Getting There...

AND where exactly is there you ask?? There is here. AND here is a comfy home that has insulation, walls and paint on them. :)

We still have more to do and further to go, but we are getting closer to being done. :) Today I painted the hallway from the bar to our bedroom, and by the stairs, and then I went a little crazy and painted ONE wall in the kitchen, as an accent wall and also because we are using the paint for downstairs and I'm not sure we will have enough to finish the little bit by the stairs ~ (it didn't get painted today because we forgot to prime it last night and it is small sections near wood and carpet, so I'm not feeling like messing with it today, maybe later but definitely NOT NOW!!) but anyway... I think we may have enough for me to do the rest of the kitchen... but even if I don't get to... I like the way it came out... it gave it some life some color... it was all white and didn't look very inviting or comfy.

I also did some laundry which I haven't done in a few days, so we are backed up some... but thankfully I am down to only a few more loads... although I may have to wash all the winter coats because they are dusty from sanding the spackeling. ugh. As is the rest of the house. I'm going to go work on cleaning that too... I'm going to start downstairs by the WOman Cave and work my way up... I'm not really feeling like doing this... but I have to. I think I burnt myself out this morning with cleaning some and painting... it tired me right out.

My hands also really hurt from holding the paintbrush and the roller... I had to cut in a lot with the paintbrush and that just kills me. I could barely keep a hold of it after a while.

BUT enough complaining... WE ARE MAKING SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS!! yay!! This is definitely calls for a celebration... so our New Years Eve Party will be a good time to celebrate everything. :)

LIFE
FAMILY
FRIENDS
GOOD FOOD
GOOD DRINKS
GOOD TIMES
GREAT MEMORIES
A NEW HOME that is FINALLY coming together
A BRAND NEW YEAR TO COME!! :)

Well I have to go wipe some one's tushy... I wonder how old the girls will be when they will wipe their own tushes and do a good enough job so I let them do it??? Hmmm... something else I will be thinking about. ;) lol

talkin' about closets!

last night Bryan worked on the girls closet and got it looking pretty good. he made two shelves that we can put clothes or toys on and then made a hanging bar and a shelf above that... we have a lot of space now. i just have to get it all painted before i put stuff in there... but that shouldn't take too long.

i also want to work on painting the trim in their room and also to do a second coat around the windows. then in Trevor's room i still have to paint all his trim, his closet, around his windows and also his stripe around his room that is going to be white also. and then there is the second coat in the bathroom and then i'll be done with painting... for now. once the down stairs is done then i will be at it all over again but that will be okay... at least i will get a break in between.

then once we get the downstairs done up.. then at some point once we have some more money saved up... we are going to re-do the kitchen so then i will paint the kitchen. for now i'm just leaving it the plain off white that it is. no use in painting it if we are going to rip everything out and re-do it.

so that is all. for now i'm at my parents and i have some things i need to work on... then later tonight i think i'll work on painting in Trevor's room while Bryan finishes up the shelves in the girls room.

that's all for now.

460!

OMG!!

I'm moving in less than two weeks! wow.

I'm excited! I really am. But part of me, is kind of wondering what it will be like at our new house. The neighborhood is quiet. VERY quiet. Some or most of the people around us are only here in the Summer or on weekends. And now instead of being 2.5 miles from my parents house, where I love to go visit, I will be about 10 miles away.

I'm also wondering how in the hell we are going to get everything done in two weeks. Well not even two weeks in ELEVEN days!

11! that is all we have left.

AND we have a LOT to do in the "new" house and a lot to wrap up here. But I guess we will just have to see how it all goes.

This Saturday we are getting our new appliances delivered and installed so that is good. Then I think we will probably stay at the "new" house Saturday night... maybe.

Tomorrow night my brother, Ryan, is going to be cutting the hole in our foundation for our egress window... I'm anxious to see how that comes out. :) then they will finish sheet rocking our bedroom. We have been through over 60 sheets of sheet rock already and still need more. We thought about 48 would do it... I guess we were off. ;)

We have to fix a few things in the kids rooms before I can start painting in there. The girls room we are going to mark off so we can paint it stripes of the colors they picked. They each picked a color.

