New Year's 2008 Resolution Complete

My New Year's resolution last year was to complete my unfinished craft projects. I finally finished just in time for Halloween. I started this cross-stitch when I lived in Hawaii, right after I got married. I've taken it so many places, on so many vacations. Now it's finally done!

Busy Weekend

Hannah's preschool class participated in "Celebrate La Mirada" Day. Her class sang all the songs they have been learning. These are the Months of the Year, the color songs; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and Magic Words. Hannah was right in front of the microphone so I could make out her vibrato. She has such a sweet voice. She has always been a good little singer. Unfortunately, there were two disruptive boys who shouted most of the time. It was a cute little performance. She is getting so big!I decided to paint the house this weekend too. I dragged Kevin away from all the football games on the TV. I told him we would only work for an hour. It turned out to be more like 6. The kids were excited to help paint. For the most part, they were pretty helpful and productive. They got paint on the wall and Kevin went over it to even it all out.
Before...
Different Stages...
After...
Should I paint my door red or black? HELP! I can't decide.

It's Spooky Time!

Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday. I like to get my kids excited for it and try to make magical memories. I saw some spiders made of egg crate cups and thought they were so cute.
I invited Hannah and Gavin's friends, the Fishers, over to make the spiders with us.

It was a little crazy with 5 kids and paint, but we all survived and managed not to ruin anything. This is Gavin's spider, yes there are only 6 legs. We ran out of pipe cleaners.

Super Daddy???

I've been grocery shopping alone lately. I find that I am much more efficient because I can focus on what I'm doing. I told Kevin I was going shopping today and he wanted to come. So we all loaded up in the car and went family grocery shopping. Kevin took care of the kids the whole time.
Who knew? All I had to do to keep my kids entertained was get one of these...
I love when he does stuff like this. It's so funny.

Hockey Ballet

Hannah has been dying to go ice skating so our family went. Luckily with Kevin's connections at the hockey rink, we got to go for free!
I opted not to get skates. Can you imagine me 8 months pregnant trying to skate? Walking on the ice was enough excitement for me. Hannah did really well. She was able to "walk" around the whole rink on her skates. She "skated" quite a bit on her own.
Gavin just wanted to skate with Daddy and take breaks to watch the hockey game on the other rink. Hannah and Gavin's favorite thing to do was skate with Kevin. He would carry them and skate so fast and then stop and spray me with ice. They got a big kick out of that.

Bathroom

I have been looking forward to this post for the past 2 months. It means my bathroom is finished! Well, except for the door (kind of important to have a door in a bathroom).

BEFORE:
(Glad my Sister-in-law told me to do this, or I wouldn't have had any)
Our lovely pedestal sink
How on Earth did I ever part with this beauty?
Just a nasty shower. My camping mentality really helped me out with this one.



DURING:
Hannah stated, "I don't want an ugly bathroom" as Kevin and I destroyed our bathroom. It started last Friday, July 10.
I had my day planned... Get Grandma's b-day present, make the b-day cake, make a good dinner since my brother was coming over, poor guy eats military food all week. So when I got the text from Kevin at 10am that we were "demo-ing today" I was a little confused. What are we demo-ing? No reply... I was a little concerned. He finally replied... "the bathroom." Ok, I knew this was coming, but I didn't know so soon. So that weekend we spent our time ripping our bathroom to the studs. Bathtub, floor, drywall, linen closet... everything GONE!

The beginning. If only I knew what I know now. I seriously thought we could do this in one week. Yea, I feel like an idiot saying that now, but it's true.
Taking advantage of my brother coming over for dinner. He came with us to Lowe's and helped us get all the drywall, hardybacker (drywall for the bathtub area), and the bathtub. We got 10% off with his military discount.
I didn't realize how much trash you acquire while remodeling
We found this newspaper, along with a Toys R Us ad from 1989. Nintendos were on sale for $99 and a Sega was on sale for $199!

Starting to take form! We covered the walls with stuff to prevent the moisture from damaging the house and put the window in. Kevin did it all!
Got our bathtub in!

Walls started to go up!
I really wanted a tiled shower, so I did it myself! I'm crafty, I like to sew, how could tile be any different from making a quilt? Rachel (my sister-in-law) helped me pick out the tile and got me started.
I really LOVE how it turned out.
Since I wanted a tiled floor, I did that myself too. I don't think I would ever tile a floor again while pregnant. That part really sucked, but I love how it turned out.
Kevin did the baseboards and the molding around the door. The last step was the crown molding. Kevin got so frustrated trying to figure out the angles. So, for the first time ever... we paid someone to come over and do something to our house, $50 well worth it.

AFTER:
Now, I have a beautiful bathroom that I absolutely love! It took 6 weeks to get it functional and another 2 weeks to finish it (except the door)

First Day of School

Hannah and Gavin started pre-school this week. Hannah could hardly contain her excitement. We were counting down the days for two weeks. Finally, Monday, her first day of school arrived. That morning she couldn't eat her cereal, when I asked why she replied, "I'm too excited for school to eat!"
Gavin and I were going to take a mommy and me class because he barely misses the deadline to start pre-school. You have to turn 3 by the day the class starts. Yesterday we went to our class that my pregnant brain thought started at 11, but actually it started at 10. Luckily, I started talking to one of the girls at the front desk and asked about Gavin, she waived the age requirement and enrolled him for the Tuesday/Thursday class. I was so happy!
So, this morning Gavin woke up, I told him we had to get ready for school and he said, "I need to eat cereal." He was so excited. When we got out of the car he told me, "I won't be shy!"

It feels so good to drop my kids off at school. I love picking them up and hearing about the new things they learned and what their friends said. I can't believe Gavin is actually in school, he is such a big boy now.