Misc August

It took one lesson before Alex decided to join Carter with Gymnastics Lessons.

He is doing a great job!!!

It only took two lessons before Carter climbed to the top of the rope.

I didn't get it all on video because I really didn't think he would climb that high!

He did.... And then he did it again.

I found it extremely nerve racking!!!!!

My kids are always wanting to play in the rain.

It just happened to storm while playing at the park,

so we just went with it.

Poor Hallie and Nadya!!!!  They  are always begging to go out 

during a down pour and they missed the fun!

I can't remember where they were, but they weren't with us.

Unfortunately, we received a little too much rain and part of our basement flooded!!!!!

ARGH!!!!!!!!

Hallie's room took the brunt of it and we had to completely empty it out!

We ripped the carpet out and plan to tile it.

Hallie is excited about that and is temporarily occupying the toy room.

The tile is picked out and we've decided on the pattern.

After getting a few bids, we've decided to attempt it ourselves.

Doug went fishing with Tracey and Shel and took Carter along.

Carter caught the biggest fish of all!

Way to go Carter!!!!!!!

Doug's company work party was at Lagoon this year!

My parents and Kris, John and Laurence came along.

We camped at the Lagoon Campground and got very little sleep!

I don't have a single picture of Nadya.

She spent most of her day  riding rides with Aunt Misty and Uncle Aaron.

We spent August trying to soak up as much sun as possible.

We have really enjoyed our water park passes!!!!

Doug redid the layout of the shower in the bathroom downstairs.

I was so excited with how it turned out.

It really opened up the small space and the hallway appears much larger than before!

I can't believe a tiny, one foot wall makes such a difference!

Alex tagged along with Doug to get supplies at Lowe's and came home looking like this...

Sometimes it's all about being at the right place at the right time!

He made his very own little locker.

Carter was so jealous!!!!

This was just too cute to pass by-

All three of them watching T.V.

A little of this.... A little of that......

I cleaned off the camera card to my little camera, so this post is going to serve as a catch up for September.  Our church had a fun barbecue at Sugar-house Park.  The kids enjoyed playing in the stream and eating free snow cones.  Alex wore longer shorts (Doug calls them man capris), which didn't work with the water so Nadya improvised and tied them up with elastics.  She is so resourceful!  Needless to say, it didn't help much.  Alex's shorts were still drenched!

The kids played hard!  In fact they were dead tired that night!

Alex snuck in and slept on Carter's floor.

We have been productive around the house lately.

After six years (yes, six years!)  the front door is finally painted!  

We are still getting use to it, but I like it.  

I have enough paint to paint the other two outside doors.

Humm????  I wonder how many years it will take me to do those?  

Doug also built nesting boxes for the hens, (no eggs yet) fixed the boat, cleaned up the garden, and 

cleaned out the storage under the patio.  Phew.........I hate all these projects and we still have a list about ten items long  lingering on the fridge!  It is suppose to serve as

a motivator, and I guess in some ways it is. 

We have been wanting beanbags for the basement toyroom/pool table room and were able

to pick up two lovesac bean bags for a steal!  Originally, they were listed on Craig's list, but these particular bean bags came up casually in a conversation at church.  Sold, sold, sold........  

The kids love them!!!! The colors are perfect, and they look brand new, but I must admit they are bigger than I anticipated.

We picked a bushel of tomatoes from our garden and made 37 pints of salsa with Aunt Tracey.

This was the first time the girls had canned and they loved it! Hallie quickly became an expert

on hot peppers and jalapenos and Nadya cut up the garlic and green peppers.  They both peeled and squished tomatoes, their favorite part.  I am pretty sure Aunt Tracey will be wiping tomato juice from her cupboards for weeks! 

We plan to can peaches this weekend. Nadya is besides herself with joy!  Who knew canning food could be so entertaining to 11 year old girls?????

The Girls get their own Room!!!!!!

