Happenings

Here are some things we've been up to lately!

Aahhh!

Yes, Parker believed he was real.  Made the Wal-mart behavior a tad bit better.  A tad.

A before-school pic.

My cutie patootie pre-Ker.

Home Depot workshop.

Sydney plays Draw Something with me on my old iphone.  I LOVE to see her drawings.  They absolutely crack me up.  Here are two examples.

Our across-the-street neighbor had his birthday party.  It had rained the few days before, and the day of, and they had a bouncy place... but they rigged up the coolest thing.  The dad drove everyone down in a golf cart, and he had put tarps over and under the jumpy house so the kids never got wet!  It was pretty fantastic.

The kids had Veterans Day off of school, so we had some fun at the park.

We ran into Sydney's school friend (and our neighbor) there, too.

Hilarious findings in one of Sydney's learning books.  LOL!  And, read that last sentence... the baby drinking "aquahall"?!?!  What are these kids singing these days?  ;)

Love our pets' names... our invisible pets.

We got to go to my mom's church's bazaar again this year.  They have the best Christmas stuff for sale, and they have warm soup and cornbread for lunch (the girls' favorite part... food!)

We were trying to take this to send to our friend for her surprise 40th birthday party that was this day (up in Virginia) but we kind of did the numbers backwards... oops... we sent it anyways and told her happy "04" birthday ;)

Hanging at the soccer fields.

Grandmom and DeeDad came to see them play!

Stephen stepped in to coach, since Sydney's was out of town.  He must've been good luck, because...

...someone scored 2 goals!  (her team had only scored 2 goals the entire season before this, if that gives you any idea of how exciting this was!)

Taylor's soccer team party.

Parker and his buddy Mason.

Sure did!

Good ol' mall train! (no, I did not pay the 5 bucks it is to ride on it)

the soccer goal Stephen made and I painted.  We've had some really fun family soccer matches in our backyard!

Sydney and her friend Izzy got to eat lunch with Izzy's mom at school.

My friend Allison at her baby shower!

This boy... he CRACKS me up!  This is how he drives sometimes!  I think he is watching the wheels, but only a little too closely.  It is hilarious, I have to snap him back to reality when he starts veering off the road. :)

This video... I tried to capture the moment.  We have a really steep hill in our neighborhood, and when Parker wants to ride his jeep on the road, we sometimes go up there.  But, if he drives down, he about loses control (he is going so fast) so he wants me to hold on.  Every time we do this, his laugh is absolutely precious.  I videotaped it to see if I could get his laugh on camera, and this is what I ended up with. :)

Party Animal

I am one who always stresses out about parties that I plan.  Usually, they're birthday parties, and I'm a total stress ball.  Do I have enough food??  Will the kids have fun?  Did I forget something?  I did actually call the place and schedule the party, didn't I?

So, knowing I had to tackle the planning of 3 parties this week should have led to some elevated anxiety.

It totally didn't.  I was cool, calm, and collected.  I couldn't believe it!  I know it had to do with the fact that I had more time to plan... and the fact that Stephen was in town and could keep the kiddos with him while I picked up/dropped off/set up stuff.  (seriously, that "elevated anxiety" would've for sure been there if not).

The first party was Monday evening for Sydney's soccer team.  I kept it simple (another thing that helped!) and actually followed the lead of Taylor's soccer party (no reinventing the wheel here!).  $7 per family got each family a pizza, cupcakes, and drinks.  Leftovers would be taken home.  I didn't have to come out of pocket much (score.).  We met at the local fro-yo place whose party room is free to rent.  Certificates were done, medals were brought.  Girls were happy. It was easy-peasey.

The second party was at Parker's school on Thursday.  His class had their little Thanksgiving Feast.  I thankfully shared the party-planning responsibility with the two other room moms, both whose kids have gone to this school before. They knew the drill.  My job was to order the CFA nugget tray (you know, traditional Thanksgiving garb), make some stuffing, and to help set-up.  We got to meet some really nice and fun parents, and the kiddos had a good time.

The last party was at Taylor's school on Friday.  The pre-K hosts a Thanksgiving feast for the parents.  Since I'm room mom, I've been corresponding with parents for a few weeks about this.  Each family had an assigned dish, and I was in charge of decorations, set-up, and clean-up, as well as some mac n' cheese.  The parents totally stepped up- I had about 10 moms helping me set-up, and during the time when I was microwaving someone's green beans for them, I came back to find all the plates pre-served.  It was fabulous!  The kids ate and had fun, and I also got to meet a lot of the parents there.

