Floor Progress

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Almost halfway done with room 1. I like how my kids strategically place themselves in the pictures.

Excitement

Kevin and I have been playing around with the idea of using our tax return (I know, it's best to keep the money throughout the year, but try as we might we can not get those deductions to balance out quite right) to buy Disney seasonal passes. We go back and forth. Anyway you slice it, it's a lot of money. So we decided to think about it a while longer.

Yesterday, I got home from playgroup & Kevin was working from home. He mentioned instead of doing the Disney thing, maybe for just a little more we could get wood floors in our downstairs living areas. Apparently, my reaction was extreme excitement because he immediately said "well I guess that's what we are doing," before I even said a word. Something about my eyes lighting up with joy. Seriously, this carpet has been the bane of my existence for some months now. So, yes it's pretty thrilling.

Now I just have to figure out what I want to buy and let my handy hubby install. We are leaning toward engineered wood and I kind of know the color I want, but I'm a little overwhelmed with figuring out which brand because, well... it needs to be bullet little boy proof. If it scratches I might cry. But the thought of no more stained, uncleanable carpet makes me giddy.

So, sorry kids, no more Disney this year. Momma's getting a new floor!

Backsplash Update

We decided to just do it ourselves. And despite saying we were going to finish the area by the fridge before doing more demolition Kevin has taken more tile down. The other wall is at least sheetrocked and ready for tile as soon as I go buy it (probably on Saturday.)

Anyhow, here is a before picture (see nothing really wrong with it, besides just being plain.

And the demolition. Are we crazy?

We Are SO Grounded From Watching HGTV

This kind of falls under the category of "what in the world were we thinking?" When we came home from vacation we walked in the door and I though "Holy cow our house is plain." At that exact moment Kevin said words to a similar effect. So, clearly we need to decorate. This weekend we bought some stuff for our bathroom.

We also got a big picture for the living room, but it's not on the wall yet. And then, pleased with having a few items to make our house not so boring, we sat down with the boys and turned on HGTV. A side note, Eric and Mark were GLUED to HGTV. Probably because in this particular show they completely tore out a kitchen. (Boys like destruction. It's a fact.) Then they rebuilt it and made it so pretty. Somewhere along the way Kevin said, "you know, we could redo our backsplash and it wouldn't be that hard." And I got all giddy because I really am not in love with our plain white tile boring blah backsplash. Granted I was prepared to live with it for a good while, but when he said this it got my attention. So we went to Lowes and Home Depot and found some tile I though might work. Then, since we give everything big like tearing tile off the wall such great forethought, he started ripping it off.

And then suddenly there was a hole in the wall and we started to freak out. After doing some reading though, I guess it's not that uncommon for the wall to come with the tile. It's just, when we planned out our new, dreamy backsplash, redoing the drywall didn't really enter into our minds. Last time we did tile was in our house in Oklahoma and we gutted the entire bathroom so we knew we would be rebuilding walls and such. That was a way huger project, but yet this had Kevin really stressed out about it becoming a much bigger job. Oh! And what if we mess up the house really bad. Granted, he's done floor tile before. Granted, he's added an entire wall before. Yet that was then and this is now. That house was built in 1955 and when we moved in had orange shag carpet (which we promptly ripped out and refinished the hardwoods underneath.) I'm rambling, but my point is I think he can do this but he is nervous because this house was not built in 1955 and is much nicer than our first one.

So, yesterday I went to the tile store and found some pretty tiles and got a rough estimate of how much it would cost if we had it installed. The answer... too much and they won't even do the demolition and wall rebuild. So, we are at a crossroads. We are pretty much committed to this project as, well let me just show you.

That's all we'll do until we have a clearer plan for how to proceed. We will call one more contractor for an estimate, and I think we should still do it ourselves. We always need stuff to do after the kids go to bed. I say we at least make an attempt on that small corner and see how it goes. I'll update to let you know what we do. And of course a before and after pic of the other wall.

All About the Weekend

How is it already Monday?

