Inspired by HGTV

I love to watch the fix it up shows on HGTV. I love to see the before and after pictures of the things that they redo. I watch them take out walls or redo a kitchen and I think, We could totally do that! Now, we all know that when I think," We can do that," what I mean is, B could totally do that and I would love to stand by and take pictures. Well, we have this here wet bar in our basement.

Since before we moved in, we knew that we wanted to take this out. We feel like it's such a waste of space. The couple that sold us the house were so happy to show us the,"really nice wet bar area downstairs." We're not really the drinking type though, so, although it is nice down there, we didn't really have a use for it. We're trying to save our pennies so that we can redo the flooring throughout the whole house. Can I just say I was truly shocked to find out how much money it is going to be? When the guy at the flooring store gave us the quote I couldn't help that my mouth fell open and I had to say, "whoa, that's a lot." Anyway, we're working on it. One night as I was thinking about the wet bar and the cool things we could do once it was gone, like not have a wet bar, I had an epiphany. We need to take the wet bar out before we do flooring so that we can take out the nasty tile that's down there and lay soft wonderful carpet in it's place. I shared my epiphany with B and he agreed with me. Next thing I knew I was pulling up YouTube videos on how to take out cabinets. I was quite surprised to see how easy it looked. I know, YouTube is full of liars that don't tell you how hard and how long it really takes, but the guy said that cabinets are just screwed into studs, so unscrew them and the cabinets should just come off the wall. I think I was able to wait 18 hours before my excitement got the better of me and I wanted to try my hand at cabinet removal. We put the offspring to bed, strapped on our tool belts and set to work. Ok, we didn't really strap on tool belts. Truthfully I was already in jammies. First matter of business was to break out the wine racks. I pushed on them and they wouldn't move. I threw in the towel and told B that maybe we should hire someone to do it. He pushed on them with little to no effort and they broke away from the cabinet. Sweet! My hopes of easy cabinet removal returned. My job was to unscrew the little wine glass holder things on the bottom of the cabinet. Once those were off and the wine racks were broken to smithereens, it was time to located the screws that were holding the upper cabinets up. B pulled out his amazing 10.5 volt drill and went to town. He got two of the four screws out before his amazingly powerful drill died. That's when I heard for the one millionth time,"I need a new drill. This is ridiculous!" While his poor sad drill was charging, we set to work on the lower cabinet. I popped the tile off that was along the wall. Not, gonna lie, I was pretty pleased with myself when all the tile were off. I was pleased with myself until B stood up from where he had been under the sink and pulled the whole sink out of the cabinet. In the amount of time it took me to take the tile off, he had, disconnected the little water heater that was under the sink, undone the plumbing, which included cutting pipes, and had figured out how to take the sink out. Nothing like a giant slice of humble pie! We checked the status of his drill. The little guy had charged enough that we could go back to taking the upper cabinet down. B unscrewed the screws, while I held it up. I was surprised that when he took out the last screw, the cabinet really did come away from the wall! There was no damage to the wall and I was standing on the counter holding a cabinet. It. Was. Awesome! We took the cabinet out to the garage and went back in the basement to tackle the lower cabinet. B grabbed hold of the counter top, pulled up and the whole thing came away from the cabinet. Getting the cabinet out was tricky, they had put the tile right up against the base of the cabinet, which I assume is normal, it just left a little lip that we needed to lift the cabinet over. I have about 0% arm strength, so I wasn't any help as B was pushing and pulling on the cabinet to get it over the edge of the tile. With as much strength as I could muster, I pulled with him and we were able to get it over the ledge! We hauled it up the stairs and out to the side of the house.

This is what it looked like at the end of night one. I was so happy that I could hardly sleep! The reason for the giant hole in the wall is because there is a black pipe that was hooked to the sink in the counter. They didn't cut the studs back far enough for the pipe to rest inside the stud, so the pipe stuck out farther than the wall. We think that whoever put the wet bar in  thought that it didn't matter because there would be a cabinet in front of it, so it wouldn't matter that there was no wall. Well, B talked to a guy at Home Depot about what to do. The guy told him that since we don't have the sink anymore, we don't really need the pipe. He said to cut it until it would fit behind a new piece of sheet rock. He showed him how to plug the pipe and how to patch the wall. Clearly, the wall patch didn't go on at the end of night one, but the pipe was cut.