Whew!  I think I'm off the hook now... well, until Christmas.  But I'll take these next few weeks and enjoy them, party-planning free.  (oh wait, Taylor's bday is soon!  nevermind...) :)

New Playroom!

We love our house.  But, considering we moved in before we had any kids, and now we have three, we have found that our initial "holy cow! look at all this storage!" has turned into "if I step on ONE more toy...".

When we were looking for houses a few months back, one thing we noticed was that all new construction had the option of putting a room over the two story foyer.  When we decided to stay put, Stephen brought up that idea... what if we added a playroom over our foyer?  It's just wasted space, anyway.  I agreed.  So, we got some recommendations and quotes, and bada-bing, bada-boom, we picked a contractor and got started.

Here are some pics to show the stages of construction!

By the way, in case you're wondering, the day numbers you see aren't consecutive days.  (I WISH!)  In total, it took almost 7 weeks!

Before:

View from the bottom of the stairs.

View from the top of the stairs, looking down.

View from the top of the stairs, looking straight.

Day 1:

View from bottom of stairs, looking in the foyer.

Day 2:

View from bottom of stairs.

View from bottom of stairs, looking up. (This is now the ceiling you see when you walk in the front door)

View from top of stairs.

Day 3:

All electrical done- outlets, lights, smoke detector and fan wiring.

Looking down the stairs (new light fixture installed above)

Day 4:

HVAC redone to accommodate both upstairs and downstairs. (this is the view from the bottom of the stairs)

Day 5:

Inspection by the county... it passed!  woohoo!


Day 6:

Sheet rock put up inside the room!  View from top of stairs, looking downstairs.

View from top of stairs, looking to the room.

We have walls!

PS- Having the walls up makes our stairway and upstairs SO much darker... it is crazy!  

Day 7:

More sheet rock!  Up the stairs.

The foyer has a ceiling!

Day 8:

Foyer fixture installed.

Lights installed- this is on the ceiling at the bottom of our stairs.  We also had a new light installed above the stairs which definitely helps with the new-found darkness.

Lights, fan, outlet covers, and light switch plates installed in the playroom.  It's starting to come together!

Day 9:

All the spackling has been completed.  

Day 10:

The plastic that had been separating the foyer from the kitchen is down!  (it looks so weird, I was getting used to having a little doorway there!)

Crown molding added.

More molding.

Foyer molding.

And the start of crown molding in the upstairs playroom, where the new walls are.  

Day 11:

Carpet company came and measured for the new carpet.


Day 12:

All crown molding was done, the old and new ceiling were fleshed together.

Door installed to playroom.

All tools removed... for now!

I got to dust, sweep, and mop!  Finally!  (No sarcasm, the grit on the floor that was being tracked from room-to-room was driving me craaaaazy!)

Day 13:

Painter came today- day one of the two he'll need to complete everything.  All the ceilings are now painted, caulking was done, and crown molding paint was completed.

Door is painted, one more coat needed.

And the room is painted, too!  I love this color!

Day 14:

Stephen installed the blinds and the curtain rod over the window.

Day 15:

PAINTING IS COMPLETE!

Day 16:

Handrail is bought and yours truly is painting it.

Day 17:

Handrail is hung.  Can you believe Stephen hung this all by himself?

Day 18:

We have new carpet!!!  It's so fluffy! (We didn't do the bedrooms, just the stairs, hallway, and playroom... and boy, am I wishing we did!  Our carpet, which seemed fine before, now feels like you're walking on cement. :( )

Day 19 & 20:

Room wrap-up time!  Finally!  Finishing touches included installing the built-in shelves/desk, installing the smoke detector, cable outlet, door knob, etc.

Day 21:

Couch is delivered!

Day 22:

County came out... the room passed inspection!  (Thank goodness, since we've kind of taken the room over already...).

We have a few more things to do, like install the tv, get the cable installed, bring all our board games in from the garage, buy some chairs for the desk, etc.  But at least the big stuff is done.  The long time it took to build this room out of air is definitely worth it now.  The kids are digging it, and it's already filling itself up.  I think that by adding this room, we are buying ourselves more time in this house of ours!  (We have so much extra storage space in our house now, it is incredible!)

The. End.