Christmas Pictures and Construction Update

So I think I finally figured out how to put a slide show on my blog!
I already posted about Christmas, but here are the pictures.
Enjoy!

As an update, we are on DAY 5 of our never-ending home improvement project. We spent the entire day (9 hours) on Monday, putting in the hallway. Then we spent all day today (Tuesday) getting half of our Kitchen floor installed, but we took a few hours off to meet with Southern (Siding and windows) Industries, our roofing company, to get everything settled to start the process for our new roof! I know...Southern Siding and windows does roofs??? Yup, they do. I said the same thing. Actually, they have many specialties...one of which is roofing. Each specialty has their own department and their own workers...so no, I will not have a siding guy installing my roof, or a window guy...no worries. Just in case you need some work done, we will let you know how they do. Then if you decide to use them, you can say that we gave you the referral!!!! :):):):) HEY, we have to recoup the boat-load of money that they are gonna get from us somehow! :) OK, OK, shameless plug over with...for now.

Anyways, as soon as I find my memory stick attachment that I seem to have misplaced with all of our construction mess, then I will post more pictures of the floor progress, or lack of progress...

Have a good one, and oh yeah, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

...and oh, btw, my knees still hurt!

P.S. I finally have an extra 30 minutes to wait for a video to download, it's only after midnight...what else have I got to do? Sleep? HA! Enjoy this video of Erik and Elizabeth trying out the dance mat that she got for Christmas. I talk about it here (at the end).

Home Improvements...Part 1 of 1000!!!!

So we finally started. The day after Christmas, we put all of our holiday decorations away, moved out all the furniture,

and ripped up all the carpet (with some help).

Then, Erik and I both looked at each other and said,
"No going back now!"

That night, Erik had to remove all the tack strip that was holding down the carpet, and I had to remove all the quarter round that was in the kitchen and laundry room.

You can't see it very well, but there is broken up tack strip all over the floor.

I stopped in the middle of my quarter round removal to take this picture. I'm glad I had the right tools, otherwise, it would have been a lot worse.


We spent the whole day Saturday, putting in the new floor...or at least half of it.

We will finish, HOPEFULLY, tomorrow. We have to do the kitchen,

laundry room and the hall way.

Then we get to move our stuff back in from the garage and our room. Yeah!

Big thanks to the Coopers and Douglass' who watched our kids, and to Kirk and Matt for helping us install the flooring (and their families, for letting them help us.)!

Oh BTW, My knees Hurt!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

I'm a little bit behind, and now I feel obligated to do a really good post since a friend of mine put a link to my blog in her famous blog. Seriously, her blog is so awesome, click HERE to go check it out. (Two can play this game, Brandi..hehehehe!)

Anywhoooo...I was going through all the pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and what do you know...there are all the pictures from the Christmas Programs at the schools. So, for the sake of Grandparents who desperately miss their grandchildren, you will have to bare with me while we take a step back to remember the school fun we experienced last week.

Jordan's Pre-K program was awesome. Jordan wasn't so into the actions, but at least he's trying to sing along...when he's not distracted. It took him a while to realize I was there, but once he did he actually started trying to go along.



Karlee's Kindergarten program was really cute too. They didn't have any music, so they were singing A Capella. Her teacher told me afterwards that only about 3 of the kids had all the words and actions down, and Karlee was one of them. She said she put Karlee on one side and the other two on the other side for their practice, and hoped that they would carry the sides that they were on. She said it worked, but Karlee had one side going and the others had the other side going but they weren't together, so for the performance she put the three together in the middle, and it worked a lot better. It's really cute/funny, the third song was particularly fun especially when Karlee got something wrong and her little expressions, you'll just have to watch and see.


Elizabeth's school program was about 2 weeks ago, and I already blogged about that, so if you missed that click HERE. Otherwise we will be moving on.

For Christmas Eve, we had a nice relaxing morning. Even though the party was at our house, it was a lot less work than Thanksgiving. I think we learned how much food we did NOT need. We still had a ton of food though.

We had the Douglass and the Roche Families over for food, fun, and friendship. (Sorry, I know cheesy, I couldn't think of anything else to go along with the other F's.) Anyways, the kids all went outside and played on our trampoline. (That's ripping AGAIN, thanks to Karlee's constant acrobatic talents with the net.) It was in the 70's and really nice outside.

We ate a yummy dinner of Ham, cheesy potatoes, green beans, rolls, and some super yummy jello salad. Then of course we had appetizers and dessert. Sadly enough, without my friend Tina's constant reminders to take pictures, all I managed to get pictures of were the kids all dressed up for the nativity play.

The kids looked awesome. We just threw together some costumes from some scrap material and dress up stuff from the girls room. I've decided that if I want to continue this tradition then I need to have costumes already made, and a "script" already written out. That way we can address the wise men that are not mentioned in Luke 2, and maybe fit in the innkeeper. My family always had an inn keeper that turns Mary and Joseph away, I always thought it was a good reminder of why they had to go to the stable. But for a first time attempt at the play, it went pretty good.

Here's our Mary and Joseph

Here's our shepherd and angels taking a break before their big entrance.