Day two brought a new sledge hammer and a great way to get out some pent up frustrations! When B bought the sledge hammer he didn't know how heavy to go. He knew he needed it to try and get the counter top off the other set of cabinets, so he thought a 16 pounder would do the job.

It only took a half hearted swing to pop the top counter top off. He was so happy that one swing was all it took!

It took a couple full swings to get the other counter top off. you can't tell from the picture, but he was having a great time destroying this thing. 

He got the counter top off and it was HEAVY! I was the only help he could recruit. 

I was so happy that we only had one set of stairs we had to walk up with this blasted thing. After we carried it outside, we went back downstairs. Together we were able to knock the cabinet loose and I asked if we were going to carry it outside. He said no way. It was way too heavy, we were going to need more help. If my memory serves me well, I'm pretty sure he told me that he would need a guys help, because I would be more of a liability than an asset. Rude! Too bad he's totally right. That night we had gone to K's Christmas concert. On the way home we go pass the church. It was a Wednesday and I remembered it was youth night, so the church would be crawling with  young men. We stopped and I ran in to see if I could find three or four that wouldn't mind coming to our house to help lift the cabinet up the stairs. The young men had gone to do a tour of a funeral home. That's odd. One of the young women leaders suggested that we call the missionaries and see if they could help us. Genius! The poor missionaries, even if they don't want to, they say yes! We called and they told us they could be here in five minutes.

 I think it's so funny that the bigger missionary had the littler one doing the actual lifting and he stood beside it to keep it balanced.

Look how awesome they are! Up the stairs they went like it was no big deal. It only took them a few minutes from when they showed up to when they were telling us goodbye. We were so thankful for their help!

This is at the end of day two. The extra space was already awesome! Now we just needed to move the outlets from counter height to closer to floor and fix the hole in the wall.

He had to make the hole square so that he could put in a new piece of dry wall.

End of day 3.

Next, he moved the outlets. He moved them like it was no big deal. I would hate that kind of a thing. There were so many steps and of course with electrical stuff you want to make sure you do it right. He moved all of the outlets in one night. He was ready for the dry wall!

P from our ward, the same P that helped with the lights, used to do dry wall for a living. He found out what we were doing and told us that he would come help. He showed up and helped B hang the new dry wall.

Then he textured our wall for us. He is so awesome and he spent a lot of time at our house. B says that watching him do it, he was really thankful that P was willing to help. B says that he had the general idea of how to do it, but if he had tried, he thinks he would have ended up really frustrated. The guy he talked to at Home Depot had made it sound so easy, but it took P a long time to do all of this for us. Having him help was an answer to an unspoken prayer.

Neither of us were excited about the painting part. It takes forever. Because the color was so dark and we wanted to go way light, we were told we needed two coats of primer. B started on the first coat and I came behind him doing the second. We were doing the entire basement, not just the wet bar area so we knew it would be a several night project. Nothing says date night like priming the walls in ones basement!

 Saturday morning dawned and all three kiddos were so excited to learn that our plan for the day was to paint. Truly, they could hardly wait to finish eating so they could go downstairs and help. They were a huge help actually, it just took about a million times longer with them helping. Little B was most insistent that he do it by himself. He did keep the roller on the wall while it was his turn and only left one hand print in the wet paint . His cute little hand only played in the bucket of primer three or four times and he only destroyed his pants. I would call that a raging success!

I don't know if I can tell the walls are really light gray because I know they are really light gray or if it's because you can tell the we painted them a really light gray. Once it was all done, M looked around and said,"It feels like a whole different room down here. I know it's not, but it seems bigger or something." We told her it was because of the paint color. We love the lighter color and we are so thankful for the help we had along the way. If it weren't for the missionaries and P from our ward, we know there's no way our wet bar area removal would look as great as it does.