And in Trevor's room I will need to paint the room with grey primer first before painting his green and his blue colors. I already marked off the walls for where the white stripe will go. :)

I think their rooms are going to come out so nice. I cannot wait.

Our room will need a coat of primer before we can paint it b/c it all new sheet rock. :) But we have no flooring down so it will be easier to paint that room. :) yay.

Well I'm going to go back to cleaning and doing things around here. I feel good. I got the dishes done up and a bunch of laundry done and I even packed three boxes! Go me!! :)

Have a good night.

Thursday 13!

**this awesome blog header for T13 I stole from Jenn's blog**

Go over and check out her T13 for some more! :)

thirteen things i will be doing today

1. feeding the kiddos breakfast

2. getting them dressed and ready to go to the "new" house

3. loading up whatever boxes I can fit into the truck to take over to the "new" house

4. going to the "new" house w/ Bryan & the kids

5. unloading said boxes and taking them into the house

6. taking pictures of work that Bryan & Chris did yesterday

7. bleaching the lower level of the house (spraying almost straight bleach onto all surfaces downstairs to kill mold)

8. cleaning the walls in the kids bedrooms with bleach water

9. taping off the kids rooms so that when we can paint it will all be ready

10. cleaning/scrubbing the kitchen some more

11. cleaning up outside whatever we can

12. calling the kids insurance to straighten things out

13. going to bed DEAD tired (I can only imagine I will be pretty tired)

That's my day! How about yours?

Hope you have a great T13!

*gasp*

Finally!!!

Some pictures of the "new" house!!

~

the kitchen...

we are going to clean it up the best we can for NOW...

this is going to be our first project once we have the downstairs all done

and have upstairs ready to move into ...

~ we are going to replace all the cabinets.

~ we are getting new appliances ~ stove, fridge, dishwasher.

~ we are going to replace all counter top with granite (we think granite, we aren't 100% sure)

~ we are going to put a stone back splash (little tile stones)

~ where the wall oven was, we are going to open that wall up to make one big pantry

~ we are going to add cabinets on the wall and an "L" shape on the wall on the left hand side of the picture

~ and eventually if you were standing where I was when I took the picture, there is a wall with a big window in it that goes to the play room. we are going to either open that wall up as a big walk way into that room or we are going to make a regular doorway size opening and make the window a counter area with bar stools or something... we aren't sure yet. I'll try to get a picture of the window next time I go over to the house... probably tomorrow. We are also thinking of putting in a "front" door in the kitchen, but we would have to extend the porch around from the back of the house to have a wrap around porch and then have stairs come up from the driveway.

We are thinking of doing the cabinets in dark cherry color or java. I love the way the dark wood looks. I am also thinking of doing a paint treatment in the kitchen that would consist of a base coat that would be a sunflower yellow color and then a terracotta color over that wiped off with a rag to show the yellow through in places. But I'm not 100% sure about that just yet. The floor will be tiled with 12 x 12 tiles that will match, not be the same as, but match the counter top and back splash.

We are also getting black appliances. We were going to go with SS but since the landlord is replacing them for us we have to stay within a budget, so maybe some time down the road we would replace them ourselves with SS. We'll see.

These are shelves or built in book case that are on the way down the stairs. The stairs are split, which makes me happy b/c then I think the kids will get less hurt when they fall down them... and I did say WHEN because I think it is inevitable that they will... although I hope I'm wrong.

This picture also shows the paneling that is in the living room, since the stairs come up in the living room. I'm not crazy at all about paneling, BUT for some reason this is growing on me. I don't mind it so much. And that is good b/c it will be staying for a while till we can replace it with sheetrock... and we will also cut a window or two into the living room, where there aren't any. Only one at the top of the stairs, but that isn't in the living room really.