Well, Hallie is officially in her room.  The girls were sooooo excited to have their own space.   A first for Nadya and a welcome change for Hallie.  (She had her own room prior to Nadya coming, but has been sharing since.)  We still have the finishing touches.....  Decorating, hanging stuff on the walls, curtains, etc....  But I did take a picture of the girls in their own bed in their own room for their first night......

We painted stripes on the bottom of Nadya's walls.  Hallie wants circles....  any ideas????? 

Remodeling Update.... Two Steps Forward, One Step Back!

So, we have Insulation 

And DOORS!  I was so excited about having doors....  Although I can't get use to them.  After not having a door to my laundry room ever, I can't seem to remember to use it!

And, unfortunately Doug's hand was not healing so we decided to hire someone to hang the rest of the sheet rock and mud it.  The sheet rock is up!  What a transformation!!!!!!!

The poor girls are packed into their room like sardines!  I keep yelling suggesting that they clean their room.  I even went in to try and help them.  It's pointless.  There is no place for them to put anything.  Two beds, two dresses and two night stands and their room is packed!  Not to mention it's been a catch all for some of the remodeling stuff, (like the new doors!) See, it's a mess!  I can't wait for them to have their own room!!!!!

But, I give them extra points for being creative.  I walked in to find this:

Um, yes that is their laundry basket!!!!!!!  They didn't know where else to put it!  There is literally no room for it except in the middle of the floor or up high.  I guess they chose up high! Nadya has the only room in the basement that has ceiling tiles and they used paper clips to secure the laundry basket to the ceiling.  Doug said it needed to come down, but I was very impressed with just how resourceful they were!  Hallie said she got the idea because her teacher hangs everything from the ceiling with paper clips.  (funny thing is Hallie is currently in my old 5th grade room and I am pretty certain they are the same paper-clips I hung).  Anyways, we had to take the laundry basket  down, but it gave us all a good laugh!

Which then brings us to the one step back.......

I spent all day covering the basement in plastic so we can fix the seams.  It was exhausting.  Of course, Doug was out of town so I was on my own!  Well, Carter helped for a while and then I let him play the computer for quite some time because all the toys are now covered and I wasn't offering much for entertainment!  So, hopefully we will be repainting this weekend!
  (Fingers Crossed that the dry-wallers finish it up this week)

Remodeling Update

Doug finally finished installing the cabinets I found on KSL for a steal.  They have been installed for a while, but he finally put the crown molding and toe kicks on.  I made seat cushions, throw pillows and curtains.  It looks great.  I love having all the extra storage space.  This room is the kids' toy room so it is primarily filled with their stuff.  I love that everything is tucked away and what doesn't fit goes in bins under the pool table.  Clean up is really fast.  It's great!  Doug hates that we have all the games on display on the book shelf, but I ♥ it.  The kids are so great about actually getting the games out and playing with them because they can finally see them.  Before they were tucked away in the closet and forgotten about.  We've even started to play more games as a family.  My favorite currently is Scrabble Jr. ( Jr version so Alex can play) and Sequence.  Both fun games that all of our children play well.
We currently still do not have a lot on the walls downstairs.  We are waiting until Hallie's room is finished to decide what we want where.  Plus, there are a few seems that need redone when the mudders come. (probably not the proper word for mudders, but I am uncertain what else to call them)   The seems looked okay with the primer, but when we painted the walls yellow, it was more obvious that some of them needed repaired.  Well, obvious if you know what to look for.  Anyway, it is enough to bother us, so we just plan to fix it when we mud Hallie's room.

I love all the seating these benches provide and I am storing all our family photo albums, cook books, pictures, etc in the cabinet on the right.  It was originally built for scrapbooking stuff, but my photo albums and my own scrapbooks and blurb books are in it.  I just don't have time for scrapbooking anymore and have made the switch to blurbing

We finally found small enough couches for the fire place room.  The room is not very big, so we wanted something on a smaller scale with recliners.  We found them on black Friday of all days!  So, of course, it was a bargain!