Let there be light

So I woke up one morning and it was the beginning of December. I blinked at some point and all the sudden we were yelling,"Happy New Year!" December came and went and I only did one post. I am shame faced and I hope to be better. December was full of cutting holes in our ceiling, hanging dry wall and painting. Not to mention the fun stuff like choir concerts, where a certain 7 year old told us that he didn't need to wear Sunday clothes so we made sure his jeans didn't have holes in the knees and off we went. Only to find out that he was one of only two children that weren't in Sunday clothes. Not great. Anyway, there was a choir concert and painting of ornaments and staying up way too late the entire two weeks of Christmas break. It was wonderful and amazing and it went by too fast. Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. If you aren't singing the song from Sound of Music now, you need to stop reading this and go watch it. I love that movie! I digress, there is a guy in our ward that has been telling us since September that he was going to come over and put lights in our living room. He's super busy. He's in school full time and has a lovely wife and four littles. We get that he's busy and were thankful that he had offered to help, but figured we would just save up and pay someone to come put in the lights. Our home teacher owns a lot of rentals and he gave us the name of the guy he uses. He's a retired electrician and does things like install lights for $25 an hour. We thought it was an answer to prayer. B texted the guy to see if he would be interested in doing the work. A few hours later the guy responded by saying, "Thanks, not interested." At least we knew exactly how he felt about doing our lights. B was home one Tuesday because he was post call, so he had the day off. His phone rang and it was P, the guy from our ward that had said he would put in the lights. He said,"I'm coming over right now to put in those lights." I love that he didn't ask, he just told B he was coming. Come he did. He had B make a list of the things they would need to buy at Home Depot, made a Depot run and were back to start cutting holes in the ceiling. I can't believe I forgot to take a before picture. Just imagine the ceiling without holes in it.

 Seeing the pictures makes me feel like cutting holes in the ceiling should have been so fast, but it took a long time. They had to measure and stud find and measure again and move the pencil outlines of the holes and measure one more time just to be sure. Then they were able to cut the holes. Talk about a dusty project. When they were done our tree looked like it had been flocked. Did I take the time to dust it you ask? Do you know me at all? Of course I didn't dust it. I hate dusting! I make the two year old dust. But, since the two year old isn't allowed to touch the tree, it just sat there in it's pretend flocked glory. We shook it semi good when we took it down to get some of the dust off. Good enough for who it's for right?!

Look how dark it is in there. Hence the light installation. P is the guy on the ladder. He taught B everything including how to put the wires in the cans.

Then he taught B how to shove the cans up into the ceiling. Since B is taller than P, B did a lot of the higher work. P got here at around 11:30 in the morning and they didn't get done until just after 5:00. Can I just say the Youtube makes everything look so fast and easy.  Liars! 

Ta-duh! The finished project. B and I are so thankful that P was willing to come spend his entire day at our house. It's still a little dark in the corner where the Christmas tree is, but don't panic. When we took the tree down the day after Christmas(because I'm crazy and that's the day it comes down. Honestly the day after Christmas when we get to take everything down might be my favorite day of the year. Fact.) Anyway, when we took the tree down, we moved the lamp over into the corner and now it's perfect! We love it so much!

Thanksgiving

Even though B is the low man on the totem pole, he was able to get the entire week of Thanksgiving off! The only bummer is that means he's on call Christmas day, the day after Christmas and the day after that, so, that's not great. But, to have him home for the week was truly amazing! We had planned on going to my beautiful older sister's house for Thanksgiving. As an added bonus, her daughter, B was getting baptized the day before Thanksgiving. We were going to be able to be there and that was awesome! We were going to leave Tuesday morning to make the six hour drive to their house. We decided last minute to leave on Monday night and go half way. B and I decided, while the kiddos were at school,  to leave early, so they had no idea that we were going to leave that night. When we told them that we were leaving early, it took them less than an hour to get all their clothes ready and eat dinner. Since we were going half way it meant that we got to stay in a hotel. Best. Day. Ever! The hotel had a pool that was open until 11:00, so we were able to go swimming. Now, when I say we I mean that B took the kids and went swimming. I "forgot" to pack my swim suit. I blame it on the fact that we were trying to be so fast leaving our house. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that I hate swimming because pools are always freezing cold. Not to mention, someone has to be on picture duty. How else would we document that we were there?

