Floor Redo - Day 3

On Day 3 we finished up the rest of the foyer/hallway/basement area. Got the closet finished and the last couple of boards. It's been so tedious, because of all the measuring and sawing and cutting that it doesn't look like we've made much progress in 3 days of work, but we really have!



We've practically been ignoring the kids since we got home from IN, because of the work we've been doing, so I decided to make up something kind of special for them after dinner, so they could have something really fun to do instead of just hanging around all day again. I made them this giant blanket fort! It basically took up the entire living room and they absolutely loved it! Heck, even Tater, who also has been neglected, got into it and had fun. Olive checked it out briefly, but was too annoyed by the crazy kids crawling all around in there to stay for long. It seemed to make up for the lack of attention since Friday. :-)

Here are the updated pictures. The closet door is back on and all the boards are in place. We even picked up the mess a little. Pete laid the trim piece by our bedroom door, but still has the trim to do all around the walls and stuff. That's another full day or a few evenings of work for him before we even start the kitchen. Figure we'll try and start that next weekend. We have guests coming to stay with us from the Salvation Army Band in a couple weeks. I'm just hoping we have it done (or really close to having it done) by then.

I think it's looking really good though, don't you?! Tater is interested in it, but it's very slippery for him. He doesn't like to run through it yet. Pete thinks that's a good thing. :-)

I made Pete give me a thumbs up to show that he's happy at all that he's accomplished. I sensed a little sarcasm in there too. I'm sure he had another finger on his hand he wanted to show me instead. ;-) But, seriously, he's done such a great job! He's had to manually saw through the basement door frame and our bedroom door frame, not to mention the closet frame. All just to get those boards to fit. He's so handy and talented at this kind of thing. Way to go, Honey!!!

Floor Redo - Day 2

I love home improvement projects just as much as the next guy, but MAN are these floors sucking! Granted we started on the hardest section, but it seems to be taking forever! We made some progress from yesterday. We got all the wood finished by the basement stairs/garage door area. That was no small feat either.



You probably can't tell from the picture, but it is a narrow space, so one plank of wood was just a little too small to fit there, so we had to cut all the pieces and the door jam was in the way, so Pete had to manually saw off a half inch of it to make room for the flooring. Long story short, finishing the foyer and the basement area, which equally about 7 rows of boards each took all stinkin' day! Ugh. Pete's exhausted. I'm tired. But, it's looking really good and for that, I'm thrilled!

We still have to finish the last part in front of the front door and then the coat closet and the last beam in front of that and our bedroom before we can start doing the trim work, but I'm hoping to get most of that knocked out tomorrow. Pete's doing all the cutting so I'm not a huge help to him right now, unfortunately. You see from the picture above that there is still that ugly lino. That's because despite the past 2 days of working and at least another one ahead, we still have the entire kitchen/dining left to do!!!!! AHHHHH!!! At least there I might be able to help more, since we'll have much longer stretches of board without having to measure and cut them all. So, there you have it. Day two in the floor redo. More tomorrow on our last day of Spring Break. Onward we push!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! We had a very busy day and I'm just now getting a chance to post about it. Of course, it started off with the kids finding their baskets full from the Easter Bunny. They were thrilled with everything they got and spent the afternoon watching the movie "Tin Tin", one of their favorites.



Gotta say, the Easter Bunny really knows how to spoil those kids rotten, doesn't he? ;-) Now that Noah's diabetic, he seems to stay away from giving them lots of candy and now just gets them a couple presents instead.

When I was a kid, my dad always bought me, my mom, and my sister a corsage to wear. My mom always made sure we had a new outfit, usually one she made us, and I would sometimes even get to wear a hat and her shawl. It was wonderful! I have such great Easter Sunday memories and some of those traditions I'm trying to pass on to my kids. The new outfits is one of them. I can't make them myself, but I always try to pick out something really cute for them to wear to make that day seem a little more special. :-)

A couple years ago our church decided to start having an Easter Breakfast and it's always fabulous! Today was no exception. They went out of their way to make lots of delicious food and the kids enjoyed being with their friends this morning while they ate.