We also finally hung up the pictures that we had drawn when we were in Russia.  I had them framed and Matted on Doug's Birthday.  They were originally going to go on the fireplace wall, but they were too large for the space, so we put them in the kids' playroom. 

And Finally, Hallie's room and the laundry room is all framed.  We should be insulating and sheet rocking tomorrow.  I really am not sure why I say "we" because I really only help when it requires two bodies.  Which, isn't much but probably will be more so with the sheet rock.

A last minute change, but we decided to extend the laundry room by about 16 inches (as seen to the right of the door frame) to allow space for more shelves.  You can never have enough storage and 16 inches really didn't change Hallie's room too much. 

Doug was making pretty good progress but took two days off after this:

He cut himself while working with a wood chisel.  Of course, it was too late to go to InstaCare, so he went to the ER.  He was home within two hours.  The new hospital is incredibly fast!  He ended up with 7 stitches and was back to work in no time.

Nadya gets her own Room!

06.18.2009
We've been working on Nadya's new room downstairs. It is finished, but not completely as there is nothing on the walls and the closet doors still need painted. I'll post pictures when it is finished, but I wanted to post this to document Nadya's first night in her own room. A first for her. We missed out on so many firsts, that we celebrate some of the silly ones instead. Hallie is staying with her (even though all her stuff is upstairs) until we finish her room because Nadya wanted her to. I guess the basement (even though it is now beautiful) is still too scary to be alone in. Nadya loves that Hallie stuff is upstairs as she is a clean freak and Hallie is a slob. Doesn't make for a very good roommate ya know! So, her room stays nice and tidy while Hallie struggles with making the laundry basket. ;)

New Used Cabinets!

We have been thinking about taking on the task of remodeling our upstairs bathroom,
so I was on KSL looking for any good deals on Vanities when I ran across these:






They were remodeling their home and could not make these beautiful Maple cabinets work in their new floor plan.
I thought these looked perfect for our newly remodeled empty basement.
They were asking 800 dollars.
We offered 600.
She gladly accepted.
I was thrilled.
Doug was less than excited.
You see they were doing demo tomorrow which meant we had to get them home tonight!
It was 9:00 PM plus it was raining.
We borrowed my sister's trailer and my parents came and helped with their truck.
We loaded them up in their garage where it was dark, but dry.
We covered them with a tarp and as soon as we drove off, it stopped raining!
We Drove them home and kept them dry in our garage until the next day.
They are beautiful and fit in our basement as if we had them custom made.
The back wall with the corner bench goes from wall to wall! (just like the picture)
We love them.
I'll post pics when they are all installed because currently they are just sitting against the wall.
I can not believe how beautiful they are.
What a deal!
Now, I've got to get busy making cushions and throw pillows for the bench.
I can't wait to have all the toys and photo albums neatly tucked away in my "new" cabinets!

Remodeling Update!!! Finally.....

After much debate over paint colors, we finally settled and had our basement painted. Doug really wanted to go with a really light tan, but I wanted yellow. Our entire upstairs is a light tan and I wanted something different. So, we officially settled with a light yellow and then we have one accent wall (below) that is two shades darker. It looks great! We still need to get furniture, (a computer desk, new couches, coffee table and such) but it is still such a huge improvement. We also need to put up our speakers for the surround sound. Doug secured the BIGGEST flat screen TV possible for the space. In fact, we even scratched the ceiling a little installing it!

Taaa Daaa!!!

It is so nice for the kids to have a toy room again! Carter had forgotten about so many toys that have been put up! It was like Christmas all over again. I also must say, I love having a toy room in the basement. When I have had enough, I just tell them to go downstairs and play and for the most part, they do.

I LOVE Desperate Housewives!
(Although, I only watch it when the kids are tucked in!)

The walls are still incredibly bare, but it is such an amazing transformation. We are still trying to decide exactly what we want on the walls. We are thinking of dedicating an entire wall to old pics of the kids that are too cute to "put away" considering it is their space anyway. Any great ideas???