 It's official, Little B is a total bum. When in a picture, if you get him looking at the camera or smiling, it's by total accident on his part. He makes goofy faces like that on purpose.

Isn't she lovely? I love this sweet little thing so much!

What's not to love about this little fella? I don't remember what he was laughing at, probably something gross, but it made for an awesome picture!

His picture is so dark because I couldn't give the camera time to adjust to the light. He was looking at me and telling me how happy he was to be swimming, so I snapped the picture. These three littles make me so happy!

The next morning when I woke up to work out, I walked out of our room and saw white stuff falling from the sky. We had looked at the weather before we left and it said there was a chance for snow. We had hoped they would be wrong. They weren't. 

I have a lot of anxiety in general, but especially about driving in the snow. When K was a baby I was driving to a family Christmas party and it was snowing. On the freeway, our car slipped, I hit the van next to us, bounced off, and hit the cement barrier. Our car spun in a circle and we stopped facing on coming traffic. It was truly terrifying and increased my anxiety about driving in snow. The offspring was excited about playing in the white stuff with their cousins, I just wanted to make it there alive!

B has no fear and so to drive in the snow was no big deal to him. I am so thankful that he was there to drive us because heaven knows I would have freaked out and it would have taken us months to get there because we would have left the car at the hotel and walked the rest of the way to Montana.

I will say that it's beautiful. I am happy that we had left the night before. The rest of the drive should have taken us three hours, but it took close to five. We saw one car that had flipped over onto it's roof. The ambulance was already there and they were putting the guy on a stretcher. Not great! Hopefully he was ok and able to spend Thanksgiving with family and not in the hospital. 

We got there Tuesday afternoon and every day we were there, four crazy children bundled up and played in the snow.

They made this awesome tunnel that they loved to play in. I don't know what all they did while they were out there, but they would play outside for at least an hour, sometimes longer. They would come in the house, have some hot chocolate, warm up for a few minutes, put on their snow gear again and go back out.

They had so much fun playing in the snow, but they especially loved that they had cousins to play in the snow with.

Little B was so convinced that he wanted to go outside and play. We didn't have any waterproof gloves for him to wear. We tried telling him that his hands would freeze. He still wanted to go. B put his coat on him and took him out. He was out there for less than five minutes. He slipped and tried to catch himself. Once he felt the snow with his bare hands, he was done with the snow. When B showed me this picture I asked why there were tears. When he fell, he started to cry, B wanted a picture of him in the snow. Since they didn't have time to take the picture before little B fell, they took it after. Poor little thing. I don't blame him, snow leaves me in tears too.

B is from November to May older than K. They have always been friends and I am so happy that even though we haven't lived next to each other since they were two, that they are still good friends. B's baptism was amazing and I am so so happy that we were able to be there for it.

Thursday brought crafts and good food. I really don't like turkey, I never have. It seems dry with no flavor. My sister is truly a culinary genius and her turkey was truly amazing! Her's is the first turkey in my whole life that didn't taste like turkey! She had soaked it in a magical brine and it was truly amazing. One of my favorite things to do when we are with family is to play games. Thursday night was game night.

Not all of us were up to playing games. Little B climbed up in my lap, folded in half and went to sleep. I didn't want to put him to bed because it was only 6:30. I didn't think that he would stay asleep for very long like that anyway. I was wrong. He slept for three hours. We didn't think that he could be very comfortable. B picked him up and left the room. I went to find them a little while later.

 Thanksgiving wiped out more than just the two year old. 

My sister and her husband own a sporting goods store. We had never been there, so on Friday we went. Little B found the helmets and was in heaven. I think he looks like a bobble head. Their store is pretty sweet!

We had so much fun at their house and on Sunday morning when it was time to go, I cried. A lot. No matter how long it's been since we moved away from family, saying goodbye doesn't seem to get any easier. I was the last one to get in the car. I heard sniffles from the back and turned to see that M had  her head in her pillow crying and K was trying so hard to not cry, but finally gave up and let the tears come. Seeing them so sad made me even more sad. We loved spending Thanksgiving with them. My sister is hot a lot, so is their oldest, C. I had no idea it was so bad until we got to their house and found out that their heater, when it's on, which isn't often, is only set for 50. I truly thought I was going to come home with frostbite as a souvenir. Now that we know that we'll be more prepared next time. I know I could have asked her to turn the heat on or gotten another blanket or another coat, but if I had I would have looked like the kid from A Christmas Story, and not been able to put my arms down. Being with family is so amazing and we truly loved every second we were there and can't wait to go back!

