Before and After: Part One

Paint Colors

(On our way into Lowe's)

Picking colors for the basement was a bit of a challenge. There is a lot of wall space down there so we didn't want too much color. We also have a mini shrine where we pray and that space is blue so we needed a color to go with blue. I immediately thought of orange since it's the complementary color of blue. But wait... we didn't want too much color. Or did we? After all, we love color. We're artistic kind of people. 3 years with white walls were torture enough. Orange would be bold, but it would be warm and inviting. It would look great with cream colored trim. Yes, orange would be quite lovely. So, I threw the idea to Mike and he actually agreed. What about the other end of the basement? Well, we just can't seem to get away from green. It's been Mike's long time favorite color and I'm all for earth colors. our kitchen is green and I've never regretted it. So, orange and green it is. With cream colored trim. ;)

Summer Camp with Grammy and Grandpa

My mom works at a community center in my home town that provides preschool and fun after school classes. During the summer they have a variety of weekly summer camps and so my mom signed up Little Miss Chatterbox and Mr. Funny for a week of camp. The kids LOVED it! They were so excited every morning and talked about it all through breakfast, asking every minute if it was time to go yet. At the end of the day they were wiped out but still eagerly looking forward to the next day. And I got to spend time alone with Mr. Tickles! I am so thankful for everything my parents did to accomodate us for the week. It's no easy task to have my three wee ones in a house with two 1 year old dogs. But we all survived and had a great time.

Fun with Cousins

I feel so blessed to be able to share with my children cousins of their age. When I was growing up, I had a younger girl cousin who I was very close with and I am so grateful that she lived close by and that we were able to see each other often and have fun together. I truly believe there is no greater gift than family. Of course, good neighbors come close. ;) Which is why I'm also grateful for the 2- weeks-younger-than-me girl who lived right next door to me for my entire life (well, minus my first 2 years) and became my best friend and is still my best friend to this day, 23 years later. And guess what? Now she's family. Because I married her brother. See why I think so fondly of good neighbors?
Anyway, I'm talking about Doph. (I still need to write the post about her name!) For some reason we always had the idea that your firstborn would be a boy. I don't know where this idea came from but we definitely, without a doubt, figured we would always have boys first. So, when her first baby was born we were SO excited when we found out that the baby was a girl. A few months later I became pregnant with my first and we still assumed that it would be a boy (Because it must have been some starnge fluke that Doph's first was a girl). But then I had a sonogram (I don't wait until the birth to find out the sex like Doph does) and found out that I too was having a girl. Hooray! Only 11 months apart, and they are two peas in a pod just like me and Doph. It's so funny to see the night and day pair. Mini Me and Mini Doph. It's wonderful. Then Doph had a boy and exactly a year and 8 days later I had a boy. And 6 months later Doph had another boy. Those three are so cute together! The three muskateers with their blond hair blowing in the wind and the sun reflecting off their beautiful blue eyes. My boy looks like he could be their brother. They all get along so great together. Then I got pregnant with #3 and soon after, found out that Doph was pregnant too!


We hoped for girls again, (especially Doph since she had 1 girl & 2 boys and this was most likely her last pregnancy because of her high risk and the dangers involved) but alas, we both had boys. Two beautiful, wonderful baby boys, exactly two weeks apart- just like me and Doph. These 7 kids are just as close as they can be and it's such a joy to watch them together. God is good.

A Taste of Irish Dance

Shortly after the flood, I signed Little miss Chatterbox up for Irish Step Dance lessons. I was surprised to watch her during class and see her staring out the window, yawning, twirling her finger around her hair, not paying attention when the teacher was talking, etc. When I asked her if she liked class she said, "Not really." I asked her why and she couldn't give me an answer. Just a shrug of the shoulders. I guess it was too slow for her. Oh, well. I made her stick with it until the classes were over and at least she looked really cute. I definitely need to get her into those swimming lessons.

Flood Pictures

Carpet

Laundry room floor

Water damage to wall and door (Bye-Bye Carpet!)

I laughed so hard when I saw Mr. Tickles doing this. He pulled that empty beer bottle out of the trash and started trying to pull up the carpet, just like Daddy!

I'm Baaaaaack!!

I can't believe it's been over a month since the last time I wrote a blog. Well, I don't think my faithful readers missed me too much. Oh, wait. I don't have any faithful readers! Hahaha. That is why I can get away with something like that. Okay, so I last left off with our terrible flood which has turned out to be a HUGE job. That is what I've been so occupied with. Any extra minute I have, I have put into fixing the basement. After soaking up all the water and removing the carpet and padding, we thought all was good. Until about a week later when I realized the walls were crawling with mold. So, the bottom of the walls were cut out and I have been mudding, painting, mudding and painting some more ever since. Mike (because of his embarrassment, I mean, humility, my husband has asked that I stop calling him Rock) put down new floors and is half way finished. It's slowly started to feel like home again. I haven't been able to do any of my summer school plans with the kids either. Maybe soon? But summer will be over before I know it. I hope that after all this basement work is done, we will still have time and funds for a vacation. Even if it's a short one! I want to try and catch the blog up on what's been goin' on around here, but we'll see if time allows for that. Still have half the basement and the classroom to complete. Not to mention the classroom bathroom. here are some pictures of the damage. Hope to have new pictures up soon!
TV/Library Area (this is the area that is now painted and has new flooring!)


Classroom



One part of the other side of basement (This is where I'd like to put the computer but Mike will need to add a phone line and electrical plugs over there. This should be no problem since he is an electrician)


Water damage to the bookshelf Mike made (No worries. He'll just cover it up with trim)