watch the show.

They perform on a flatbed trailer on a side street in downtown Ottawa. Here's Madie's group lined up, ready to go "on stage". :-) Noah took this picture!

Madie's there on the far left with the dark hair. She forgot a couple moves (it has been a couple months since she did the routine), but she had a ball and we were very proud of her! We celebrated a successful end to her 4th yr of dance by going, where else?, Cracker Barrell. Since that's basically the only restaurant in town, we seem to go there a lot. But, it was a great time and we had beautiful weather, so it was a fun night!