November, or, at least a day in it.

November has come and gone. Crazy! Thanksgiving is one of the highlights of the month, but that's not all we did. No sir! We love to do things so here ya go! Our wild and crazy times of November!

I don't like bubble gum. It loses it's flavor so fast and then it gets all hard and nasty to chew. Not to mention it's awful for your teeth. But, every once in awhile, like, once every five to seven years, I want a piece so I can blow some bubbles! You lucky folks get to see a rare moment in history when I actually have bubble gum. As I started to blow the bubbles, little B was fascinated! He didn't try to pop them with his fingers, he tried to pop them with his teeth.  Don't panic you germaphobe's out there. I didn't actually let him pop it with his teeth. He got close, but I didn't let him do it.

 You know those nights when you go check on your little boys at night and you walk in and see the broom across their beds? What's that? You have never experienced that? We hadn't either until a night a couple weeks ago. The broom that is across their beds is the one that little B has claimed as his own. When I sweep, he goes and get's his broom and "helps" me sweep. I couldn't wait for morning to come so I could ask them what was going on in their brains when they put the broom on their beds. Well, I'll spare you the suspense. I asked K first and he told me that little B was the one that had done it, so I looked at little B and asked what the story was with the broom. All I got was a shoulder shrug and an,"I don't know." How anticlimactic! Now if these two pictures don't sum up our overly exciting month, nothing will! There was one event that was pretty much amazing! It's called, a turkey trot. Around this neck of the woods, turkey trots are only a dollar to participate in. We knew that M would complain about it, K would do it and love it and that little B would be so happy to be in the stroller. One brisk Saturday morning, we got bundled up and went out to trot with the other crazies around here.

It was a balmy 29 degrees when we started the race. We had told the kiddos that they would probably warm up as we ran, but to start out it was going to be chilly billy willy. And chilly billy willy it was! Man oh man it was really cold! Don't let M's smile fool you. She smiled and then started asking again why we were doing this, it was too cold, she didn't want to, it was going to take too long, blah blah blah. We told her it would be fun, she disagreed very strongly, we lined up and off we went!

The race was four miles long. We had told them that we would run for a while and then walk then run etc. etc. We had run half a mile before M asked if we could stop. We asked her if something was hurting. She said no, she just wanted to walk. We hadn't even warmed up yet, so we told her no. We weren't trying to be mean, it was really cold and we wanted to warm up a bit before we stopped to walk. We ran a mile and then stopped to walk for a couple minutes.

When we started running again we ran until we had gotten to about the 2 3/4 mile mark. Then we walked. We could see the little yellow sign that told us we were at three miles. We told her that we were going to run at the three mile mark and that we were going to run the entire last mile. While we walked, little B wanted to get out of the stroller and run.

I feel like the picture is kind of dark and I don't love that, but I love that they are running. Little B loved to run and after he had gotten his running fill, he came back to the stroller and said that he was ready to ride again.

We made it! Four miles in 49 minutes. We walked some but ran most of the time. I was so proud of M and K for doing it. They did so great! M truly hates running and I was so proud of her for doing it even when she felt like it was too hard. We held hands a lot as we ran so that I could help her. Don't misunderstand, I wasn't pulling on her, we really were just holding hands telling each other that we could do it. K is a really good runner, I think that he could have gone faster and longer. He was running fast enough that he and B finished 30 seconds ahead of me, M and little B. K wasn't even that tired when we got done. At the starting line, M and K saw their P.E. teacher. She was there running the race too. We finished before she did and both M and K loved being done and being able to watch their teacher come across the finish line. She got done running and came over to tell both of them that they are great little runners. To say that K was beaming would be a gross understatement. M said thank you and ate another Oreo. Yes, at the finish line instead of having fruit like is common at the races we've done in the past, they had Oreo's. Having those made M feel like the race was almost worth it. The website had said that there would be transportation back to the starting line where we left are car. They lied. Instead of having a ride back, B ran the four miles back to get the car. The little's and I started walking back. When you aren't running, 29 degrees is really cold! Maybe it had warmed up a little, but if it had it wasn't by a lot. Our hands were frozen and little B was in tears because his hands hurt so bad. When he started crying I asked him what was wrong and he said,"My hands is freezing!" He had gloves, but he had sucked on them and so they were wet and freezing his hands. We had a blanket, but he didn't want to wrap his hands up. He was just done with the whole thing. We made it to the two mile sign and that's when we saw our car coming. B had made it back and was our knight in shining armor, there to rescue us from the cold! We were all so happy to see him and get a ride. 