The kids were all in both the bell choir and the children's choir. They LOVE the bell choir and work really hard to know their stuff. See how happy they are?!

They really concentrate when it's time to perform.

Apparentely, while I was in the bathroom, Livie took a picture of herself during the service. Pete said he saw a flash and looked over to see Livie taking pictures. She loves that camera!

After a great service, the kids all went downstairs and got ready for the Easter Egg Hunt. They made their own bags this year during Sunday School, so they were ready to go!

Noah, every year, looks for the one golden egg. He doesn't collect any other eggs, though there are TONS of them! He just wants that one special egg. Sadly, he once again didn't find it. At least he had fun looking.

Madie was on the hunt for any she could find. She found several and had quite a lot of goodies when she was finished.

Livie walked away with the most. She filled her bag almost to the top!

Livie's friend Christina found one of the 2 golden eggs! She was so excited!

He searched high and low for that egg!

Madie was going through her eggs to see what goodies she had. :-)

We ask the kids to dump out their candy in their bags and give back the eggs, so we can reuse them each year. It's fun for them to all gather around the big egg bin and see what they had. Livie shouted out, "I got MONEY!" in her biggest Yeti voice. It was hilarious!

Of course, we had to take the Easter Family Photo. That is one of the requirements of our Easter morning. I rarely get a family picture and thankfully we have friends who we trade off cameras with and all get family photos of each other. I think this year we had another good one!

Another beautiful Easter morning with my three amazing, wonderful kids. I am so blessed. I leave this post with an entry I posted on Facebook yesterday. Today was so busy that I honestly had little time to find time to center on the meaning of the day, but yesterday I did and I took that opportunity to reflect on why Easter morning is so significant. As fun as it is to have the Easter Bunny visit or participate in Easter Egg Hunts, the day is about sacrifice and resurrection. This is what I posted:

"Watched a show last night on the Shroud of Turin. They tried to replicate what Jesus would look like from the image on the cloth. The man behind the computer image got emotional when talked about what Jesus would've looked like after the crucifixion. He was so battered and beaten. He looked like he had been in a horrific car accident. Then you remember, it was worse than that. Much worse. And, each time he was hit with that whip or had the nails driven into his flesh, he was thinking of us. He wanted to be that one sacrifice, so that we wouldn't have to be the ones battered and beaten. So I'm trying, as I work with Pete on the wood floors, to center myself on what tomorrow is all about. That despite the pain and suffering, he went through it all and fulfilled his Father's promise, so that I may believe in him and have eternal life."

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into the living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Pet 1:3

Floor Redo - Day 1

We've been all about the redecorating projects lately. First, we did the girls' room. Now, we're doing the floors! We've been talking about putting down laminate for a good 3 years now. Finally we had the money to actually do it. :-) We went yesterday and picked up the flooring we liked. We wanted something that would withstand three active kids, a rambunctious dog, and an ornery cat. I liked the darker woods, so we found a darker wood floor that has a lot of texture and lines to it, so that it won't get scraped up as easily. AND, if it does, it won't show as much. :-)

We decided to start in the foyer and complete that before tackling the kitchen. The foyer is hard enough with all the corners and angles. That alone will take us the rest of the weekend. But, anyway, here are the "BEFORE" pics...



You can see why we so desperately needed a change. The lino has been peeling for years and we've been covering the loose seams with rugs. It looks awful!

There were big gaps where it had ripped up and was collecting dirt and was just such an eyesore.

Here is our "Day 1 AFTER" picture...

The hallway behind this is nearly complete, but the closet is still undone. We got a majority of the foyer done, but still have a LONG way to go. This was the smallest of the 2 areas we have to compelte, so I grossly underestimated how much time it would take to do the whole thing. I estimated 3-4 days. It's gonna take us a good 2 weeks! But, it looks great and I know it's going to be worth the hard work. Just so thankful that our kids have been behaving and letting us work. Heck, even sweet Tater, sad as he is to not to be helping, has been such a good dog and staying in the rooms we've left him in. I know all of them will be so excited once it's done and they have the house back to normal again. Heck, won't we all?!