Here are the first set of stairs that head down to the lower level. I love that they are open. It makes it look really nice and it doesn't seem to take up as much space as if they were were all closed in. I love the stairs. :)

This pictures is a little dark, sorry. And I'm too lazy to try to fix it for you all. BUT this is our fire place... the thing that is in the front will come out and a gas insert will replace it. It will look just like burning logs, only we will just flip a switch to turn it on!! :) I love the fire place too. It needs some TLC but not any replacing or renovations. :)

This is the play room. It is a HUGE room! What you are seeing is about 3/4 of it... so this will work PERFECTLY for all the kids toys! I'm so excited to have a playroom again, and also this could be doubled for people to say over when we have our big New Years Party or other parties when people stay over. :) I love all the windows in it and it opens up the back deck. :)

(we are also going to make the back deck bigger, even if we don't wrap it around the front of the house)

I will post some more pictures when I get back over there to take some... I have mostly been focusing on taking pictures of the demo work downstairs. Ripping out walls and insulation and all that... But I will get more pictures of the house to post. Tomorrow I think we will all be over there working/cleaning and hanging out. Trevor is off from school so we can spend the entire day!! :)

My Evening...

I know I'm a horrible mom for not posting something wonderful about my beautiful girls that just turned three today, but I will. I have something started... but for some reason I'm feeling very anxious right now and can't really put down what I want to convey.

So... instead I thought I would post all about my afternoon/evening...

Here is how it went... at 2:30 PM I left the "new" house to go to pick Trevor up from school. On the way there Lauren fell asleep and Brooke complained to me the entire way that she wanted to sit in Trevor's booster seat... I finally pulled over and gave in... it was MUCH easier than listening to her complain and whine... PLUS it is her bday and she should get whatever she wants (within reason) that makes her happy. :) And sitting in the booster seat did make her all smiley and happy!!

We went in the school and talked to the NURSE... I will tell all about my tale of woes with the nurse today in another post... I do have to make it to 365 people!! ;) Anyway... I talked to the nurse then I got Trevor we signed out and off we went home.

We pulled in the driveway, I got the mail then let Trevor sit on my lap and "drive" us in the driveway... he LOVES doing this and at our "new" house the driveway is way too steep for him to do it so we have to get it all in now. :)

We got out of the truck, I told the kids they could play outside... it was pretty nice out. They all came in. I immediately started cleaning and doing things... AFTER I posted the post before this one. lol You all know I'm a procrastinator. LOL :D Anyway... this is what I cleaned/did...

*I started the dryer and washer.

*I put away all the clean dishes.

*Helped Lauren go potty

*Changed Brooke b/c she had a peepee accident in the bathroom... hate when that happens. :(

*Made Trevor hot chocolate to make his throat feel better

*Gave all the kids a snack

*Took the wet washclothes and towels out the bathroom down to the laundry

*Took dirty clothes down the laundry

*I started washing the dirty dishes that *BLUSH* were full in the sink, on the counter next to the sink and on the stove top. (please don't judge... I'm not usually like this... just a LOT going on now)

*I got all the groceries in out of the back of the truck and put them away.

*I cleaned the kitchen counter off

*I piled up all of Brooke & Lauren's new bday presents and made it more organized

*I emptied the garbage and collected all the misfit stuff around the house to start a new bag

*I took care of more laundry

*I put away more clean dishes

*I washed more dirty dishes

*I started dinner ~ spaghetti & meatballs

*I let Trevor help me make dinner

*I packed about 10 boxes in the back of the truck

*I went to the barn and found all the tarps I could see and loaded them up too

*I went searching HIGH and low to find construction garbage bags... found em! & loaded em!

*I feed the kids dinner

*while they ate, I loaded in the truck :

**the microwave

**plates (real ones)

**silverware

**serving utensils

**soap & hand towel

**dish soap & sponge

**napkins

*I then packaged up dinner and took it to feed Bryan, Kevin & Chris dinner

*I feed them dinner

*I cleaned it all up

*I took the dishes back to the truck

*I brought in the boxes out of the truck

*I visited with Melissa and the guys

*I came home and put Lauren and Brooke to bed (they were sleeping in the truck)

*I carried Trevor in too and he is watching some tv before bed

I am going :

*clean the bathroom

*do more laundry

*wash up the new dirty dishes

*clean up the kitchen

*pack at least 4 boxes

*take a shower

*CRASH!!

this isn't even including what I did today at the "new" house and all the running around Bryan, the girls and I did... but since I'm milking the posting stuff I will wait for another post to tell you all about that.