Running a four mile race definitely calls for lunch at a pizza place. We had never been here before, but had heard that it's amazing. They were right, it's amazing!

They have a window where you can watch them make your pizza. That was really cool!

B was feeling extra nice and even got the kiddos a pitcher of Root beer. We don't really drink soda, so they loved it! The day turned out fun for everyone and hopefully good memories were made.

Time fly's or is it flies or is that the little bug?

Really? It's been like a month and a half since I put anything on here? That's not great. Remember when B was in school and I used to update this here blog like once a week? In my defense, I just don't feel like a whole lot is going on. Not to mention we had to get a new computer and this one is super duper annoying to put pictures on. I know, I know, excuses are like noses, we all have them and they all smell. The past is the past and it's time to move on right? I just got off the phone with my ever charming younger brother and he told me that he and his lovely are moving to Florida come heck or high water next October. When I first heard the news a while ago I tried to warn him. It's hot. All. Of. The. Time. Not to mention it smells like a swamp. It's a fun place to visit, but miserable to live. I guess if one loves the heat and humidity and the heat and sweating all over all the time and the heat, then Florida is the place for you. I will say that the reflectors on the road are always nice because it never gets cold so they always look brand new. I guess that's something. Anyway, I didn't get on here to talk about him and his life plans, it's just on my mind and I tend to say what's on my mind. Let's see here, Halloween was fun. Here are a couple pictures just for the sake of record keeping.

OK, clearly this isn't a Halloween picture, but the sunrise was so beautiful one morning that I had to take a picture. If only it was as beautiful in the picture as it had been in real life, I would win a photo contest, I'm sure of it! I digress, Halloween pictures ASAP!

Again, not a Halloween picture, but pumpkins and Halloween are like a bulimic person and a toilet, they go hand in hand. Not to mention, I was so happy with my with pumpkin that I had to document that it was AWE-some! My witch masterpiece took two days, what with all the paint drying, hair gluing and face decorating. It was well worth the wait. We were told by a neighbor that pumpkins get smashed a lot around here. I was worried about our pumpkins being turned into smashed pumpkin surprise, but I'm pretty sure that when the pumpkin smashing hoodlums came around and saw our amazing pumpkins,(especially the witch), they turned to another house to get their pumpkin smashing fix.  Can I just ask why someone would do that? Why would you smash anything that didn't belong to you, but smashing pumpkins seems especially heinous. If someone is going to go through the effort of getting a pumpkin, carving it or painting it or coloring it or leaving it like they just cut it off the vein and put it on their porch, then why would you ruin it? I don't get it. Anyway, that's it really. For real this time, without any further adieu,  

Here it is! M was an Eskimo, K was a cop and little B was a spider. We went down to Boise to spend Halloween with our amazing friends, the S clan. We loved every minute and I even laughed when we got pulled over. It presented a perfect opportunity to teach the offspring a quick lesson. Don't go 70 in a 55 and pass a cop. Chances of getting a speeding ticket are pretty high. Darn it!

 They made out like bandits! Yes you read correctly,  16.1 pounds of candy. In years past the parent tax has been high, but this year due to inflation the parent tax was increased. Instead of taking some of the Reese's, we took them all. (When I say we took them all I mean that we took them and put them in a freezer bag and put them in said freezer because as we all know, Reese's are a million times better frozen. Anyone is welcome to eat them, they just forget about them.) 

We know we're late in saying it, but we hope that you all had a most excellent Halloween and that those of us parents were able to get the parent tax we deserve!