Drew and Sherm - the Highlights

We just got back from our Spring Break trip to IN to meet the two latest additions to our families - Drew and Sherm. I thought I'd share some of the highlights. :-)



Andrew William (aka Drew) is Andy and Francy's new little boy. He's 2 months old now and such a sweet, happy baby! As you see in the picture above, he really likes his Uncle Pete already. Heck, all babies do! Everyone likes Uncle Pete. :-) The kids had fun with him too and liked pretending that when he was moving his arms all around that he was punching them. They laughed and laughed about that.

Everyone had to get a glimpse of him and talk with him and hold him. Noah really likes babies when they get to be about a year old, so in a few months, I'm sure he'll be having lots of fun with his cousin!

How could you not? I mean, look at that smile!!! :-) Adorable!! Oh! And, guess what else we got to do when we were in IN? Pete and I ..... got to go on a date! Well, not a long date with dinner and all that, but we got to see a movie together and, let me tell you, it's been a LONG time since we've gotten to do that. I was soooo thankful that their Nana Trolinger was so willing to watch the kids for us, so we could go. We saw "The Hunger Games". I just finished the series, having read Book 1 before the movie, so I was anxious to get over there and see it. It was a really nice to have those hours together. :-)

The other new addition was my dad's new puppy, Sherm. We were all looking forward to meeting this little guy and we were not disappointed. He was a tiny, little ball of energy and the kids fell instantly in love. And, I think, Sherm fell right in love back. :-) Noah couldn't get enough of him!

He particularly loves Avery, my niece, because she's his size and can't run away from him. Madie and Avery were having fun playing with him.

Livie loved playing with him too and wanted to hold him every chance she got.

But, I don't think anyone loved holding him more than me. He fits so easily in my arms, that I could carry him everywhere and not even think twice about it. We even took him with the kids (Em and I) when we went to visit mom. She thinks he's pretty awesome too.

He got pretty exhausted at times with all of us running around, but most of the time he was right there with us, trying to keep up!

One of our favorite parts was when Avery spit out her binky and Sherm grabbed a hold of it. He ran around for 10min holding it in his mouth. It was hilarious!

Of course, it wasn't all about Sherm and Drew, though, like I said, they were the highlights! We also got to enjoy our nieces. Avery is just such a sweet, happy little girl and I had the best time playing with her. I offered to take her off Em's hands, but I guess she's pretty attached to her. ;-)

Em and I spent a little time shopping while we were there and we got Sherm this adorable sweater. I guess pugs don't do well in heat, but they also get cold really easily, so we found this sweater at the local pet supply store and, get this, it was only 80 cents! Can't beat that!

After two busy days of shopping and playing, Kendalyn got wiped out and fell fast asleep before we left. Just had to take a picture of her sweet, sleeping face. :-)

We had a really fun time with everyone, but were happy to get home and pick up Tater from the Walkers, where he spent his week while we were in IN. On the agenda tomorrow (hopefully)? Installing wood floors!!! Wish us luck!

Getting Ready for Easter

Today was a busy day! But, in that busyness, we found time to remember the triumphant entrance of Jesus this Palm Sunday. Our pastor had emailed me to see if the kids (aka Sunday School kids) would like to pass out the palm branches. I said, "Of course!!!" and boy, were they excited!


Madie, Livie, and their friend Jenna sat behind the wall by the back door. They said they were "hidden bushes". They liked to jump out and surprise the unsuspecting parishoners. Eventually they gathered in the back and make palm branch tunnels for them to walk under. Definitely was an interesting journey into our sanctuary this morning!!

Noah and his friends Grant and Tobias greeted those in the front of the church. With Pete there, things were a little less chaotic. He helped them take turns. When I was in charge of this crew, they were stopping people on the steps coming in and shoving palm branches in their faces. ;-) Pete was much better at it than I was!

When we got home, we had a lot of stuff to get done, but I wanted to fit in a little bit more Easter celebrating. This time, on a more secular level. We colored easter eggs (finally!). I boiled the eggs, oh, 4 days ago and just got around to having them color them. They were excited to finally be able to do it!

They now have 3 baskets ready for the Easter Bunny's arrival next Sunday.