Sorry still no pics... I'm not sure how to get them on the computer and I keep forgetting to ask my mom... duh!! But soon I promise!! :)

have a good night... I'm off.

KEYS!

I think today Bryan is going to meet up with our realtor and we are going to get KEYS to our new house!! yay!! I'm really hoping that things work out like I'm thinking and planning they will and we can get in there tonight to check things out and figure out where we are going to start with GUTTING the lower floor of the house and replacing it all and also where we are going to start with cleaning!! The upstairs pretty much just needs to be cleaned... REALLY REALLY REALLY well, it isn't that it is really dirty... just sitting for a while and could stand to be scrubbed down good. Also we are going to paint the kids bedrooms upstairs, so I think it is good to start with a nice clean surface.

Also, Saturday we are having Lauren's & Brooke's Third Birthday Parties!! :) wow!! I can't believe they are going to be THREE! They are so amazing!! :) I can't wait to share their special birth story on their birthday, which is Monday. I did the Baby Meme that I stole from Jenn @ My Kids Are My World... (check her out on my side bar, there is a badge there for her that will take you to her!) and I'm going to tweak it some to do the Baby Meme for when I was pregnant with Lauren and Brooke!! :)

Here is a little glimpse of how they started out...

Up & At Em'

I'm up the kids are up. Trevor is on the bus and off to school. The girls are eating breakfast... in front of the tv in the living room. (I know, bad mommy! bad!) I'm sitting here, stalling. BUT, in my defense, I want to document this move. I have moved a few times... from my parents house to live with my bf after high school, then out of that house to live with friends, then back to my parents house, then out to live with a gf (not that kind of gf! ;) lol) then back to my parents house then moved out to move in with Bryan, then we moved from one house to this house, and now we are moving again but to OUR house!! :) So anyway... lets just say that I have lots of experience packing and moving.

~

But this time is different. This time I have an entire house to pack PLUS three kids and their stuff. I packed an entire house before, but it was easier. I had an extra room to put the packed boxes in and I started a month in advance and had no kids to slow me down. Now I feel like I'm not going to be able to pack the way I want to.

~

I sort of have an idea for a system, in other words, these are my crazy thoughts while I lay in bed at night NOT sleeping thinking about THE HOUSE!

~

Here are my thoughts about how to pack:

• start with stuff we aren't using now... summer clothes/beach stuff things like that
• start in the kids rooms (they have a LOT more stuff it seems than we do in our room)
• go through EVERY. SINGLE. THING. that I'm packing and get rid of things

THINGS TO GET RID OF:

• clothes that are too small, or don't wear... donate or give to others.
• toys they have out grown, list on Craig's list, give away or donate
• broken toys ~ throw out!
• happy meal toys ~ throw out!
• things that we haven't used or touched since we moved here 6 yrs ago!!!

BACK TO THOUGHTS ON PACKING:

• pack clothes, blankets, toys all non-fragile things first
• LABEL!! LABEL. EVERY. SINGLE. BOX... top and sides!
• clean this house as I pack things up to help with the last cleaning before we leave
• pack as many boxes as I have every day that I have boxes

So these are my thoughts for now about packing. My mom and Bryan are worried I'm getting over my head with packing... no pun intended! ;) I think of it as I HAVE to start now!! There is no other choice! Bryan even said to me last night that he is thinking maybe we could be in the new house by November 1st!! NOVEMBER FIRST PEOPLE!!! I'm excited!! ... but!! I have an entire house to pack up!! I think there is no other way to get all this done the way I want to do it... organized, sorted out and cleaned then to pack every. single. minute I have free from doing other things toward the move.

I'm off to pack!! :)