Here is our wisewoman, who desperately wanted to wear a crown, but wasn't so thrilled about me taking her picture.


Here are our wise men visiting the baby Jesus, and bringing gifts.

Here is our award winning cast, or some of them anyways!

After our play, we watched the short nativity movie that the church made, and had a nice reminder of what Christmas is really about. Then we had dessert and played Christmas Bingo. A lot of the little kids were getting pretty tired, so we called it a night and everyone went home.

After everyone went home, we opened up our Christmas Eve Presents. Our new tradition that we adopted this year is Christmas PJ's. Our reasoning behind it was not to copy everyone else that does it, but to simplify things a little. Last year we let each of the kids open one present. The problem was that we didn't know what was in each of the presents. One of the kids picked a present that wasn't a toy and the other two picked toys. You can probably already guess what happened next. So to simplify, we are just going to do the PJ thing.

Then the kids started bombarding us to ask if they could sleep out by the Christmas tree that night. They wanted to see Santa, and someone had told them that it was very magical to sleep with the tree lights on. I figured, "What could it hurt? It might even start a new fun tradition, right?."

WRONG...and here's why.

First of all, my kids did not get to sleep until after 10pm. 2nd of all, If the kids are all in their beds and they wake up super early in the morning, they might just go back to sleep, but if there is this bright tree and beautifully wrapped presents stating that Santa had been there, then there is no going back to sleep.
So at 5:00 this morning, I hear kids talking excitedly. Things like "Look! Santa's been here." "Let's see what's in our stockings." "Santa ate the cookies and took the water bottle we left him!" And the one that got me out of bed was Karlee saying, "Look! I got my guitar!!!" Oh brother! My kids played the whole, "My present is ripped, let's look inside and see what it is," card this year. I had to tape up about 5 presents before Christmas finally came. This morning was no exception, when Karlee "accidentally" stepped on her present, that only minutes before had been propped up against the wall, and put a big whole in it, so you could see the guitar hiding inside. Kids, Kids, Kids! What will they think of next???

I told the kids if they could convince their daddy to get out of bed, then they could open their presents. Try as they did they could not get Erik out of bed. they had to wait until 7:30am. Which is torture for little kids. I put on a movie, and went back to bed. Around 7:15, I could hear the sounds of mischievous, talented little minds at work trying to figure out what was inside their presents, and I decided it was time to start. Luckily, this time Erik decided to get up.

It was chaos trying to get pictures, and open presents one at a time. Jordan just has NO patience. It was like torture for him to wait. He couldn't. After every present that he opened, he insisted that we open it. Looking back now, I should have said, "As soon as all the presents have been opened, we will open the packaging!
But that probably would not have gone over well, since as I said before Jordan has NO patience. I hardly got any pictures at all, or video of everyone opening presents. Oh well, live and learn!

All in all, I think everyone got everything that they wanted and more, and they were very happy. I was very happy to finally get the sewing machine that I have been wanting for 10 years. I already completed 3 projects today, and have many more still left to do. All in due time. Tomorrow we tackle the clean up before the storm...I mean the flooring goes in. So enjoy some of the few pictures that I did get, and I can't wait to see all of our friends pictures too.

One pleasant surprise, which almost turned out to be another Christmas Fiasco, was Elizabeth's American Idol Double Dance mat. It took some practice, a few melt downs and pep talks, but we finally got the hang of it, and it turned out to be pretty fun. It's a great way to play with kids and prove how out of shape you are. My legs are so sore!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Gingerbread Fun!

Oh the fun! I would just like to say, that I have never made frosting for a gingerbread house before and with everything going on it didn't even occur to me that if I just added extra powdered sugar it would help thicken it up. (Something that occurred to me around 10pm that night.) Besides, Tina and I were just trying to get the house put together as fast as possible so that the kids could decorate it. We had a ton of fun laughing as the walls fell over again and again, and the icing gushed out all over my shirt and hands.

After about an hour of failed attempts, we ended up just putting the gingerbread "mounds" away. Tina didn't want the gingerbread houses and so everything was left at my house. I felt bad that the night didn't go as expected, in regards to the houses, and so I decided to finish the houses for my family and hers. It took about 8 hours, and lots of TLC, but here are the final products.

So although it took so long to make it took no time at all to eat!!!
The kids got to enjoy it for after school snack today!

Whoa...What a week!

Where do I start???? It's been one of those weeks that leave you in a dizzying spin that you can barely remember when it's all said and done.

On Monday, Erik had the day off, so we decided it was high time to finish the Kitchen.

About a month ago,we started the fun that is the "Kitchen project". Not to be confused with the "Living Room/Dining Room Project" or the "Flooring Project"(Coming soon Dec 27th) or the "Bathroom Project" (That's a future post...construction on that area will have to wait for completion until after the holidays.)

We had to scrape off the existing wallpaper border...which proved to be harder than anticipated. My Friend Tina came over to help us, and even with all three of us working on this wallpaper border, it was slow going. Finally we sent the guys to the store for a better solution, and Tina and I kept working. By the time they came back, we were close to being done...with the top layer, but there was still lots of the glue layer left. Luckily, the guys came through with some stuff that took it right off. After that it was really easy. Here you can see Erik wetting the glue layer down with this stuff, and Tina following right behind scraping it off with little to no effort.Not that we didn't have casualties...the dry wall got pretty hacked-up! Which leads me to the next phase of fun. Unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of this part, so you'll have to imagine.