This was one of the best weekends we've had in a while. I didn't even feel the desire to escape, scream, or run away until about 6 last night. And it was almost bedtime! I got a little twitchy about then, but it was short lived and the kids even got to stay up a little later than 7.

Saturday morning was bowling. That was lots of fun after the first kid freaked out about not bowling with his brother, and after the second kid freaked out about not bowling with his friend. That part had me literally rolling my eyes and probably looking like a crappy mother. In the end, Eric was able to play with the younger kids, and Mark finally warmed up to the boy who he was paired with. (They put Eric with Mark's friend.) Everyone was happy! Hallelujah. There was a little whining throughout but I think it's just some law of childhood that they must whine no matter what the occasion or how much money mom and dad have shelled out so that they could have some fun. Oy. Anyway, afterwards we had lunch at McD's and made grand plans to visit Pier 60 with our friends later that night.

Pier 60 was awesome and I can't believe we've lived in Florida for 18 months and haven't been there. We've been missing out. First there was a really awesome playground with things to climb and climb they did. To the top of that rope structure. And they were jumping off of that rock. Which made me wonder, who the heck are these kids? A year ago neither of them would have jumped off of anything that high. I'm proud of how far they have come, and terrified of the broken bones that are surely in our future.

After everyone was covered in sand, we went to wander a little bit. There were lots of "street" performers and we walked by just as this 16 year old kid was setting up to escape from his strait jacket. He picked Kevin to be one of his helpers. Kevin was reluctant, but helped and had maybe a little toooo much fun helping the kid into the strait jacket and then tying him up with a rope. I know it's all trickery and stuff but it still looked really hard. And he (of course) escaped just fine. Very entertaining (and I don't have any pictures of that part because Kevin had the camera with him. Our friends got some good ones though, so I may add them later.)

Then we got ice cream which made everyone happy.

Then we walked out on the pier, where there were lots of vendors and at the end it was just breezy and relaxing and beautiful. We stayed out until 9:30 which is late for us parents of four kids and all the kids fell asleep on the way home. I then broke my cardinal rule of parenting... never wake a sleeping child... because they were so dirty it was ridiculous. So at 10 PM I woke four sleeping boys and bathed them, much to their dismay. Luckily for me they all went right back to sleep and life was good. And for the first time since Ben was born he slept until 8 AM.

Whew, that was a fun day! Sunday wasn't as fun, but it was still great! I had this grand idea last week to sew a tote bag for our library books. I haven't used my sewing machine in ages, but it seemed like a fun and (maybe) easy project. So, my objective for yesterday was to get fabric, dig my sewing machine out of the closet, find some little corner of my bedroom to set up the sewing machine and make a bag (or two depending on how the first one turned out.) So, we needed paint too to finish our "we hate builder paint so we must repaint every wall of our home" mission. We got paint and we got fabric, and on the way there and back home we talked. We talked about where everyone sleeps and someday we won't have to have a playroom for the boys and someday we should use that room for a hobby room. Somewhere along the way I thought. Hmmm, we could do that now if Zack and Mark share a bedroom, we could put the playroom upstairs and I could have a sewing room now. Why the desire to make a bag necessitates a whole room designated for sewing I'm not sure, but Kevin thought it was a good enough idea to spring into action and we started moving Mark into Zack's room. They loved the idea. So tell me friends, why do I feel horribly guilty about this? We bought this house because it had enough rooms for everyone. Then we decided it would be better to have Eric & Ben share because that way we could have a playroom. I'm okay with that because the playroom benefits them. Putting the other two together just so I can have a space makes me feel terribly guilty. I've been told to get over it, but it's still there. Anyhow, the room needs painted just as soon as I can go get the paint because DUDE the boys did some damage to the walls in there. Not by coloring on them or doing anything destructive, but seriously have I mentioned that BUILDER PAINT SUCKS? Cause it does. We aren't completely finished with the moving process, but I did get my sewing machine set up, and I made a bag. It's not perfect, but it does hold library books!

~Have a great day~