Anyways, because the dry wall was damaged, we had to get dry wall mud and re-mud the walls, which Erik did while I was visiting Utah for my Parent's 50th. After we put the mud on, we had to sand it down and then clean it, and then Prime it. So...Long story not-so-short, that is what we did on Monday. As soon as Erik started sanding I saw that this was going to be a big mess, so I went and got the plastic that I had been using for painting and taped it to the wall to close off the living room from the kitchen. We had a layer of fine white dust everywhere in the kitchen. It was such a mess. After we finished the sanding and cleaning, we had to paint everything with a primer. BTW, Primer is about the nastiest "paint" I have ever smelled! Just in case you were wondering!
I finally remembered to take pictures about a third of the way through the final painting.


It took until about 5:30 that night to finish just the kitchen part. On Tuesday, after I was done babysitting for a friend, I whipped out the paint and finished that last part...our hallway thingy.
<=Door to laundry room
<=Door to the bedroom.

Here is the finished product: (It's amazing how light can change the colors. Just so you know the living room and kitchen are the same color even though it might look different in the pics.)

The only thing I have left to do now in the kitchen...other than the floors, is the back splash. That will also have to wait until after the holidays.

So after I finished painting, cleaning up, showering, getting kids off the bus, teaching a lesson, and eating dinner...phew...*Sigh* I headed over to Elizabeth's school, for her 2nd Grade Christmas Concert.

Afterwards, we headed to her class so she could show me her achievements, and get a picture with her teacher.

Then we went and got a much deserved treat, for me and for Lizzy!


On Wednesday, I spent almost the whole day cleaning. I say almost because I had plumbers coming to check out my water heater that was showing signs of needing to be replaced. I spent an hour tightening up the attic ladder so that as they went up and down the stairs there would be not accidents. It proved to be harder and in need of more work than I had anticipated. After Erik and the kids came home, I left to teach some piano lessons. I go to a friends house in the ward and teach her two sons piano. Luckily, she took pity on me and fed me, because I had been so busy with cleaning and plumbers that I didn't have time to eat lunch or dinner. She's always so willing to share her food even if I insist that I have already eaten. I think it's so great...not that she will feed me, but that she is so giving...Thanks again Sylwia. After I got home, Erik left for a meeting and I...surprise, surprise...cleaned...MORE.

On Thursday, I went to visit a friend in the ward that is in the hospital. She's been in for over a month and we are still hoping and praying that she can get better so she can come home before Christmas! I had fun visiting, but after a couple hours I had to leave to meet the plumbers for our new Water Heater. On the way, I decided to stop super quick and pick up the white shirt that Karlee needs for her class by Friday. As I'm getting out of the car, the plumbers call. There was an emergency call...the sewage backed up into a restaurant...YUCK! They couldn't come until tomorrow. Figures...all right, I have the last of my Christmas shopping to finish...no time like the present. *Pun intended* Time flies when you are shopping. I also had to get some stuff for the Enrichment activity that night, so it all worked out. That night I left early to help with the Enrichment activity since I'm on the committee. Luckily, it was a low key, super fun activity. We had a PJ Christmas Party, we enjoyed pizza and lots of other snacks. We sat on blankets on the floor, visited, played games, listened to a book and a beautiful song. It was pouring rain, so when we were cleaning up and taking things to the cars and the dumpster we were getting soaked.

On Friday, I was hosting a choir pot-luck practice. I had 50 people coming over to my house that night. Erik and I spent most of the day taking the couch and chair out to the garage, getting a new water heater, and finishing the cleaning for that night. Luckily, Erik was around to help the plumbers get the new water heater into the attic...it was not so easy!


Friday night, we had soups, breads, and all sorts of goodness. It was crazy, but it was fun. I hope everyone had fun. I was so busy running around and stuff that I didn't get to visit with everyone, but I think it went well. We practiced our Christmas songs that we are singing on Sunday. That was interesting. Trying to entertain all the kids while we practiced...yeah, not so easy. Apparently, some of the kids had some fun with a pie, while we were practicing. I totally wish that I had a picture of that!!! Unfortunately, all I could manage was a quick picture while we were singing Christmas carols. This isn't even everyone, a lot of the kids were back in the bedrooms playing, and some were on the other side of the half wall.
Singing the Christmas Carols was probably the best part. It was really fun. I think we might have to adopt that tradition from now on.

Saturday, has been the slowest day so far. I had the insurance adjuster and roofer come out to evaluate our wind damage on our roof.

Luckily, the kids were inside playing, and hardly even realized that I was outside. After that I actually had time to catch up on email and blogs...hence this post. Which is a lot longer than I had expected. SORRY!!! Now I have to go and get ready for the ward Christmas party. I signed up to help with a booth, and I need to go find something to dress up in so that I look like I'm from Bethlehem. *Sigh* The fun never ends!
Later!